Chapter 5 Rewrite

Chapter 5

The blackness slowly faded and Drew found himself laying on the floor directly in front of his toilet. While that might not sound too terrible, it was actually highly uncomfortable as the toilet was located in its own tiny room within his bathroom. The end result? His lower torso was perfectly flat on the cold concrete floor, while his upper torso was crumpled up with his shoulders and head on the bathroom wall.

Eight-hour whiskey bender, or the result of teleportation from the tutorial introduction? An outside observer would likely choose the former if pressed after seeing his state. He could tell it was dark in the water closet even though he could see perfectly. Maybe that was his darkvision kicking in? Huh, he wondered where Spock ended up?

"Pop!"

A slight popping sound rang through the room. He suddenly saw Spock appear directly above his position held in midair. Huh, so that's how it worked. Then gravity kicked in as Drew watched in slow motion as Spock began to fall. Crap! Drew had to get out of the way!

"Ooof! Owwwww. Spock, get off me man." he hurriedly whispered.

Man, it was only a small fall for him but landing on Drew’s stomach with Spock’s full weight still took his breath away. Thank the heavens Drew managed to move in time, otherwise it would have been the opening premiere of this season's 'The Nutcracker'. To his credit he quickly got off of Drew and stayed quiet.

Drew hoisted himself up and suddenly it was a bit awkward. Two dudes standing in the small enclosed area of his toilet space, one of them buck-naked and the other wearing... armor? Chainmail armor? The fuck? Drew looked down at himself, yeah, he was totally nude. Why did Spock get sweet armor while Drew was stuck in his birthday suit?

"Can you see me Spock?" Drew whispered.

He nodded his head. Good, maybe he ended up with darkvision after all.

"Follow me, try to be quiet."

Again, he nodded. Drew crept forward into the main section of the bathroom before coming to the accursed door that he had hit his head on previously. He had to open it delicately as sometimes it creaked. He looked back to Spock and brought his finger to his lips as he made the universal sign to shush. Moment of truth. Drew turned the handle and slowly opened the door.

No creak happened this time. Good. Drew tiptoed into the bedroom. Amber was sleeping. His side of the bed had the covers pulled back. Looks like he lucked out and it was still in the middle of the night. He waved Spock forward as they made it to the bedroom door. His wife's light breathing continued unabated. He turned the door handle and cracked it open as he swiftly snuck out of the bedroom with Spock following behind him.

Drew could tell that Spock was trying to be quiet, but the chainmail armor he was wearing made a slight clinking noise with his every footstep. Thankfully Amber hadn’t woken to it, which meant she was still in a deep sleep. Normally she could sleep through a rhino rampaging in a nitroglycerin factory, but he was not taking any chances. Not with his voice being so different, and her not knowing who Spock was.

Drew closed the bedroom door. Phew. They made it safely to the living room. Then they made it to the back door without any issues and quickly exited the house. Most folks would assume the people who lived in the country were in shacks with wood sticks for fencing, but that was simply not the case. His family was pretty modern, their backyard consisted of a wooden residential fence.

The same fence that people in the suburbs would have, he supposed. Now they stood before the fence gate. Drew opened it with only a minor creak, andddddd time to close it.

"Klunk"

‘Fuckkkkkk. Not smooth Drew, not smooth.’

"BOOF! BOOF!"

Shit! He woke the German Shepherd up. Shhhhh Freya, shhhhh. Please go back to sleep! The guys stayed frozen in place as Spock turned to look at him. Worry was plastered all over his facial expression.

Silence.

Good, she went back to sleep. Now they were home free. Time to head to the one area no one would check on at the moment, the chicken coop. Outside the residential fence that Drew’s family installed for Freya, the rest of the property was fairly open. They had some barbed wire fencing and a metal pipe gate. Fat load of help the barbed wire did to keep the wildlife out though.

They also had a storage building where they kept the zero-turn mower, tools, and all of the many Christmas decorations. Finally, they had the coop towards the back side of the property.

"Alright man, we should be good to talk now."

"Drew Wright, was that your wife who made that noise? Are you not concerned?"

"Noise? You mean my dog barking? Ha-ha, no that definitely wasn't my wife. It was our German Shepherd; her name is Freya. She's usually a deep sleeper like my wife, but I guess she heard me close the gate."

"I've never seen a dog before. It's my understanding that they're similar to summoned pets."

"I mean... you can summon them with food, I guess. I wouldn't say it's magic or anything. They're domesticated animals on Earth. Descendants of the original wolves from before written history became a thing. Although, many of them look far different than their ancestors now, humans in general find great comfort in their companionship."

"I see. So, they're like friends? Like you and I?"

