Chapter Text

Venturing the Wild – 1

WARNING: Selected Sacrifice will affect User greatly.
Are you sure you want to continue?

Click

User’s agreement has been noted.

User’s permissions have been noted.

Mapping user’s selected skills.

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Calculating resulting damage to Soul.

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Calculating resulting damage to Mind.

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Calculating resulting damage to Body.

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Calculating resulting Potential gained.

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WARNING: Calculated damage to the Mind will result in temporary retrograde amnesia. Calculated damage to the Body will result in reduction of physical abilities. Calculated damage to the Soul will result in multiple protections and abilities going offline temporarily.
Calculated Potential gained currently incalculable.
Do you want to continue?

Click

User’s choice confirmed. Given User’s position, permission for Last Chance protection has been enabled.
Do you- choice overridden, Last Chance has been replaced by Paternal Wish. Protection has been applied.

Preparing Ritual for Potential Gaining, expected result: Incalculable.

Preparing jump: all non-essential systems offline, targeting system overridden by incalculable potential.
Warning: Unknown targeting of jump may result in damage to the vessel. Do you want to continue?

Click

Danger accepted, User shall now be put under for ritual during the jump.

Sleep well, Magnus.

Roughly ninety five years after Hyrule’s princess sealed the Calamity, the night skies turned to day before dawn. The firmament broke as something inside and outside worked together at levels that most just couldn’t understand,or believe possible.

Those few that were awake, or had their sleep interrupted by the event, could only observe the night sky transfixed. Some claimed the end was coming, that Calamity was free, but others remained calmer, wise enough to not act without proper thought.

One of those was Lady Impa, elder of Kakariko Village, who had recently celebrated her hundred and fifteen birthday and decided it was time to start training a successor. The old, shrunken woman stepped out of her bedroom, finding one of her guards looking up at the sky.

“Dorian.” She greeted him.

“Lady Impa,” the man turned to her halfway, keeping an eye on the sky, “it only started a few minutes ago… do you think-”

“No.” She cut him off. “There’s something greater than all of us at work here, but it’s not Calamity. I still remember the sickening presence that monster carried, this is not that.” She spoke slowly, mulling on the words.

Her next thought was broken by a sudden explosion in the sky. Too high for them to even hear, but the multiple flaming objects falling in multiple directions were hard to miss; especially as the holes on the firmament fixed themselves a moment later.

Impa sighed. “Order the guards to see if any piece fell close by, I doubt we’ll miss the landing. If they find it, observe from a distance, but it can wait till morning.” She told Dorian, the Sheikah nodding and moving as she rubbed her chin.

“I wonder what it’s all about… and what it will mean for us.” She pondered before returning to her room.

The first things Magnus knew was the pain of his body impacting the walls of the compartment he filled and the blaring noise of the alarms signaling something was going terribly wrong.

He couldn’t tell what was going wrong, but the brutal shaking he was being put through was a very good clue.

While the box that held him appeared designed to hold him as still as possible, it was similarly easy to free himself from it, revealing a room bathed in the red lights of alarms. His observation cut short as another strong shake sent him tumbling off his bed and down to the ground, adding a few more bruises to his body.

There was little respite for him, and as he barely managed to get on his feet by holding onto the box, the shaking came to a halt. But only after whatever vessel he had been in impacted something large enough to bring them to a stop.

Thankfully it appeared they had hit water instead of solid ground, reducing the impact and only sending him tumbling down to the ground. Magnus decided to simply lay there, the hard floor feeling quite nice for his bruised body once he could confirm he wasn’t going to be sent tumbling more.

He waited for a minute after the alarms stopped blaring before getting up, slowly taking account of himself and the area around once more.

The first thing his eyes stopped on was the bed he had been sleeping in, a combination of bed and box, practically a coffin. It’s undeniably comfortable, the way it had held his body firmly in place was a nice way to sleep, and if it wasn’t for the obvious incident, he would most likely have woken up in perfect shape. It may actually have been what kept him from getting further injured now that he thought about it.

The way said bed was attached to the floor made it appear as if it sprouted from the stark and clean metallic surface. Though now that he observed closer, there appeared to be a very fine pattern drawn on the material. It drew a grand design that spanned the whole room, but Magnus was having troubles even parsing a small piece; his eyes simply slipped past it, incapable of making sense or committing it to memory.

That made his attention turn to himself. Everything told him he should know what those etchings were, that he should be able to read them, and focus on the minute detail. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t read them, he actually felt dull and inept.

He stopped that train of thought and gave his body a proper look. Without a mirror he couldn’t tell his age, but he appeared to be young. His skin was almost a honey color, his hands looked healthy, but he could see a few marks of work on them. Even if he couldn’t remember what exactly had caused them.

That truly stopped him completely. His mind raced, trying to find anything in his memories. But it was an unproductive endeavor. He knew his name, but anything else eluded him completely.

