[Installation complete. Greetings Aurora.]
'Huh? Huuuuuuh!?' The confusion and surprise that the little fox felt at the moment were quite easily perceivable as her eyes widened a bit and her little mouth was slightly open.
At the moment, a semi-transparent light blue screen that contained some text appeared right before her eyes. Though the text was written in some unknown language, the little fox could easily understand what it meant.
But what surprised the little fox wasn't the fact that she understood the weird text or that the light blue screen knew her name; it was the appearance of the screen itself. The little fox may have forgotten many things, but she was sure she would remember something like this, and since she didn't...
'The chances of me being in a different world just shot up by a huge amount.' Though this certaintly troubled the little fox, she decided to set these thoughts aside for a moment. After all, even if she were in another world, there was nothing she could do about it.
'More importantly, what even is this? It even knows my name, so-' The little fox's thoughts got cut short by the sudden appearance of a second, light blue screen.
[Personalization of settings completed; system functions now available.]
'What? System? System functions? I have no idea what this thing is talking abo-' And as if it were timed, two more light blue screens appeared right before the little fox's eyes.
[System]
– An artificial, semi-conscious being that serves as a connection between all souls under its influance.
[System Functions]
– Functions of the system that are currently available to the user.
[Usage:
- The user can use these functions simply by willing them them to appear
- More functions will become available if the user completes certain requirements needed to unlock said functions
[List of available functions:
- Status
- Skills
- System Archive
The little fox quickly read through the contents of the two light blue screens, and she realized that they contained answers to the questions she indirectly asked.
'So this thing can hear me or...?' Unlike the little fox expected, no more blue screens appeared to answer her, and after a few moments of waiting, the little fox decided to move on.
'Whatever. This system, or whatever it is called, can probably only answer some of my questions. Maybe it can only explain what certain words or terms mean.'
Since the system wouldn't answer her, the little fox made up her own answers and returned her focus to one of the system screens—the one that contained the list of functions she could use right now.
'The explanation is pretty vague, but I just need to think of using the function, right?'
To test this out, the little fox focused on the word 'status' with the intention of using the function. Almost immediately after she did that, a new system screen appeared before her.
[Status]
- Name: Aurora
- Race: Snow Kitsune
- Rank: 0
- Level: 1
[Energy:
- HP: 110/110
- MP: 112/112
- SP: 95/107
[Stats:
- Health: 10
- Intelligence: 12
- Mana: 12
- Strength: 8
- Agility: 10
- Defense: 7
'That's... a lot to take in.' The little fox, whose name appeared to be Aurora, felt quite lost. All of this was new to her, and it was certainly a lot of new information for someone who lost most of their memory. But even then, Aurora tried her best to understand these new things and even tested something out; she tried to ask the system some questions.
'If my theory is correct, this should work... What is a Kitsune?' The system's response was nearly instant.
[Kitsune]
– Kitsunes are fox-type magical beasts that are highly talented with magic but have considerably weaker physical bodies compared to other magical beasts.
- They were often mistaken for spirits due to their high affinity with natural elements
And as for the Snow Kitusne:
[Snow Kitsune]
- Rank: 0
- Grade: Rare
- Threat level: F+
– A variation of the Kitsune species that are considered to be quite rare due to them only being born in very cold places with an abundance of ice-type energy.
- Snow Kitsunes have a naturally high affinity with ice-type energy
'Interesting...' Aurora seemed to be deep in thought as she read through the information about Kitsunes and Snow Kitsunes. Though she was very interested in the weird ranks and grades the system talked about, there something that intrigued her more.
'But very cold places?' Aurora quickly glanced at her surroundings again. Lush, green trees, nice fresh grass, and a beautiful, crystal-clear lake. While the air in this place couldn't be called scorchingly hot, it was definitely nice and warm.
'No matter how I look at it, this place definitely doesn't seem to be cold by any means.'
It was strange that Aurora was in a place like this little clearing. As far as she could tell, this place definitely didn't fit the profile of a very cold place that the system mentioned. But then again, it was possible that she just wasn't born here, not that she remembered anything about this fox.
'I guess that doesn't matter right now.' In the end, Aurora simply shook her little head and decided to check the information about other things. Now that she more or less understood how the system worked, she knew what to ask and what not to ask.
'Let's start with that energy part...'
[Energy]
– Numerical visualization of the user's maximum and remaining energetic values. There are three base energies.
[HP] (health points)
- Indicates how much damage the user's body has suffered
- Once it reaches 0, the user dies
[MP] (mana points)
- Indicates how much mana the user has left
- Mana is required to use magic-type skills
[SP] (stamina points)
- Indicates how tired the user is
- Can be replenished through sleeping, eating, drinking, or the use of a stamina-recovering skill
'Makes sense, but mana and magic? It really seems like I'm in a different world.'
With the addition of words like mana and magic, Aurora was now 99% sure she was in a different world. Then again, even if she was, she could do nothing about it, so she just set these thoughts aside and focused on the next batch of information.
