“I want to spend 100 points on Meditation! There has to be a reason it is expensive. The other two are obvious. They are attack spells. So, what is with this one? Bob, make it happen!”
“Yes, Mistress.”
The voice was very bland she decided. While messing with it she had discovered that this entity or menu or whatever it was could be heavily modified just by willing it, but the dull tone of its voice took a lot of the fun out of some options. In fact, the only reason she had decided to stick with the name Bob was that she swore she detected a slight huffiness to its responses after she first called it that. If this…thing…was going to kidnap her from her old life it could deal with having a name it didn’t like.
She’d originally changed the background to neon green just to see if she could, but the natural blue of it was somehow calming in her opinion. It was possible that was just what she had come to expect after seeing it the first few times though. “Well now, that’s a useful ability!” Thinking quickly, Ashe came up with a plan to maximize her preparation time in this void space. “Bob, how much time before we have to go?”
“There are twenty-two hours, forty-eight minutes, and thirteen seconds remaining before your time in the Setup Stage is passed, Mistress.”
“You don’t need to tell me the seconds unless I specifically ask Bob.”
“As you wish Mistress.”
“I wonder how many more Points I could get by using Meditation until the end…”
“Within the Setup Stage and other areas closely aligned to the Primordial Forces, Evolution Point Production is increased tenfold or more.”
Surprised that the voice would offer up information not specifically asked for, Asher was briefly stunned. Then she realized that she was wasting valuable time. “That’s a no brainer then! Let me know when I have two hours left Bob. Wait, scratch that. I bet I’ll need to eat in a few hours.”
“While within the Setup Stage your physical body is not fully present mistress. As such you will experience side effects such as lack of hunger, loss of time, and dampened emotions. You will not be hungry in a few hours.”
“That…actually explains a lot. Thank you, Bob. And just to be safe, alert me when there are three hours left in this place.”
“Yes mistress.”
Sitting still could never have been considered Asher’s forte, she generally didn’t have the patience for it. Thankfully, the combination of the new skill passively increasing her focus, the decrease in all of the distracting impulses related to a living body, and the way time flowed in this place helped immensely. It also helped that the skill was more than just a passive background process without feedback. She could feel SOMETHING flowing through her body and as she used the skill, she felt gradually able to reach out and affect that something. Smoothing out sharp corners, gathering areas where it scattered, increasing the flow where it stagnated. It was hard to get a complete picture of this system, but it felt vaguely like a second set of blood vessels. Consistently returning to one central location near her stomach before being fed back out to the rest of her.
For what felt like mere minutes she sat and followed the flow of this energy through her. Spinning around the great vortex in her abdomen. Being shot out and into her arm, following the flow through each finger, and working back toward that central vortex before being shot out into the other arm. The complicated flows through her head and the various slower moving pools situated throughout her body. Then, just as she began to feel like she could sense something DEEPER she heard a voice.
“Mistress…Mistress…2 hours 51 minutes… Mistress there are 2 hours and 50 minutes remaining in your time here.”
Coming out of her trance left a cold feeling across her skin, like leaving a pool and suddenly being exposed to a chill wind. It was also a bit of a shock and slightly disorienting, offering proof that attempting to multitask with the skill going was a bad idea. Slightly grouchy, she turned to the spectral clock. “Thank you, Bob. You are incredibly helpful and definitely did not screw up my chance to do something cool.”
“You are welcome mistress.”
Bob’s inability, or possibly refusal, to understand sarcasm could only elicit a deep sigh from her as she resolved to just move on. “Alright no use crying over spilled milk, let’s see what I got out of this.”
“Wow, yeah. Thanks for the heads up about this place Bob. This definitely puts me in a better starting position. Now I just need to figure out what I am actually going to DO with all these points.”
