Chapter 104: Chapter 103 : Anime

“Super cool right,” Ralf said with a cheeky smile as made his return to the booth.

“Super super cool,” Genise answered, her voice practically jumping from her throat.

“Yeah, it was amazing, great showing boy.” Greg followed up as he flashed a big thumbs-up Ralf’s way.

“I’ll never forget this day for the rest of my life.” Jeff’s eyes beamed with a fanatical light, eyes slightly watery.

“Magnificent,” Samuel nodded.

On each face, sparkling eyes could be seen staring back at him. The sight spiked Ralf’s dopamine production, especially when capturing one particular pair.

And speaking of Hana, instead of words, she spoke through actions - or rather, the sheer amount of pride and joy overloading her being disabled her speech. She swooped in at undodgeable speeds and swept him up in a great hug.

In her embrace, Ralf went from fearsome fighter to teddy bear in an instant. Wigged about, his feet dangled off the ground in a comical fashion. Those watching had their hearts warm and their faces tugged up.

*Tap*

Physical strength giving way, Hana ceased her wiggling and lowered Ralf to the floor before pulling back.

“You were amazing out there, Ralf,” she said with a face of pure admiration and love.

Ralf smiled. His hand moved to her head where he gently patted.“Glad you liked it,” he then turned to the others, “and you guys too.”

“Ahaha, we definitely did.”

Joan followed up Greg’s affirmation, saying, “And our bank accounts did too. We won big tonight thanks to you kid.” At her words, the others were reminded of the matter of the bets. Samuel didn’t show any reaction to it, but Hana, Genise and Jeff completely blanked.

The payout was ten to one, and they had gone big big, putting full faith in Ralf’s victory. And true to their expectations/hopes, he had won. When they finished the simple calculation to know what awaited them, their eyes became unfocused and they fell into a daze. The amounts were simply absurd.

Greg, Samuel, Joan and Ralf watched the trio with amused looks.

“Hey, let’s celebrate the victory.”

Greg’s suggestion was taken to and the group made their exit. Leaving the Combat Arena, they headed to Samuel’s manor where Ralf was made to field their burning questions.

Ralf did the usual, tossing crumbs their way, keeping them from starving while keeping them hungry.

Two hours of celebrating later, Ralf called it a night, and he and Hana made the short trip over to their new home.

Rei joined them and the trio bonded in front of the fireplace, chatting about the day’s events. Thirty minutes later, a yawn from Hana marked the end of the session. Delivering a goodnight hug to her boys, she made her exit.

Brimming with heat in the aftermath, the duo headed to their room. After getting comfortable, they shifted to the Mental Space.

Arriving on the other side, Ralf’s heart bubbled over with excitement. He had been anticipating seeing what his other self would produce since Rei parted at the cinema. Rei never failed to disappoint, and looking at the day counter above and noting that it had increased by a value of twenty-seven, his expectations rose greatly.

“Well?”

Rei smirked at the question. “Follow me and find out.” Saying, he transformed into a black light and flashed away.

Ralf did the same, and in but a moment, the two were in the Mental Space’s cinema, side by side.

Materialising snacks and drinks, Rei pointed to the large screen and snapped his fingers.

*Flicker.*

The black screen lit up and so did Ralf’s eyes as familiar images crossed his vision.

***

Anime.

Needless to say, Rei (and by extension Ralf) was a big fan of the medium. Its flashy and colourful visuals, creative and unorthodox storytelling methods…he loved it all.

It was love at first sight. Upon seeing it for the first time, he was instantly hooked. It was something new, different and exciting. What kept him on the hook was the sheer abundance of compelling and fantastical stories the medium had to offer.

To date, he had watched hundreds upon hundreds of anime, with a few dozen of them being consumed many times over. It was the hobby he had easily dedicated the most amount of time to.

Though, a hobby wasn’t all it was.

To Rei, it was a respite from life, a place he could escape to. At the orphanage, at his various foster families, it was the one thing he always looked forward to. For twenty minutes at a time, he could forget.…his past, his present, his future, and simply enjoy what was on screen.

As for what he watched, Rei had a strong inclination for stories involving magical and fantastical elements, and luckily for him, much of the medium was dedicated to these types of stories.

