The Name of the Game

a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.

Arc 1: New Game +

Chapter 4: Training Montage (part II)

Synchronization at 60%. The system has been updated! Would you like to view the Change Log?

Updates were a normal part of nearly every video game in existence. Updates were not supposed to be a part of real life. Though, I suppose when your Semblance turns your life into a video game, you shouldn't be too surprised when it happens. Sighing wearily from my position in my nice, freshly-made bed on my nice, freshly-laundered sheets I decided, 'Why the hell not?' I say 'my' bed and 'my' sheets since I figured cleaning out the pigsty that was Jaune's room made it distinctly mine as opposed to his. He had no problem living in the mess that typically accompanied teenagers. Me? I couldn't stand it. I cleaned it, it's mine now.

Change Log: The Gamer Semblance v.1.01

1. Borderless windows, enabled repositioning of windows.

2. Merged several message types for less clutter.

3. New skill creation messages will no longer come from the Department of Redundancy Department.

4. Experience gain, level up, skill point gain, and skill level gain now close automatically after a period of 3 seconds by default—adjustable in Options menu. Added points/levels/skills gain log.

5. Added ability to detect nearby Skill Books to Perception—this feature is now available at level 5.

6. Added armor and clothing sets to Inventory.

Reading it over, I hummed before closing the window. Either there was a developer somewhere working behind the scenes, or my Semblance was… semi-autonomous, perhaps even semi- if not fully-sentient. Then again, given its proven sense of humor and the fact that Joan said one's Semblance is a reflection of themselves, it could very well be pulling things from my own subconscious mind. It didn't matter too much either way, as far as I could tell. If I couldn't directly argue with whoever or whatever was controlling it then I was dealing with a closed system—I couldn't modify the system or force it to change to fit my desires. I wouldn't be opening a terminal window to enable god mode, nor would I be hopping around and manually entering the Konami code. No, instead, I would have to work within the system and abuse every loophole and exploit I could find.

Opening my inventory, I found a new tab above the scale model of my body—currently sans armor and clothing. I absolutely refused to sleep in clothes. Couldn't do it, at all. Selecting the tab, my inventory screen changed to display a drop-down list of selectable empty options. Humming, I selected one and a second window containing my scale model and all the requisite slots for gear popped up to the right side of the current window, along with the rest of my inventory. Well, nearly the rest of it. I noticed the potions and Dust were excluded, while my clothes and armor were sorted by type. Selecting a pair of boxers, I dragged them into the proper slot.

You have added boxers (forest green) to this clothing set. Would you like to adjust settings now?

'Settings? For underwear? Okay, I'm curious now. Let's find out.' Clicking Yes, I found three options available: schedule, cleanliness, and durability. Schedule allowed me to set what day(s) of the week I would wear that specific pair of boxers along with the option to randomize the selection. Selecting Randomize, I was asked if I would like to automatically cycle through clothing based on cleanliness. That was a pretty obvious choice—I hated dirty clothes as much as I hated a dirty house. Checking the Cleanliness settings allowed me to set an acceptable level of clean for various items of clothing by percentage and how many days I would wear an item that remained otherwise clean before considering it dirty—in other words, if I set the cleanliness percentage to 50% and went three days without hitting 50% cleanliness, the system would automatically cycle clothes in this set on the fourth day if I told it to. I wouldn't wear clothes more than one day or accept anything under 75% clean unless I was working out in something and happened to get it sweaty or bloody—luckily, there was an option to ignore cleanliness settings during training or battle. Durability allowed me to select how damaged I would tolerate clothes being before the system would no longer automatically shuffle them into this particular clothing set—useful, if I only used the inventory system and didn't really pay attention to wear and tear on my clothes. There was no option for it, so I would just have to remember which ones needed washing at the end of each week or check their statuses individually.

Repeating the process with the rest of my clothes and finding the settings seemed to default to identical across the board unless you adjusted one specifically, I was asked to name my new clothing set once I finished. "Casual."

The clothing set 'Casual' has been created and can now be selected from the main Inventory screen! To equip this set using voice commands, say 'Equip Clothing Set 1' or 'Equip Casual Set.'

I spent the next minute repeating the process with my armor before saving it with the entirely original name 'basic armor.' Rolling out of bed, I began experimenting. "Equip casual set." Satisfied that worked, I tried it with the armor. "Equip armor set 1." When that worked also, I also made sure removing them the same way worked, by saying 'remove' instead of 'equip.' Making sure I had clothes equipped, I left my bedroom and went downstairs for breakfast. Finding no one in the kitchen, I checked my HUD clock: 6:00 AM. I had never been a morning person, but I needed all the time I could get training.

Before that, though: breakfast. My Semblance did not include an asinine hunger mechanic, thankfully, but I still ate, used the bathroom, and had to shower like any other human being. More importantly, I enjoyed cooking—especially for others. When I had convinced Joan to give me a few of the old family cookbooks they no longer needed, my semblance had loaded my cooking skill and recipes from my previous life and I was proud to see it sitting pretty at level 38. After that, the rest of the books Joan gave me were consumed for recipes. Now, she couldn't question where I learned to cook—she'd watched me 'learn' the skill from a book herself.