"Hmmm, it varies. For my family? Yeah. Some humans don't treat them as friends or family members though. They are the most popular pet on Earth, but not everyone enjoys them, and some bastards can be downright cruel to them. Also, while they are intelligent, it's more of a childlike intelligence. They have instincts, but they have the intelligence of a human child of three years old roughly."

"Interesting. I look forward to learning more about these dogs and pets."

"I'd be happy to tell you about them, but right now I need to figure out how to approach Amber with how I look now. Especially with the change in my voice. I also need time to reflect on everything that happened in the tutorial. That reminds me, what's with the armor?"

"I was granted a minor and lesser boon. I'm not sure why I wasn't granted a greater boon, but I used the boons I had available for a skill and for starting equipment."

"Shit, I didn't know I could do that."

"I apologize Drew Wright. I didn't mention it because you said you wished to become a caster. The equipment doesn't come with any stat attributes so you'd likely be given a wooden staff and a robe."

"Oh. Yeah. Good point, I would not have worn a robe, and I definitely wouldn't be using a basic staff if it didn't give me a bonus. I have swords and knives here at the house.

"I recommend you check your status while I go over the rest of the information, we didn't have time for in the tutorial introduction."

"Alright."

It was probably a good idea. He did need to learn how to use his magic if he was going to convince his family. First thing's first. Status.

Status

Name: Drew Wright

Race: Dhampir (Rank-F) - lvl 0

Class: Caster

Profession: None

Health Points (HP): 60/60

Mana Points (MP): 100/100

Stamina: 60/60

Stats (Attributes)

Strength: 6

Vitality: 6

Endurance: 6

Toughness: 7

Agility: 4

Perception: 8

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 14

Willpower: 6

Free Points: 0

Hmmm. Alright, it looked like his stats were all the same as when he was human. Likely because he hadn’t leveled up yet. What were his level up bonuses again?

Additional Information

Race bonus attributes per level: +1 STR, +2 VIT, +2 END, +2 TGH, +1 AGI, +1 PCT, +1 WILL

Class bonus attributes per level: +1 PCT, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 WIL, +2 Free points.

That was a ton of stat points per level up. It was good news if he was supposed to be fighting monsters and crap. Alright, now what about his skills?

Skills

Manabolt (Grade - Inferior), Mana Manipulation (Grade - Inferior), Identify (Grade - Inferior), Spatial Inventory, Raise Dead (Grade - Inferior), Mana Shield (Grade - Inferior), Corruption (Grade - Inferior).

Identify and spatial inventory? He didn’t remember choosing those. What were they about?

Identify (Grade - Inferior)
Basic skill that allows you to focus on any creature, beast, monster, person, item or object in an attempt to identify them. This skill is known by all sapient lifeforms other than the youngest of children.

Spatial Inventory
A basic universal skill that allows for dimensional storage for any sapient. While limited in size, most individuals use this skill to assist in carrying equipment, gear, emergency supplies, and professional materials. Anything held in Spatial Inventory is outside the physical dimension and thus will not encumber the user. However, everything within the inventory is dropped upon death.

"Hey Spock, this spatial inventory skill, is it basically a backpack?"

"I'm unsure of what a backpack is. Spatial inventory is a personal inventory for any being that can think and has a sense of self. From my understanding it's most commonly used for holding extra equipment and items like health potions. Also, you may want to check your notifications when you have a chance. I'd also recommend creating an icon in your vision to flash when you have new notifications available."

Okay, yeah, it's like a backpack then. Of course, he didn’t know what a backpack was, he only had a basic rundown of Earth culture and technology.

From the sounds of it, he could put icons all over his vision if he wanted to. Talk about a super customizable interface from The System. Alright, well he’d just put an icon in the bottom right and make it semi-visible. Was it flashing already? He hoped it wasn’t a spam call. Notifications?

Notifications

Title earned: [Progenitor]

Title system huh? Not completely unexpected. Progenitor... he guessed everyone who went through the tutorial received that one. Time to check it out.

[Progenitor] - Chosen sapient of a pre-integrated world. Allows for Tutorial Introduction. Grants +2 to all stats. Grants the Skill: Multiversial Tongues (Unique).

Sweeeeeet. It looked like he received some free stat points. Why didn't his status show them then? Was it because he hadn't checked his notifications yet? That might make sense. Spock did advise him to put that icon in his vision for a reason. What was this about tongues?

Multiversial Tongues (Unique)
Allows for seamless communication across all racial and language barriers. This is a unique skill only granted to progenitors of newly integrated worlds. Other inhabitants of newly integrated worlds start with an inferior skill that slowly upgrades when used, but still allows for faster than normal learning of new tongues.

