Forever

Salim stood for a while, considering his options. Hedge-Mage was looking like the best choice since previously, he hadn’t been able to run any tests with the skills. There was also the intriguing question of what would happen with [Wayfind].

Classes Available

Hedge-Mage

(Upgraded)

Learning the arcane, a worldly class for those wanting to understand the secrets of the world.

Druid

(Upgraded)

Utilizing the power of nature itself, you become learned in the art of becoming one with the cycle.

Nomad

(Swap)

Becoming experienced in the ways of wandering, it has become a way of life for you.

After a small one-sided debate, he decided to go with [Hedge-Mage], the reasoning being that he still wanted to be a mage. The fact that it made figuring out [Wayfind] easier was just icing on the cake. Making up his mind, Salim pushed on the box in front of him.

You have chosen the Hedge-Mage Class.

The experience of your mind guides you

You have upgraded 5 Skills.

‘Energy Manipulation’ -> ‘Arcane Shape’

‘Energy Sight’ -> ‘Arcane Eyes’

‘Energy Toleration’ -> ‘Reinforced Channels’

‘Channelers Mind’ -> ‘Learned Mind’

‘Wayfind’ -> ‘Arcane Navigation’

You have gained 10 stat points.

Closing the window, Salim opened up the skill menu to check [Arcane Navigation] while thinking back to [Navigate]’s description. Obviously the skill had changed and trying to feel it in the same way as [Wayfind] or even wasn’t working anymore. Instead, he was feeling the breeze across his skin, despite the fact that the surrounding trees stayed absolutely still.

Questions for the future.

Putting the mystery aside for a moment, Salim read the description of the new skill.

Skills

Arcane Shape (Class)

Lvl. 1

Take shape the forces of the other world.

Arcane Eyes (Class)

Lvl. 1

See true, the world beyond the veil.

Reinforced Channels (Class)

Lvl. 1

The lifeblood of a mage.

Learned Mind (Class)

Lvl. 1

A hungry mind is a healthy mind.

Arcane Navigation (Innate)

Lvl. 1

The mystic arts will guide you.

He might have made a mistake, trading a very useful skill for an unintuitive ability that he could no longer functioned the same way. What he did find interesting was that all the other skills seemed like straightforward upgrades.

Maybe the skill had to match some requirement, which made it turn out so strange. He mused while he prepared to test out his other skills. Under the dark canopy of the forest, Salim tried out [Arcane Shape], manipulating the small amount of energy that had begun proliferating in his core, twisting it to try and do anything new with it.

Turns out, casting spells is still too complicated, when am I going to catch a break? Salim thought sardonically as he empowered [Arcane Eyes] to pear out at the panes of magenta light that were painting the night sky. As he stared, he felt confused, the panes looked exactly like they had before with his [Energy Sight]. Spending a few more minutes as his energy slowly dwindled trying to figure out what changed to no avail.

Taking a few more bites out of the most edible thing he had eaten in a while, he spent the rest of his time messing with the remaining mana he had. Occasionally taking a bite out of the fish, Salim cleaned the gunk out of his mouth with one of the many fish bones he had bitten into, laying his back against the ground to fall asleep.

His night was dreamless, a connecting thread to almost every other night he had spent on the planet, which he guessed was due to a combination of fear, dread, and sleeping on the uncomfortable ground. His morning came quickly as he stretched his body to try and rid himself of the morning sourness and muscle aches that had been a constant staple over the past few months. Opening his eyes, he yawned before realizing that he hadn’t assigned any of his stat points the previous night.

Lvl. 10

Stats

Confirm

Might: 18 (20)

-/+

Finesse: 20 (21)

-/+

Resilience: 18 (20)

-/+

Acuity: 18(20)

-/+

Resolve: 19(20)

-/+

Depth: 11 (20)

-/+

The rush of stat points quickly fully woke him up as he fell back onto his sleeping spot as he was stoned from all fifteen of the points rushing into him. Said sleeping spot softened the blow to his body, but failed to stop the blow to his ego. With a grunt and some effort, Salim jumped back onto his feet, trying to brush the dirt off of him. As he finished dusting and looked around, he spotted a figure seated at the trunk of a tree a couple yards away from him.

