Alex was almost giddy with how fast they had been, despite his dislike of any time spent outside of the plan. While it had only taken about half an hour to accomplish the stop, it was still a delay that they hadn’t planned on.
Their purchases were packed into a large crate which Alex put into his inventory as soon as Jason couldn’t easily see him.
His little bit of unease was alleviated as soon as they stepped back out onto the street, and they both got a System message.
Hidden Quest [Yes, There’s Magic]: Complete
You have used your fake money to gain real dividends.
You have realized that an apocalypse might be just what you need to get ahead, and the potential of dying won’t slow you down.
You have acquired a ‘Basic Mana Manipulation, Basic’ skill orb.
Reward:
Experience awarded
100% chance of successfully absorbing the Skill orb for ‘Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)’
Starter Spell(s) upon the absorption of ‘Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)’
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Don’t put your eye out with a Magic Bolt or anything.
Alex grinned, and Natasha laughed even as they began moving once again, this time toward Alex’s apartment.
It was interesting that they got quest experience instantly, but that distinction hardly mattered in the moment.
Natasha’s improved mood dimmed a bit as her features firmed with resolve. Alex knew that she was thinking of her family based on what she’d said in the stairwell. She was doing all of this to get back to them, after all. Alex just hoped that they were safe until her return.
He turned his focus onto their newly acquired bounty.
The orb that he wanted was in the bottom of the crate, having been among the first they’d selected. Still, Alex believed that he could get at it.
He held out his hand and willed for his inventory to give him what he wanted.
It was a struggle, but finally, there was a bit of a pop, and he held the orb.
He immediately tossed it to Natasha, who caught it, eyes wide.
He then focused once again on getting out a specific orb even as they quick-walked toward his apartment.
Less than a minute later, there was another orb in his hand, the system likely helping to make it easier as he’d already done a similar task once.
Before he could do anything else, another system notification appeared.
System Notice!
Through repeated, purposeful use and intentional practice, you have gained understanding of the use of Inventories.
Apology Tutorial Skill Acquisition has reduces the requirements for this upgrade.
Reward:
Inventory (Temp) Upgraded!
Inventory (Temp) → Inventory (Common)
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
What was once only loaned is now yours to keep!
No, you didn’t steal it.
Inventory (Temp)
Carrying things is annoying for everyone. Now, you can carry things without having to actually carry them.
Aren’t you special?
You have been given access to a 10x10x10ft extra-dimensional storage on a temporary basis.
You instinctively know how to place things within this space, how to draw them out, and what is inside.
Anything beyond that is up to you.
Any items still within the space when you lose this skill with be destroyed and then forcefully ejected into reality from within your heart.
Empty your beloved and useful storage before the time runs out.
→
Inventory (Common)
Carrying things is annoying for everyone. Now, you can carry things without having to actually carry them.
Aren’t you special?
You have been given access to a 10x10x10ft extra-dimensional storage.
You instinctively know what is inside, how to place things within this space, how to draw them out, and how to rearrange that which is within.
Alex grinned, if he understood correctly, that meant that he now had the inventory permanently. That was backed up by the skill description seemingly only changing to remove the text around the dimensional storage vanishing in the future.
Well, and now it seems to acknowledge that I can move stuff within the space. That’s neat.
He checked, and sure enough, manipulating items within his Inventory was much easier than it had been previously.
He quickly told Natasha, and she texted the group before she started obviously working to pull small things from inventory and put them back.
She was much slower than Alex was, and he once again could only assume that it had to do with Mental stats in one way or another.
Neither of them had absorbed the Basic Mana Manipulation skill orb yet, and Alex was suddenly grateful for that, even if he wasn’t sure why. Despite that uncertainty, he verbalized his concerns to Natasha, “Something tells me that we should absorb the other skills before unlocking our Magic.” He didn’t have anything specific that made him feel that way, more a niggling sense in the back of his head.
Natasha shrugged, “Alright. Let’s do it, then.”
He then quickly pulled out the Quick Step orb, which Natasha had requested for herself, having already grabbed the two Analyze orbs before they were distracted. After a moment’s pause, he also handed her the Mine-Not-Yours orb that she’d gotten for them.
“What does that do? I don’t think I saw the details.” He hoped that she didn’t mind the question.