Pulling out ingredients and dishes, I set about making waffles and sliced a few oranges and strawberries up, along with blueberries to go with them. Joan entered the kitchen as I was finishing up and I nearly dropped the plate with the waffles when I turned and spotted her standing there. Unlike me, Jaune's elder sister was still dressed in her night clothes—an oversized tee-shirt and what looked suspiciously like a pair of my, or Jaune's rather, boxers that fit her toned thighs far better than they fit mine and looked better on her than they ever would on me. With her long, blonde hair down and a sleepy look on her face, I realized she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever met, in either life. It was the kind of beauty that makeup made look better, as opposed to covering up faults—unlike an airbrushed supermodel, she looked appealing even without the makeup. 'Jaune's sister is off limits,' I reminded myself, setting the plate where I'd intended.

"You made breakfast," she observed quietly, yawning as she took a seat.

I shrugged. "It's not fair to make you do everything," I pointed out. "Where are our parents, anyway? Shouldn't they, you know, be here?"

Joan snorted. "They're absentee parents these days. With four of us graduated and the rest in training, they've started taking jobs again. I can't really blame them—they do important work and they kind of need the money to pay off bills incurred putting us all through school. It's just… It seems like they're taking a vacation from us and only really showing up once a month or so to check in and for holidays. They keep the bills paid and we four eldest siblings take turns playing 'mom' while the others work. Between the four of us, we wind up spending a week here looking after you and Jun when you're not in school and then three weeks or so out in the field making money while whoever's next in the rotation picks up. Right now, our money is mostly going towards weapon and armor upgrades and savings. High-grade Dust is expensive, not to mention Dust-enhanced ammunition of the same grade."

"I see," I muttered, taking my own seat and putting a couple of waffles and some fruit on my plate. "I hate to ask, seeing as this should be common sense, but well… amnesia. How does money work?" I'd caught her mid-swallow and she nearly choked laughing. She had a cute laugh, I noticed. "I mean, specifically, I need to know how much money is worth, how much normal things cost, stuff like that."

Chuckling, she took a drink of her orange juice before answering. "Well, let's start small. A box of thirty standard 5.56mm rounds costs about 7.50 lien, so about 0.25L per round. The government decided they had issues with coinage and preferred simpler math, so they standardized—coins now only come in one-quarter lien values, so you won't get anyone asking for an odd number like 37 cents or something. If something's uneven like that, round up to the nearest quarter. The price of food is up due to grimm attacks and such, so flour might go for 1L per pound where before it was about 0.50L per pound. A fast food hamburger runs about 8L but you could spend 5L on a pound of ground beef hamburger and another 6L on buns and a few lien on vegetables and come out to roughly 2L per burger for eight homemade hamburgers of superior quality than fast food."

That sounded about like it did on Earth, really. Nodding as I chewed, I hummed in thought before swallowing and asking, "Okay, what about larger things? What would a sword go for? Or a car?"

Thinking on it while she ate, eventually Joan answered with, "Well, that depends on the sword. A plain slab of sharpened steel will go for about 75L. A decent sword goes for about 300L. A decent rifle, by itself, goes for about 350L. A Hunter's weapon? Well, that depends on the options. The basic gun/sword combo will go for about 1000L. You start throwing in other things like making it lightweight or giving it a more compact carry form and the price goes up. Add in the cost of Dust rounds, because Hunter weapons use Dust propelled rounds as opposed to the smokeless powder standard rounds use and Dust for the actual bullet itself as opposed to lead or something else—quadruple the price of standard rounds and start going up from there for options or higher calibers. But you don't get Hunter weapons or ammo from any old store. There are specialty shops that make that sort of thing and you pay based on a number of factors: quality and amount of materials, options, plus labor…"

"So I just, what, go to one of these shops and tell them I'd like a gun-blade?" I asked, curious to how this worked. After all, I'd have to do it myself soon.

"Pfft. Hardly." She paused, looking me over with an assessing look, before finally admitting, "I was going to put this off a while, but I suppose I could show you. If you've decided on a specialty, that is?"

I'd given the matter some thought myself last night, after I'd gotten to bed. After the Prowler, I didn't want to be caught without my gear again. Being able to bombard a target with spell fire was great, but I absolutely needed a close range weapon for situations exactly like the one last night. "Well, that's the thing. My ability to use magic is just too useful not to use. However, last night taught me the value of a fallback weapon—something I can train up and rely on in close quarters, or when I don't want to or can't use magic for whatever reason. I was thinking sword and shield, actually. Maybe some sort of rifle-sword, one-handed switchblade sword and battle rifle combo maybe. However, I absolutely need something I can use to boost the effects of my casting—a wand or something similar. Something kind of small, as opposed to a staff."

"Okay, then. Meet me in my room in ten minutes," she decided, finishing the last of her waffles and juice and making her way upstairs. A moment later, I heard a banging on one of the doors. "Jun! Get up! Breakfast is getting cold."