“Hello.” Fallon spoke with unshakable apathy. They uncrossed their legs, pushing up against the trunk until they stood in front of Salim. Almost immediately, Salim knew something was different about their appearance, of course they still looked like Nadalie, but something had changed since he saw them last. As they approached him, the feeling of unease kept grew, as he tried to spot what could have possibly changed, until he realized.

“Tall… You’re taller than you were before.” Salim got out, realizing that they now stood head-to-head with him, while his girlfriend had definitely not, much to her chagrin. Blinking, he also realized that what he had thought were clothes must have been some sort of skin.

Having no beginning or end to, the sleeves and instead subtly melded into their skin like they were painted on but with actual depth and texture. He looked away, regretting having seen that little detail that made Fallon look like a hauntingly accurate morph suit.

“That is correct. When I introduced myself, I tried to replicate your memories as much as possible so that you would not feel alarmed.” Their pitched remaining monotone.

“Fair enough, I guess- look how did you find me?” He was curious, especially since he was sure that his body hadn’t accidentally brushed up against a beam of light the night before.

Fallon looked unamused, “I follow a path to the nearest source of water.” Salim had to hold back a quip about how they had refused to tell him where it was the before they had left.

“Yea… Right, ignore that, how are you taller, why are you taller?” He watched them uncross their arms as their gaze bore into him, eyes impossible to read.

“Because…” they enunciated, drawing out the words with a surprising show of emotion. “I have your memories, not your girlfriend’s. It is disorienting to have different proportions when I am trying to navigate in this form.” Salim made a note that they hadn’t explained how their proportions had changed.

However, he knew that he wasn’t getting anything more and the explanation was enough to satisfy Salim’s curiosity, any more questions and Fallon was most likely just going to ignore him. Deciding to leave it at that, he got to work shaving up a new spear, this one slightly smaller and more compact to try and stop it from breaking when used over a fire. And while he could attempt to use his old spear, he wasn’t inclined since it was brittle from being used as a spittle.

Fallon leaned against a tree as Salim whittled, slowly creating a point at one end with dogged perseverance and a ton of sharp stone. Although it was slow-going, the speed was still faster than the first time he had attempted it, so Salim was pleased at his improvement rather than feeling bored. While hard at work, Salim continued messing with [Arcane Shape], bending the mana in his stomach into cubes, pyramids, and spheres trying to get any reaction out of it.

Not seeing any results, Salim decided to go out on a limb.

“Hey, I know you said that the magic was instinctual, but you must have some tips, right? I doubt trying to create people comes naturally to you.” The question was met with silence, and after a few moments, Salim looked up to see if Fallon was still there.

They were. Fallon stared at him with an intense, emotionless expression before responding.

“I will give you an explanation that might assist.” They held out their hand, palm up, from which purple light appeared in a stationary undulating wave above it. Salim set down his half made spear, slightly in awe of seeing true magic for the first time.

Starting with their explanation, Fallon began to shape the light into a strange geometric shape Salim couldn’t describe. “I use my will and intent to shape the energy that my body produces into forms that have meaning to me, with the interpretation of my meaning being inflicted upon the world.”

Looking away from him, they continued speaking, changing the shape as they went. “Your memories caused me to gain sentience, which while imparting me with greater control over magic, meant I had to spend years training to perform such feats.”

“So you inherently knew how to cast spells, but gaining awareness stopped you from casting them?” Salim asked to try and clear up his confusion.

“Correct. Inherently, a more primal mind seems to be better at harnessing magic, although what they can do seems intrinsically tied to what they are.”

“What could you do, before, you know, had my memories?”

“...” Fallon pointedly did not respond.

After a few seconds of waiting, Salim continued on, “So, how do I cast? You said it just needed willpower and then poof? I tried that, it didn’t work”

“No, it wouldn’t work if you haven’t trained. For years, I have been looking for meaning in this world, tying concepts to symbol and meaning to constellation.” They twisted the hologram to show seven stars aligned in a pattern that Salim didn’t recognize. “With your memories of the other world, I have been able to understand more complicated concepts, which is why I am explaining this to you.”

