World Seed

by Justin Miller

  When I inspected my grove, I saw that it had expanded by a full four meters in radius, bringing it up to 15 meters. Though only a third of it was for the ground, that was still a massive improvement for all at once. Sadly, my affinities didn’t increase from this, but I’ll take what I can get. Turning to another group of Slimes, I released a second void breath weapon. This time, I fully appreciated how it was like my mouth had become a black hole for magic, sucking in slimes of every color. Green and yellow, black and white, even a few red ones. Eventually, they all ended up as fuel for my grove.

  This process repeated for a few more times, before I was done with the slimes in the immediate vicinity. Making a quick run of the mall, I found a few stragglers around, and quickly took care of them. The most interesting was a slime that had appeared in the clothing store. Well, I call it a slime… but it was like its body was made of sticky threads. I’ll call it a cloth slime for now. That one didn’t help my grove expand any, but by the time I was done clearing the mall, I had gained another six meters of radius.

  While I was in there, I decided to help myself to an outfit. The security camera just ‘happened’ to be on the fritz as a small dragon walked in, grabbed some clothes, and went to the changing room. After I left, I made sure to ‘fix’ it, so kind of me right?

  When I emerged from the mall, I let out a light burp, and felt as if I had eaten a full meal. The officers on the other side of the barricade stared at me, some with their weapons aimed in my direction. “Identify yourself!” One called out, and I let out a sigh.

  “I’m John Hulett, your chief sent me over to clean up. You can check with him if you want.”

  The officer blinked, but got on his radio to verify. After a few moments, he looked up at me. “What about that other monster that just flew in there? Did you take care of that one too?”

  Again, another sigh. “That was me. I was in a hurry to get here, so I decided to fly. Check with Officer Faraday, he’s seen me change before. These are clean clothes, so I don’t want to ruin them by doing so right now.”

  Once again, they verified the information with their headquarters, and then the officer lowered his weapon, signalling the others to do the same. “Well, thanks for the support, then. I take it you got them all?”

  “Well, I couldn’t check the air vents, but I got all of them I could find.” I nodded, though really I did check to see if there was any slime on the vent covers. I just didn’t want to go digging around in them. Also, wasn’t I the one doing all the work here? Since when was that simply support?

  Turning to the side, I walked off to head back home. I had considered flying, but I just got these clothes. I didn’t want to ruin another set so quickly. On the way, I noticed a number of people had already been changed by the game over the last day and a half. Although I had expected nobody to choose a non-humanoid race, since it was already public knowledge, I did see a few. For instance, shortly after leaving the mall, I saw a woman slithering down the sidewalk with the lower body of a snake. There were also plenty of elves, especially among the women, and a couple of orcs.

  The strangest person I saw on the way home looked like he belonged to the balloon-headed race of the pet shop clerk I had spoken to on Hascion. I could understand people choosing elves because they wanted to look younger, or even a naga because they have an attractive upper body, but why would anyone choose that when knowing that the choice would carry over?

  Suddenly, a message appeared in my Cybernetic eye from Celeste. Your world has so many different species, Falenel. It’s like we’re back at X-23..

  I chuckled dryly, shaking my head. “Call me John out here. And we were all humans once. This is a new thing that you wouldn’t have seen a couple days ago.”

  Wow.. And sure, John. You have a different name here?

  “Yeah, I chose the name Falenel on a whim, and then was unable to change it. Here, I’m just John Hulett.” Talking to Celeste wasn’t a problem here, because people were far more interested in looking at the balloon head or snake woman to notice one elf that might be talking into a headset.

  Wow.. I never thought I’d be able to see so many races living together, even if they were all once humans. But, you’re seriously going to go around hunting monsters for those people? They didn’t seem to appreciate it much at all.

  “They’re the local law enforcement, so they might see me as some kind of mercenary, which wouldn’t really be wrong. And there are some perks to it, aside from just the money.”

  There was a line of question marks flooding my Cybernetic eye, making me laugh. “I checked my grove, and it had a massive expansion after I sucked in the mana from those monsters. If I keep at this, it shouldn’t take too long for me to be able to make my grove pretty big”

  Ahh...But mostly it’s for the money, right?

  “Naturally. I’ve got to be able to pay the bills, after all. And once the cops train themselves up, I can head back to the game and work on getting that spell to transfer you over for good.”

  I could feel her excitement as the bracelet buzzed slightly at that. Yay! I hope they don’t take too long.

  “Same. But, whenever I have downtime, that gives me the time I need to train my affinities. I should be able to get everything up to 10% within a week, if I’m really lucky.”

  By now, I was turning the corner, and able to see my house. I could sense a disturbed flow of mana, rushing into my yard. Running forward, I got there in time to see the mana starting to condense, a pair of cloven hooves touching the ground. This one seemed far bigger and more powerful than the monster that would have spawn before, but I just grimaced, activating the Aspect of the Magic Breath again to send another void breath towards where the mana had been gathering.

