Annabelle was struggling to comprehend the situation in front of her.

A teenage boy was staring intensely at his very wet t-shirt for a few minutes as if he was watching the water drip out of it. He then wet it and stared it at it again.

She battled to understand what he was trying to do until she realised that the water was dripping too fast to be natural.

She was shocked and questions flooded her mind. Did he have that much control of water?

Was it a drying ability? Wasn’t Air the better element for that?

“Hello Sam, did you just dry your t-shirt by pulling the water out of it?”

Annabelle guiltily watched as Sam yelped in surprise and tumbled back and into the slow flowing stream behind him. She had forgotten about her [Soft Walking] skill that automatically activated when she was in nature.

She also could have saved Sam from falling in the water but she didn’t want to tempt a transformation with any sudden or drastic moments. If she did two uncontrolled transformations in a couple of days then she may end up kilometres away in the wilderness, naked and alone.

Her recent evening with Jerald after her last transformation came to the forefront of her mind. If it wasn’t for him, she would have had a much worse time with her [Transformation] ability. Even the wolf inside of her had to admit that Jerald was a force to be reckoned with and she loved him with all her heart.

She blushed when she realised that she hadn’t even moved to help Sam.

He arrived back on land by awkwardly surfing a wave. She was amazed by his powers. Was this the power of a [Water Baptism]?

“Sorry Aunty. I didn’t see you there. I tried spinning the water out but it didn’t work so well so I ended up just trying to pull out of the water. It works for most of the water but not all of it, the t-shirt is still damp.”

He gestured at his soaked t-shirt with disappointment.

“That is very interesting..."

She was still in mild shock and then remembered one of the reasons she had come to see him and spoke with a sad sigh.

"I am sorry for scaring you. It is twice now that I have scared and endangered you.”

She watched Sam awkwardly scratch his head and then spoke.

“It’s ok Aunty. Back in the barn, I didn't know you could transform, it was quite scary."

"I should've warned you about my transformations before it happened but I didn't expect it. Sometimes I lose control but it doesn't happen often. That day I was really tired and then was really surprised that your Knowledge Mastery was so high. I'm sorry."

"Will it happen again?"

Annabelle knew she couldn't promise anything but despite her suspicions she knew she wouldn't attack him without cause.

"I may transform again because I haven't mastered my control...But I don't attack unless I have a reason to."

She smiled as reassuringly as she could. Her own lack of control infuriated her. She couldn't even promise not to hurt a teenage boy.

"So can you tell me about your Water skills?"

Sam appeared to light up with excitement about the subject matter and nodded eagerly.

Annabelle smiled at his eagerness and then she immediately regretted the onslaught of complete gibberish.

“eSeaK9W ItY4WRT sSpNMq water BpblPI LyIreceZgRckhli5IIR MGbQzqV MXgKfUKEoHZ0 uc5kaSgEUL3I 8JMB34oGg uFOMY4N Wr56O Kzt...”

“Sam! Please stop.”

Her head was ringing from the unpleasant sounds.

Sam looked at her with a surprised face and Annabelle sighed. This boy knew nothing.

It was behaviour like this that fuelled her suspicions! How did anyone not know that you couldn’t share skill and abilities information explicitly?

It was one of the first things she had learnt as a child. Anyone who had any experience with the Mastery System would know. It was natural to tell friends or family members about your abilities so even four or five years knew. Yet, this sixteen year old boy didn’t know it.

She had lain awake at night trying to figure it out. Was he a prince who was trained as a scholar but nothing else? Had he lived his life as monk far away from people? Was he raised by wild beasts?

None of her ideas made any sense because you couldn’t escape the Mastery System. All people from all the different regions used it. All creatures with though, human or non-human, all knew and used the system in one way or another. By using it, you would know that sharing Mastery skills didn’t work.

“You can’t tell someone about skills or abilities from the Mastery System. If a person doesn’t have the Mastery or is on a lower Tier, the Mastery System will create interference that is very unpleasant.”

As expected, she got a complete blank look from the boy. She rolled her eyes and began speaking.

“Allows the user to take on a form of a chosen beast. Abilities and skills are limited whilst in beast form.”

Guilt quickly hit her as she realised that a Tier 5 ability was a really bad choice. The further the gap between the two people’s Tier level, the worse the interference effect.

Sam looked like he had been hit in the head by a sledgehammer and was groaning and stumbling a bit.

She took a step forward to help but he moved away slightly so she stayed where she was. As expected, he still feared her and she was not surprised but it still hurt her a little. It reminded her of Jeremy after the attack.