“So you feel indebted?” Salim wondered if that was another emotion they could feel.

“No. I understand that I should feel indebted, and to curry favor with you, I will act as such.”

“Oh-Kay” Salim responded, not sure how to react to their bluntness. “So how do I go about tying the meaning of… let's just say, shooting a fireball?”

Fallon was surprisingly patient with answering his questions, “You need to segment the ideas and then combine them, think of creating a ball, filling it with fire, and then projecting it outwards. The thought process you should use is hard to explain, you need a line of logic of which you filter your understanding of a concept into direct meaning.”

“So it’s possible?” Salim asked idly, trying to grasp the concepts that felt like they where flying over his head.

“It is possible, it may, however, take you a while to accomplish. I have theorized how different thought processes make different concepts easier than others to understand, but theoretically as long as you understand something you should be able to effect it.” Fallon shifted the projection into a glowing ball of fire for emphasis.

“So I need to come up with a way to think about the world, that lets me ascribe meaning to it…” Salim racked his mind for any ideas on an answer. If this is going to let me cast spells, then I need to make the right decision, especially if this lets me grow even after I reset.

Fallon put a hand to their chin in a very human expression, “My method would not work, my mind is too different from your own, English words are also a bad idea since they inherently lack symbology.”

“So it’s all up to me to come up with something?” Salim was slightly stumped, he had to create his own magic system from scratch, albeit with a little help. His mind kept spinning as he felt an idea come to him.

“Up to you. As keep in mind, while I have your memories, I am not you.” Emphasizing the end of their sentence. “After all these years; I may have looked at your memories for inspiration, but what worked for me will not work for you.”

Salim thought hard for a moment, starting his spear whittling again, having gotten half of the way to a point and wanting to finish before sundown. “What if, I write a small book about falling asleep and use the meaning of the story as a spell that obviously makes people fall asleep. Would that work?”

They paused, thinking on the idea before replying, “Theoretically. As long as the meaning of the story to you was about falling asleep. Potentially the more artistic the medium, the more esoteric the spell could be, although more rigid simple mediums would be better at coming up with spells on the fly.”

Thinking for a bit longer, they elaborated, “It's more complicated than that of course, since it all depends on perspective, a medieval peasant isn’t going to be able to conceptualize propellant force like you are. More than likely, they see it more like a bow shooting an arrow than a bullet.”

“So I need some sort of visual component, that describes an action and has an implicit understanding. A book would function, but I would need to understand an entire story to work as a concept.” Fallon nodded for him to continue his thought process. “So programming?”

More silence from Fallon, “Yes… that could work. As long as you are able to ascribe a meaning to a mental image of code, it will work. But that all depends on your mental aptitude for it.”

“Let me put this into perspective, just so that I can make sure I have this correct. I need the implicit understanding that a mental program I have can create fire, shape it into a ball, and then throw it. Did I get that correct?” He felt like he was getting his head around the idea a bit more.

“Yes, although I can assure you that multiple steps make the spell take longer, which once you have practice with it the spell should begin to mean fireball to you instead of the individual actions.” Their mouth tweaked slightly into the ghost of a pleased smile. Whether the smile came from his understanding or that they were pleased that they had explained it so well, he wasn’t really sure, however he still had a few questions.

“What about the skills I get from the system? I can use them with no understanding at all.” Salim paused, using [Arcane Eyes] to try and get a feel for what the skill. Half a second into the process and nothing was making sense, as he watched the shape defy normal physical conventions, bending in impossible directions that he couldn’t hope to replicate.

Stopping the skill as a headache developed, Salim focused on Fallon, who finally responded, “I'm unsure. I have similar skills, and despite the hundreds of years I have lived, I still do not understand them.” Assuming that was the end of it as Fallon turned away, Salim got back to carving the spear, finishing the rough carve with a thick but jagged point. As he did, his thoughts drifted to how he could use code to cast spells, thinking up a mental image of how the pseudocode would look.

He wasn’t sure how much time it would take for him to cast a fireball but why care? He had a seemingly infinite amount of time to experiment and make mistakes.