If you went to a game-type fantasy world and could take one skill back to Earth, what would you choose?
I wish there was a more concise way to phrase that question. I've asked it a couple times and always get some interesting answers.
This is inspired by all the "isekai" stories in anime and manga where a hero is summoned to help fight the demon king, along with the LitRPG genre. They use game-like interfaces to track stats and skills. Not just the typical combat ones like magic or weapons, but mundane skills like cooking, cleaning, walking, resting, drawing, lying, etc. Naturally, higher level skills tend to surpass basic physical limitations found on Earth. You could run faster than a train if your speed is high enough, or sculpt an exact replica of Michaelangelo's David in just a few days with a sculpting skill.
So imagine you got summoned to such a world and went through the whole "defeat the demon king" quest, and could choose one skill to take back to Earth. This includes anything from some specific magic ability like weather control and invisibility, to trained skills like archery and blacksmithing, to even basic stats like strength and stealth. Anything is fair game, but you can pick only one.
So, what skill would you choose and why?
It's a bit trite, but I would choose healing magic, up to and including resurrection, like any number of video game characters. The healing is general purpose and seems to fix everything, and if someone dies you can generally fix it.
Oooh yeah I also choose this guy's magic.
I was going to go with teleportation, which, I would be totally happy with: hurray low cost of living and access to remote private places and landlocked parcels, finally!
But no matter how much fun I am having, as soon as someone I know is sick, I'm going to regret not taking healing. Not for myself I've had fun travelling, but someone close to me.
Oh! Cheat!
I'll take Doraemon's gadget pocket please.
Now that aphoenix has said healing I realise I’ve chosen wrong, I would have gone with blink / teleport. Seems like it’d be useful in a lot of scanrios, but I live in an apartment building I can see from my train station 20 minutes away. The amount of times I’ve thought if I could just teleport…
Bag of holding/ item box/ never carrying things again. Depending on max size I could even fit my car in and not worry about parking. My choice might be heavily influenced by me moving 3,000 miles recently.
Clearly the right answer would be something like “healing all humanity”. But if we can put aside morality or necessity, the power I’d want the most is: the ability to grow plants really really quickly.
Imagine you could make a tree grow from a sapling to a giant mature old-growth giant in a matter of minutes. Or even days. Now imagine being able to do that to a whole forest!
That peach pit? It’s now a peach tree.
Bag of wildflower seeds? Instant meadow! Want a hedge? Stick some sticks in the ground and poof!
Using the DnD system, I would come back maxed out in dexterity - specifically sleight of hand.
It would be awesome to be able to casually take or place items on people or places without them noticing.
ha, you can if you practice a lot! But being able to just balance plates and do backflips out of nowhere would be really cool
Practice makes perfect... until you roll a 1.
Nice try Isekai author. I am keeping my money ideas to myself
I would choose to have a high luck stat. A lot of things are determined by luck - being in the right place at the right time and not being in the wrong place at the wrong time for example. With high luck, I could dodge a lot of issues in life.
Assuming that meta stuff like console access, character creation/modification, and the ability to pause the game are off the table, something like Magnificent Mansion would be nice to have. You get to just plop down your house wherever you go, never have to work about food, shelter or security, and you could rent out rooms for money.
Hmm maybe transmutation.
Equivalent exchange or no, big brother?
I was thinking about that but after watching full metal alchemist maybe equivalent exchange is a bit too much.
Hmm maybe decent exchange haha!
I'd want something like Final Fantasy's summoning abilities. They would be practically useless in daily life, unless you're planning to have Shiva function as the world's most overkill drinks cooler, but also it would be awesome to be able to summon a Bahamut at will. Plus, you would never have to worry about getting mugged or attacked ever again, because what the hell is some thug with a pocket knife going to do against your huge magic fire demon?
If we go based on say FFVII'S cinematics summoning time, I'd say you'd be well and truly stabbed before the summon gets to do anything haha.
It's fine; their ATB bar won't fill during that time
This is definitely cheating, but give me D&D's Wish spell. I'll just have whatever I want once per day.
Be sure to house-rule the last paragraph out:
I'd just take spellcasting generally. Mage Hand is like 75% of my spellcasting anyway, no point burning a 9th level spell slot on that.
Mind control or equivalent.
Coming back as an elf with level 20 Dungeons and Dragons monk abilities would be pretty sweet. You aren’t technically immortal but you might as well be. Don’t need to eat or drink. Perfect physical condition. Immune to all disease. Self healing.
It would be nice if you could glamour yourself to prevent people from seeing that you haven’t aged or that you are an elf though.