Asher’s first instinct was to spend every point on as many spells as possible, but she resisted that urge. At least for now. After all, it wasn’t a given that mage would be the best build for her. Sure, she had good mental stats, but it would be pretty cool to swing around a giant sword cutting things in half. Or she could go full rogue and stab stuff without them ever knowing. But then again, could anything really beat pointing her finger and having whatever was there blow up? Look at Dungeons and Dragons, mages get all the cool stuff. Blowing up entire groups of people, changing the landscape, teleporting. Yeah, Mage is definitely the way to go.
“It’s decided! Bob, purchase a bolt spell and an enhancement spell. Let’s see what these can do!” Asher’s excitement for what was to come left her bouncing on the balls of her feet and she could have sworn the menu brightened just a little in some kind of shared enjoyment.
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“Matching Bolt spell to existing magical element. Error. Individual is not an awakened mage. Preparing to awaken magical abilities. To ignite your own magic, you will be exposed to Primordial Chaos for one minute. An element will be awakened within you according to elemental aptitude.”
“Oh cool, any hints for what to do with this?”
“Chaos Gate opening in 3”
“Hope I get something amazing! You better not screw me over on this Bob.”
“2”
“And here we go!”
“1”
As the crack in the air passed over Asher, to her cry of excitement, a suave, silken voice could be heard resonating in the empty space. “Seed 198, you certainly are amusing. I look forward to seeing what you come back with.” The declaration absolutely radiated smug amusement and anticipation. Just a quickly, though, the owner of the voice returned to silence as it waited for her return. A return that was punctuated by loud laughter; the pure joyous sound of an adrenaline junky that had just discovered a new thrill.
Asher could feel something in those strange running veins she had discovered while meditating. They were abruptly easier to sense, as though colored by black and purple with small flashes of silver. Like crackles of lightning in storm clouds. While it didn’t have the same feel as when she had approached what the menu called a “deeper understanding”, it was certainly a qualitative change in the flow of energy running through her compared with before. Like putting fresh batteries in an RC car that was sluggishly moving under the dregs of ancient AAs previously. She felt herself pacing, unable to sit still with this new feeling tingling throughout her. “I’ve never felt so alive Bob! That was amazing. Absolutely terrifying, but absolutely, positively, addictively thrilling! So, what did I get?”
Quickly a menu popped up to answer her question, along with a unique alert and fanfare. Quickly the words were written across the air in front of her and while the fancy penmanship took her a moment to adjust too, the meaning of the words quickly set her grinning. As she continued to read through the messages, Asher couldn’t help but to let out a whoop of joy at her new spells.
“Ohhh~ THESE are going to be fun. I need something to keep people away though, because I would much rather use Thunderbolt than Shock Grasp. Hmmm, what do you think is most likely to be good for that Bob? Don’t answer that. I know you can’t tell me, just thinking out loud. Hmmm, well I don’t think an Aura or Armor spell is the way to go. Those seem like they’d be a good idea for a close-range mage and I want to be as far away from sharp pointy things as I can get. Enhancement spells seem like they modify existing spells, so unlikely to be useful. Extended Senses and Enhanced Mind both sound interesting, but again I don’t think they are going to give me a good escape or anything. No, for that I think I’ll need to rely on my body. Guess that only really leaves Enhanced Physique anyway, so here’s hoping! Purchase Enhanced Physique Bob!”
“As you wish mistress.”
“Perfect. Lastly, spend 84 points on Intelligence.”
“Yes, mistress”
“Well, I guess we’re ready then.”
The Beta Testers may have been the first members of the old reality to experience the new universal iteration in its entirety, but they were not the first members of the old reality that The Moderators of the universe recruited. Before them came the Alpha Testers, famous beings from the histories of the thousands of cultures that inhabited the old reality. These Alpha Testers were assigned the job of fleshing out The Moderators New Reality. While The Moderators created the core rules of the new iteration, the Alpha Testers created the locations, relics, and citizens meant to fill the empty universe they awoke in. Many did what they could to leave a legacy to their species. Something to help them in this new, hostile reality. Of course, the rules of The New Age required that any item of great opportunity be gained with an equivalent amount of danger. – History of a New Age, pg 27.
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