MagiCraft Master: A Mass Isekai LitRPG, page 3
Instinct told Logan to bolt for it, and that’s what he did. Wasting no time, he sprinted toward the nearest door. If it led him to a dead end, that’d be it for him, but there was no time to second-guess.
Something swiped at the space where Logan had been half a second ago. He had exploded into movement too abruptly, and now his other thigh felt sprained. Despite that, he ran. But he couldn’t help himself. He had to know. He looked over his shoulder.
It was an ugly thing, black and blue, the size of a baby elephant, skin sleek and oily, with four long arms at the front and four at the back. It barreled toward Logan like a gorilla, sharp teeth covered in spittle and froth as it roared.
There was no door to bar its way after Logan dashed through, but thankfully the creature couldn’t fit through the doorway. Logan ran down a long corridor with no turns. The blue lines on both edges of the floor guided him forward as he gasped for air. All the while, the many-limbed creature desperately tried to smash his way through the doorway. Logan could feel and hear that it couldn’t do it, though.
He slowed down to a jog and grinned. “Ha, that’s what you get for being a dumb brute!”
Then something happened that Logan’s brain couldn’t fully process. The creature’s features morphed and shifted, and suddenly it transformed into two quadrupedal creatures. They looked at Logan with a singular sharp blue eye, full of predatory intent, their unhinged maw dripping with saliva. They stumbled for a few steps before speeding up to agile pounces that covered yards seemingly instantaneously.
Ahead, Logan saw another doorway. He sped up his sprint, lungs ablaze, legs screaming in agony. Still, he ran—survival instinct and all that. He noticed that the door he was approaching was whole and still on both of its hinges. With a spike of adrenaline, he opened the door, dashed through, and slammed it behind him.
Logan could faintly hear the creatures claw and scream, but the door seemed to stop them. At first.
They gave Logan just enough of a lead for him to see the next door ahead. But before he could make it, they had this door open and continued the chase.
He couldn’t keep running. He was no athlete and that sprint for his life had sapped his strength. Those things were predators, and they would catch him.
Humans can’t outmuscle beasts.
So when he slammed the second door closed behind him, he threw his weight against it. The two beasts hit it seconds later and screeched. The sound turned Logan’s stomach. The monsters pushed until they were able to get the door to slit ajar. Logan roared and smashed against the door.
He looked around frantically. Nothing to bar it against them. They were too strong. Cold sweat ran down his back.
Is this how I die?
It was absolutely unacceptable. He had to find a solution. But he didn’t have any tools. Then he looked down at the glowing blue crystal in his hand. He scoffed in disbelief. Well, what did he have to lose at this point?
He clutched the E-rank crystal and pressed it against the door.
“Abracadabra? Fuck this. Look! Magic the door please! Bar it. Make it really heavy. Seal it.”
Suddenly a surge of soft warmth enveloped the hand holding the crystal. It hummed, like the big monolith had done in the atrium, and then it dimmed.
The door didn’t feel any different, but when the creatures threw their weight against it as they screeched and pounded, it strangely didn’t feel as urgent and visceral. Logan took the rock from the door and looked down at it. It no longer held any blue glow.
[E-grade Numa Crystal, 0%]
CHAPTER 4
Logan stared at the crystal. Then he looked at the door. The frantic, animalistic screeches coming from behind the door were thankfully muffled but still bloodcurdling. Tentatively, perhaps possessed by remarkable foolishness, Logan took his weight off the door and stood back, eyes and mouth wide open.
The creatures on the other side struck at it in wanton rage.
Thud. Thud. Scream.
Nothing happened. The door, identical to the one they had busted through, held for some reason. Logan looked at the dim rock he was holding.
Some magical reason?
Well, Logan wasn’t about to wait until the power behind whatever the hell he had done to the door waned away. Without looking back, he went onward, hoping there weren’t any more monsters lurking around in the shadows.
