An Unbound Soul

The weeks dragged on and summer slipped to autumn. With all the level one spells to train, I swiftly managed to gain a class level and hence buy the weapon skill I wanted in the form of [Weapon Proficiency: Staff]. Time came for the harvest, and knowing that magic was involved in its delivery, I decided to come out to watch. The crops of each field had been gathered up beforehand, and then on collection day, a mage popped into existence in the middle of the village. That was teleportation, not any sort of warped movement, which meant this guy was at least rank three; rank two had no teleportation spells. That seemed logical; rank two also only had a cubic metre of storage, which wasn't sufficient for one field of harvest, never mind the whole village output. Actually, hadn't Henry said they used storage items? That would mean he was just here for teleportation? I didn't see anything that looked obviously like a storage item on him. It must be very small, or maybe he intended to take it elsewhere to store. Lots of questions.

Hugo, Human, Spatial High Mage (?/?)

Obviously far beyond my ability to appraise. Thus far, it had shown me the level of only the youngest adults of the village, even after levelling a couple of times. I could see all the kids. The cut off seemed to be my own level, or close to it. Presumably it was increasing as the level of [Appraisal] increased, but it can't have been by much.

Hugo noticed my interest and called over. "Not seen a decent mage before, kid? Not much talent out here in the sticks. You'll have to visit a proper city if you want to see some real magic."

Wow, rude. That was rather disparaging... So much so that I filed it away as evidence that those from outside Dawnhold weren't under the same brainwashing. Technically, he hadn't lied; talented mages tended to not live in little farming villages, although Kari could have been rank three by now had she not wanted to go for a complex affinity. And the language did have a word for 'rude'... I saw dad frowning, too. Well, I could knock him down a peg. I reached out and poked his nose, causing him a considerable amount of surprise given that I was standing five metres away. Yay for [Far Reach]; normally I only used it for grabbing the salt at the dinner table or completely wreaking games of tag. Then I turned, activated [Minor Dexterity] and [Minor Speed] and [Far Step]'d away as elegantly as I could manage. I wasn't going to stand around and idolise him if he had an attitude like that. I could hear my dad's laughter echoing off the houses as I left.

That meant I didn't find out exactly what he did, but meh. He wasn't the sort of person I wanted to learn from. Dad was still grinning when he returned. After calming down a bit, I'd realised how stupid I'd been, using skills I shouldn't own in front of a high level spatial mage that wasn't from Dawnhold and whose state of brainwashing was questionable. Luckily, he had apparently convinced himself we were pranking him, and that I hadn't actually done anything myself. He'd spent his whole time here looking around to spot his non-existent mystery mage.

Nothing else of interest happened in autumn, and soon winter came around. Outdoor temperatures dropped below zero, making me very glad of our heat crystals. Without work in the fields, Dad spent more time at home. I gained another level and splurged the resulting soul point on [Basic Carpentry] in the hopes of redeeming myself from my earlier failure. By the end of winter, I had a passable chess set. Not a good one, certainly, but at least [Appraisal] didn't mock me for it. Playing chess while waiting for the weather to warm gave us all a point of intelligence. Dad even got two.

Buying the combat and crafting skills were weird experiences. Spells seemed to add a sort of switch in my brain; push switch, activate spell. Appraisal type skills were the same. Others were more or less passive. [Mana Sense] and [Mana Control] were slightly different, adding a new sense and a new... limb? muscle? But [Weapon Proficiency: Staff] and [Basic Carpentry] both poured knowledge directly into my brain. I knew how to hold and move the knife to end up with the shape I wanted. I knew what separated good from bad wood. But there didn't seem to be anything magical there; it was stuff that I could have learnt without the System, given time, and possibly a little more talent than I possessed.

