World Seed
Volume 2 - New Rules
Justin Miller
Copyright Justin Miller
Chapter Index
Chapter 1
Chapter 16
Chapter 2
Chapter 17
Chapter 3
Chapter 18
Chapter 4
Chapter 19
Chapter 5
Chapter 20
Chapter 6
Chapter 21
Chapter 7
Chapter 22
Chapter 8
Chapter 23
Chapter 9
Chapter 24
Chapter 10
Chapter 25
Chapter 11
Chapter 26
Chapter 12
Chapter 27
Chapter 13
Chapter 28
Chapter 14
Chapter 29
Chapter 15
Chapter 30
Chapter 1: Hiring Practices
After confirming that the message was sent to everyone, I began looking for other important news. What I found made me quite angry. It turns out, every home in the world now had at least one Seed in it, more for larger families. There was no explanation about where they came from, they were just suddenly installed in the room when nobody was looking.
I spent three month’s worth of money to get that damn Seed, and now I find out everyone gets it for free?! What was the point of the preorders then? I grumbled under my breath as I continued reading the news. There weren’t any reports of monsters appearing yet, but I was sure that was only a matter of time. Naturally, my first priority was to protect my house from monsters spawning in, and I had just one way of doing it(at least, it should work).
Gathering my mana, I attuned myself to the Void Affinity, and began gathering my mana to begin the process of refining a Seed of Void. Since magic doesn’t function properly within a void field, there was a fairly good chance that monsters would not spawn normally inside of one. Unfortunately, there was hardly any void mana in Earth’s atmosphere, so I had to rely entirely on what I could personally produce. This made the first seed take a full eight hours to be completed, after which I began working on a field energy spell with runes.
It wasn’t uncommon for area effect spells to be included in enchantments, so naturally I knew about the runes to do this. And after seeing that large runic circle that had summoned me from another world, I had an idea on how to do this. Simply writing the runes isn’t enough, I also need to power them with mana to activate them.
In my room, I walked over to one of the wooden walls and activated my Plant Manipulation, engraving the pattern of runes in a circular formation. When I had seen Jacobs drawing a circle with his staff, it made me think that he was doing so to contain the energy from the enchantment. However, I didn’t want the energy contained for this, so I excluded an outer circle.
The instructions I wrote into the runes were quite simple, they would take energy from the air, pull it in, and then match that energy to the strongest mana type already inside the formation. With that done, in the absence of a restraining circle the energy should naturally dissipate into the air in its new form. As the final touch, I made a small socket at the center of the runic spell, and placed the Seed of Void inside, essentially guaranteeing that the strongest mana type would be void mana.
Thanks to my Void Manipulation power, I could suppress the effects around myself, letting the mana return to its natural state. Otherwise, I was worried that breathing would become quite a problem if there wasn’t any wind mana. However, this was still the safest method of protecting my house.
Enchanting has increased to Basic
New Sub-Skill Unlocked!
Spell Formations - Basic Level 1
Exp: 0%
This skill measures one's ability to create written spell formations with lasting effects.
Currently applicable skills:
Enchanting
Runic Language
I was a bit surprised to have unlocked a skill, and a Basic level one at that. However, it was not that important. First, I needed to see how far the area of this spell was. Walking out of my room, I moved down the hall while using my Aura Sight to scan the mana. The spell had activated almost instantly, and the mana in the air had already been changed to void mana. About ten feet out of my room, the mana began returning to its natural state. As such, I went ahead and prepared another Seed of Void. This time, I had an ample source of void mana to work with, so there was no problem with the time taken.
After creating the second seed, and installing it into an identical pattern, it was already time to sleep. Thinking such, I was going to head up to my room when my feet froze, and I remembered that my room was currently like the vacuum of space, with no breathable air unless I maintained my Void Manipulation. Grumbling, I decided to go sleep on the couch until my Void Affinity was high enough to be maintained without any focus.
It was rather different, sleeping in the real world after so long. Not that my couch was uncomfortable or anything, I just had gotten used to sleeping in the game. Though, by now I was wondering just how much of a game it was. Was it possible that the game was, in some manner of time and space, real? And if so, what was the reason? This was definitely not an invasion to wipe out the species, because any race with this kind of tech could just as easily erase the planet from the solar system.
Then, another thing that was just as disturbing, was the realization that there were humans in the game. Obviously that shouldn’t be possible if this was just a case of aliens transporting us somewhere to adapt to a new ‘galactic policy’ with magic. Unless by some freak coincidence, humans evolved the same way on another world as well.
