Chapter 2: Unravelling the veil

We arrive at 'my' room, and Max closes the door and leaves. I lay down on the bed and ponder about my current situation, as well as what Max just said. I'm also curious about the goal of the organisation, who or what is it fighting against? Say, how do I get stronger? How do I touch him? I want to meet my family as soon as possible.

 *Knock knock* Oh, it must be Max. I open the door, and yup, it is Max. He hands me a bag, and opens his mouth, "Hey, in this bag is the phone I told you the organisation is going to give you. There is also a small plastic bag of pills in there, take one every day, after you finish it, you will obtain a few useful skills, as well as a 'assistant', well, you'll see for yourself later. You should buy yourself some clothes as well. Oh lastly, there is also a map in there."

"All right, I'll go prepare as soon as I finish exploring the items in the bag."

He closes the door, and leaves me alone with the bag and an abundance of curiosity in my brain. I bring the bag to the bed, and slowly open it, looking forward to traverse the treasures inside it. The first thing that greets me is a wad of 10-dollar bills. Couldn't he just have put a few 100-dollar bills? Let me just count the amount real quick. One, two, three, four…. Ten…. Fifteen…. Twenty-five

Damn, that's $250 there. Only for clothes? They must be rich as hell. Welp, I'll just go get a few sets of clothes later, some pyjamas, some comfortable training clothes, as well as a set of more formal clothes. Now then, what's next? Oh, the bag of pills. Let me see those…. There are less pills than I expected. He explained it as if there were dozens of pills, but in reality, there is only 3. So, 3 days before I become some kind of fantasy being. Let me take one right now. The exterior sure looks…. unique. It is somewhat translucent, with the colour of the morning sunshine. I take one out of the plastic bag, and put it in my mouth. It tastes surprisingly sweet, like a candy. I chew on It, and once I swallow it, I can feel change in my body. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I have a feeling I have gotten stronger, albeit my physical body showing no significant change. I guess I can see what changes happens in 3 days.

Then the map… Let's see, anything interesting?1

That's certainly an interesting map, a lot of new things I didn't know before informed there. My hometown is missing tho, it should be a bit below evergrow hollow, but oh well. Hey, the top right corner's island is also not marked yet… I wonder why that is.

Now then, the last but not least, I hope, the phone. Damn, I've never seen anything like this, and it doesn't seem to have a brand, is this custom made by them? Is that even possible? Let me try opening it…. Oh, it works exactly like how a normal phone does, it starts off at the lock screen, open it and it brings me to the home screen, just like a normal phone, nothing too fancy.

I mess around with the phone for a while, and discover the audio recording of the explanation by Max. Hmm, it's 11:38 am now, I guess that means I'm going to get lunch soon? Welp, no use in worrying about that, I should just focus on preparing myself. At exactly 11 45 am, I hear another knock again, and needless to say, it is Max, again.

 "Hey," he says

"Hey," I reply

 "Let's go eat outside, you also need to buy some clothes. By the way, do check your phone once you get back here, I'll send you some basic knowledge regarding how the power system works, as well as some other pieces of information. Do make sure to read through the documents I send," he adds

 "I will," I reply.

He walks out, and I follow him. Soon we arrive at the two sets of stairs at the start, and after a few more minutes, we arrive at the jade door, and we get out of the building. Civilisation greets me, damn, just like my hometown.

"This is everglow hollow"

The building is at exact edge of a town, this town isn't anything fancy with cool gadgets and vehicles, but a family feeling oozes out of it.

The grandeur of the town both takes my breath away and haunts me as the reminiscence of my hometown. On one side, it is an extraordinary view, second to none, but on the other hand, I feel pain in my heart, the pain of missing my family, as well as my friends.

 We walk through the snake-like road, and I spot a park. Ahh- that takes me back, to those happy days, to those childish days, to the time I was still an innocent child. After a bit more of walking, we arrive at a small stand, which apparently sells fried rice. Max asks me to sit down, and orders me a bowl of fried rice. How is it going to taste I wonder? Hopefully like how my mom cooks.

 **A few minutes pass by and the waiter comes with a bowl of fried rice (Of course the waiter came with a bowl of fried rice. What else would the waiter come with? A snake? )**

 I scoop up some of it with my spoon, like a shovel picking up snow to clean up the road, and I pull the spoon to my mouth at the speed of a sloth, and once the fried rice touches my tongue, I feel a jolt of electricity in my body. Waves of pleasure dances around under my skin, sending shivers down my spine and leaving me unable to breath. Every worry and tension melts away, and an overwhelming sense of bliss and contentment replaces it. In that brief yet priceless moment, I feel lost in a euphoria that transcends words. This… This is god's work. The flavours mix together so well, they are a team working together, supporting each other, this is food from heaven. It's even better then the bread I ate earlier. I devour the entire bowl like a black hole, every single bite tastes like heaven, every single grain of rice teases my taste buds, encouraging it to eat more. Ahh- if only this sensation could last forever. But alas, everything has an end, there is nothing that lasts forever. The fried rice gradually diminishes, and eventually finishes. I pick my eyesight from the bowl and look at Max.

 "How was the food?", he asks.

 "It is beyond words, I don't think I have ever eaten anything more delicious than it"

 "I see, well, this is my favourite place to eat after all. Anyways, we have a lot to discuss, you need to buy new clothes, and I need to properly explain to you how the "power system" works in detail."

 I nod my head, and he gets up, and brings me to a shop seemingly selling every piece of clothing, in any design I could possibly want.