Laughing, I gathered our plates and set about washing them. The soft pitter-patter of small bare feet met my ears and I turned to see Jun in much the same state of dress her eldest sister had been in—oversized tee-shirt and boxers included, though the underwear looked huge on her by comparison. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and looking absolutely adorable in the process, she sat down and took in the table. "Onii-chan, you made breakfast?"

"Your sister said the same thing. Don't sound so surprised. I can cook now, remember? Skill books are awesome like that," I sighed.

Taking a bite and chewing, Jun quickly perked up. "This is good! Skill books are awesome!"

After that, I was treated to the sight of the littlest Arc sister absolutely demolishing her meal. It was the sort of display of no table manners and pure enthusiasm only a child could muster. When she finished the last bite, she actually lifted the plate up and licked the syrup off until the plate looked spotless. Finished with that, she tipped back her glass of juice and drained it in one go—I swear she didn't swallow so much as relax her throat muscles and pour it down her gullet. "Bath time!" she cheered, leaving the table at a run and leaving me to clean up the remains. I didn't complain though as I began scrubbing her plate—it's not like she left much in the way of scraps to clean.

Glancing at my clock, I finished up the dishes and went upstairs. The door apparently wasn't shut properly because knocking had the effect of pushing it open. Our eyes met and she began to blush—and given the fact that I'd caught her changing and topless, I could clearly see it went all the way down. Sighing, I turned around and closed the door before leaning against the wall and waiting. Once more, I had to remind myself that Jaune's older sister was off limits. Except, well, I wasn't Jaune—I was a thirty-three year old man and she was a very beautiful twenty-seven year old woman, whom it seemed I got along well with. The situation was all kinds of screwed up, considering that yes, I was attracted to her but I absolutely could not be. All joking from my Semblance and its quest system aside, pursuing her would be all kinds of wrong—I was walking around in her dead brother's body for fuck sake. Because let's face it, for all intents and purposes, Jaune Arc died the night he decided to fight grimm by himself and he wasn't coming back. I was just some impostor trying to fill the kid's shoes.

The door opened and a hand grabbed my arm, pulling me into the room before closing and locking the door behind me. "I'm sorry about earlier," I began at the same time Joan said, "Sorry about earlier."

We both paused, registering what the other had said, before chuckling in shared embarrassment. I gestured for her to go first. "It was my mistake, I thought I'd locked the door, then I got distracted and lost track of time."

"Eh, I should have announced myself first or something," I began, only for her to shake her head.

"No, you couldn't have known the door wasn't shut properly and I'd told you to come up anyway…" After a moment, she made that embarrassed laugh I was coming to recognize was distinctive to her, before adding, "Besides, it's not like we haven't seen each other naked before." I blinked and she began blushing again. "I mean, like, in the bath." I blinked again. "When we were little… Yeah, I'll stop talking now."

Finally, the dots connected. 'It all makes sense. Canon Jaune Arc gets his perpetual case of foot-in-mouth disease and mannerisms from her,' I mused, quietly laughing.

"Shut uuuup," she groaned.

A quest has been updated!

Romancing Remnant: The Eldest Sister Route has been unlocked!

You and Joan have hit it off and seem to just click. She has high expectations of you, so avoid letting her down by becoming a man among men and, in doing so, become the person she can rely on herself. Alternatively, find a way to let her down gently without breaking her heart.

Success: EXP to be determined, increased closeness with Joan, increased closeness with the Seven Deadly Sisters, +1 love interest. Failure: decreased closeness with Joan, decreased closeness with the Seven Deadly Sisters, the shame of failing the first person to accept and believe in you.

"Oh for fu—" I began, before cutting myself off and quickly closing the quest box.

Joan shot me a confused look. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head before gesturing towards her computer. "Trust me, you don't want to know. Let's just… show me what you were going to show me?"

"Okay," she agreed, seemingly willing to let the subject go without questioning me on it. Sitting down at her desk, she opened up a program that looked vaguely like some cross between photoshop and a 3D design program. Opening a new project, she brought up some basic options. "Let's start with the basics. You want a sword/rifle combo. You want it to fold up, to make it more compact, right?" I nodded and she checked a few options. "You said something about a switchblade? Like a balisong?"

"Exactly," I agreed. I had a specific weapon in mind, and the closest approximation I had managed to figure out was a combination balisong/rifle. If I was going to make a gun-blade, I'd rip off the one that looked the most likely to work—Lightning's weapon of choice from Final Fantasy 13.

"Weapon derivation… balisong. What sort of rifle? Sniper rifle? Battle rifle? Designated marksman rifle? Short-barreled rifle? What caliber rounds are you thinking of using?"

That was a really good question. If I wound up on Team JNPR, which I was sort of hoping for for the team synergy they and Team RWBY displayed, then l had to look at what we already had. Pyrrha had that M1 Garand, spear, sword combo and her shield. Milo's Garand mode appeared to be only semi-auto, but with a pretty decent range and accuracy. It wasn't Crescent Rose, but then there wasn't much that could compare to Ruby's sniper scythe—I mean, seriously, giving a little girl an anti-tank rifle, sticking a scythe on it, and telling her to have fun? What was Qrow thinking? …He was thinking it'd be awesome, and the results spoke for themselves.

