The Witch Tamer, Book 1

by Naosu N R

  "Hey can you come in here? We need to do the test now. Plus, our son is sort of mixed up. Having you here could help him through it," dad said. Then he closed the cell and put it away, after she was telling something, probably a few somethings that he didn't want me to hear.

  I was startled but it seems that mom had snuck up on us. Looks like she just got home also.

  We chatted a bit.

  "OK, so do you want to do the test or should I?" mom asked dad while I'm feeling nervous. She's being surprisingly gracious and nice right now (which isn't like her).

  But all of us are interested in what kind of magic I might test out for.

  "I think you can do it. You are really good at that stuff. And I did the other two boys, so its fair to give you a turn," dad smiled at mom wickedly.

  "OK. Good then." She sounded like she's hiding that she's happy about it. A neutral facial expression, but her eyes look bright.

  "So what do I do?" I asked.

  "Nothing. I'm going to use a special scan utility spell program bought from an enchanter. It will open and unlock your status screen and tell us your element compatibility. It will also tell us your affinity for certain coveted magic elements also," mom said.

  She then pulled out her briefcase out of her 'spatial inventory' status screen area. It looked like she was pulling a briefcase out of a window in the air. This is one of the few times they'd used magic in front of me openly!

  "Now that you are come of age and going to be a mage yourself, its OK for you to see us using skills. But with time you may even program your own skills, acquire others, and mix them up. Its considered a lot of fun just acquiring and building skills in magitek," dad smiled big.

  I nodded.

  Mom had several rows of columns and rows in her status screen system I can see. All have a lot of stuff that looks normal, like an extra work blouse, and a woman's business suit, and...

  Time space inventory slot magic is so cool! Its a must have to really do much and be time efficient!

  Are those weapons, I thought surprised, realizing several of her slots are all metal junk that look like a bunch of stacks of blades.

  My family is weird. And I know they come from a dark past. But its hard to imagine my parents carrying weapons sometimes, because they'd hid it well over the years.

  But just as soon as I saw the glimpse, mom had closed her inventory slots after taking the briefcase out. Then she undid the latches, pulling out a funny looking but rather expensive looking bright, shiny almost glowing jade crystal.

  "Activate advanced scan," mom said while holding the crystal, with it targeting me.

  As she did so I'm hit by a big energy surge. The bright colored white energy hit me and it felt almost like I'd been frozen in place for about 1 second. Then it felt normal. My face felt warm energy from the intensity of the beam hitting me in the scan.

  Also the big piece of jade is glowing also.

  Right away, a blue screen appeared hanging in the air in front of me.

  Then the procedure was over, though my blue air screen was still hanging there openly.

  Mother put away the device that she'd scanned me with. And while she's doing that dad is looking over my shoulder.

  (I kind of wish I could have had more time to look at that crystal, she had. Darn.)

  The screen in front of me is hanging for a bit...which looks so weird to have an 'air screen' with no cords or plug-ins! I felt my hand around the back of it, amazed that there's no cords and that its defying gravity.

  'Player configuration commencing, loading please wait!' appears on the screen in white bold text.

  Its also got a funny loading bar, just like in an RPG game. The white bar is progressing, 42%, then 54%, then 66%, then 68%, and then 71%...

  Whoa...

  "Just be patient Jay," mom coached me watching the screen over my shoulder.

  Mom and Dad are patient while I'm conflicted. They are the only ones that can help me with this. So I can't rely on others. But if only they weren't evil. But I'd read somewhere that even wild people love their families; this is where the conflicted feeling comes from.

  Finally, there's a ping as the status screen finishes loading and configuring.

  [Welcome to Murim world, player; Jay Williams!]

  [Player has been registered into the Murim underground system! Player status screen detected. Commencing status screen unlock...processing...processing please wait.]

  [Magitek status screen setup now active! System unlocked, unnecessary to seed existing system.]

  [Configuring start up resources...]

  [Configuring synchronization of player's stats...]

  Then the screen changed, now its a more clear and vibrant cool looking blue color!

  Wow, cool!

  On the left side I can see 'Home' stat page. This includes areas marked in the stat section such as, strength (str), Agility (agi), Constitution (con), Intelligence (int), Wisdom (wis), and Appearance (App). In the top right, I see my 3D image, which looks too real to be a game but remarkably like one. (I look quite handsome, and not only my mom and sister have noticed.) There's also a red health bar, just like an RPG, a mana bar, with a yellow stamina bar underneath that.

  "Whoa, this is very cool," I said.

  "Hehe, yes! I almost forgot the feeling of seeing it for the first time for myself and how exciting it was," dad said. "The thrill of seeing how to level up is a great feeling."

