Second World

"So what am I supposed to do here?" Jack asked.

"Have you forgotten what that old mage said just now? If so, then you will surely fail this trial, considering your memory is so bad."

Jack ignored her mocking. He still remembered the old mage's words. It just did not make much sense to him, as the no-nonsense old mage did not give much explanation in his instruction. With Peniel also being stingy in handing out clues, he could only perform a trial and error method.

He first tried touching one of the floating and glowing orbs. The light stuck to the finger he had used to touch. When he pulled his hand, the light created a trail that followed his movement. The trail stayed visible even after some time had passed.

Jack thought back to the old mage's words again, he said something about forming a spell formation from the runes. Were the runes those symbols which were displayed by the gem? If he did not remember it wrong, there were seven of those runic symbols. The same number as these floating orbs.

He went and touched the gem. As the old mage had informed, the runic symbols appeared again, and there were indeed seven symbols. Each of the symbols was rather complicated, with crisscrossing lines and arcs that made no sense.

Jack tried to focus on one and commit it to memory. After a while, the runes vanished, and the seven orbs appeared again. Jack also noticed that the trail he had drawn using his finger previously had also vanished.

So this was what he meant by reset, Jack thought back to the old mage's words. He did not dwell too much at the thought, the memory of the rune was still fresh, so he set out to draw a copy of the rune from his memory using his finger.

"You are so primitive," Peniel commented. "You are the first person I had seen that draws a mana rune using a finger."

"How do you propose me to do then?" Jack asked her with forced patience. It's ok that you don't want to give me hints, and now you still dare to criticize me?

"Any decent magic user draws their runes by guiding the mana through their mind, only a newbie will draw with a finger like a child learning to draw using a pen."

Jack took in the first part of the sentence and ignored the second half. So I can use my mind to shape these glowing orbs? He thought as he retracted his hand and concentrate on one of the orbs. When he imagined moving it, it shifted and moved following his thought, the trail it created was the same as when he was using his finger.

He then sent the orb to move in the pattern that formed the runic symbol in his memory. He was still getting used to making the drawing using his mind, so some parts ended rather crooked and deviating. But he thought it was not a bad start for his first try.

After completing the first rune, he tapped the gem again to look at the other symbols. When the seven runic symbols appeared again, the rune he had drawn vanished.

"Oh, right. Reset..." Jack mumbled. This meant he had to memorize all seven of the runes at the same time. He was having a headache now. He was not the type with an excellent memory. He was good at analyzing information, but not so at memorizing them.

"I will just jot them down on a paper then," he said and tried to open his inventory. When he failed, he remembered the old mage's words about his inventory getting locks during the trial. There was also nothing he could use in the room to write things down.

Crap! He cursed in his mind. He could hear Peniel giggling not far away. He did not have the time to quarrel with her, the trial was only three hours. He could just try his best.

He made the seven symbols appeared again. This time he tried committing them all into memory. There was a lot of information there. When the symbols disappeared, he closed his eyes and tried to picture them in his mind. He did it three more times before trying to draw the runes using the glowing orbs with his mind.

When he finished drawing the third runes, it emitted a high pitch sound and the rune turned golden.

"Eh? Why does it change color?" Jack asked.

He was in actuality talking to himself, but Peniel answered him with a giggle, "that's what happens when the rune you formed is correct. That means those first two are wrong."

"Oh?" Jack looked at the two wrong ones. He could not quite remember which part is wrong. He then decided to reset everything and looked at the correct runes again. After reviewing them for a while, he finally found out that some lines were drawn at the wrong angles. He committed the right ones into memory, and then tried again.

He continued going back and forth between drawing and resetting again to see the wrong parts. Little by little he could remember more of the runes.

"This is surprising, I didn't know I have such a good memory," Jack said. "In the past, I would be struggling to remember such complex forms."

"You should thank your high intelligence attribute then," Peniel commented.

He looked at Peniel with amazement, "my intelligence attribute can help me remember better?"

"Why so surprised? Your strength attribute helps you hit harder and lift heavy things, why the intelligence stat doesn't help you remember better?"

Jack thought about it. He was still using past game concepts when thinking about the attributes. In previous VR games, the attributes only affected the artificial part of the games. Like the number of damages being inflicted, how fast the body was allowed to move. But it would never affect the fundamental aspect of the users, like their intelligence and reaction time. This world however, was no different from the real world. Different set of rules perhaps, but still real nevertheless. So it made sense if the attributes applied to his character would also give him real effects.

Although Jack doubted the intelligence attribute would affect how he thought things out, to help him memorized things was a quantifiable ability. So it was still viable that the higher his intelligence was, the better his memory would become. With high enough intelligence stat, he reckoned he might also have the chance to possess a photographic memory that John claimed he had. Now that he thought about it, wouldn't John become even better at his memory if his intelligence stat increased, considering his base memory was already so outstanding?

What about his reflex stat? He never thought much about it, but if he could increase more of that stat, wouldn't that give him the level of reaction time as those top martial art experts?

He suddenly became agitated to increase his attributes further. His dual-class gave him twice as many attribute points compared to other players, and the disparity would become more as his level increased. He rather looked forward to his future.

"What are you smiling at?" Peniel looked at him as if looking at an idiot. "You are wasting time, you know."

Reminded by the Fairy, Jack immediately went back to focus on working on the runes. After all, more than an hour had passed. He did not want to wait another three days before doing this trial again, he had to pass this trial today.

After endless repeats, only half an hour left for the trial time. He finally had six runes at the perimeter of the circular formation all shined with golden light, only the center rune was left, but he was confident he had drawn it right. When the final line was drawn, he exclaimed proudly, "ta-da!"

Yet after several seconds had passed, nothing happened.

"What?" Peniel asked finally.

Jack looked at the last rune in confusion. He was certain that he had drawn it right. The rune was exactly as he had remembered it. What went wrong?