The American Gamer Quest

>Try and ignore it
We have no idea what's going on, and no idea if she knows. From how things are going it's safe to assume she might not take our shit anyway lol

>try to ignore it

" I'm fine, nothing to worry about"
>"Then get your butt in gear, we're leaving in 15 minutes"
>You change out of your pajamas and scarf down a bowl of cereal in record time
>Unfortunately, the extra time this affords you is wasted trying to tame your unruly mess of hair
>In the mirror you see words above your own head, "<Level 1>", "<Michael Smith>", "<The Gamer>"
>Emily is just about to start laying on the horn as you hop in to her car
>The car ride through the woods and in to town is unusually quiet, what with you still worrying about the floating words
>Things get much worse as you get in to town and notice similar words above the heads of everyone you pass by
>You do your best to ignore it but can't help but notice a few patterns
>All of your classmates except Emily have the title of "student" and are between the levels of 3 and 6
>Most of the faculty are level 7 through 10 and have titles corresponding to their jobs
>You think you're getting through the day pretty well when something happens while taking notes in math class
*ping*
>A Small notification window pops up alerting you that you are now level 1 in the "Academics" Skill
>"Academics covers your ability to learn and recall information" the window says
>No one else seems to notice
>Every hour a new screen appears saying you've gained another point of Academics experience, for a total of 8 experience at the end of the day. Academics is now level 5
>You notice that each level requires twice as much additional experience as the last to level up
>At the end of the school day you get an additional notification
*ping*
>Through long hours of study, you have gained 1 INT and WIS
*ping*
>You have gained 1 exp. You are now level 2
>A new window pops up, this one resembling a character screen. It appears that you have a point to spend.

How should you allocate it? Or should you save it for later?

Character screen I forgot in my last post : http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>>254809
Save the point. No idea what's going on or what does what (can make assumptions as a player but as character, we don't know)

>As you walk to Emily's car at the end of the school day, you once again notice the writing above her head. This writing is even more obvious now that you have some frame of reference for how strange her title and high level are.
>"Is there something wrong with my hair? You keep staring at it"
>You mumble something noncommittal under your breath an get in the car.
>On the ride home Emily does her best to fill the silence by telling you about her day, but you're too preoccupied by your "condition" to really listen or respond
>"Michael, you know I can always tell when there's something up with you. If you want to talk about something, I need you to know that I'm here for you"
>As you arrive home you still haven't come to any kind of final decision on what to do

Options.
1)Try to sleep it off, hope it'll be gone in the morning
2)Tell Emily about your "condition"
3)Study : Catch up on school work you've been falling behind in. Maybe gain some more stats and exp
4)Exercise : Do some jogging through the woods around your house, break out that weight set you have that's been gathering dust, and generally try to get /fit/. Maybe gain some more stats and exp

>>254910
4)Exercise : Do some jogging through the woods around your house, break out that weight set you have that's been gathering dust, and generally try to get /fit/. Maybe gain some more stats and exp

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"Seriously, I'm fine, just had a hard day at school is all"
>After parting ways with Emily you decide to exercise some. Maybe it'll help clear your head. Not to mention the stat boosts you might get if all of this is real. Even if it's not, you can't help but admit to yourself that the little progress windows do wonders for your motivation

>You find exercise immensely easier than it used to be. You still get tired and sore in the same amount of time, but then you're back to top shape in under a minute. After just the first few minutes you get a new skill notification.
*ping*
>You have gained the "Athletics" skill. Athletics determines how fit you are and your level of prowess in many physical activities
>You alternate between jogging, exercises like sit-ups and push ups, and lifting weights. As you do so, you fall in to a bit of a trance. Every time you gain a level of athletics, you become slightly but noticeably faster and stronger. Before you know it, it's become very late. You gain notification windows for not only an 8th point of Athletics, but also for an extra point each in Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, and one point of general experience.
>You decide that's a good time to call it quits and head to bed.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>Some time early the next morning you are awoken by a new type of notification screen
*ping*
>You have entered and Instant Dungeon
>Outside your house you hear shouting and strange noises
>Going outside yourself you see a man in a red robe, apparently named Jacob, rushing through the woods away from a man in a suit Whose name and level are obscured
>The man in the suit extends his arm
>"There's nowhere to run, Jacob. You're out of mana, out of luck, and out of time"
>There's a flash and glowing chains fly out of the suited mans extended arm, entrapping Jacob.
>The suited man lifts Jacob, kicking and screaming, and turns to leave.
>He seems to notice you just as he turns
>"Hey kid, this is dangerous stuff going on, you shouldn't be out here
>This guy is pretty legitimately magical. He may have some answers to the questions that have been forming in your head since yesterday morning.
Options: 1)Take his advice and go back home
2)Start asking questions (Feel free to write in questions, though they might not get answered. If I don't get any write-ins I like, I'll just make up a couple appropriate questions of my own)

>>255543
Take his advice and go back home. He looks super powerful and we shouldn't fuck with him.

>This guy is way out of your league, it's probably best you take his advice and leave
>Some time afterward you notice what looks like a crack in your ceiling. The crack quickly expands, with new cracks forming all around it.
>You are officially about to get your freakout on when all the cracks meet together and shatter, leaving behind... everything, just how it was
*ping*
>You have exited an Instant Dungeon
>You still don't really know what that means, but feel that you'll be more prepared the next time you exit one.
>You try to sleep, but are fitful.
>Eventually you are forced out of bed to answer the phone.
>It's your mom. She and your dad have been away on business for a while, and now they say they want a vacation so they've decided to go on a cruise. Looks like you'll be home alone for a while still
>After the call you doubt you could get back to sleep, so you put on some clothes, eat some breakfast, and generally prepare for the day ahead.
>Today is Saturday, so no school for you, although you are still behind in most of your classes.

>How will you spend your morning?

>>255680
Let's do some early morning exercise for gains.

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>>255680
Ok. So. You spend morning become more brain stronk. You play glorious office job simulatore. It boom boom vitality as you to repetition and brain because organize and do job. Da?
>>255709
XAXAXAXAXAXA CYKA BLYAT CYKA BLYAT. DO NOT RECOG HIM. HE DO TO MUCH. HE IS NOT CHEEKI BREEKI. SOBBAKA DIE. SOBAAKA BLYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTT

>You decided that you really enjoy exercising now. You jog faster and for longer, can do more push-ups, and are lifting some of the heavier weights in your (modest) set.

>You once again fall into a trance, knocked out of it in the afternoon when you get a flood of notifications alerting you that Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity have all increased. You also got your 16th total exp in Athletics, bringing it up to 1 exp past level 5, and 1 more point of general exp, bringing you up to level 3 and giving you a second stat point to spend.

How do you spend your free afternoon?

>>255766
Keep grinding your stength stat

>>255766
More gains.

>Your studies can wait. You've decided you aren't finished getting stronger. Not by a longshot.
>Keep this up and you'll need a gym membership
>You spend the rest of the day running and lifting, gaining much the same stat increases as before. Unfortunately you didn't gain enough Athletics xp for another level. You do still get the stat gains though, bringing your Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity all up to 4.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>You've made some pretty impressive gains today, doubling your physical stats
>In fact, you're pretty sure these gains are literally inhuman.
>It's coming time to face it. The words above people's heads could have been hallucinations. What happened with the guy in the suit could have just been a dream. But these gains are (un)real. Whatever is happening to you is actually happening.

>You think on the possible ramifications of this as you rest that night.

>The next morning (sunday) Emily comes over
>"Hey, I figured we could spend the day watching movies together. You are all caught up on your homework, aren't you?
"Yeah, of course, why wouldn't I be?" You lie through your teeth.

The two of you spend all day and well into the night spending time together, talking through movies you've seen before, chatting about your lives (including your new found interest in exercise, something Emily highly approves of)
*ping*
You gain 1 point of Luck

>Near the end of the night Emily cautiously brings up the topic of the future ; she knows you've never really had any long term plans and are uncomfortable about it, but thinks it needs to be brought up. You give her some platitudes and she backs away for now, but later that night as you're trying to sleep, you recognize you won't get any rest until you decide something.
>These powers let you grind up your stats so fast, you could do anything you want with your life. But, what do you want?

>You finally are forced to decide : What do you want for yourself in the future? What do you want to use these powers to accomplish? You aren't getting any sleep until you figure out an answer.

>>255996
>Entreprenuership and general overwhelming success. For christs sake, we can grind int stats and potentially even luck!

>>256126
This, we keep this up and we come become a muscle wizard.

>>255996
It looks like Luck is a pseudo-Charisma stat, so if we impress people with gains we can become a luck god.

>What do you want to accomplish? With these powers, EVERYTHING! The sky's the limit and there's nothing holding you back. There are diminishing returns to training any single skill, and you seem to need harder challenges to keep raising your stats, but whatever limit there is you would estimate to be well beyond the human norm. After just two days of training you could probably make varsity on any sports team at school, what'll things be like a month down the line? Or 10 years for that matter?

>What matters the most right now is grinding those stats up. School starts back up tomorrow, so your mornings are already booked for studying for the rest of the week, but what will you do with your evenings?

Options: 1) Continue the gain train. Balance gaining mental stats in the morning at school and physical stats at the gym in the evening for the next 5 days

2)Spend your evenings slaying the monster backlog of school work you have. Double the studying for double the fun! (and double the mental stat gains)

3)Spend your evenings goofing off and playing video games with Emily. You don't think you've played an actual videogame since your life became gamified and it used to be all you did. Besides, hanging out with Emily is the closest thing you have to a social life

(Feel free to mix and match different activities to different days. Write-ins will also be considered )

>>256421
Spend Monday and Friday working out, Tuesday and Thursday with Emily, and Wednesday studying.

>>256421
Mon & Wes for nerd shit, Tue and Thur for gains, Fri for Emily

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End of weeks gains : Strength +2, Vitality +2, Dexterity +2, Intelligence +6, Wisdom +6, Luck +2

Academics +48, Athletics +16

General exp +10

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>You go through the week as though in a dream. Your classes get easier and easier, until you start reading ahead and doing extra work just to maintain stat gains.
>By the end of the week you've gotten all you can out of your textbooks. From here on, school is just going to be wasted time. You'll either have to start skipping school or skipping sleep if you want to keep up the pace you've been going.


>Friday night as you're on your way home form a jog in the woods, you're confronted by a familiar notification
*ping*
>You have entered an Instant Dungeon
>As this happens you notice a figure in the dark woods ahead of you, wearing a familiar red robe
>"So, you're the new kid on the block. Sorry I have to do this to you, but I need my fix. You know how it is. Or maybe you don't yet? Either way, I guess it doesn't matter to me"
>"Poison Spray!"
>The man shouts and long clouds of green gas emanate from his palms
>You try to stop it, but to no avail
*ping*
>You are under the affect of the Poison condition. Lose 1 hp/second

>"There, now in just a few moments you'll be out like a light. Sweet dreams kid, I hope you get something nice before the cold, dark end you're about to meet."

How do we deal with this bozo?

(I'm turning in for the night. I'll look through any responses I get by morning and try to take as many of them into account as possible, but if there's no consensus I'll probably just go with the first (non shit-)post like usual)

>>256689
We've been making gains like a motherfucker. Beat his ass.

>>256689
Wait. We lose 1hp/sec, but we gain 2hp/sec from natural regeneration? We can totally kick this shithead's ass.

