Chapter 4: The Door to the Second Floor

  In the epicenter of desolation I stand alone, naked as the day I was born, jaw dropped, dick and balls swinging in the wind. In all of my wildest dreams and fantasies of wielding epic power, nothing could have prepared me for punching so hard I cause a nuclear explosion. I didn’t even know that shit was possible. To make matters worse, as far as I can tell, I didn’t use any sort of skill or ability, nor did I gain one after the fact. I think… I think physics just doesn’t like this level of power. Quickly, I check myself for injuries, and beyond a couple rapidly disappearing scorch marks, there are none. Checking my character sheet, it is clear that though I took an extremely solid amount of damage (probably around 200k from my estimation), my health regeneration and total health pool render the damage pretty much moot. One thing however, is clear: before I get anywhere near home, I need a reliable way to control and limit my power. Consoling myself with the thought of magic holding an answer, while pointedly ignoring the possibility of sneezing so violently I accidentally nuke a populated city, I begin to wander through the once lush forest which now is an ashy expanse of ruin and regret. Way off in the distance, maybe a couple miles, I can see what looks to be a huge white wall extending into the sky. It blends into the bright sky so well that I might not have noticed it if not for the scorch marks that now mar its base. Looking around for any sign of the way to the next floor (the timer said floor one, so I can only assume there is a floor 2), I spot a large metal door along the wall, and with nowhere else to go and nothing else to look at save for the reminder of what will now happen if I don’t hold back, I begin to walk in its direction. I walk very slowly, so as not to piss off physics again.

  While I walk, I do something I probably should have done immediately after I got my class: I try to feel for my mana.

  I close my eyes, and try to look inside myself. Immediately, I get feedback, but it feels like trying to drag my mind's eye through an ocean of honey. There is so much mana, and it is so dense, that trying to control it with any sort of precision seems near impossible. Ok, fine, I’ll keep it simple then. I try to collect a handful of the thick ocean and push it into my hand. I open my eyes to see a sphere of blue luminescent liquid hovering over my hand.

  “FUCK YEAH! I’M A WIZARD BITCH! MANA BOLT!”

  I huck the ball of mana at the ground like I’m spiking a football and it disperses harmlessly into the charred soil.

  “Huh. Well that was anticlimactic. Guess plain mana isn’t very destructive.”

  Still, despite the disappointment, I can’t help but feel a rush at the thought of casting real, actual magic. Despite the fact that my last memories before the crash only feel like they happened mere minutes ago, the world I left has never felt so far away. All my problems: my rage, my loss, my heartbreak, suddenly feel hollow, as if nothing really matters in the face of a world governed by magic. A world where everything I thought of as a limit has been shattered. I take a deep breath, center myself, and keep walking. Ok, so I can summon mana, but mana on its own seems to not do much. Naturally, the next step is to summon mana with an effect in mind, and there is only one clear choice for the first thing to try. Once again, I wade into the lake of honey, but this time, with a clear image in mind for what I want formed above my hand. With some determination, I manage to keep my eyes open this time.

  “I CAST… FIREBALL!”

  Nothing happens. Shit. Wait, no, I can feel heat from above my outstretched hand, but there is no fire to be seen. Ok, I think I can make an educated guess as to why it didn’t work, because I remember enough from my high school science classes to know that fire requires three things: heat (check), oxygen (presumably check), and fuel. So somehow I need to either find a good fuel source, or maybe I can somehow make mana itself into the fuel source. Personally, I would much prefer not to lug around a bag of charcoal to throw at people, so I’m going to try and figure out option two. Ok, let’s do this. I grab a hold of as much of my mana as I can (which is not much), and separate it into two clumps. With one, I picture it creating heat, and the other, I picture it igniting and fueling the flame. It takes a full minute of focusing before I manage to get both images into my head clear enough that the mana begins to move as per my instructions. I feel as the air above my hand heats up, and I wait with baited breath until… YES! A bright yellow spark appears above by hand, and in a flash, the air around it ignites. Hovering about two inches over my palm is a baseball sized ball of red and orange flame, dancing merrily. Overcome with excitement, I slam it into the ground.

  “FIREBALL!”

  Now, the ground was already mostly ash and dust, so there wasn’t much to burn, but the slightly darkened char marks on the ground in front of me feels like a huge victory. I spend most of the rest of the walk conjuring balls of flame. After a bit of experimentation, I figure out that the maximum I can currently conjure at once is four, and that once they ignite, they will stay lit for only about 30 seconds before the mana spent as fuel runs out. I tinker a bit with the ratio of mana spent to generate heat vs fuel and manage to get the duration up to about 45 seconds, though the fireballs seem less hot of course. Improvement is slow, but each minor optimization feels rewarding. Finally, I make it to the large door.