His hand gripped the edge of the bed to keep himself standing, cold sweat running down his body, bringing a strange sense of relief to his beaten body. With a need to feel in control, he tried to speak, to say his name.

“Ma… ge noose.” The words that stumbled out of his mouth, feeling wrong as even speech had gained a sense of unfamiliarity. “Magne… Mag. Nus… Magnus.”

He felt a deep sense of relief flood him once he managed to speak his name. It was his , and no one would take it away from him.

The small celebration was cut short when a neutral, monotone voice spoke up.

“ Name and Voice Pattern recognized. ”

He found the source of the voice, a glowing orange sphere had appeared out of thin air and was idly floating in front of him. Reaching for it revealed it was some kind of hologram, his fingers going through the object unimpeded.

“ User Magnus Acknowledged, initiating System. ” The voice continued speaking.

A shiver went through his body as the orange sphere flattened into a screen that quickly filled with text.

“User: Magnus, Age: Twenty years old, Class: Sealed, Job: None, Potential: Incalculable.” He read along. “What the… why is my surname and class sealed? What does it even mean they are sealed?!”

The screen updated following his question.

“Surname and Class sealed behind missing memories? Then why am I missing my memories?” He continued reading. “Memories currently lost due to ritual, what ritual?!” He couldn’t help but scream as every answer only brought more questions. “User, Magnus, sacrificed an extensive amount of his skills in exchange for greater potential… I must have had some incredible skills if I had incalculable potential.” He tried to joke as he regained his bearings.

He slowly read through the information the system was given him. Apparently he had willingly and knowingly taken part in the ritual and sacrificed his skills, he had also taken a trip somewhere . Apparently he had also willingly accepted this too and simply left it to luck and adventure.

He slowly asked for every little thing he could think off, learning as much as he could. Which was sadly much less than he would have wanted. Much of the information apparently sealed behind his missing memories, and the fact he didn’t know what to ask for exactly curtailed his information gathering.

But the thirty minutes he spent asking questions helped him recenter himself and further get the feeling he was in control. Feeling much more secure, Magnus decided it was time to leave the small ritual room.

The door took a moment to open, but finally did so and revealed a hallway designed in a similar way to the room. The main difference was how the lower half of the walls and the floor were made of some darker material, it gave the impression of being somewhere between plastic and ceramic. It was interestingly warm to the touch of his hand.

Something Magnus had learned in the last thirty minutes, was the fact he was indeed in a ship. A very advanced ship designed to travel through the space between Worlds, but this trip had pushed it past anything it had been designed. This was shown by the very rough entrance it had into the World and similarly rough landing.

And while all the parts of the ship had technically survived the entrance, they hadn’t done so as a unit. Magnus was in what could be the most secure segment of the ship, designed to keep the user safe during transit. But it was also the smallest, shown by how the hallway only had six doors.

Half of them head to the outside, and of those two were currently sealed by the outside conditions, while the third was an emergency hatch revealed by the emergency situation. One of them led back to the room he had been in, meaning he had no reason to investigate it further at the moment.

With two doors left, he tried the one on the opposite wall of the hallway. The system helpfully pointed out that the room was a bedroom, and it showed. There was something very familiar in the room, feeling comfortable and fitting to his sensibilities; he most likely had decorated it.

This was further proved by how well fitting were the change of clothes he had found in one of the wardrobes, though it surprised him to see it quite lacking in the number of clothes.

Dressed and feeling much more civilized, he tried the remaining door. It was revealed to be a small storage room. Thankfully the system pointed out the use of anything he didn’t recognize at first sight.

Dressed and with a backpack carrying everything he counted as basic and necessary for his survival he reached for the emergency hatch to step out into a wild new world.

The Yiga scout didn’t palm a yawn. Not only the mask covering their face made the action hard, but they were also not like those weak Sheikah that would feel tired after not sleeping for a night.

And what a night, it certainly wasn’t always the skies showing sights like those. They had the obligation to return to base and inform Master Kohga about what they had seen. But something was keeping them from leaving just yet.

Whatever had broken through, had fallen very close to the coast of the Lodrum Headlands with the Lanayru Sea. It was normally a low-risk zone to be assigned to, as long as they kept away from the Hinox to the south and the Lynel further south of his position. There was practically nothing worth anyone’s time, even the Zora rarely came to the area and they lived a thrown stone away. Most scouts either chose it to laze around, or were assigned to it as a punishment, the secret was getting the second when you wanted the first.

The Yiga scout had been ready to run back to base after seeing the object fall from the sky, making a vague note of the area it had fallen for possible recovery work. But seeing it float back up only barely worse for the wear had made them stop and watch. It had taken a while, but it had slowly floated to the coast and landed with a certain level of control that made them think it was being controlled by something.