>>256689
>1 hp per second
>we have 24 hp
>implying it'll take 24 seconds to beat this guy's face in
fuck him up

>>256689
After we beat his ass lets take anything he has on him.

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>This assclown obviously doesn't know who he's dealing with. You start towards him, tall and confident, taking your time. There's no threat here.

>"What? How are you still moving!? POISON SPRAY!"
>The cultist throws out another bank of poisonous gas, but it doesn't seem to have any extra effect on you.

>You almost feel bad for what you're about to do. But not quite.
>You step forward, crouch down, then begin an upwards lunge, fist first, using your body like a spring released from pressure
"SHORYUKEN"
>You give that one punch all you've got and then some, 110%
>The cultist falls down like a sack of bricks.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Shoryuken". Deals (Strength+level+skill level) X 2 damage. Costs 15 mana
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Unarmed Combat Mastery". Improves damage of all unarmed attacks by skill level X 2
*ping*
You have gained 5 XP
*ping*
You have gained a level


>After sorting through that deluge of notifications, you check out the cultist. He's still breathing, so he's probably just knocked out for a while. He's wearing street clothes underneath his robes, but has nothing of value on him.

>Now, what to do with him?

>>257861
Do we

Do we kill him?

>>258018
No, there has to be like a boss and also probably loot and shit. Let's wander around here a bit and see what's up.

>>257861
Curbstomp his head.

>You are wracked with indecision. This guy is obviously a threat to someone, and he was trying to kill you. But should you kill him when he's knocked out like this? Some part of you thinks it's a little fucked up to be thinking about this at all, but you know you could kill the guy if you felt you had to.

>As you wander around you quickly find some form of invisible barrier. You try to push or break through it, even using your new shoryuken out, but to no avail. After a little testing, it seems you are in some kind of invisible box.

>As you contemplate how to get out, a man in a suit appears through one of the invisible walls. You can't tell if it's the same guy as last time or if it's just someone who looks similar

>"Hey kid, you've been warned about how dangerous these guys are, what you're doing is interfering with our work. You should have just run away, what were you thinking?"

How do you respond?

>>258184
"Actually, no, I haven't. I was just on my way home from school and this bozo attacked me. You seriously expected me to not defend myself? I'm an American, god damn it."

>>258207
>>258184
America!

>>258184
"What am I doing? What are you doing more like because you certainly aren't doing your job.
How could you let a cultist run free like that? Lucky for you I was here.
What do you have to say for yourself? How are you going to make up for this, agent?"

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(picture only mildly related)

"What was I thinking? What are YOU thinking? This chump jumps me and I'm expected to just take it laying down? I'm sorry, I thought this was America."
"And one more thing. I don't know who you are or what your job is, but I'm willing to bet it has something to do with keeping these cultists in line, a job that I had to do for you. If anything, you should be thanking me. So, how about it? How are you going to repay me for having my life put on the line due to your mistake and then cleaning up your mess for you?"

>The man stares at you for a moment, stone faced
>"Kid, you've got some balls. I respect that. We're really not supposed to give info out to just anyone, but it looks like you're already in deeper than we'd like. One of your neighbors figured out how to gain power by ritualistically sacrificing humans. Some big international cult has been spreading around the information, but this guy and his group of followers are just a small part of it. They've been sticking to humans trafficked in through southern and central america and so managed to stay off our radar for a while. But this power is really addictive, so now they're sacrificing ability users captured in the Abyss. We've tried going after them, neutralizing any members that leave their stronghold of a base, but haven't been able to breach it so far, so we've been at a stalemate. This guy somehow managed to slip through our guard posts but tripped our wards, which is how I found him. The power withdrawals are pretty severe, so we expect the group to either surrender soon or launch a full-out attack. Either way we'll get them and you shouldn't have to worry about them anymore. Now, I gotta get this guy back to base camp before he wakes up and starts to cause a ruckus. "

>With that, the agent throws the cultist over his shoulder, then raises a hand. Cracks start to form in the air around you, roughly coinciding with the edges of the invisible walls, until all the cracks meet and everything shatters and everything looks just like it did before. You immediately notice the sounds of crickets and other night bugs that had been absent before. The agent walks away with his captive.

>Saturday morning, as you're finishing breakfast and planning out how you want to spend your weekend when Emily shows up
>"Hey, I figured we could go to the amusement park today. My treat."
>The park is far away and it'll be an all day affair if you do go.

Do you accept the invitation?

>>258586
Si!

Also, ask her if she'd like to start working out with us, Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

>>258586
>Yes!

>>258586
First we do his job for him then he starts talking to us about all his troubles only to run away without giving us anything, not even thanks.
I hope we can fight him later.


But anyway, accept.

>You gladly accept the invitation. You spend the drive talking about the usual; how Emily's other friends are doing and how school is going. Emily asks what games you've been playing and you admit that you've fallen out of the habit, spending most of your free time exercising now.
>"Why the sudden change in lifestyle?"
"I just wanted to better myself. No time like the present, ya know? While we're on the subject, would you like to join me? I'll be going to the gym Monday/Wednesday/Friday from now on and I'd like your support to keep going. And I like spending time with you."

>"I'd gladly go with you. Just go easy on me at first, ok?"

>You assure her you don't intend to make her do anything too hard.

>Eventually, you make it to the park. It's crammed with people, which would normally make you nervous, but you don't seem to mind as much today. You spend your time with Emily alternating between eating junk food and going on rides. Some time in the middle of the day a notification screen alerts you that you've gained a point of luck and an experience point. You spend a few more hours just wandering the park, taking in all the sights, until the park finally closes and you are ushered out with the rest of the crowds. While driving back home you are notified of another point each of luck and XP.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>Emily drops you off at the end of your driveway. As you near your house, the now dreaded notification once again chimes in
*ping*
>You have entered an instant dungeon
>As it happens the world around you warps. Instead of the silence that normally accompanies an instead dungeon you are struck by a cacophony. The entire area is in ruins. Tree's uprooted or blown to pieces. Your house! Your fucking house is a smoking crater!
>Fire rains down from a figure in the sky, with lights from deeper in the woods shooting up towards the figure, only to be rebuked as they draw near.
>You instinctively try to back up, but your back is pressed against a wall.
>Instead, you seek the cover of the woods, to obscure your position if not to physically protect you
>The figure in the sky keeps shooting fire down into the woods, trees catching fire that is slowly starting to spread. After several minutes the fire stops raining down and the figure itself instead begins to fall.
>You wander over to the figure to find it surrounded by Majestic agents, some wounded. One of them seems to notice you and comes over.
>"Hey kid, still getting into trouble I see. It seems in their desperation, the cultists started sacrificing each other until only one was left. Then that guy went on a power trip and wasted all his mana without actually doing much real damage. Hey, according to our intel, your ability is the gamer's ability, right? The only known other guy that has that has some kind of major healing ability, you don't happen to have that figured out yet, do you? We weren't expecting this level of resistance and some of my friends are hurt.

"No, I'm afraid not, unless your friends can be healed by an uppercut"
>"Damn shame. You should really look into learning one, I'm sure it would be useful in the future. Now scurry on home kid, this mission is over, nothing to see here"
"About that. My home was blown to pieces by that maniac"
>"What? But how could he... are you sure? Or do you mean the fake version of your house, inside the barrier? Has no one taught you about illusion barriers yet?"

"No one's taught me anything. I've been pretty much just trying to figure this out on my own"
>"Our intel said there was someone close to you who could teach you about this kind of thing"
"I think there might be, it's just that... I don't know, at first I thought I might be going crazy, then later on it just sort of faded into the background."
>"It's not my job to bring newbies up to speed, but it's really important that you at least know the basics. Some people, call them supernaturals, meta-humans, ability users, whatever you like, have magical powers. There are two main types of ability : trained, that come from some form of supernatural training, and natural, that manifest on their own some time in, and are based around, something significant in that person's life.

>Most natural ability users can leverage their innate magic to also gain trained abilities, making them much more powerful. However, no matter how powerful you are, there are still rules. People that try to flaunt their abilities and try to show off to the public are often ignored and befall terrible bad luck, often deadly. Many people believe there is some higher power giving these abilities and maintaining the separation between magical and mundane.

>There's one shared trained ability that any ability user can learn, called an illusion barrier. These barriers exist outside of normal space and time. You're in an illusion barrier right now that exists as a copy of the area around the cultist stronghold, which happens to be large enough to include your house. But outside the barrier, these woods and your house are in perfect condition. Other types of illusion barriers like ones that manipulate time or summon monsters to train against can also be made by skilled users

>Cracks start forming all around and eventually shatter, revealing the woods and your house just how you left them this morning
>"Hey, now that we're out of that illusion barrier, why don't you try making your own. Start with just a copy of a small area around us. Raise one of your arms into the air. Now try to focus, imagine your will being pushed through your arm into the area around us, your will to make an illusion barrier"

>You follow the agent's instructions and soon feel a power emanating from your outstretched palm. Soon the other agents still gathered a ways away disappear.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Instant Dungeon Creation"
>"Good, now do the same thing, only this time, try to will the barrier away"
"Dungeon. My gamer ability refers to these as "Instant Dungeons" "
>"Does it now? That is odd"
>Regardless you follow his instructions and the instant dungeon collapses
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Instant Dungeon Destruction"

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>"I've gotta get going now kid. Try not to get yourself killed"


>It's now Sunday. How do you want to spend the morning?
Options
1) Study
2)Exercise
3)Play videogames with Emily
4)Practice making and destroying instant dungeons

>>259423
ID Creation and Destruction.

>You decide to take your new powers for a spin
>You don't try anything fancy, just copying local terrain
>By activating your skills instead of "manually" creating and destroying illusion barriers you cut the process down to 10 seconds a cycle.
>Falling into your now familiar grinding trance, you spend 8 hours cycling between making and destroying instant dungeons
>By the time you get 1 general XP for 8 hours of training, you've gained an incredible 2880 XP in both ID Create and Destroy, bringing them both up to level 12. Unfortunately, the diminishing returns on XP means it will take a lot to level them further in the future.

>What to do for sunday evening?
Options : 1) Study
2) Exercise
3) Play games with Emily
4) Practice ID create and destroy
5)Experiment with your powers. Right now you can only create IDs that are copies of the local environment, but the Majestic agent described other possibilities you haven't tried yet. You also have a mana stat that's probably useful for something, and you seem to gain new poowers by attempting special actions. (Write-in what you attempt to do. You may end up with a new skill or new variations on old skills)

>>259701
>5)Experiment with your powers. Right now you can only create IDs that are copies of the local environment, but the Majestic agent described other possibilities you haven't tried yet. You also have a mana stat that's probably useful for something, and you seem to gain new poowers by attempting special actions. (Write-in what you attempt to do. You may end up with a new skill or new variations on old skills)
Try creating one with monsters to slay.

File: RedOozeIllusionBarrier.png (72KB, 1000x1000px) Image search: [Google]

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>You once again try to manually make an illusion barrier, this time with something you can combat in it. You don't want to get in over your head, so you decide to start small. The weakest most basic enemy you can think of...
*ping*
>An alteration has been made to your "Instant Dungeon Create" Skill. You can now create dungeons with oozes
>The forest around you is now filled with small level 1 oozes. You think you can do better than that, but quickly become caught up in watching the oozes as they playfully roll around, bouncing into trees and each other.
*ping*
>You have gained the "Observe" skill
>You test out this skill on one of the oozes and get a basic character screen for it.

