The Intermission Pt6

I, personally, have never liked movie theaters. They were bright and loud and usually flooded with little kids depending on what movies were showing. I would be much happier at home watching movies on the internet.

However, it had been so long since my family actually went out as a family that I did not bother arguing over tonight's events with them. I just told myself to suck it up and if some kids spills their drink or popcorn on me I would not pick a fight with their parents.

As someone who was raised with a good deal of discipline in most areas, parents who let their kids go wild in public were like nails on a chalk board to me.

From the lack of parents in the amusement area of the theater's front, I could already tell that tonight was going to be a very irritating event. The only good thing I could find in all of this was the fact that my little brother and sister had monopolized a small platform fighting VR game that came with helmets. Originally there were other kids all waiting around to fight one another but we set up a kind of tag-team tournament that took fifteen minutes.

My siblings were not much for actual fighting but in an arcade VR with no pain sensory they were absolutely fearless. Anybody they could not beat, though, had to go against me as a group. Only four people could play at any given time, but after two three-to-one fights nobody else felt like trying their luck. Not all of them were little kids, either, because some of them were around my age and babysitting.

So, the three of us spent the rest of the time fighting each other while listening to my coaching or simply getting tossed around by me in the platform fighter. While there was no sense of pain in this game, it still used actual movement mechanics so I used this time to attempt teaching them a few basic cards from the family deck. Mostly just how to work one's weight and balance in both attack and defense, but it was stuff they could make use of in most any game- including Bygone Era.

As well, basically any hit to the head was ten out of one hundred points, the body was five, and the limbs were two. It was a really good way to teach them general blocking and deflecting skills in a hurry.

Just like any other time I tried to teach them stuff about self-defense, they did not take it very seriously because of how infamous I was as if they themselves would never need it. Any time they had a bully, I was the threat they used to scare them away. It was cute, at first, but if they started playing games like Bygone Era where most of the players there took things seriously then they would not be done any favors by other players.

Go and Ivana just played a nearby pair of vintage boat racing games during this time while our parents hung out by the concessions area where all the unbelievably priced snacks were sold. Another reason why I disliked the cinema was the hellacious pricing. It was insane that they were actually allowed to sell stuff and more than twice its usual values in any other store.

An energy drink here cost ten dollars when an energy drink in any other store was usually half of that for two of them!

When it was finally time for our viewing of some new and popular family movie by Worksdream studios or some crap like that, I just went straight into the theater to find some good seats. Even though it was my money being wasted I wanted no other part of it.

The movie was not bad, just the same idea about some personality-rich animals in lieu of people in a modern society but here they were trying to save their neighborhood park with creative pet-like ideas. My little brother and sister absolutely loved it while I secretly spent my time tracking the forums. I did not spend entire minutes at a time writing replies and such but simply kept track of all the new questions and responses that continued popping up even in my absence.

After checking some of the background stats on my threat by sending Melpomene a private message with questions, I found out that there were over a hundred people who have posted in my thread while there were several thousand active readers at any given moment. I had only received donations from a few hundreds of people, which was upsetting.

Were there more freeloaders in the world than just me? How shameful.

There came a point where I was on my phone and there was a person in the row behind us passively complaining about people being on their phones during a movie so I passively mumbled about being worth more than 'some people' and maintaining it just by being on my phone during a movie.

I had absolutely no way of knowing whether or not that was true since all I had right now was in-game currency but I was pretty sure that people would start buying my broken character race eventually. Part of the main update thread mentioned changes being made among the character races and an expansion on paid products under the guise of a 'platinum store'. In terms of in-game money, I could currently call myself wealthy, right?

This remark was met with an irritated feminine scoff before the same voice openly leans forward a little closer to look at my unguarded phone while outright asking, "What could some meathead be doing to make money on his phone during a family movie?"

I almost said underwear modeling just for shock value to make the others wonder what this person was about to see on the stranger's phone. In moment's like this where someone was audacious enough for this behavior, shock value was usually good entertainment value. Way better than what was currently on the big screen.

Sadly, I kept my thoughts to myself and returned to the top of the thread. Just looking at bunches of random posts would not prove or show off anything. Instead, showing the Bygone Era themes and the name of the thread as well as showing I was the original poster who was shown to have a few hundred donations just on the opening greeting I sent to Melpomene.

To my surprise, the lady actually just sat back in their seat with a quiet laugh while saying, "Ten years ago, it would have been N-S-F-W. Now, everybody's trying to make money in gaming."

Just because she had the courage to mention forbidden content I was willing to let things go and just continue flicking my gaze back and forth from my phone to the movie. Then, only a few moments later during a boring scene of a hopeless romantic ferret character failing to pursue an 'attractive' fox character before a big event, one of the other people in the row behind us asked the other person what they really saw.

"Imagine being so rude as to talk during a public movie," I mumble just as the lady was going to make a reply, earning myself several knowing looks from my friends and father. Gerard and Ivana were both giving me warning looks while my father briefly glanced at me and ever so slightly shook his head.