She shrugged, not seeming to care one way or another. “It greatly reduces the friction for an item that I’m touching for everyone and everything but me for one second, with a five second cooldown.”
He blinked a few times, then considered her spear. “Wow… That’s perfect for you.”
She nodded once. “That it is. It’s got pretty limited application for others, though. Honestly, I’m more excited to have gotten us Detect Trove. This System is operating like a video game, and the best part of any video game is the loot.”
Alex huffed and shook his head. Here he was, again, thinking too much like this was still earth. Of course a means of finding valuable things would be useful. “Thank you for handling that. I sometimes get in my own head and overcomplicate things.”
She smiled even as he returned his focus to his own Analyze orb.
They both looked down at their skill orbs intently.
Nothing happened.
Alex sighed and pulled out ‘System Basics’ from his inventory and flipped to the index before finding what he wanted and flipping to the section on orbs.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He sighed again, but had to laugh, handing this copy over to Natasha who stuck it into her inventory.
He held out the Analyze orb and said, “Absorb Skill, Analyze.”
System Notice!
By means of a skill orb, you have learned a skill.
Apology Tutorial Skill Acquisition ensures 100% compatibility.
Reward:
Analyze (Common) [Skill]
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Hey, is that a rock? It looks like a rock, but can you really be sure? Now you’ll know!
Analyze (Common)
It is quite important to know what is around you. The System understands that and has provided. You are now able to access limited System information on some of that which you can clearly see.
Mental Power and Agility have a marginally greater effect when you are trying to determine the nature of something that you can see.
Alex grinned as the orb disappeared from his hand as if it had never been. Natasha copied him, her own skill orb vanishing, even as he glanced her way and used the new skill.
Natasha Kalshlov
Human, Level 1
The information was not that helpful, but it was something. He also assumed that he’d learn more after he leveled up the rarity of the skill… assuming he could? That’s usually how these things worked, right?
He shook his head, refocusing.
Using the skill had also given him the odd feeling that she had in the neighborhood of only a fifth as much health as he had.
Yeah, I’m taking any hits that come our way if at all possible.
He pulled out the next orb and said, “Absorb Skill, Danger Sense.”
System Notice!
By means of a skill orb, you have learned a skill.
Apology Tutorial Skill Acquisition ensures 100% compatibility.
Reward:
Danger Sense (Common) [Skill]
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Should I stand under this falling piano?
No, no you should not.
Danger Sense (Common)
Existence under the purview of the System is dangerous. Now, you are more aware of that danger.
Mental Power and Agility have a marginally greater effect in whether or not you notice the presence of something which could cause you harm.
Physical Agility has a marginally greater effect when reacting to anything sensed with this skill.
Nothing really changed that he could tell, but that seemed like a good thing.
Not sensing any danger, I guess? So, he was safe… or the danger was beyond his ability to notice…
He shook his head. That way lay madness.
Natasha absorbed her next skill while he was still overthinking things.
With that reminder, he didn’t delay further, pulling out the final orb and saying, “Absorb Skill, Basic Mana Sense.”
Notice!
By means of a skill orb, you have learned a skill.
Apology Tutorial Skill Acquisition ensures 100% compatibility.
Reward:
Basic Mana Sense (Common) [Skill]
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
You see Magic, you say?
Let’s hope your friends believe you.
Basic Mana Sense (Common)
Mana is everywhere within the System, now you have the ability to actually sense it.
Mental Power and Agility have a marginally greater effect when you are trying to detect magic, mana, or other forms of power around yourself.
Alex found himself smiling at the System’s sense of humor yet again, even as he suddenly had a moment of disorientation.
It passed after only that moment, thankfully.
He would have missed a step, but he felt like his innate use of Advanced Kinesthetics kept him moving as he should.
After the initial wave of oddity, he noticed that only a few things were obviously magical.
Natasha had some magic to her, and he instinctively knew that that was because she had levels.
Most other people around them were essentially without magic at all.
Alright, so I’ll notice if something has magic. I hope that’s as useful as I thought it would be.
Then, he noticed himself.