>You break the illusion barrier and try again, this time trying to make the most powerful ooze you can. This new instant dungeon has oozes from all colors of the rainbow, with color correlating to power.

>After using "Observe" on them each, you find they all have stats across the board equal to their level, which increases by 1 for every step up the rainbow. e.g. red are level 1 with 1 in all stats, orange are 2 and 2, yellow are 3 and 3, ect. It seems you can set the maximum level of oozes, but not beyond level 6, and you can't set the minimum level. If you want a stronger fight, you're probably going to have to think up a new monster.

>Unfortunately, these guys are too small to effectively use your shoryken on, so if you want to train on them you're going to need to go a different route.

>With that out of the way, you still have plenty of daylight left to burn. What do you do with the rest of your sunday?

>>259892
Summon a basic ID and spend some time experimenting with skills. Try throwing a fireball, or forming a sword from your energy and shit.

>You break up your multi-ooze ID an create a basic one in its place to practice potential wizardry in

>You hold your hand out and try to focus energy into it. You feel it gather and let it release. As you do so, a ball of light shoots outward
*ping*
>You have gained the skill Mana Bolt
>You spend the rest of the day messing around with your mana. It's finicky to control, and so it takes several hours to get it into proper shapes like swords, axes, and spears, but once you've done so you gain another skill
*ping*
You have gained Mana Manipulation Mastery
>You then spend the rest of the time figuring out first how to transform mana into fire and then how to launch said fire. In the end, you get it figured out, but it's now late and time for sleep.
*ping*
>You have gained the Fire Bolt skill

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

We now need to fill out our schedule the for next school week. By default, mornings are taken up by school and Monday,Wednesday, and Friday afternoons are scheduled for exercising with Emily. School no longer gives stat gains.

(This will be my last update for tonight)

>>260080
Skip school, go to the library to increase mental stats in mornings instead, keep workout as is, use tuesday and thursday for leveling up your known skills, saturday for learning healing ability and spend sunday relaxing with emily. Also tell emily about what is going on with you on sunday

Go on the internet all day.
First play games on gambling websites.
>To get some money while training luck.

Then do some research on low level monsters, the supernatural and cults.
>This way we can power up our illusion barrier, prepare ourselves for any future events and maybe learn some new spells&skills.

Watch a couple of kung-fu movies.
>Learn something about unarmed combat and armed combat.

Go on a chat room and debate
>Gaining some social skills (charisma, persuasion & charm) should help next time we meet Emily, an agent or anyone else.

Before the end of the day spend sometime meditating and praying (boosted by our new supernatural knowledge).
>If there is "some higher power giving these abilities" it would help if we start off in their good books.

>Quest based on The Gamer

As another fan, I'm interested in how you handle mechanics for this and where your story's going to go, though a lot of that is dependent on us. Some stuff seems odd to me, like how people already know of the Gamer skill without our character telling anyone or how they weren't surprised to see him wander into their IDs. Usually people won't have any idea about if someone's a trained or natural ability user when they meet up, but I'll assume you've got in-world explanations. Also don't think Han Jee-Han is famous enough to be known outside of his particular part of Korea, but again, likely a similar explanation, unless this is sometime in the future from where the manhwa is currently at.

>>260080

I'm partially ok with >>260220 but we shouldn't skip school all week, we still have a normal life to live. Skip a couple of days, and let's constantly try to level up our Observe skill by using it on literally everything around us.

If possible, let's go to a gym that has sparring equipment to work on Unarmed Combat Mastery as well, even if it's just a few mats laying out or a heavy bag. If it's not possible though, then we'll make due in a dungeon.

While with Emily, create ID around her, attempt Observe. Now would be good time to ask her about it, because
>Our intel said there was someone close to you who could teach you.

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>260080
We should definitely do >>260220 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but still go to class the rest of the mornings to power up our Observe skill. We should also do >>260497 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, work out on Monday nights, and of course work out with Emily on Friday afternoon, and hang out with her that night.

>On monday morning you call both your mom and Emily, claiming to be pretty sick
>Your parents are usually pretty lax about this kind of thing, and you haven't abused that in the past, so they take your word for it and your mom says she'll call the school to let them know you won't be in for a few days
>You happen to know that your local library doesn't have textbooks that are very far ahead of what you've been using in school
>You also happen to know a couple places online where you can find free college level course work and "free" textbooks
>You spend the gaining 1 INT, 1 WIS, 8 Academics XP, and one general XP

>As mid-afternoon rolls around you hear a knock on the door. Opening it up, you see Emily, carrying a backpack
>"What! You faker, you don't look sick at all"
"I know, I know, but Emily, I had my reasons. School doesn't challenge me anymore and I have to keep improving myself because, well..."
"ID Create"
>You create a copy of your local surroundings, including Emily in the field
>She looks confused at first, then shocked, then ecstatic. She makes a high pitched squeal and jogs in place a little.
>"It's happened, it's finally happened. You've gotten your ability, haven't you? What is it, what is it?"
>You're a little taken aback, but manage a response

"My title is 'The Gamer'. But wait, you knew this would happen?"
>A gamer's ability? That is so like you. I wonder how it differs from the other gamer..."
"Hey you didn't answer my question! And there's another gamer out there?"
>"It's kind of a long answer, to both your questions. bu I'll do my best. First of all, my parents and me are all clairvoyant ; we can see things far away or catch glimpses of the future. Before we were born my parents worked out that someone would be born with one of the highest class abilities, something world-changing. My parents moved here and after they figured out that you would be that person they kind of pushed me to be your friend. Not that I minded. As for the other gamer, he too has world-changing power, so various organizations have had their eyes on him, including the guild of diviners my parents work with. Everyone with that level of power has someone's eyes on them at all times, because information is power in the Abyss. Oh, I'm getting so ahead of myself, you probably don't even know what the Abyss is do you?"

"I heard a Majestic agent use it. He's the one that taught me about illusion barriers. The Abyss is the magic side of the magic-mundane divide, isn't it?"

>"Exactly correct! You got info out of a Majestic agent? They're normally pretty quiet around outsiders. Oh, that was because of that whole cult-thing wasn't it. I had really hoped you wouldn't get involved in that, but you seem to have come out alive, so I'm thankful for that”

>"So, how does your ability work? Thanks to guild informants we know a bit about the Korean gamer. He levels up from killing monsters in illusion barriers, gains stats by training in the areas the stats are used, and seems to be able to learn new skills on his own just by trying."

"Yeah, that about sums up my experience with it. One thing that confuses me though is how my Luck works. It seems to just improve while relaxing with you."

>"Oh, I can answer that one. I have a special ability granted by my clairvoyance. I can sort of subtly subconsciously sense the long--term outcomes of my actions, so I naturally guide myself and those around me down the most beneficial path"

>"So, is that why you skipped school then? To level up?"
"Yeah, school was working for a while but now I've reached the limits of what it can do for me. I do plan on going back, but I spent this morning studying college courses."
>"Well then, if you're not really sick and you want to raise your stats, will we be doing our planned exercise trip?"
"Of course, let's get going"
>"Ok, just let me drop off the school work you missed today. Remember to have it all done by the time you get back to school or you'll get in trouble

>You spend a while throwing punches at a punching bag, but only end up with Athletics XP. You must need at least a sparring partner. Emily is amazed at how much you can lift after such a short time training.

>Emily finishes her workout long before you do, but hangs around anyways to cheer you on.

>At the end of your workout, you gain 1 Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, Luck, 8 Athleticism Xp, and 1 general XP

>You spend Tuesday morning studying, gaining again INT, 1 WIS, 8 Academics XP, and one general XP
>You spend Tuesday afternoon leveling up your active combat skills in an empty instant dungeon. It costs 40 MP to cycle through the three of them, which you regain in 8 seconds. After 8 hours of practice, you've gained a massive 3600 XP in all three skills, bringing them all to level 12

>Wednesday morning you study, gaining INT, 1 WIS, 8 Academics XP, and one general XP

Wednesday evening, you repeat your workout with Emily. Some people at the gym openly comment about how strong you are for your size. While you have gotten more fit since when you started, the muscle gain doesn't seem to scale with actual strength growth how it does in normal humans. You gain 1 Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, Luck, 8 Athleticism Xp, and 1 general XP

>Thursday morning you go back to school. You manage to finish the work you were given between classes. It's all just so easy for you now

>Thursday evening you go back to practicing those special skills. You now recover that 40 MP in 7 seconds, gaining 4114 XP in each skill, bringing Mana Bolt, Fire Bolt, and Shoryuken all up to level 13.

>Friday Morning you spend in class, trying not to fall asleep

>Friday Evening is another workout session, with the same gains as usual

>Saturday is a bit more complicated. First, in order to figure out how to heal something, you figure it's going to have to already be damaged. You briefly consider hurting yourself, but besides the idea being generally unpalatable your natural healing would get in the way too much
>Opening a multi-ooze barrier you find that a decent kick does some damage to one of the mid-level oozes and they don't seem to regen health, or at least not anywhere as quickly as you. You can then tank their hits while trying to heal them. It takes all morning, but your focus and dedication pay off, eventually earning you a notification window
*ping*
>You have learned the "Heal" skill

>You decide to spend the rest of saturday practicing your healing by repeatedly kicking and healing a slime, also leveling Unarmed Combat Mastery. The cycle takes you a mere 3 seconds, gaining you a massive 9600 XP in both skills. That ability of yours to focus on mindless repetitive tasks for hours on end is a godsend
>Sunday you spend all day playing games with Emily. She does much better than usual and you suspect she may have started using her powers to cheat, but you don't call her on it. +2 luck and +2 general XP.

>All throughout the week you've been Observing anything and everything, although it seems you only get exp for Observing any individual item once. Still, you rack up a respectable amount of skill XP

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>It's Monday morning and you've decided you've skipped enough school for now. It'd be a damn shame to let your grades drop now that your smarter than ever. You're in one of your morning classes when suddenly
*ping*
>You have entered an instant dungeon
>Shortly afterwards a man in a pale grey suit walks into your classroom.
>His name, level, and title are all just question marks
>"Michael, did you know that you're a hard kid to get a hold of? Don't worry about your class, this illusion barrier stops all time, so they won't miss you. I'm here on business ; I represent on online retailer that deals exclusively with goods and services from the Abyss. Someone with your level of power is sure to pick up a few odds and ends that you'd rather just sell than try to use yourself. That's where we come in. We take a commission off of every sale, of course, but I think you'll find it's worth it rather than having to deal with our shady competitors."
>The man offers you a business card
>"If you have any questions, about our business or just in general, please ask. We consider customer satisfaction our number 1 priority"

How do you respond?

Rolled 8 (1d20)

"Sounds great, but how do I contact you when I have something to sell?"

>>262309
Why would you want these things?

>>262309
>Someone with your level of power is sure to pick up a few odds and ends that you'd rather just sell than try to use yourself.

>Take the business card and read it
"What do you mean, what kind of odds and ends? And what competitors? Actually, who are you and how do you know who I am?"

Be suspicious and doubt the shadiness of their competitors, this guy approached us out of nowhere, knowing our name and maybe even what we can do, since he said "someone with your level of power." Feel the paranoia start creeping in since it seems everybody but you seems to know all about your abilities.

