'… this bed is too comfortable…. Who's bed am I in..?'
As I open my eyes I have to squint as the curtains are open and the sun is smiling through the opening.
I then look around only to find that I am in a very familiar place… Faringround Hospital, also known as the only brick and mortar medical facility in Ilshard, also, located in the heart of the 'better' side of town…
So what the actual hell am I of all people doing here? Doesn't the person who brought me here know I'll be drowning in debt for the rest of my life if I even sneeze at this place, let alone stay the night?
The Board is still up, clicking down in the corner of the room, it reads
[wait. Time. Remaining. Three. Hours. Fifty. Seven. Minutes.]
'I've been out for twenty hours?!'
I palm my forehead in exasperation, or atleast, I try to, I look down only to find both my legs and my arms chained to the bed I'm on,
'Damn it, they predicted that I was going to try and escape… it's a good thing they aren't magic suppressing, hehe~'
I manifest from my finger two mana strings, one thin enough to act as a lock pick and the other rigid enough to act as a tensioner
Luckily for me, these are locks meant to be hard to brute force open, and they only have two pins each,
I quickly get out of my restraints and I open the window to scale down to the ground when the door opens…
I slowly look at the person who opened the door, only to find its old man Allen, a real pain in the neck who never lets me do what I want, he also happens to be my mentor, I glare at him before hooking my other leg over the windo sill
He glares back, visibly pissed as all hell, "Oi' you duckbill little twat! Where'd you think your off to, then?!" He darts into the room after me
I prep to scuttle my way down, not caring that I am currently in a hospital gown "I'm goin' home ya damned ol' badger!" I am fully out of the window by this point, only holding on with may hands, looking for a good hand hold as we are on the second floor
He responds, "not out the window yer not!" And just before I'm about to make a break for it he hoists outta the window and back into the room
He forces me back into the bed and closes and locks the window, he then says "I swear, your as stubborn as a Wayfeild and twice as troublesome!" He ruffles my hair in the way he knows I hate
I shoot an accusatory stare at him "er' you the one that brought me 'ere? Right lotta good that, Now'll be payin' th' debt get stayin the night for th' rest o' me bloody life ya numpty!" I blabber frustratedly
He looks annoyed at me "watch tha tone ya daft rat! 'S only 300 Yul, ya 'an make it back in no time!" He says before he huffs and leaves for the door
He looks back at me and says "ya' seems ta been good spirits, I'll see if Mrs. Flaurence can't getcha out a wee bit sooner, so keep her head on ya damned shoulders, wouldya?!" He says this then slams the door.
I merely tsk at the now empty room.
If I can't leave then i might as well figure out what's wrong with the way my magic feels, I mumble out "System, scan my mana form, it's different then how it was when I was awake before" after that the room is left in a silence until a light noise comes from the corner.
[DING]
[SCANING MANA FORM]
[… it seems like the only difference between now and then is that the mana form density bonus has finished getting applied! It's only by a small percentage however, for the user to have noticed it almost right away is impressive! You must have been very close to naturally unlocking KI sensing even before the system activated!]
I blink at the board before muttering, "I already unlocked it, there wasn't much to do besides odd jobs and training for those four years, so I got a really good idea of how my body worked in that time, though it was still pretty weak…" I blink slowly as the system responds
[… then why did you take the quest?]
I glare at it before responding "you said I would die from shame if I didn't." I squint at it suspiciously
[!!!]