His gluttonous consumption of the medium was a tale of two sides. It could be likened to a block being both pushed and pulled in the same direction. One on hand, he genuinely liked the elements present in anime. It just appealed to him as a person. On the other, things that were too ‘real’ put him off.

For instance, live-action works, which dealt with the same elements and were just as visually stunning were things Rei found much harder to consume. Most of the time, he just avoided them outright. He would give them a chance every now and then, but after being hit with a familiar discomfort, he’d quickly call it quits and just watch a review of it.

The sight of real people, real issues, and reality as he knew it; all these things put him off - no, that was putting it lightly, in truth, he was repulsed by it all...at least, this was the case back in his previous world.

His stint at Enviso earlier had provoked no such emotion, well except the horse stable scene…that was some foal shit.

Back on topic: anime.

Rei was very familiar with the medium, not just on the consumer side either. He was one greatly driven by his passions. And with anime being his biggest, naturally, the idea to try his hand at making one himself entered his head.

He was already very good at drawing anime characters, something that was very useful in elementary school. Drawing anime characters for a few coins on the playground was more profitable than one would think. It had saved him many would-be beatings.

With the idea had, Rei immediately dove into the process of making an anime. He dove into it seriously. Fueled by passion, he dedicated an enormous amount of time and effort to learning and mastering the craft. He was like a black hole, absorbing everything there was to learn. At the same time, his prodigious mind made sure all of it was retained and understood.

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Studying, practising and producing; his ungodly talents allowed him to quickly master the various steps. And a year later, his technical skill had reached a level comparable to top animators. Not just 2D either, but all kinds. He could produce animations on equal footing to those shown in the best studios’ works.

After satisfying himself with individual scenes and shorts for a time, Rei sought to make an actual anime. And so, he did.

An Endless Feud: The Black King and White King.

This was what his anime was called. It was a chess-themed short film, written and produced by Rei alone, obviously.

It was a very strange work, to both the audience and Rei. It wasn’t his style, and yet he was compelled to create it. The film’s plot and imagery were those that often visited him when he closed his eyes. It had come in scattered bits and pieces. He had long wanted to organise it into one coherent string, so when the topic of what to animate came up, he decided to go for it.

The finished product wowed. As abstract and confusing as it was, the silent black, white and silver film had been very well received. The highly stylized world and designs, striking and thought-provoking imagery and stellar animation from start to finish had left all who watched it spellbound.

The work had propelled Rei’s already staggering popularity to new heights, and enlightened the masses to his artistic side. Being introduced to it, they wanted more and clamoured loudly to that end.

But Rei delivered no more. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to - rather, he wished he could animate an epic story spanning dozens, even hundreds of episodes. The passion was there, but the process was just too much for him to do on his own.

Even with no sound and limited colours, the film had taken Rei seventeen months to complete while juggling his other hobbies and work. Creating a full anime just wasn’t a one-person job. Rei had run into the same problem he had during video game creation. No matter how talented or hardworking, some things just couldn’t be done alone, at least not in a short time frame.

But this fact was only true in his old world. For, while Rei had transmigrated over, this fact didn’t. The existence of the Mental Space had changed everything.

The possibilities of the Mental Space were only limited to one’s imagination, creativity and intelligence. Rei, who had all three in abundance, thrived in a way he couldn’t back in his old world.

In it, the many inconveniences of the physical body were absent. Never feeling hunger, sleepiness or fatigue, he was pretty much always running at hundred percent. It was a great feeling that allowed him to fully apply himself in whatever he was doing. And with its time dilatation feature, he could spend long spans on any given task.

With the dream-like nature of the Mental Space, the process of creation was sped up drastically. With mere thoughts, the complex and detailed thoughts in his mind could be manifested in a flash. The ease of this process allowed him to rapidly construct the virtual space and its intricacies, and more recently…anime.

Instead of moving from images to video, Rei did the opposite. Using his imagination and impeccable memories, he visualised it as a video. It wouldn’t produce a crystal clear image. So, using it as a reference, he split it into frames and then went one by one, making adjustments and polishing up the images where needed.

