Authors note:
From now on the chapters will get progressively longer, hope you don't mind :P
Speaking: "…."
Thinking: '…..'
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Asahi pov
Tokyo Asahis villa
Well boys, it's time. I can finally accompany you to Aincrad, and you know what, Izuku? Your mother can also come with us until tomorrow evening when we leave," the phoenix man stated, looking excitedly at the young, green-haired boy. Besides, I need to test something, if Izuku's quirk can really give people aura, he thought quietly.
"Well then, I hope you're prepared because first, you'll go through an avatar creation process," the green-eyed boy warned them before placing a hand on both their shoulders and feeling another hand on his back.
"See ya later! I'll be waiting in the Town of Beginnings at the world clock, you bunch of noobs. Link start!" the other boy said, vanishing afterwards with an excited grin on his face.
"He always has to be first. Haaa... well, we shouldn't keep him waiting. Link start," the remaining boy quietly stated before the three people vanished from this world.
Opening his eyes, Asahi found himself floating in a vast white void with no clear floor or ceiling. Looking around, he suddenly heard a female voice echoing through the void.
"[Touch: OK]
[Smell: OK]
[Sight: OK]
[Taste: OK]
[Hearing: OK]"
‚Interesting' he thought before continuing to listen to the voice.
"Hello, adventurer. You have now entered the world of Sword Art Online, a world of sword and sorcery where your wildest dreams will come true, and desires become reality. Now, please enter your avatar's name."
After the voice finished, a blank screen with a keyboard beneath it appeared in front of him. „A name? He did mention this, but there's no need to change my name, so Asahi will have to do", the mostly white-haired man thought while typing his first name into the blank space using the keyboard and locking it in.
Then, a three-dimensional image of himself appeared, explaining that he could change how his body looked. ‚I've been waiting for this! This might be my only chance to experience what it would be like to have a long beard since my aura makes it impossible for me to grow a significantly long one',Asahi thought excitedly while changing his avatar, giving his regular appearance a long white beard and mustache before locking it in and hearing another voice.
"Player has confirmed all necessary changes and settings. Transfer to Aincrad will commence now."
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Opening his eyes, he found himself looking at a medieval town square. Bringing his gaze down, he saw it, his beard, his glorious long beard. Wasting no time, he began stroking it like an old man deep in thought.
‚How I've yearned for this', the phoenix man thought before being interrupted by a message explaining the details of the world, which he already knew. But someone else caught his attention, it was Inko, completely unchanged, standing there looking at him with a light smile.
"Seems you took advantage of the avatar customization, Asahi," she asked teasingly, walking toward him.
"Well, my quirk makes it impossible for me to grow a beard longer than a few centimeters since I get reborn before it reaches that point. So I thought I might as well try it now," he said, stroking his beard slowly while thinking ‚I'm sensing faint traces of aura in her. So everyone who comes here really does get access to aura, but it seems the world doesn't tell you that. The boys most likely don't know what they even possess'.
"What did Katsuki say? We'll meet at the world clock?" Inko asked the man.
After questioning a local, both adults were directed toward the clock where two familiar-looking boys were waiting.
"So, I wanted to ask, why did we meet out here and not at the place we came in?" Asahi asked, stroking his new beard.
"Well, in this town, everyone knows about this place since it's been here since the beginning of time. So we knew that by asking around, you'd quickly find us. And the teleport point is right there, around the corner, so it was convenient for us," answered Izuku, pointing toward a pattern inscribed on top of a knee-high pedestal.
After everything was sorted out, and Katsuki refused to explain why his hair was silver, they started exploring Floor One, with the boys showing them all the best places. Eventually, they stopped four hours later at a cliff at sunset.
"Wow, I never thought I'd be able to see such a sight again," Asahi stated, looking into the distance with his hand outstretched before him.
"You've seen such a sight before, Sensei? Would you tell me where?" the green-haired teen questioned the bearded man.
"Of course, it's no secret. When I was young, about fifty or so years ago, my parents and I lived on a farm on the outskirts of Japan, with no city in sight. This view is bringing back so many memories," the phoenix man explained calmly, stroking his new beard, which had already become one of his favorite activities.
"But I do wonder what the future holds for us," he quietly questioned the sky before him.
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Izuku's Journal
2nd Entry
Wow, I can't believe it's already been four years since I last wrote in this book, but I guess I've been pretty busy over the last few years. So, let's fill in the gaps.
Regarding Aincrad, Kacchan and I have made a lot of progress. We've had many adventures and have recently reached the 35th floor, and are now in the process of finding the boss room. Our avatars have also continued aging and now resemble the physiology of twenty-year-old men.
Uncle Asahi and Mom have started climbing the floors in their free time as well, though they don't have much time to spare, so they're only on the 15th floor right now.
Kacchan and I awakened some kind of power when we fought Nexus and the clock guy. We've started experimenting with it and found out that we can use it both inside and outside of Aincrad.
We're calling it "Aincrad energy," and we can use it in a couple of ways. The first is to strengthen our bodies and enhance the durability and destructive capabilities of our attacks by pouring the energy into whatever medium we're using to attack.
Both of us also have unique abilities by infusing a different-colored Aincrad energy into something. For example, Kacchan's normal energy is blue, but he also has a blue and silver form he can use to freeze time on the objects it touches. My normal energy is green, and my alternative form is green and black, which I can use to telekinetically move any object it touches.
I was also able to form some sort of dragon out of the normal energy, but I haven't been able to use it since the fight with Nexus, so that part is still a blank.
