Chương 462: Hero Selection

Since our ember remained still for another two weeks after the extraplanar visitor left, the seven towns went through a period of planning and adjustment. The survivors from the village-bearing beast that had died during the fighting were relocated to other towns, people who had lost family and friends mourned, and arrangements were made for all of the other miscellaneous logistical and emotional tasks that needed to be dealt with.

In the meantime, the seven towns met frequently, in order to discuss how to handle our mayor's idea of a hero-raising program. In the end, the other towns agreed with our mayor that it wasn't a bad idea to create a more concentrated program for training new powerhouses. Part of the reason they agreed was due to the generous rewards that greater planes apparently gave warriors of lesser planes - but I had a sneaking suspicion that wasn't the only reason.

Seeing a man and a monster clash in the skies and nearly tear our clan to pieces must have done a number on the psychology of people in our clan. Seeing how small and insignificant we were in the face of real powerhouses had likely caused the town to rethink how resource distribution and empowerment of younger kids was handled - because a sufficiently strong powerhouse could overwhelm a huge number of weaker opponents, and our clan currently had rather few powerhouses.

Nearly having the clan exterminated due to events out of our control had likely served as a wake-up call for the leadership of our clan. The first town meeting we had that night cemented the plans for our future - every single town was on board with the hero-raising plan. The second night of meetings was devoted to figuring out how a hero-raising program would look. People on that day hammered out a rough plan for how to select the children who would be part of the hero-training program.

The ultimate decision for how to handle it was simple - all children below the age of eight who were interested could step up and showcase their abilities to the town, and the townsfolk would then vote on the kids who were worth investing in. Children who weren't old enough to receive a spark would not be considered, because the very ability to make decisions for oneself and the mental maturity to plan for one's future was one of the big conditions needed to receive a spark safely.

Most children needed to be four or five years old to receive their first spark, with a few outliers such as me or Anise appearing from time to time as well. The third meeting was where things got more tricky. The mayor of each town tried to figure out what the actual hero-training plan should look like, once the children were chosen. This was where major disagreements started to show up.

Our mayor wasn't interested in thrusting children directly into the front lines, because the mayor of our town felt it wasn't right to place kids in potentially lethal situations. According to his own words, if the town was too aggressive about trying to force children to level up, then there might be no children who survived to adulthood in our generation.

His idea was simply to feed children flare roots, and offer some sort of major compensation for those who found the flare roots and allowed children to use them. One other mayor disagreed with him, but the other five did not. According to them, it didn't make sense for the members of each town to give up so much to raise a new generation of children, when the warriors on the front lines also needed to grow stronger in order to keep our clan safe.

The mayors of each town had a rather loud argument about it, and when the members of all seven towns voted on it, the majority decided that our mayor's idea wasn't aggressive enough. If a child wanted to participate in the hero program, they had to accept a corresponding degree of risk. They would be given safer placement on the battlefield - but they would be expected to participate in real battles with the other warriors of our village in order to acquire more levels.

They would also be given flare roots and other similar resources from those who found them and were willing to gift them to the town, but only if the finder agreed to trade first. I suspected this was out of practicality - it was very hard to control resources such as flare roots, since people who found them could always just consume them on the spot, and nobody would know.

Having a reassurance that the town would provide rewards in exchange for such finds was the only real way to motivate them to turn such resources over. If they didn't want the town's rewards, then they could just consume whatever resources they found on the spot and move on with their lives.

After the vote for how to handle the kids in the hero training program passed, I saw several parents start to look excited, as if they were dreaming of seeing their children shine on the battlefield, level up far faster than the regular growth curve, and become the pride of the tribe. Several other townsfolk started to look nervous, and I saw them pull their children aside for a more private conversation.

I had no idea whether they were encouraging their kids to do better in the upcoming selections, or whether they were telling their kids that it was too dangerous and they should just lay low and progress the normal way. My own father pulled me aside and told me that there was no reason to worry too much about it. I could read in-between the lines well enough to know that my father didn't really want me to succeed in the hero selections - perhaps my mother's death made him wary of losing another loved one.

Either way, it wouldn't change my actions. I loved my father, and I didn't want him to be sad if I died - but I also wasn't going to let an opportunity to grow slip away. I didn't want my father to be sad, but I also didn't want to fade away into nothing after our next return to the Market. The next few village meetings were mostly working out more basic logistical issues. Where to put hero trainees, how to manage the front lines of each wave of monsters now that kids were involved, et cetera.

I didn't pay as much attention to that - after all, unlike most children, I was confident in my ability to survive regular monsters with my own power. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Two weeks passed, and finally, the day for hero selections came. It was also the second to last day before the Ember would start moving again. To my surprise, the first kid that stepped forward was actually quite impressive.

