Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

“Is something wrong? Did you change your mind?”

“No, it’s just that I didn’t know you had to pay for your specialty.”

“Hm,” he replies, going through a whirlwind of emotions yet again. “Surprise me, and it’ll be free for you. I want to see what you can do. Just remember that people come here every day. They certainly aren’t all interesting.”

I’m supposed to surprise a life mage who’s probably been teaching for umpteen years.

“I can, but do you mind if I use that chair? The one you were sitting on.”

The mage glances over to where he’d caused a couple of sprouts to pop up, the first leaves already opening. He nods.

What can you do with a chair made out of petrified wood in just a minute? What if you have your Life Magic up to 811, not to mention eleven streams of consciousness and 4000 intellect?

The chair grows into the wooden floor, dozens of green shoots spring up, and they all start to braid with each other. The air is filled with the smell of a rain-soaked forest, the leaves tickling my face as if to thank me for my help.

Anri is thrilled. I don’t even have to listen in on his emotions to tell that I got him.

“You know, young man… Just a month ago, I heard about a very interesting place in Kurg. They say a tree appeared that lets you resurrect dead pets and even mounts. As a life mage, however, I’m more interested by the keeper of the tree—he was able to grow it to a height of three hundred meters in just five months. I’ve heard he’s a young man in a cat costume who never talks with anyone and doesn’t stray far from his field. The animals respect him, esteeming the place under the tree as holy, and coming there when they need help. I headed to Kurg as soon as I could, but the keeper wasn’t there. Nobody’s seen him since he left his tree.”

Anri, I respect you as a specialist, of course, but I’m not about to tell you anything.

“Could it have been an elf? Maybe, he used the cat hat to hide his ears. Or what about a druid? Or even a manifestation of divine strength?”

For another minute, we eye each other in satisfaction, neither of us saying a word. The mage is running the gamut of emotions. Happily, all of them are positive—he loves Life Magic, respects it, prays to it, lives it. I worship all magic; he worships Life Magic.

Finally, he looks back at the flowering chair.

“You know, Life Magic is disappearing quickly, and you need highly concentrated magic to create a big effect.” The mage points at the chair, thinks for a second, and sighs heavily. “You surprised me! Do you still want to pick Life Magic as your specialty?”

You have a specialty offer: Life Magic

Accept: Yes/No

“Yes.”

***

Eliza arrived once again at Angie’s tree, but he was no longer there. The guards had jailed him for attacking another player without warrant. She found the respawn point quickly, and they were even there when the demon attack started. Her wards enjoyed the show from their VIP box seats at the windows of the tavern. Neither Eliza nor her assistant joined the battle—they were too busy protecting the tavern doors.

Nobody saw Angie after the battle. A few archers with the eagle eye skill said he was sitting up in a branch of the tree a hundred and fifty meters off the ground and staring at the door to the tavern, but nobody else could see him or confirm that it really was him.

After that, Eliza went back to look at old recordings of the conversations he’d had with his old psychologist. He had been eleven, and it was a year before he was transferred to the other wing in the orphanage.

Angie Ganet and his psychologist were sitting in two comfortable chairs. The boy talked openly, and they were discussing important issues.

“Angie, why did you stop talking with the other kids? Did they do something bad?”

“No, Mrs. Full, they wouldn’t even know how to. It’s just that they’re…the other kids…stupid! I don’t see any point talking with them. Reading books is much more interesting—they let you systematize what you know so you can dive deeper into the meaning.”

“What do you mean, Angie?”

The boy thought for a second about how to explain that to the psychologist.

“Mrs. Full, every time someone makes a statement, you only come away with and remember the key moments. I can remember every detail, every word, every inflection, but only if I really need to. When I’m reading new books, new links form between different things I already know. I think back to a dialog or something smart someone said, and I understand it in more depth, in more detail. I get a better feel for what the author is trying to say, how powerfully his personality is expressed in the words. I understand people better. It’s like an iceberg: what people say is just the tip, and you have to see the whole thing if you want to understand their meaning. The more I read and try to understand, the less I want to talk with other kids. They think in different terms and look at the world too simplistically.”

“…”

“I know I’m not too smart. Not as smart as the kids with good grades. But I think fast enough, I have the wit and sagacity, and I might even have the desire to be better than them. For now, I just want to better understand people and myself.”

“You’re just eleven, Angie! Where did you get ideas like that?”

Angie stared at the psychologist, angry in his childlike way.

“I’m already eleven! When Thomas Hadd was my age, he started piloting his parents’