The First Spell

Loran was halfway through his lunch when he made it to the Training Field. Few people are in the field today, since most were still exhausted from yesterday's update, but those present were making quite the scene.

Instead of the usual practice drills, target practice, and sparing matches, the players on the field could be seen meditating, waving their arms around, and shouting random phrases.

"Fireball!" One player shouted as he threw a punch at a target several feet away. When nothing happened he simply repeated the motion while shouting out again, his voice becoming more desperate as he continued.

One player stood silently in the center of the field, eyes shut tight in concentration with both hands raised above her head. Whether she was actually accomplishing anything could not be seen, but she seemed content to continue 'charging' her spell for as long as necessary.

Off to Loran's side was another player drawing a pentagram in the dirt. When it was finished they pulled out a stone knife and cut the palm of his hand, dripping blood in the center of the symbol. "Rise!" they shouted dramatically. When nothing happened after a few moments they seemed confused. Then, with an expression of realization, they ran off for the woods muttering "sacrifice... I just need a sacrifice."

It was all very chaotic and confusing, but Loran simply looked on understandingly. After all, not one person in the village or even all of New Eden Online had even the slightest clue of how to use the new magic system.

The game had simply told them that there was now a magic system and gave them the stats to represent it.

'If it's anything like learning Skills through the Pioneer System, then we'll only get to see any details by performing the spells themselves,' he realized with a growing sense of dread.

As difficult as learning new Skills was, it was still relatively straightforward because most of them simply reflected normal actions. [ANALYSIS] had been created through focused investigation, [HUNTER] was learned by killing beasts, and even the more superhuman Skills like [DANGER SENSE] or [LEAP] were just applications of their ever-growing stats and abilities.

All of these things were things that a normal human could already do to a certain extent, but the same logic didn't apply to magic. Furthermore, the players' experience from other games was of limited usefulness, because as much as video games had evolved since the introduction of AetherGear, magic was one of the systems that had remained more or less the same. Spells would be cast by speaking something aloud or by activating it by thought.

Some games played with the idea of using direct thought control to manipulate one's surroundings, but those systems rarely worked in RPGs due to balancing issues. Players either exhibited too much power over their environment, or the restrictions made magic so weak or difficult to control that it became unusable.

'The system clearly isn't a direct thought control, or someone would have managed something by now,' Loran reasoned. 'So how the hell do we pull this off.'

As Loran finished his food, one of the players that had been meditating on a tree stump stood up shakily and walked back into the village.

"You guys figure anything out?" Loran asked.

"Sort of? We're definitely doing something to consume MP, but it's weird." They rubbed their temples in frustration.

"Weird how?"

"You ever read a cultivation novel, where they're trying to 'sense the chi of the universe or whatever."

"...Can you explain it better than that?"

"Not really," they smiled, but even Loran could feel how much they wanted to scream at the absurdity of the situation.

"...God this game sucks."

"Agreed."

They parted ways as Loran sat down on the player's stump. If this magic system was so strange and esoteric, the meditation approach seemed like it might produce the best results. Closing his eyes, Loran tried to feel this energy that he was told about, but after several minutes there was nothing.

'Yeah, can't say I'm surprised,' he thought defeatedly. 'They said that they sensed something though, I have to at least get that far.'

Without any other ideas, Loran focused on the MP bar in his vision. Even with his eyes closed, it appeared the moment he thought about it.

[MP]: 50/50

'If the bar was going down for them...then can I just...'

He concentrated on the blue bar, not thinking of sensing anything, only of making the number go down.

It might have been minutes or just a few seconds, but soon there was a change.

[MP]: 49/50

The instant the number changed, Loran was able to feel something.

'I get why they were so vague now,' he thought bitterly.

The sensation he felt just now was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It wasn't a smell or a sound, he didn't taste it or see it, and he didn't feel it, he just sensed it. A tiny spark of something that hadn't been there a moment ago.

It wasn't painful, but it reminded Loran of looking at a bright light after spending hours in complete darkness or of when his skin was reexposed to the open air after spending weeks in a cast when he broke his arm as a child.

