UFF: How I Got Friend Zoned In An Otome Game

Chapter 6

Twinkle.

The lights of all the millions of tiny machines flicker and flare to life, showing that the world around me is still there.

“This is okay, maybe it is just a rather long game. In fact, it kind of makes sense that the game would not let me out here as I have not even gotten to the love academy, at least not yet. Yes, this is it, my one true reason for not being able to reach a true save point and actually log out of this world.” I state to myself, trying to calm myself as I realize I am stuck in what is effectively a futuristic training lab for advanced martial magics. Or magics that are related to the ancient world. Which is odd as there are rooms here that provide for everything a person could need.

There are rooms for food, water, sleeping, but not with a paramour. That is the one thing about this place is that it is chastity central, not that I really have to worry about that scenario in life as I am just stuck here by myself.

Though I might be able to pass myself off as a foreign noble from one of the distant countries across the great oceans. A few of the paramours come from some of the kingdoms abroad so such a claim would be believable and also hard to believe simultaneously.

However, I do now have a last name, which should make me automatically considered to be royalty in some way.

That is an odd thing, does this mean that the system that all the joined kingdoms use is a watered down version of the infrastructure created by the Ancients? That or maybe some people were able to reverse engineer the processes that the Ancients had and repurpose them for the different kingdoms?

These are things that I might need to look into in the future. For now though, I need a bath, followed by new clothes.

Fortunately, this entire place is etched in my mind, as I go to first the cleansing showers and wash off. Then I am delighted to find that my clothes were replaced with the black micro threads of the Ancients. Basically now I have a sexy fat body suit to wear. I must admit that with a body suit sculpting my curves into place I do look sexy, well in that healthy and I know how to eat and have a meal after five pm kind of way.

With the shower and clothes done, I take a quick trip to the mess hall, eat. Then with all of my bodily functions taken care of, I do the next thing.

Namely I go to the training rooms and begin practicing.

Select Mode:

Then there are a bunch of modes that are all in the language of the ancients. Fortunately for me, I ran this countless times with my AI assistant, who was able to easily translate the language, particularly after being able to see and read every Ancient book, manuscript, pillar, tome, and training manual from every charted ruin.

Basically, my AI had all the languages, and then was able to teach me the components to look for so I could learn the language of the Ancients organically.

Yeah, I know. I barely passed French, the language of love, but I was able to learn a fake language from a love game. Shows what Ms. Kraft knew, French will be worthless here.

Then with that thought, I feel a slight shiver run down my spine as I get the thought that I have been trying to beat down all this time. The thought that maybe I won’t make it out. The thought that this might be my new permanent reality, a thought that both simultaneously fills me with excitement and fear.

I am in by far the coolest and most flushed out side-character’s avatar. In fact, if I had to choose, this is the life I would want to take over. Which is why I still think this is some DLC that I might have purchased, one that is for extreme gamers and lovers of the series. As this is both the toughest and simultaneously the easiest character to explore the world with.

The three magics I have, while not being the best, are all exceptional in their own ways. Yes, true dedicated healers are more powerful at healing. Dedicated combat specialists are better at casting supporting buffs on people. There are even war variants of Spatial magic that make my pacifist version Spatial magic look weak by comparison.

Even the Repair Magic of the Ancients seems to be a jumbled variation of other magics that really only serves to have an ultimate attack spell that is mostly unblockable and a highly effective area of effect stealth debuff spell that is the only way to stop rogues from going into stealth around you.

Of course, in the game the area stealth debuff spell Disruption Field, is a bit of a double-edged sword as it means any rogues you have in your group will also be impacted by entering the zone of this spell as well. This means that either you need to break off the rogue from the casters immediately and keep this spell cast on either an area, or on a moving target that is going away from the rogues in your party. Or you avoid adding any rogue characters to your party at all.

By getting rid of the Rogues’ main advantage, you effectively remove the need for both Prince Kalmous of the Norther Kingdom of Kalmont. While partially hindering the capabilities of Prince Tremont of The Southeastern kingdom of Atreon.

Then thinking about it, I realize that those are two princes that will never be interested in me or grouping with me, as such I don’t worry about those types of tactics. Or rather I don’t worry about limiting myself and my progress.

Instead, I focus on three main goals.

First, I need to use the practice chambers to practice my three different forms of magic. And yes, the practice chambers here are designed to allow everyone in your party to practice any kind of magic. So while it would normally make sense that I could only practice Arcane Repair here, I can also use this place to practice my Combat Support magics and my Spatial Magics.

