Beneath Noctavia

Sunlight shines through the blinds, straight into Ethan Vale’s closed eyes. His eyelids flutter open before slamming back shut. He lets out a groan before rolling over in his bed. He rolls in the wrong direction, slipping off the edge and crashing on the carpeted floor.

“Son of a...” He groans out before getting up. He leans back and yawns before fully opening his eyes. As he does, his entire body tenses up in confusion as his mind stops. Floating in front of him is a message screen. He recognizes it instantly, from his countless hours of playing games. It’s slightly see-through and bright blue. It has a rectangular transparent background with a smaller solid blue rectangle in the center. There’s text in the solid blue square.

New Quest: Getting Started!

Obtain a skill! Rewards: Skill will start at level 2 and +5 stat points! Accept/Decline?

Ethan stares at the message in utter confusion for a good minute. His hand moves up and taps the air where it says accept. The message disappears from sight, confusing Ethan even more. He stands there for another few minutes before his alarm clock starts ringing. He turns it off and walks out of his room. The inside of his room is bare of any decor. He has a desk with his gaming setup. There are three monitors, a rainbow keyboard, and mouse. He keeps it immaculately clean, fearing any damage to the expensive setup. He has a table in the corner of the room and his bed. The closet door is next to the table, between it and the nightstand next to the bed. He walks out into a hallway. There are two other doors in the hallway. The right leads to the end of the hallway, where a window sits. There’s a door to the left of it leading to the master bedroom. The inside is empty, as no one else lives here aside from Ethan. Opposite the master bedroom is the upstairs bathroom. Ethan turns to the left, walking down a set of carpet-covered stairs. The stairs lead to another small hallway. Well, they lead to a wall, which holds a small closet. The stairs turn to his right, with the last step leaving him in the hallway. The front door is straight to his right once off the steps. To the left leads to another door heading downstairs to the basement. There’s another door on the right, leading to a smaller guest bathroom. Straight ahead of him is an empty doorway leading to the kitchen. The living room is straight to the left of the hallway he’s in. Though the kitchen and living room are connected.

“I’ll figure... That out after I eat.” Ethan says before entering the kitchen. It is a large, open kitchen. There are counters lining the walls by the corner. An island counter stands a ways away from the walls. Cupboards and drawers can be seen all around the island. Ethan opens the fridge between the counters and the walk-in pantry. He pulls out a bag of bacon he left in the fridge to thaw yesterday. He takes some eggs out and starts cooking them in a frying pan. After he’s done cooking, he sets them on a plate and sits down. As he does, the familiar message box opens. This time, the text is different.

New Skill: Cooking Lvl 1, Passive

Cooking, a skill that makes one’s food both tastier and more nutritious. It also adds a chance for monsters to drop ingredient-related drops, assuming the monster is edible. All food cooked by you will have increased HP and MP regen buffs. The higher the skill level, the better the chance of drops and buffs.

Quest: Getting Started, Complete!

You’ve obtained your first skill, I hope it was a good one! Rewards: Cooking is now Lvl 2, and you’ve gained +5 Stat points!

Achievement Unlocked: First Quest Down!

You’ve finished your first quest! Rewards: +3 Stat Points!

Cooking Lvl 2

Cooking now increases the effect of all food cooked by you by 15%. All buffs will last an additional 10% longer!

Ethan stares at four messages in more confusion. The four messages appear together. They appear in one big transparent rectangle. But they each have their own smaller solid blue rectangle inside it. After a minute of staring, they disappear on their own. Ethan stares at his plate of food before letting out a loud sigh. He starts eating as his mind races. He can’t imagine any clear reasons for why he’s seeing these messages. Once he’s done eating, he leans back in his chair.

“Stat points...” He mutters, thinking back on the rewards he just got. Stat points usually mean there’s a status screen of some kind. Can I... Do I have a status sheet? How would I open it to check? Ethan thinks before opening his mouth. “Status screen?” He says, causing another box to appear. This one is different than his other one.

Ethan stares at, what he assumes to be his character sheet, in awe. His mind starts racing with possibilities before a smile crosses his face. For as long as he can remember, he’s been playing games. As a child, he read fantasy stories and wished for something like this almost every day. Without much thought, he starts tapping through the screen. Whenever he taps on something, a second box appears explaining what it is. He goes through them all before spending the eight status points he got as rewards. He spends them, dumping them all into his highest stat. His intelligence rises to 32 before he closes his status sheet. Another message box appears, surprising him.

Intelligence Reached 25!

+10 Base MP

Ethan immediately rechecks his character sheet after seeing the message. As he hoped, his MP is still full.

“MP... Does that mean I can use magic?” Ethan asks himself while getting excited. He gets up and starts pacing around the island counter. He suddenly stops, as something he read earlier hits him. My cooking skill said monsters could drop ingredients. So do monsters exist!? If so, what kinds? Are there dragons!? Goblins and Orcs!? Or just wolves and regular wild animals? Ethan thinks before stopping. His phone starts ringing and he quickly picks it up.

“Hey Ethan, where are you? We were supposed to meet ten minutes ago.” A male voice on the other end says.

“Yeah, I’m sorry...” Ethan starts before pausing. “I have a cold or something today. We’ll have to reschedule. I didn’t realize the time, or I would’ve texted you sooner. Sorry to make you come all the way for nothing, Ryan.” Ethan replies, causing the voice on the phone to groan.