I put these thoughts out of my mind as I let myself fall asleep. When I woke, I ate an enrichment fruit for breakfast and then began cultivating Void Affinity. If I can get that up to 10%, sleeping in my bed shouldn’t be a problem anymore. I could only grumble helplessly, though, because Void Affinity was the lowest of affinities I had cultivated, so it would take several days for it to reach 10% even if I focused entirely on it.
Part of me considered logging back into the game in order to speed up the training, but my house wasn’t secure yet. If a goblin or something spawned in, they could wreck the place while I was training. At least with me here, I could either disperse the mana while the monster tried to spawn or kill it after it had done so. And sure enough, after I had spent about six hours cultivating my Void Affinity, I could feel a shift in the flow of mana. Opening my eyes, I got up and followed the shift, finding currents of mana running through the halls and into my kitchen. “Oh hell no, I am not letting some monster rampage in my kitchen.”
Once I got to the kitchen, I found streams of fire, wind, water, and earth mana spiraling in a single spot. “What’s going on?” Celeste spoke up from my wrist, making her presence known for the first time since I got back to the real world.
“Looks like a monster is forming.” While this would be an excellent time to study it and learn more about monsters, maybe even how to create my own, my priorities were more inclined to stop it. As such, I sent out a wave of my own mana, controlling the various elements to disperse before they could form into something solid. Thankfully, the mana types involved this time weren’t some obscure secondary element that I had no control over. Then again, the more rare an element, the less likely it would come together with enough density to form a monster in the first place.
“So… is that it?” Celeste asks in a rather disappointed manner from my wrist.
“I think so? Doesn’t look like the mana is gathering anymore. But this means that monsters have started spawning.” No sooner had my words ended th
an I got an alert from my house’s AI about an incoming call. “Put it through.”
What I saw on the wall, displayed by a hologram of far less quality than the one that made Celeste, was that same officer that had spoken to me before. What was his name? Fenec, Fingers… Faraday! Right, Officer Faraday. “What can I do for you, officer?”
The man let out a sigh. “Surely you’re aware of the situation by now, unless you just came out of the game.”
“Yeah, the Seeds were released, and by now monsters should be starting to appear. I just had to disperse one in my kitchen.”
The officer raised a curious eyebrow at that. “Do you know what type of monster it was?”
I shook my head in answer to his question. “No, I stopped it from spawning before that became an issue.”
I swear the officer nearly choked on his words. “Y-you can stop them from spawning? How?”
I thought about it, and realized this wasn’t anything obvious, so went ahead and explained. “Monsters are formed by dense mana coming together and giving shape. My class ability lets me interfere with most common types of mana, so I stopped it from gathering before it could coalesce.”
He paused for a moment, and then looked off to the side. “I’m going to put you on hold for a little bit, alright?” When I nodded, the hologram vanished and a rather annoying song began playing instead. “Mute the call until he comes back, please.” I really hated the ‘on hold’ music places offered.
It took roughly fifteen minutes before he reappeared as a hologram on my kitchen wall. “Sorry, had to talk with the chief. I’ve got him listening in now. What can you tell us about your current class?”
I blinked a bit, surprised, as I could see where this was probably going. “I’m a druid, and our special ability is to interact with the ambient mana of the world. In order to do so, we have to spend some time training our magic to properly match the elemental affinity of the mana in order to control it.”
After listening to my explanation, there was a second voice that came in through the call. “Can you teach it to others? If our officers were able to do that, we could stop monsters from spawning along our patrol routes.”
I thought about whether or not I could. “You’d have to learn how to control and sense mana first, which is best done inside NeoLife. Training there would also be faster, since time moves five times as quickly. If you got the mana control and mana sense, then I could teach you how to cultivate the affinities.”
There was a pause as they seemed to talk about it. I could see where they were coming from with this. Although warriors and mages might be better equipped to fight monsters after they’ve spawned, a druid’s abilities could keep them from appearing in the first place. Now, if they were able to learn the rune language, they’d have an even greater chance of fighting. Unfortunately, asking someone to learn language composed of a hundred million symbols was essentially an impossible task.
“We don’t have that kind of time, but we’ll have our off duty officers participate in this game. For now, we need a more immediate solution. It’s not widespread yet, but monsters are appearing randomly all over the city. We’ve confirmed only small ones so far, green monsters likely to be goblins or something, as well as slimes. We can handle the goblins, but those slime creatures are practically unkillable with conventional weapons.”
I nodded at that, and explained. “I encountered a slime monster in the game recently. They are strong against physical attacks, but can be easily destroyed with energy attacks or magic. As long as they aren’t a fire slime, you can try burning them to death.”
The man let out a sigh, and I felt like he was nodding his head in the background. “That’ll help a bit. Flamethrowers are better than nothing, and if energy works we can use shock sticks. Still, that’s going to be a rough job.”