He was practically bursting with… well it wasn’t magic, but it was definitely power of some sort, and it was just as clearly life-aspected—he was not entirely sure how he knew that from his sense, even if he could have guessed it from his Attribute description. However he knew, it was easy to see that his every heartbeat caused flows of this life-aspected power to move through him in surging pulses.
For some reason he felt immediately grateful that it wasn’t affecting the world around him, and something told him that the feeling of relief came from his new Danger Sense.
Yeah, if I was filling the area around me with ripples of power, I would be a rather easy to spot target…
With his focus on the power running through his veins, he suddenly say a spark of something similar in every person around them. It was stronger in Natasha. Again, Aex assumed that it was because she had levels.
As he came out of his power-examining fuge, he noted that Natasha was giggling to herself, having finished absorbing all three of her skills. It was an oddly girlish noise for the older woman, but it seemed to suit her well enough.
In a blink, she was two feet away—just about the length of one of her steps.
It wasn’t much, but even Alex’s low level of combat skill told him just how devastating such a shift could be in close quarters combat. “How often can you do that?”
“At the moment, it looks like every five seconds or so.”
He nodded. “Use it as often as you can to get used to it. I think Jason implied that we could reduce cooldowns that way.” The Magic store attendant had dropped a few such nuggets of wisdom throughout their interaction. “We need to gain what we can as quickly as we can.”
She cocked her head to the side, then nodded. “That makes sense.”
Then, her eyes narrowed. “Wait. How are you level 2? What’s going on?” Her eyes widened. “Why do you feel like you have so much more health than I do? What the cracker?”
He kept himself from laughing at the System’s randomly chosen replacement for what was undoubtedly an obscenity. He’d been expecting this as soon as he knew they were getting Analyze skills. “I had some irregularities during my selection process.”
“Good ones it seems.” She looked interested more than envious.
He shrugged. There wasn’t a reason to hide the broad strokes. “Eh… I got infected by a zombie and almost turned.”
A passing pedestrian jerked, clearly having heard him. The man’s eyes were a bit harried, and he picked up the pace, glancing over his shoulder at them as he practically jogged away.
Alex ignored him and continued on, “I guess I caused something of a System glitch by still getting to the door. The resolution ended up getting me an extra level and a rare race.”
Natasha huffed, smiling slightly. “Yeah, you’re definitely in front if we get attacked.”
Alex chuckled. “That was already the plan.” He grinned. “Dadao, remember? Short-range damage dealer. You have a spear. If you’re as close to the enemy as I am, something’s gone terribly wrong.”
She shrugged. “True, true.”
The Watcher was having a slew of major headaches.
Altering the foundation of the scenario after it had already been initialized was causing the quest balances to break all over the place.
The System itself had interfered with all the quest timers because her initial promise of ‘less than 24hrs’ to get to safety was deemed deceptively inaccurate.
It was right with the parameters as I built them… She groused yet again.
Quite a few of the groups in this scenario had acquired means of unlocking their mana, and that was going to cause… chaos when they actually used them.
With mage-hunter variants of the undead, what defenses the city had—the defenses that she’d crafted to let the plague have a measured, but inevitable growth—were already being shredded.
Two groups of Initiates had already been overwhelmed by the wave of turning undead despite the System’s heavy alteration of their starting quests to incentivize them to get to safer parts of the city.
Other groups had their quests now obviously pointing toward grouping up with others in a manner that was very much not in the spirit of them having chosen their groups beforehand.
Still, she had to admit that the Systems changes were effective in returning some semblance of balance to this colossal mess.
She still needed to adjust the reward calculations for the various quests or the System would do it for her, and give the Initiates extra as penalty…
An added expense that would be taken from the person responsible for the mix up. Her eyes flicked to the door the Supervisor had come through.
Hmmm… An idea began to form in her mind.
She couldn’t leave them all as they were, such blatant sabotage of her superior would ruin her paths of advancement, but she could take a chunk out of him with little chance of repercussion.
Well, Alex already has the best chance of surviving this… Let’s see if we can arrange for a bit of forgetfulness, shall we?
With a barely contained smile, the Watcher adjusted Alex’s group’s side quest rewards, only for something urgent to pull her attention away, just before she got to Alex’s own.
Ahh, well. These things happen when micro-managers stick their fingers where they aren’t wanted.
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