I lingered after breakfast. Knowing that there was a lot to do didn’t help the fact that I was still exhausted from the previous day. Sensing my fatigue, Kalli stayed by my side. Are you feeling okay, Mel?

Stretching while I yawned loudly, I did a quick analysis of my body. While physically I was fine, another part of me wanted to climb back into bed and stay there for several days.

Yesterday just took a lot out of me, I guess.

Kalli quietly stood up and made her way behind me. Just when I was wondering what she was going to do, I felt her hands grip my shoulders. While Kalli had massaged me in the past, this was the first time she didn’t use her flames.

Having closed my eyes to enjoy the experience, I was startled when a female voice asked, “Um, excuse me, my lord. Do you have a moment?”

I started to mumble a reply but Kalli chose that moment to pinch a nerve and we both yelped, sharing the sudden pain. When I opened my eyes, I noticed a young woman sitting across the table from us, patiently waiting.

“What can I do for you?” I asked tentatively.

I recognized her as Laria, the woman that I had assigned the weaver class. She fidgeted and began, “You see, my lord, ever since you did that thing the other day, I have had these odd urges. I am fascinated by the clothing that you provided for us but I can’t understand how they were made.”

It was obvious that I had presented the woman with a dilemma. She had basic skills but didn’t know what to do with them. Scooping up a few pebbles from the floor, I decided to make a few books on the basics of tailoring.

Item:

The Complete Photo Guide to Clothing Construction (Edited)

Components

Paper, Ink

Item Rank:

C

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Murphy

Item:

How to Design Your Own Clothes and Make Your Own Patterns (Edited)

Components

Paper, Ink

Item Rank:

C

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Murphy

Laria caressed the books gently as though they were prized S-ranked treasures when I slid them across the table to her. After turning a few pages in the book, she began to frown. “I’m so sorry, my lord. I can’t read.”

Heaving a sigh, I said, “You can call me Melvin.”

The woman had pointed out a flaw in my plans. I had thought that I could assign them all classes and they would automatically have the skills needed to do their jobs. The backup plan to use books to educate them also failed.

I wondered if it would be as easy as assigning them reading and writing traits. We didn’t have those traits and yet we could read. Could traits be used to teach basic skills like that? I had to try.

Name

Laria

Class

Weaver (Edited)

Level

12 (Edited)

Affection Level

Respectful

Skills

Traits

Cross Stitch (Edited)

Magical Disease Immunity (Edited)

Affinity: Spinning Wheel (Edited)

Reading (Edited)

ERROR: NO SUCH TRAIT

It looked like I was going to have to teach her the old-fashioned way. The problem was that I only knew how to read in English. What were the odds of Gaia using English as a standard language? That brought about another question. “Um, Laria, what language are we speaking right now?”

“My lord?” She began before catching herself. “Um, I mean, Lord Melvin, we are speaking Dabian.”

Looking back at Kalli, I passed the question on to her.

Kalli? Do you also speak Dabian?

She paused her massage for a moment to think about it. I don’t know. It never crossed my mind that I could speak your language in your world. Do you think it’s universal?

Not likely. There are hundreds of languages back on Earth.

Could I possibly know all of the languages? Was there an innate skill that allowed the awakened to understand? That didn’t make sense. I clearly remembered not knowing Spanish. A lot of people where I grew up spoke Spanish. Then again, I hadn’t encountered any language barriers since I met Kalli.

I tried the group.

Hey guys, do we have some kind of magical language skill?

Wendy replied first. What do you mean? I’m bilingual. I don’t think that’s magic though.

Say something in another language.

There was a pause before she said, Okay, this is Japanese. Do you understand Japanese? Joe has a cute butt.

Another pause. Joe then replied. Um, Wendy, that was English.

Stefanie giggled. That’s right Wendy. Now we all know what you think of Joe’s butt.

For a long moment, nobody said anything. Then Wendy whined, But I said it in Japanese. None of you were supposed to understand.

That didn’t help at all. I needed to figure out how our special skill worked.

Do any of you guys remember hearing someone speak in a language you don’t understand?

A voice spoke in my head. The skill you speak of is inside of you.

WOULD YOU LIKE A TUTORIAL?

I was shocked to see the system message again. I quickly thought the word YES and the village around me faded from view. Kalli’s surprised squeak from behind me told me that things were different from the first time I had undergone a tutorial.

“Aya?” I called out, hoping to get the same cat girl as last time.

She didn’t let me down when she purred, “Welcome back, Melvin. I see you have grown some since your previous tutorial. Would you like to learn about language primers today?”

Kalli stood beside me and asked, “Melvin, who is this?”

Looking back and forth between the two, I asked, “Have you ever had a tutorial before? This is Aya?”

The catgirl gave us a knowing smile and said, “System tutorials are limited. Only select people have access to me. Your mate is able to connect to the tutorial through her connection to you. To answer your question, Miss Kalliphae, my name is Aya. I am the administrator of the system. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Kalli stood dumbfounded before Aya and sighed. “I am totally lost. What is happening here?”

