World Seed: Game Start (17 page)

Thankfully,
the two birds noticed what was happening, and flew off of me before I
kissed the ground. Slowly standing myself back up, I noticed how they
were hovering effortlessly in the air. Their lower wings were fully
extended to stabilize themselves, while their upper wings were doing
the work of keeping them airborne. Naturally, that was my next
attempt.

Well,
on the bright side, my face did not hit the ground this time. I
managed to float up into the air about three feet, and was flapping
my wings like crazy to stay there, before they quickly wore out and I
floated back to the ground. I was somewhat pleased to discover a pair
of messages waiting for me when I landed.

I
couldn’t help but think that someone watched too many
children’s movies when they wrote the text for that skill, but
quickly shrugged it off. I had a skill to practice, and practice I
shall! After my wings felt less sore, I flapped them again and
brought myself into the air, my two animal companions dancing around
me with far less effort than I was using.

Again
controlling my lower wings to stabilize myself, I angled them forward
slightly and gave only a minor flap, carrying me forward a few feet
before I glided to the ground again. Suddenly, I heard a series of
clapping from behind me. Turning around, I was a bit surprised to see
Jarl was back. I can never keep track of when he’s here and
not… mostly because I don’t pay attention to it.

“
Learning
how to fly, are you?” He asked with a smirk, to which I nodded.
“Alright, since it looks like you’ve copied most of their
aspects already, I can tell you the next step to gain the powers of a
Xeno-Shifter.”

That
had certainly gotten my attention, but what he said next mortified
me. “Since you have learned to copy basic aspects, the next
step is to fully copy your animal companion.” If my companion
were a wolf… or hell even a turtle, I wouldn’t be so
scared. But two lovebirds… I looked over, and did not at all
like the looks they were giving me, as if they had understood what he
was saying.

“
Okay!
That settles it, next up is Wind Affinity training.” I said
with a decisive nod as I dismissed the wings, and put my shirt on
just as fast as elvishly possible. The two birds seemed to pout at
that, before perching themselves on my shoulders again. Jarl,
meanwhile, gave a loud laugh as he walked off again to who knows
where doing who knows what. Wind Affinity, yeah!

I
sent my mana out in front off me just a half inch, and began sensing
the wind. It was pretty easy, since the air was everywhere, and yet
difficult at the same time. Wind has a barely noticeable mana
signature, and can be missed very easily. Like looking for dust in
sunbeams. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you don’t. After
about ten minutes, I had managed to find it, and began the process of
setting up a link between myself and the mana. Naturally, I tried the
same trick I did with earth mana, and pushed a bunch of mana in to
start it.

Sadly,
earth and wind are two very different elements, so that did not work
at all. Instead, I managed to push away all of the wind mana from
where I was attempting to set the link, and had to find it again.
This time, I decided to be gentler with it. But still, no luck.
Trying again and again, each time more gentle than the last. Finally,
what I ended up doing was creating a sort of mana funnel, with the
mana in it as closely matching the wind signature as I could make it.
Thankfully, this had the effect of ‘inviting’ the wind
mana into me, which the wind accepted gradually.

There
was another ding from a notification panel popping up, but I didn’t
pay much attention to it yet, because I was still in the stage where
I had to be very delicate with the wind mana, or else I would lose
it. I figured at least that part was the same as before, so I simply
held onto it for as long as I could. Once I had run out of mana, and
thus lost the connection, I opened my eyes to see a rather confusing
message.

Synchronization
100%? You mean they didn’t consider it total realism before? I
quickly contacted Jacobs and my parents, but none of them received
the message. Maybe it was just the Seed adjusting, then? I dismissed
it for now, and laid back to rest. I only had one piece of bread
left, and then I would need to either start hunting for my meals or
eat in the real world all the time. While the latter sounded more
possible, it would make me quickly run out of groceries. I mean,
eating five times the meals a day? That’d just cost way too
much money.

So,
I decided, after today I’d start hunting for my meals.

Chapter 15: The
Plot Thickens

The
rest of the day continued much like when I was learning Earth
Affinity. Slowly… After a few hours, Wind Affinity increased
to 3%, and I noticed an increased intake of wind mana just like I had
done with earth. At one point, my concentration broke on the wind
funnel, and noticed the familiar weights on my shoulders were gone.

In
a moment of joy, I thought that Yin and Yang had willingly left, but
the thought wasn’t even half formed before two blurs shot out
of the forest and immediately perched themselves on my shoulders
again. Well… it was nice while it lasted.

Noting
the time with Celeste, I decided to log out to have dinner, or lunch,
depending on how you look at time. Opening the Seed, I got out and
stretched, unconsciously letting out a slight yawn. Moving downstairs
to get cooking, I had no idea just how weird today was going to be.

Like
before, I chose to cook my meal manually, this time I chose to make a
steak. My mind and stomach were yelling to eat something other than
stale bread, so a nice juicy slab of meat sounded perfect. Even the
thought of a sandwich made me nauseous. Within moments I had the meat
on the skillet and cooking, was getting ready to spice it and then
made one of the stupidest mistakes a chef can make.

