Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3)

by John Gold

  The mage doesn’t know about empathy, but he’s welling over with curiosity. What he said about being happy is right too.

  A week passes like this. In the morning, I get my instructions from Anri, then I have a battle in the arena, and finally, it’s more instructions from Anri. It’s only in the evening after I get my body modification work done that I have free time. On the other hand, it’s also then that Kirk throws himself at me, asking and chattering about everything at once to sooth his need for conversation. I like his kindliness, openness, and hospitality, as well as the tea he gives me every evening. And the cafeteria food isn’t as good as his. The local chefs apparently haven’t put much work into advancing their cooking skills. Kirk tells me that cooking is his only hobby, which is why his tea is so good. Still, the company and having a place to go is the best part. I spend the winter evenings in warmth as the snow falls outside.

  For my first job, Anri offers me a life aura, which I go ahead and take.

  Spell: Life aura

  Description: You radiate an aura of life.

  Effect: Restores 438 health/second (intellect/10)

  Mana: 1000/minute

  Minimum requirement: 200 Life Magic, Level 200

  The aura burns mana constantly, so I decide to turn it off when I don’t need it.

  Anri just smiles when I learn the spell. I turn it up to maximum and snooze in a warm corner of the dorm’s back courtyard, though I’m now always on the alert for the shapeshifter’s next attack.

  A week later, my little hiding place is discovered thanks to the flowers growing up through the snow. Vines creep across the wall, and lilies of the valley blossom where I usually sit.

  Today, I have a battle for the ninth magic mastery rank. My opponent has the Life Magic skill bumped up to 275.

  Happily, across from me is a normal mage, and not a battle mage. He steps closer until he’s five meters away and casts a power of darkness spell. A sphere of complete darkness and silence twenty meters in diameter descends on us. Fire Magic doesn’t do anything, and I start taking light mental damage. All I have to do to avoid my invisible enemy’s attack is step out of the sphere.

  “A new victim! Ah, how I love the arena.”

  Surprisingly, I don’t hear his footsteps, though I can hear his voice. I’m going to need to learn that spell.

  “So, you’re some kind of sadist who likes to torture your victims?”

  The mage laughs repulsively. He’s happy, anticipating the fun he’s going to have.

  “Did you know that you can heal your opponents in Project Chrysalis? It’s great! You can heal them and maim them for as long as you want, especially since there’s no surrendering in the arena. There are only winners and losers.”

  How do you describe the feelings of a sadist like that?

  “Yep!”

  He comes around to the side and smacks his staff into my knee. A second later, I’ve leaped at him, though he’s already somewhere else, laughing.

  “You think you’re the first to try that? The rest are all dead!”

  I can’t hear where he is, but I can feel the ground vibrating. For some reason, he thinks nothing will happen to him if he hits me. I stun him, however, and he can’t move.

  “And did you know that when you’re stunned, you can’t turn off your aura and other spells? You can’t send a chat to someone asking for help, you can’t remove anything, and you can’t drink potions. Really, you can’t do anything. Of course, you know that, and you’ve thought about using a spell like that in your sadistic games. Your space of darkness may hide what you’re doing from the public, but it doesn’t stun your victim.”

  Ten percent of the pain isn’t that much, but it’s still enough to break the will of your opponent forever.

  I spend all day in a bad mood. Killing someone is one thing; making them suffer is another.

  Tomorrow, I have my battle for the tenth level, the end of my apprenticeship.

  Anri finds me at night, already deep in my thoughts and not on my guard. I’m sitting behind the stable, which is starting to sprout.

  “Still upset about the duel?”

  “Hey, Anri. How did you know?”

  “I was the one who organized it yesterday when you submitted the request for your ninth-level exam battle.” The mage smiles and sits down in the snow next to me.

  “Why?”

  “Your opponent is a nasty guy, a dark mage who likes to torture his victims. Once a week, he shows up to fight and torture, and then he disappears. Three students from my department switched to a different affiliate just so they wouldn’t have to deal with him.”