Ren's Stormflower was essentially just a pair of SMGs with blades attached to the bottom. They didn't have as much range as a rifle but their rate of fire was enough to take out most lesser grimm or distract the bigger ones long enough for someone else to finish it off—much like Blake's own little Uzi clone of her weapon's gun form. They weren't meant to one-shot enemies, they were meant to keep them occupied and hurt while someone else killed them. Someone like Nora. Nora, the insane little Valkyrie, who threw around a war hammer/grenade launcher combo. All together, Team JNPR's ranged weaponry appeared to cover high-accuracy, high rate of fire, and explosions. Team RWBY, on the other hand, had precision anti-armor, high rate of fire, smaller explosions in Yang's gauntlet/shotgun combo, and magic/Dust. I could handle special effects and anti-armor with magic, so as far as a 'mundane' weapon went, it might be better to give us some extra range and fire support…

"Can you put a telescoping barrel on it?" I asked and a couple of clicks later, Joan nodded. "Select-fire, variable-mode rifle: battle rifle, DMR, and sniper." Seeing her raise an eyebrow, I explained my theory. "Battle rifle in the default, compact rifle mode you would get after switching it over from sword mode. Fire selector for semi, burst, and full auto. Barrel selector/extension and a small scope for DMR mode. Set the barrel to full extension, extend the scope or swap it with a larger one or something—not sure how optics work with this sort of thing—and flip down a bipod for sniper mode. Chamber it in .308."

"How do you know all that?"

Realizing I'd gotten into some pretty technical terms, I shrugged. "Skill books are awesome."

"Skill books are bullshit," Joan concluded, rolling her eyes and selecting options. "Sure you don't want anything else to go with that? Extending handle maybe, or a grenade launcher while I'm at it? Why not a flame thrower, too?"

I smirked. "Put rails on it. I bet money I can buy a grenade launcher attachment. Also, magic—no need for a flame thrower."

"Smartass," she deadpanned. "What about a shield? Any ideas there?"

I wasn't entirely certain, to be honest. Eventually, I shrugged. "Eh, just as long as it can fold down into a more compact form and doesn't weigh fifty pounds… Other than that, surprise me. So, what comes after this?"

"After this, I send the designs off to a smith I know who'll cut me a deal 'cause he owes me a favor and he'll get me a quote. I'll let you know when I have something. Now, shoo. Go spar with Jun and train. Or was there anything else?"

Thinking back to my active quests, I considered for a moment before nodding. "Actually, yeah. You wouldn't happen to have any shady underworld contacts, would you?"

Joan rolled her eyes. "No, I got your transcripts forged at a completely legit, not shady forger."

I was counting on that, in fact. Ignoring the snark, I asked, "Think you can set up a meeting for tonight? I kind of need to see about a quest thing."

That got her attention, as she turned her desk chair around and locked eyes with me, her expression cooling several degrees. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into, little brother. Once you start down that path, there's no getting out. You can try, but something always pulls you back in. Worse, trouble will follow you home. What is it, exactly, that you're looking to accomplish here? What is this quest offering you that seems worth the risk of becoming some kind of petty criminal? I was willing to overlook the library because you need skills, but this… I can't overlook this."

"Contacts, like you have," I pointed out, knowing it was a low blow but taking the shot anyway. Once more, I felt my charisma score going to work. "Potential employment and, most importantly, access to what sounds like the black market. I need someone to assess the value of the crap I got out of the Illusion Barrier last night and if it's valuable, I can farm the barriers for items and sell them without having to resort to becoming a criminal. It also avoids uncomfortable questions I'd rather not answer, like 'where did this come from.' I'm not stupid, Joan. You said it yourself, weapons aren't cheap. And I'm not going to let you pay for my tools for me—I'll earn the money and pay for them myself, through as close to legitimate means as I can manage. And if they have a position open for a job that doesn't sound like it'll get me shot, stabbed, or arrested and can earn cash, then that's more money I can be earning to pay for the tools I need, earned in a way that's difficult but not impossible to trace. If I suddenly start throwing around large quantities of cash, I'm going to need some way of explaining where it came from that doesn't involve going places where grimm spawn."

"I didn't expect you to have legitimate reasons for it," she admitted quietly. "I'm sorry. I wasn't really thinking about that sort of thing."

Reaching out, I put my hand on top of her head and mussed her hair, earning myself a glare in response but she didn't do anything to remove the hand. "You worry, I know. Especially after what happened. But you have to understand that I'm getting to where I can take care of myself now—it's just a matter of numbers and time. You're the oldest and we've always trusted you to look out for us and take care of things for us, right?" She nodded slowly. "Trust me to take care of myself. Hell, one day, I may be the one taking care of you."