I
grabbed the metal handle of the skillet with my bare hand. There was
a sizzling sound coming from my hand as pain raced through me. A
scream tore at my throat as I hastily let go, but the damage was
already done. All along my palm and fingers were thick red burns,
making me wince just looking at them. Naturally I ran some cold water
over the burn, but even that hurt like hell, to the point where I did
something I couldn’t explain.

I
healed myself. I felt a sudden rush, and then looked at my palm since
it was no longer hurting. Surprisingly, there wasn’t even a
blister left, making me doubt my hand had been burnt in the first
place. However, I could still smell the burnt flesh in the air, and
there was still the sizzling coming from the handle of the skillet.

What
just… no, that’s not… I tried to think back to
what I had done, but the only thing I could think of was the Alchemic
Heal spell I knew from NeoLife. I don’t care how realistic a
game is, there is no way that I cast a spell in real life…
right?

Even
though logic told me it was impossible, the memory of the pain in my
hand made me doubt it. As such, I made a conscious effort to connect
with the mana in the same way I would in the game, and was stunned to
find that there really was something there. For some reason, it
didn’t feel quite as dense as it did in the game, but
nonetheless I could feel the presence of mana in the real world. At
the same time, when I retracted my senses, I saw a haze of blue
lights floating in front of me, as if the mana was weaving itself
into a familiar pattern. It looked like one of the notification
screens from the game.

I
blinked a bit as I looked at the screen. I even waved my hand through
it, causing it to turn into a cloud of blue mist before reforming.
This just isn’t…. it’s not possible, right?

Everything
felt like it was turning upside down, and I suddenly felt like I was
going to be sick. Rushing to the bathroom, I didn’t even make
it all the way before I froze in place, looking at the mirror through
the doorway. What I saw was my face, my body… but it wasn’t
MY face, MY body… I looked like Falenel, the six foot half-elf
with shoulder-length light brown hair, dark green eyes, and fairly
pointed ears.

By
now, I was 98% certain that I was going crazy. I rushed to my
computer and instantly loaded up the internet, only to confirm it was
the world that had gone mad. A thousand people, nine hundred and
fifty of them having chosen a non-human race. There were posts on
every forum from beta testers saying that they had turned into their
character. One person who chose to play a Centrix, a centaur-like
alien with two pairs of arms and a third eye, even said that his Seed
reshaped itself to match his new body type.

Naturally,
nobody believed them, but then came the videos. Some by the testers
themselves, others by people saying that aliens had invaded. It had
only been at most two hours, but it was already viral. I was secretly
thanking myself for having chosen a humanoid character. I don’t
know what would have happened if I woke up with the lower body of a
horse.

At
this time, I received a notification from the house AI telling me
that I had an emergency call from law enforcement. I didn’t do
anything wrong, did I? I started to panic for a brief moment, before
forcing myself to calm down and accept the call.

On
the wall, a holographic display of a man in a standard blue police
uniform appeared. I couldn’t make out his name due to the low
quality of the house’s holo-caller, but that didn’t
matter when he introduced himself. “Mr. Hulett, correct? I’m
Officer Faraday, of Oakland PD.”

I
took a deep breath, and prayed that this would work. “Yes, I’m
Mr. Hulett.” A brief flash of surprise crossed my face as I
realized I was not bound by the same laws that made me introduce
myself by my character name in the real world, but I was happy at
this fact. “I take it this is about the recent.. development?”

The
officer on-screen nodded his head, and seemed to take a moment to
look me over. My holo-caller was fairly low quality, as stated
before, so colors weren’t very well transmitted. “Yes, so
you’ve heard. We’ve acquired a list of testers for
NeoLife, and are attempting to contact them, in order to discuss
this… situation.”

“
You
caught me at just the right– Oh for fuck’s sake, I’ll
be right back officer!” I panicked and ran back to the kitchen,
turning the stove off and moving the skillet away. I was even in too
much of a hurry to bother putting on an oven mitt, and once again
burned myself. “God that smarts!” Since I knew it was
possible now, I quickly cast my Alchemic Heal on myself before moving
back to the living room to resume the call.

“
Is
everything okay, sir?” Officer Faraday asked with a raised
eyebrow.

“
Sorry,
officer. In light of recent events, I forgot I had a steak that was
ready to burn the house down.” I tried to play off a bit of
humor, which did not work against the law enforcement officer.

“
I
see. Then, I shall get right to it. Have you been affected by this
event as many are claiming to be? And if so, in what way? You still
appear to be human, from what I can see.”

“
Ah,
that. Yeah… I just noticed I was affected before you called.
My ingame race is half-elf, so looking fairly human is not
surprising.”

He
looked a bit suspicious at that, as if not believing me. “Can
you provide any proof of this change, then?”

I
nodded, and closed my eyes. There was a slight tearing noise as I
focused, but soon I had cast Aspect of the Bird, creating the four
angelic wings. In hindsight, I should have taken off my now-ruined
shirt… “This is a spell I learned ingame… it
seems they can be cast out here too.” To further prove my
point, I started hovering a few feet in the air, but that only lasted
for a few moments.