All About Manual Narration

After Magnus 2.0's explanation, Magnus sat in his chair, with one leg crossed on top of the other and his eyes still staring at the outside. "Hmm…" he hummed, fingers drumming on his thigh. "I just got an idea."

He opened the Protagonist screen and landed his eyes on the Script. He scrolled down until he reached the point where he could see words being automatically typed in real time, describing his every action. "Hey other me, how about you test out that manual narration? On me."

'Huh, I was just about to ask if you wanted me to do that.'

"Dude, we're like, always thinking on the same wavelength. So I guess we both just need to build up enough confidence in each other to the point where we don't need to voice out our thoughts to be able to work together smoothly."

'Couldn't agree more,' said Magnus 2.0. 'So, about the manual narration test…I guess I'll just…'

The Script then could be seen being maximized, pushing back the Status Window and POV out of view.

'…first try it out with this,' Magnus 2.0 said.

ʳ Magnus is suddenly feeling happy. ʴ

"What the fu—" Before he could finish his sentence, Magnus suddenly felt his heart getting lighter, as if thoughts of the bleak future of the world that had been occupying his head so far were suddenly moved into the corner of his mind, making room for more uplifting thoughts that increased his mood. "Huh, that worked."

Suddenly the system's voice rang inside his head.

[The hosts are advised to always exercise caution before doing a manual narration. Narrating a scene that sounds out of place and without a good reason behind it can lower the quality of the hosts' story.

However, for now, the host's current action of manually narrating a change in the other host's emotional state without providing a cause for such change is deemed acceptable, since the host is still learning how the system works. In addition, The Viewers found the host's lack of writing creativity a little funny, therefore exempting the hosts from a decrease in Satisfaction Level. But in the future, manual narration done without a fair or justifiable reason would lower The Viewers' Satisfaction Level or even cause an unfinished narration to immediately be deleted.]

Both Magnuses froze upon listening to the system's word of caution.

'Welp, I guess now we know,' Magnus 2.0 finally spoke up.

"Yeah, and I guess we also need to work on your writing skill," Magnus added.

'Is that really necessary, though?'

Magnus shrugged. "Not really, but it'd be nice to read something that doesn't sound like it was written by a middle schooler."

Magnus then minimized the Script and shifted his gaze to the Status Window. As expected, a few points had been deducted from his AP. Three points, to be exact.

'System, why take only three points?' Magnus 2.0 asked on their behalf.

[The amount of Authority Points deducted depends on how much the narration impacts the changes in The Protagonist. The system has judged that a slight uplift of the host's mood was not a significant change, therefore only requiring a small amount of AP to make that happen.]

Magnus thought about it for a moment, before his train of thoughts started going a bit ahead into the future. He'd like to know how Magnus 2.0 would be able to design more favorable scenarios for his other Protagonists. "Atlantis used to reward me with skills every time I completed an Objective. He used manual narration for that. System, how many points would we need to create a skill for a Protagonist?"

[That will depend on the effectiveness of the skill and mana consumption it is designed to have. For example, the host's past skill, [Spark], which on the first level costed seven mana points per second to heal minor wounds, required 350 AP to be created.

For the hosts' information, creating any skill requires a minimum of 200 AP per Protagonist. And since healing skills are deemed very effective for the survival and well-being of Protagonists, it costs almost double the minimum amount of AP just to create the lesser version of them.]

Hearing the system's answer, Magnus frowned. 'That means we can't create skills for them willy-nilly. We also can't just think up a new skill on the spot to save them from a deadly battle.'

'Yeah. That's a bit of a bummer,' Magnus 2.0 agreed. 'It costed half of our total AP just to create [Spark], and we know how useless it was to get us out of death's door. I guess for now we can only rely on weapon and item-related skills for the other Protagonists.'

'Or…' Magnus said, rubbing his chin, '…we can make up a strong enough excus—I mean reason to allow a narration that can give them a good skill with a lower cost.' He lightly smiled, figuring out a loophole in the system. "We can do that much, right system?"

[The host is correct.]

"Haha! I knew it! In any story, the protagonist would often have a sudden power-up during desperate times, just by having a profound flashback and thus getting more motivated to crush the enemy. Anything can be justified when there's enough background story!"

'I guess the rules of the Script aren't as stiff as I expected,' Magnus 2.0 pointed out.