Second, I can also practice any skills that I have unlocked. There are also a few ancient skill tomes here. Many of which are antiquated and cannot be learned if we have already learned comparable skills. This means that right now I am at my best place to learn the ancient skills that are here. As my current skill lists are the ones that managed to make it through the ages. Which is good, for if I find an Ancient skill book showing new or additional techniques here, I can use those as my limitation to get above the standard ‘C’ maximum ranking for any Skill, Attribute, or Magic Affinity.

Third, I will need to rework and repair the fast travel systems here that connect this bunker to all the minor nodes. Effectively setting up a one-way fast travel system. Basically I can use the fast travel system to teleport out of here, and would then either need to walk back here, or as would be more appropriate Teleport back here with my Spatial magic.

Fourth, I need to do all of this, practicing, unlocking, and then repairing the ancient travel networks within the next three months. The reason for this is because in three months, the love academy will open its doors and test out the magical capabilities of the new group of prospective students.

With that in mind, I focus my mind and make the choice that I need to improve on the most, right way.

You have chosen to improve Magic, is that correct?

I click on the same odd shapes and swirling loops that my mind now automatically associates with magic. At which point I feel the pressure inside the chamber changes to a slightly blue aura. This means that the air is being super saturated with mana, so that I can regenerate faster.

Exhaling, I mentally prepare myself for what will likely be one of the longest training montages of my life.

This time, I have a feeling that should I somehow fail in my training, or should I slip up just once, I will not wake up from this nightmare.

Who knows, maybe this is all part of the heightened realism of the virtual environment that I am in, though I am really beginning to doubt that. Particularly with how realistic this whole world feels.

That said, I don’t have time for this. I have been given the optimum chance to power level myself before entering the love academy and I do not intend to waste a second. Maybe it is for the best that I can’t log out as it would likely only grant me a few hours at most to max out my Attributes, Skills, and Affinities.

Now I have three months, along with plenty of time to find all of those ancient texts that were hinted at as having secret skills, but were either written in the Ancient tongue and therefore unable to be learned, or were able to eventually be deciphered, but only after you had the relevant but weaker modern variation of the skill already learned.

Thinking back on the main game play, it was Princess Claudia Von’Roseblade that was able to almost understand the language of the ancients naturally, which stemmed from her special Psychometry school of magic. The school of magic that made her crave to be an architect due to her ability to raid lost tombs and find hidden lores, magical items, and powerful artifacts that she would take back to her dying home country to either sell or use to make her lands more prosperous. With Karen, Claudia was seen as the modern sexy archaeologist.

At first the tombs of the ancients almost seemed to be an afterthought to the main story that was thrown in at the last moment, but every time you made it through the first playthrough, a return player would always cheat by going to the realm of the Ancients first and getting the ancient artifacts and tech to help out as early on in the academy timeline as possible.

Now, I could effectively cheat by coming in with the main purpose of these facilities completed already.

See the Academy was great at finding specializations. Once you reached the ‘C’ ranking in any Attribute, Skill, or Affinity you were set to the crossroads, where you were given a choice to focus on one particular aspect and focus on becoming an expert at that particular aspect.

For Magical Affinities, you could focus on a myriad of things, from faster casting times, to being more powerful with your particular affinity type, to casting from further distances, and so on. Skills and Attributes were similar in that you got to also choose a focus, but often those focuses were very limited in scope, unless you found an ancient tome or trainer who could teach you a different way to progress.

The primary purpose of this training section was to help get your everything to a ‘C’ ranking that wasn’t already in a controlled environment where you had ample supplies. Your food, water, shelter, and hygiene were all taken care of with these facilities so all you needed to do was practice.

In the game you could level up in one of two ways, you could either auto level, but just entering the area and walking away. Only to come back a week later and have one Skill, Attribute, or Affinity raised to the ‘C’ ranking. Or you could practice the Skills, Ability, or Affinities yourself and work on improving not just one but three or more components at once.

Seeing as I had nothing else to do, and that I knew most of the common skills that would be unlocked through sheer repetition and perseverance, I decided to do it the hard way.

Walking into the testing facility, I cast all my physical enhancement spells that I could, along with my Regeneration spell. Then calming myself, I brought up an initial training session, where the training cell would generate monsters that would actually provide half the regular experience as the real monsters. The only difference being that, once I killed these monsters, nothing would drop as everything would be reabsorbed back into the training environment. Though I could theoretically kill the monsters here indefinitely, which would generate experience that would be used to slowly improve my Skills, Attributes, or Affinities.

