[INITIALIZING SYSTEM SCAN…]
MANIFESTING IDEAL EXAMSCAPE
As soon as those strange words appeared in front of Theo, the black void he had been in disappeared entirely, and he found himself in the middle of what seemed to be a large cylindrical library. The shelves and balconies seemed to stretch on forever, and no matter how Theo strained his eyes, he couldn’t see the bottom or the bottom of the library. Wonderfully sculpted mahogany desks and cozy little reading nooks of all types were spread all out across the balconies. These ranged from leather couches to plush pillows the size of his family's wagon. There was even a hammock that seemed to be made from an iridescent fish skin.
To Theo, this was wholly unexpected. He had been expecting something like his room back home or his mother's garden. Heck, he had expected to go hunting with his father more than he had expected this.
“But is it really that bad?” Thought Theo. He had to admit to himself that this library he found himself in wasn’t an awful result. There was something uncannily comforting about it, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. To him, it felt like it was his home away from home. Finally at peace with the test’s placement of him, he began to explore. Theo started by perusing the shelves, looking for something to catch his interest. For some reason, he felt that he had all the time in the world. Even if he spent all day here, he was sure that he would come out from the test at the same time as if he had never left.
Suddenly, Theo stopped, and his face split into a grin that reached both of his ears. He had finally found an interesting book to read, which was odd given that it didn’t seem to have a title or anything else that should have induced interest in it. The book seemed a little forlorn in comparison to the books around it, but Theo was sure that he wanted to read this one. Taking it off the shelf, Theo blew the dust off its cover and opened it. The first thing he saw when he opened it was its title, The Subtle and Silent Art of Mana by Juliet Misophonia, and looking further down the page, it showed it to be volume one of six.
SERENDIPITOUS ACHIEVEMENT!!
The Spirits wish to congratulate you on your SPECTACULAR discovery and would like to offer you a quest.
Do you wish to accept? Yes/{Yes}
Theo almost dropped his book from surprise. If it weren’t for the deafening noise every time he got a notification from the system, he would have been overjoyed to finally see the system, much less get an achievement.
“Wait a minute… I can’t refuse this quest. What if there’s some drawback? I’m not even supposed to be able to use the system until I exit the Exam! What if it’s one of those quests where I could die! Yeah, I’ll try to refuse the quest. This is way too suspicious. There’s no way I’m risking my life over something like this. I would never accept tha-”
CONGRATULATIONS! You have accepted the Spirits’ quest: READ IT.
Quest Rarity: Serendipitous
Difficulty: {It’s reading, it won’t be bad}
Objective: Finish reading The Subtle and Silent Art of Mana and comprehend at least 70% of the material.
Reward: One {random} skill
Failure Penalty: Hairline recedes by 1 cm.
Time Limit: 7:59:59
“This was not how I expected this test to go. Honestly, this failure penalty makes me think that the system, or I guess spirits have a japish sense of humor, who else would put that kind of penalty?” thought Theo, who was beginning to have a headache from all of the notifications that the system was giving him. “But at least I’ll get a good reward if I read the book. Might as well get started.”
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Luckily for Theo, he was a good reader. After all, there wasn’t much else to do when he lived in the forest. Still, he had to reread the first couple of chapters, which dealt with the nuances of mana control and the mistakes people often made when first trying it out. It was, after all, a completely foreign concept due to mana only being accessible after the Exam. Two particular mistakes that Theo found noteworthy were that people often focused too much on the skill and didn’t remove their mental fog before casting, and the other was being too forceful with the “commands” or intent they gave the mana. What Theo took from this was that Mana hated being yelled at. Well, as much as rock could hate being yelled at. Thankfully, reading the rest of the book went much more smoothly, as once he had a pretty decent conception of mana, the other concepts listed out in the book came easily to him.
The biggest and most welcome surprise by far was the basic spells at the end of the book. Though Theo thought that most of them looked a little different in the illustrations and descriptions they gave, they looked about the same to some of the examples he had seen from some mages who had come for a presentation performed at his school. Plus, Theo reasoned that his untrained eye was hardly able to judge the quality of them.
However, the last spell did seem a little more eccentric than the others. Largely because it was named Hexagons are the Bestagons and seemed to be a sort of shielding spell. Upon reviewing it, Theo wondered why it would be included in a beginner's textbook. The spell consisted of creating a large number of mana-based hexagons that could be detached from each other and moved to protect the area being attacked.
“This seems only useful if someone is able to multitask inordinately well. Maybe I’ll be able to use it with my aptitudes are high and once it becomes muscle memory.” thought Theo.
Even knowing he might not be able to use them, Theo was intent on memorizing them and spent almost the whole of the quest timer doing so. After finishing the book, he closed it and prepared for the blaring noise that came with a system notification.
Even after waiting for 10 minutes, no notification came for him. Exasperated and more than a little worried for his hair, Theo picked the book back up and opened it again to the last page. Scouring it for something he had missed, Theo noticed a publisher's sticker.
MELLIFLUOUS!! You have completed quest: READ IT.
Rewards:
-One {random} skill
-CONGRATS! In acknowledgement of near-perfect comprehension of the quest item, Silver Loot Box has been added to the quest rewards.
NOTICE: Rewards will be distributed after the system has finished full integration.
“Dang, I really want to open that box right now. I can’t wait until I get out of this exam room.”
Almost as soon as Theo thought that the world around him faded into black again, several notifications went off in his head.
SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND SCAN COMPLETE
CONGRATULATIONS!!
You are now a registered user of the system.
Aptitudes (0-100):
- Mana Manipulation: 95
- Silent Mana: 97
- Frigid Mana: 96
- Time Mana: 80
- Aether Mana: 82
- Void Mana: 88
- Illusory Mana: 79
- Resonant Mana: 91
- Healing Mana: 67
- Resistances:
- Fire Resistance: 52
- Water Resistance: 52
- Frigid Resistance: 74
- Temporal Resistance: 61
- Arcane Craft:
- Spell Inscription: 74
- Enchantment Crafting: 27
- Familiar Binding: 76
- Mana Architecture: 85
- Puzzle Design:
- Puzzle Creation: 73
- Riddle Engineering: 78
- Pattern Synthesis: 89
- Botany: 34
- Mycology: 29
- Foraging: 31
- Hunting: 20
- Beast Tracking: 27
- Library Management: 100
- Archive Indexing: 97
- Memory: 93
- Tome Restoration: 86
- Bowling: 34
- Quibbotch: 12
- Brasketbrawl: 10
- [Press to see full list]
-
- WARNING: MAY CAUSE POTENTIALLY FATAL SENSORY OVERLOAD FROM INFO INFLUX
Even if Theo had wanted to read this information influx, all the pings from the system notifications caused him to faint immediately after he was aware of the real world again.