"I mean, it is, after all, a tiny imitation of Fate. I don't know how exactly it works, but I guess there's something about Fate that can allow just about anything to become reality." Magnus then cracked his knuckles and got up from the chair before lying back down on his bed.

"Anyway, I know that manual narration was often used by the gods to directly influence their Protagonists' thoughts and emotions. That function costs a small amount of AP, after all. But we're not gonna do the same thing, are we, other me?" asked Magnus, subtly implying for his copy to always remember not to cross the line.

'You don't need to remind me, dude. I intend to only use manual narration as a way to help our Protagonists get stronger without manipulating their minds. Which means that for now, giving them permanent stat boosts or new skills sounds about good enough.'

Agreeing with his copy, Magnus focused back on the Status Window screen floating before him. He then suddenly remembered another function of the system that he'd forgotten ever since going back into the past. He could still recall how happy a lot of people had been when they discovered this function that was hidden behind the Status Window. It required a little trick to open it, sort of like an easter egg. Except it was way more useful and essential for everyone's life after the Prolog to be a mere easter egg.

He shifted his gaze toward the bottom of the Status Window, precisely at the empty space below the last line of the Skill(s) section of the window. With a thought, he willed the screen to scroll down further, just like how he willed a window to be minimized or maximized. There, hidden under the many empty spaces below the Status Window, was the letter 'I' in capital. He then focused on the letter like he was willing a window to open.

The Status Window then disappeared, and replacing it was a hidden function within the system. It was the tool of absolute convenience as well as Magnus' dearest, most favorite part of the system. It was, of course, the one and only…

Inventory.

The gods may be a bunch of haughty, insufferable bastards who loved toying with mortal lives, and Magnus may hate them with passion, but whoever among them had come up with the idea of installing this feature on the system was most definitely within the list of 'slightly-more-tolerable bastards'. They had Magnus' thanks.

The Inventory was composed of many boxes. At first, there had only been fifteen of them. As Magnus progressed on his Level, the amount of boxes increased. Now, there were more than a hundred of them.

He then looked at the first few boxes, where he had stored his most-used items. Among them, there was the [Mystic Deep] armor set. Fun fact, the armor was actually one out of a pair. Yes, the armor had a twin sister, called [Mystic Moonlight]. Instead of blue-and-black, the armor was colored blue-and-silver. And instead of giving him stat boosts that mostly focused on Strength when he equipped [Mystic Deep], [Mystic Moonlight] would give him more boost in Agility. If he had the armor, that is.

There was actually an additional boost from both armors, being that [Mystic Deep] enhanced one's affinity with the darkness element, and [Mystic Moonlight] enhanced their affinity with the light element. Neither boost was of any use to Magnus, though, as he had no affinity with either element.

However, Magnus was thinking of acquiring [Mystic Moonlight] at some point in the future. Perhaps, he could go and meet a fellow Atlantis' Protagonist who had been famous for her blacksmithing skills and then request her to somehow combine both armor sets. That way, he could have a big boost both in Strength and Agility.

"Let's not get carried away for now. Both the armor and the blacksmith are on a different Realm," Magnus reminded himself.

He then glanced at the row of boxes in his Inventory where he'd stored his shields. These days, he liked gripping his hand on his most-recently obtained shield, called [Frontier]. It was a kite shield that covered about half of his height. It was dark blue in color with a silver outlining. The center was decorated with the image of a silver crescent moon and single-bladed battle axe crossing it diagonally.

It was a shield perfectly crafted for Magnus, made of some highly durable materials fished out from an underwater volcano. He had obtained it after completing a near-suicide level Objective. The description of the shield revealed to him that it had been hand-crafted by a blacksmith who was also Atlantis' Protagonist. She was the same blacksmith Magnus was planning to seek out.

Right next to the box containing [Frontier] was another box displaying a tower shield made of steel. Aptly named [Fortitude], it had been Magnus' very first shield. Obtaining it hadn't been a difficult task. In fact, it wasn't even an Objective's reward. Directing his path toward the item was more like Atlantis' way of making him a shield bearer, even though Magnus had never intended to be a defense-type fighter. Which was why he had initially been reluctant to pick up the shield and equip it. But through a subtle 'encouragement' from Atlantis, he finally made the item his and over time got used to having a shield as his main weapon. Although later on he would branch out to spearmanship and axemanship, but that was a story for another time.