  Up close, it is a lot more imposing than it looked from far away. It’s about 20 feet tall, towering over my head, and made of primarily a slate grey metal of some kind that doesn’t quite look like iron or steel. The handles are as thick as PVC pipes and are carved with ornate patterns that make them look like the trunks of trees, growing out of the door. Other than the handles, the rest of the door is decidedly plain in design. I guess the designers ran out of budget after the handles or something. Before I go in, I equip the [Legendary Classer] title (I want to maximize exp as much as possible) and take one last look at my character sheet. To save space, I have the system hide all the lower levels of the [Cultivation] skill.

  Oh shit, I didn’t notice earlier, but I gained 200 constitution after I got nuked. I guess you can gain basic stats by using them, and not just by leveling up or cultivating. Ok, game time. I take a deep breath, reach out, and begin to pull the door open. It is one heavy son of a bitch, and the door is opening slower than a sloth in a DMV line. From the other side of the door, a booming voice rings out.

  “Finally! For long eons I have waited for thee, challenger, and now thou hast finally grown the stones to face me! Ready yourself to face-“

  Quickly getting bored with the agonizingly slow opening of the door, I decide to pull on some of my strength stat, and with an aching groan and several screaming pops, the door is ripped from its frame and, since I wasn’t expecting it, I fall onto my ass with an “oof!” as the door flies over my head faster than a bullet. A huge cloud of dust and ash is whisked into the air by the buffeted wind as the door flies past. In the distance, I hear a clang and a crunch as it hits the wall on the other side.

  “BY ODIN’S OVERGROWN BUSH! HOW DOST THOU POSSESS SUCH STRENGTH!? THIS IS BOVINE EXCREMENT! Also, why art thou nude?”

  I raise an eyebrow and look to see who is talking. A mammoth of a man stands before a wooden throne carved from a tree stump at the end of a long, brightly torchlit banquet hall looking straight out of a Viking movie. The walls of the hall are made of grey stone, as if it was carved from a large mountain cavern, and the floor is a dark brown wood that I don’t recognize. The man himself would look similarly out that same viking movie, if not for his size, (he has to be at least 10 feet tall) and the fact that his long woven beard, a dark brown mass of gnarled and unkempt hair somehow wrangled into a braid which hangs down over a chainmail hauberk, is interwoven with green vines and leaves that seem to grow from under his armor, from where the man’s heart would be.

  “First of all, did you just try to say bullshit in ye olde english, cause that for sure is not historically accurate. Second of all, I’m naked because I wanna be bitch, so just bask in the glory of my penis, and thirdly, I’m strong because I do 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats, and a 10 kilometer run every single day, duh.”

  “Ah yes, the man of the singular punch, a classic tale.”

  “…you watch anime?”

  “What is this ‘anime’ you speak of?”

  I stare at the man. He stares back at me, unblinking and stoic. After about 30 seconds, I break the silence.

  “So… do I have to kill you to get to the next floor?”

  I see the man glance behind me at the broken door, and the desolation behind it.

  “Nay! In truth, there is no second floor, and you are simply trapped here. Slaying me serves nary a purpose! Please return from whence you came.”

  As he says this, I step closer, crossing the threshold into the room. As soon as I do, red text pops above his head.

  First Floor Boss

  Alheim The Druidic Berserker - Lvl. 5

  “Sorry to say this Al, but I’m afraid I don’t believe you.”

  “Curses! So be it. TO VALHALLA!” He cries, rushing towards me.

  Ok, control is the name of the game here. Gingerly, I engage as little of my agility stat as I possibly can, and the world slows to a crawl. With an anticipatory wince, I wave my arm in front of me, and with relief, I note that the air doesn’t explode. Turning my attention to the slowly approaching viking man, who I immediately name Leaf Beard in my head, I conjure a fireball and toss it directly into his face. The ball of flame shoots through the air, impacts the Leaf Beard’s large bulbous nose… and dissipates into nothing, doing no discernable damage. Well… that’s not good. To give myself a little more time to think before he gets to me, I walk around him and to the other end of the room. So, why did the fireball not do anything? I conjure another one and look at it for a second. It flickers above my hand, like a candle with an invisible wick. OH! LIKE A CANDLE! OF COURSE! I think back to an early memory of my childhood. It was just after Thanksgiving dinner, and me and my cousin, Atlas, were helping to clean the table off. In the center of the table, there was a lit candle, and Atlas (who was always trying to impress me) grabbed it and started waving his hand through the flame very quickly. Of course, it did nothing to Atlas then, and for the same reason, my own fireball did nothing to Leaf Beard now. Flame on its own simply won’t do much at high speeds. So, the solution is either to only throw very slow fireballs, or to change the nature of the fireball to make it more effective at high speeds. Obviously, the second option is the clear winner. As I start to experiment, I look up and see that Leaf Beard is about half across the room, still coming towards me slowly but steadily. His eyes are wide with fear, even as he rushes onwards. I kinda feel bad for the guy, and it feels a little rude to drag this out longer than necessary. I will have plenty of opportunities to experiment later. Still, I would like to use mana when I kill him, so I don’t get the exp penalty. I sigh, and pool mana around my fist, visualizing the mana as tough and solid. Disengaging my agility for a moment, I look at beardy with as serious a face as I can muster.