>Take the business card and read it
>It has what looks like a website URL, but it's long string of seemingly random characters

"What do you mean, what kind of odds and ends? And what competitors? Actually, who are you and how do you know who I am?"
>"Oh dear boy, everyone's who's anyone knows who you are. I'm not inclined to reveal my exact sources, but suffice it to say that in the Abyss there are only secrets to those who can't afford to buy them."
>"As for competitors, there are many who have a hand in the type of facilitation we specialize in, although we currently have the largest market share in the world"
>"Any item of magical value can be sold on our website."

"Sounds great, but how do I contact you when I have something to sell?"
>"Everything you need to know is on the card I've just handed you. Just go to the website and use our award winning user interface"

"And Why would you want these things?"
>"You appear to be a bit confused : we don't actually buy or sell anything. Think of us a bit as the e-bay of the Abyss : Matching people who have items and skills to those who need them, for a price. And feel free to put up for offer anything even the slightest bit magical. Even if the enchantment is useless there are those that will be willing to pay for it to suck the mana out and put it into their own uses. We will, of course, take a small percentage out of every transaction"

>>262856
I adore this quest op but if it takes you too long to lay shit out then don't write so much.

Threads die if they are too narrative heavy, even if it's good narrative

>"Oh would you look at the time" The man says, looking at the wrong wrist, "I simply have to be somewhere. You understand, I'm sure. Oh, and one last word of warning, someone was practically giving away your home address recently, so expect some visits from everyone from loons who want you to do some inane task to unions fighting over rights to you to people who simply want to capture you and suck out your mana. Anyway, I'm sure it won't be more than just a nuisance to someone like you. Goodbye, and please do consider using our services"

>The man strolls away and the illusion barrier breaks, leaving you back in math class, plus one odd business card

>It is now after school. How do you plan to spend monday evening?

(This will be my last post for the day. Sorry about today's pacing, I'll try and get more frequent [and hopefully more interesting than just grinding] updates going tomorrow)

>>263590
We need to start leveling Mana Manipulation. Don't want to be a scrub with it for forever.

>>263904
Hell no, mama manipulation is op

>>263904

This guy's right. At the moment it's our lowest level skill, just behind Athletics and Academics. We need to spend some time dedicated heavily to training that up, especially since we're probably not safe thanks to some asshole giving out our address.

While we train it, let's try to get some kind of barrier or mana shield ability developed. We've got a heal, but nothing really dedicated to defense.

>>264516
best way of going about it is to use mana manipulation in excerise, like adding it to weights or running while bursting mana with hands outstretched in front to function like those shutes you harness on your back to apply resistance.
>>264691
We can also Concentrate the shield to certain aspects of the body, like the fist, and use it's properties to enhance unarmed mellee damage

>Emily comes by for your regularly scheduled work-out when you tell her you've got something special in mind instead.

>You use your mastery of mana manipulation to create work-out equipment. The weights are fairly easy, although heavier weights take moer mana. You spend the workout dismissing and reassembling the weights whenever your mana regen allows, averaging out to 10 seconds per cycle for your entire workout. While doing so you try focusing on creating a barrier of mana around you. After a little dedicated concentration you gain a skill notification
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Mana Shield"
>Unfortunately, your mana is mostly dedicated to making objects and you don't get a chance to practice your new technique during your workout

>You gain 2880 XP in Mana Manipulation Mastery by the end of the workout, bringing that skill up to level 12. You also gain a point of general XP and the usual stat gains from working out with Emily.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

(I've made a small change/addition to how Mana Manipulation Mastery works and added in the adjusted casting cost to the relevant skills)

>Just as you're headed off to bed, there's a knock at your door. You answer it to find a young blond boy. Well, younger than you at any rate

>Hello sir, could I interest you in joining the Alchemist's Union?

>>265484

Sigh and look at the clock, then back to the boy.

"The what? Why would I... It's late, you couldn't play games at a better time?"

He might be legit, and sure, someone apparently told everyone our personal info for REASONS, but we were heading to bed and have no reason to confirm that the person talking about us wasn't lying. Especially to some kid we've never met, and ESPECIALLY since some people might "simply want to capture you and suck out your mana." The life of a mana battery is not the life for us.

At least we know alchemy is a thing though, we'll make a mental note to keep that in mind to ask Emily about later, and maybe try to learn a bit on our own. Or check out that website on the business card to see if it has anything about alchemy. While we're at it, we should ask Emily about them, too.

"The what? Why would I... It's late, you couldn't play games at a better time?"

>"Wha..? But it's no-" Is all the kid (10th level Alchemist Noah Campbell according to what's above his head) gets out before you cut him off by closing the door.

>You decide to check out the site on the business card before. It has a list of categories to choose from, one of which is "Alchemy". You click on it to find the subcategories "Ingredients" , "Potions" , "Golems" and "References".

>Going through the lists everything is obscenely expensive, with the cheapest of items costing tens of thousands of dollars. Your parents transfer money into your account every month so you can take care of the shopping because they're gone so often, and you've lived pretty frugally up until this point, so you have some money saved up. But not nearly enough for even the basic alchemy 101-style books.

>You decide you'll ask Emily about the whole situation tomorrow

>As you try to fall asleep, there's a slight sobbing, just at the edge of what you can hear, coming from your front door.

>>265851
Go check it out. If it's the kid, ask what's going on.

>Unable to sleep with the annoying sound going on, you decide to investigate.
>Outside your front door you find Noah bawling his eyes out. As you open the door and step outside, he turns to you in obvious excitement, though still seems to be trying to hold back tears.

"Ok kid, what's going on here?"

>"Although the modern-" *sniff* "modern incarnation of the union is fairly young- "*sniff* "it has a legacy spanning millennia and boasts-" sniff" " The largest membership of any modern American guild in the Abyss"


>You cut off the kids rehearsed sounding speech
"No, I mean what are YOU doing here, crying on my porch when I thought I told you to go home"
>"The alchemist union doesn't have a lot of the financial backing other unions do. Union dues and commission fees are both pretty small, that's how they keep their membership so high. But what that means is when they have some union project, like recruiting you, they don't have a lot of resources to work with."

>"I was only picked for this job because I live in the next town over, closer than any other union member, and I was only given enough money for bus tickets for my way here and back home, and recruiting you is my first real job for the union, and if I mess it up I'll be kicked back down to Apprentice andIjustreallywant-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down. I get that recruiting me is important to you. I'll THINK about it, ok? And it sounds like you don't have any place to stay tonight so you can crash on my couch. Just, try to keep quiet so I can sleep, we'll talk more in the morning"

>Noah's eyes light up
>"REALLY! Thank you so much, I promise I won't be a bother, and the Union has some great benefits I'll tell you all about in the morning. Then you'll have to join and I'll get rewarded and everything will be great"

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Now, just try and get some sleep"

>You have a peaceful nights sleep.

>Tuesday morning. Noah is still asleep while you are eating breakfast and hear another knock at your door. Your feet heavy with dread, you slowly walk over to answer it. Outside you find an older man, 14th level Earl Moore, Smith.
>"Now give me a moment to get my readin' glasses on..." He says pulling two items from his trouser pockets, a pair of glasses and a piece of paper. "Michael Smith, you are officially invited to be inducted into the the Artificer's Union" Earl look over the paper at you. "You are Michael Smith, ain'tcha?"

>>266201

Man, Noah gets too excited for his own good. He should learn from Earl and visit in the morning instead of late at night. Though, Earl's timing isn't too much better.

"Artificer's Union? What's that? And why are they inviting Michael of all people?"

Maybe follow up with "What is it you think he can do?" based on his response.

I'm a little interested in this, but he did interrupt our breakfast, and we've still got to get Noah out of our hair too. Leaving a bit of room for a misunderstanding could make him want to disengage instead of sating our slight bit of curiosity, freeing us up to get on with our day. Let's try to get Emily to give us as detailed of a rundown on what we should expect as possible, everything about the abyss and what's actually real, and also maybe see about crashing with her for a little bit, until attention on us dies down.

At the very least, we should hang up a "No Solicitors" sign and use the Abyss website to sell information about ourselves, since apparently "there are only secrets to those who can't afford to buy them" which pretty clearly means they act as information brokers too.

The information to be sold? That we'll be denying any requests from solicitors and assume them hostile, and if they have a proposition for us they can reach us by email. Make sure we have an email address for that stuff only. Maybe this way we can get some sleep or have a meal without interruption, or save some kids like Noah the trouble of visiting an empty house if Emily puts us up somewhere.

"Ok, in order, what is the Artificer's Union, why do you want me to join it, and what in particular do you think I can do?"

>"That's fair enough. The Artificer's Union is the group here in America that regulates the sale an manufacture of enchanted items. Just about anyone in the Abyss can learn the craft, but do to the mana consumption it takes most only use for personal equipment and aren't part of the Union. "
>"Now I'm not on the committee that decides these things, but I imagine they want to for the same reason everyone else does : You're going to be a powerful ally whenever your powers fully manifest, if they haven't already. "
>"Finally I don't personally think you can do squat, 'cause I ain't seen you do nothing yet. But from what I hear, you're supposed to have some incredible magical ability, and that usually makes for good enchanters, and good enchanters are good for the Union"

"Look, I'll consider your offer, but right now I need to get to school"

>"Alrighty then, I'll be around. Heard a rumor that Majestic cleared out a house not too far from here, one of your neighbors I believe, saw it on the way in. I'll set up shop there inside an illusion barrier. Stop by any time you want to learn more about the Union, or if you want to join"

>It's at this point you remember Noah

"Hey, I've got a kid here from the Alchemist's Union. I'd consider it a favor from the Artificer's Union if you could look after the kid. Just until I can get him to go home.

>"Well, I guess I could use the company. I'll see to it"
>You rouse Noah and explain the situation to him. He reluctantly follows Earl out into the woods. That might not have been the best idea, but hey, not your problem now.

>Just then Emily appears down the driveway in her car, ready to pick you up for school

"I have got so many questions for you."

What questions do you ask Emily on the way to school?

>>266423
Ask if she's been giving out our info.

>>266423
>>266441

This, or her family at least.

And ask for a general rundown of what exactly the Abyss entails, since you've been approached by two different people now that confirmed the existence of both alchemy and enchanting. What else is possible that you should know about?

And since two people tried recruiting you, and she already said her parents wanted her to be your friend, is she going to try to get you to join some group too?

>>266471
The real question is, can we only join one guild or whatever? It would really suck if so.

>>266496

I was wondering that too, but I planned on saving that particular question until we're ready to talk to Earl and Noah again, as well as anyone else that might pop up.

And we shouldn't forget to ask for a place to crash for a few days, if she says we're not going to be recruited into anything by her or her family. Rooming with them might be viewed as accepting, when we really don't know enough about anything for that just yet. Though they do get points in their favor since she seems to have been a great friend over the years.

>You explain the situation then ask if she's shared any information on you
>"Heaven's no! The Diviner's Union is has quite a few members and because of your immense potential you're really easy to scry on."

"So, you mentioned your parents pushing you towards me, do they want me to join their guild too?"

>"I'm not sure you would if you wanted. Clairvoyance, beyond it's most simple form, is impossible to learn, it's something you're born with. If anyone could learn it it would be you, but that was never the intention of my parents or the Union.
>"The goal of the Union itself is to make the best possible future. You're a big part of that. We just want to guide you down the path the benefits everyone"

"Is there anything else about the Abyss I should know?"