At this step, he again used the power of his imagination. He didn’t bite off more than he could chew. Focusing on sections of the page at a time, he used what could be called thoughtography to draw and correct where needed, and occasionally did it the old fashion way.

Rei let his creative nature explode. For one scene, he quickly built a three-dimensional cityscape, added rain and thunder and had avatars enact the sequence of motions he desired. He recorded it in video format, flattened it and then used it as a reference. This was only one of the many tools he had created to aid production.

The visual aspect was accounted for, but what about the audio aspect?

The answer: the same.

Just as visuals could be, things like voices, sound effects and songs, could also be conjured up by imagination and memories. Again, it needed polishing up and adjustment, but it could be done and done well. Rei though didn’t need to rely entirely on this.

The Zero System already had a large database of sounds, that things like the virtual spaces and dungeons made use of. Things like gunshots, explosions, coins hitting the ground, running water...pretty much every sound one could imagine.

Importantly, while these sounds were initially created using their imagination and memories, most of the sounds that were currently stored in the Zero System’s database were copies taken from snippets of the Record of Everything’s archive.

The Record of Everything (Outside) was one continuous video depicting the entirety of the duo’s experiences in the outside world. When they were in the forest, flying through the sky, in battle, walking on the streets, in front of the fireplace, in the bath...

By now, they had recorded a lot of data. By going through it, and clipping at the right places, the duo was able to get more accurate sounds. Incorporating these sounds into the virtual spaces added to the realism factor.

When the matter of anime swung around, Rei dove into this archive again. This time, instead of chunks, he went smaller. He took sound segments and divided them into individual phonemes, which he then arranged and rearranged in whichever way he pleased.

It was through this process that Rei managed to weave together a few original voices and songs.

With both the visual and audio accounted for, the only thing left to do was decide what he would create.

The first thing Rei created - or rather recreated was his film. Not only was it the clearest thing in his memory, but with it being silent and so limited in colour, it was very easy to do. Besides this, he had been recreating short clips of anime scenes, using his memory of them.

They weren’t one to one, but that was only because of the changes Rei decided to make. The sheer number of times he watched those scenes was enough for even a person with average memory to be able to recall everything perfectly, let alone someone of his mental capabilities.

Dusting off the rust with these creations, Rei was ready to tackle something bigger.

As the final animation ended, Ralf moved to ask what this ‘something bigger’ was.

“Decided on what you’re going with? An Endless Feud?”

“Definitely not,” Rei said decisively as he shook his head. “The first work should introduce and highlight the strengths and wonders of the medium. Colourless, confusing and silent, An Endless Feud is the worst to start with. I’ll show that sometime down the road though.”

Rei thrust his hand out at the empty space before him. A flash of shadowy darkness later, the book he desired was teleported into his palm. Once clasped, he waved it Ralf’s way and said, “Instead, I’m doing this, and the rest of the trilogy.”

Ralf’s eyes lit up. “The Dragon Prince series, an excellent choice. It’s mom’s favourite.”

Rei nodded. “Yeah, then afterwards, I’ll do the rest of the author’s work, and from there...I’ll just adapt everything on mom’s bookshelf, and if she has a suggestion, I’ll do that too.”

Ralf beamed at his other self’s intention. “Marvellous, we’ll be practically farming hugs at that point.”

“That’s the plan. Though,” Rei flicked the book which caused it to disintegrate into black particles that quickly faded out of existence, “first, I have to find out if I can…legally speaking. I saw several adaptions of it, and it’s a very old property so I’m sure I can, but I’ll have to double-check just in case.”

“There’s no book on that here?”

“Nope, our library has no such book. We’ll have to visit Popleigh’s...” At the suggestion, Ralf’s face started to pale. “...or maybe, we could go to the cinema and ask them directly.”

“The latter! I’ll do it tomorrow,” Ralf said, voice hurrying out of his throat.

“Sure, we can do that then. Now,” Rei dismissed the items around him and stood up before turning to Ralf, “it’s been a while since when we went at it, let’s go. Silver can’t rust, not now or ever.”

Ralf’s lips curled up then nodded. “Sure.”

Leaving the theatre, the two entered a long string of duels.

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