They talk amongst themselves for a few more minutes before they get back to me. “I won’t beat around the bush here. We need someone able to fight these monsters as they appear, and currently the police aren’t able to do that yet. You want a job?”
Chapter 2: First Day on the Job
I thought about the offer for a few minutes, nodding my head. “Sure. I need some income, and this works out perfectly.”
The officer flinched a bit when I mentioned money, but I really did need some income, and he had called this a job after all. However, the other voice seemed to understand. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had investigated me and knew about my financial situation. “Deal. But we’ll need you on call whenever a situation arises, until our own officers can handle the problems.”
I nodded, understanding that. Monsters could appear in the middle of the night just as easily as during the day, so I couldn’t exactly ask for specific hours. This also meant I’d be unable to get back in the game very easily, since I could be needed at any time. “Alright. I take it you’ll just be calling me when more slimes, or other difficult monsters appear?”
Again, it was the offscreen voice that spoke. “That’s right. And there’s a few you can take care of now. We managed to corral some slimes at the mall on 6th Street, but we haven’t been able to kill them. Head on over and take care of the situation.”
With that, the connection was cut, leaving me blinking at where the hologram had once been. “Well, he was pretty rude.” Celeste spoke up from my wrist, making me smile wryly.
“Yeah, but it’s a bad situation. You’ve got to remember not to come out around other people. They might want to take you to study, and we wouldn’t want that.” After I said that, her digital face paled a bit and she nodded. “You can talk to me through the Cybernetic eye, and I’ll respond when I can. Now… let’s go play at being a dragon.”
Hearing me say that made Celeste grin broadly as I walked out the front door. Although I didn’t have my adaptive armor with me in the real world, which I didn’t think about until after I shifted. My body hunched over like a wolf, covered in green scales, with large bat-like wings coming out of my back. I could feel as the various spines protruded from my back and along my new tail… and as my clothes were torn to shreds during this process. Well… guess I won’t be changing back until I return.
With a brief flap of my wings, I adjusted to the new flight method and awkwardly took to the skies. It took a few moments before I was able to fly the direction I wanted, but my practice with the lovebird wings paid off. As my mana began recovering, I also added in the aura I had learned from the lesser orthrus to let me breathe elemental magic. For right now, the element I aligned it to was Void, as it would do the least harm to the surroundings.
New Spell Unlocked!
Aspect of the Magic Breath - Nature Magic - ★☆
By studying the aura of a creature with a magical breath weapon, you have discovered and replicated the secrets to releasing the power of the elements in your breath.
Mana Cost: 500
I was a bit surprised by the window suddenly appearing, but managed to correct my flight before it caused me to tumble into the ground. With a bit of difficulty, I turned my body and flew off towards the mall, located just a few miles from my house. It only took about five minutes for me to get to the large square building, and I could clearly see the police forming a blockade around the mall. Each of the two entrances were surrounded by concrete barricades that had been quickly erected.
As I swooped down towards the front entrance, a few of the officers looked up at me in alarm and pulled out their weapons. I’m on your side, idiots! I thought to myself as Celeste drew out their trajectories, and I dodged sideways to avoid the hail of bullets while making my way into the mall by crashing through the door. Now that I was inside, I was able to determine that it was more than ‘just a few’ slimes.
Everywhere I looked, the slimes were covering the floor. They might have duplicated after arriving, but this was still a lot to look at. I estimated that there had to be at least a hundred slimes the size of the one that I saw in the jungle planet. Well, that one was almost painfully
easy to deal with, so let’s just get this over with.
Taking a deep breath, I poured the magic from the small sphere of void mana in my aura into my mouth, preparing to unleash my new attack. However, what I released was not a breath of magic cancellation like I had expected. Instead, it felt as if there was an intense suction force applied to my breath.
After releasing the magic, all of the slimes in front of me began to shiver, their bodies all sliding towards me faster than they should naturally be able to move. However, the chairs and loose objects did not show any reaction. With my Aura Sight, I could see that only mana was being drawn towards me, so likely only creatures made of mana like monsters would be affected in this way. Still, as I held the breath in place and the first slime was picked up off the ground just a few feet in front of me, I began to worry I might be swallowing acid.
Hoping that I was wrong, and I mean really hoping, I let the slime finish its course and watched as it got sucked into my mouth. I prepared myself for internal burning which never came. Instead, it was like there was a surge of mana inside of me, as slime after slime flew into my mouth. After I was finally done breathing out(in?) with the void mana, I took a look at what had happened. I quickly discovered two effects from this breath weapon. The first one was that it completely refilled my mana pool, but the second was far more interesting.
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