Her own son had avoided her for at least a year after the incident. When Jeremy had stopped avoiding her, his attitude had changed to one of indifference and anger. It had only been in recent years that she had seen the return of her happy, kind and friendly son and it had made her so happy.

“It seems to have gone now. That was really bad. Was that some kind of mind attack? Mind magic?”

She chuckled and shook her head. If only she was that powerful.

“As I said, The Mastery System stops your mind from understanding so I suppose you can call it a mind attack from the system.”

“What were you trying to tell me about?”

Annabelle smiled sadly.

“I described my Beast form ability. Did you understand any words?”

Sam shook his head and then frowned in thought. His next question surprised her.

“Aunty, where is the Mastery System from?"

Annabelle blinked. What an interesting question.

“No one knows where it came from but it had always been there as long as humans have lived. It is extremely powerful and provides all creatures, big and small, the potential to improve themselves.”

She smiled as she repeated her father’s words. After Sam didn’t say anything further, she returned to the original subject.

“If you want to tell me about your Water skills, you have to avoid exact words and give a vague description. Even then I probably won’t be able to understand it all.”

He frowned in thought and then began speaking.

“DKKcshJiKK swimming in the water m9c93NGj26”

They tried a few times until Annabelle finally managed to piece it all together.

“So you can move water around, the water talks to you and you get bonuses in water?”

Sam nodded with relief and Annabelle gave him a big smile. Internally Annabelle was freaking out.

Water Manipulation?!?! It was a Tier 1 skill? That was ridiculous. Something had to have been lost in translation. For a manipulation skill to be on Tier 1... It seemed so unfair.

She felt a tail appear from her rear end; she willed it away and calmed herself. She sorted through the information as calmly as she could. He could manipulate water or as she guessed, Water mana, and he gained bonuses in water. The manipulation, if true, was straight forward and self-explanatory even if it was far too powerful to be a Tier 1 skill.

Bonuses whilst surrounded by an element were common in the Masteries. Her [Soft Walking] had a similar effect by giving her a huge stamina and Nature mana regeneration in addition to the quietened movement.

Annabelle mentally sighed as she tried to process the last item.

Information gathering from water.

How was that possible? What were the limits? How did water communicate? It was just Water mana and thus had no means of communicating.

“How does the water talk to you?”

Five more minutes of headache inducing gibberish before she got some information. It was even more ridiculous than before. The water could tell him where obstacles or living things were in the water.

She had been expecting the ability to measure water temperature or the amount of water in a stream at best but not something that was useful in combat.

How did anyone hope to attack a Water baptised person in water? Was it just impossible?

She gave him a smile as something dawned on her.

“What levels are your three skills?”

10, 9 and 9 was what she got from his fingers. It seems he didn’t want to try his words. Sensible enough but levels didn’t mean much so the Mastery System allowed them to be shared.

She didn’t understand who this boy was and why his levels were so high. How had he gotten a skill to maximum level? She was sure this had been the first time she had seen him practice.

Was he practicing in the bath? Was that the reason that had run out of Fire mana in geyser earlier than usual?

From her recent conversation, his general cluelessness regarding the Masteries only seemed to reinforce her guess that Sam was the one who used up all the Fire mana in the geyser. What if he had thought that only hot water came out?

Even with the bath training, it still wasn’t possible in the short amount of time. There seemed to only be one explanation.

“Did you purchase the levels for your skills?”

The innocent nod from Sam made Annabelle cringe internally. She had never mentored a student on the ways of Nature since that was her father’s role but she definitely knew that purchasing Tier 1 skills especially those only available to the baptised was a big taboo.

The ‘greatest insult to a teacher’ was what her father had called it. A shortcut for fools and idiots who believed life would just give them an easy ride.

This boy knew nothing and it was as clear as day. There was nothing she could do to help him now other than encourage him to max out his remaining level 9 skills. He might even be useful in the looming attack from the slavers.

She would also need to tell him about the slavers but first, she needed to explain the rash mistake he had made.

It took her a few minutes of explanation for Sam to understand why levelling with points was considered a poor choice. When he finally accepted her reasoning, it took ten minutes for him to calm down. She watched emotions run rampant on his face. The emotions ranged from fear to sadness to anger and back to fear. At the end, tears stained the teen’s face and she wasn’t sure which emotion had caused it. The prevailing emotion in the end was anger and he was clearly not in a good mood.

His reaction was to be expected; it was not every day that a person is told that they unknowingly worsened their chances of success. Annabelle didn’t dare tell him that a true Master of Water would never accept him now and only the mediocre ones might accept him if he showed extraordinary talent.