Fortunately that proved to be the case, and Logan quickly found that in addition to the magical blue light, some natural light was asserting itself as well. Logan came to an intersection. The ways left and right seemed to curve backward, both apparently leading back into the depths of the dungeon. The way forward formed an ascending ramp, the sun shining in from above. Logan wasted absolutely no time considering his options; like a man starved, he went toward the light with a singular focus.
A bright, humid afternoon greeted him outside. Little yellow birds chirped upon the branch of a nearby tree, and looking at him curiously. Logan smiled at the sight. This new whatever-the-hell-it-was couldn’t be all bad. The birds were so plump that it was a small miracle they had managed to get on the branch. That was food sorted if it came to that. Birds that fat also hinted at an environment rich in resources.
Indeed, as Logan looked around, he found himself in a lush forest. It wasn’t exactly a jungle, but it was thick and wild with a myriad of colors and smells. Nearby was a thick shrubbery of several tightly packed bushes, gleaming black berries studded upon it. Fighting over them, jumping from one branch to another, were two of the smallest monkeys Logan had ever seen. They were the size of squirrels and their tails each had a single hand with which they jumped from one branch to another, as they gibbered and chased each other around.
Now, Logan wasn’t stupid, despite what his dad sometimes suggested. He knew there was a reasonable chance that if he just put something in his mouth haphazardly, he might end up on the ground, frothing at the mouth. Even if the monkeys clearly thought the berries valuable, they could be immune to them, if they were poisonous to humans. But Logan also knew that he needed to take calculated risks.
He went up to the bushes, which scared the monkeys off. Logan picked up a berry and crushed it between his fingers. The scent was sweet and rather neutral, resembling a blueberry.
“Okay, Genie. Do an assessment or something. Are these edible?”
[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix … 3% completion]
That was the only answer Logan got.
“What good are you even?” he muttered to himself. “Okay let’s try another way.”
He took out one of the blue crystal chips from his pocket and plucked a few berries in his other hand. “Shazam. Detoxify these. Make them edible.”
The crystal appeared to have no effect. Logan looked at it.
[F-grade Numa Crystal, 100%]
“In hindsight, I should have checked the charge first …”
Logan shrugged. He had taken all the precautions available. His instincts told him the berries were kosher, so he ate one. It was sweet and had a strange fresh aftertaste, like sucking on the needle of a pine tree. Logan made the executive decision of taking his shirt off and tying the sleeves on his neck, to form a hip pouch. He filled said pouch with these berries and ate half a handful.
“Unless these are super deadly, this amount should just make me ill, if anything.”
With the immediate threat of dehydration and starvation staved off, Logan took another look around. The sun was shining in the sky. Or a sun. Logan didn’t want to make things too complicated, so “the” sun it was. This was probably another planet. While Logan wasn’t the most acclaimed biologist known to man, he didn’t recognize any of the flora or fauna around. Not to mention the sun was more orange than he was accustomed to.
Well, all of this is really interesting, but what I need to find is my people. Freya’s the one I want, but I’d even settle for my old man now.
Logan tried prompting the Numa crystals by suggesting they somehow help him find people. Nothing happened. He needed to understand them better. Just trying everything and anything he could with them seemed like a good start. They had worked with the door. That had been a literal lifesaver. But not with the berries. Probably because the berries were edible. Logan wasn’t feeling any sort of ill.
The chance of a false positive in this scenario is approximately 87 percent.
“Sheesh,” Logan muttered. “Talk about intrusive thoughts.”
Since Logan had nothing better to do but pick a direction and walk toward it, that was exactly what he did. The sun felt pleasant against his shirtless skin, and he ventured to grab half a handful of some of the berries he had collected.
Strange sights surrounded him. There were tall palm trees with rough plated bark that extended thirty yards into the air. On the top branches, red fruits dangled from thin green ropes. A flock of big black birds like vultures were resting on the ground next to a small pond. The pond was green and bubbled idly like a witch’s cauldron.
