Lewis felt strange as he entered that doorway in his mind, arriving in a black space with the light of stars and colorful galaxies above him, the ground beneath him rippling like water beneath his feet but remaining as solid as ground.
It was a magical scene as he stared up at the dots of light, entire galaxies lazily spinning overhead. But before he could get lost in the marvel of the scene, a system window appeared in his vision once more.
Select your desired option:
Weapons - Abilities - Information - Miscellaneous - In-person assistance
TP available: 6
Seeing the window, he wanted to select abilities, but the final option intrigued him. He doubted 6 TP was enough to buy anything truly useful, so he figured he would see what the In-person assistance option provided. Was it the equivalent of asking for a human on a call instead of going through the automated system?
Mentally selecting the option, a sudden presence appeared within the space as a man wearing flowing white and golden robes manifested before him. He looked vaguely eastern with pale skin and long blond hair that reached down to the middle of his back.
"Greetings, denizen, what may I help you with?" The figure asked with an unnaturally pleasant voice, as if an advanced AI had been tasked to generate the most soothing yet commanding voice imaginable, and this was what it had come up with.
"Who are you?" Lewis asked dumbly, surprised by the man's sudden appearance.
"Ha, you don't have nearly enough points to know that." The man said, his face splitting into a smile as he looked at Lewis like one would a naive child.
"Okay then, are you a real person or some sort of avatar of the system?" Lewis tried, hoping rephrasing his question would work.
The man gave him an almost imperceptible nod as he answered.
"I am not a personified representation of the system, no. In fact, the system does not possess any sort of avatar whatsoever, interacting purely through messages." The man replied.
"Now, tell me what it is you desire from the system shop. It is also in my power to offer you some recommendations if you aren't sure." The elegant man continued, looking expectantly at Lewis.
Figuring that this was likely his best course of action, he nodded at the man's offer, wondering what exactly was even within his price range. After all, the system said anything could be bought, so perhaps a lot of things would be available to him, and he didn't fancy scrolling through a thousand pages of toilet roll or different water bottles.
Smiling, the man looked at Lewis with sudden intensity, his gaze seeming to pierce deep into his very soul, his eyes widening marginally as he did so, but his expression otherwise remaining calmly neutral. Lewis felt uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny, the sensation of worms under his skin making him shiver involuntarily. But the man didn't take long as he promptly spoke.
"It seems you are interested in purchasing a spell book, I see. However, I must advise you against such an act. Most would be of no help to you after all, not that you can afford any right now."
"What, why?" Lewis asked, not understanding what the figure was talking about. He was a mage after all, how could getting more spells not be of use to him?
Suddenly, Lewis wondered if this man could even be trusted. Sure, he had appeared within the system shop, but who said he had Lewis's best interest in mind? He was no stranger to kind faces promising him help, only to screw him over. But just as the thought entered his mind, a new message popped up.
Notice: System guides cannot lie or purposely mislead a denizen. Certain information, however, may remain restricted without sufficient TP.
Huh? I guess this guy isn't lying then. I doubt the system would be after all, it's too big and godlike to want or need to.
"Okay, fine. Why would buying a new spell be a bad idea then?" He asked instead.
"Hm, what I can say is that the skills you have now are all highly compatible with you. I recommend you learn to use them before trying to expand your skillset. With the small amount of tutorial points you have now, it's unlikely that you will be able to afford anything of value, so that is the only advice I can give you for now. You're only level 1 and are in an elite level tutorial, so as long as you survive and master the skills granted to you, you will be better able to see the best path forward yourself. Not everyone is suited to be a fire mage after all, so don't let labels define what you can become." The man said in a serious tone before fading into motes of light and disappearing.
Lewis was surprised at that, but suddenly found himself slipping away, as if returning from a lucid dream back to the real world. The sensation was similar to resurfacing from water as he took in a deep breath of air and looked around in mild confusion at all the faces staring down at him.
He was momentarily lost, but soon recognized where he was as he saw the person clutching his leather jacket and shaking him.
"Hey, kid. Are you okay? What happened. Your face just went all blank, and you weren't responding." Called Patch, speaking a little too hard and making Lewis's ears hurt as he tried to put a smile on his face and held up his hands to stop the soldier from shaking him.
"I'm alright, I just focused on the door in my mind and was able to go to the system shop." He hastily replied, getting surprised expressions from all the people standing around him.
Patch released him at that, staring at him intensely before asking him to elaborate. And so he did, telling them about the strange black space with the constellations and of the man who had appeared. Everyone seemed to be interested, but Patch was frowning by the end.
"Hm, so this system shop that supposedly holds any goods we could ever want to buy is in some sort of dreamspace that leaves out real bodies entirely unprotected while inside? That doesn't sound very safe at all."
Lewis bristled at his words, even if they weren't meant as a condemnation. Still, it was true that he would have been in real trouble if he had tried entering the system shop while being attacked by the primavendy.
"Yeah, we should definitely inform each other if we want to go to the system shop. By the way, did you guys get a bunch of TP from shooting all those primavendy's before?" Lewis asked the gathered group.
"Prima what?" Blurted the obnoxious soldier that seemed to be feigning disinterest, but was still clearly paying attention to everything being said.
"The creatures back there, they were called Primavendy. You can see it when you use the identify skill on them." Lewis elaborated, explaining it as if to a child in the hopes that the guy would feel stupid. It probably wasn't the wisest idea, but Lewis just really didn't like him and wanted to make him look slow.
"Oh yeah, I even got my identify skill to rank up by scanning the different primavendy." Added the cheery young mage soldier, further pissing off the obnoxious soldier whose face was now twitching.