She paused in thought. That logic applied to the elements like Earth, Nature, Air and Spirit which all had Elders and Masters in the cities but she wasn’t sure about Water. The Mastery was so rare on land and the mermen ruled the sea with an iron fist.

Would he have to go train with the mermen?

She shuddered at the thought. Those fish people were disgusting!

He interrupted her thoughts with another question. His tone silently begged her for some good news.

“I haven’t seen Uncle and Jeremy today; do you know where they are?”

Unfortunately she had only bad news for him. She explained that Sam had been asleep for two days and that Jerald and Jeremy had left for Haventown without him.

To lessen the blame on them, she mentioned the family’s lack of supplies and apologised for the use of candles. She was embarrassed to be using candles because they were such inferior items. They were dangerous and provided very little light.

Spirit crystal lamps were much more efficient and safe. She also mentioned the geyser and its almost depleted supply of Fire mana. She was curious to see if he owned up that he had used the geyser too much.

He sighed in resignation and spoke with a voice full of raw disappointment.

“I wasn’t sleeping but rather using one of my mana abilities. I didn’t even know that much time passed."

He looked like his day had been ruined and she empathised with him.

"I really wanted to go to the library. How long will Uncle and Jeremy be gone for?”

“Probably a week. There were quite a lot of things that had to do. I am sorry you missed out, we did try to wake you.”

His disappointment was plain as the sun was shining.

“Hopefully there will be opportunities in the future.”

Annabelle nodded and spoke.

“We normally go to Haventown once every month or two months depending on our needs.”

There was a long pause. Annabelle stared at the birds in the trees. Nature was definitely her favourite place to be. The sounds of the birds chirping and the wind rustling the trees felt so right.

A question from Sam interrupted her thoughts. The boy never stopped asking questions. Was it the reason he had so many points in the Knowledge Mastery?

“You mentioned a Fire mana geyser? Is it a geyser that runs on Fire magic? Does the Fire Mastery exist? Can you do fire magic?”

Annabelle blinked as she processed the question and its implications. Sam’s excitement was palpable and it was clear he was interested in the Fire Mastery.

She didnt want to crush his excitement but fire was dangerous, very dangerous. She embodied her strongest imitation of her husband’s famous frown and began her lecture on the dangers of the Fire Mastery and fire in general.

She told him about the Great Fires of Whistlevale, the loss of the library in Haventown, the maniacs who had run rampant burning down anything and everything in their path. She told him about the many Fire Wars in the Northern lands which scorched the soil resulting in thousands of hectares of unusable land.

His response of morbid fascination only made her heart flutter in fear. She needed a different approach. The deaths of thousands of people had worked on convincing Jeremy when she had first told him. He had been younger though. She came up with a new idea and tried it.

“Every time you use Fire mana it takes a deeper hold of your mind until you become completely addicted to it. You can’t eat or sleep without using Fire mana. Fire mana users eventually start using their own health to convert into Fire mana. They will do anything for their addiction. It is really messy and many people become victims.”

“Oh. So using Fire mana is like drugs?”

He knew what drugs were? It was clear that he wasn’t fond of them by his disappointed tone. She had heard of drugs from passing travellers. Poor people in the large cities got alchemists and herbalists to make small consumable items that contained very pure Fire mana. The effects of Fire mana were worse on those without fire resistance so they would get addicted immediately and often die soon after. It was a major problem in some of the larger cities.

How did he know about drugs? Where was Sam from? She would bet good coin that neither of her neighbours even knew what drugs were.

“Yes.”

She watched his reaction and was happy to see him mirror her frown and speak.

“Are there other dangers from using mana? Please let me know. I have already made too many mistakes. I don’t want to end up addicted to Water mana or something similar."

He sighed and spoke.

"I don’t have any Water mana though, can I still get addicted?”

She was happy she had convinced him to avoid Fire mana but his words only created more confusion regarding his skills and abilities. If he had no Water mana, how was he controlling water? Maybe he meant he had no Water mana left?

“Use your mind to bring up your attributes list. You should have mana numbers below your health.”

She watched him frowned in concentration and then respond.

“It just says Mana: 0/0.”

It didn’t even specify the mana type. She tried to remember when her attribute list had shown that. It had been when she had been 7 or 8 years old and was before she gained Nature mana.

How could a Water baptised person not have Water mana? The area wasn’t her expertise so she chalked it to up to different Masteries but it was strange nonetheless.

She had been wasting enough time. She needed to get the truth from Sam and then prepare for the evident attack ahead.