>"Oh, there's lots of things, I'm sure I'm forgetting some. Monsters in illusion barriers are just local spirits given form, but there are real magical monsters too. They just all have the natural ability to form illusion barriers around them so normal humans can't find them.
There's even a Union dedicated to hunting them down, sometimes to protect people, sometimes for valuable body parts."

"There are also places like natural illusion barriers, spaces outside normal space and time. Hell is real, with demons and everything. I've heard it's surprisingly pleasant, if you're willing and able to make a good contract.


"So, can I stay at your place until this whole thing dies down?"

>"Sure thing, I'm sure my parents will understand. These guild offers should slow down eventually"

>As you get to school you notice an attractive businesswoman standing outside the school. Level 24, Bithiah, succubus. It seems like she's searching for someone, and you can probably guess who

How do you approach the situation?

>>266595
>Level 24, Bithiah, succubus.
>How do you approach the situation?

That's a lot bigger than we are. And we don't even have a stealth skill. An encounter with a succubus would probably not be good for a popular young man such as us.

Let's try our best to sneak away anyway, mumbling something to Emily about meeting her inside before walking away from her. We should try to make sure we stay out of Bithiah's sight as we walk away from Emily and around the nearest corner. As soon as we're around, let's throw up an instant dungeon and immediately start running through it to get inside the school. We could use ID Destruction to drop out in a bathroom or underneath some stairs or something if we make it inside.

>>266651
We're like Lv.12.

>Sensing a much bigger fish in your little pond, you skedaddle your way on away from Bithiah. You then proceed to sneak into the school using an Instant Dungeon. Potential crisis averted!

>You manage to spot Bithiah through a window once you get to your seat, but your seat isn't near the window so you doubt she can see you. She storms off shortly after school starts

>The school day goes as they have since after the first week of gaining your powers, that is to say, boring. But after events lately, you're a little thankful for boring.

>What do you do this Tuesday evening?

(I'm pretty sure it's tuesday and we don't have plans for tuesday afternoons, if i messed up somewhere someone please correct me)

>>266706
I think we should really study magic completely, try every basic kind of mana manipulation in the book, straight out of the games

>>266683

Character sheet says we're level 5, our Mana Manipulation is level 12 now, however.

>>266706

Doesn't look like we made plans for this week, since we've been too distracted with visitors.

We've encountered a few people higher in level than us, but now we've seen someone we confirmed to be almost five times our level in the area, possibly interested in us. Let's hop in a dungeon and start grinding exp. Blue and purple oozes only, if possible, because we can oneshot blues with mana bolt (or fire bolt, they seem to do the same damage for now.)

>>266743

Almost forgot, grind up mana shield while we're at it.

>>266745
What if we made like a heater shield to wield alongside our weapon with Mana Manipulation?

>>266743
We could also use Mana Manipulation to just form a weapon, which I think we should do before we start really using magic. Mostly because it's a really easy way to reduce the cost of our spells and make training with them way easier.

>>266923
>>266931

I'm alright with trying these, I was just thinking we should focus on trying to level up as much as we can tonight. Mana bolt costs 8MP, and we regen 6 per second as is, but we should try to do what we can to make it even cheaper.

If we try making a melee weapon with mana manipulation, that should get us two skills grinding up at once, since I'm sure we'll get some sort of weapon skill too. Three skills counting Mana Shield. And we can one-shot almost all the oozes without even putting ten mana into it.

We could also try experimenting with our mana bolt spell. Pour more mana into it, try to make it bigger, faster, try to have it break into several smaller ones or just fire a bunch at once so it's like a shotgun... we're pretty lacking in AoE after all. But maybe we should save that for another day, and just focus on Mana Manipulation, Mana Shield, and a weapon skill for now.

And looks like we can't limit it to blue and purple oozes only, since blues are level 5 and purples are 6. Forgot we couldn't set a minimum level.

>>266999
What I am really interested in though besides getting a basic grasp on all types of magic,,is condensing mana, like a lot of it, then spinning it, then we bassicly have a rasengan

>You tell Emily your intention to train a bit in an instant dungeon. She insists on accompanying you to make sure you don't get in over your head

>You create a dungeon with the highest level ooze types you can. You spend a minute just watching them blob around, bouncing off trees and each other. It's a little mesmerizing, and you almost feel bad for attacking these clueless little blobs. But not enough to stop the ooze holocaust that's about to go down.
>While you're thinking about this, an ooze crawls onto your foot, seeping into your shoe. In shock you fling your foot and the ooze flies into the air. You have a thought and before you fully understand what that thought is you're jumping into the air yelling "SHORYUKEN".
>The ooze is vaporized and small bills rain down from above. It seems these little guys drop loot.
>You focus on the two highest tier of ooze, the blue and purple, one-shotting the blues with mana bolt and flinging the purples us with your foot before blowing them to bits with shoryuken. The whole process of getting one blue and one purple takes about 10 seconds with Emily dutifully gathering your drops. This leaves you enough MP to cast your mana shield about every 4 seconds.
>In total, after 8 hours you gain 31,680 general exp (and 10 levels), 2,880 exp in shoryuken, unarmed combat mastery, and mana bolt, and 10,080 xp in mana manipulation mastery
>As far as drops, they come in two variations of two varieties. Every few oozes, one will drop either money or a vial of ooze slime, amount and color respectively based on the type of ooze killed. This nets you $10,500 in tens, fives, and ones and 172 vials each of blue and purple slime.

"So, is this money real, or what? And what about all this slime you insisted on gathering up?"

>"Oh, I should have explained this sooner. Some people have the special ability to make monsters in illusion barriers drop loot. It's a very coveted ability. I can assure you this money is 'real', though I have no idea how. Just one of the Abyss's many secrets. The slime should be useful in potion making and is probably worth a lot on the open market. If you don't want it, I'll take it"

" 'Abyss's many secrets'? I was told the Abyss only had secrets for the people that couldn't afford to buy them"

>"A much richer person than I must have told you that"

>You both laugh as you walk in to Emily's house.

>The next day there's no succubus waiting for you at the school entrance. The day goes by without a hitch. You're even starting to get used to how easy classes are, if a bit dull.

>It's now after school, and you're scheduled to work out with Emily. How do you wish to proceed?

>>267314

Ask if she's able to make an Instant Dungeon that's better to work out in. Higher gravity or something. If she can't, try once or twice on our own.

Let's try some weighted cardio, since we're probably uniquely suited to pulling off some DBZ level bullshit with our training. Follow that up with some shadow boxing, imagining ourselves as the opponent if nobody else. If we can't get in a dungeon that makes us heavier on its own, mana manipulate up some weights. Actually, we should probably use mana manipulation any time we're working out.

Also, I feel like That Guy pointing it out, but I checked on the character sheet to get ideas here and noticed our HP and MP. Did the formulas change? The numbers don't add up, we're at least 100 short on both for our level.

"Hey, Emily, could you make some kind of high-gravity illusion barrier to train in?"

>"Eh? I'd never thought of something like that. I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing that, but remember that we were supposed to be working out together, so I'm not going higher than 10% extra, even if I can do it at all"
>After a few minutes of concentration an illusion barrier forms around you. You feel noticeably heavier. You try to mix carrying heavy mana constructs with constant running. It seems to work out pretty well in the high gravity. You pull double duty by burning all your extra mana making hurdles to lunge over. You don't always make it, but when you fail and clip them they just fall forward and you keep going. When not making hurtles you just make random constructs and let them fall around you. It takes some intense focus, but without worrying about what the constructs actually are you manage 1 every second for the entire 8 hour workout, though your thoughts start to feel sluggish and your focus begins to wain near the end. You're going to sleep well tonight.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>Emily gets tired much more quickly than usual and spends most of the time playing some handheld game it seems she brought with her, cheering you on from time to time

>Thursday morning passes without more incident than you falling asleep in a couple of classes. That heavy work-out yesterday really took it out of you and the boring classes certainly didn't help

>How will you spend this lovely thursday evening?

>>267505
> Check the website on the business card and research what the ooze slime is for in alchemy. Maybe buy an alchemy book and dabble in it.

>You start up your computer and do some research into the ooze slime. It appears to reduce the mana cost associated to making potions with the strength of the reduction depending on the color
>It seems each vial of blue slime is worth about $2,500 and each vial of purple slime is worth about $3,000.
>You also look at some alchemy books, but even the cheapest ones cost more than the cash you made in cash from loot drops. If you want something off this Abyss website, you're going to need to sell at least some of the vials.
>That is, after you get over the shock of just how much money the pile you have is worth.

(This is my last post for the night, I'll be back tomorrow. Please feel encouraged to leave more suggestions before I get back, I'll try to incorporate what I can)

>>267862
Try and sell all the slime.

Also, do weapon skills not exist? Or are our Mana Manipulation weapons covered by our skill in Mana Manipulation?

>>268136
Holy shit we actually have 1.2m dollars in just slimes. What the actual fuck.

>You put up the vials of slime for sale. At first, nothing happens. After a couple minutes
*poof*
>A small demonic looking humanoid appears. 4th level Delivery Imp. It leaves a small stack of hundreds, grabs a couple vials and disappears. You check the site and see those vials listed as having been sold. This process repeats every few minutes.
>To feel like you're actually doing something while you wait, you use your mana manipulation mastery to form various weapons and swing them around until you get a skill notification for mastery of them. Just swinging them around though doesn't seem to raise the mastery any. You gain masteries in polearms, axes and swords. You try to make a bow, but then feel silly when you realize that with mana control you can just mentally huck an arrow made out of mana. You try this inside an instant dungeon and gain a sizable hole in Emily's illusory wall and a new skill, "Mana Arrow", which seems to be a direct improvement over mana bolt.

>After destroying the instant dungeon and (from your perspective) fixing the wall, you see that your slime vials are mostly sold out. You also notice you have enough cash for something you've had your eye on. It costs $35,000 (shipping included), but the temptation is too great and you shell out for "The Basics of Alchemy". A delivery imp arrives, takes some of your cash, then poofs away, only to return moments later with your precious new book.
*ping*
>You have gained a skill book, "Basics of Alchemy" Would you like to learn "Basics of Alchemy?" Y/N

>>268512
Y.

Time to start coming up with an explanation as to where the dick this money is coming from.

>You select "Y" on the notification screen. The book begins to glow, softly at first and then more brightly. The edges start to tear off then fly around you in a vortex. The book is ripped to shreds, pieces of it now flaring up with bright light, and then the light enters your body.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Basic Alchemy"
>With the skill, you gain a fundamental understanding of how alchemy works. It's simply using mana to affix spells to objects. The difficulties come in alchemists needing to spend years to learn spells to be able to enchant items with them (suckers) and it takes a large amount of mana over a period of time to make the spell permanent. You also gain a sort of basic sense that the amount of mana you have and especially the rate at which you regenerate it are much greater than what your standard alchemist is working with.

>You have no idea why an enchanter's guild would be separate from an alchemist's guild, they seem like the same damn thing.

>This whole process has taken about 2 hours. You've still got about 6 hours of free time left before you should start getting some sleep. How do you spend your time?

>>268597
Try and make another ID, but this time try making the monsters goblins or some shit.

>You spend some time trying to make a new illusion barrier with stronger enemies. It takes a few attempts, but eventually you end up filling the forest with small groups of goblins, 3 to 5 per group, with the groups spaced far enough apart you think you could attack one without the others getting involved. The goblins are labeled about half-and-hand "warrior" and "shaman". Using Observe, you note that they are pretty strong.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>You're not entirely sure you could take on a small group and are reasonably certain a large group would be hazardous to any future plans you have that involve living.