“Don’t worry about it. I can get some shopping done before heading back. Get better soon, dude.” Ryan replies before hanging up. Ryan is Ethan's one and only friend. They went to the same school together, and he’s been there for Ethan's most vulnerable moments. Without him, Ethan isn’t sure how he’d have managed his parents deaths. They passed in his first year of middle school. They were in a plane crash on their way back from visiting family overseas. He’s been living here ever since then. His aunt used to live with him until he turned eighteen. She moved back to her home country. She and the rest of his family live in Japan. His parents were Japanese, but he was adopted. They weren’t able to have children naturally and adopted him when he was still a baby. His aunt and the other family members he knows have been sending him money. The house was his parents and became his after they passed. But his aunt handled the bills and maintenance until he was eighteen. He didn’t want to move away from the only place he knew, which is why he lives alone. He’s now twenty-one years old and works online. He works as a freelancer, barely making enough money to pay the bills and groceries.

Ethan sits down on the couch in his living room. The Couch is against the back wall. To his right is a small table between the armrest and the wall. There’s a recliner on the right wall next to the doorway to the kitchen. Across from him is a large sixty-inch TV and its stand. On the left wall is a sliding glass door covered with a blackout curtain. He stares at the black screen of the TV, lost in his thoughts. He tries to come up with ways to use magic, but can’t imagine any. After a while, he gives up and turns to his watch. It’s a watch his father bought before he and his mother moved to America. After a while, two more message boxes appear. But this time, one of them is brown, the same color as his character sheet. The other is the now-familiar blue.

New Skill: Observe Lvl 1, Active. 1 MP Per Use.

Observe allows you to view basic information of both people and objects.

Seiko Watch, Rare

This watch was produced by Seiko, a popular watch brand. The exact model is no longer in production.

A new skill... It uses MP! Ethan thinks while jumping off the couch. He opens his character sheet and sees he’s missing one MP. He smiles before turning around and using Observe on everything he can. The results are the same as the watch, not telling him anything more than he already knew. As he does this, though, he starts to feel something. He feels something move in his chest every time he uses Observe. It starts off faint, but he can clearly feel it toward the end. Two new message boxes appear as he runs out of MP.

New Skill: Mana Sense Lvl 1, Passive

Mana Sense allows its user to sense mana within close proximity. The higher the level, the further you can sense mana.

Observe Lvl 2

Observe now displays the HP and durability of any person or item. It still consumes 1 MP per use.

I used it SEVENTY times and only got one level up! Ethan thinks with a sigh. He turns to the kitchen to get some water when he stops. He leans against the doorframe as he gets lightheaded. Is this from having no mana? Do you get lightheaded if you run out of MP? He asks himself before it fades. He still feels lightheaded headed but it’s not as bad. Either that or it was just the suddenness of it that made him lean against the doorframe. He gets a cup of water before returning to the living room.

“What am I doing now?” He asks himself. He wants to continue researching and using his skills. But he has no idea how to, aside from using Observe. Maybe I should try to move that... Thing in my chest. That had to be mana, leaving me every time I cast a spell. I mean, I got a skill for sensing mana after feeling it. Alright then, as soon as I get my mana back, I’ll try making my mana move. Ethan thinks before turning the TV on. He doesn’t know what to do aside from waiting for his mana to come back. He saw that his Wisdom determined his MP regen per minute. So he knows it’ll come back to him. After doing the math, he realizes he’ll regen 0.65 MP per minute. Far slower than he’d like, but nothing he can do will change that. He’s already spent his stat points. After a hundred and eight minutes on the dot, he’s fully charged. Ethan turns the TV off before sitting on the floor. He closes his eyes and focuses on his chest. In the center of his chest, he feels a mass of concentrated energy. He recognizes this as his mana, and thanks to Mana Sense, he can sense it easily. He starts trying to move it, but to no avail. He realizes after a few minutes, he’s trying to make it leave his body. That wouldn’t do anything good, so he changes tactics. He makes his mana flow to his fingertips. He imagines it shooting out in bolts like lightning. In what feels like minutes, he senses the mass of mana fade into almost nothing. He stops, not wanting to repeat the lightheadedness. Once Ethan opens his eyes, he finds two new notifications.

New Skill: Meditation Lvl 1, Passive

Meditation is a skill that allows you to recover your MP and HP faster. You enter it by clearing your mind and remaining calm without any outside distractions. While Meditating, your MP recovers three times as fast, and HP recovers five times as fast. Can’t be used in combat or when stressed.

New Skill: Magic Bolt Lvl 1, Active. 8 MP Per Use

Magic Bolt is considered a basic spell for any mage. Any mage can learn this spell regardless of natural talent or ability. When cast, the caster sends out (skill level + 1) magic bolts from their fingertips. The damage the bolts deal is determined by your intelligence.

“Hell yes!” Ethan shouts while jumping to his feet. He doesn’t care much for the Meditation now. He’s happy to have a faster way to recover MP. But he’s much too excited about the spell to care right now. Wait! The description said it’s considered the basic spell. Does that mean there are other mages!? How? If people were out shooting bolts from their fingertips as BASIC magic, how the hell are there no videos online or anything? Ethan thinks before sighing. No, for now I can’t think about that. If there are other mages, I need to prepare. In all fantasy, there are always evil people abusing magic. Fortunately, I have something I can use. Ethan thinks before walking upstairs.