World Seed

Once I was back in the game, I called my parents. I’m not a typical whiner, but when you find out you’re no longer human, that’s something you tell the folks, right?

“What’s up, dear?” I heard my mom’s voice a bit more clearly over the link this time.

“Well… I’m not really sure how to explain this… But… have you heard what’s been going on in the real world?”

“What do you mean?” My dad was the one that spoke up this time, obviously confused. Guessing they’ve spent all their time in here, and haven’t bothered to go to the net community to hear the news.

“Extra long story incredibly short… the game turned me into a half-elf.”

“...Yes, we’ve been over this, we know what race you chose.” He still sounded a bit confused, and was clearly a bit dense if he didn’t get what I meant, or maybe I just wasn’t clear enough.

“No, I mean out there. In the real world, I’m still a half-elf. Still a druid, still able to grow wings out of my back and use all of my magic… Apparently everyone that has a Seed is being turned into their game character. Even got a call from the police to make sure I was okay.”

This time it was my mom’s turn to chime in. “The police, dear? Why would they bother calling you?”

“Apparently Manifest Industries has gone off the radar, and they are getting reports of every tester changing. Since I was the only one in Oakland, they gave me a call.”

I could hear the concern in my mom’s voice as she logged out, but since she was just going to the net community, the call didn’t drop. Fun fact, when someone in the net community is on a call with a game that has time dilation, the home of that person adjusts to match the game. “Oh, dear, it’s true.”

“What, really?” My dad was obviously surprised by this. “How is that even possible? I mean, it’s just a game, right?”

“Not anymore, it looks like.” I sighed, shaking my head. “I’m just hoping it ends with players getting changed and people getting magic. I mean, if it’s just that then we should be able to make all the amazing things they have here in the game. But if monsters start showing up, too…”

There was a slight gasp, I’m not sure from who, but it was my mom that spoke up next. “What are you going to do, then?”

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Until I know that monsters aren’t going to start appearing in my home, I’m going to train here and get stronger. Besides, it might be cool to be able to use magic in the real world, you know? Should have seen the look on the officer’s face when I suddenly grew wings.” Unfortunately, thinking about that reminded me what Jarl had said the next step in training for Xeno-Shifter would be… and since I thought about it, Yin and Yang perked up and looked at me expectantly.

I could hear a chuckle coming from my dad. “Well, we’ll let you get to that, then. There might be other testers that haven’t logged out and learned about these changes, so we’ll go spread the word and see if we can’t get their attention.”

Part of me was concerned about this. Essentially, they were going to play a massive scale whisper game. You know, where you can whisper to someone that you like apples, and they pass it along in a circle, but by the time it gets back to you it turns into something obscene. And that’s when you start with something as mundane as ‘I like apples’.

Anyways, back to the game. I had a few hours left until it was time to sleep, so I devoted them to increasing my Wind Affinity. Maybe after I had the basic seven affinities all at 5% I would go with the next step for Nature Magic. At least then I’d be able to save my chastity against these damned birds.

By the time I had gotten to sleep, my Wind Affinity had only increased to 4%, though I felt like it was on the verge of a breakthrough. When I woke up, I immediately resumed training, deciding to prolong breakfast until I had gained the ability to manipulate wind. Speaking of which, I had never tried to test out my Earth Manipulation either. I’d have to at least get familiar with both of them before I was able to use them to hunt.

About two hours after I had woken up, I was finally greeted with the message I had been waiting for.