Chapter Two "Exploration"
Kazuto opened his mouth to explain to his older brother figure, but no words came out. He frowned in confusion and tried again. Yet the same happened. No sound came out as if something was preventing him from speaking. He tried for the third time as 3 times was the charm. This time, it was not just sound, but he felt a jolt of pain coming from his throat.
"Kazuto, don't try answering me," Said Shirou as he noticed Kazuto's abnormal behavior. "If my suspicion is correct then you cannot answer me due to a magic contract or vow."
"A magic contract or vow can stop me from speaking on a topic?" Kazuto asked in a hesitant tone, still not used to the whole concept that magic was real.
"Magecraft is capable of just about everything, save for a few exceptions like breaking the laws of physics or what True Magic is capable of. As to those exceptions, you can learn about it at a later time after you have some basic understanding of Magecraft." Shirou replied. "Do you remember meeting any suspicious people or touching any weird things? Anything unusual that you might remember?"
Kazuto was about to shake his head when he recalled the only supernatural thing that had happened to his life such as discovering Magic Circuits were real and being unable to speak due to magic had all happened after playing Magecraft Online. He frowned as he tried to recall any incidents related to Magecraft Online that involved signing a contract or making a vow. His eyes lit up.
"Give me a second," said Kazuto as he reached for his smartphone and he browsed to the official Magecraft Online website. "It should be… Here!" He shouted as Kazuto handed his smartphone over to Shirou after finding what he had been looking for. "This is the most likely thing I think might be stopping me from explaining the situation to you."
"Let's see…" Shirou took Kazuto's smartphone and looked at the screen. "Is this what I think…" He started to frown. "Yes, that certainly seems to be the case."
Kazuto's eyes widened in surprise when he detected the strange sight. His false memories from Magecraft Online might be like a hazy fog that he couldn't remember very well, it was a completely different story with regards to Magecraft. If he remembered correctly what he just saw was Shirou sending part of his consciousness into his smartphone.
Wait? Is that even possible? I thought modern technology didn't work well with Magecraft…" Kazuto thought in confusion.
"That might have been the case before the Mage Reformation, where Magecraft was compatible with technology from the 19th century at best." Shirou replied as if reading Kirito's mind. "Like I said before with what the limits of Magecraft were, the Mage Reformation is a topic that I will teach you after you have learned and are capable of the basic Magecraft. Just know that it was a historical time period that saw Magecraft being able to work with modern technology thanks to the birth of Spirit Hackers." He explained as he continued with part of his consciousness searching Kazuto's smartphone, especially the data document downloadable from the official Magecraft Online website. "I didn't know it was even possible or how it was done, but somehow a geas has been placed on the Magecraft Online's User Agreement."
Kazuto's eyes blinked in confusion. "Are you suggesting that by signing an online document that I can't speak about my experience of Magecraft Online?" He paused for a moment as he realized something. "Hey! There is nothing stopping me from talking about my Magic Circuits anymore."
"To answer your question, yes the user agreement was stopping you from speaking about it. The only reason why you can now speak about your experience of Magecraft Online was because of my demonstration of Spirit Hacking. I met one of the requirements on the User Agreement as someone you can talk to after a player's discovery that Magecraft was real." Shirou replied. "So, mind telling me about your experience in Magecraft Online?"
Kazuto immediately got to telling his older brother figure everything he recalled. It took a good part of an hour before Shirou heard everything.
"That seems interesting… A VR videogame that nearly flawlessly replicates the real world is secretly training its players into mages." Shirou mused as he rubbed his chin. "Well, you are lucky that you are living in 2022. If this shitstorm known as Magecraft Online had happened before the Mage Reformation then you would at best had your memory erased or killed, and worse slapped with a Sealing Designation and used for unethical human experimentation."
Kazuto shivered in fear. He didn't know what the Mage Reformation was, but he got the feeling that the world of mages had once been a very dark and dangerous place if Shirou claims of having his memory erased or killed was the best thing that could have happened. His imaginations ran wild at his possible fate of being a subject of unethical human experimentation before clamping down on his fears.
Yea, I must be really lucky to be living after the Mage Reformation and in the year of 2022. Kazuto thought to himself with great relief.
"This isn't a situation that I can fix given that the creator of Magecraft Online, Akihiko Kayaba, is a Lord of the newly reformed Mage's Association. As long as Akihiko doesn't break the new laws and regulations agreed upon the Mage's Association and Holy Church, I can use my influence to have the man arrested and tried." Shirou muttered darkly, but Kazuto's sharp hearing was able to hear it.
"What are the laws and regulations that you are talking about?" Kazuto blurted out in curiosity.
Shirou's eyes slightly widened before he immediately recovered his composure. "The new laws and regulations of the supernatural world, Post-Mage Reformation, are very similar to the commonly accepted laws and regulations used around the non-magical world with one small exception. No one is allowed to leak the secrets of the supernatural. The punishment is harsh, but not as close as Pre-Formation."