Anyway, I also learned a lot about my new eyes after what Nexus said in our fight. I found out their name is "Void Veil," and they change the appearance of my eyes to black sclera with white irises. As far as I can tell, they have two abilities. One, they make me emotionless, allowing me to focus better on the task at hand. Second, they can be used to gradually learn and predict quirks of other people. The more I observe them, the better my precognition becomes, and I gain more detailed information about their quirk. It's like a dream for me, it's so useful for focusing on studying and learning about quirks. I can't use it in Aincrad, though. I got the same message Kacchan and the others did, saying that the software known as "Quirk" was temporarily disabled. So far, I've only told Kacchan about this ability because my mom was getting really nervous and protective about it, and I didn't want to worry her more.
Something else it probably can do, though I'm not entirely sure, is allow me brief glimpses into the future whenever I'm unconscious. I suddenly know a little about what I need to do to get there. I'm not sure if it's connected to the Void Veil since it happens even when it's turned off, but it started when I first discovered the Void Veil. Most of the time, it's something minor, and it happens irregularly with no particular pattern. But one thing I've seen in nearly all the visions is a white-haired girl who appears to be my girlfriend, though I still haven't heard her name or seen her face. It's still a mystery. However, one vision did help me prevent a villain attack where my mother would have been seriously hurt. I used the knowledge I gained to stop her from going there.
But enough about powers. About two and a half years ago, Kacchan and I also defeated the Floor 20 boss and finally gained access to the Sacred Arts, or magic, for simplicity.
We also got a message saying that, for everyone besides me, magic can't be used outside of Aincrad. Instead, whenever the System Control Authority goes up, it strengthens their quirk. Kacchan had already been able to use his explosions somewhat in combination with his Aincrad energy, but now he doesn't even need it. He can effectively blow up a small house if he wants, even without reinforcing it.
In Aincrad and outside of it (for me), we can use incantations to cast various spells, and as we level up, the effectiveness of these spells increases. We spent about a year on the 21st floor learning all we could about the Sacred Arts. Over time, we've even been able to use some spells without incantations.
We also discovered something else, the fact that only within Aincrad can we use our imagination to shape the world a bit. For instance, we can use spells without incantation by imagining the result, or use an imaginary hand to bring items back to our real hand. We call that one "Incarnate Arm." But it only works if we truly believe it's happening. If we doubt that our hand is there picking something up that's out of reach, it doesn't work. It's like when you realize you're dreaming and turn it into a lucid dream, using your willpower and belief to influence the world. We call this principle "Incarnation," and both of us know that it has a lot of potential. We just need to complete our analysis
But I'm getting off track. We then quickly reached the 25th floor and found out something else: the 25th, 50th, and 75th floors are special and don't have a dungeon or a boss. Instead, they have a different condition to advance.
The 25th floor was called the Familiar Fields, and both Kaachan and I got an egg that we were supposed to take care of. Depending on how we treated it, we would get a different familiar, which is a magical beast, and advance to the next floor. After two months of babysitting, my egg finally hatched, and to my surprise, it was a little black, purple, and golden jackal baby. It kind of reminded me of the Egyptian god of the dead, so I called him Anubis and made a contract with him. I got a golden mark on my left shoulder that looks like the Egyptian symbol, the ankh, so I guess the name fits.
Kaachan's egg hatched two days later, and out came a little black tiger baby with red stripes. Since she was female, he called her Shira and formed a contract, getting black tiger stripes all over his right arm and right chest. And yes, these markings do appear outside of Aincrad, so both of us basically have tattoos now. As you can guess, both of our parents freaked out, but we sort of can't remove them, so it doesn't matter.
The familiars have four stages of evolution: baby, teen, adult, and humanoid, which can be reached by leveling them up. Currently, both of ours are at the teen level, but they can still revert back to the baby form for convenience.
Each familiar has different abilities. While Anubis is able to resurrect small fry enemies as black skeletons with purple smoke coming off them and command them to fight for us, Shira can place illusions on enemies and influence their minds. Both are very useful abilities and have made floor bosses that much easier. As a bonus, we can summon them outside of Aincrad, and our parents were so enamored that they briefly forgot about our marks.
We both are now at Object Control Authority Level 70, and it hasn't really changed since then, it's stopped leveling up. But gear-wise, we rarely find level 30 gear anymore, and it's not even that bad. It's a bit above the level of the boss monsters we currently face, so I'm interested to know why that is, since we've never found or even seen anything above level 30. Even after asking blacksmiths, they couldn't give us an answer or upgrade our gear past that point.
Regarding our housing situation, we still live on the 5th floor in the Treehouse Village's royal treehouse, since it is by far the best house we could have right now, and we live there for free. There is a separate teleport point inside it, so it doesn't matter which floor we need to go to. Oh, and I nearly forgot, but Kaachan and Kurenai have been getting along better recently. I think, even though he's denying it, he definitely has something for her since he didn't outright reject her proposal to get engaged instead he simply shrugs it off.
As for the outside world, we passed the high school level test pretty easily and are now starting to study under Asahi in the field of quirk science and quirk medicine, where my sacred healing arts are rather handy to have. It'll take some time, but eventually, we'll be able to reach doctor level in this field. Asahi told us he's never seen two students with our level of talent and knowledge, and he initially thought it would take us much longer to reach this level.
Well, that's about it, I think. We haven't had any more criminal encounters, or at least no major ones. A little robber or some minor thug did cross our path, and we did stop them, or let's say two random animals stopped them.
So I'm pumped for the future. In another week, we'll probably have the 35th floor finished, so I hope it only gets more interesting from then on.