“We should talk about that tomorrow.” Robert had briefly mentioned his awaiting gift, making Warren’s blood boil and then Robert quickly waved him goodbye to get to his warm bath that had been waiting for him.

This one sentence was being repeated in his mind throughout the night.

From the second he continued to walk down the stairs, leaving the third floor of the East Wing behind him his mind had gone into overdrive.

When he tried to calm down in his room his old habits started to kick in. Habits from his former life, habits that hadn’t been present up to this present moment. The occasional stretch of his hand, the touching of his chin, his tout lips when thinking, all these habits had exposed his excitement when he was pacing back and forth in his room. Even though he thoroughly suppressed his memories of his former life, in his excitement certain habits and patterns had once more resurfaced. He had spent the night thinking about the possibilities.

All that he knew was the basics about gifts. Gifts are separated into three main divisions and countless subdivision. The main divisions are split in: Martial Gifts, Nature Gifts, and Auxiliary Gifts.

Martial Gifts mostly enhance your physical powers. Skin as tough as stone, bursts of extraordinary power or abilities that otherwise enhance your fighting prowess.

Nature Gifts are gifts very special and rare. Nature gifts, give the user the possibility to communicate with the elemental world. Their gifts can vary from very useless to extremely helpful.

Commanding elements like fire or earth would instantly make the user soar to the clouds.

This could lead to massive fighting strengths or the ability to make lands more fertile.

However, some of these nature gifts are useless; the ability to see heat, even though connected to the same fire element, would be considered useless.

However, Warren had already see worth in the Nature Gifts that he had heard about. The ability to see heat would be greatly helpful when one worked as a smith. Perhaps if the user was able to discern heat signatures of people he would be of extreme help in scouting missions. So far Warren had determined that the worth of the gift varied depending on the way the gift was used. His thinking however, was completely in line with the modern world – the civilization of this world was still hell-bent on their old ways. If they would see no immediate gain they would consider the gift useless.

Thirdly there are Auxiliary Gifts. These gifts give people an edge in their field of profession.

The gift of heat detection could be considered Auxiliary in some ways but because of its connection to the elemental world, it was still considered nature’s gift.

A famous example was the ability to do the mental mapping. This Gift had developed within a young hunter in a village near the border. As he joined the army he had quickly ascended the ladder of success as his gift was crucial to the commanders. As a scout, he would visit the terrains ahead, upon return he could use his gift to give a complete three-dimensional projection of the scouted area. His ability would quickly allow him to manipulate the projection based upon his will. With his help, the planning of upcoming battles as well as simulations of tactics he had significantly contributed on various battlefields before becoming a general himself. His legend was spread as propaganda from the capital to encourage youngsters to join the army. The obvious goal was to recruit useful talents.

Without any proper sleep, he had joined the rest of the family earlier then he would’ve on any other occasion. The dark bags under his eyes betrayed his sleepless nights, his eyes only barely open he sat down at the long table. As he slowly, but unsteadily, sat himself down on his designated chair, his father’s way too loud voice reverberated through the room. Doing a great job at scaring the crap out of the just barely wake Warren. In his reaction he knocked the water-filled glass in front of him across the table, spilling its content. In turn making his father laugh with his clumsiness.

His booming voice had instantly woken the half sleeping Warren as he leaped from his chair in a momentary slip of confusion. His mind had been so dazed he hadn’t even processed the content of his father's words. He shot an annoyed glance at his father, knowing he had intentionally provoked his reaction.

“Well, you’re awake now aren’t you?” His father answered his glance with a teasing voice, even pinking a sole tear away from the corner of his eyes. Warren could see his smug face and couldn’t help but mentally sneer that his father was still a child. Obviously temporarily denying that he currently was a child himself.

“What kept you awake? You look even worse than you usually do.” His father continued with the same smug face, his voice dripping with faked concern, trying to provoke Warren further. He truly seemed to enjoin himself with the small teasing.

“Robert mentioned gifts at the end of last nights introduction”. Warren answered trying to not let his annoyance be noticed in his voice. He answered as if the jeering tone had entirely slipped passed him.

“Hmm, gifts eh..” His father had turned serious upon mentioning the gifts.

“Should be about time to discuss gifts, as you are almost turning eight now. You know about your brother's gifts right?”

“A little. Terrance has the Mark of Courage and Constance has enhanced muscles, right?” Even without truly paying attention to these things, he had picked up some information about their gifts during their sparring and their conversation.

“Yes, that’s correct. Terrance Mark of Courage is a berserker gift that is a bit special, but very hard to develop. On the front lines, those with the Mark of Courage are very highly valued. They can ignore the pain as they slaughter a path in the enemy lines. It’s hard to control and keep a sane mind while using this gift. Constance has a simple muscle enhancing gift. His power grows threefold for a short period of time afterward he’ll have to recover for some days to injuries in his muscles. For a common gift, his is rather strong as usual muscle enhancing gifts only multiply one and a half fold or less..” His father sipped his tea as he explained some of the knowledge he had on gifts.

Warren had been listening attentively and had picked up some things he found interesting. Could gifts be developed? Also, aren’t his brothers’ monsters? As he was pondering about it silently for a second his hand unconsciously reached to his chin as his habit once again resurfaced.

“What is it that you mean by developing, dad? He decided not to wait with his question till Robert had joined him or was going to teach him. His father seemed knowledgeable on the subject and his interest had been ignited.

A gentle smile surfaced on his father’s face.

“Eager aren’t you?” He seemed to enjoy the father and son moment as he started to explain more about the gifts.

“Well, let me start with the important basics, you know about the three main divisions, right?” Warren nodded affirmatively as he unconsciously leaned closer to the table, intent to not miss a single word his father was going to say.