His wait was rewarded when a smooth section of the metallic object opened and a figure stepped out. It was definitely a man, his body was somewhere between the lithe Yiga foot-soldier and the bulky blade-masters, the tone of his skin almost reminded the Gerudo by how earthy it was, the final detail he could gleam was the striking purple hair, a color he had only seen a couple times on specially colorful Ritos.

They couldn’t see any distinctive crests or marks on his person, and were too far to get a good view of his face, so without another doubt, the Yiga scout left. They knew Master Kohga would be happy to learn of this strange man, and with the fallen object not deep underwater, maybe they could see about retrieving it.

Stepping out, let Magnus find the ship segment he had been in had safely landed on a sandy beach by a rocky outcrop. Thankfully there appeared to be a way up, otherwise he would have to find how well he could climb, it still promised to be a hard trek.

There was little else, and since he didn’t feel the need to try his hand at fishing at the moment, the young man closed the ship and started walking.

“System?” He prompted out loud as he slowly climbed the rough, rocky path. With a chime, the familiar orange sphere appeared in thin air and maintained its position respective to him. “Recommendations?”

“ User should secure shelter, a water source and food. Current location of ship segment unfavorable, recommended relocation. ” The system droned on.

“What about the ship’s other pieces?”

“ The other ship’s segments survived their respective falls. But the damage taken would have made them take measures to hide themselves before entering repair mode. It’s not recommended to hunt them until the User has acquired a minimum level of proficiency. ”

“Proficiency in what?” He asked as he saw the end of his short trek up.

“ Survival and Fighting ”

Magnus couldn’t help but chuckle. “Already expecting me to fight?”

“ The segment’s substandard scans show multiple entities in the proximity that could provide great danger for the user. ”

The system’s words were accompanied by an image of a large, blue cyclops, as fat as it was tall. And given the trees it was sleeping by, it was definitely multiple times his height.

“And it’s definitely evil?” He asked as he took one last step and took a moment to recover his breath.

“ Scans show a very high concentration of what could be denominated evil energy flowing through the target. ”

“Okay, okay, sounds like a good measuring stick.” He looked around, outside of the promise of a giant monster not far off, the area looked quite nice.

With basically no frame of reference or map, Magnus decided to sort out something basic. Cardinal points were a good point, and with the sun rising from the ocean behind him, it was easy to call it East.

From there he had dangerous monsters to the south if his system was correct, and it was pretty hard to cross the mountain chain to the North and North West. So all he could do was go West or West South.

“ System recommends foraging during exploration. ”

Magnus thought about it for a moment, while he certainly had non-perishable rations in his backpack for more than a few days, fresh food sounded better; even if he didn’t trust himself for anything too complex.

He made sure to keep an eye as he started to walk, it was actually hard to tell what was good since everything was so luscious. From how bouncy the grass was under his feet, to the large mushrooms growing at the feet of the large trees and the bright red apples growing above; they at least looked like apples.

He grabbed a couple of the hopefully- apples, a few orange and red mushrooms that grew at the feet of one of the trees, a handful of what appeared to be purple artichokes, a few red peppers that had been growing from a single and lonesome plant, the last thing he found, and mostly through luck, were a few carrots.

For just a couple hours of foraging it seemed this land was bountiful, and there was definitely signs of habitation as he had found what appeared to be an abandoned camp site. Someone had even left a large metal pot he could use to cook, after he cleaned it.

“Well… I remember enough to know these should be good.” He thought out loud as he plucked one of the apples in his backpack. “Any way I can test if this is edible?”

“ System recommends a simple allergy test: rub a few drops of the juice behind your wrist and wait for a reaction. System believes User’s senses can confirm the rest. ”

He thought about it, it looked okay, smelled okay, the juice definitely smelled sweet and like apples. A few drops on the back of his wrist and a few minutes later he found no strange reaction, besides his skin ending sticky when the juice dried up.

“Looks fine to me.” He chuckled and bit down.

It was definitely an apple, sweet and crisp, the juices practically dripped down his chin. As long as he didn’t end sick in a couple of hours it at least confirmed he would most likely not die of hunger.

“System, any way you can check if I’m getting sick or similar?”

“ System can provide a very basic check up, but it would be preferred if the User finds civilization. ”

Magnus stopped for a moment and wondered if the system had just sassed him, or it was just his impression.

Still, as he enjoyed the fresh apple, he looked at the other thing he had found. It had been quite a surprise when he found thumb-sized, green crystals, about ten of them in total. They were all practically identical and had been simply laying between the grass, though he wouldn’t have noticed them if he hadn’t ripped a handful off while searching for more carrots.

“Any idea what it is?” He prompted as he held the crystal against the system’s avatar.

“ Rudimentary scan shows a stable crystal formation with an energetic base- ”

“In basic English, please.” Magnus quickly interrupted. “Maybe if it’s interesting enough I will ask for more details.”