He was both happy and sad about this one. On one side, he could now speak and understand French, German, Japanese, and everything else. On the other side, he got the feeling that everything would sound the same regardless of the language spoken. While it was good for him, Drew always enjoyed hearing folks speak different languages, and he feared that the cultural aspects between them would disappear.

He looked to the sky; the stars were starting to dim as light slowly travelled over the horizon. He was running out of time. He needed to convince his family fast, especially if they were going to be prepared for what was coming.

"Spock, how do I use my magic? Oh, that reminds me, what is mana manipulation, what does it do?"

He hadn’t moved much since Drew had been looking through the menus. They were standing outside the chicken coop, and Spock was watching the roosting hens and rooster through the chicken wire fencing on the coop's run.

"The two of them are closely tied together. Like many things from The System, you simply need to focus on what you want to do and it will happen. However, mana manipulation will allow you to feel the mana you're using. Similar to how you can feel your fingers moves, or your knees. It's an important skill if you wish to better understand how magic functions. While The System takes care of most things, it also rewards knowledge. If you learn how you're using mana to cast a spell, you have an exponentially higher chance of upgrading your skills by yourself without using your options on level ups."

"Soooo... If I can figure out how The System is automatically doing things for me related to spells, then I can upgrade them for free?"

"It is more than simple comprehension, but yes. You can also learn to modify your own spells over time."

"Cool. Let’s do some magic!"

"Drew Wright, I'd recommend remaining a safe distance from your target. Both for your safety from the effects of the spells, but also to practice staying far from physical combat."

"Sounds good"

Drew look around. Plenty of trees that he could pop off some manabolts at. Time to do that. Thirty feet away should have been a good distance, right? He picked a tree; it was an older mesquite tree. He’d always disliked them with all their thorns. The branches would fall and then he’d run over them with his mower. Poking holes in his tires. They were horrible trees for anything other than smoking barbeque. He lined up with the tree in question and made sure that he was roughly thirty feet away.

He focused his mind, He wanted to hit the tree with manabolt. Center of mass. Focus. The knowledge flooded his mind like a shot of Fireball hitting an empty stomach. He felt it wash over him like a raging river. He needed his hand out in front of him, an extremity to channel the spell through.

He felt a tingling sensation in his gut. The sensation came from above his stomach and below his heart. He felt the sensation trace toward his outstretched hand, condensing in his palm. The pressure continued to build on his hand, as a small blue sphere appeared slightly past his palm. The mana coalesced and tightened in said sphere until it began to change shape. Like the tip of a simple spear or a cone. The pressure became intense, it felt like the dam was about to burst.

"Abracadabra bitch!"

The cone propelled forward at blinding speed and hit the center of the old mesquite tree.

"CRACK!"

Bark and wood shrapnel blew out of the tree trunk as if it was hit by a pointed sledgehammer wielded by Conan the Barbarian. Woodchips were flying and dropping from the sky. Wooden dust falling, He took a look at the damage as he walked a bit closer so he could examine the tree.

There was a bread plate sized divot in the trunk, about three or so inches deep. A crack started in the center of the impact and spiderwebbed out an inch or so. Holy hell, that was a shit ton of damage. More than a standard rifle bullet. An armor piercing 7.62x51 round maybe, but definitely not the normal off the shelf 5.56 bullets anyone could buy.

"Spock, is that amount of damage normal? Or did I do something wrong?"

"I've never used manabolt on a tree before Drew Wright, so I'm unable to answer. However, the spell in question appeared to be normal from my knowledge of it."

"I'm impressed. However, I'm also a bit worried. If this is the basic starter spell every caster has, then what the heck are the monsters we're going to be facing? That's an extremely intimidating thought. Okay, well it's time to face my wife and try to convince her now that I've figured out magic."

"Do you wish for me to come with you?"

"No, it'll be daylight soon, just hang out with the chickens for a while. It'll be better if there's only one new person."

"These chickens, are they dangerous predators? Should I prepare my weapon?"

"Ha! No. They think they're dangerous, but they're pretty harmless. They might peck at you a tiny bit when they decide to get up for the day, but even kids are usually fine around them."

"I see. While I trust you Drew Wright, the gray one with white spots is eyeing me strangely and I feel like prey."

"You'll be fine. Just go in there and hang out with them. I need to head back now."

"Understood."

Spock slowly entered the chicken run, while cautiously watching them as they roosted. It looked like the rooster was watching him closely. Eh, Drew was sure Spock would be fine. They were just chickens.

Drew could do magic now, and magic was freaking awesome. But now it was time for the hardest obstacle. Facing his family.

Drew began the long walk back to his house.