He stepped into the field, and showed off his raw physical strength. He was able to lift nearly four times the weight of a grown adult. In most worlds, I would have thought that was impressive even for a professional bodybuilder. It was even more impressive for a six year old to do the same. The other villagers seemed just as impressed as I was.

"What's your gift?" asked the mayor of the boy's village, after the boy finished showing off his strength.

"If you don't mind me asking. You can give me a vague answer if you want to keep some details hidden." The boy laughed.

"No, I don't mind discussing it. My gift multiplies my strength stat, so any points I get in Strength is far more valuable than most people's stat points. I also have a second gift that gives me a bit of [Vitality] every level, which is perfect for balancing out my strength. I just need to remember to balance my [Agility], but I plan to be an amazing axe-wielding warrior, just like my mom!" I heard a few approving murmurs from the other villagers. I also considered the boy's words.

A gift that multiplied a stat was quite good. Most people had similar quantities of stat points in this world, at the same level. Something that multiplied a stat was kind of like receiving extra stat points, and even more importantly, it scaled with one's progress in their sparks. The boy had potential. Sure enough, most other villagers agreed with me. The boy got a huge majority to vote him in as a member of the hero trainee program. The next three children were less impressive.

There was a little girl that had reached level 17 through hard training. I didn't want to discount her hard work… but the girl didn't have a Gift, and her stats and skills were only a bit advanced for her age. In this world, where one in five people were born with an extra trait that gave them a huge leg up, the girl showed impressive grit and determination, but she didn't stand out from the crowd. The second boy had a minor Gift that boosted his speed by about twenty percent.

This was a bit different from the first boy, since it was technically boosting an aspect of [Agility] rather than the whole stat, and the percentage was also much lower than the incredibly strong boy I had seen at first. He just barely failed to make it into the hero trainee program.

I was convinced that if our Spark had a more agility-oriented combat spark, such as a [Blade Dancer] or something, he probably would have made it - but sadly, our village just didn't have the resources to fully take advantage of his gift. The third boy was similar to the first girl I had seen - she had a slightly higher than average level for her age, but no gift to support her, and nothing too unusual. The fifth child to showcase their talent was me.

"I believe your name is Miria, right?" said the mayor, after he saw me step forward.

"I know your father, and I knew your mother too. All right, what do you want to show us?"

"I have a few different things to show off, but all of them are tied to my gift. First of all, I want to showcase my healing magic," I said.

"One part of my gift lets me use magic to heal people, even though I don't have a Skill, Spark, or Trait that does the same thing."

"Oh?" I saw the mayor's eyes light up.

"Healing magic would be quite rare. We only have apothecaries right now, and while their potions, treatment, and poultices are useful, they can't do things such as regrow lost limbs or instantly reverse dire wounds. Do you need any special conditions to activate your healing?"

"I just need the patient to be touching water. I can regrow lost limbs as well, although it's quite mana intensive." The mayor looked around the clearing at the other townsfolk, before he frowned. He grabbed a dagger, cut the back of his own hand, and then took a wooden cup filled with water and doused himself with it.

"Is this good enough?" asked the mayor. I nodded, and poured some essence into his body via Renewal. Several seconds later, the cut on the mayor's body disappeared. The mayor's eyes brightened as he looked at me, as if he had found a gold mine in his backyard.

"That's amazing. Are there any limits?"

"I can only heal physical injuries. Soul injuries, I can sort of manage… but it's difficult and unreliable. Apart from that, just essence - erm… mana limitations." The mayor nodded eagerly.

"Anything else?"

"Yes, actually! With a great deal of time and concentration, I can build special magical structures in my body called runes. They give me unique spells and stat boosts each time I complete one. My healing spell is actually created by a rune," I said, as I started lying out of my rear end.

"I can also use something called soul-sight, which helps me locate other life sources in my surroundings. Combined with my incredibly high [Perception], I can scout a huge area around our town and give us a better idea what we might be facing anytime we stop. I have another spell called Extinguish that lets me attack monsters in a rather unique waIt can weaken them, and even kill them outright if they're much weaker than me."

The other village mayors seemed almost as excited as our own mayor after I finished detailing some of my abilities. They had a few of the village warriors set up a cloth covering my head, so that I couldn't see anything, and then had me accurately track and point out a few fast-moving warriors who darted around me in the clearing. Then, they had me use a very weakened Extinguish on another warrior, to show my third ability.

I decided not to showcase any more - instead, I would gradually reveal some of my other abilities as I grew older, to give the illusion that my gift was constantly growing and progressing. It would also give me a few trump cards if an unexpected situation happened. By the end of my demonstration, all seven mayors were giving me broad, excited grins. The vote from the other townsfolk was nearly unanimous. I was now the second hero-trainee candidate of our clan.