>>268689
(*half-and-half. That's not even auto-correct, I have no excuse)

>>268689

Try our best to be sneaky, hopefully getting a sneak skill, while moving around to get in a better position to pop the weakest looking goblin out of a group of 3 with a mana arrow from a distance.

Have a sword ready, and mana shield up when we pull it.

>>268754
(The full stats for both mana arrow and the goblins are in the pastebin. while mana arrow is an inherently stronger skill than mana bolt, it's still only level 1 and so wouldn't do nearly enough damage to kill one of the weaker goblin shamans.Mana Bolt is level 14 and much closer, but still a couple points shy. Want to put some of those free points we have from leveling into INT to make up the difference?)

>>268815

Let's save our points for now. I was thinking we should pull with the arrow to get its attention, then switch it up. That way the skill levels up slowly until it's good enough to be our bread and butter.

Let's do this for a bit, then spend at least an hour on the Abyss market site and see if we can find more information about the Gamer ability or the other person that has it. Just realized we don't actually know too much about it ourselves. Maybe try doing some experimentation on our own.

>You hide behind a tree and spot a likely group of goblins, 1 shaman and 2 warriors. You throw up a couple barriers and manifest a sword out of mana in case things get hairy. You then set your sights and release a barrage of mana arrows on the shaman. The first arrow takes off a two thirds of it's health and the set following it finishes it off. You then try to kite the warriors as best you can, sending barrage after barrage of arrows at them as fast as you can cast (about twice a second with your life on the line), but they're faster than you and begin to close the gap. Thankfully, the warriors shields are small and don't protect them from too many arrows, and with your skill is already leveling up from use you make short work of them.

>You continue on for 5 more hours, starting fights with your shields ups, focusing on shamans first and warriors second. Over the course of this time you average 3 shots of Mana Arrow per group of goblins and take about 30 seconds per group, being slowed down by gathering up your loot. You started using a goblin shaman's staff as soon as one dropped, but do to warrior's shields blocking some of your shots it didn't raise your efficiency any.
>In the end you walked away with 24,000 extra exp, bringing you up to level 16, Mana Arrow exp totaling 1,800 bringing it up to level 11, Mana Shield exp equal to 600 (not enough to gain another level) and 2,400 Mana Manipulation Mastery

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>Your pile of loot is pretty extensive as well. $15,600 in crisp, clean hundred dollar bills. You also got a pile of 156 shaman staves and 78 pairs of shields and spears. The shields and spears are too small for a human to effectively use, so they're probably worthless, but the staves are enchanted. Looking up the staves on the Abyss network, you find similar items selling for a cool 50,000 each. Your basic knowledge of alchemy lets you know this is less for their effect, and more for how much mana can be sucked out of them, making them a hot commodity.
>Which is awesome, because the informational package on the other Gamer is sitting at a million. dollars. One million dollars. Do you want to sell a few/bunch/all of the staves and buy the information?

>>269321
Sell all the staves and buy the info.

>>269321
>156 shaman staves
>you find similar items selling for a cool 50,000 each.
>>We have $7.8 million from staves alone

Holy shit, yeah. Let's sell 20 of them for now and buy the information, we can easily afford it. Even though the shields and spears are small, let's see if we can find anything like them for sale too. If not, we'll hold onto them to play with later, since we'll probably be able to turn a profit from them somehow.

>>269335
>Sell all the staves

Well, I'd like to keep at least one for ourselves and maybe a couple as backup in case it breaks.

>>269345
We can always farm for more tho.

>You sell off all your staves except one, for personal use. If something happens to it, you can just loot another one

>The general information on the other Gamer is less useful than you would have liked for the cash you dropped on it. His name is Han Jee-Han, he's associated with the Yunhonmoon and the Black Summoner, may be a member of the Chunbumoon, lives in the territory of the Existence Eater, was recently tutored by the Witch of Slaughter and is under the personal protection of the Harem King. You don't really understand what any of that means

>What you do understand is the description of his abilities. He's a skilled martial artist, developed on his own an improved version of the Mana Arrow called the Spinning Mana Arrow (supposedly more powerful but harder to cast, for wizards that actually have to put in effort to cast spells), can create golems, has an earth elemental familiar and recently learned how to fly. He also has access to powerful protective magics such as Copper Skin, Troll's Regeneration, and Mana Shield, in addition to various Chunbumoon techniques that you don't really understand. Finally, he has a powerful healing spell, seemingly learned from the Yunhonmoon.

>His more general abilities seem similar to yours : He can level up by killing monsters in illusion barriers and loot them, he stays calm and almost disconnected when under pressure, damage to his body only lowers his hitpoints, he gets healed by eating food and sleeping, he can store items in an inter-dimensional inventory-WAIT, WHAT?

"Inventory"
>An inventory screen pops up, showing what you have equipped (A shirt on your torso, pants on your legs, shoes on your feet, all other slots empty). You grab your goblin staff from nearby and see it equipped in one hand. Next to your equipment screen is a set of boxes. You cautiously shove the staff into a box. It disappears into thin air, leaving only an icon on one of the boxes. You reach into the space where the icon is and pull the staff back out.That's going to be real handy for collecting loot in the future.

>It's grown late and you decide to go to bed.

>Friday during school, class is interrupted when a man (18th level Ed Pavel, Fixer) shows up. He asks to talk to out in the hall for a moment and the teacher excuses you.
>Outside, Ed gets right down to business. "I'm a Fixer" he says. "I Fix things. Dragon eat your homework? I can Fix that. Miss the some school because you temporarily got trapped in another dimension? I can Fix that. Not do so well on the SATs because you spent more time practicing magic than studying, I can Fix that. Fixers grease the wheels so everything runs smoothly. And we want you to join us kid. What do you say?"

>>269456
"I have so many guilds trying to jam them down my throat at the moment that it's getting kind of weird. What's even weirder is that they're getting my information, like my classes and even my fucking HOME ADDRESS, from *someone*, and I don't know who's doing it or why.

Anyways, tell me what I can get from joining your guild. Also, I'm wondering that, if I join your guild, will it be the *only* guild I can be apart of?"

>>269456
>>269474

This.

Also, make plans to try experimenting with our Gamer ability as soon as we have a minute alone. We've got an inventory screen, I assume we're aware we've got a character screen too. Let's go down the standard list and try to call up a bunch of others to see what works, to see if our ability is based off of a standard RPG or more of an MMORPG deal.

>Menu
>Options
>Settings
>Friendlist
>Blacklist
>Guild
>Party
>Profession
>Crafting

>"Hey, kid, Michael, right? You've got some legendary triple-S rank ability, foretold by they hundred and eight sages of whogivesashit, it'd be weird if every yahoo from here to Tenasket DIDN'T want you on their side. Sorry you're not getting the privacy you'd like, but hey, that's celebrity life for ya."

>"The Fixer's Union, it's not a guild, guilds are an Old World thing, stuff happened, anyway we call them unions here, well the Fixer's Union would give you a the basic reference material you need to study the kind of mind magic we use. You'd only be a probationary member of the Union until you convince your teachers to give you straight A's without you showing up to class at all with no one blinking an eye, but I bet that with whatever you got up your sleeve that wouldn't take very long.
>"After your probationary period you'll be expected to take jobs from the Union-"
"Isn't giving out jobs more a guild thing than a union thing?"
>"Look, Mikey, like I said, stuff happened. It's just a name, I think it was a solidarity thing, look it-it just doesn't matter, ok? 'Guilds' 'Unions' I don't give a fuck, I just know they give out jobs. Do the jobs, get money, the union likes you, you get more, better jobs. Don't do the jobs or fuck 'em up, you don't get money, the union doesn't like you, do it too much you end up out of the union. Try and undercut Union prices and they'll make it their job to 'convince' you otherwise, if you follow me there Mikey"

>"And yeah, you can join as many guilds-damnit, now you've got me doing it- you can join as many MAGICAL CAREER-BASED ORGANIZATIONS as you like, but they'll all have their own requirements for what they want you to do and if you start dropping the ball they might start dropping you."

>"Now look kid, I understand you need some time to think this over, but time is money. I'll be at your place after school, you can give me your answer then, and it better be 'yes' "

>Ed abruptly ends the conversation and walks off

>After school you decide to start testing the limits of this gift of yours. The character screen you had been using frequently since it appears every time you level up and you figured out pretty easily just saying "character' brought it out too. Now you've got a few new ideas to try out quietly at the back of the class while no one is paying attention.
>Menu
>Options
>Settings
>These all bring up the same interface. It has three tabs 'Gameplay', 'Video', and 'Audio'. The only Gameplay option is 'Auto-Enter Instant Dungeon' and it's currently turned on. Video settings just make everything look worse when you mess with them and the volume control on Audio can only be turned down. There doesn't seem to be much of use here.
>Friendlist
>A small box appears with only one name on it, Emily. You decide to try private messaging her.
"Hey, can you here this? Testing, testing, 1,2,3, testing"
>"Michael? Where are you, how are you doing this?"
"New piece of my power I found. I'll tell you more about it later. I have more testing to do for now"
>Blacklist
>Does nothing
>Guild
>"Would you like to start a guild? Y/N" Interface. You select no for now
>Party
>"Would you like to start a party? Y/N" Interface. You select no for now
>Profession
>Just brings up your character sheet
>Crafting
>Does nothing

>It is now Friday after school. You are scheduled to work out with Emily. How do you proceed?

>>269818
>I'll be at your place after school, you can give me your answer then, and it better be 'yes' "

Good thing we're not staying at our own place right now. But if we see him again, "No."

We have over 7 million dollars to our name from just a few hours in a dungeon. We don't really have a need to join a "Union" that's going to expect us to do real work.

Let's turn off Auto-Enter Instant Dungeon.

As for working out... Back into the higher gravity dungeon. But this time, let's try to form a party with Emily, while discussing our new discoveries with her.

>Before working out you turn off Auto-Enter Instant Dungeon. That would have been useful during the whole 'cultist' thing, but hey, live and learn.
>You also form a party and invite Emily. She seems a bit shocked at first, not as used as you are at having those little screens popping up at you, but accepts the party invitation
>This time you decide to make the dungeon. It only takes you a moment, and you find you can adjust gravity on the fly between 12% extra and 12% less. You're pretty sure you could make a perpetual motion machine going between those two, but it would be a lot of work for something that honestly isn't as amazing as it would have been a month ago. You set the gravity to +10% at Emily's request.
>You once again workout using mana constructs, burning your excess mana by making useless constructs that rain around you as you run. Emily spends most of her time on cardio, resting less often than previously and not playing her handheld as much.
>After 8 hours, you've gained the usual benefits of the exercise plus mana training and are ready for bed. The constant focus on mana manipulation while working out really leaves you feeling drained, but in a good way. You're just glad there's no school tomorrow.


>It's Saturday morning, your phone is dying, and Emily's charger doesn't match your phone. The only people you ever need to call are Emily, who you're currently living with, and your parents, who will just call Emily's parents if they can't get a hold of you, so this isn't some great emergency, but it is annoying and you like to have your phone available to you.

>Do you think the coast is clear to go back to your house long enough to get the charger?

>>270056

We're rich enough, let's just buy a brand new charger. Or a brand new phone and an extra charger for it, if we can't find one that works with our model.

