The Genius Wizard Who Takes Medicine - Episode 0
He possessed genius-level talent, but even running was difficult without medication.
A game character he had created as his third alternate character.
He ended up entering that world.
*
Prologue
“So, what kind of character should I create this time….”
He sat in front of the computer, ruffling his disheveled hair.
After tapping the keyboard a few times, a familiar interface appeared, reflecting his face.
Upon entering his ID and password, the phrase “WORLD ver.3.0” appeared and then vanished, revealing two people on the screen.
A young man dozing off while leaning against a thick log, and a marksman holding a rifle that glowed a bright blue.
Near the young man lay a slightly faded gauntlet, and above the muzzle of the marksman’s rifle, a magic circle rotated slowly.
He looked at the young man and the warrior, pondering for a moment as he let go of the mouse.
The two men moving on the monitor were characters he had personally created and nurtured in the game.
The game called WORLD was known for its open-world single-player focus, with continuous updates that consistently altered its world and timeline.
He, too, had been creating and nurturing new characters with each update while playing the game.
Having thoroughly enjoyed the game in versions 1.0 and 2.0, he needed a new character for version 3.0.
After a brief moment of contemplation, he quickly grabbed the mouse and clicked the character creation button.
In fact, he had already given some thought to what kind of character he wanted to create.
For his third character, he intended to create one entirely specialized in magic.
He wanted to fully experience the allure of magic he had felt while playing the gun mage as his second character.
The dazzling magic circles, powerful effects, and the versatility that couldn’t be found in other job classes or skills in WORLD were undoubtedly attractive advantages in the vast open world.
He had become so enamored with magic while nurturing the gun mage that he had invested excessively in magical abilities, to the point of turning the character into what is commonly known as a “failed character.”
Having learned through the game that the line between versatility and incompetence is thin, he planned to raise a character solely dedicated to being a wizard this time.
By focusing all the initial character’s talents on magic in the selection window, he could avoid creating an ambiguous character.
“Shall we begin?”
Having made his decision, he quickly determined the character’s appearance and age, then moved to the talent distribution window, pouring all the given potential into magic-related categories.
“Mana capacity, control ability, computational ability… I shouldn’t forget mana affinity either.”
After allocating all initial distribution points to magic-related abilities, the completed character was truly a sight to behold.
With magic-related stats hovering around 25 to 27 out of a maximum of 30 points, the physical abilities barely reached 3 or 4, resulting in a walking corpse.
The character on the screen, clad in something resembling a patient’s gown, appeared pale, and it might not have been an illusion.
Yet, he stared at the monitor with a dissatisfied expression for a while before adjusting his grip on the mouse again.
Scrolling down the stat window to the traits section, he clicked the arrow to list the selectable traits.
The traits section was designed to bestow the character with innate constitution, talents, or special abilities, but adding these traits also consumed a considerable amount of ability points.
Therefore, it was common to simply add one or two useful traits that could be used in any situation, but he began scrolling through the list without even glancing at other traits.
After scrolling for a while, useful traits like “Celestial Body” and “Blue Blood” disappeared, revealing traits written in bright red letters that seemed to impose penalties on the character, such as “Chronic Headache,” “Mana Exhaustion,” and “Divine Power Rejection.”
While someone unfamiliar might mistakenly think these were useless features existing purely for concept play, having played the game twice, he knew the real reason.
With a cautious expression, he began adding various unhelpful traits to the character.
“Scarecrow, Insomnia, Mana Addict, Excessive Talent… and Short-lived… Lifespan doesn’t matter, right?”
It was an incomprehensible action to impose demerits on a character he would play himself, but surprisingly, each time he added a trait written in bright red letters to the character, the remaining distribution points, which he thought were completely used up, began to increase slightly.
The “Karma System,” which activated only when creating a character in WORLD, allowed him to pay an additional price equivalent to the penalties imposed on the character.
Due to this Karma System, players enjoying WORLD could create characters more freely, beyond the simple limitations of stats and traits.
By adding a few penalties, they could additionally input talents or traits that were not allowed by the ability points.
Until now, he had never actively utilized this Karma System, but this time, he intended to push the character’s concept to the limit, as he was determined to create a character.
After filling all magic-related stats to the maximum of 30 points with the remaining ability points obtained in exchange for the penalties added to the character, he finally pressed the create button with a satisfied expression.
Despite being a character with innate poor physical strength, insomnia, addiction symptoms from prolonged magic use, a halved lifespan due to excessive talent, and creaking joints with every movement, what did it matter?
It was just a game character. There was no more perfect character for enjoying magic.
“This will be fun.”
With such talent, he could expect exceptional performance from any magic he learned.
Just contemplating which magic to learn was already incredibly enjoyable.
After randomly setting the character’s name and background and completing the edits, a loading screen of black light filled the monitor.
“………”
While idly waiting for the loading to finish, his eyes suddenly drifted to the bottom of the screen.
The game tip phrase, which appeared to entertain the gamer’s boredom in the corner of the loading screen, particularly caught his attention.
[The first is coincidence. The second is inevitability. The third is destiny.]
[All three updates were recorded for this moment.]
[Accept your destiny.]
“What is this…”
The moment he muttered to himself, finding the tip phrase unusually forceful,
the black light flashed and swallowed everything in the room whole.
Only after devouring all traces of a person’s entire life did it burp contentedly and disappear without a trace.
As if nothing had ever existed from the start, thick dust had piled up in the room before anyone realized it.
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