Her eyes slowly broke contact with mine as she first turned her head away, then kicked the chair to spin it around to face the opposite direction. It didn't keep me from noticing the blush, however, seeing as even her ears were red. It seemed the quest details were right—she was looking for someone responsible, someone she could rely on when everyone else had been relying on her for so long. The pressure on her as the eldest child of a Hunter family with a long and storied history must have been enormous. The pressure on Jaune, as the first son of that family after so many successful older sisters must have been… soul-crushing, really. I could understand why he'd been so desperate to improve, after so many failures, that he had sought out trouble. "I'll make some calls."

That seemed to be as much as she was going to say on the subject. Sighing quietly, I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me, watching a notification about my charisma going up by one pop up and then close three seconds later. 'What the hell am I doing?' I wondered, making my way downstairs. 'I can't pursue her romantically. Though, it's not like I'm opposed to the idea of fulfilling the prerequisites—so long as becoming a 'man among men' doesn't end up getting me cursed to turn into a girl with the application of cold water.'

Looking around the back yard, I failed to spot Jun and so went back inside to look for her. Checking her room, I found it empty. Remembering she said she wanted to take a bath, I approached the bathroom door and knocked, my irritation at the situation bleeding through in the force of my knock. The door flew open most of the way and for the second time that day, I was 'treated' to the sight of one of the Seven Deadly Sisters in a compromising position. Jun had gotten out of the bath and was in the process of toweling off and I had caught her in the middle of it. Blue eyes met green and I sighed, doing an admirable job at avoiding intentionally looking at anything important, but peripheral vision is what it is and I still got an eyeful. 'Yep. Special hell. First class ticket.'

Palming my face, I grabbed the door knob and shut the door, telling her as I did, "Sparring when you're done." The door clicked closed and I paused, before opening it again by a couple of inches—enough that she would know I was still at the door and I wouldn't have to raise my voice, but not enough to see anything. "And next time, lock the door would you?"

Reaching inside, I hit the lock on the door and pulled it closed. 'I wonder if this sort of thing is normal? Did Jaune have to deal with exactly this sort of thing in a house full of sisters? …Oh, god, the horror of synchronized periods.'

Sparring with Jun was… unnecessarily brutal, after the bathroom incident—three points of VIT and a couple of levels worth of Physical Endurance brutal. I couldn't help but think I'd upset her somehow. Apologizing for accidentally opening the door on her had only seemed to make her angrier for some reason. My Observe skill was being unhelpfully vague on the details and while I had a whole other life worth of experience to draw on, women—people in generally really, but women especially—were still a mystery at times when it came to their reasons for doing what they did. So, I let her work her frustrations out and earned a few skill points in the process, even a point in DEX after an unexpected Tumble past what had looked like a particularly nasty strike followed by a counter that left her limping and a bit slower after.

She sat and fumed while I healed her when she got too tired to continue, then left in silence when I'd finished. Seeing as it was still morning, I hummed as I considered my own training. Having my buffs on and in constant use was leveling them faster than I'd really expected, which was good since it meant I was getting more powerful independent of my level. Those skills being always on while I was awake, I only really had to worry about training things I needed to cast or use separately—attack spells and the like. "Skills."

Looking over my list, I began sorting through things I could train now and things that would need special requirements to meet. Steal, for instance, would probably need to be done against other people. Create ID and Escape ID went together, so leveling one should level the other. My attacks were another matter. I needed options, yes, but I also needed to prioritize. For instance, why use Mana Arrow when Spinning Mana Arrow was superior? Likewise, why use that when Spinning Mana Bullet was the better choice? Though, that name… I'd noticed, fighting the Prowler, that chant time was a real issue. 'Spinning Mana Bullet' was six syllables and took two to three seconds to get out in a way that the system would properly interpret. The attack itself took a second, at most, to spin up so any time longer than that spent verbally invoking the attack was time wasted. The name was going to have to change.

Selecting the skill, I thought on how I should describe it. Obviously, I couldn't just call it 'A' or 'one' and be done with it, as tempting as a one-syllable spell sounded—Sleep being case in point. If I just called every spell 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and so on then eventually there would come a time when I would need something outside my normal rotation and I'd be at a loss trying to remember its name. That was another thing—having a name that wasn't at least partly descriptive would be a good way to get my spells confused and force me to go back and read spell descriptions. So far, every skill I'd created or learned had been exactly what it was named—Mana Bolt was a bolt of mana, Sleep put enemies to sleep, and so forth. I liked that, but I figured there had to be a better way. So, I needed rules for naming conventions.

The first rule was obvious: no names over four syllables. Secondly: names must describe spell effects or properties. Thirdly: homages are fair game. And really, those were about the only rules I needed. So, with that in mind, I set about renaming Spinning Mana Bullet. 'So, what does it do? Well, it's the magical equivalent of a .50 BMG round… I have it.'