This was the essence of injustice, they called me out for being rude and even called me a meathead while suspecting me of being inappropriate on my phone but when it is finally MY turn to pick a fight it is no good? I could only cast glares around while the lady much more quietly talked about what she saw.

Despite this, beyond a little bit of gossip there was not much else to disturb the movie until near the end when I finally decided to take action in the thread again. People had already discussed numerous forms of normal and game-alternative crafting methods without magic, so it became pretty clear. A lot of these guys sucked with magic.

Finally, I personally brought up alchemy in its common form of potion brewing to force people into broaching the subject of magic properly. I brought to attention the ingredient pairing I had discovered for one-part regen potions and posed the question of what methods one would use to prepare these ingredients to be used together for different purposes.

Each ingredient usually had several parts with different purposes, some of which were an extract inaccessible without magic from a closed bloom or something of the sort. These were the literal essences that could be isolated, turning a simple healing pair of plant pieces into a stronger regenerative effect.

Only the general methods of physical preparing or preserving were brought up at first, showing that these guys needed a kick in the pants. Even if a few of them knew the different parts of a plant with different purposes the openly confessed they did not have the tools to properly prepare it. Simple heating and oil extraction methods worked to some effect, but the physical equipment in the game was usually self-made because it was hard to come by.

This was where I had to make linked mentions of the previous magic specialists and brought up an exchange of theory with using natural components to expand on a person's magical abilities. Some of these people had already confessed to some extent that they used rare magical items and creatures as catalysts in learning some of their magical abilities.

Plant and animal life of true elemental nature were not exactly rare, as seen by the elemental related Winter Wood and similar regions, it was simply that most players stuck close to settled society due to various reasons of gameplay and life. I myself had only seen inherently darkness and earth related creatures in the giant owls and evolved tree lizards. Neither of them used active elemental skills, though, so something like a fire creature to learn fire from its mana use was uncommon.

The only time I was really even attacked with magic in the Canfor region was against an imp queen and to most young players they could be dangerous if dealt with in a time-consuming fashion. Mine barely even had time to draw mana after being struck from afar and all but tackled by Go and I.

Unlike me, many of them had started from scratch with magic and had limited magical awareness while my mana was awakened by an outside source with increased strength so my magical senses became attuned on a different level in the beginning. It was generally safer for them to find elemental related items like weapons or mana stones through shops or forums.

Using them, though, was dependent on the person. Theoretically, a classless who focused on physical abilities with limited time for magic would only need the basic awareness from meditation practices to focus on the attacks of an enchanted item. Likewise, a more magic prone classless with better 'comprehension' for mana in general would be able to use an elemental crystal not only for converting mana passively but also for learning how to produce elemental mana.

My own original Firebolt skill requires snapping for friction as an almost alchemical mana reaction, only the skill combinations that create friction or direct thermal energy did not require more than a mana catalyst from myself. However, for people who could not convert biology or physics into a functioning skill the use of actual catalysts was a must.

This topic of 'consultation' once again became a collection of professional spitball shooters as speculation and general information about the game and its various content. Most of it included a large amount of in-game or even real expenses unless one was willing to make their own quest of it.

However, there were a lot of donations involved as people shared numerous personal facts about magic outside of the general elements and healing while even I made a few posts speculating on the endurance aspects of these trainings. In regards to people of a tankier style or mages that want to focus on defenses, finding and isolating magic wielding mobs was a viable option.

There were numerous mobs in different regions that I brought up who could wield magic without being a true elemental creature. In random event locations there were usually multiple, so capturing magical mobs was my main selling point. Fighter types could develop resistances while learning to use mana and mages who already had efficiency in mana could better their understanding of mana for both offense and defense simply by being attacked.

In the even of imp queens and the like, though, I reminded everyone of the 'local legend' that they will suicide bomb their hives to evade capture.

By the time the movie was over, the topic had once again strayed to familiars and mobs in general after everyone who was active had collected only a few key points in magic goals. However, when everyone was getting up to leave, I found myself quietly stopped by the older couple who had been sitting behind me.

The dude quickly and politely introduced himself as a classless player who was doing part time work for an organization's workshop. I stopped him then and there and introduced my father who ran the as-of-yet nonexistent workshop that he was going to start for his gym. Any and all talk afterward was left to them as I promptly took my phone back out of my pocket and used it while walking away.

Not much new and interesting in the thread was going on and it seemed like people had entirely missed the point of intermediate and advanced alchemy techniques. Transmutation was a necessity and simply skills like this seemed to be the hidden hard point for many of these people. However, I had no real way to simplify magic for them because I simply learned to make things work in my own way.

However, they brought up an interesting point in catalytic training exercises that reminded me of some things I had heard about recently. The update threads had introduced this as various stages of actual training manuals for different classes. These would soon be available to players as class related quests, but the classless do not have such quests.

Now, I simply made several large posts directed at the previous point in the thread I had been tracking through the movie on my way straight out to the car. After finishing the last post, I informed the people that I would be busy IRL for the evening and moved on to new fields of research.

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