It was like a nerve was sending signals to his brain for the first time in his life, revealing a part of his body that he hadn't known existed until that very moment.

Except it hadn't been revealed, it had only just been given to him by the Pioneer System. To create its magic system, New Eden Online had given its players a completely new sense to detect this strange energy called MP.

'Alright, what I can do with this?'

Unfortunately, the answer to his question was, not very much. As Loran consumed more of his MP he couldn't get the energy to actually do anything before the sensation slipped away from him. The brief moment where he could detect it just wasn't enough for him to grasp how to use it. He could feel a headache coming on as more and more of the energy left his body.

At one point he tried to spend 5 MP at once to see if having more to work with at once would make it easier to grasp, but while it was easier to detect he still ended up losing control of it just as quickly.

It didn't feel like anything was missing, but his magic sense was just too new to him. It was just too weak for him to do anything with, like how a baby lacked the muscular and neural development to walk or form words. It certainly didn't help that all of his other senses were so much stronger by comparison. Everything from the wind on his skin to the sounds of players training around him easily distracted him from the weak sensation of the MP.

'...My senses?'

Loran's eyes widened in realization. He started grinning excitedly as he pulled up the settings page of the menu.

'Can't be a distraction if they're all turned off.'

Resting his hands in his lap, Loran quickly changed all of his sense levels to 0%, closed the menu, and was immediately thrown off by how jarring the change was.

Sensory deprivation chambers were a thing in reality, but they functioned by trying to simulate an environment that your body couldn't detect.

It was incomparable to this.

The AetherGear had completely stopped transmitting any sensory information to Loran's brain.

He was completely blind.

His ears detected 0 decibels.

He smelt nothing.

His tongue could perceive not even the taste of his own saliva.

He could not feel his arms, legs, or any part of his body.

Loran had no idea what direction was up, he had no idea how much time was passing.

He was alone in an infinite void with nothing but his thoughts.

'Alright,' the thought felt deafening in the complete silence of the void, 'let's try this again.'

The moment he spent another point of MP, the tiny spark of energy lit up the void. As the only thing he was capable of sensing at the moment, he was able to immediately detect and latch onto the energy. It still faded into nothing, but not as quickly this time. With each attempt he noticed more about the energy, mainly that it didn't just appear from nothing.

It felt like his whole body was made of the energy, or perhaps contained it? Either way, the energy appearing before him was just the energy pulling away from the larger pool that was him, becoming something distinct and separate. It only took a few more tries for him to finally catch the energy and stop it from disappearing.

The tiny bead of light floated in front of him, a comfortable warmth radiating from it and through his mind. Moving the bead was easy enough, and soon he was able to make it lazily float back and forth in front of him. He tried to manipulate its shape, but it quickly slipped away the moment he loosened his mental grip on it.

He wasn't discouraged though. Based on what that other player had said no one had managed to get this far, and he was far from finished.

Checking his reserves and seeing that he still had 30 MP left, Loran decided to start increasing the amount of MP per test.

Starting with 2, he could tell that it was harder to hold, but it wasn't too bad. He also realized that he was able to manipulate this bead of energy unlike before. It felt like he could pull it apart and squish it slightly, but there were still two solid pieces inside of it.

'I guess a single point of MP is just indivisible.'

He could change the piece's shape slightly, but just barely, like flattening a soft rubber ball in his hands.

Since he still had a grip on this bead, he started adding more MP to it. Moving up to three was difficult, not only because he was containing more but because it seemed like adding to it was more difficult than just grabbing hold all at once. But even if it was difficult, he was able to regain his control over the bead and soon added a fourth point of MP.

Then a fifth, making the bead big enough to be considered a ball.

He then tried to add a sixth, but the moment he tried the ball of MP became extremely unstable. He struggled with the ball for a moment, but it was a losing battle. As the energy began to fade Loran tried to salvage what he could, and was able to keep a 2 MP within his grip.

'I guess five is the limit for now.' He then remembered something from earlier. 'Both of my new stats are at five, does one of them control how much MP I can control at once?'

