Into Our Fantasies Book 1 - Watch before you listen

Gift

Once upon a time.

It's a cliché beginning, but it does its purpose.

For with the once upon a time, we bring the idea of childish wonder, and that which was forgotten with age is brought back to us by those four words.

Once upon a time.

Once upon a time, there was a boy given a gift by God . . .

"Hurry, Chris! You'll be late for class to your new school!" shouted Chris's mom, Dina Nakamura, from downstairs.

"Yeah, I know." Chris replied. "It's not like I'm too late, though, right?"

"I don't know Chris. Is 'too late' having 30 minutes to get to school on time while the train takes 31 minutes and to get to the train station takes 15 minutes too late? And remember that your going to Brooklyn Tech now, so is it too late?"

Silence.

Then, suddenly the door was open in a burst of lightning.

"What was . . . " Dina muttered, before suddenly realizing where it came from.

"Chris, are you alright?"

No response was given. An unspoken amount of dread started creeping up her spine.

"Chris!"

Silence.

Convincing herself that he was fine, Dina went upstairs to find that he wasn't there. She was on the verge of panicking when she saw a note.

It said, 'can you bring anything I missed? Also, can you bring some lunch, I didn't make anything and I have no money.'

"So . . . he's one of them," she muttered to herself.

Sighing, she focused on getting herself ready for work. "How am I going to tell his dad this?"

. . . Anime ;):). . .

"Whew . . . I barely made it in time . . . that was exhausting. Fortunately, there happened to be a train pulling in the moment I got into the station," an exhausted Chris said to himself.

It was no secret that he was abnormally faster than most people he had come into contact with, and his speed was one of the things that he prided himself on. However, he couldn't help but notice that the world had gotten much, much slower. Thinking that the feeling of being out of touch with the world was associated with his sleep schedule(or lack thereof), he went to class.

The world had become a place of "derived power" which varied based on your job and individual talents. these powers could always be built upon, and as such, the potential was limitless for them. If you were a coal miner, for example, you would get the ability to make coal, or precious material, if you were to train enough.

"However, while it is possible to get abilities from entertainment, the stigma that comes with it is beyond shameful, " a random student finished.

The teacher nodded in approval. They were reading an introduction chapter off of their online textbook. It was the first day, but you can never start too early, in his mind at least.

"Now, Mr. Nakamura, can you please explain another reason why this specific type of Derived Power is banned?"

When nothing happened, he called again. It was then when he looked around, and noticed Mr. Nakamura . . . sleeping.

It looked like he was going to start the year off by yelling at the kid.

"Mr. Nakamura!"

"Eh?"

The teacher had been called him; his eyes spelled death. Chris knew, just knew, that he was screwed.

Composing himself, he said, "Is there a problem that you would like me to solve?"

"Yes. Would you please tell the class why the entertainment derived power is outlawed?"

"Oh, sure. It's-"

Silence.

"I-It's-" Did I forget it?

"Something to say, Nakamura?" the teacher asked.

I can't remember. The most influential thing to happen in four years and I can't remember.

Oh, crap. How am I going to get out of this? You really did it this time, Chris. Man, I wish I could turn back time. If only I could . . . eh?

A screen had suddenly shown up in front of Chris; it said: "Quest has been created out of necessity; stall for time. Accept quest?"

A quest window? I feel like I've seen this in a webtoon I read before . . . what was it? Ah, it was Solo Leveling. But that's not a talent or a job; it's a book. Not even a "real" book, with paper and everything, a book that was born and raised online.

Chris looked at the quest window again, then the teacher. It could be beneficial to him, so why not?

"The reason why the entertainment Derived Power is outlawed is because of the implications that came with getting the potential to become a "god" of sorts, by doing nothing but being entertained.

This had the potential to, uh . . . cause a massive turnover in work rate? As well as incidents from those who would do wrong with it?"

As the teacher stood in silence, Chris begged for him to take the words so quickly pulled out of his asshole as a good enough understanding, or better yet, gospel.

" . . . I see. Well, to be honest, I hadn't thought of those things when I asked you. Rather, I was talking about the terrorist incident that happened a while ago, about . . . 3 months to be exact."

"Ah. I remember now. The dude who screamed he had the power of God and anime on his side as he killed people with energy beams?"

"Yeah, that guy. Fortunately, he didn't master past the Ginyu 4 arc, so he wasn't planetary yet.

"Even more so, he didn't think about the other ways he could use the ki energy."

"I know, right? think about the potential . . ."

. . . Games (^__^) . . .

"I honestly don't know what happened to me . . . It's been quite the strange day."

Because he had stalled until the period was over, he acquired the skills "Contrivance" and "Misdirect." He could misdirect the attention of other people away from a topic for a total of 15 minutes.

The skill was level one, so if people had an int. stat of 115, they could break away from the spell before the 15 minutes were up. The spell cost 70 mana per use.

Wait . . . int. stat? As in intelligence stat?

Isn't that usually seen in a game?

Taking a look around him, he saw that he could now see the amount of intelligence that people had. What's more, he could now see their levels.

Isn't this from another webtoon? I think it was called . . . The Gamer? Yeah, it is from the Gamer. Does this mean that the abyss is real? No, I think that part stayed in it's comic. Though, I wonder . . .

"Whatever. I'll just think about that more when I get home. It's the first day. I'll enjoy myself for it."

The day went on, with him realizing that Contrivance was a passive, making him an excellent liar, among many other things, including improving memory. As he went home, he realized that he must have an entertainment-based derived power, that must've awakened recently, judging from this.

He planned to tell his mom this when he got there.

He would never get the chance too.