  “Omae wa mou shindeiru.”

  He looks back at me, and his eyes widen.

  “NANI!?”

  I point at him triumphantly. “SO YOU DO WATCH ANIME!”

  He swings his axe towards my head with ferocity.

  “I KNOW NOT OF WHAT YOU SPEAK!”

  Shaking my head, the world slows once again, and I duck under his swing, and slam my mana coated fist into his chest, above his heart. Encountering almost no resistance, my fist breaks through his armor, through his skin, and exits the other side of his body.

  Congratulations! You Have Killed the Floor 1 Boss: [Alheim The Druidic Berserker Lvl. 5]

  You Gain 10000 exp

  You Have Leveled Up!

  You Are Now Level 10

  You Have Leveled Up!

  You Are Now Level 11

  “What a liar, that bitch definitely watched anime.”

  The body of Leaf Beard the Closeted Weeb drops to the floor and dissipates into golden particles. Where his body had been now lays a more human sized fur and leather breastplate, patterned with vines. Damn. Wish he dropped pants. Shrugging, I pick it up and put it on.

  The ability is decidedly… meh… at least for me personally. Though, I suppose it is certainly better than nothing. Still, I doubt anything in the [Very Easy Difficulty Tutorial] will be able to output the billion+ damage required to proc the ability. Welp, it is what it is. Ok, back to the fireball experiments. Listen, I know I could easily kill everything with just my basic stats, but learning how to do magic is a huge dream of mine, and adding more versatility and creativity to my abilities can’t be a bad thing in my mind. Add that to the whole world I left behind motivation, and I don’t feel at all like I’m wasting my time with this. Anyway, how do I make fireball viable at high speeds. My first thought is to make the flames stick to the enemy or ignite them in some way. After all, even if the fireball isn’t slow, as long as the flames themselves last a while, they will still do some damage. Other than that, the obvious option is to make it explosive in some way, or solid enough that it also functions as a projectile. With all of these in mind, I reach for my mana. Immediately, I feel a massive difference. Where before my ocean of mana felt thick and viscous and hard to handle, it is significantly more pliable now. It also feels significantly easier to visualize and manifest the mana in the ways I want to. I glance at my character sheet, but I don’t see any obvious reason for the change. Welp, I’m not gonna fuck a gift horse in the mouth (or whatever the saying is). I quickly try to conjure a fireball with all the changes I had in mind, but even with the improved control, it feels pretty much impossible to implement all of the changes at once. I just can’t visualize and direct the mana in all the different ways and subdivisions that I would need. Fine then, let’s start small. I create a fireball above my hand, and quickly notice that the center of the flame is much darker and more solid looking than before. It is also very clear to me that I am able to use a significantly increased amount of my mana pool after the changes. I toss the fireball at the wall of the chamber at very high speeds, and as it collides, the fireball explodes, blasting a chunk of stone out of the wall. Explosive fireball: check! It takes a little more focus to summon the next one, and while the dark center to the flame remains, the outside of the fireball now has flicking tongues of green flame interweaving with the yellow and orange. Tossing it towards the wall, the same explosion rings out, taking another chunk of stone from the same spot on the wall, but now a blanket of yellow, orange, and green flame stays on the wall for another fifteen or so seconds before it dissipates, either running out of the mana that fuels it and/or burning through the available oxygen faster than it is replaced. Wait, the oxygen problem might be something I could fix. I figure if I am providing the heat and fuel for the flame with mana, why can’t I replace the need for oxygen with mana as well? Once more, I dig into my ocean of mana, and with what seems like the limit of my current control, manage to conjure one final fireball above my hand. This one looks drastically different than the other two. Where before the flames looked pretty much identical to flames I had seen on earth, the ball of fire that now floats above my palm is not red, orange, and yellow, but instead is a deep and warm mix of pinks and purples, though still with those same flecks of green on the outside. The flame looks so strange that I feel the urge to reach out a hand to poke it, and immediately do so.

  I do not notice the burning scent of flesh as it reaches for my nose, nor the kaleidoscope of undulating purple flame that covers my eyes and mouth, and certainly not the shrill and agonizing screams ripped from my own throat that reach for my ears. The only thing I am aware of, the only thing I can possibly be aware of, the only thing I am in that moment of pure stupidity… is pain.