  Like with the slimes, the hooves(and the mana that had been trying to construct the rest of the monster) began flying into my mouth, disappearing into what must have been an infinite void. “I really, really like that spell.”

  I heard a giggle from my bracelet after I said that, and turned to head into the house. Sitting back on the couch, I pulled out an enrichment fruit to eat while getting back to work cultivating my Void Affinity. I was determined to get to 10% in that, so that I could once again sleep in the comfort of my bed.

  Chapter 3: Not All Changes Are Good

  The rest of the day passed by without much incident. The house AI alerted me that a deposit had been made to my account, which made me happy. With that, I could pay the bills for a bit longer, at least. However, there wasn’t another call from the police today. Either no more slimes spawned, or they had been able to take care of everything that appeared.

  Instead of religiously training my Void Affinity, I stopped late that night after reaching 8%, and decided to test out whether other game systems transferred over to the real world. First, the inventory. I was a bit surprised to find that it was the same size as the one on my game character, but at the same time it was entirely empty. This only confirmed again that the only way for me to transfer items would be to use the grove. Next, my friend’s list.

  When I opened my friend’s list, I saw all of the same names as from the game. Jacobs, Sharon, Dravin, and Marion. However, except for Sharon, they all had the word ‘Unavailable’ next to their names. Does that mean that they are logged in? It wouldn’t be weird if the real world couldn’t connect to chat with the game. On the other hand, it’d be extremely weird if it could, given the time differences.

  For the time being, I decided not to call Sharon. Maybe later, but for right now I needed to talk with Jacobs. Hopefully, the chat wouldn’t take too long, as I just wanted a simple explanation. “Computer, can you connect to my NeoLife contact list?”

  “Affirmative.” The mechanical voice responded.

  “Alright, please do so, and send a message to contact Jacobs that I need to have a word with him, if he can log out for a few minutes.” If need be, I could temporarily disable the spell formation in my room and log in. It would just be a matter of removin
g the Seed of Void and filling the formation with wind mana. In fact, now that I thought about it, even if I just removed the Seed of Void from the formation, it would still work properly now that it’s been activated. I could create more throughout the house and just activate them with the same seed.

  Something to think about when I get Void Affinity to 10% I sighed mentally, shaking my head as I awaited the response. I didn’t take too long before it came. “What’s up, man?” I could hear Jacobs’ voice over the hologram call, and could guess he logged out.

  “A bit inconvenient for me to log into the game right now, and wanted to have a word with you. You’ve got Enchanting up to Basic, right?” This was what I needed to call him for. Although it might not be a proper lesson, I could at least get a basic explanation from him and start enchanting special effects onto items.

  “Hmm? Yeah, a while back. Guessing you picked it up too, and need advice on the second stage of enchanting items?”

  “Pretty much. If you know about what’s happening here on the outside, you can understand why I don’t have the time to go find a trainer.”

  I could hear a sigh from the other end of the call. “Yeah, I heard about that a couple days ago. Alright, the trick to it isn’t that complicated. Basically, you just have to create a spell effect, and link it to the aura of an item with a rune that will activate it.”

  “Don’t suppose you know which rune…?”

  This time it was a chuckle. “Depends on the purpose of the enchantment. Usually, it’s a simple ‘trigger’ rune, unless you want the ability to be constantly active, or only activate in certain circumstances, in which case you need to get creative. The hard part is finding somewhere to add the spell in without collapsing the aura. If the effect is activated by the trigger rune, then you can just place it so that the outer edges of the two are touching. However, if it is a more involved effect, you’ll need to find somewhere to properly integrate them.”

  I nodded, thinking it over. “And the need for the elemental seeds?”

  “Hmm? Ah, that’s just to basically let the enchanter prepare the spell if they are not able to do so by themselves. For instance, I have no ability to produce a good water spell. They’re also used as fuel to fuse a runic elemental spell with an item.”

  “Alright, thanks. I’ll try it out here in a little bit.” With that taken care of, we said our goodbyes, and I laid on the couch again to rest. I began thinking what I would like to enchant. In the game, obviously I wanted to enchant my weapons, maybe my armor. However, I didn’t have any gear yet in the real world, and I didn’t have a crafting profession that would let me make any.”

  If I had the Metal Affinity, I could just make myself a simple sword. Add in the Plasma and Magnetic Affinities, and I might be able to construct a basic beam saber to mimic the one I had in the game. For right now, though, I needed something more basic.

  After letting myself sleep for a while, I woke up and had a simple breakfast, making sure to keep my Aura Sight up constantly. I didn’t want to risk a monster spawning around me, after all. Once I was done eating, a simple breakfast of bacon and eggs, I sent my mind into my grove, searching around. My void area of my grove had grown to be several times the size of my grove itself. Likely, void space took very little mana to maintain compared to other elements.