Those scary punishments Shirou-niisan talked about earlier must be how people were punished during Pre-Mage Reformation times. Kazuto thought as he shivered. "Hasn't Akihiko Kayaba broken the law about leaking the secrets of the supernatural with his creation of Magecraft Online?"
"No, he isn't." Shirou shook his head and he pointed at the electronic copy of Magecraft Online's User Agreement on Kazuto's smartphone screen. "This magic contract prevents anyone from leaking the secrets of the supernatural as demonstrated by yourself. Only someone who was a mage before playing the game would have the skills and knowledge to have any chance of breaking the magic contract. Akihiko did his job properly and the magic contract is so tough to break that very few mages, the very best, have the ability to break it, barring extreme circumstances. So with the User Agreement to his game, he has filled the legal obligations trying to protect the secrecy of magecraft and cannot be arrested as of right now."
"Oh, so… Can you help me out, Shirou-niisan?" Shirou nodded his head. "Can you teach me the ropes of being a mage in the real world? I don't want to be arrested for something I didn't know I should not be doing."
"You don't even have to ask that question. Of course, I will teach you the ropes. You are my little brother. How can I leave you out in the dark about the world of magecraft?" Shirou replied as he affectionately rubbed Kazuto's head. "Here is what you need to know…"
- O -
"After Shirou-niisan's lecture, I am curious how the real world Magecraft is different from the one in Aincard." Kirito remarked as he logged into Magecraft Online.
He activated the game UI that didn't appear unless specifically called for, which was to preserve Magecraft Online's advertised realism, Kirito went to the Stat window. Kirito looked at what kind of Stats that Magecraft Online used and he was surprised by what he saw. The choice of names for each Stat was more in line with the other RPGs such as Constitution, Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Will – save for two: Magic Circuits and Senses.
A short summary of what each Stats by Magecraft Online was:
Constitution - Vitality (Health Points), stamina, physical endurance and resistances for special types of damage (poisons, illness, heat etc.)
Strength - Physical strength.
Magic Circuits - Magical power, how much Od a player have and the magical energy they can produce at any given times.
Agility - flexibility, balance, body coordination and reflexes.
Senses - how sharp and sensitive someone's five senses are.
Intelligence - deductive reasoning, cognition, knowledge, memory, logic and rationality
Wisdom - self-awareness, common sense, restraint, perception and insight
Charisma - force of personality, persuasiveness, leadership and successful planning.
Will - Mental resistance (against pain, fear etc).
"That interesting," Kirito muttered as he read what were minor details or flavor text in other games.
There was more beside just a basic summary of what the Stats did. Kirito couldn't help but be amazed by the additional length that game developers had gone with the depth and details done to describe what each Stat did and how it affected the game.
Apparently, the Magecraft Online developers had introduced what they called Sub-Stat. It was supposed to allow players further control and customization ability over their choice of Build. For example, someone attacking from a long distance such as projectile weapon users like archers could choose to upgrade their Eye Sub-Stat under the Sense Stat to see further away or scout to increase their Nose and Hearing Substat under Sense Stat to enhance their nose or ears.
What was that the developers had gone even further with things like the Lifespan Sub-Stat that affected the number of years that a player's avatar has. Such an example, Kirito didn't currently know what the purpose was, but the Devs had a reason to. There were also interesting additions that made sense to Kirito like how Constitution Stat's Stamina Sub-Stat didn't just limit Skills or attacks that a player could make, but also everything that a player did to replicate fatigue worked in the real world.
After looking at how Magecraft Online's Stat system worked he got down to looking at his Avatar Stats.
Name: Kirito
Age: 15
Race: Human
Personal Level: 0
Class Level: Mage Apprentice Lvl 0
EXP: 213
Constitution: 1
Strength: 1
Magic Circuits: 1
Agility: 1
Senses: 1
Intelligence: 1
Wisdom: 1
Charisma: 1
Will: 1
"The average human is used as an example of what 1 Stat point is worth. So, if I had 2 Stat points in Strength, I would possess the strength of two average baseline humans." Kirito mused. "How did I get EXP though? I didn't kill any monsters or do any quests. Well, whatever… I will learn the answer to that soon enough." Kirito groaned as he sat up and flexed his body. "I spent enough time looking around the Stat system for now. Let's start playing!"
He grabbed some clothes that were suitable for exploring and fighting with before opening the door and left his room. Kirito walked along the dark corridor, toward a staircase.
Although it was daytime now, Kirito didn't meet any other apprentice along the way. If his false memories were correct there were over fifty official apprentices living in the tower but, most of the time, the apprentices were either busy with studying or practicing magecraft. They rarely loiter in public places. Hence, why the swampy tower always looked so empty or quiet.
After crossing the long, dark corridor and descending the spiral stone staircase Kirito reached the main hall on the first level of the tower. Here he finally ran into more people because Kirito had reached the living quarters for the probationary Mage Apprentices. Most of the Probationary Mage Apprentices were children, ranging from 14 to 18 years old, and there were about twenty of them.