“The main and subdivisions only help to classify a gift according to a set of rules. However, some gifts can be considered a mix of multiple main divisions. The most important thing about a gift is the way it is used by the wielder of the gift. If Constance were to use his gift to do some lifting work at the docks then his gift would be Auxiliary rather than military.”

“A gift can be polished to improve its qualities. Let’s say we have a nature's gift that gives the user the power to manipulate fire. Perhaps when he begins he’s only capable of slightly raising of cooling the temperature of the flame. Or altering its form slightly. After exploring the use of his gift and polishing his skills on how to use the gift it is possible for the user to manipulate fire on a much finer scale or much grander scale. He could become a dragon on the battlefield or control the fire’s temperature to ensure the highest quality of forged steel.”

“Seems like you already begun to lecture the kid on gifts, Gerald?” Robert said teasingly as he entered the room. “If you’re going to teach him yourself, why even bother to invite me over?” he added with a wide grin on his face, clearly enjoying the result of his entrance on the conversation.

Annoyed, his father’s eyes rolled in response to the entrance of the good-humored Robert.

Warren chuckled as he found the situation similar to when he’d sleepily entered the room earlier when he got served some teasing by his father.

“So, how do you polish or upgrade a gift?” Warren was reluctant to have the conversation cut off and interjected in the banter between his dad and Robert.

“You really can’t wait can you now?” His father chuckled at the site of his son being overtly interested in the topic to a point to for the first time since.. ever.. interrupting his father.

Robert threw a side-glance to his dad as he started explaining.

“Gifts are very mysterious things that develop over the years in your body. Your body is nurtured by the mana of the world and by interacting with this mana your gift manifests.” Robert took some slices of bread from the basket in the middle of the table and put them on his plate as he started to make himself a sandwich.

“Gifts are said to develop from one’s desires and experiences. In order to stimulate certain gifts, Noble families and military household start training their children from a young age. A child that has experienced combat and harsh training is more likely to develop a military gift. Your brothers are examples of these methods.”

Warren nodded, it seemed to be a very natural explanation. He also remembered his brothers swinging a training blade in the backyard and doing many laps in order to train their fitness and combat prowess. He never linked it to developing a gift, he’s simply seen them as warmongering idiots.

However, the question arose why he hadn’t been trained the same way. His glance at his father did not go unnoticed and his father got the hint.

“Well, your brothers always followed me around everywhere. They always said they wanted to be like me when they grow up so I felt it was natural to train them. Unlike Robert, I’m not inclined to believe it forms from just experience and desires. I feel it’s more likely to be part of you when you’re born and nourished over time by the mana of this world over the course of time.”

As Warren nodded Robert interjected “With that said, these two different thoughts are advocated by many but proven by none. So, I can’t say which one is more right or wrong. Just that experience teaches that training seems to help in developing martial gifts. However, they could be present at birth.” His face was calm as he gave his statement on the subject, not dismissing his fathers'

opinion. Robert then casually continued to eat his now prepared sandwich.

"Well, I guess that's enough talk about gifts at breakfast. Robert is very knowledgeable on the subject of gifts so you should ask him about it during your lessons with him. After all, he should earn his pay as well." His father dismissed the subject and added the latter part to repay the earlier remark made by Robert when he had entered the room.

They continued to chat and joke with one another until his father took his leave from the table as he had to go out to fulfill his duty as the local garrison commander.

As both Warren and Robert had eaten their fill the servants cleared out the table.

"Consider the earlier talk about gifts the introduction I promised you. The subject is very important as the proper utilization of gifts give a great advantage to one's usefulness. Properly using the talents of people is vital to any organization. Like I explained to you yesterday, I like a practical approach, so I'll give you assignments."

Warren nodded, this was after all not his first time hearing Robert say this. He also found the practical experience very useful and was now eager to complete his first assignment as it was related to gifts.

"Your first assignment is to learn about the use of at least four different gifts. You can go and adventure in town, ask around and I believe you'll learn a lot. You have up to lunch to fulfill this assignment. In the afternoon I'll test your basic knowledge on the various topics that are tested on the entrance exam of the Academy."

A wry smile formed on Warrens' face. He had not expected his assignment to be walking around in town asking around about people their gifts. He still accepted and assured Robert he would do his best to fulfill his first assignment.

"Since you're going to town, I have another assignment for you." A smug face was drawn on Robert's face as he continued.

"I talked with your father last night, the usual talk. He mentioned he is in need of decent quality swords to replace the worn out ones from your house's guard. Since most of them have come with him when he retired from the front lines he wants to take good care of them. "

Warren had been well acquainted with some of the guards. He was most familiar with the captain of the household guard, Theodore, or Theo as everyone called him. Theo had been the one to tell him all kinds of tales when he had been young, therefore making a good impression on Warren. He had been very interested in the heroes of this somewhat magical world and Theo would always happily tell another tale.

Theo had also told him of the men that followed his father after his retirement to bring new blood in the household guard or take up a post in the local defense garrison.

"Also, he told me Constance's birthday is coming up. So he got the idea to get him a fine sword. I told him I would take care of it since he is going to get busy raiding some bandit outpost a couple of days travel out from here on imperial orders."

"Since you're already going for a walk through town you can learn about the market prices of various items. There are some items I need as well, I will write a list with the thing I want you to obtain. You'll get 5 gold coins and 50 silvers to buy these things. Everything that is left will be your reward for the assignment. See it as learning about the market prices of items, as well as to learn how to economize on your decisions." Robert said with a righteous face.

Warren immediately knew this was a devious plan devised to make him carry out work on behalf of Robert. He easily recognized the plot but could not retort as Robert had brought it up as an assignment for learning. Inwardly he cursed as he knew he would be making trips back and forth to various places to check the items of Robert's 'shopping list'.