Author’s Corner: As promised, here is an extra chapter to celebrate the first 100 followers! As an added bonus, many questions should be answered in this chapter, assuming I don’t get super sidetracked.
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The rest of the day continued much like when I was learning Earth Affinity. Slowly… After a few hours, Wind Affinity increased to 3%, and I noticed an increased intake of wind mana just like I had done with earth. At one point, my concentration broke on the wind funnel, and noticed the familiar weights on my shoulders were gone.
In a mont of joy, I thought that Yin and Yang had willingly left, but the thought wasn’t even half ford before two blurs shot out of the forest and imdiately perched themselves on my shoulders again. Well… it was nice while it lasted.
Noting the ti with Celeste, I decided to log out to have dinner, or lunch, depending on how you look at ti. Opening the Seed, I got out and stretched, unconsciously letting out a slight yawn. Moving downstairs to get cooking, I had no idea just how weird today was going to be.
Like before, I chose to cook my al manually, this ti I chose to make a steak. My mind and stomach were yelling to eat sothing other than stale bread, so a nice juicy slab of at sounded perfect. Even the thought of a sandwich made nauseous. Within monts I had the at on the skillet and cooking, was getting ready to spice it and then made one of the stupidest mistakes a chef can make.
I grabbed the tal handle of the skillet with my bare hand. There was a sizzling sound coming from my hand as pain raced through . A scream tore at my throat as I hastily let go, but the damage was already done. All along my palm and fingers were thick red burns, making wince just looking at them. Naturally I ran so cold water over the burn, but even that hurt like hell, to the point where I did sothing I couldn’t explain.
I healed myself. I felt a sudden rush, and then looked at my palm since it was no longer hurting. Surprisingly, there wasn’t even a blister left, making doubt my hand had been burnt in the first place. However, I could still sll the burnt flesh in the air, and there was still the sizzling coming from the handle of the skillet.
What just… no, that’s not… I tried to think back to what I had done, but the only thing I could think of was the Alchemic Heal spell I knew from NeoLife. I don’t care how realistic a ga is, there is no way that I cast a spell in real life… right?
Even though logic told it was impossible, the mory of the pain in my hand made doubt it. As such, I made a conscious effort to connect with the mana in the sa way I would in the ga, and was stunned to find that there really was sothing there. For so reason, it didn’t feel quite as dense as it did in the ga, but nonetheless I could feel the presence of mana in the real world. At the sa ti, when I retracted my senses, I saw a haze of blue lights floating in front of , as if the mana was weaving itself into a familiar pattern. It looked like one of the notification screens from the ga.
Congratulations on achieving Full Synchro.As one of the thousand beta testers of NeoLife, we at Manifest Industries formally welco you to the true world offered by our product. A world where anything is possible.
Custors are advised to rember that, barring the use of magic, there will be no respawning outside of NeoLife. Everyone is granted a chance to make a new world for themselves, a new life. What path will you take?
I blinked a bit as I looked at the screen. I even waved my hand through it, causing it to turn into a cloud of blue mist before reforming. This just isn’t…. it’s not possible, right?
Everything felt like it was turning upside down, and I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. Rushing to the bathroom, I didn’t even make it all the way before I froze in place, looking at the mirror through the doorway. What I saw was my face, my body… but it wasn’t MY face, MY body… I looked like Falenel, the six foot half-elf with shoulder-length light brown hair, dark green eyes, and fairly pointed ears.
By now, I was 98% certain that I was going crazy. I rushed to my computer and instantly loaded up the internet, only to confirm it was the world that had gone mad. A thousand people, nine hundred and fifty of them having chosen a non-human race. There were posts on every forum from beta testers saying that they had turned into their character. One person who chose to play a Centrix, a centaur-like alien with two pairs of arms and a third eye, even said that his Seed reshaped itself to match his new body type.
Naturally, nobody believed them, but then ca the videos. So by the testers themselves, others by people saying that aliens had invaded. It had only been at most two hours, but it was already viral. I was secretly thanking myself for having chosen a humanoid character. I don’t know what would have happened if I woke up with the lower body of a horse.
At this ti, I received a notification from the house AI telling that I had an ergency call from law enforcent. I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? I started to panic for a brief mont, before forcing myself to calm down and accept the call.
On the wall, a holographic display of a man in a standard blue police uniform appeared. I couldn’t make out his na due to the low quality of the house’s holo-caller, but that didn’t matter when he introduced himself. “Mr. Hulett, correct? I’m Officer Faraday, of Oakland PD.”