"AP Round," I verbalized, confirming the system dialogue asking if I was certain about the name change. Short, to the point, and exactly what it said on the tin—a magical armor piercing round. Going over the rest, I renamed Spinning Mana Bolt to 'Rasengan' for laughs—the fact that the name was under my four syllable limit was just a bonus. I almost renamed Mana Bolt to Ranma's signature ki attack, but I couldn't remember the English name and the Japanese language version was several syllables over my limit anyway. Besides, while 'rasengan' was amusing for personal reasons, renaming other things to a language I didn't speak seemed like a bad idea for a multitude of reasons—but most importantly, because it would make me look like an idiot in front of other people.

I finished up my perusing and made a list of active skills I would need to practice, after trimming out the redundant skills. Mana Bolt made the cut simply for the knock-down effect. I had no doubt that later, it would be ineffective against larger creatures unless it was ridiculously high level, but for now it was an instant incapacitation skill for most things, so long as I could tag them with it. Rasengan also made the cut, simply for pure damage potential—if shit hit the fan, that was going to be my go-to skill to pull out and start dumping mana into to over power. AP Round was pretty much a no-brainer at this point—it added an extra round every odd-numbered level and its other properties all went up either on even or odd levels. One high powered magical sniper round blasting down-range was good—more was better, and I aimed to make it a veritable barrage. Sleep made the list as it was too useful not to level, the same with Powered Leap. Lastly, Create ID and Escape ID—since I could use all of those inside an instant dungeon. And since my skill only created empty instant dungeons at the moment, they were safe for me to use and would keep me from damaging anything on the property permanently.

Taking up a position in front of the training dummies, I incanted, "Create ID," and immediately, the world was different. I couldn't see any visible difference, but as with my first experience in an Illusion Barrier, there was an almost electric tingle in the air. Taking aim at the first dummy, I cast, "Sleep."

Sleep failed! Sleep can only be used on living targets!

Oh. Well. Damn. That made sense, I supposed. A practice dummy had no stats beyond durability and thus, no Will Save—which is what Sleep was meant to effect. It seemed I'd have to find some other way to level it. If that was the case, I needed to check the rest of my attacks to make sure that using them against training dummies would work. Opening up my skills menu, I selected Mana Bolt. Looking at its current EXP level, I took aim at the first target and fired. The skill gained experience and I grinned. Shifting my aim to a tree, I tried again. The spell blasted a good-sized chunk of bark off the tree and scored it pretty deep, but failed to gain EXP. Test concluded, I set up a rotation for spell usage—create an instant dungeon, use an attack skill and Leap away, then Run towards the next target, use a different attack skill and repeat, then destroy the instant dungeon and repeat.

After the first couple of run-throughs, I looked over my skills again. If I equipped my sword and shield, I could also work in my physical attacks: Aura Strike, Bull Rush, and the newly created Shield Bash, along with my sword and shield masteries. If I did it right, I could get off a shot from range, Bull Rush in (which, by the description, used the Run skill anyway), use Shield Bash and Aura Strike, blast the target with another ranged spell, then Leap away and repeat the process… except, no. I had to have a free hand to cast attacks. I could cast on myself with both hands occupied but not on someone or something else…

Looking over my equipment, I found a sheath that had been in Jaune's closet along with a beat-up practice sword. Equipping the sheath on my side, I sheathed my sword and considered the target. If I changed the order up a bit, I could try to draw my sword and use Aura Strike in the same movement, then use Shield Bash and resheathe the sword in the same movement. If nothing else, it would make for good hand-eye coordination training, which meant more free DEX. Shrugging, I moved back to my starting point and tried my new rotation. I didn't quite get the timing the first time, or the second, but I nailed it the third time… and was rewarded with a skill creation window.

You have created the skill Iaido!

Iaido: Level 1. Active. Iaido is the art of quickly and smoothly drawing a sword, striking an enemy, removing blood from the blade, and returning the blade to its sheath. Effect: 300% combined DEX and STR damage, automatic crit on enemies that do not see the attack coming. Synergy with Sleight of Hand—helps disguise sword draw.

'I suppose that was, technically, what I was doing anyway,' I mused. Still, that skill gave me a reason to get STR and DEX up, along with Sleight of Hand. Destroying the Illusion Barrier, I created a new one and went through the rotation again and noticed right off the bat that Iaido was a silent technique—my first truly silent attack beyond a basic melee attack, at any rate. With its synergy with Sleight of Hand and the fact that it was silent, it seemed to me like it was better suited to stealth action than normal combat. Not that I wouldn't use it if I got the chance, I absolutely would, but more that if I ever got into situation where I needed to take someone or something out quietly, Iaido would be a good first choice—especially since the unwritten implication there was that it also had synergy with Sneak Attack.

That reminded me of a pressing need—more than one, really, but one higher than others. Other than my shield, Aura, and Reinforcement I had no real way to defend myself. That is not how casters were supposed to fight if things ever devolved to close range combat. I needed a shield spell. However, I wanted more than one magical shielding option. A bubble-type shield that covered me from all angles equally would be absolutely fantastic for defending against sneak attacks, bombardment, or fire from multiple sources. That same shield would be absolute crap at defending me from a single, concentrated point of attack. What I needed was a smaller, one-direction shield with all the same power as a bubble shield, condensed into that one area. Those thoughts in mind, I set about channeling mana and hoped my Skill Creation was up to the task.

