Gamer formatting story

Through Bartering

John headed up to his room as he heard his mother call out to ensure that he got to school on time. The anticipation of the day ahead lingered in his thoughts. Soon, the familiar sounds of the door opening and closing reached his ears as he gathered a few items that held a special place in his memories: the knockoff Master Sword from a flea market, some old comics in perfect condition, and a few games he still enjoyed playing on Steam after he had modernized his gaming set up to be fully digital. He fed each item one at a time into his inventory, relishing both the novelty and the convenience of video game logic. Before tossing the sword, a relic of childhood adventures, he used Observe on it to check something he had long suspected: when he was a kid he just thought a sword was a sword, when he got older he figured it was a mere replica with no real use.

The Sword that Inconveniences the Minor Shadows: A replica of a great blade wielded by the chosen hero of another realm, made of cheap steel and poorly balanced. If used in actual combat against a real weapon, it would likely break in the first few swings.

Extremely Fragile: If used to deliver an attack that does at least 15 points of damage or block an attack that does at least 10, this "weapon" will break at the point of impact.

Blunt: While shaped like a sword, its edges are sufficiently dull to avoid cutting. This item will deal nonlethal damage.

He always knew it was junk. Chuckling to himself, he tossed his phone from the bedside table into his inventory for good measure, ensuring he wouldn't forget it.

Civics lessons were far more interesting when accompanied by YouTube or Netflix. As the phone entered the void, a pop-up option caught his eye.

Integrate phone into the heads-up display? [Yes?] [No]

Curious, John hit the yes button. A small, semi-transparent box appeared in the bottom right corner of his vision. By focusing on it, he could now see his Discord and text messages — none of which were particularly interesting or important. The color of his interface also changed to a muted blue, similar to the Discord logo.

Satisfied with the integration, he left his room and headed downstairs, quickly leaving the house to catch the bus. On his way, he considered his magical abilities; he had a section for active skills, but no active skills to use. He had mana but no magic - No real magic anyway. He could figure out peoples names and levels, which, if this is anything like an mmo, doesn’t actually matter as much as one might think. He wanted real magic - a fireball or a magic summoned sword or something like that. Did he need to find some kind of magic tome to learn from? He really hoped that wasn't the case because he wasn't sure where to find one, let alone did he think pawning a few knickknacks could have him affording one.

Maybe try some trial and error; I won't break everything down for you.

His powers seemed to have a mind of its own being able to communicate complex ideas and was claiming to understand his powers beyond his own knowledge, which was mildly disturbing, at least. Not to mention, the voice hadn't actually broken down or explained anything about his power.

You are the gamer, do gamer shit. Save a princess, rescue the big titty waifu.

‘Present me with the princess in need of rescue or the big titty waifu.’ The gamer thought, rolling his eyes a bit.

You're the protag, man; I'm just watching and eating popcorn.

On the way to the bus stop, John frowned. He saw the police outside a house a block or so away from his own. The police seemed to be questioning the father who lived there. He didn't know the family well but could guess what had happened. People had been disappearing left and right all over Springfield with little to no link between them aside from some seemingly random businesses being common threads between them. None of them had shown up dead yet, which John hoped meant that they were alive and being held somewhere but none of them had broken free from wherever they had been held if that was the case. A small shiver of fear went down his spine at the thought of whoever was taking these people and whatever was done to them, the idea of these people also taking him or his mom.

'Okay,' he said to himself in his head, thinking carefully. 'People vanishing, it's just you and mom at home, you don't even have a gun in your house, and now you have magic powers and some kind of god-'

Goddess.

'-Goddess, looking over your shoulder, telling you that you possess magical powers. Even without formal training, you can probably work out a basic spell of some kind. So, just do it. Cast a spell.'

John had these thoughts as he approached the bus stop, and he tried to think up some form of spell he could cast. Luckily, he was the only person on this road who went to Ashcroft, so the bus stop was empty. The small shelter provided some level of cover from those around him, so no one would see him making his attempts at spellcasting.

‘My first spell…. Probably something like a magic missile, that is the archetypal low-level wizard spell right?.’

John held out a hand and said, with as much authority as he could manage “Magic missile!”

… And nothing happened.

He tried two more times; he tried making a throwing motion, and then he tried finger pistols. Finally, he threw his hands forwards “Abracadabra!”

A sweet older lady who lived nearby walked past and giggled. He happened to know that her granddaughter went to local larping events, so she likely thought he was practicing spells for an upcoming event.

‘Okay,’ John thought. ‘‘Pure mana spells seem to be beyond his ability at the moment, so he’d try something more elemental, lightning maybe? Lightning magic was always cool.’

He held out his hand, closed his eyes, and tried to see it. Thinking that Uncle Iroh's teachings about lightning bending were about as valid as any others he could draw from, he tried to visualize it. A pathway starting at the tip of his finger, tracing up his arm to his shoulder, then connecting down to his stomach.

Once the line was formed, John tried to picture a fuse. Instead of fire burning along it, there was a bolt of lightning, and, when it hit his fingertip, it arced out forwards at whoever he aimed at.

ZAP!

With a jolt, John opened his eyes, looking forward. He expected to see a hole in the small hut that wrapped around the bus stop or at least a scorch mark to show that he had succeeded in his attempt. He had thought that it didn't work, that the sound was just in his head until he saw little wisps of smoke coming up from near his feet. His eyes dipped to see a little scorch mark about three inches from his right foot. Just as he saw it, a pop-up appeared in his vision.

Skill unlock, simple arc channel.

With this skill, a wizard converts a small amount of mana in their stomach into lightning and forces it out through a limb. Typically used to empower physical strikes, to be channeled through specially made weapons, or to function as a makeshift welding implement. It makes an effective low-tier melee attack.

Cost, 2 mana.

Effect, 3+10% int lightning damage added to physical attack.

Achievement! Think through a problem that could kill you, then don't do it.

+1 wisdom

Not dying to electrocution on your first day as a wizard.

With that sobering thought that apparently dying was very much on the table with his new powers John stepped onto the bus as he arrived and took one of the few still open seats going over his game plan for the day. The online schedule said that his first period was biology, second was history and third was an open period. So long as he spoke to the history teacher and picked up his textbook, he knew that he could skip that class. Mr. Crawford never took attendance, insisting that he knew who attended the class despite spending the whole time reading word for word from the textbook.