  "Honey! Look at our son's stats!" mom exclaimed happily.

  I don't know if its good or not. But I looked too.

  Status

  Name; Jay Williams

  Race; Type 349F human hybrid

  Magic job; [Choose One!]

  Level; (Click to apply stats)

  Health; 73/73

  Mana; 174/174

  Mana Regen; 11 (per hour)

  Health regen; 3 (per day)

  Element affinities; mind, enchantment

  Str; 31Agi; 34Con; 41

  Int; 91Wis; 81App; 97

  Skills; athletics (+1 con), jogging (+2 agi), math (+2 int), physics (+1 int), mana affinity (enabled)

  Magic skills;

  Passive skills;

  Unused stat points; 22

  "Those are pretty high scores, for the last 3 stats," Mom said to dad. "But the strength, con, and agility could be higher."

  "Wow, son! Amazing!" dad exclaimed. "These are really good starting stats!"

  (Uh oh. They've taken an interest in me. Crap...)

  "They are?"

  "Well the int and wis and app stats are. Your body constitution and strength could be a bit higher, but that's typical human ranges because our bodies are more fragile from living on this world, than stuff that has special traits born from other worlds," dad added.

  "Careful honey. We don't want to pressure our little boy too much. He's just starting out," mom winked big at him, and then at me; obviously they are really pleased.

  "Is this bad or good? Why are my stats so low? And it doesn't specify my level yet," I asked.

  "Well you haven't chosen a job class. But its accumulated your 'XP' from birth, schooling, and trying to learn all the way till now. And the good part is that it includes XP from all the studies, homework, and school you've done your whole life up until now also. Basically 'XP' isn't the same for everyone, but there's more of it gained from practicing 'applied life skills' and stuff like that. Because our genes are originally from a different world, it counts your full life XP. But someone from Earth, using the machine like magitek system, it would only count their XP from after they choose a job class. Cool right?" dad said.

  Mom nodded also pleased. "We have so many advantages. Other human trash can't even compare." (Mom seems nice at first, but every once in awhile you hear how bad she really is when she speaks her real mind without the show; a bit racist against impure humans.)

  Dad nodded while side hugging mom.

  "So I can click this level box here?" I asked.

  But before
I could dad's hand stopped mine. "Wait. First you want to decide a class first. And you want a good magic job class, because they offer the most benefits. Magic has huge advantages. But it will let you pick a level before a class. But if you do that your build will be screwed up and gone bad. Its a bug in the system from the old world system not working well on Earth for some reason," dad frowned.

  Wow. I'd almost done something stupid, by not understanding the system.

  Even though my parents are sort of evil, they don't want me to be messed up. After all that could reflect poorly on their image also.

  "So which magic jobs are good?" I asked.

  "Most any mage job is good. Non-mages can't even compete with us. Summoner doesn't happen on Earth anymore, because the latent mana on Earth doesn't allow people to grow out max mana pools enough to achieve the threshold necessary to break into this class. However there are still many mage jobs we do qualify for as a clan, and we're better off than most. And by the way, you usually only get to pick one job class. But there's ways of getting around things and still being a top bad ass elite," dad chuckled while patting my shoulder.

  I was a bit disappointed the 'classic' summoner job wasn't available. It seems to be brought out in a lot of games and seemed like a lot of fun.

  But what dad said was interesting too.

  Technically qualifying for '2 mage jobs' of a more basic mage class might be as interesting, or more interesting than a summoner anyway.

  I listened as they described a few things to me.

  Wizard, mage, spell engineer, spell crafter, shaman, necromancer, and enchanter; all these and many other types of mage jobs really did exist, too many to count. I was amazed at the diversity.

  And I'd also learned that secret real wizards were influencing games to train people for reflections of when real magic could be opened up in their lives. So some of the things in games were real training style programs to be used by people to be later either becoming wizards, or more likely working for them as guards, to get their minds prepared.

  Even just a normal mage or wizard job is pretty awesome actually.

  People just forget that, when they are thinking about the powerful top tier summoner jobs and other prestige job classes.

  I can feel my body shaking in excitement, almost.

  "This is so wonderful. Your aunt and cousin will be thrilled that you have such great stats. This will be a big victory for us," Mom squealed. Also your siblings will be happy also, because if our whole family is successful everyone prospers more!"

  "Oh, I need to go think about what kind of stuff to buy to help you get started on your first dungeon!" mom said.

  She left the room fast running off.

  "Wait. Dungeon? There's such thing as those to?" I asked.