You have created the skill Mana Shield!

Mana Shield: Level 1. Active. Mana Shield creates a bubble of mana around the caster, absorbing a portion of any attack that would damage the caster or blocking the attack if the damage or force would not be sufficient to penetrate the shield. Effect: reduce damage by 100% of your INT score. Cost: 30MP plus 50MP per minute.

You have created the skill Mana Barrier!

Mana Barrier: Level 1. Active. Mana Barrier created a flat, hexagonal plane of mana in front of the caster that moves according to the caster's will and absorbs a portion of any attack that would damage the caster or blocking the attack if the damage or force would not be sufficient to penetrate the barrier. Effect: Reduce damage by 400% of your INT score in an area ¼ of Mana Shield's coverage. Cost: 30MP plus 50MP per minute.

Well, the up side was that I'd gotten two different shield skills that could be layered as needed. Theoretically, if I could see an attack coming, I could put Mana Barrier in front of it and soak most of the damage. If I couldn't see it coming, then Mana Shield should still eat a good portion of the damage. I would have loved to have either of these against the damn Prowler. The down side, however, was that they absolutely drank MP like none of my other skills did. With the two of them running together, by themselves, they overran my current mana regen. Running them with the rest of my buffs up would eventually drain my MP completely—not instantly, not even within ten minutes, but if I ever got into a battle of attrition and couldn't retreat and was forced to turtle behind my barriers, then eventually I'd run out of juice… and then I'd die.

Well, the best way to avoid that was to train and increase my skill points and the levels of those skills so their costs went down. There was one more shield type spell I wanted to attempt to create, in the event I ever ran across something particularly nasty. Given my success with Mana Bolt and its derivatives, I was willing to give it a shot. Calling up my Mana Shield, I willed it to rotate.

You have created the skill Spinning Mana Shield!

Spinning Mana Shield: Level 1. Active. Spinning Mana Shield creates a sphere of spinning mana around the caster to push aside attacks instead of taking them head on, outright deflecting any attack that fails to penetrate it and greatly reducing the potential damage taken from any attack that would manage to pierce it. Add mana to increase the shield's rotation and stop larger or stronger attacks. Effect: 100% damage reduction if an attack fails to penetrate the shield, deflection strength increases based on INT and mana spent. Cost: 40MP plus 60MP or more per minute.

That was about what I expected. It was costly, but a good 'oh shit' spell to hide behind for when shit hit the fan. Good news though was that I could dump mana into it to make it more effective. So long as I didn't run out of mana, it should buy me time to run away—because the truth is, if I ever had to deploy that spell outside of training it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. And with defenses taken care of for the moment, I could resume training… I needed a break soon. I was getting bored and I could almost hear the siren song of that little black book in my inventory calling my name. 'I'll keep this up until I run out of mana, then call it quits and meditate for a while. Note to self: rename Mana Barrier to A.T. Field later, for laughs.'

There was one last test I wanted to make before settling in to practice. Digging into my inventory, I pulled out a skill book—Morrigan's Folly—and promptly ignoring and dismissing the messages I got from holding it. 'Okay, they're books, right? Everyone acknowledges that. You can see them, you can read them. What's stopping me from reading this and gaining the skill?'

Cracking open the book, I was surprised to find text—perfectly legible and not glitched out like my name had been originally. I skimmed the first chapter, finding it to be exactly what I'd expected based on the description provided by Observe. It was a story—an old story, written in prose similar to the Olde English I would expect to find in Shakespeare. Reading the first chapter provided no insights into any sort of technique, however—not that I was expecting much, but I had been hoping for something, maybe some idea of what it would do beyond suspicions based on material from my original world. There was enough bleed-over between the two that I was almost one hundred percent certain what skill the book would teach. "Ugh, damn this is dry," I grunted, closing the book with an audible thump! "Fuck it, I'll read it later. After I finish Ninjas of Love. Training first, then reading for pleasure, then research."

And I could already tell it would be research—and I was dreading it, in a way. I had loathed research papers in college. Maybe I would pick another book to try learning skills by reading from—something easier to digest, mentally.

Despite her earlier and continued attitude, Jun brought lunch out to me in the middle of the day, bringing a halt to my reading for a while, after I'd decided to take a short break. Apparently, Candice hadn't been exaggerating—despite it's unoriginal title, 'Ninjas of Love' was actually quite riveting, with genuine character development and realistic relationship dynamics, as opposed to just being a few pieces of dialogue between sex scenes. Oh, there was sex—a lot of very kinky sex. I swear, Remnant was full of deviants if 'Ninjas of Love' was anything to go by… Still, it was good. Plot with porn, as opposed to porn with plot.