There was a moment of silence before it resumed. “ Preference noted. Object appears to be made of solid magical energy, it’s definitely naturally formed. ”

“So I could use it as a battery?” He tried.

“ Negative, object’s too stable to be usable as battery without an external method. Energy exchange would result in catastrophic failure to the object’s existence. ”

He thought about it for a moment. “So if I try to store energy it will blow up, and if I try to drain it it will what? Break apart?”

“ Correct. ”

“May be useful as an explosive if it’s explosive enough.” He chuckled and tried a few of the other items he had collected, only leaving the mushrooms aside. Better leave it to professionals.

From the rest of his bounty, the carrot was definitely a carrot, even if the bit he ate had a particular aftertaste. The artichoke would need to be cooked to tell, it was just too touch to tell at the moment. The peppers were most likely peppers, and quite spicy ones at that, just the bit he ate from one made his whole body feel hot. Something of little note.

Magnus wasn’t feeling tired, and the apple had easily sated what little hunger he had gotten during his walk and forage. So with the warm rays of sun coming down on him and nothing openly dangerous, he leaned back and relaxed.

The calm moment of nature was broken when the system chimed in a completely new tone, making him sit up surprised.

“ User’s overflowing Potential has unlocked one of the system's functions: Connection with the current World has been achieved ahead of schedule. Connection and Potential have allowed the system to acquire a Wisp of Knowledge to be acquired.”

Magnus sat and tensed, slowly going through the words spoken.

“Explain.” He requested.

“ This system has been designed to help User reach their true potential. User’s current potential is high enough that system has managed to connect with the World at a level deep enough to- ”

“Too many words, resume things.” He interrupted the system, he would need to check later to see if there were some preferences in how it answered questions.

“ User’s high potential and actions taken have allowed the system to reward them with a small bit of common knowledge from this World. ”

He nodded along. “Okay, that sounds pretty useful. Will this only work in this world? How many times can I expect this to happen? And what is required of me?” He shot the three questions and then gave the system time to answer.

“ Once a Wisp of Knowledge’s acquired, System can adapt the knowledge to other Worlds. User may refer to this as having ‘already paid the price’. Given the user's incalculable potential, the System can’t answer this question. User shouldn’t suffer more than a small sensation from a Wisp of Knowledge. ”

“...OK, hit me with it then.”

The sudden sensation in his mind was weird, it wasn’t painful at all, not even a bother truly. It was the strange ghost sensation of having picked fruits and vegetables from the wild thousands upon thousands of times. Identifying good prey and dangerous predators, how to bring both down and how to acquire the best bounty from their bodies. From small rabbits to large bears, all could be brought down and butchered.

But it was more than just that, how to identify poisonous mushrooms and which were the best woods to smoke meat. How to not scour an area clean for future use. How to use and maintain his tools. And even how to utilize all of this bounty to trade in town for everything else a family could need to live well.

Once the sensation of new/old experiences melted away, the first thing he did was reach for the knife he had used to harvest much of his bounty and proceeded to clean it well. It felt silly that he had allowed it to rest coated in the artichokes’ sap and dirt for so long, he may even need to search for a good whetstone to make sure it didn’t lose its edge.

“Will it be like this every time?” He asked the system while he gave his bounty a new look with an actual skilled eye.

“ No. User only received the most modest kind of Wisp of Knowledge. System will also point out that if the user’s Potential wasn’t so high, User wouldn’t have acquired a Wisp so easily. Next Wisp of Knowledge will be much harder to acquire. ”

“Does that mean I will need to complete harder tasks? Take more time? Risk my life?” He asked as he gave the mushrooms another look, glad to find them most likely edible.

“ Yes. Now all Wisps of Knowledge will be earned the same way. Some may require the user to master a skill, or use it in combat, or achieve a certain threshold, or carry a certain action. ” The System droned on. “ The World may reward the user with Wisps of Knowledge for certain actions too. ”

Magnus stopped his reorganization of his backpack. “Wait, the world’s sentient?”

“ No. ” With that answer he was about to sigh before the system kept on talking. “ The world is most likely not sentient. The World is, even if it usually can’t interact with mortals. ”

“What’s the difference?” He asked slowly as he picked his backpack up, this time hooking it correctly.

“ A world is normally used to refer to an inhabited celestial body. A World is something greater than Reality, a World may contain multiple Realities. There exist multiple Worlds, User originated from a different World. ”

He wondered how much of this he knew before the ritual, though after a few minutes he came to the realization it didn’t really matter at the moment.

“System, how long will it take me to recover my memories?”

“ Unknown, the only recommendation is for the user to experience new things and acquire new Wisps of Knowledge. ”

“So I’ve to just keep on going, eh?”

Magnus chuckled softly as he started marching, he was in a new World and there was plenty to see. He only wondered what had pushed him to do this.