Aya continued. “This is a tutorial. I am here to teach Melvin Murphy how to share his language package. Melvin, you currently emit a field of understanding around yourself. This ensures that you can interact with anyone regardless of where you travel.”

“Why is that not listed in my traits or abilities?” I asked curiously.

She walked around us as she replied, “The field of understanding is one of the core abilities tied to your primary bloodline.”

Wanting to know more, I asked, “How big is the radius of this field of understanding?”

Aya explained, “The radius of your ability is limited to the range in which you can speak or hear. It is further extended to anyone in your group, granting your groupmates the ability to speak to and understand virtually anybody. Your mate has gained the field of understanding as an extension of you. In fact, she shares the bloodline so long as she remained bound to you.”

“So that means she can experience a tutorial.” I pointed out helpfully.

Aya hesitated for a moment before answering. “That would be correct. Uploading to her subconscious now.”

With that out of the way, I decided to ask the question that was on my mind. “How do I teach the villagers to read? Is there a trait that I can share with them?”

Light flashed in front of Aya’s eyes for a moment before she answered. “There are a couple of ways of dealing with this. You can invite others to your group. That will share your aura with your groupmates. However, you will quickly discover that there are limitations to how many people can be in a group. Another form of group is called a guild. You can invite significantly more people to a guild and your aura would extend to all of them.”

“How do I form a guild?” I asked the next logical question.

The catgirl quickly replied, “The process is only slightly more complicated than forming a group. Would you like to form your first guild?”

I nodded and said, “Yes.”

The menu immediately accepted my response.

CHOOSE A NAME FOR YOUR GUILD

I turned to Kalli. “Do you have any ideas for a name?”

Kalli gaped at me, like a deer caught in the headlights. “You want me to choose a name for the guild?”

Nodding, I said, “Yep. It’s your world. It should be your guild.”

She thought for a few minutes before deciding. “Our guild needs to be something where everybody is invited to work together for a better future. I think we should call it Unity.”

“Sounds good to me.” I agreed, approving the name for the system along with my nomination for Kalli to be the guild leader.

WELCOME TO UNITY

“There are a few bonuses for being in a guild.” Aya began her explanation. “You can allocate a certain amount of experience to be shared by everyone. This is useful when certain members do activities such as hunting while others stay behind and tend to the settlement.”

Kalli looked at me pleadingly. “I don’t know how to do this. The things that pop up in the air are confusing.”

Aya helpfully suggested, “You can nominate a guild officer to handle that for you.”

Kalli perked up and pointed at me. “Make him my officer.”

Just as soon as she said it, the menu popped up in my face. Looking at the experience slider, I allocated ten percent of experience points to be shared by everybody.

Satisfied that I had applied her suggestion, Aya continued, “Faction is also shared by the guild, both good and bad. While your good deeds will be noticed by the community, bad deeds will be recorded as well. It will be in your best interest to kick any bad seeds out of the guild promptly as their bad deeds stay with the guild even after you remove the offender.”

“Noted.” I said, urging her to get to the next point.

She took the clue and continued. “Lastly, if your guild grows to a certain level of fame and encompasses enough territory, you can apply to be recognized as a sovereign nation.”

Realizing that guilds did a lot more than just solve our problem, I asked, “This will allow me to help members of our guild read and write, correct?”

Aya shook her head, correcting me. “This will allow them to read and write in any non-magical language. They will still have to acquire the basic skills of reading and writing. Your bloodline also greatly enhances skill acquisition rates, so it shouldn’t take long to just teach them. Try creating basic reading primers. Once a single language is mastered, your bloodline will ensure that they can read any language.”

I sighed. Of course, it couldn’t be easy. Kalli squeezed my hand, thinking that I was frustrated. Aya looked at the two of us. “If that will be all, this tutorial is now over. Do either of you have any questions?”

Not coming up with any, I shook my head. With a puff of smoke, the catgirl vanished and we were back in the village. I woke up to find myself in bed, looking up at nervous villagers. Otto smiled and said, “Lord Melvin. You passed out and we were worried. We aren’t overworking you, are we?”

I laughed. “Yes but that’s not why I passed out. It was a magical thing. Where is Kalli?”

They pointed, revealing Kalli a few feet to my left. She was also awake and sitting up already. Kiki grinned at me from the door. “You two were out for a couple of hours. Was it a tutorial?”

“Yup.” I grinned back. “I take it you’ve had some yourself?”

She nodded. “Yeah. They are kind of rare but very helpful when you get one. It was Aya, right?”

I nodded back. She pointed at the wall which looked much more like my apartment back home than the straw hut that it had been the night before. “Joe’s been busy. They are small but the huts have been upgraded to houses. He managed to make sheetrock and insulation to keep the warmth in. I don’t know what else he did but it’s a total improvement over the old huts. Oh and guess what, there’s an outhouse.”