Today is the day I figure out what the bond is! I declare to myself.

It's been a few days since my breakthrough with Astral Projection. I've grown a little bored of the practice and not really getting anywhere. So now I will practice something else!

So, where to start? First, what is a bond? Translating to Runalymo it reads as.

Ysrumo – Ly

Ys means a connection or bond of some sort. Could be family, could be friendship. Ru means mana. And Mo is beings, as in a living being, or at least thinking being. Together it means a bond of mana to being. Ly just means beauty.

Quite useful, this language.

So a bond is what type of mana, elemental or essence, you are naturally gifted at? Ok, so second is how do I actually use it? And third, what the fuck does beauty even do? It's not like I'm water bending or throwing fireballs.

I sigh. This is going to take some work.

I stretched out my arm and tried to gather the beauty mana in front of me... nothing.

Of course, this isn't going to work.

I put a hand on my chin. Alright, now let's review what mana is. Well, I don't really know what mana is but I do know we generate it. The more mana surrounding us means less leak out causing us to be poisoned by our own mana, Mana Toxicity. Of course, it could be that we gather mana from our surroundings and too much would still cause mana toxicity.

In any case, I was trying to use the mana around me, but I have a mana pool that I probably should be drawing from.

Again, I stick out my hand and this time tried to use the mana within me, pushing it out through my arm and into a sphere in front of my hand.

With amazement, I watch pure mana, not a type I could identify, slowly gather in front of me.

Pure beauty essence?

It's not Elemental mana so I can't see it as different colors but perhaps if I can study this, If I can figure out how it's different from elemental mana, I may be able to make another breakthrough in [Sense Mana].

Of course, it isn't as easy as looking at the differences. Elemental Mana was easy because there was so much of it, but the nexus only seems to deal with elemental mana not essence mana, or if it does there's not a lot of it.

I need another form of essence to compare it with, but the only other form I know is creativity. Which, coincidentally is boosted within my body, let's take a look.

I focus Sense Mana inward-looking at the mana within me. There is definitely a swirling of different mana. Mainly three types but there are traces of others, the fourth largest amount not being insignificant.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 17!

I ignore the message. The largest quantity of mana is my own unique mana so let's focus on the other two. Well, it's kind of hard to know which one is beauty and the other creativity. If I can somehow see one raise I should be able to tell. Hang on, I have a glowing ball of beauty essence! If I can somehow take that mana into myself...

I grab the ball of beauty essence and try to absorb it. It was actually pretty easy. I watched as one type of mana grow more and more as the ball shrunk. Suddenly, as if a veil has been lifted from my [Sense Mana], the two main colors bloomed within me, along with the traces of others.

Ting! You have developed a new Bond skill! Beauty Enhancement!

Ting! Your Bond has obtained level 2!

Sense Mana: You have opened your mind to one of the energies that fuels this world. You can now sense mana in its raw form.

1st breakthrough: You have sensed an overwhelming pressure of mana, now you will be able to better sense mana in such quantity and better see slight difference in mana levels.

2nd Breakthrough: You've learned to perceive different containers of mana letting you see the general shapes of mana containing objects around you.

3rd breakthrough: You've learned to see different types of mana, letting you see elemental mana.

4th Breakthrough: You've learned how to see mana Essences, letting you see the many types of essences.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 18!

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 19!

Ok, that's a lot to take in. First, now that I can see it, there's a ton of ambient creativity and beauty essence, less than elemental mana but still a significant amount. There's still a lot I don't know about but this is a start.

Second, a bond skill. The bond didn't have any skill slots so let's take a look.

Bond- Beauty: Level 2

Skill: Beauty Enhancement

A couple of things to note. The skill doesn't have a level. And second, it's not a breakthrough. It's almost as if the bond is halfway between a skill and a class. Skill breakthroughs work on the skill level not their own, but my bond clearly has a "skill" suggesting a bond is not a simple skill to expand.

Also, the Race doesn't have skill levels. I seem to be working off the assumption that the class will have skill levels, this may not be the case, precedence has been set.

So, now I can use my bond but I still don't really know what to do with it, nor what my bond skill actually does.

Beauty Enhancement: Increases the amount of beauty essence held within the target for 100+10/level minutes by 50%+2%/level.

That doesn't explain a whole lot. What does the essence actually do?!

Checking my mana levels I used most of my mana on that one enhancement, almost one-thirty points of mana. It might be because I already had a large amount of beauty essence within me. My mana generation being higher than my max mana per hour means I can keep this enhancement running permanently. Actually, scratch that, I absorbed the mana I previously conjured, that cost me one-thirty points not the cast of the enhancement, I'll need to test that once I get my mana back.

As I waited for my mana I began to theory craft how to use my bond in other ways.

Could I shoot a beam of it? Shoot out a beautifying beam? What would that do?

Soon my mana had recharged and I cast my bond skill. Fifty-two mana. Seems like it's one mana per percent of enhancement. Since it lasts, for now, two hours and my mana regen are four hundred I gain six and a half mana per minute but it costs less than one mana per minute I indeed can have it up permanently, good way to grind bond levels.

Next, I hold up my hand and focus on gathering mana in front of my palm again, but this time I shoot out a beam, hitting the wall. To my surprise, a charred spot is burnt into the wall. How do I know it's burnt? Well, the texture of the wall changed and I can smell burnt wood.

Mom is going to kill me for that.

Ting! You have developed a new Bond skill! Beauty Beam!

Beauty Beam: Shoot out a deadly beam of beauty essence, containing up to 20 points of mana, that damages anything less beautiful.

Ting! Your Bond has obtained level 3!