Yet I knew that the farming skills increased yields in a way that had nothing to do with pulling weeds and tending crops. Just having the skill while working the fields had an effect, even if two people did the same thing. If I made myself a staff at a high level, would it perform better than one made at a low level, even if they were identical? [Appraisal] just told me that everything I made was rank one, with no more detail. I wondered if combat skills had similar effects. If two people hit something with the same weapon and the same force, would someone with a higher combat skill do more damage, laws of physics be damned? In the interests of research, I carved a few sticks of wood and left them under my bed. Once my skill level was higher, I'd make some more the same for comparison.

Another oddity with [Basic Carpentry] was its scope. I would have considered carving a chess piece from a block of wood a very different ability compared to the cutting and joining required to put up a house, yet this one skill covered both. It covered any manipulation of wood, short of swinging it around to hit something, for which there were weapon proficiencies. It was the same as the way Mum's [Advanced Tailoring] covered both sewing and knitting, even though they were very different things. The amount of available skills would be insane if they weren't combined like that, but it gave the appearance that the skill set was there for convenience instead of being based on reality. That it was deliberate. It wasn't as if I believed that something like the System could occur naturally, so I suppose I should expect that sort of thing. I wonder how it originally came about?

ding

For your efforts to uncover the secrets of the world, [Researcher] awards 2 soul points.

Winter passed into spring, and it became warm enough to spend time outdoors. Which raised another question I'd somehow managed not to think about all winter; was Henry still making trips to Dawnhold? We had stockpiles of food here and the weather was never bad enough to prevent a run to the general store, but where did the general store restock from? Mum did stockpile thread beforehand, so maybe the village was cut off all winter? Seemed a bit risky if there was some sort of emergency.

In the middle of spring, there was an emergency. While I was out playing with the kids, a couple of women came running into the village from the direction of the forest, screaming about monsters. The villagers sprung into action with surprising proficiency, gathering kids into the tavern and sending runners to alert everyone out in the fields. It was all remarkably efficient, given the complete lack of danger or preparations I'd seen so far. I hadn't gained a single level in [Weapon Proficiency: Staff] since buying the skill, no matter how much I swung my stick around, but the fact I had a combat skill at all probably made me one of the strongest fighters in the village, so I ignored the people trying to herd us to the tavern and ducked into my house to grab my weapon. What were monsters doing here? Were they real, or had they mistaken a wild animal?

I joined a group of villagers standing beyond the edge of the village, a little way into the fields, who were wielding pitchforks and scythes. If monsters had been chasing the women and were about to attack the village, they were taking their sweet time over it; there was no sign of them from here. Which, of course, gave the men time to complain about the way an armed kid had shown up. While I was getting a bit old to refer to as a toddler, it wasn't by that much. Fortunately, before anyone could force me back home, we saw movement in the distance, which soon resolved into a pack of... big bouncy balls? They were all the same shade of pale translucent blue, looking like large water balloons from the way they squelched on the floor, and were bouncing very slowly towards us. It was kind of anticlimactic just how slow they were. If they were actually a threat, the entire village could have just casually walked away from them. No wonder the women had got so far ahead. I was getting a lot of glares, but I stood my ground regardless, gripping my staff tight, and hitting one of our enemies with [Appraisal], which thankfully had a far longer range than [Inspection].

Slime, level 1

While none of my spells were useful for direct attacks, that didn't mean I couldn't twist them to my own purposes. In particular [Far Reach]; with bare hands, I could poke an arrogant mage in the face, but with a staff... As the slimes approached me, they popped without anyone coming anywhere near them. That was even more anticlimactic than their speed; I barely had to hit them. A light tap was enough to cause them to splatter all over the landscape, which was fortunate because I couldn't hit too hard using this method; putting too much force behind a blow caused the spell to fail. With only a couple of dozen slimes, I had enough mana for all of them, but I didn't even need to go that far because the others were popping slimes with just as much ease as I was. The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

I peered around at the others. "They were monsters? Weren't they a little... underwhelming?"