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I took a deep breath, and prayed that this would work. “Yes, I’m Mr. Hulett.” A brief flash of surprise crossed my face as I realized I was not bound by the sa laws that made introduce myself by my character na in the real world, but I was happy at this fact. “I take it this is about the recent.. developnt?”
The officer on-screen nodded his head, and seed to take a mont to look over. My holo-caller was fairly low quality, as stated before, so colors weren’t very well transmitted. “Yes, so you’ve heard. We’ve acquired a list of testers for NeoLife, and are attempting to contact them, in order to discuss this… situation.”
“You caught at just the right-- Oh for fuck’s sake, I’ll be right back officer!” I panicked and ran back to the kitchen, turning the stove off and moving the skillet away. I was even in too much of a hurry to bother putting on an oven mitt, and once again burned myself. “God that smarts!” Since I knew it was possible now, I quickly cast my Alchemic Heal on myself before moving back to the living room to resu the call.
“Is everything okay, sir?” Officer Faraday asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry, officer. In light of recent events, I forgot I had a steak that was ready to burn the house down.” I tried to play off a bit of humor, which did not work against the law enforcent officer.
“I see. Then, I shall get right to it. Have you been affected by this event as many are claiming to be? And if so, in what way? You still appear to be human, from what I can see.”
“Ah, that. Yeah… I just noticed I was affected before you called. My inga race is half-elf, so looking fairly human is not surprising.”
He looked a bit suspicious at that, as if not believing . “Can you provide any proof of this change, then?”
I nodded, and closed my eyes. There was a slight tearing noise as I focused, but soon I had cast Aspect of the Bird, creating the four angelic wings. In hindsight, I should have taken off my now-ruined shirt… “This is a spell I learned inga… it seems they can be cast out here too.” To further prove my point, I started hovering a few feet in the air, but that only lasted for a few monts.
Nonetheless, it was enough to startle the officer, who was now looking at with a slack-jawed expression. “I-I see.. So it’s true, then. You’re the only tester living in our jurisdiction, so we weren’t sure whether to believe it or not. And to be quite frank, if you hadn’t shown that… that, just now, I doubt I would have believed myself.”
Judging by the movents of his shoulders, he seed to be reaching for sothing off screen. “Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about this. We received a fax about an hour ago saying that all Manifest sites and employees have vanished from the face of the world. All of their locations are now abandoned lots that show no evidence of having been used in the last year. This seems to have happened overnight. Had it not been for seeing you grow wings, I’d say it was impossible. Their site remains active, and continues to accept pre-orders for the next line of Seeds. However, we have no idea where they intend to ship from.”
I was a bit confused why he was telling all of this to , but I figured it must be so kind of consolation speech about how they’re trying their best to make human again. “Officer, all things considered, I think I got off lucky. I’d bet at least a quarter of the testers chose races that were not humanoid. All I got is a makeover and magic.”
He paused at that, not seeming to know how to respond, before nodding his head slightly. “Understood. Is there anything else you think we should know pertaining to this event?”
I thought about that for a few monts, but could only co to one conclusion. “This is only the beginning. Thanks to my class, I am able to sense things, primarily mana. There is mana in the air here, though it is not as thick as it is in the ga. If the Seeds are truly making this world more like the ga, then I’d expect the mana to be of the sa quality.”
He raised an eyebrow again, but didn’t say anything for a while. “I see… While officially I am required to ask you to refrain from playing NeoLife if at all possible, in light of this I think it would be best if you continue, at least until we know more. If what you say is true, then we have no idea what will happen. Best case scenario, nothing, everything stays as it is now. Worst case, I think, monsters roaming the streets. Not players turned into aliens, but real monsters.”
I was a bit shocked by that. It seed as though Officer Faraday had played a few gas as well to think of that. “Well, was planning on it anyways. Even if shit hits the fans, still gotta pay the bills.” I shrugged, and thanked him for the advice before dismissing the call. I still had a steak to eat, though slightly burnt now.
After eating the steak, and connecting back to the ga, a thought occurred to . Nature Magic’s Alchemic Heal is based on the interaction of plants. But those plants don’t exist in the real world, so how did that spell work on the outside?
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Author’s Basent: And there it is folks! A bit shorter of a chapter than normal, but this should answer quite a few questions about the direction of the story. Like always, I will do my best to keep an eye on the thread for questions, and answer what I can.
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