  “And you figured I’d kill him. But what does that change?”

  The mage hands me a cup, pulls out a thermos, and pours us some tea. His mood is just as good as ever—nothing going on has him tensing up in the least. He’s there to sit behind the stable in the snow with a student who looks like a beggar, quietly drink tea.

  It’s been snowing for a week straight, so Anri is sitting in a drift. I’m on the ground surrounded by flowers. Everything around me has melted, and small shoots have already wound their way around my legs.

  “If you’d showed up to work tonight, you’d have understood.”

  “Sorry, I completely forgot.”

  “That mage left the Life Magic department. Do you remember what I told you about Light and Dark Magic?”

  “Light mages are kind; dark mages are secretive.”

  “You’re secretive, but you’re also kind. You don’t have the same kind of superficiality other wanderers have. Also, you aren’t afraid to be yourself, and you treat others exactly the way they treat you.”

  “I don’t want people to hate me, so I’m always nice to them. But that’s just my low self-esteem. People with strong self-esteem don’t need everyone’s approval—just the approval of the people close to them and their own opinion. It shouldn’t be the way it is for me, where I have to consider both my opinion and other people’s opinions.”

  “That’s straying toward egoism. Do you think kindness is a weakness?”

  “No, kindness is an expression of strength. It’s all about your self-esteem and how you use your kindness. Kind people with high self-esteem have strong personalities that attract attention and achieve success; people with high self-esteem who aren’t kind are egoists who care nothing about anyone else. In my case, I have both kindness and low self-esteem, which leads to a weak personality and kindness that can be used any way I want. You just gave me an excellent example of that: if my personality were stronger, you would have thought twice about how I’d react to being set up like that, not to mention whether it was the right thing to do.”

  The kolobok thinks for a second before nodding.

  “And what happens when somebody has low self-esteem and no kindness?”

  “Worthlessness.”

  “Absolutely right.”

  Anri pulled out sandwiches, and I realize that I haven’t eaten in a long time. My stomach confirms the fact with a long gurgle. Happily, the mage has enough for me, too.

  “You aren’t worthless, and I don’t regret my decision. Strong personalities can take responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions. Are you afraid of that mage? Not in the least. You’re revolted by the very idea of sadism and torture, though you forced yourself to put him through it. And did you doubt that decision in the moment? Nope. So, accept the consequences and keep moving forward. You’re right about one thing: you have very low self-confidence. Why is that?”

  What’s with all the philosophical conversations?

  “Self-worth is built on self-affirmation and the values you have. I lost everything I valued, and my desire to affirm myself left with it. Being a strong mage isn’t enough to make you confident in yourself and your powers. That’s why you roomed me with Kirk, someone who’s just as lost as me, no?”

  Anri pulls two pills out of his pocket. One is as black as tar, while the other is so red, it look
s like it could have been made out of curdled blood.

  “You’re different. He went hungry for three days before I felt bad and let him work here at the academy. But you’re just as empty inside as he is. On the other hand, one big difference is how the two of you found the strength to keep on living—his confidence in himself and his powers comes from outside himself, while you rely only on yourself. Look how much you’ve changed, how far you’ve come without anybody to rely on. Kirk is still waiting for the chance to talk, hoping for your support, and you know it.”

  “His problem is his own cowardice. Kirk is afraid of the world, afraid of getting burned, afraid of hurting, afraid of loving. Worse, he’s afraid of making a mistake.”

  “Everyone’s afraid of that, including you.”

  “You’re wrong, Anri. My self-worth is low, but that’s just for the time being. Soon, I’m going to be what I used to be, and the world will know that I’m back. I’m kind to people because I’m stronger and smarter than they are. But I’m not afraid of pain like Kirk is—pain is the experience that you need to build a strong identity. He’s building his home on a rotten foundation. Strength is achieved by those who push forward with no fear of mistakes or pain, and I’m afraid of suffering, not pain.”