Once I'd finished eating, Jun demanded another spar. This time, I simply called up Mana Shield and let her wail on it. She pouted, throwing a small temper tantrum and declaring my use of a magic shield "Totally cheating, damnit!" While she was distracted, I caught her with an Iaido attack, eliciting a screech of fury and resumed hostilities. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the curtains in what looked to be Joan's room move, telling me she'd likely been supervising, surreptitiously. As it turned out, Jun proved my Mana Shield could be breached more than one way—apparently, hitting it in the same place over and over rapid-fire would punch a hole through it under a sustained attack simply by overrunning it with continual damage. She had not been amused when her victory was snatched from her in the form of my A.T. Field being cast as soon as the Mana Shield was breached.

After that, the little girl gave up in disgust, promising to work on her attacks more—and I dreaded what she would come up with, considering she was already a little terror. I was a higher level than her now and the only thing keeping her from spanking me was my magic. Using Mana Shield and the A.T. Field had allowed me to level those in combat, but at the cost of earning VIT points by taking a physical beating. I called active training quits for the day and went back to reading under my tree with my buffs and shields running, occasionally throwing up and dispelling an instant dungeon and stopping only to meditate and regain MP. By the time dusk rolled around, Meditate leveled to the point where I could use it while still reading, with the buffs and shields running. And that is how Joan found me that evening.

Looking up from the page I was reading, I met her eyes and regarded her indifferent expression with a raised eyebrow. Eventually, she sighed and looked away. "It took some convincing, but I set up a meeting—more of an interview, really. Are you ready?"

Rolling to my feet, I dropped 'Ninjas of Love' into my inventory and followed as she lead me to the garage. As it turned out, I did have an easier to digest book than Morrigan's Folly in my inventory—Kung Pow. It had taken an hour to read through, but trying to learn a skill that way was like trying to learn a real martial art from a book—it doesn't work instantly. You may gain some insights into how things were supposed to be done, but only time and practice would teach the skill. I could do it, yes—there was absolutely nothing stopping me from learning it naturally. However, by the time I learned it manually—which I estimated at putting several months into learning just the basics—I could have earned the skill points to learn it by eating the book several times over. It was, quite honestly, a waste of time—and that was something I couldn't abide in a book. More than that though, based on what I'd read and my own experience learning martial arts in my original world and comparing that to eating the books I already had… I would learn the information more thoroughly by devouring the book than manually learning it. So not only would I be wasting time, I'd be shorting myself valuable skill knowledge.

Movement caught my eye, pulling me out of my thoughts as Joan rolled up the door and I found myself looking at a red compact car—and Jun, already buckled into the back seat, having entered the garage from inside the house. "You're bringing Jun to somewhere with shady characters?"

Joan didn't like something in my tone as she turned and sent me a scathing look. "You're a trouble magnet, Jaune—I can't send you alone, the risk of you stumbling into another Illusion Barrier is too great. Based on what you told me last night and what I know of how grimm spawn, the kinds of Illusion Barriers that lead to grimm forming only happen at night and while there aren't usually many grimm around the city, there are a few places where they spawn naturally. It's easier for you for me to just drive you—not to mention, easier on my peace of mind. And I can't just leave Jun here to fend for herself, either. So, if you want to go, we all go together."

"Fair enough," I agreed, not particularly fond of the idea of leaving Jun home alone myself. Trying to lighten the mood, I asked, "So, I'm driving, right?"

"Pfft. Hardly," Joan denied. "Mama Lily would hurt us if I let you drive her car and you so much as scratched it."

I almost mentioned my drive skill, but decided against it—it wasn't worth arguing over and it would blow my cover, besides. Moving around the car, I slid into the front passenger seat and buckled up. Joan started the car and set the radio to a station playing rock. It took a minute before my eyes went slightly wide and I eyed the radio, recognizing the song.

"Is this the real life, is this just fantasy, caught in a landslide, no escape from reality…"

BGM Image song – Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody – Unlocked!

'What. The. Fuck is that doing here?' I wondered. And, almost as important, whose image song? Considering the fact that she was tapping out the beat and mouthing the words, it was probably Joan's. Shaking my head, I dismissed that line of thought and settled into Meditation for the duration of the ride. It didn't take long to pass from the dirt road we lived on to gravel, and shortly after that actual paved road with street lights as we passed further through the Residential District and into the Commercial District with its holographic street lights and neon signs. I kept an eye on my map as we moved, watching it fill out further with more details as we headed northwest. Finally, Joan pulled through a back alley and into a parking lot marked 'Employees Only' on the border of the Commercial District and the Industrial District and shut off the car. Faintly, I could hear and feel a heavy bass line coming from the building we'd parked behind.

Joan and Jun got out first, the eldest sister fishing out her scroll and sending what looked like a text message as I got out myself. "Come on, it's over here," Joan sighed.

Walking to the back door of the building, Joan gave the steel door a solid knock that rattled it in its frame. A moment later, the door opened, revealing a tall, bearded man wearing a suit and a red tie. "It's good to see you again," he greeted her after a lengthy pause.

Her tone sounding one part resignation, one part reluctant, familiar nostalgia, Joan returned the greeting. I recognized that tone, it was the same tone my last ex-girlfriend had used any time she'd shown up out of the blue needing a favor... "Hey, Hei."

The 'Little' Black Bear

Hei "Junior" Xiong

Level: 25