"No, I only got TP from the ones we got at the end." The Florida guy said, smirking at the pissed off soldier as everyone just ignored him.
"And I think that system guide guy had a point. I'm guessing playing the system game is probably the only way out of this mess, and the rewards are pretty clear." Patch said, flexing his arm, where thick muscles tensed, the man's body seeming more powerful than before.
"I put all three points into strength, and the result is stark. I bet I could lift a car, not to mention it scales with my [Heavy strike] skill, letting me hit harder with a sword." Patch added, things clicking in Lewis's mind as he did so.
So that's the skill that allowed him to decapitate those creatures with such ease? I wonder what his other skills are? Although I think it would be rude to ask.
"As for training our skills, I think it only makes sense. If we level up enough, then maybe even bullets won't be able to harm us, so I'm guessing that's also true for whatever else is out here. Our skills are all pretty weak, but I'm guessing that won't be the case for long." The mage soldier said, once more moving away from the group and pointing his arm out before shouting "Barrier", a transparent shield forming before him and making the young soldier cackle happily at his success.
The barrier was rectangular and looked surprisingly similar to a pane of glass, only with a milky white tint to it that still allowed for clear visibility. Everyone was watching him as he raised his second hand and cast a fireball, shouting the word once again as if he were in some sort of anime. The sphere of orange flames that formed looked a little bigger than the last time Lewis saw it, but it could have just been his imagination.
Lewis was afraid that the fireball would bounce off the transparent shield that had been conjured and hit the young soldier, but instead, the ball of fire streamed straight through it as if it wasn't even there and flew off into the distance at a noticeably faster speed than the first time, slamming into a large boulder in the distance.
"Holy cow, that worked. And it only used up five percent of my mana. I can keep this shield up for a while without any extra cost and fire twenty fireballs from complete safety. This is so awesome. Hey, can someone come test the strength of the barrier, preferably not by shooting it?" The young mage exclaimed, looking back at the group with a huge smile on his face.
His mood seemed infectious as the Florida guy smiled back, unsheathing his own sword and moving to swing it against the barrier using the flat end so as not to accidentally stab the young soldier if the barrier did break. Seeing this, Lewis got back to his feet and realized he didn't really feel the pain of his strained body anymore. Looking down at himself and flexing his hand in confusion, Patched seemed to notice this and explained.
"The doc healed you up when you weren't responding." He said, pointing at the Korean woman.
"I'm a field medic, so I picked the healer class." She replied.
"Wow, thank you so much. All the pulled muscles feel almost completely fine now." Lewis exclaimed, ecstatic that they had a magic healer among their ranks. It would definitely be a huge help in keeping them all alive.
Just then, the sound of shattering glass could be heard as the mage soldier's shield broke, and he rushed out of the way to avoid the flat side of a sword hitting him in the chest, his wide and almost childlike smile never wavering.
"You okay there?"
"Absolutly. My barrier can take quite a few blows before breaking, and in a real fight, I would have been throwing fireballs at the stalled enemy anyway. What about you? Want to test out your skills, too?"
As the two spoke excitedly, I noticed most of the others also seemed to be testing their skills, while others had distant gazes as if reading something in the air. Seeing this, he figured it would be smart to do the same as he activated [Mana detection] for the first time, and watched in amazement as new colors entered his mind.
Looking over at the mage soldier, he found his ability to detect mana greatly heightened as the mage seemed to exude invisible power, which Lewis instinctively knew to be mana. This new ability to sense mana was almost overwhelming as it didn't just appear in the form of some visible energy, but rather a combination of all his senses.
When the mage resummoned his barrier, Lewis saw the mana leave his body through his arm and be expelled like a faint mist. But it only appeared in that form for a brief moment as it rapidly solidified, forming a rectangular structure before him, reminding Lewis of the process of water turning into ice. The mana seemed to have perfectly bonded together, attaching themselves in a perfect pattern to form a flat wall.
Yet it wasn't just that; he could see the barrier in far more detail; he could even get an instinctive sense of its effects, the mana giving off an inherent sense of solidity, the same feeling you get when looking at the ground. You don't need to guess whether or not it will be solid or let you slip through it like paper; your mind just knows.
But just as he was analyzing the barrier with his new mana sense, the mage formed another fireball, and Lewis was immediately in awe.
Unlike the mana barrier that appeared like a bunch of mana particles being precisely strung together, the fireball roared to life with far greater flair than it did before.
It seemed like the were two states to mana. What Lewis imagined as the liquid version, where it essentially existed in a separate plane, and the solid version, where it manifested in the real world and could be interacted with physically. Whereas before the fireball looked to be the size of a fist, now that he was seeing it with mana detection, he found a bubble of red fire mana surrounding it and fueling the spell. It clearly wasn't affecting the world as it was overlapping with the soldier's hand, but it was some sort of field that kept the fireball burning as the mage flung it away, the fiery red field surrounding the spell shrinking the longer it was airborne.
But just like the barrier, the mana wasn't just a red color; his mana detection brought with it an instinctual understanding of its properties, in this case reminding Lewis of that time he had touched a hot stove and burnt himself, with his skill also giving him a faint smell of hot smoke despite the fireball not producing any. He realized that it wasn't actually a real smell but rather some sort of quasi-sensation from his mana detection.
Bloody hell, this is a lot more than I was expecting. He thought, looking around at the others and noticing that they, too, had the almost transparent energy of mana surrounding them, though most were extremely faint.
Now pretty excisted for his other skills, he activated the second of his abilities, [Anti-magic mantle].