  Breaking off a piece of my grove, I gathered it and sent it into the void area, surrounding it with a bit of wind to make a tiny, separate grove. Once that was done, I planted one of the poisonous fruits I had gotten from the jungle planet, wanting to make a tree to harvest the medicinal sap. Casting my attention back onto my main grove, I smoothed out the area where the earth had been taken, and then snapped a single branch from the enrichment fruit tree. Finally, I brought the branch out of my grove and let it appear in front of me.

  With a bit of Plant Manipulation, I managed to warp the branch into a simple staff, and began enchanting it. Though, the only enchantment I put on it was to create a void field. Like Jacobs had said, I created the spell effect in front of me, and then brought it to the aura of the staff until the two sides just barely touched. Finally, I ‘glued’ the two auras together with the ‘trigger’ rune. Immediately, the aura of the enchantment dimmed, much like a device that had been turned off.

  If it’s like this, I won’t even need the seeds for my own enchanting… I sighed, realizing that they really wouldn’t have much purpose for someone already capable of using this kind of magic. However, at this time, I got another call from the police. Officer Faraday, who at this rate seems to have been chosen as my liaison, appeared on the hologram.

  “Mr. Hulett, time to go to work.” He said with a serious expression, making me nod my head in acceptance.

  “Details?” I looked at the hologram, wondering if I’d be able to afford a more detailed one at this rate.

  “Not really sure how to describe it… 14th Street, just outside city hall. If I had to call it something, it’d be a living tornado. It just appeared out of nowhere, and everyone’s panicking. Head over quickly, and take care of it.”

  I blinked a bit, and Celeste appeared on my wrist just as the call ended. “Still rude… but what does he mean a living tornado?”

  “Probably a wind elemental. Hadn’t expected them to start spawning this soon, and it might be troublesome.” I groaned as I applied a quick enchantment to the shirt I was wearing, a runic one to let it adapt to my form. This was the same enchantment that my armor in the game had come with, so it wasn’t too hard to copy. After that, I ran outside and activated Aspect of the Bird to create my angel wings, taking this chance to summon Yin and Yang as well.

  They were overjoyed to be summoned again, and instantly began rubbing up against me. However, I quickly told them that we had a situation to take care of, and we all three took off into the sky. City hall was an old building, made back in the 1900s, but had been modified a bit in the last fifty or so years to be more stable. It was very easy to spot, especially when I used Aura Sight and saw the mass of wind mana converging in front of it. However, something seemed wrong.

  Although people were running and screaming, and the elemental appeared to be chasing them, it was not launching any attacks aside from knocking aside large objects that were right next to it. Is it mindless? That would certainly help. With that thought in mind, I dove down towards the creature with my birds. I had no confidence in fighting a wind elemental in control of wind mana, but I still had plenty of other things that I could do. I could at least devote a bit of my attention to absorbing the excessive wind mana.

  However, the moment I landed, I heard something in the back of my mind that caught me off guard. It sounded like a little girl crying. Don’t run away, please.. somebody help..

  Looking over, I could tell that Yin had heard the voice as well, but Yang was still vigilant against the creature. Oh, don’t tell me… Looking at the elemental, I felt a bit of pain in my chest as I activated a void field around it, a bubble to stop its wind mana from going out of control. Although it could not negate the blasts of wind, it could slow them down enough to prevent property damage.

  Focusing, I tried to use the same technique I had used to communicate with Arriane, except this time with wind mana. ’Hello? Can you hear me?’ I made sure to allow my wind mana to go through the void field without being suppressed.

  The moment I ‘spoke’, the elemental whipped around to face me. If I didn’t have a theory about what was going on, I probably would have been terrified right now. I mean, a living tornado just focused its full attention on me. Sure, it was only two meters tall, but still, that was a living tornado after all. ’I can’t hear you right now, I’m using my power to stop your wind from causing too much damage. I need you to calm down a bit, and then we can talk. Can you do that for me?’

  It had no head, so obviously it couldn’t nod. However, after a few moments, I felt the strength of the wind lowering slightly. With a sigh of relief, I lifted the void field. The elemental seemed to be able to
sense that, because afterwards she spoke to me, in a frightened little voice. ’You can really understand me?’

  New Ability Unlocked!

  Voices of the Wind - Wind Affinity - ☆

  By understanding the principles behind Worldcasting, you are able to communicate with species that have a high Wind Affinity by using wind mana.

  I nodded my head. ’That’s right… Can you tell me your name? And how old are you?’

  ’I… I’m Tessa, and I’m six… can you help me mister..? Everyone is running away… I didn’t do anything wrong…’ I could hear how sad she was as her voice was carried along the wind mana.

  ’I’ll do what I can. Tell me, did you play a new game? It would have been in a shiny silver capsule that just arrived at your house.’ I could at least hold onto the hope that people weren’t randomly being changed into monsters without logging into the game.