1 01 - C++

Neo was a developer for a AAA company, participated in the development of several famous games, and received the title of genius game developer in the center of the industry.

While other developers needed thousands of lines of code to perform a certain action in a game, Neo was able to simplify those lines to just 20% of that while using functions and executables he created himself after years of programming.

Unfortunately this didn't last forever. After years of programming without medical care, Neo developed a terrible case of tendonitis and had to abandon game development or he would have to amputate his hands.

Unable to develop more games, Neo lost his meaning to life. He had loved to develop games that could delight children and adults, but now he couldn't do any of that anymore.

One day, while Neo was drinking alone in his apartment, an explosion caused by a gas leak killed him.

---

"Neo Parker, are you sleeping?!" A high-pitched voice snapped Neo out of a terrible dream.

Looking around startled, Neo felt even stranger. He could have sworn he was alone in his apartment, drinking to drown out the tears that wanted to come out whenever he thought of all he could do for the gaming industry. But now, looking around, Neo found himself in a strange medieval-style classroom. Several young people looked at him with disdainful looks, apparently amused by the situation he was in.

However, strangely, this situation wasn't foreign to Neo. As much as he knew he'd never been in this classroom before, a feeling of familiarity continued to rise in his heart, as if he'd come to this place often.

"Neo Parker, do you dare ignore me?!" The high-pitched, nasally voice sounded once more in Neos ear.

When Neo turned around, he saw a fat woman looking at him with an angry glare.

Unconsciously Neo answered the first thing that came to his mind. "No Ms. Monroe, I was just too focused on reading the book."

Before Neo had realized what he was saying, he already said this fat woman's name as if he had always known it.

"And why is there drool on the page of your book, Parker?" The fat woman continued to ask suspiciously.

"Because I got caught up in the wonderful knowledge of that book, and I forgot to swallow my saliva." Neo answered the first excuse that crossed his mind. Back when he had still been in school in his old world Neo had slept in class a few times. That was one of the excuses he always used.

"Hrmm, very well… So, since you were so enchanted by the knowledge, it will be very easy for you to answer the next question about Basic Sorcery I put on the board, won't it?" the fat woman said with a mocking smile on her face.

'Basic Sorcery? Is this a school of magic like Harry Potter? This is amazing! Maybe I have transmigrated to a world of magic! This will be very useful for gaining knowledge related to gaming magic… Wait, damn… I can't develop games anymore...' In one moment Neo went from radiant joy to deep sadness.

But he couldn't get lost in those thoughts now, he needed to give a satisfying answer to this fat woman who was apparently the teacher of this Basic Sorcery class. Even though he had never heard of anything about Basic Sorcery, Neo hoped that the answer to that question would pop into his mind, just like the name of this woman came up a few seconds ago.

Looking at the picture pinned to the classroom wall, Neo was surprised. In fact, 'surprised' would be an understatement for what he was feeling right now. Neo was completely shocked, because what was written from the board wasn't chemistry formulas or anything else Neo considered 'magic', but lines of code in C++ format.

Neo was not only familiar with C++, he himself had participated in the development of 'God of War' and that was exactly the language used to develop that game.

"Is the question too basic for your advanced knowledge, Parker?" the fat woman asked with even more derision.

Unconsciously Neo responded. "Yes, if you pay attention to lines 12 and 29 you will see that the variable is incorrect. If that were used as is, then it would probably have some error that would produce an unexpected result, or more likely it just wouldn't execute anything and nothing would happen."

When Neo realized he had said out loud what he was really thinking, he froze.

'Shit, maybe I've exposed myself too much?' Neo wondered mentally as he slowly turned to look at the fat teacher's reaction beside him.

But contrary to what he'd imagined, the woman's cheeks were slightly red as she took a closer look at the lines of code she'd written on the board.

When she realized that line 29 was in fact wrong, she felt a little embarrassed. The question stated clearly that there was only one error in the line of code, but Neo Parker beside her had clearly pointed out that there were two errors, one of which not even she had noticed she had made while writing in front of the students.

"Very well Parker, I'm pleased with your answer. Even the extra error I left as a prank was also noticed by you. Congratulations, you got 1 extra point on your next exam grade," the teacher responded with a smile as she left, pretending this was intentional.

When the other students heard this, everyone was amazed. The smartest ones even went back to analyzing line 29 to try to find the error and couldn't see where the problem was, quickly raising their hands for the teacher to answer their questions and explain where the error was.

