Clearstar lets her perception extend outwards, hitting the boundaries of the pocket world. She felt the immortal’s own sense brush her own before she withdrew the probe. A young immortal, then. Freshly ascended… but I still wouldn’t be able to beat him even if I were at my peak.
“You would not understand, honored one. Even immortals dare not alter the flows of Time.”
The immortal’s eyes flash white. He snorts. “And you, a mortal, do dare?”
“Yes,” she responds simply. “You have no records of me because technically, our sector has yet to be integrated. Soon, at the next solstice, no?”
“You should not know that.”
“I don’t understand why my knowledge, or lack thereof, should concern you.”
“The safety of this plane concerns me. As do you, by extension.”
“I cut my journey short by a full three realms in order to return here. You think that I wish to harm our plane?” Clearstar continues, softer. “This is an opportunity of lifetimes. A forced timeline branch, now, done from years in the future—”
The immortal cuts her off. “An opportunity for this plane indeed.” This is way above my paygrade. “You can do as you wish what you can. We are done here. Your mind offers me more answers than your mouth.”
Surprised she didn’t feel the immortal probing her mind, Clearstar could only thank him in reply.
The immortal does respond, only closing his eyes. A set of three concentric orange circles appears behind his head, rotating against each other, bathing the area in warm light. Four dots of bright white are spread across the circles. One of those dots shoots forward like a dart, implanting itself on Clearstar’s forehead, ignoring all of her attempts to resist the technique.
“My Rule will stay with you until, ah, I remove it. I will remain in touch, mortal…” He stops himself, clearing his throat and resuming after a short pause. “… Daoist Clearstar.”
{Records requested. Query = “Sector Pre-Integration.”}
{… Authorization granted.}
{Beginning report…}
December 20, 16:24
Earth, one day before winter solstice.
Clearstar opened her eyes and the forest stretched out before her. The ground was a foot or so beneath her levitating form, and the azure sky stretched out unbroken as far as she could see. Her spirit extended to the maximum, the ambient chi created by the gentle river and the trees were quickly swept up as soon as they were produced, like how the expansive sails of a sailboat extend far to catch even the lightest of winds.
A week of calm meditation focused on gathering chi saw Clearstar’s soulscape filled with liquid and gaseous chi. An ocean of liquid flowed slowly in circles, and the space above and below swirled with a dense white-blue gas. Her cultivation speed felt slow, because there simply wasn’t enough chi in the atmosphere to support anything faster. Early Foundation Stage… not bad. I would have hoped to have some pillars raised by now, but middle Foundation will come in a week or so after integration.
Looking up at the setting sun, Clearstar closes her eyes again, continuing to gather the ambient chi. Reach, absorb, refine, repeat.
{Continuing report…}
December 21, 8:01 AM
Cloud Sector, Plane: Earth
The first thing Claire Wright saw when waking up were boxes. Not shipping boxes, or Amazon boxes, or some kind of cardboard boxes. No, these boxes were blue and shiny. And as her eyes cleared, she could tell these boxes had words on them.
I do not want to deal with this right now. I didn’t even drink anything last night?
Standing up and pulling open her room’s curtains, she bumped into her desk that was obscured by the blue box. Cursing inwardly about hallucinogens and door knobs and everything in between, she took a step backward and fell backwards onto her bed, laying down to take a look at the words the boxes had. Could be fun before whatever crap is wears away.
Oh, what the fuck. I hope this isn’t real… Rubbing the bridge of her noes with her fingers, Claire raised another hand and tried batting the boxes away, to no avail.
How does this thing work? Loosening control over her limbs in defeat, Claire sighed and closed her eyes. Which, thankfully got rid of the blue boxes. Until she opened them again.
“Fuck off.”A box opened up in front of her eyes.
Is… it voice activated? That’s kind of stupid. “Uh, Status?” As she said this, the earlier boxes disappeared, replaced by a new one.
Huh. It’s like I’m in a game, now. Like, Baldur's Gay, Gate or something. A realization dawned on her. Is the world going to shit? Claire sighed again. We are definitely going to shit.
Resolving to not become part of the problem, she focused on her status. “Lets try… uh… Class.”
Kind of curious why they won’t let me pick a Rare class. I have at least one unlocked, right? Or it wouldn’t show me the option at all.
Hoping to make the best of the situation, picking Wizard seemed like a no-brainer. It was that or Monk, and honestly sitting around and chanting scripture or whatever Monks did didn’t sound nearly as cool as being a Wizard.
Claire felt strange for a moment, sort of like what she imagined it would feel like if her blood were to becoming freezing cold. Her body began to tingle slightly as a warm pleasurable feeling appeared and rushed from her stomach to her whole body. That… can’t be what it feels like… but I guess I could get used to leveling up.
Shifting the other boxes to the side of her vision with a thought, Claire focused on the box about her spellbook. Claim, she thought, and a brown leather book fell from the air besides her with a thunk on the bed. Leaning over, she picked it up.
Sitting up, Claire moved the spellbook into her lap. There were detailed lines and dots, runes probably, below each of the cantrips detailed in her spell list. Shifting her knees up to get more comfortable, she began studying the spells, in an effort to memorize.