  “You talk like someone who’s been through a lot,” Anri says, shaking his head. “What happened? Why do you have so much hatred and pain?”

  That’s a funny question for an older man to be asking a young one, especially if you consider the five years of psychological development I lost.

  “Only three people in the world know the truth. Two of them are dead; the third is in prison. Do you think I want something like that to happen to somebody who’s been kind to me?”

  Without answering, Anri just gets up and heads back. His plump figure sinks into the snow drift, making it hard for him to walk. He stops when he gets to the stable.

  “Tomorrow, you’ll have your battle for your tenth level. Come see me when you’re done, and I’ll teach you your skills for free.”

  “I’m not signed up for tomorrow!”

  “I already signed you up. And I’m glad I did! You’re going to change forever tomorrow.”

  Magic vision, item identification, astral, and spell scaling are the main class skills mages have. Magic vision lets you see spells and any other magic that’s being used, identification tells you what items are, astral lets you work with the different layers of that world, and spell scaling boosts the area your spells affect by a factor of ten, though it doesn’t increase the damage they do.

  I walk back to my room to calm Kirk down. Anri helped me collect my thoughts, and it’s time to get to work.

  “Kirk, I have two requests for you. The first: can you help me find someone?”

  “I think so. It’s a matter of time and how specific you want the information to be. Also, the more data you give me, the faster and more accurate the search will be.”

  “I’m looking for a player, a girl named Femida.”

  “That Femida?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t seen her for years. She’s online for twelve to eighteen hours a day, and she spends all her time in a closed area. I don’t think it’s a dungeon or something like that. She’s a swordswoman, she wears light plate armor, and she’s about twenty or twenty-one.”

  “Where could she be?”

  “No idea. Like I said, I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

  Kirk thinks to himself, takes a drink of tea, and wraps his blanket tighter around himself.

  “I’ll help you, but I want you to tell me your name in exchange.”

  “Okay, but why?”

  “Before I rerolled, I was a top player, and I participated in the battle at Airis Castle. I saw Bloody Sagie and Femida with my own two eyes. That was one of the worst days in Project Chrysalis history, so I want to make sure you aren’t Sagie if you’re looking for that Femida.”

  Bloody Sagie? Fine, I’ll tell you my name.

  “My name is LJ. The spirits won’t betray me, so just make sure you don’t say my name out loud. There are a lot of players looking for my Life Magic skills.”

  Kirk looks at me for a second before it occurs to him.

  “Oh, you’re the keeper of the tree! Okay, the search will take quite a while. I’ll tell all my spirits to look for the girl or information about her, though it could even take months if she isn’t in Radaam. The spirits will check everywhere…everyone…”

  “I get it, no need for the details. And my second request: can you help me transform my mental body into a mind mage?”

  “Are you crazy? They’ll catch us, kick us out of the academy, destroy our reputations, and probably even throw us out of the city!”

  “All you need to do is make sure nobody finds out. I’m a life mage; you’re a mind mage. We both have the transformation spells, so all we have to do is perform the transformation without making any extra noise.”

  “I want tickets to tomorrow’s battles at the arena.”

  “Buying you out of your fears is cheap. You have a deal.”

  He’s going through some surprising emotions—elation, fear, enjoyment, and even pride.

  “I trust you. Well, that, and I wanted to ask you the same thing. You know I picked mind mage for both my specialties, and I don’t have any modifications for my mental body. Also, the tickets are pretty expensive. Tomorrow, Gaea, the Lady of Wands, will be fighting for the title of grandmaster. She’s tried almost twenty times, but she always fails.”

  I don’t need sleep, so we spend the whole night modifying Kirk’s body. Eleven hours later, we’ve gotten to the sixth level, but that’s when we have to head over to the arena. The first level takes just half an hour; the fifth, already two and a half. Modifying the body for the tenth level takes five hours. We decide to modify my body tomorrow night.

  This battle is much harder than all the previous ones. My opponent is a life mage with an already-modified body—a battle mage. He knows how to fight in close, too, though not as well as me.