Maybe he could get better with practice, but he wasn't sure. There were a few times when it felt like he was about to stabilize the 6 MP ball, but then a weak point would appear in his grip that he couldn't cover up without weakening another point. It certainly didn't seem like an issue of personal skill, and the numbers matching like that seemed too coincidental.

If nothing else, it was something he could experiment with later. For now, he still had 2 MP in his grip, and it was time to see if he was any good at multitasking.

He tried pulling the pieces apart completely, and while they separated easily enough Loran quickly realized that was losing control over both of them. Dividing his attention between the two beads was radically more difficult than focusing on one, it was almost as difficult as the ball of six.

'Difficult, but not impossible,' he thought as the two beads slipped into nothingness.

Trying to maintain his grip over 6 MP had felt like trying to pull on a steel chain, but trying to hold onto two beads felt like a bungee chord. 5 MP was some kind of hard limit on him, a rule he couldn't break, at least not yet. Controlling multiple beads was an actual test of skill, and was definitely something he needed to practice.

'But first, I need to get out of here,' he thought as he opened his menu. Here in the void, without any way to sense changes in his environment, it was almost impossible to tell how much time was passing. Before, when he noticed that he had 20 MP left, he knew that he had consumed much more than 30 MP with his experimenting, and checking it again now showed that the bar had almost refilled completely!

'How long have I been in here?'

He could only assume that without the rest of his senses he couldn't tell how much time was passing, it felt like a few moments but now he wasn't sure.

His questions grew as he restored his senses to their defaults, only to find himself surrounded by other players staring at him intensely.

"How did you do it?!" an exasperated player asked.

"Can you make those lights again?" asked an excited player.

"Fireball?!" screamed the punching player from before.

"Whoawhoawhoa," Loran said, nearly falling off his stump, "time out. Everyone backup and I'll talk!"

Once Loran told everyone about turning off their senses in the menu, most of the players dispersed. He still needed a minute to convince the punching player that he couldn't help them cast a fireball, and they left with a determined expression. As he got up to leave, his legs shaky from having sat for an unknown length of time. He also realized that his head was starting to ache and he was covered in cold sweat. However long he had been in the void, he had spent the entire time in intense concentration, and it took more of a toll than he realized.

Loran was about to walk away when he felt someone pull on his shirt.

"So, can you do the light thing again?"

Looking down he saw Maya who he hadn't recognized in all the confusion.

"Hey Maya, are you feeling okay?" The girl looked far more disheveled than normal and if the dark circles were any indication, she was absolutely exhausted as well.

"I couldn't sleep last night, not after..." her eyes became unfocused for a moment. The update had been hard on everyone, he didn't want to think about how rough it was for someone as young as her. Loran felt his heart drop into his stomach as she looked ready to cry.

"Hey, it's okay," he said quickly. "Why don't I show you those lights now, okay?"

Maya nodded and Loran began concentrating on a point in the air in front of him.

Finding the energy was more difficult now that he was being distracted by his other sense again, but he found it after a moment. Appearing in the air was a tiny bead of blue light, about half an inch across.

His first spell.

The girl's eyes were sparkling as she stared at the tiny light, poking it with her finger and causing it to bob in the air.

"You want to hold it?" Loran asked, deciding to try one last experiment.

"Can I?!" she asked, as shocked as if he had asked if she could hold the moon.

"Yeah, but not with your hands. Close your eyes."

"Mhn." She closed her eyes and held out her hands despite what he had told her. He let the bead float to the palm of her hand.

"You should still be able to sense it without your eyes, can you feel it?"

"I think so..." Because Loran was maintaining the spell for her, she could take her time sensing it without worrying about it slipping away.

"Try to imagine gripping it, but not with your hands. Make sure to cover every little bit."

Once again ignoring his directions, she reached out to grab the spell, pulling it closer as her face scrunched up in concentration. Loran began loosening his grip on the spell, leaving more of it to her. She struggled at first, but he was careful to not let it slip away from either of them. After about a minute, Loran let go completely.

"There you go," he said gently. "You've got it now."

Maya opened her eyes and unclasped her hands, the bead still there as she concentrated on it. All the exhaustion on her face seemed to drain away as she stared at the tiny light in her hands.

And she smiled.