  I was a bit worried about that too, because it was one thing to hear magic was real. And quite another thing to hear you are going to be thrown in a dungeon the next.

  They had hid a lot of things from me growing up. I would have noticed if someone had said something about dungeons. But I had heard of comic books talking about such things and adventuring teams, like level up stories. Maybe such people writing such stories were actually really bored retired murim society people, writing 'fiction'.

  Dad chuckled. "Afraid so, son. How else do you think we level up? We can't exactly go around town burning up the humans can we?" he laughed heartily.

  It almost sounded like he'd try that, with such a hideous laugh.

  I wouldn't ask if he actually had, because I'd be afraid of the answer.

  "..."

  "Oh don't give me that long face son. We wouldn't do that because the rest of them would swarm us and figure out who we are. Its better to play the long game and conquer from within. And we treat our captives well too. People that work for us also get more money than other people. People beg to work for powerful people like us," dad bragged.

  (Shit...I need to be careful. I can't get involved with their mischief. Sometimes I see my family's bad side. Dad clearly showed he wasn't afraid to kill humans, but just felt it was 'inconvenient'.)

  "Have you thought about what type of elemental affinities you'd like most?" dad asked. "And what does it say again" he added.

  "Do I even get a choice? Its says mind and enchantment," I said.

  "Just a word to the wise. If you pick or go outside of your affinities, you are screwed for life and there's no way of fixing it. Another bug from this world. It will let you pick something you have zero talent in, so don't screw it up," Dad warned me while giving me an evil stare.

  I shivered and was thankful that I didn't get my build messed up by being too greedy to be patient.

  "Well I'll go help your mom. So much work to do to prepare. There's bound to be some hand me downs or something around the house from when your brothers were low level. I understand you'll need time to play with the configuration settings a bit. That's pretty normal. Your mother and I took days to figure it out also before we hit the confirmation button to stick with one choice. But please tell us how it goes later. Also don't go around telling everyone about it, that's a good way to get killed son. Work hard from here on out. In our family we don't carry anyone. Everyone goes on their own willpower and effort, that's why our family business works," dad said.

  He wandered off.

  "Oh, in the library there's a book explaining the magic jobs and the dungeon son," he called back to me from down the hall.

  Well I better get started. I have my work cut out for me.

  I need to figure out how to explore this new underground world that's just opened up. And what else can I do with this status screen system.

  I heard dad telling mom that enchantment was a good option, while they were going upstairs. Both of them were excited about it for some reason.

  Chapter 4

  I woke to feel my shoulder being shaken firmly. I must have fallen asleep.

  "Huh? What?" I looked up.

  My brother is there, and I'd fallen asleep at my desk, for a short nap. The clock near me reads 5:49 PM.

  Falling asleep on the desk, doesn't help with body pain. Now my neck is a bit sore from it. But I hadn't meant to fall asleep.

  He looks patient but amused. But its Diego, who is more of a jerk sometimes if you aren't careful around him. I'll have to be careful how I deal with him.

  "Hey brother, how are you doing?" he smiled big.

  "Good."

  "So do you know what mage job you will pursue?" he asked curiously.

  I shook my head. "Hard to decide," I mumbled.

  "Hm...well you'll be good for the family business you know? Mom and dad are so excited. They want to make you a manager in one of our acquisitions departments, and they'd mentioned a few times about being a 'new partner in the firm', so its obviously something that's impressed them. You would have to work hard from the start, but everything pays off. Plus, it would involve some intense collections and so on, but don't worry. The money is great," he laughed.

  (Uh oh. Intense collection + evil equals... how bad is that going to be?)

  I tried to hide my reaction with a blank face.

  And why is he being friendly again? This is the jerk brother.

  "You know I'm going to need time to figure things out. I don't know what I want. I need time," I said.

  He frowned. "I was afraid you'd say that. OK, listen. Here take this. I have something for you. Use this first. Just keep an open mind will you? This won't cost you anything, and you won't owe me anything for it."

  I didn't reply directly but gave him a curt nod. "Thanks."

  He hands me a 'skill book'. I'd never actually seen one, but one day I had overheard the others talking about them. This is the thing you use that has enchanted code to transfer a free skill to someone! These things are so cool! (But very rare.)

  The 'game like' skill book, which can grant a magic skill! This kind of stuff is amazing! This is the first one I've gotten from someone. Its kind of cheaty to get skill books like
this.

  Its got magic writing on the front and has an enchant to let you auto 'download' the skill, from opening up and reading the book.

  So cheaty...

  "Don't expect hand outs after this," my brother warned, giving me an ugly look (his true self).

  "Sure."