The others looked equally confused, but before we could think too deeply into it, reinforcements started rushing in from the eastern fields. Among them were Dad and Camus. Dad waved, unsurprised to see me here, but Camus didn't look happy at all. Fortunately, he focused on the monsters before me.

"Slimes; the weakest monster that ever appears. We were fortunate there were no evolved forms or other monsters with them. A mana field must have opened up in the forest. Someone needs to rush to Dawnhold to inform them. They'll dispatch a team of delvers to deal with it. Once the field has been cleared of monsters, the area of increased mana will dissipate on its own. While they're on the way, we need to talk to whoever discovered it and find its exact location, and find out if they saw any other monster types, so that we can provide the Dawnhold team with the relevant information as soon as they arrive."

Wow, he was really taking charge here. I noticed a lot of the others looking surprised too, but no-one argued against his very sensible plan. Henry was soon dispatched to Dawnhold atop his horse, which would be somewhat faster than pulling the cart. It would take him less than an hour to get there, but we probably couldn't expect any professionals to arrive till tomorrow. Orders given, Camus turned towards me, so I butted in before he could complain.

"Don't say anything. I have a weapon proficiency skill and my magic. We're going to have to keep up a defence until reinforcements arrive from Dawnhold. I can help."

"You're a brat, barely out of your diapers. It's our job to protect the next generation. Get back to the tavern to shelter. If any monsters get past us, feel free to defend the other kids."

Hah, was that last bit supposed to placate me? As if. That wouldn't have worked even if he hadn't poked the hornets' nest by mentioning the d-word. I glared at him, expecting Dad to chime in, but surprisingly it was one of the old men from the village who had been fighting alongside me that spoke up first. I didn't even know his name. "Now now, we all know Peter is a bit special. He was killing the slimes faster than anyone. He doesn't need protection from the likes of us."

He knew my name, even though I didn't know his... That was a bit embarrassing. Should I know him? Had we ever spoken? Thank goodness for appraisal skills; now I never had to remember anyone's name again. Camus opened and shut his mouth a few times before Dad grabbed his shoulder. "Don't you worry about my kid. He can take care of himself."

One of Camus's ears drooped. Catkin emotions were supposed to be easy to read, but most of my experience had come from Cluma, whose emotions consisted largely of hyper and extra hyper. It wasn't really a representative sample. This one was an annoyed acceptance, perhaps?

"Fine. But if it gets dangerous, run!"

Dad nodded. "What he said. If you get yourself hurt, you're doing all the chores for three weeks."

I grinned. "Who are you supposed to be threatening there? You really want to eat my cooking for that long?"

"Okay... Not all the chores. Your mother can keep up the cooking. But you're doing everything else."

The random banter seemed to clear a lot of the suspense out of the air. Frankly, the reason I wanted to participate was entirely a selfish one; during that brief and easy encounter, my [Weapon Proficiency: Staff], which hadn't increased in the near half year since I obtained it, had levelled. I'd also levelled my class again. I dropped back a bit to meditate and recover my mana, checking my status, and perversely hoping for a second wave to attack.

Name: Peter

Species: Human

Class: Apprentice Mage (Level 6)

Soul Points: 3

Health: 13/13

Stamina: 9/13

Mana: 17.00/32.00

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 11

Endurance: 8

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 13

Charisma: 12

Skills: [Inspection 10] [Mana Sense 9] [Meditation 9] [Enlarged Mana Pool 6] [Mana Control 5] [Minor Strength 8] [Far Step 8] [Minor Speed 7] [Mana Finesse 5] [Privacy 2] [Appraisal 4] [Minor Dexterity 6] [Minor Endurance 5] [Minor Intelligence 5] [Minor Wisdom 6] [Minor Charisma 5] [Far Reach 6] [Minor Slow 4] [Weapon Proficiency: Staff 2] [Basic Carpentry 4]

Traits: [Abnormal Soul] [Early Bloomer] [Researcher] [Xenophilia]

Titles: [Jack of All Trades]