And let's start making it a habit to store important stuff that we don't want to lose in our inventory. Cell phone, wallet, 7.6 million dollars...

>You decide to just order a new charger online. You have enough money, you can spring for 1-day shipping. What could go wrong in 1 day without a phone you never use anyway?

>What do you do on this bright and sunshiny Saturday morning?

>>270218

More shopping. The information we bought listed some of the spells Han Jee-Han uses. See if there are any books available for Copper Skin, Troll's Regeneration, or any other buff spells. Maybe grab one on golem creation, but don't bother trying to find Spinning Mana Arrow. We can probably do that one ourselves.

After we're done shopping, go crazy with wikipedia articles on ballistics. Arrows, bullets, cannons, missiles, read up everything we can to get some inspiration to play with our skills, before hopping into a dungeon to test them out.

>>270289

Wouldn't mind playing around with alchemy a bit, but I'm not sure if we're able to yet. Our character sheet doesn't have anything on our skill the Basics of Alchemy book should have given us.

>>270218
Find the Fixer dude. Being able to convince our teachers to give us A's while not even being in class means more time for gains.

>You find what you think are good deals on Copper Skin and Troll's Regeneration, $50,000 each. You use them as skill books and instantly gain new skills
>After this, you start doing weapons research, trying to think of new creative ways. You briefly consider a mana sling, but decide that would be a step down from you Mana Arrow ability. That's when it hits you. If a sling is a step down from a bow, what's a step up?
>Inside of an illusion barrier populated by goblins you create a long, hollow cylinder out of mana, holding it in mid-air with your will. Then you add some rifling to the inside. You then condense mana as tightly as you can into physical form, in the shape of a bullet. You put the mana bullet inside the end of your rifled tube. You then condense mana a second time, this time pushing yourself to the limit, then push the condensed mana into the tube behind the bullet, releasing it's tight bonds, mentally pushing it and forcing it to explode out the end of the barrel
>There's a loud *crack* as your mana bullet breaks the sound barrier
*ping*
>You have gained the skill Mana Rifle
*ping*
>You have gained the skill Mana Bullet
>With excitement, you decide to try out your new skills. You mentally reposition your Mana Rifle, aiming it at a shaman in a nearby group.
"Mana Bullet!"
>The shaman's head explodes to accompany the report of the shot. The word "Headshot" even briefly appears above the corpse, although you're too busy repositioning to hit the incoming warriors to fully appreciate it.
>After a couple minutes practicing, discover a few weaknesses. First of all, the rifle has recoil, which reduces casting time to once per second. Second, it can only hit one target at a time, unless you go out of your way to line them up. Mana Arrow seems to be better against large groups while Mana Bullet works better on single targets.

>This altogether has taken only an hour of your Saturday morning. How do you spend the rest of it?

>>270645
Try to make our fireballs explode

>>270645
>>270694

This. And we've probably got the MP to keep Troll's Regeneration and Copper Skin up, with a mana shield or two while we experiment.

>>270694
Supporting

>When you initially made your firebolt spell, you had trouble handling mana which led to either igniting early and nearly burning yourself or too late and not igniting the mana at all. However, you are now much more proficient in both handling and igniting mana. You keep your defenses up while you experiment despite this.
>You concentrate a large amount of mana in your hands, compress it, throw it away from you, then ignite it as it (rapidly) decompresses.
*ping*
You have gained the skill Fire Bomb

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>You are so delighted with your new skill you decide to test it out. You find a large group of goblins, charge your base mana ball to the proper level, then release and ignite on the group, killing all of them instantly. While good against a large group of enemies, this attack drains mana relentlessly, and so will be difficult to train, especially if you want to train other skills alongside it.

>Is there any other experimentation you would like to do?

>>271153
>>Is there any other experimentation you would like to do?

Try to combine Fire Bolt and Mana Shield, stretching the shield out away from your body to burn enemies that get close to you, in a kind of fire aura.

>You set up a couple extra mana shields for just in case and then ignite your outermost layer. Unfortunately, the layer of mana burns itself out quickly. You try again, this time adding mana constantly to keep the flames going.
*ping*
>You have gained the new skill "Fire Aura"
>You pull up your character sheet to see its stats. It's not as impressive as you'd hoped, and it's another channeled spell. You are reminded of a skill book you saw browsing the Abyss site's catalogue called "Dual Casting" that let you cast a spell while channeling. It hadn't seemed like a good idea at the time because you didn't have any channeled spells and it cost a quarter mil, but now you have two of them and a quarter of a million isn't really that much money to you.

>You use Fire Aura a bit, just to get it out of the early levels
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Fire Affinity"
>If the bonus damage stacks with the bonus from Mana Manipulation Mastery, which it seems like it does, then you've got a way to take out armies of weaker enemies just by walking through them.

>You've spent a total of about an hour messing around, mostly with setting things on fire. What do you do in the next 7 hours?

>>271312

Buy the Dual Casting book and learn it, then find some college materials to study up on. Anything we're able to find or torrent that looks like it might challenge us. Start downloading them, or gather them up to put in your inventory if there are actual physical books to read, then spend time with Emily. Take her out to eat, and try to think of something you could buy her and her family to thank them for letting you hide out at their place. Since they're involved in the Abyss too, they might not need you to buy anything for them, but it's the gesture that's important and we are pretty grateful for their help.

> You buy the dual casting book and learn it. It seems to not be a leveled skill, so you master it instantly. You then spend 8 hours researching higher level math and physics using online resources. You gain 8 points of Academics XP, one general XP, and one point each in Intelligence and Wisdom.

>You spend the next 8 hours with Emily. You go about the town, checking out shops, hanging out in the park, and going to the movies.
"Is there anything I could, like, buy you, or something? To make up for staying at your place?"
>"Not really. I'm just glad I get to spend so much time with you doing something other than playing video games. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against games, but spending time with you, you know, before, could get old fast. And my parents insist everything they do is for the Greater Good, so they're more than happy to have you. It really makes them feel like they're part of something important"
>You're not too surprised by her answer. Even before you learned about the Abyss you knew her parents were some kind of financial managers or advisors or something, and you knew they had a lot of money.
>You hadn't thought about it before, but you're probably the only reason Emily didn't go to a private school.
>She had always liked spending time with you, more often than not trying to boss you around or take care of you when your parents were away and you stayed at her place.
>You'd even tried dating back in middle school, but it hadn't worked out. On your end, she felt too much like a sister and on her end you had trouble putting her before your video games.

>You gain one point of luck, and lose an hour of sleep

>It is now Sunday morning. You're slightly more tired than usual, but nothing a cup of coffee won't fix. How do you spend your morning?

>>271628

Time to play with alchemy!

Let's go for a walk outside and gather a bunch of small rocks and pebbles. Once we've got a fair number, make an empty dungeon and throw up a mana shield, just in case. Then let's try to turn the rocks into one-time-use impact grenades with the fire bomb spell, limiting the damage only to about 150 for each of them, just in case we mess up so it doesn't instantly kill us.

>>271694
Supporting

>You decide it's time to give those alchemy skills of yours a try. You start by roaming the woods, filling your inventory with rocks and twigs. When you feel you have enough, you start to infuse them with the energies required for a first level Fire Bomb spell to deal around 150 damage. It takes you about 11 seconds per stone to charge them with enough mana for the enchantment. You charge up several handfuls because they seem like they may be useful in the future, and it gives you sweet, sweet alchemy xp

(This is my last post for tonight. Feel free toss out all kinds of experiments for me to write out tomorrow. Experimenting with how the skills work out together in this universe is probably my favorite part of writing)

>>271758

Thanks for running, I know I've probably made it rough on you by dodging obvious hooks in pursuit of more power since we've been so weak. Sorry about that, but I'm glad you've been sticking with it. Since the thread's on page 6 due to being so old, you might want to start a new thread in the next day or two so it might get more attention.

We never tried learning Spinning Mana Arrow, so we should do that too. Then we should try to make mana bolts with wind, water, and earth elements.

Combine Mana Shield and Heal into a healing aura, just in case we ever need that.

Mana Bullet + Fire Bomb, this could either be very good or very, very bad. We'll have to use our defenses when testing this out, and keep it weak to start.

Actually, the whole time we're doing all of this, let's keep Troll's Regeneration and Copper Skin up, they're still pretty low.

>>271826
>Actually, the whole time we're doing all of this, let's keep Troll's Regeneration and Copper Skin up, they're still pretty low.

Correction, those probably wouldn't be noticed by normal people, right? We should be grinding those up all the time then. Same with all abilities we have or pick up later that won't be noticed. Then we can still see some gains while we're in class.

Can we try forming our Mana Manipulations from fire? For Fire Affinity's bonus and stuff.

>>272456
Also, we need to start attempting/training mind control or manipulation or whatever. We gotta get it to where our teachers don't question our absences, or give us bad grades because we aren't there.

>Not done experimenting, you make sure to keep Troll's Regeneration and Copper Skin up for practice then get started on Spinning Mana Arrow. As far as you can tell, it's as simple as it sounds. You use your expert ability to control mana to make an arrow, only this time before you loose it you make spin rapidly. It drills a pretty nice hole into a tree.
*ping*
You have gained the skill "Spinning Mana Arrow"
>Easy like Sunday morning
>Next you try something a bit harder, making mana bolts with the other elements. You start with air, which you suspect will be the easiest. You start by gathering mana in your hand. Then... you're not quite sure what to do. You try just using the mana to throw air a a few times, but that doesn't do anything other than create a slight breeze. No skill notification
>You think back to what you did with the fire bolt. You gather mana in your hand, then ignite it. As you do so, you really study what you're doing. You're changing the mana in a fundamental way. When it becomes fire, it loses some of the properties it had when it was your mana. The fire has its own mana. You make a change in the fire mana, and it stops burning and becomes your mana again. You change it back and forth several times, gaining a few levels in Fire Affinity in the process. It's after one of the changes from fire mana to personal mana that you notice something else, third mana that had escaped your attention thus far, a mana in the air itself. A sort of cosmic background radiation whose static you hadn't noticed simply because it was faint and it was there from the beginning.
>You begin to use your mana control to draw as much of the weak, but abundant, energy towards you as you can.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill Air Meditation
>You ignore the notification for now, instead focusing on gathering as much air mana into one of your palms as you can. Then you fill your other palm with your own mana. You try to convert your mana to match the air mana. You don't have great success, but you have enough to build off of. You spend the next several minutes completely converting the mana in each palm back and forth between your own mana and air mana, all while in the meditative state you acquired.
>When you feel you have the technique down, you gather a large amount of mana, convert it to air mana, and release. It makes an incredible burst of wind.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill Air Bolt

>After this, you go leave your instant dungeon and grab a bottle of water. When you make your new instant dungeon, you begin to study the water. After a few minutes of focus, you feel the water mana in the bottle. It's much quicker an easier now that you know roughly what you're looking for. You poor a bit of water into your hand, and a little over your head for luck. You repeat the process of converting you mana into elemental mana and back to your own several times. You begin to notice the trace amounts of water mana in vapor in the air. You use your water mana to draw in and expand this water, conjuring about a gallon of the wet stuff onto your head.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Conjure Water"
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Water Meditation"
>You manually gather a powerful mana bolt then launch it, transforming it into water mana as you do so. The resultant water blast knocks the bark off a tree.
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Water Bolt"
>Earth bolt is almost mechanical. It takes you longer than you think it should, but you find the mana hiding among the dirt and stones, master drawing it in and converting mana between personal and earth mana (gaining the Earth Meditation skill), use the earth mana to conjure dirt (yay...) And gain an Earth Bolt attack.