[Stats]
[Health]
- Determines the max HP of the user and the rate at which the cells of the user's body regenerate, allowing them to recover HP faster
[Intelligence]
- Determines the power of the user's magic-type skills, their perceptivity, and their overall intelligence as well as accelerating their thought process.
[Mana]
- Determines the max MP of the user and the speed at which their MP regenerates
[Strength]
- Determines the user's physical strength
[Agility]
- Determines how fast the user's body can move and react
[Defense]
- Determines the max SP of the user and the toughness of their body
'Considering what the stats mean and the stats I have, just like what the system said about kitsunes, I'm more magic-focused in stead of having strong physical stats.'
Having high magic affinity sounds nice and all, until you realize that Aurora had a bit of a problem. She may be magic-focused but...
'I have no idea what any of this magic bullshit even is!'
Right, she had no proper idea what magic even is, much less how to use it. To Aurora, magic was an unbelievable concept and although her memory can't really be relied upon, she's 100% sure she would remember something like magic existing!
So with basically no lead on how to utilize the main selling point of her race, she just sighed and moved on to the second system function: skills.
[Skills]
- Scratch Level 1
- Bite Level 1
- Snow Magic Level 3
Aurora quickly read through the names of the first and second skills, but once her eyes fell upon the name of the third skill, her excitement shot through the roof as her eyes basically sparkled.
'Snow Magic!? Like actual magic!? Does that mean my intelligence and mana won't be absolutely useless?!'
Aurora didn't even bother to check what the skills Scratch and Bite do; she directly asked for information about Snow Magic.
[Snow Magic]
- Level: 3
- Grade: Simple
- Skill type: Passive
- Attribute type: Ice
– The simplest form of ice-type magic.
[Effects:
- Unlocks spells.
- You can unlock new spell by leveling this skill up.
[List of available spells:
- Level 1 spell: Snowball
- Level 3 spell: Freezing Snow
- ???
'It truly allows me to use magic!' At this point, Aurora started jumping around like a little child who had just received a gift. The sight of a small, white fox jumping around while squealing happily was definitely a cute one.
'Okay, okay... Calm down, Aurora.' After about a minute, Aurora finally stopped and took a deep breath to calm down her excitement. After calming down, she quickly asked for more information about the spell she could currently use.
[Snowball]
- Mastery: 1
- Grade: Simple
- Spell type: Active
- Attribute type: Ice
– The simplest ice-type spell. It's very weak, but everyone has to start somewhere.
[On activation: Consumes 10 MP to shoot out a ball of condensed snow.
- Deals low magic damage.
- Has a very small chance to inflict the status effect: Minor Freeze.
[Freezing Snow]
- Mastery: 1
- Grade: Simple
- Spell type: Active
- Attribute type: Ice
– One of the simplest ice-type spells. Any mage could easily learn it if they just tried.
[On activation: Consumes 25 mana to shoot out a highly freezing cloud of snow.
- Deals no damage.
- Has a high chance to inflict the status effect: Minor Freeze.
- Has a small chance to inflict the status effect: Lesser Freeze.
'This is... kind of underwhelming.' Basically all of Aurora's previous excitement died out the moment she read through the spells.
'I mean, it is true that my expectations were too high in the first place, aren't these spell like really weak?'
Shaking her head, Aurora instead just decided to at least read about the two effects these spells can inflict.
[Minor Freeze]
- Grade: Very weak
- Attribute: Ice
[While active:
- Lowers the agility of the affected being by 5%.
- The affected being loses 10% of their agility if their ice resistance is low.
- Duration: 3 minutes (Duration is doubled if the target's resistance against the given attribute is low. This applies to every negative status effect).
[Lesser Freeze]
- Grade: Weak
- Attribute: Ice
[While active:
- Lowers the agility of the affected being by 10%.
- The affected being loses 20% of their agility if their ice resistance is low.
- Duration: 3 minutes.
'I mean, 20% of total agility is cool and all, but is it really worth it to spend almost 25% of my total mana for it? Moreover, what does small chance mean? Could you please be more specific?'
Though 20% of the target's total agility is a considerable amount, the skill Freezing Snow only has a small chance to trigger the Lesser Freeze effect, and the target would also have to have low ice resistance on top of that.
'Tsk, whatever. I shouldn't have expected much in the first place.'
Annoyed and disappointed, Aurora closed all the system screens and walked away from the lake. She walked towards what seemed to be a forest that encircled the clearing and headed straight inside.
If others were in her place, they would probably feel apprehension or even fear, but Aurora just calmly walked straight in. She stepped into the unknown of a completely new world without even a bit hesitation.
Normally, this would strike her as odd, but she was sure she wouldn't be this calm in the face of her current circumstances. But right now, maybe it was because of her turbolent emotions; she didn't seem to realize how calm she was.
And so, for the first time after appearing in this new world, Aurora left the safety of the small clearing and faced the unknown dangers of this world.