{Continuing report…}
December 21, 8:15 AM
Cloud Sector, Plane: Earth
Clearstar withdrew her spiritual sense from the forest. The chi had hit the plane and the System assistant was no doubt fully integrated into the population. Her spirit withdrawn, the chi rushed in to fill the vacuum Clearstar had created, and soon enough a blue box appeared in her vision. Memories.
Ignoring the prompt, Clearstar looked inside her soulscape to find her spiritual sea… and a cloud of rainbow mist that pulsed as her own white-blue chi held it back. Manipulating her chi to form tendrils, she gathered and caged the weak divine chi with her own. The mist turned into liquid, and all of the little blobs consolidated into a large rainbow ball of mist surrounded by Clearstar’s personal chi.
The consolidated mist was stronger than before, yes, but its probes and scans into Clearstar’s soulscape could not escape the barrier of liquid chi that constrained it.
Sending her own chi into the system-ball, Clearstar began to alter it. A few short minutes later, she finished her changes. Status.
Smiling, Clearstar returned to cultivation. Her spiritual sense blanketed the land, and the chi from earth and sky funneled into Clearstar. Mist was gathered and converted, then condensed. Pillars in a hour. Crucible in a day. We will be Core by next week.
Eyes closed and a gentle smile on her face, Daoist Clearstar did not notice a bright blinking white dot on her forehead.
{Continuing report…}
December 21, 8:27 AM
Cloud Sector, Plane: Earth
Claire stood, panting by the foot of her bed, having failed to cast her Blade Ward for the umpteenth time. The runes were forming in the air, which was pretty damn cool, but they would always seem to fizzle out right before the last lines connected to form her barrier.
I fucking hate being a wizard! Trying it again, she moved her arms and fingers in patterns, white light trailing and staying where they passed. She was getting the hang of turning on and off the, pen, so to speak, and the runes were clearer and more defined every time she tried.
After another fail, she looked through her Spell List’s picture of the runes again, and resolving to do something different this time around.
Picturing the runes in her head and moving her fingers around to trace the lines in the air, she spoke out. “Blade Ward!” Suddenly, she felt a tug on her mind… spirit?? as something was sucked out of her. The runes in the air became thicker and joined together smoothly. When the last few runes touched, a spherical blue barrier sprung out and extended for a foot or so around her from where the runes were. It moved as she did, and the barrier flowed through the furniture without breaking.
I… don’t need to manually draw the runes? All I have to do is picture it and the system does it for me, I guess. Cool. Still, Claire wanted to do things without cheating, so she, armed with the fake muscle memory the System gave her, began casting Blade Wards again.
It only took two tries for her to do it alone. And ten after that before she could get it in less than twenty seconds. She ignored honks outside and the rising sun, practicing the Blade Ward until she could cast it consistently under five.
Reading the system prompts, she realized that in fact, people were not supposed to form the runes manually. Noting the language of the system, the level had increased once when she cast it successfully with aid for the first time, and then its proficiency increased with the second test. The level had greatly increased after forming the runes manually for the first time, and after only, like, half an hour of practice it had jumped to max level.
Looking at the clock, she had a slight panic after seeing the time, 9 AM, but felt relieved after realizing it was a Saturday, and she didn’t have anything to do today. Besides practice my spells, that is. Wiping off sweat from her brow with a corner of her blanket, Claire moved to her desk, setting her spellbook on the table and opened up the screen for Blade Ward’s capstone.
Strength was the most straightforward of them all. Simply raising the strength of the barrier to double what it is. A powerful upgrade. It would make the barrier look thicker too, which would be a plus.
Duration seemed like a mixed bag. Having a longer spell duration might make it possible to stack Blade Wards on top of each other, one system cast and the other manual, but the fact that she didn’t know how high wizard levels went was a big turn-off.
That left flexibility. Stopping magic as well as weapons would never not be helpful. It seemed like a large upgrade, too, which had some interesting implications. Are the same capstones offered to everyone, or are there requirements to meet that unlock more? Also, how strong is the barrier, compared to attacks and other spells? Eh, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
“Nice!” Claire exclaimed, reviewing the spell’s description. The words had changed in her physical spellbook along with the spell list, and so had the runes. The changes were small, so they were easy to commit to memory again.
Casting the spell through the system, Claire’s hands moved on their own as a full-body translucent blue bubble appeared around her. She tried to touch the inside of the barrier, but realized the bubble was just out of arm’s reach. She counted twenty seconds before the spell disappeared.
Dismissing the boxes for the moment, she left her spellbook open on the desk, moving back towards her bed. Reaching towards the outlet on the wall, she received a light electric shock as she picked up her phone. Furrowing her brows in confusion, she pressed the side button again and again, to no avail. Setting it down on the bed, Claire quickly dressed herself and got ready to go outside, then sat back in her chair before her open spellbook.
Two slips of material, light blue and dark green, floated gently down, setting themselves down next to Claire’s spellbook on her desk. Golden letters and runes were all over the object. They looked like thick rulers, and when Claire tried to pick the blue one up, it had some heft to it.
Selecting the Consume option, Claire watched the item turn into motes of light that settled themselves inside of her spellbook. She extended a hand towards the book, flipping a page and opening her Spell List.
After reading the new spells and memorizing their constructs, Claire opened the door to her room and stepped out into the hallway. Glancing at the clock on the wall, the time was 9:01 AM.
{Continue topic? … Denied.}
{Report complete.}