“Fun times,” I say as I see the shape of the first monsters coming.

Goblin Runt (Lesser).

Seeing the solidifying form of a Goblin Runt forming in front of me, I pause. Making sure to wait for the creature to fully manifest, then I release my Bolt.

There is a crackle and a hiss as the system seems to register my speed, effectiveness with the ancient form of magic, and my precision with casting.

Then it proceeds to escalate.

Goblin Runt (Lesser).

Goblin Runt (Lesser).

This time two monsters are created and forming in the violent mana mists.

Seeing the two, I begin to move around slowly until both goblin runts are in a straight line with each other. With them lined up, I focus my will, and then shouting the spell to life, I fire off an empowered shot. BOLT!

Fwish!

The spell cuts through the air crashing into and then through the first mana-goblin’s head before flying out to the next one.

Tingle.

I feel the training ground that I am in register my accomplishment for both empowering my spell and killing two monsters with one spell, a massive feat. But of course I don’t see anything. I could of course leave here and see if there are any updates, or see if I have somehow unlocked any further achievements, but I opt not to.

I know that once I leave here, the chamber will need time to regenerate, which equates to roughly a day in game. At least that was how it was before. Most people used this forced down time to read, and sleep. At least that was the original plan, though most people ended up using the eight hours that they were away in real life working their jobs to auto train here. I didn’t do that, though for the life of me, I can’t really remember why I didn’t. Or maybe I did, but only in the beginning. I do know that as time went on and hours became important, I stopped auto forwarding and skipping times to the next cut scene, and instead began using the time in between scenes to build myself up to be as powerful as possible.

Even with everything maxed out, there were always problems as you would be queen of a country. You had to both be able to give out guidance to the populace, while leading the troops effectively from the front lines, before going back to have a dinner ball with your paramours as you finished up the final stages of your romances.

Honestly, the whole thing was tiring, but so worth it just for the skills, and magic alone.

The magic is what is drawing me here now, as I can feel the magic. Everything about this chamber makes me feel alive, as the skin on the back of my neck is tingling, as if I just drank one of those hyper-energy drinks that signify I am either a trucker pulling an all nightery, or needing to cram for a hard final exam. Yet, despite this tingling sensation, I feel the world coming alive for me.

In the game, the Karen, well the real Karen said she felt something while entering the chamber to practice for the first time as well.

Oh yeah, that was the other thing that was hard, is that generally when you came, you had to rotate your people through, as only one person could go into one training room and each training room could only focus on one component: a Skill, Attribute, or Affinity. Then once the training session for the day was over, you were done. Meaning that with a typical party of five, you would always have two that didn’t get a chance to practice that day. Additionally, it often meant that two of the people of the team would continually be left behind as most people tended to focus on the big three. That is Claudia, Prince Priam, and Prince Galvis the two main leads and paramours that were the easiest to build up a permanent relationship with. They were also the first two who would be willing to “share” Claudia’s love. While they weren’t enough to get the harem achievement, they were always the cornerstone characters that you could use to build up your reputation with the others.

Again, not that any of this mattered to me, as I understood that this was my chance to avoid all of those annoying plots and cliched sub-plots and focus on exploring the world as an enigmatic magical tomb exploring hermit. At least that is what Karen often said she would do, if she was given a chance to go back and not be bound to Princess Claudia. This was of course what she said on her death bed, after being impaled for inciting a riot in one of the playthroughs where Claudia treated Karen terribly.

Having that thought, I shake my head as I felt either a death echo of that horrible want, or a past life cutscene playing in my mind. Either way, I felt the raw emotions of that Karen and realized that this was my chance to give her the life she wanted. And if I am being completely honest with myself, this is the ending that I always wanted for Karen as well.

Still, there are many steps needed to be taken before I can get there.

Goblin Grunt.

Seeing the new more powerful monster beginning to appear in the mist, I quickly shake my head of the foreign thoughts of an alternate Karen and once again focus on my task at hand. Namely, taking advantage of every second I have been given to improve myself.

So that’s just what I do.

BOLT!

I cast another overpowered and directed strike at this monster. Then watch as the monster’s head once again explodes in spectacular fashion.

With that, I realize I still have a long way to go before I will be fully tested, but when I do get there, I plan to be ready.