Nothing can be heard except for the scrape of pen on paper, as I scribble away. I’m in the zone. Papers are everywhere. Maps, diagrams, mathematical proofs, and hand draw tables make up the majority.

This is practically all my life’s work, here on this table. I’ve hit a breakthrough recently. I got two new Tier 3 skills, and boy are they perfect.

Not only that, but my other skills are also improving quite nicely. I’m particularly proud of Trading (LV10). Gramps started letting me in on his trading deals, and I found I have a knack for that skill. With my detail-oriented nature, and high mind attribute, I can almost get as good of deals as Gramps does, already. I picked up on the main points of winning a trade battle. You have to have good information. Know exactly what the product is worth, how much the other person values it. Additionally, timing and revealing information is important. I’ve found it’s like a mental battle. If you bring up certain information at certain times during the trade, there is an actual mental affect.

That surprised me greatly the first time I experienced it. You can basically cast Confuse on the enemy Pokémon during this Trading battle. It’s up to each person’s will and mind stat to resist. The first time I had it happen to me I was so dumbfounded I practically gave away what I was selling for free. It was a joke – among the traders there is a fun tradition to haze any first-time traders like that, hitting me with the full force of all their skills at once. It was eye opening, that’s for sure.

It was also the first time I realized that mental skills like this existed, and for the first time in my peaceful new life, I panicked. Not right away, but later back in my bed at home. I don’t mind dying. Been there, done that. Doesn’t scare me. Losing worldly possessions means even less now than it did to me in the last life. However, having someone control my mind is seriously scary. My worst nightmare back on Earth, was getting stuck in an insane asylum, drugged up and unable to convince anyone I didn’t belong there.

For the first time in this life, I was confronted about the evil possibilities in magic, and skills. Of course, I knew logically that war must be even worse in this world. One person skilled and high leveled enough could flick his fingers and have hundreds die, potentially. How horrible was that? Even an average lumberjack in our village could easily swing his axe and cut a man in two, with barely any effort.

How much worse would a mage who could take over my mind be? If a mere trader could cause that much of an effect on my mind, how much more someone who specialized in such skills? I shudder just thinking about it.

I almost completely changed my plans and dumped all my free points into mind that very night. Thankfully, I resisted the urge to do so, and came to my senses the next day. I was safe out here. Especially living alone with Gramps. I’m no longer scared of any monsters walking up to the farm. I wasn’t really scared before, with Gramps around, but even that monstrosity of a Karhu can’t make me even flinch any longer. I’ve got bigger demons floating in my head. I’m sticking with my initial plan. I will continue to attempt to organically grow my stats. At least for a few more years. I have a feeling I will start adjusting the mental stats much earlier than the physical ones. My mind stat has barely moved in a year.

Moving back to more joyful subjects, my Tier 3 Skills. I take a break from writing for a minute and look at my status page.

LV: 43 Experience: 72,082/111,948

Health: 650/650 Stamina: 300/387 Mana: 345/540

Vitality: 65

Endurance: 25

Strength: 26

Dexterity: 29

Senses: 27

Mind: 43

Magic: 54

Clarity: 41

Free Points: 373

Skills: Sense Mana (LV51), Meditation (LV58), Mathematics (LV60), Expel Mana (LV45), Drawing (LV38), Climbing (LV18), Sprint (LV36), Cleaning (LV34), Writing (LV37), Measurement (LV34), Mana Manipulation (LV15), Cooking (LV15), Knife Skills (LV16), Sewing (LV9), Knitting (LV9), Wood Carving (LV10), Acrobatics (LV25), Farming (LV7), Gourmet (LV5), Scythe Skills (LV9), Plowing (LV8), Stone Carving (LV10), Carpentry (LV12), Trading (LV10), Hunting (LV8), Butchering (LV7), Lower Price (LV3), Increase Price (LV4), Analyze (LV2), Surveying (LV3)

After getting Mathematics and Measurement leveled up a good bit, I began drawing maps to both have better maps to use for myself of the local area, as well as improve my Drawing skill. Sense mana’s range also helped a great deal in developing the elevation maps. I can use both Sense Mana and Measurement together to get a more 3D view of the world on paper.

After making a few maps, I got the Surveying skill, and it looks promising. With my ability to mentally calculate complex trigonometry, Measurement giving me an intuitive grasp of distances, and my Drawing skill combining in effort, my new skill was born.

Actually, I got two skills at the same time, both of them at Tier 3.

Analyze (LV2), Surveying (LV3)

What a fantastic skill. It’s my second favorite skill other than Meditation. Looking back, I can see how Mathematics and Analyze are different. Mathematics is more about knowledge and understanding. Being capable of performing high level math. Analyze, on the other hand, is more about putting Mathematics to good use. Drawing maps, measuring fields, objects, distances, objects of all kinds all contributed, as far as I can tell. Utilizing those principles when making the plans for my wood carvings or calculating potential harvests in the fields. Applying mathematics and other skills together allowed me to get this skill.

This skill is going to see quite a bit of use in the future. Traders better watch out in the future.

