Chương 12: Behing The Well

He had made his decision the night after the pond. It hadn't come quickly. He had turned it over for hours in the dark, the way he used to approach problems with no clean answer. If it had been possible, Arien would have undone many of the choices he had made in his previous life. He had always chosen the careful path. Safe university. Safe career. Safe rot. He knew exactly where careful led.

When he finally reached for the System that night, it opened beneath his attention like a door that had always been unlocked. He didn't hesitate. He put two Free Points into Perception, two into Intellect, and assigned Mana Sense. He just hadn't expected the choice to feel, at first, like staring at a wall. Mana was everywhere. For weeks after assigning the skill, he understood almost nothing. He could see further into it now. That much was true.

The rivers and eddies he had learned to recognize moved with a clarity that still sometimes stopped him mid-thought. On bright days, the currents caught his attention so completely that he sometimes stopped whatever he was doing just to watch them. But looking wasn't the same as touching. He tried everything he could think of. Holding his breath. Relaxing completely. Focusing until his eyes watered.

He sat beside the water bucket, trying to touch mana for so long one afternoon that Sari asked, with genuine concern, whether he was constipated. The breakthrough began, unexpectedly, over dinner a few weeks later. By then, summer had arrived, bringing with it the busiest part of the year. Terry, Wod, and Zed spent their days in the fields, sometimes helped by Mari or one of the older sisters.

Dod, meanwhile, had begun an apprenticeship under a hunter in a nearby village and returned home only every few weeks, occasionally with meat. That evening, he had brought a deer.

"Lisa, pass me another piece."

"Zed, you've already devoured three. Leave something for the rest."

"If you worked a bit in the fields, then you'd know that…"

"Ahem!" The siblings' quarrel was interrupted by a single cough from Terry. Mari took the platter of hot meat, glossy with fat and smelling heavenly, and divided the rest for everyone according to her own judgment.

"Dod, how is your discovery of Skills going?"

"Good, Father. Master Yrtek says everything is progressing at a normal pace. Recently, I managed to assign Sharpened Sense," said the young man with barely concealed pride in his voice.

"Is that some version of Keen Eye?"

"Yes, it's an uncommon version. Thanks to it, I managed to hunt the deer you're eating."

"Very good. Very good," murmured Terry, nodding his head.

"And what exactly does that skill give?" Zed asked, a glint in his eyes.

"Various things." Dod straightened a little, pride creeping into his voice.

"For one, I notice an opening before I consciously realize it's there. Sometimes my hands are already moving by the time I understand why."

"So you can shoot in your sleep now?" Zed asked. Dod gave him a flat look.

"Stand still long enough and we can find out." Wod snorted.

"Sounds like Archery with a better opinion of itself."

"No." Dod frowned, searching for words.

"Archery is still aiming. This happens before that. Like when we threw stones at ice on the creek, remember? After a while, your hand just knew." Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Zed opened his mouth.

"It isn't guessing," Dod added.

"My hands know before I do."

"I don't understand," muttered Zed.

"Arien, what are you—hey, leave the meat, you little brat!" Arien was no longer listening. Before I think. The phrase caught on something in Arien's mind. Dod wasn't talking about strength or aim. He was talking about noticing something before conscious thought had time to pick it apart. Arien had been doing almost the opposite. Mana Sense was a sense, yet for weeks he had treated it like a hand. Every attempt began with the same command: move there.

He picked a current, pushed at it, and became frustrated when nothing happened. Maybe he was trying to force the answer before he had learned how the mana wanted to move. Arien bolted outside and hid in his favorite spot behind the stone-lined well. By the time he got there, only a thoroughly gnawed bone remained in his hand. He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward. The mana inside him was already familiar.

Hundreds of thin, ordered streams ran through his body, distinct from the currents filling the world outside. This time, he didn't immediately try to move them. He chose one of the streams running through his forearm and simply followed it, paying attention to its pace and the path it naturally took. Only then did he try to nudge it slightly aside. The stream resisted. Arien let it settle back into its usual course and watched again. When he tried a second time, he used barely any force. It shifted. Barely.

Only for a heartbeat. But it shifted. He opened his eyes. His muscles ached from sitting motionless for so long, but a ridiculous grin was already spreading across his face when something familiar stirred at the edge of his awareness. With trembling anticipation, he opened his Status. New skill available to assign: Mana Manipulation (rare), lvl 1 (+1) – Mana follows patterns, but those patterns can be changed. Allows you to influence the movement of mana.

When assigned, increases the amount of mana you can affect and the precision of your control. First rare Skill. The appearance of the Skill confirmed one important thing: Skills had to be discovered before they could be assigned. He couldn't simply select Sword Mastery from a list without ever touching a sword. The System might strengthen something he had already begun to understand, but it wouldn't hand him competence from nothing. So much for cheating his way into mastery.

Unfortunately, discovery wasn't his only limitation. Five slots. The number had kept him awake more than once. He could discover as many Skills as he liked, but unless there was some way to expand that limit, every assignment mattered. Mana Sense had been level seven when he assigned it, awarding him 280 Experience. That worked out to forty Experience for each level of an uncommon Skill. If the pattern held, a rare Skill should be worth considerably more. He focused and assigned Mana Manipulation.

Something warm rolled through him. Arien stiffened. He recognized the sudden fullness from his birthdays, only this time he was awake enough to notice it happening. His attention snapped back to the Status. Lvl: 3 Experience: 60/400 For a moment, he simply stared before the numbers clicked into place. Mana Sense had given him 280 Experience, leaving him twenty short of the next level. Now he had sixty left over. Eighty. A level of a rare Skill was worth twice as much as one of an uncommon Skill.

Arien's grin widened. And that wasn't the only change. The Skill felt different from merely reading its description. When Arien focused on the mana in his arm, it responded. Sluggishly, imprecisely, barely more than a nudge. But it moved where he wanted it to move. Then the Trait line flickered. For a heartbeat, the black mark in Emissary of ▉ thinned, as though something beneath it were trying to surface. Arien stopped breathing, but before he could focus on it, the mark returned. Still hidden. Of course it was.

He sat behind the well for a long time after that, not doing anything in particular. The sun was lower than he expected. He was used to progress coming slowly, in changes too small to notice from one day to the next. This felt different. He had found the answer himself. The goal forming in his mind was ridiculous for someone who had only just learned to nudge a thread of mana. He didn't care. He wanted to become the most powerful mage the world had ever seen. He had no idea what that goal even meant yet.

That was fine. Once, he had followed the safer road. This time, he wanted to fly across the world, explore unknown lands, and push the boundaries of understanding. Childish or not, magic was still magic. On Earth, the maps had already been drawn. Erador was waiting to be discovered.