“Probably not good for drinking … Sulphur?”
Rich methane deposit. Location memorized.
“Right … This is going to take time to get used to.”
The vulture-like birds suddenly cawed as if in terror and took to flight. A green feline the size of a panther had pounced and was now ripping into an unfortunate bird. The cat didn’t look particularly strange, apart from being green, clearly for camouflage. But it still made Logan’s adrenaline pump again. As beautiful as this world might be, there were still predators around.
It looks happy enough with its prey, but I’m not gonna stick around to find out if it wants dessert.
Logan wasn’t about to run off mindlessly. The cat had actually glanced at him but was too busy ravaging the bird to give him a second look. That was fine by Logan. He carefully kept watch between the cat and where he was heading. Eventually he walked through a copse of leathery leaves and lost the cat.
Yeah, so there’s predators. I need weapons. Can I use these Numa crystals as weapons? What if I tell them to explode when they hit someone? Would that work? One way to find out …
“Simsalabim! Make it explode when it hits something. Make it go boom.”
Logan threw a crystal chip a few yards away at a mossy rock where the green grass wasn’t terribly long. Nothing happened. He shrugged. It had been worth a try. Logan went and searched around for where he had thrown the chip. Even though he didn’t quite understand what he was dealing with, he understood enough to realize that these things were valuable.
He sat down on the rock and grabbed another handful of berries. As Logan idly munched on them, he rubbed the little crystal between his fingers and pondered the situation.
Okay, so it won’t work if it isn’t needed, as proven with the berries. But it worked with the door. Why? It didn’t work as an explosive … Why? Because it was alone? There was no catalyst? It needs something to work on? I have a few of these … Let’s do a simple test.
Logan got up and walked around. After a bit, he found a hefty stick on the ground under a robust tree. He picked it up, crouched, and pressed a Numa crystal against it with his thumb.
“Bibbidi Bobbidi— Okay, yeah, not doing that. Make this stick a spear. Make it sharp, smooth, straight, and hard.”
The crystal in Logan’s hand immediately came to life. It hummed and Logan could feel the energy within it. Then it went dim and the stick morphed, becoming like flowing liquid as it took a new form. It was still a stick, but it was somewhat smoother and straighter.
“Holy shit,” Logan muttered as he quickly stuffed a hand in his pocket.
After two more F-grade crystals were spent, Logan had a smooth little spear, a smidge over a yard long, in his hand.
“I guess it’s more of a javelin. Hey, smart guy, how’s the aerodynamics on this?”
[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix … 7% completion]
[Formulating linear regression model …]
[Calculating the average RMSD …]
[Evaluating the drag coefficient …]
“What the … ?”
[The root mean square deviation is approximately 4.3 millimeters. Drag coefficient is approximately 0.3. This one suggests using another Numa crystal to bring these values down.]
Logan stared blankly at nothing in particular. He hadn’t expected it to … well, do whatever insane thing it had just done. Like any self-respecting person with a life outside of a coffee-stained notebook, he had no idea what sort of sorcerous gibberish the device in his head had just produced. Despite his gargantuan flaws, his father was a smart man, and he was really good at exploiting even smarter men, so this ridiculous thing in his brain was probably right.
“What kind of adjustments should I make?”
The AI explained it to Logan. Logan demanded a simpler explanation. That prompted another matrix reconfiguration. Logan got a simpler explanation. Not by much, but enough to understand what the hell the hardware was talking about.
And with that, Logan shrugged and used another F-tier crystal and willed the javelin to be straighter by 4.3 millimeters, shifting 4 percent of its thickness into length. It did so in his hands, apparently taking on the proportions Logan had asked for.
[Level Up!]
[Class options available]
CHAPTER 5
Two floating boxes of text hovered in Logan’s vision. This wasn’t the AI, was it? No. Didn’t feel like it. Logan swiped his hand at the text. The boxes moved to the corner of his vision and minimized. Well, that was interesting. Logan played around with them, swishing them here and there within his vision. After a few moments of air hockey, he tapped one of the boxes, and a long repository of English text appeared before him:
[Please choose a class. If you want to search for a specific class subvocalize the following: “Search (example). Would you like to search for a class or review the classes the System suggests you take?]