 "So, what kind of design do you want? Or should I order it for you"

 "I'll leave it to you"

 He nods, and walks to the nearest clerk, talks to him for a while and then points to me. After that, he takes out some money from his pocket and hands them to the clerk. (Oi, then what was the money you give me for?)

 "Let's head back, I'll explain everything in your room. The clothes will be delivered tomorrow."

 I nod my head, and follow him back to the building, and eventually back to my room. I sit down on my bed and breathe a sigh of relief, while he sits on the floor (you could get a chair from somewhere you know).

"You see, the pills you take, their job is to awaken the magic inside you. Although some people are naturally able to use magic, they cannot use it until they reach the age of 25 or higher. The pill allows anyone to use magic, although the level depends on the talent of the person. Of course, at the start, you won't be able to immediately efficiently use it, you will need to hone your skills, as well as your mental and physical body. Not only that, there will also be special 'unique skills' that you may obtain, but that is an explanation for another day. For now, just focus on increasing your magic level, also known as magilev. The magilev of an average human is 1, and it becomes around 15 once they take the pills. As for you however, we predict that your magilev will be 35 once you finish the pills. You need at least 50 to be considered strong enough to be a rank 'F' fighter. It may seem confusing as to why your magilev needs to be 50 times of an average human is, but know that physical power also matters, and people may fight magic with physical power, if their physical strength is out of the world or if the magilev of the opponent is very low. Also, my magilev is around 3 thousand. Also, an important point to note is that magilev doesn't immediately reflect a person's strength in battle. Lastly, regarding the assistant I mentioned, well… you'll see later."

 "I see," I reply as I nod my head, that's a lot of information to process all at once, welp, I'll just take on everything that comes at me. The assistant does sound cool though.

He hands me a small book, around 100 pages or so, and tells me to read it, after that, he exits the room and leaves me alone. I of course immediately open it. Oh, it's an extremely detailed explanation about what he explained earlier. Oh well, I'll just go through this in the next 2 days, and then just go with whatever comes at me.

Everything after that goes smoothly, I eat dinner, go to sleep, and wake up to a packet delivered to my door containing all my new clothes. My third day also goes on smoothly, and so does my fourth, and I finally finished the book at the night of the fourth. It's basically all theory regarding magilev, physical strength, how strong each rank's fighter is, and so on.

The long-awaited fifth finally arrives, and Max comes to my room first thing in the morning, and tells me to bring all my things and follow him. Where's he bringing me?

As usual, he walks first, and I follow him. We walk, and walk, and walk, and finally arrive at a big hall. What do we do here? Oi, I haven't even met my assistant.

"Ok, so first of all, you must be curious about the 'assistant' I told you about"

 I nod my head.

 "The assistant is actually some kind of skill. For now, you will have to activate it manually with the command 『wakeup 』, then you can give it commands. For now, you will only be able to give it simple commands, but as you get stronger, your assistant will have a soul, and may think for itself. At the moment, it's limit is only slightly imitating how the human brain works. It will automatically turn off if you do not use it for 5 minutes. Try using the command 『help 』, it'll explain to you. Also, you use commands by thinking of the command, both from your heart and your brain."

"Ok."

Now how do I do this? Think, think, think. Should be simple enough.

『wakeup 』

[Ready]

Oh damn, its voice is directly resonated into my mind, that's pretty cool.

『help 』

[For more information on a specific command, run the command 'help command-name'

WAKEUP Wake me up

INFO Search up information regarding a certain topic

HELP Provides Help information for all commands.

REMIND Sets reminders and notes for future reference]

Damn, is this microsoft window's command prompt? Alright then, since the 'info' command is pretty self-explanatory, I'll just try to get more information on the 'remind' command

『help remind』

[you can set reminders by using the 'remind' command in the following format: 'remind <time > <details >', and I let you know when it is time to remind you, regardless of if I am in sleep mode.]

Oh, so just a basic reminder, ok, I understand. This really seems like some kind of simple python program that helps me search stuff up in google and a custom reminder.

"I'm done exploring, and I think I got the hang of it already"

 "All right, let's start with some light magic spells then, let's start with the most iconic one, 〈fireball〉, for magic spells, you have to visualise it. The output of the spell depends on your magilev and your visualisation, as well as your remaining mana and your proficiency with that skill. (Mana? What's that? Oh, the ones mages use in video games. I'll just use my skill to search up information on it later I guess.) So, go ahead and try it, just like this."

He raises his right hand, forming a right angle between his body and his right hand. He points it to a straw dummy and shouts 'fireball'. Red flames envelop his hand, and they slowly form a small ball, about the size of a tennis ball a few inches away from his fingertips, and the flame blanketing his hand fades away. The ball moves towards the straw dummy in an overwhelming fast pace, despite him and the straw dummy being around 100 metres apart, it took less than 5 seconds for the fireball to hit the dummy. The ball burns the dummy, leaving nothing but some ash in the place where the dummy once stood.

"You see, this is the basics of magic, master this technique, and I'll show you the next one."

 I enthusiastically nod my head at the speed of a happy dog wagging his tail.

〈fireball〉

Nothing but a minute spark comes out of my hand, what, I thought this was supposed to be like a magic spell in games or in movies, why is my fireball so lame?

"Don't worry about it, we all start that way, just keep trying, and in a few weeks, you will eventually be able to master it. After that comes the other few basic spells, and after those, you will finally be eligible as a F rank fighter, and be able to take on missions, if you're willing of course. They pay quite well, and you could also use them to buy special potions, or some kind of unique gear."

I want to go home as soon as possible… but if the pay is good enough, I may be able to get my entire family to migrate in the town nearby and I can work here but also go home to my family at the end of every day. This isn't as bad as I first thought.