>Next on the list, a healing aura. You cast a shield, then use that mana to power a healing spell all around you. It takes constant mana to keep up and is a channeled ability, but it may prove useful some day.

>Finally, you manually make a mana rifle big enough to fire Fire Bombs out of. It improves accuracy, but doesn't do anything else

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

(Don't think I'm going to be terribly active today, so don't expect too many updates. Still love to hear your guys's suggestions though

>>273702
Let's figure out how to fly.

>>273702
>>273760

Try this, and let's also see about making other elemental bombs and getting fire meditation. And let's try to get lightning abilities, if possible.

While we're at it, let's try to get a general meditation technique too, and try to increase our elemental control. Especially with air and fire. I want to be able to combine the two to see if we can improve our fire skills by using air skills to drastically increase the oxygen content in and around the area we want our flames to be.

Also more elemental auras. And play with combinations of the elements for shields, auras, and bolts to see what sticks.

>Flight is quite a bit trickier. You start by just pushing mana against the ground. All this accomplishes is putting you on top of a mana construct of a box. Then you try blasting mana out of your hands and feet to propel you upwards, but this does nothing. Finally you decide to split your focus, half pulling upward on the mana in the air, the other half pushing down on the mana in the earth beneath you. You're not sure if you normally would be able to focus on two mana sources at once, but your Dual Casting instincts seem to apply here too. Almost nothing happens. On a whim, you try again, but this time you jump. You go high, higher than you expected, but still come falling down.
>It's a start. Each jump you go a little higher than the last and land just a bit softer. Eventually you start to hang at the top of your jumps, but you have trouble keeping it up. It's like trying to balance on nothing. After much hard work, you start to get it under control
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Fly"
>You look it up on your skill list. It eats mana like you eat pancakes, but you have insane mana regen anyway compared to most of your skills and it's not like you'll be enchanting while flying. You fly around for a few minutes, just getting used to the new feeling and learning how to control it. You can actually get up to a pretty decent speed when you push yourself.

>You briefly consider attempting to get some sort of Fire Meditation, but the only way you can think of that might work would be setting yourself on fire and your Fire Affinity isn't high enough that you'd be comfortable doing that yet, even if you could tank the HP loss with Copper Skin and Troll's Regeneration

>You mess around with your elemental abilities a bit more and manage to gain some useful new skills. Earth Aura provides a field of floating stones around you that could act as shields against attacks. Earth Bomb creates a large boulder that explodes, hitting opponents with shrapnel.
>Water Aura produced a thick mist you can't see through. Could be useful for escaping a bad situation. Water Bomb acts much as Fire Bomb and Water Affinity works much as the other elemental affinities.

>You try combining your ability to compress air with your ability to generate fire. What you find is that you can make natural fire that doesn't feed off of your mana, but you can't control. But the giant pillars of flame you make do look really impressive. You don't gain a new skill and decide to table this for now, but if you ever need to impress or scare someone off, this is going to be your go-to

>You try out meditation. You're not really sure what you're supposed to do. You sit down and try to clear your head. You want to 'try to find your center' because you're pretty sure you heard something like that somewhere, but don't really know what that means. Mostly, you just focus on your breathing. In, and out. In, and out
*ping*
>You have gained the skill "Meditation"

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

>>274580

That should be enough experimentation for now, let's grind goblins for a bit and get used to actually using our new skills in combat before grabbing dinner with Emily and her family. Maybe they'd have advice for us, just in general since we're new to the Abyss, or for dealing with our current situation. We don't want to overstay our welcome here, after all.

>You spend some time messing around with your powers killing goblins, more to get a feel for you new powers rather than any real grinding. You find through this that auras can be stacked, and stacking your Water Aura with your Fire Aura works hilariously well.
>From this small session you gain $3,700 in cash, 19 more staves and 9 more sets of shields and spears, all of which you store in your inventory

>Some time later you are eating with the Williams family. They don't eat dinner together often, but Mrs. Williams called everyone together for her spaghetti, saying it was a special occasion. It turns out, this will be your last night at their house ; according to them, it should be safe to return to your house after school the following day.

>It is now Monday morning. What skills should you grind through your classes?

>>276129

>Meditate
>Troll's Regeneration
>Copper Skin
>Healing Aura
>Mana Shield
>Heal
>Observe

Assuming of course none of those draw direct attention to ourselves.

>Observe only gives XP for each unique thing Observed, so you have a little trouble grinding it, but between every desk, student, piece of paper, pencil, book, and all the other odds and ends about the school you manage to level it up, which satisfies you for the time.
>The rest of your 8 hour school day is spent meditating, using your healing aura, and cycling through your list of subtle spells, at a rate of one spell per second.

http://pastebin.com/U4A4eYPH

School is now over, and you managed to make some great gains. What will you do now?

(This is going to be my last post for tonight. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, they are the lifeblood of this medium)

>>276522

Make sure we haven't left anything important at Emily's, then go home and make sure everything's in order there. Nothing broken into, no rotten smell from week old garbage, etc.

>You check around your house and everything seems mostly how you left it,. A few things had gone bad. You're just finishing cleaning up when there's a knock on the door. You are immediately filled with anxiety and frustration. Didn't Emily's parents say something like this wouldn't happen? They can see the future, shouldn't they know? You consider just ignoring it, or sneaking out the back door, but you trust the Williams family and their judgement, so you tentatively open the door.
>Outside is a whole host of people, most you recognize, some you don't. The ones you recognize are all ones that tried to recruit you to their organizations and the succubus

>Noah steps forward. "Michael, great news! I didn't get re-apprentice'd, I got promoted!"
>"Now hold on" Earl says "I think we should explain the situation first"
>"The situation IS" Ed chimes in "that some of us may have been a little hasty trying to recruit you and may have put you off our organizations. A Bit."
>"Which we assure you was the opposite of our intentions" Bithiah adds
>"So, there's been a bit of a change in plans" Earl says. "We've talked it over, between ourselves and our respective unions, and none of us will actively pursue your recruitment. Instead, the group of us here will stay as liaisons, living together in that house that used to belong to those cultists. The Fixer's Union was happy to buy the place as part of the deal and we've all started fixing the place up for ourselves to make it a more ideal for us to teach you about our various crafts, if and when you want to learn about them. Now, how's about we all officially introduce ourselves "

>"I'm Noah Campbell, liaison from the Alchemist's Union to Michael Smith, the Gamer. We make potions and golems" Level 10 Alchemist

>"I'm Earl Moore, liaison from the Enchanter's Union to Michael Smith, the Gamer. We make permanent enchanted items" 14th level Smith

>"I am Bithiah, liaison from the Summoner's Union to Michael Smith, the Gamer. We make contracts with spirits and otherworldly beings, such as myself" 24th level Succubus

> "I'm Jared Kingsley" Says a rather large and scarred looking man with an unreasonably large sword strapped to his back. "Liaison from the Monster Hunter's Union to Michael Smith, the Gamer. We hunt down rare, dangerous, and magical monsters to copy them in illusion barriers for their loot" 22nd level Monster hunter

>"I'm Ed Pavel, liaison from the Fixer's Union to Michael Smith, the Gamer. We make prevent the Abyss from interfering with ability users' personal lives." 18th level Wizard

>A rather pretty girl with glasses steps forward from her place mostly behind the rest of the group. "And I-I'm Sophia Wright, li-liaison from the Scholar's Guild. We study and research a little bit of everything, but mostly focus on magic. We have access to THE largest magical library." 14th level Wizard

>"We just want a good relationship with someone who will soon be one of the big movers and shakers in the region. We hope we haven't offended you in any way and that you'll consider working with us in the future" Bithiah says. "Do you have any questions for us now, or would you rather we all go back home for the time being?"

>>278842

"Well... What does that mean to be a liaison? You're not actually going to give me the same treatment as if I joined your organizations, right? So are you staying here just to give a basic description of your services and let me hire you directly as needed, or will I get basic instruction too? Any discounts or other benefits? Actually... if you all agreed to work together, what about anyone else that might want to get to me for any reason, will you act as a sort of buffer so I don't have random people stalking me in school or beating my door down when I'm trying to sleep? I already know people get kidnapped in the Abyss and have their mana drained, so if your organizations are going so far as to assign you all to me does that mean I can expect a degree of protection from things like that too?"

>"Look kid, it's like this. You come to us, we train you in our craft. You don't get all the bells and whistles full membership gives, which is still on the table for all of us understand, but none of the obligations. As far as ability users knocking down your door, or out your lights, that's my area of expertise. If you'd like, I could train you to do it yourself, or you can just pay me to make those problems go away. $50,000 a day, by the way, for that particular service. Mind you, I'm only so powerful. Beings and organizations above a certain threshold will still be able to seek you out if they want to. I doubt they would, most people interested in you would have made their move by now, like all of us did. But ,if you're concerned, you can higher people higher up in the guild than me. That'll start to cost you real money though. Or, like I said, do it yourself, if you think you can do it better than me."

>>279079
(completely spaced it, this is Ed talking)

>>279079

"Alright... I'll take your services for a while then. But I'd like you to train me too." Let's hand him $1Mil to cover the next 20 days, with training fees deducted from that if there are any.

"As for the rest of you, I'll probably want to get training or use your services before long too. But, there's something I'd like to test, since you're all supposed to be working with me anyway, if that's okay with all of you."

If they agree, let's open up the Guild menu and create our own guild, then invite each of them into it to see what kind of benefits it grants everyone involved.

>You pay Ed to cover you for 20 days, but say you'd like some training so you can provide for yourself in the future. Ed says he won't be ready to start training you until at least tomorrow morning, before school

>Additionally, you ask the group if they'd be willing to help you experiment with one of your powers a bit. Some are more hesitant than others, but in the end they all agree.
"Guild"
>"Would you like to start a guild? Y/N"
"Yes"
>"What would you like to call your new Guild?"
>You put less than no thought into the name, assuming you can rename it later
"The Gaming Gamers"
>A new interface pops up including the name "The Gaming Gamers", a few rankings, and a list populated by your name with "Guild Leader" next to it. The rankings are :
>Prestige : E
>Power : C
>Influence : D
>You invite the union liaisons into your guild. As they accept Influence rises from D to C and then finally to B. When Jared accepts Power raises to B.
>The list now has the names of everyone present on it, though only your name has anything next to it.
>Not sure where to go from here, you dismiss your liaisons and new guild. After they leave you think to test out talking to them through the interface.
"Teamspeak, Noah. Hey Noah, can you hear this?"
>"Loud and clear Michael. Is this because of that guild thing you started?"
"Yup. Step away from Earl for a bit, I want to see if i can add him to the conversation"
>"OK, done"
"Teamspeak, Earl. Can you hear me Earl?"
>"Why, yes I can. Neat trick you got there"
"Noah, can you hear Earl?
>"Yes"
"And Earl, can you hear Noah?
>"Yes
"Teamspeak, kick Noah. Noah, can you still hear me?"
>Silence
"Teamspeak, Noah. Thanks for your help you guys, I think I've got this thing figured out. Kick Noah and Earl"

Monday Evening, 20 days
What do you want to do for the next 8 hours?

(I'll be starting a new thread some time tomorrow morning)