A class? What?! I suppose magic crystals weren’t strange enough. Am I in a video game? Oh, Father is just gonna love this. I really hope he’s still alive, so he can suffer through this.
At a first glance the list of classes appeared in alphabetical order, offering choices such as [Alchemist] (unlocked), [Arcanist] (unlocked), [Archer], [Artist] (suggested). Logan swiped with a finger, and as the list scrolled down he saw classes such as [Carpenter], [Duelist], [Elementalist] (unlocked). There were hundreds, all the way down to [Warlock] (unlocked). Most of the choices were grayed-out. Only the ones that were unlocked or suggested to him seemed to be available. Logan figured if he had gained a level using a bow, the [Archer] class would have been unlocked for him as well. Interestingly, most class titles alluding to magic seemed to be unlocked. That made Logan smirk.
Let me get this straight. I got transported to basically a completely new reality with magic and monsters. And I assume so did the rest of humanity, because everyone had that timer. So that means we’re … starting over? I just wish I could see the look on Father’s face right now.
Logan, on the other hand, was grinning. He was all for shaking up the status quo. Magic seemed fun as hell. He looked at the javelin in his hand. He wasn’t quite certain what it was capable of, but within moderate bounds, only creativity could be the limit. Logan liked that.
“Okay, show me the suggested classes, then.”
A much shorter list appeared:
[Artificer]
[Artist]
[Bard]
[Rogue]
“Huh,” Logan muttered. “That’s a lot less than I thought. Why have these specific classes been suggested to me?”
[The System has determined that the candidate has a natural aptitude toward these classes and will likely level them faster.]
“Alright, so it’s better to choose one of these, huh?”
There was no response, but Logan didn’t mind. Tapping the classes brought up another screen which explained what each one entailed. The descriptions were pretty much what he expected.
Okay, [Artist] just plain sucks. Apparently your creations can inspire mood and affect thoughts. Sounds fishy as hell to me and not something you’d need in a rebuild for a thousand years. I’m personally offended by being offered the [Rogue] class, so we’re not even going there.
That left him with the two magical classes as options. [Bard] seemed to be a mixed bag. The description disclosed abilities used to disorient enemies and un-fatigue allies, along with uncanny proficiency with music and arts. It was basically [Artist] but with actually interesting things tacked on, specifically magic.
Meanwhile, [Artificer] had a particularly interesting description:
[The Artificer is a maestro of magical artifacts. He is a craftsman, specializing in the shaping and making of arcane items such as magical wands or pocket-dimension containers. Artificer can also specialize in the enhancement of mundane items’ natural properties, such as magically hardening a shield or sharpening a knife. Warning: This class is extremely reliant on Numa crystals for full functionality.]
Logan looked at the javelin in his hand. Then he reread the class description.
With this AI, I could craft crazy good stuff, right? I wouldn’t need to painstakingly learn all of basic mechanics. The AI can apparently eyeball tight measurements and can probably estimate stuff like the heat of a fire, so I’d know when it’s hot enough to smelt iron or that sort of thing. Yeah, this is one hell of a combo, isn’t it?
And I have Numa crystals too, to boot. So this is pretty ideal.
Instinctively, Logan put a hand on his still-bulging pocket, as one would check one’s keys before closing a door. He had used a few of the crystals, and he would probably need to use plenty more just to test stuff and level up his class. That felt weird to think about. He now had a class that would essentially define his existence in this new reality. What if he regretted it? What if he needed to pick up something like [Hunter] later to survive?
No crying over spilled milk. I’ve never been one to regret or second-guess myself, and I sure as hell won’t start now. If there is any wisdom I actually learned from Father, it’s that decisiveness is key.
