Daren opens his eyes, and sits up, the morning light filtering through his window. It was a nice day out today, and Daren was excited. After saving up his allowance for years, he could buy an awakening stone. He changes his clothes, brushes his teeth, and goes downstairs for breakfast.
"Morning sleepyhead." His mother says to him. He has no siblings and lives alone with his mom.
"Hey, mom." He says as he grabs a bowl of cereal.
"So when are you gonna go out to buy your stone?" She asks.
"After breakfast." He answers.
"Alright, I love you."
"Love you too mom."
------------
He sees the store come into view, the bright blue sign being noticeable from down the road.
Walking in the store, hundreds of multicolored stones appear before him. He looks at the prices, and they got more expensive the farther back he went. He had about 3,000 kips, so he could only buy some of the worse ones.
He looks for one about the price, and finds a large one on sale for 2,500. He picks it up and notices three colors. Red, cyan, and brown, meaning he could get fire magic, ice magic, or earth magic.
He heads towards the front, purchases the stone, and heads home.
------------
He walks into his room, shuts the door behind him, and lies down on the floor. He takes his shirt off, and places the stone above his heart.
Instantly, his surrounding turns dark, he can't hear or smell, and the only thing he felt was the stone, which seemed to be melting. With what he saw online, this was supposed to happen, but he still panicked a bit.
Minutes go by, and after the stone finished melting, his senses turn back on.
He was going to test his magic, but he saw a weird screen.
[Mana: 100/100]
[Range: 10]
[Draw]
He looks at the draw option, and blinks.
The surroundings turn slightly grey, and a paintbrush-like object with a button on the side appears. He grabs the object, noticing his hand is slightly transparent, and three colors appear, red, cyan, and brown.
He pokes red with the object, turning it red. He clicks the button on the object, and a red line appears. He moves the object, which he decides he'll call a brush, and a red line follows. Off to the side, he notices the tab saying mana, slowly going down.
[Mana: 100/100]
[Mana: 99/100]
He clicks the button again, the red line stops following him, and more options appear. He notices three options. Fall-5, Fly-10, and Dissipate-5.
He clicks "Fall-5" five more mana disappear, and another screen pops up.
[Finish]
He pokes the option, the surroundings turn normal, and the red line turns into a line of fire that falls until it hits the ground.
"What... the fuck?" He thinks aloud. "I don't think that was supposed to happen."
He doesn't worry about it for long though. He gets excited as he realizes he gained all three magics in the stone.
He runs downstairs, and sees his mom reading a book.
She looks up at him, and asks "What magic did you get?"
He opens the draw menu again and draws a little ball of fire with the command "dissipate."
The fireball appears, and then slowly dies.
In response she smiles and tells him,
"Well, I signed you up for a magic school. The school starts tomorrow, and they have classes for fire magic."
He hugs her, and goes outside to test more spells.
------------
After experimenting, he discovered somethings he needed to know. Depending on the element he used, the extra options would change, if he didn't choose an option, the element wouldn't appear, and he would regain the mana spent, and when he goes into draw mode, he becomes ghost-like and time stops until he finishes, at which point he teleports back to his body, no matter where he resumed at.
For Fire, all the options he had were fall, fly, and dissipate. For Ice he had fall, fly, and shatter. For Earth, he had fall, fly, and crumble. He theorized he would gain more options depending on his knowledge of spells of the element. He read a few posts online about spells, but that was only things like fireballs and such.
"Alright, one more experiment." He says.
He opens the draw menu, picks up the brush, and draws a medium sized ball of fire, assigning it fall.
He then changes to earth, draws some inside the fireball, and assigns it fall as well.
He confirms, and once he gets back to reality, the fire dissipates, and the earth crumbles.
"So I can't combine elements. At least not yet." He mutters.
He decides to go inside for lunch, makes a sandwich, and goes online to look at spells for his elements.
[Firecracker]
[Ice Javelin]
[Earth Shield]
He clicks on firecracker and reads the entry.
----
[Firecracker is a spell barely more than a party trick. It summons a ball of fire that explodes on impact, which gets larger as the fireball gets larger. Both the summoning and explosion cost mana, so people don't use it for more than demonstration.]
----
He clicks on the next spell.
----
[Ice javelin is a low-power skill of the ice element. The spell conjures up a sharp spear of ice, launches at the determined location, and melts after impacting.]
----
Final spell,
----
[Earth Shield is a low power defensive spell. It conjures a medium sized shield made of dirt that can withstand a small amount of damage, and crumbles when broken through. Water will instantly break through, which is why it's low leveled.]
[New option- Explode on impact]
[Elements- Fire, Ice, Earth]
[New option- Sharpen]
[Elements- Ice, Earth]
[New option- Float]
[Elements- Fire, Ice, Earth]
"Alright, that should be good." He continues, "Having triple elements is pretty rare, but it shouldn't be suspicious."
He lies on his bed wondering what he should do with the remainder of his money. Maybe a weapon, or a healing pill? He didn't have enough kips to buy another stone, not even the worst one.
"Even if I do buy a weapon, can I get a good one for only 500 kips?" He asks aloud.
As if god heard him, a new tab appeared.
[Shop Unlocked]
----
[Weapons]
[Armor]
[Stones]
[Pills]
[Items]
[Lucky Draw]
[Currency Trade]
[Coins: 0]
----
"Okay, coins zero?" He understood why he had no coins, but come on, really? "Fine. currency trade."
[-Select Currency-]
[+ * Coins]
He chooses the select currency option, and millions of currencies show up. He would be concerned, but a small box off to the left helped.
Clicking the box brought up a search bar, and in it he typed 'kips', bringing up one currency.
He chose kips and selected five hundred. The system prompted him to get the money, and once he did, the tab changed.
[Kips: 500]
[+ 5 Coins]
[Confirm]
He clicked confirm, and the kips in his hands disappeared, with the number on the main shop page changing to 5.
"Okay, is that enough to buy anything?" He asks sarcastically.
Clicking weapons, nothing appeared. He realized that there were filters, and 'In my price range' was automatically on. Clicking it, the screen filled with weapons, the cheapest being 10 coins. He turned the filter back on, and left the weapons tab.
Armor and stones had nothing, but getting to pills, he saw he could buy a low grade healing one for five coins, but nothing else.
He changed to items, and could also only buy one item, a jagged rock.
"I guess it it an item... Wait. Does this mean I can buy anything as long as its not in the other tabs?" He questions, shocked.
The shop also had another one of the search boxes, and in it he put "Computer." Instantly, hundreds of random computers. From Pear laptops, to a Lenava PC, computers were there.
"Wait, do the producers get paid?" Daren starts questioning the morality of buying something from the system and not the people who produce them.
"Well, unless I'm buying something I normally wouldn't be able to, I'll probably just buy it from a producer."
He decides to experiment with his new options, get ready for his new day at school, and possibly get a job.