  It ends up in a struggle between body amplification and instant regeneration. The mage’s face is quite something as I lock a suffocating grip around him.

  The response is an enormous boulder that smacks into my head. It’s followed by a duster, a granite shield, and even a golem. I’m a little nervous, seeing as how my resistance to physical damage is only so-so, and there’s a golem coming at me. Thankfully, my opponent is a poor mind mage, and the golem is weak. His mana spent, he dies, unable to heal his wounds. There were two ways of beating him: doing one fatal blow or waiting for his mana to run out. I picked the latter option and won.

  You are now a tenth-level life mage.

  Life Magic spell effectiveness: +50%

  You can pick a second specialty.

  Kirk wasn’t lying—the tickets cost a thousand gold a piece. That’s a third of an office clerk’s salary! I’m not sure what could be so wonderful about Gaea to drive the cost up so high.

  The student battles are held on the practice arena, while title battles are held in the Coliseum. This is ridiculous! The gladiators pay for the duel, the spectators pay for the tickets, and even the Coliseum pays taxes. And Lunar makes money off them all!

  I have my perception boosted so high that I’m able to take a close look at the face of the girl coming from the left side of the stadium. It turns out that I saw her six years ago in the Silvana Swamp. Her fighting style hasn’t changed in the least—she still carries around two bags out of which magic wands peep.

  The battle begins as soon as the two fighters step into the ring. It’s a master swordsman against an air mage. The girl pulls wands out one after another, not letting her opponent gather himself. One hand slips behind her back, the other dips into the bag at her waist. Each of the wands are inlaid with jewels. Mana storage, not battle wands. I watched her switch them out for each other last time, too. She must have put all her attribute points into intellect to boost the damage she does.

  One
of the wands creates a barrier in the path of the swordsman or tries to hold him back, as he’s making an effort to get in close to the girl. An amulet saves him from most of her spells. For now, the girl is saved by swamps and earth shields that make the swordsman go around them, though there’s a cloud forming and flashing over her head. She’s charging a dozen wands that are currently lying around her feet, and the spell isn’t ready yet.

  “Kirk, what is she doing? Why isn’t she attacking him with everything she has?”

  Everyone looks up at the enormous, threatening cloud in the sky.

  “She picked up the storm dragon ability. It’s a semi-living creature made entirely out of lightning. She picked the same specialty four times as she was getting mage titles, boosting her strength in that area.”

  A snake winds out of the cloud looking more like a whiskered dragon. The hair on my body stands up, I smell something in the air, and I realize there’s a bolt of lightning coming that I definitely wouldn’t be able to survive.

  The snake starts to circle, looking for the best moment to attack. Seeing that, the swordsman summons two large, six-legged golems and uses a granite shield. Stone is a good dielectric, and that dome might be enough to block the bolt of lightning. Gaea creates a swamp right under the dome, and the storm dragon is closing in. One golem covers its master and takes part of the charge. Even with its resistance, it crumbles a second later. But when Gaea uses a tsunami spell to flood the arena, the swordsman teleports to the head of the second golem. The storm dragon shrieks as it slams into the spot where the swordsman used to be. Gaea’s mistake was using the tsunami too early—one of the waves hits her before the storm dragon strike. Ultimately, the swordsman survives, while Gaea is killed by her own spell. The whole stadium sputters from the nasty smell in the air. The scene was well-done, educational, and interesting, money well spent. I learned about the abilities and strength of a potential opponent, not to mention what air mages can do.

  ***

  Four years prior, Margul came back from the Gray Lands, took a different name, and started developing himself with Bernard. He was still a dragon at heart, strong, wise, proud, and smart. Dragons are their own weapon, and they don’t need clothes. His scales saved him from physical attacks, his teeth and claws tore at opponents, and his breath could burn whole forests. It all reminded him of his youth, back when he lived like a dragon and enjoyed widespread recognition and esteem.