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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Douglasjm on 2025-07-01 18:00:21+00:00.

Synopsis:

Carlos was an ordinary software engineer on Earth, up until he died and found himself in a fantasy world of dungeons, magic, and adventure. This new world offers many fascinating possibilities, but it’s unfortunate that the skills he spent much of his life developing will be useless because they don’t have computers.

Wait, why does this spell incantation read like a computer program’s source code? Magic is programming?

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Kindar breathed deeply, acutely aware of the wolf-like monsters spreading out to flank him on either side. He raised his sword and held his shield ready. Against this many, he wouldn’t be able to focus on any one of them for long, and ignoring an opponent was inviting that opponent to strike him. That lesson had been driven into him mercilessly over the last several days, with the strangely cooperative dungeon spawning an endless succession of sparring opponents that didn’t hold back. Unlike my friends back home. He ground his teeth in anger at the fresh memory of when he’d finally realized the real reason behind why he had won every bout in Erlen.

A flash of movement caught him off guard in the momentary distraction, and he hastily jerked his shield into position to block the low lunge of the left-most monster’s teeth. The attack scraped along his shield, and he almost failed to react in time as the other monsters joined the assault. He frantically swiped his sword to the right and jumped backwards. Two claws glanced off of his armored shins, but his last-second evasive movement prevented them from finding any real purchase, and the fifth monster on the right found its leap ended, having impaled itself on his sword.

Kindar staggered momentarily, but pushed back hard, and then one hard jerk of his sword sufficed to cut the monster the rest of the way apart and free his sword from it. The wolf monster’s corpse dissipated into vapor, and he felt a portion of its mana join the river of ambient mana – or aether, as his benefactors insisted on calling it – that was constantly pouring into him. In the back of his mind, he recognized that just earlier this morning that same leaping attack would have knocked him to the ground, his legs too weak to withstand it without his new leg-strengthening soul structure, but he resolutely focused on his four remaining opponents.

He did a quick flourish with his sword and snapped back into his practiced stance, trying to give the impression that everything he’d just done was effortless and fully intentional. He focused on that idea of effortless control, projecting more confidence in his superiority than he actually felt as he locked his eyes with those of his next target, the center-right of the four. He kept his shield oriented towards the one on the far left and watched with his peripheral vision for any sudden moves from the other two flankers, but they were secondary concerns. He kept his focus on a battle of wills with the wolf he was facing, engaging the full force of his second Tier 7 unified soul structure to intimidate it and take its power.

The monster growled at him, and Kindar took a sudden step forward. The monster flinched, and with that, Kindar knew he’d finally won. The wolf-like creature sagged slightly and whined in confused distress, while Kindar felt a surge of extra strength and speed filling his body. He darted forward, faster than ever before, but turned his sword at the last moment to strike instead at the right-most wolf. He caught the monster mid-lunge with its mouth wide open to bite him. Its jaws closed around the steel blade of his sword, and with a powerful burst of effort he sliced its neck and head open from the inside. He followed up with a seemingly casual chop that severed the head of the one he’d intimidated, and suddenly his opponents were down to just two. Those last two fell mere moments later, barely even able to fight with their morale broken and strength taken.

Kindar stayed alert, even with his last opponent slain, and even returned to his stance, sword and shield ready for more. You may have tricked me with a fake end to the spar before, but I won’t fall for that again. He looked around for new threats for several more seconds, making sure to also stay light on his feet in case of a surprise from below, until finally Major Ordens called out from the side of the sparring circle.

“Rest!” The junior royal guard walked up to Kindar and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good work. That was much better than yesterday.”

Kindar bowed. “My instructors gave good advice.”

Ordens nodded and pushed him to straighten. “On your new soul structures, or how to fight?”

“Both.” Kindar hesitated, then shook his head and sighed. “I saw no point in using a shield before because I had never been meaningfully hit through my armor by my sparring partners. I suspect now that they were holding back in order to flatter me and gain my favor.”

“Very likely.” Ordens held out a water bottle, and Kindar took it and drank deeply before handing it back. “That is something that everyone with power needs to be wary of, and with who your father is, you were born into power beyond what most commoners ever dream of.”

“Hmm.” Kindar settled heavily onto the ground. “My father… He seemed to dislike some of my friends, and I never understood why. Maybe this is the reason?”

Ordens shrugged. “Perhaps.” She turned and walked back out of the circle.

Before Ordens had even taken five steps, a blunted arrow suddenly flew out of nowhere and hit the side of Kindar’s neck. He yelped in surprise and cried out as he jumped to his feet. “What was that!?”

Ordens didn’t even turn to look as she answered over her shoulder. “Real enemies won’t give you warning and won’t wait for you to be ready. You need to learn to be ready to react and defend yourself at any time that an attack might come.”

The statement resonated with something deep within him, and Kindar realized after a moment that it was his soul structure for skill at swordsmanship, thrumming in agreement. Huh, that’s new. I made that soul structure long before I came here, but it’s never reacted that way before. It gave me an intuitive sense for how to properly execute the forms I learned, but this… It feels like it just recognized a whole new *principle and incorporated it. Is this an improvement of it for having stronger mana? I’m up to Level 22 now, and I’ll be 23 by nightfall. It’s absurd how fast I’m advancing, between the natural advantages of nobility, the strangely helpful dungeon, and the soul structures for making new soul structures and actively absorbing ambient mana without concentrati– Whoa!*

Kindar’s internal reflection was interrupted by another arrow flying at him. He spotted the hint of motion in the corner of his eye and dodged just barely in time. “Right. Point taken, Major Ordens.” He turned to look at where the arrow had come from and readied himself for another fight.

___

Late in the evening, two and a half days since they’d moved to their current campsite, Trinlen joined Carlos and Amber in their shared luxury tent. “What’s this about, Boss? Remembered your poor neglected teacher and want an extra late-night lesson to make up for it?”

Carlos laughed. “Don’t pretend you’re suffering here, Trinlen. And besides, we’ve been learning from you every day; Felton only gets half of our time.” He shook his head and smirked. “Actually, while I did call you here for a lesson, this time it’s for me to teach you. It occurred to me that I never got around to explaining my insights on your Find Path spell.”

“Oh? You had a rather poor opinion of it, as I recall. Have you made a functioning improvement of it?”

Carlos’s smirk grew into a wide grin. “Yup. Shall we start with a demonstration? I had Purple make a maze for us. The goal location to find a path to is 3000 feet due east of here.”

“Alright. I’m ready.” Trinlen gathered his mana and readied himself to trigger the spell, then arched an eyebrow at Carlos, who seemed to be just sitting back and relaxing. Carlos just waved a hand at him and kept grinning.

Finally, Amber shook her head and spoke up to break the impasse. “Honestly, it’s like watching a pair of boys trying to one-up each other. Go ahead and cast, Trinlen. Carlos is so confident in his version that he’s giving you a head start.”

Trinlen shrugged and, rather than casting the Find Path spell from scratch, activated an instance of it that he’d prepared in advance. The spell’s scanning focus sped out of the tent’s door flap and into the distance much faster than the last time he’d cast it, as expected with how many times more compressed and potent his mana was now. It quickly hit a barrier and started threading its way through Purple’s maze. Naturally, it hit a dead end fairly early, and Trinlen watched with his mana sense as it probed the bounds of the dead end and backtracked until it found another branch.

After a full minute, Carlos’s spell finally joined…

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