Kirito couldn't help but shake his head as he recalled his avatar's false memories or Gray's lecture. He felt really sorry for many of them as the harshest part becoming a mage would start for them; learning the foundational knowledge of magecraft and learning how to activate their Magic Circuits which demanded long hours of effort and many sleepless nights surpassing that of the average college student in their teenage years.
He ignored the burning glances from the newest batch of probationary apprentices and went straight through the main hall, quickly coming to a tightly sealed stone door.
Kirito placed his right palm against the stone door and channeled his Od from his Magic Circuits into the door. Soon afterwards, the ancient looking stone door slowly slid to both sides, revealing the dark, eerie looking swamp, outside the tower, to Kirito.
"So, this was an eerie and fearsome magical swamp that was very scary according to my false memories." Kirito muttered as he stared at the swamp.
Though it was daytime, the thick clouds and fog meant that very little light was able to get through, and thus the world looked quite dreary. The whole world seemed to have a gloomy, earthy yellow tone. Kirito wouldn't be surprised that after living in such an environment for a long time, even the character of a person would change and become darker.
The stony trail in front of Kirito kept winding as it led into the depths of the misty fog. He saw weird plants of all sizes, which could be barely seen on both sides of the path. Short and thick, cone-shaped trees, small leafy plants that curled around in a spiral, vine-like rattans that brushed against the top of his head as he walked under them, and amazingly colored, mystical flowers that had petals the size of large washbowls.
Though all of this made it seem like it was just a normal swamp, Kirito knew very well that he could never take even half a step out from the stony trail.
Even if it seemed incredibly realistic to him that he might forget he was no longer on Earth, Kirito's false memories told him that all those animals and plants, which were able to survive in the swamp, were frightening monsters who would eat every little bit of the humans they encountered, not even leaving their bones behind.
Those plain looking short trees were actually quite frightening. If a person got close enough to them, their curled-up branch would instantly expand, grabbing and holding the person within its tight clutches. At that moment, the bloodsucking rattans, which were hanging on the trees, would coil up around that person, poking countless sharp thorns into their body, slowly sucking the blood out of their body, drop by drop.
After the person's blood was completely dried up, the remaining skin, flesh, and bones would become the best fertilizer for the blood trees.
If someone could ever safely dig out the blood red soil underneath those blood trees, they would certainly discover a huge pile of skeletons, some of which belonged to humans, some of which were animals. Without digging there would be no evidence of any of the prey the plants had devoured!
There were two reasons why the tower in the swamp groomed the magical plants. First, it was to prevent the intrusion from other humans. Second, it was so they could harvest some unique magic materials from the plants.
The root of the Blood Tree and the blood sack that grew within the body of the Bloodsucking Rattans were both good tonics. They were a beneficial supplement for mages who didn't have physically capable bodies or wanted to increase their physical abilities. On a regular basis, apprentice mages had to take the risk of being attacked by magical plants to harvest materials. Therefore, it was a dangerous task, which had a very high death toll.
It was probably because they had sensed the smell of blood and flesh from Kirito's body, but the deathly still swamp suddenly seemed to come to life. Consciously, or unconsciously, all those magical plants started wiggling their bodies, branches, and roots slowly moving toward the stony trail.
Kirito stopped moving and stood straight. He stared out at the magical plants beside the trail without blinking. It took a while, but he started seeing the true nature of the plants hiding their magical nature under the disguise of being ordinary plants.
Underneath the wrinkling and withered tree skin, was an army of eerie looking ghost faces that were tightly squeezed together. All of them were the souls trapped by the Blood Trees. He also didn't forget the needle-like prickles on the edges of the Blood Tree's branches. Thanks to his false memories, he knew that inside barbs on the tree branches were the paralytic poison that the Blood Tree used to sedate its prey.
He didn't forget about the Bloodsucking Rattans, which hung from the Blood Tree. If he recalled correctly, there was pure blood flowing underneath its twisted, creeping green skin, and, right at the spot where it connected with Blood Tree, within a hollow tree cavity, numerous blood sacks. Supposedly, the Bloodsucking Ratans had hearts, the size of a human fist, when normal and many magical plants didn't possess such a thing.
Caw~ caw~
Kirito looked up just as a group of crows flew in and stopped on a tree branch, moving their blood red eyes and staring at Kirito. Their ominous stare at him, making him very uncomfortable. It was not because of bloodthirst desire shining with intent of wanting to eat him that made him uneasy.
The false memories gathered from one of the tower's many books had detailed that the red-eyed crows were called Scavenger Crows. Although Scavenger Crows were not considered to be strong magical beasts, their blood red eyes had the ability 'Doom', and there had been some frightful incidents in which Apprentice mages had their eyes blinded by the crows.
Knowing that the Scavenger Crows were planning to attack him soon, Kirito instead decided to take the initiative.
"Let's see if Shirou-niisan's hypothesis about real life Magecraft and the game's magecraft is correct." Kirito muttered as he prepared to use the temporary memories from his older brother figure that Shirou had promised would surprise him. "Trace On."
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Author's Note:
Thank you everyone for all your reviews. I have found out flaws that I needed to fix or inspired me to have ideas that I never had before.
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Until next time!