[A-Ah, we see, well, here are the rewards for your Quest completion]
[BASIC QUEST, SAVE ROBERT HALESON… COMPLETE]
[QUEST MAIN OBJECTIVE SAVE ROBERT HALESON COMPLETED, REWARD: SKILL, KI SENSING
GET OUT OF THE FOREST WITHOUT ROBERT GETTING HURT PHYSICALLY:
SECRET REWARD: FAILURE
DEFEAT ALL ENEMIES: SECRET REWARD: FAILURE
find. what's. hidden. deep. between. root. and. hawthorn.: Mana. Seed…: SUCCESS, REWARDS PENDING]
I look at the Board blankly "So all I got out of that was a skill I already had and something that's gunna take another three or so hours for me to even use…?" I look away from the board as the door opens again and Allen sticks his head in
"Oi, Brat, the good doctor doesn't wan' ya stinkin' up tha place, getta move on outta 'ere!" As he says this he throws my clothes, now washed at my face before closing the door "and get some damned clothes on before ya climbin outta any bloody windows again, can't be havin' ya flash the whole fuckin street…" he says from behind the door
As I don my pants and shirt, then throw over my cloak I can't help but shift uncomfortably, it smells now if lavender and rosemary, something any beast would smell coming from a mile away even if I was upwind, gunna have to take a dip in a mud patch when I get home…
I then unlatch the window and quickly make my escape, not looking back at the door this time as I hear a grouchy old codger yellin about disrespectful little twats I'm half way down the street when I look back, the Oldman looking right furious leaning out of the second story window sill of the only hospital in the village, and poke my tongue out at him before smugly and as quick as I can, making my way back to my cabin.
It's halfway there that I smack myself in the forehead for forgetting to ask about the Halesons…
- - - -
I make my way into my cabin taking off my coat and hanging it on an improperly placed mail jutting from the wall, I make my way to my uncomfortable fiber woven cot and decide to look at the Board to see if any of the words on it have changed.
[SOUL SCAN COMPLETE, RUDIMENTARY KI SENSING ABILITY FOUND IN HOST, WOULD THE HOST LIKE TO ACCEPT THE REPLACEMENT REWARD?]
My face scrunches up in confusion as I ask " what replacement reward..?" In response the Board shows a new sentence
[REPLACEMENT REWARD IS THE ABILITY TO READ YOUR OWN SOUL]
[ACCEPT REPLACEMENT REWARD? Y/N]
I hesitate for a moment before reaching out and poking the Y option
[AFFIRMATION CONFIRMED SOUL READ SKILL WILL NOW BE GIVEN]
Just below the floating board suddenly a thick leather bound book fell to the floor with a flop, I open it, only to find it's written in the English of my old world, the words take a moment to come back to me but after a while I am left flabbergasted
'Increasing the connection between You and your Soul, a how to for all ages!'
I look back at the board and say "what is this"
[l-look, we are a E-rank system! Constantly transmitting years worth of data is not something any part of this system can do currently! That is an A rank system ability. The next best that we can do for you is to simply give you the best source of information available to us for you to use on your own.. we are truly sorry for this inconvenience…]
"Then what about the beginners quest? Didn't you transmit skills to me then?"
[We actually only increased what was already there to begin with, your Learning Speed and Mana Form Density, we didn't actually impart upon you how to use those things to the upmost, such things would be outside of our capacity…]
I look down at the book that I had picked up and mumble a small "oh" before turning to the first page
- - - -
[ding.]
A sudden ding fills my ears after what felt like minutes of reading chapter one 'Where is your Soul?', I look up only to find that in my reading I didn't notice the passage of time and the time had already passed, the hunger I had been ignoring now blared in my deepest regions and I was suddenly very aware that both my legs were asleep…
Getting out of the position I was in, I wait for a few minutes full of pins and needless for my legs to wake up again before walking over to my cabnet and grabbing a rucksack I filled with dried meat and dried berries, as I munch on them I look at the Board to read the message there.
[fitting. Reward. Found.
Reward. Name.: PIXIE STICK
item. Rank.: S-RANK
Reward. Function.: UNLOCKS USERS CAPACITY TO FULLY SEE AND FULLY INTERACT WITH MANA
Method. Of. Activation.: SNAP STICK IN DOMINANT HAND WHILE MANA FORM IS ACTIVE AND UNHIDDEN
Reward. Description.: ONE OF THE LAST SHARDS OF THE FAEREN TREE OF WISDOM
Reward. Cost.: TO SEE MAGIC ITSELF, A PRICE MUST BE PAID AND TO INTERACT WITH IT A TEST MUST BE PASSED, TREAD CAREFULLY, HOST FOR BOTH THE PRICE AND TEST WILL BE PERSONAL AND DEVISTATING…]
- - - -
Cliffhanger time!!! Hope you had a good one!
Remember to comment if you see a mistake, the only way I'll get better as a writer is if I find out what I've done wrong so I can fix it!
Hope you have a good rest of your day!