The other students were still looking at Neo with astonished expressions on their faces, not believing that the one who had answered this was Neo Parker, the boy who usually got the lowest grades in the class.

Those who looked at him mockingly earlier made a point of turning away and hiding their expression of shame. Nobody imagined that the worst student in the class would recognize a hidden mistake that the teacher left behind and that not even the best students in the class had not noticed.

Meanwhile Neo was lost in thought. 'Did I really come to a world of magic? According to those lines of code this program should use a variable called 'mana' to levitate an object... just like wingardium leviossa, but apparently they use software development to apply the spells. How do they run these programs?' Neo wondered as he rummaged through the new memories he recently received.

Apparently people in this world didn't use wands like Harry Potter, they just thought about the lines of code and imagined pressing a mental 'start' button and this magic would happen. If it was a spell with very long lines of code one could write the spells in a spell card and insert mana into it. As soon as the mana criterion for the spell was reached the spell would happen.

Immediately Neo remembered the spell that was written on the board. This spell was 43 lines long. For an average person it would definitely take a few hours to perfectly memorize those 43 lines of code, but for Neo, who was called a game development genius in his previous world, memorizing those 43 lines just required him to read once carefully.

After reading everything perfectly, Neo realized that of those 43 lines, at least 20 lines could be simplified by some degree, reducing the total lines necessary to just 30.

With the new code in mind, Neo imagined pressing the 'Run' button in Visual Studio, the old program he had used to develop software, while imagining that the target of this spell was the pen on his desk.

Magically the pen above Neo's desk began to float a few inches. But as he watched that pen float, Neo could also feel that something inside him was wearing thin, as if a faucet was running, pouring water from a reservoir he had.

'That's mana…' Neo realized.

This little test of his did not go unnoticed by the other colleagues around him.

"My god, Neo Parker is using the Levitation spell without a card?!" A boy asked his friend, scared as he pointed his finger at the pen in front of Neo.

Looking in the direction his friend's finger was pointing, the boy was also surprised. "I can't believe it! There's no card in his hand. It's not possible that he's using a card, but how is he using this spell like that? He didn't memorize all 43 lines of Levitation, right?"

Hearing the conversation between these two, the other students around also looked at Neo curiously, and the scene of the pen floating in front of Neo left everyone scared.

The teacher had taught them this spell just today; they were still learning to write the spell correctly and Neo Parker was already using the spell mentally?! He apparently hadn't even written the spell once, as everyone saw that he had been sleeping since the beginning of class.

--

Seeing that the students were whispering during class, the teacher was dissatisfied. She was taking the time to explain this basic spell to these students, but they still ignored her and talked to each other normally? Out of curiosity she also looked at Neo, wondering if this boy who caught her attention was also talking like the other students, but when she saw the pen floating in front of him she was shocked, just as her students were.

'Maybe his family are wizards and he has already learned this at home? It might be a logical explanation,' the teacher said to herself, 'I'll have to check this with the director later.'

"Are you seeing this, everyone? This is a perfect representation of the Levitation spell!" the teacher said with a smug smile as she approached Neo's desk, which caused him to lose focus from the spell and drop the pen.

"And this is the perfect demonstration of why spells that require continuous mana feeding are not recommended to be used mentally. After all, even a small drop in concentration can cause the spell to break," the teacher explained patiently.

Hearing this, the students' expressions brightened, having a sudden understanding of why it's not very recommended to just use spells mentally, despite someone maybe having a good memory.

"But that doesn't change the fact that it's much more practical to use spells mentally. Just like the Fireball spell, which only needs an x amount of mana, it's highly recommended that you memorize it to use whenever you like," the teacher continued explaining.

"By the way, Neo Parker, you just got one more point for your grade, for your perfect Levitation demonstration to our class." the teacher said, which caused a lot of envy from the other students, in addition to arousing their interest to study magic in the library after class. Some also wanted to learn magic in advance and earn extra points during classes. They had taken it for granted that Neo had studied the Levitation spell in advance just to appear smart in this class, which made the others want to do that for the next class as well.

This was exactly the feeling that the teacher wanted these students to feel, to see someone succeed from studying the world and also wanting to study hard to be successful. Even though only a minority would actually study for the next class, that was enough for her.

But what no one had guessed was that Neo had only stared at this spell for a few seconds before executing it, completely oblivious to the speculation everyone was making about him: having a powerful wizard family or staying in the library to learn spells on his own before the classes.