I definitely have a knack for mental skills. I can see it clearly in my status page, with all the mental skills I have. I’m concluding that my early hypothesis was correct. Skills that are grouped together and leveled enough, tend to make it easier to form even higher tiered skills eventually. All of my highest leveled skills lean towards being affected by the mind stat. Meditation, Math, Measurement, Writing, Sense Mana. I guess I don’t have a natural 43 in the mind stat for nothing.

Currently, I’m recompiling all my skill notes, attribute training, and future progression estimates. My new skills are allowing me a much easier time keeping these things accurate and organized.

Also, my future skill gain plans are taking a change. With the scare of the trading incident, alongside my knack for mind related skills, I’m going to change up my plans a bit. I’ve always planned on adding to my physical stats, at some point. I have high natural Mind and Clarity, and haven’t had trouble increasing Magic, but who doesn’t want superhuman physical stats.

I do. However, I must admit, that’s not where my talents lay. The only truly physical skills I’ve developed so far are Sprint and Acrobatics, and I devote countless hours to physical training. I guess climbing could be in there as well, but even that one requires quite a bit of planning and thinking to get to the top.

I know I need methods of protecting myself, eventually. Gramps won’t always be around, and even if he is, any soldier at a decently high level could probably take him on no problem. Even with the same stats and levels, the skills gap would make the fight one sided.

This brings up a great conundrum. At first, I wanted to pursue magic. However, that just seems like a losing path. I already have plenty of mana and control over my own mana, but I don’t know what to do with it. Truthfully, I haven’t really put in the time properly experimenting with my magic. I devote most of my time to stat training and my other skills. Meditation and Sense Mana are two of my highest skills, but they don’t DO anything, in and of themselves. Mana Manipulation is an incredibly hard skill to level, and I haven’t really figured out how to make a fireball with it just yet.

Of course, I know why my progress has halted on that front as well. I don’t know any spells and have no one to teach me. My time is better spent working on other pursuits than wasting years of my time figuring these things out on my own. According to Gramps, there is a Celestial Language, that Mages use to cast spells.

While he doesn’t know any of the details, he does know they jealously guard any magic secrets and spells. Any chance of learning them is under a binding contract. Most mages even go so far as to whisper the spell as quietly as possible, just so no one else can hear. It’s also possible to cast spells in the normal language, and possibly even English, but Gramps was quite clear on that issue. He had personally seen a mage blown to bits trying to create his own spell. I have no desire to share that ending, so all of my ideas I had gathered before then went in the trash.

Getting ahold of any magical equipment is also not a possibility. Not to mention there is no such thing in the little village we live in, attempting to purchase anything like that would get me robbed, killed, or thrown out of any shop that carries such a thing. Being a farmer’s kid, I don’t have the qualifications to even attempt such a thing.

Of course, I’m smart, and I know it. I could pursue magic with my entire effort, and probably succeed. I have a knack for it. Any mage would kill to have me as their student. However, I don’t want to enter those extremely restricting contracts. Not to mention, I want to be in control of my own life, rather than at the beck and call of some noble or empire. Even if I went by myself, and learned as I went, I’m sure I could eventually come to be a feared mage.

But that sort of life doesn’t really suit me. That would require travel, espionage, spying, endless days on the road, or on the run. Hiding from nobles and mages alike. I have a passion for magic, but not like that.

I’m not willing to sacrifice the peaceful life I’m living. Status means nothing to me, and power even less. I want to be able to protect myself and my way of life, and that’s all I need. Magic is great, and there is magic everywhere here, not just in the spells you can cast. Attributes, mythical beasts, physical skills, mind altering skills. I finally decided that being a mage wasn’t in the cards for me, and I’m okay with that.

So, physical skills aren’t my niche, and magic is off the table, so where did that leave me?

Other than the physical stats and Magic, there are three stats that I’m looking at.

Senses. Mind. Clarity.

Senses is an incredibly hard attribute to increase. It has been increasing naturally just from growing up, but I have only made it increase through training a few times. I’ve been attempting to increase the stat through sensory deprivation exercises but haven’t seen much success. I have a new training plan. Instead of trying to increase the ‘power’ of my senses, I’m going to try increasing the sensitivity. Differentiating parts of complex smells, visual training using quick glances to attempt to see everything in a room at once, musical training to learn to differentiate notes, things like that.

Mind has increased on its own through my intensive skill usage and constant planning, but I’m missing a key ingredient in making in keep progressing.

Clarity. An elusive stat, that I’m sure assists in improving Sense Mana, but still haven’t quite nailed down the specifics of, yet. There must be more to it than just sensing mana. I just haven’t found it yet.

These three attributes will be my key to the future. They don’t seem to hold much combat potential, but I’m okay with that. Afterall, if the Trading skill can affect the mind, there must be others as well. My physical stats are still increasing steadily, and if I need to add a few points in the future, so be it.

For now, I’m somewhat taking the path of the craftsmen, focusing on senses and mind. At the same time, taking on aspects of being a mage with Clarity. Additionally, I’m working as a farmer, increasing my physical stats organically.

Thinking about it. I’m a total mess. It looks like I need more time on the drawing board.

I look out at all the papers I’ve compiled. My writing skill has increased significantly in the last few weeks. At this rate, I might have to start making my own paper just to keep up.