An ugly killer, huh. But it only works if the target has low beauty essence, and with how much is in this area it won't do much damage. Simply put, if the target has more than twenty points of ambient beauty it won't do anything. Also, if they have, say, ten points it might do less damage; the skill descriptor isn't clear on that.

I didn't continue using Beauty Beam, as the wall is already damaged enough. And a good thing too as mom walked in. It didn't take her long to discover the damage. Whelp let's just get it over with now.

"S-sorry" I nervously say, looking down. Mom just had a look of utter confusion on her face.

"What do you need to be sorry about?"

"I-I was learning my bond"

There was a long moment of silence between us.

Perhaps mom doesn't believe me, I'm just a one-year-old after all.

"You are already learning your bond?" Mom repeats before sighing and muttering "Rymoma"

"Just don't use your bond without one of us with you, ok? It's very dangerous."

I meekly nodded, even though I am going to constantly use my enhancement bond skill. We went to the after-work baths and met up with dad. Mom told her what happened and I heard her sigh. Probably thinking something along the lines of. "Another thing to watch out for". At this point, I think they just expect that these things are going to happen to or around me.

We went back home for dinner. Then after I was asked to show off my bond skill outside, on a target dummy.

"Wait, what even is her bond? You never told me" dad asked.

"Now that you mention it, I nev-" she stopped as I fired off a beauty beam at the wooden block. Smoke rose from the wood.

"Light bond?" Mom muttered but dad gaped in shock.

"Beauty?! You have a beautiful essence Bond, Aly?" Dad exclaimed.

"How can you tell?" Mom asked

"Essence sight, remember?" Dad answered.

I nodded to dad's question.

"And you can empower yourself with right?"

"You know?" I asked with a tilted head.

"The amount of beauty essence within you is higher by a khipla"

"Khipla?" I was unfamiliar with those syllables.

"Khi is to add the same number by a specified amount" then dad raised two fingers "and pla is a part of something" she lowered a finger "About this much less

So khi means multiplication and pla is half. Khipla means multiply half. In this case, Dad is saying the beauty essence in me is increased by fifty percent, about the bonus my skill gives.

"Kanato, she can't see your hand, she's not even looking directly at you" Mom said and sighed exasperatedly.

"I think she has a skill to see, Feyan she hit the target afterall" To be fair the target is not even a meter away from my outstretched hand.

"I see," I say

"How?!" Mom exclaimed

"Ru-ru" I don't know the word for sensing "Ru y?" I gestured around me.

"I think you mean 'Ruar'" Dad corrected me then turned toward mom. "It seems she has an advanced form of my essence sight. Instead of seeing, or sensing a specific type of mana she senses all mana, still, she seems quite well adapted to it, perhaps too well."

Dad knelt down to me and picked me up, and embraced me in a snuggling hug.

"My little girl is such a genius! What level is your skill?"

I raise ten fingers then nine

"Nineteen?! Already? How many alsha?"

Hold on a minute. I think she asked how many breakthroughs I have so let me just quickly use my system language change cheat real quick and... yup.

I raise four fingers

"Four? And with a more advanced skill," dad said with shock then deprecation.

"Looks like a one-year-old child beat you, Kanato" Mom laughed. "Remind me what your skill is at?"

"Four, not even at the second breakthrough"

Mom and dad bantered as I questioned why beauty essence is burning things. The only thing I can think of is that it's like a laser or that it just causes "damage". Now that I think of it Beauty might be an offshoot of the light element. If all essences are more closely related to an element it might explain the laser-like quality of my bond skill.

This leads me to a new question, can this relationship be observed? I'm going to need to wait for a light storm and use my bond to fully study this relationship.

Unfortunately, the next light storm was three months away. A long time for a usually monthly event, it was as if the world didn't want me to find out. Still, I made plenty of headway into this and other breakthroughs.

Ting! Sense Mana has obtained level 20!

Only one level though. I was elated to see that a sudden flood of light mana washes over the room. And I watch as my suspicions are correct, the beauty essence did indeed get more invigorated. Sadly no breakthroughs but I knew it wasn't going to be that easy. So I conjured more beauty essence, which apparently is just a default bond ability, no skill required. The spheres of glowing beauty essence floating around me like spirits. Sadly I can't see the spirits as it was spirit sight not spirit sense.

Hang on, actually. Spirits have mana but I don't see their mana, all I see are fluctuating mana floating around, clumps of mana. Beauty mana, creativity mana, a few other essences I don't know all swimming within a turbulent sea of elemental and essence mana. Why does the mana clump around? I have to know. I focused on a large beauty mana clump not conjured by me and cracked one eye.

Pain immediately surged through my head like a hot poker, but sure enough, there is a spirit right where the clump of mana is.

I grabbed my head with a sharp inhale of air and rolled around on the ground, groaning.

The pain eventually faded away. So I learned what those clumps are, sadly no free breakthrough.

I spent the rest of the light storm trying to unveil the interactions of light element and beauty essence. Creativity essence was not boosted by the storm so I know it's not light related.

I feel like my skill level is not high enough to really see what was going on, same with a person's mana. It seems like some breakthroughs are more easily achieved than others. For example the breakthrough for observing high mana density, I just had to stumble into it and it was just a given for this place. Differentiating the elements was also pretty easy. Differentiating the essences was not and I probably couldn't have if I didn't have my bond. It's like I just ran out of the easy stuff and am now working on the intermediate stuff, but that is a problem. I rushed through my breakthrough without truly understanding the nature of mana, I'm going to need to really focus and scrutinize every last detail, every last interaction before I can really get to the better breakthroughs.

I also have to study my bond. I just scratched the surface of the iceberg in these two things, the potential is so much higher.