The morning just ends and my gurgling stomach guides me through the village to Oro’s house. She and Tierra happily welcome me. Tierra is maybe the only villager I don’t fond beautiful… well I had one second of disgust when I realized that he is a humanoid amalgam of tiny brown worms with the smell of the healthy earth. Who cares about appearance when he teaches me how to cook one of his specialties?

Magically when we finish the cooking five kids appear. We are eating a blue tomato soup. The only way to describe it is magically delicious. Oro is lucky to have Tierra. He explains me that he uses his multiple enhancement taste skills from the seed to the moment he dresses the plates. I don’t think I could ever want to eat something from Earth after this soup. We talk about their magical training, two kids, Potato and Kiwi have not finished yet.

The only snag to this lunch is of course the spoon. Everyone finishes dinner and start cleaning the table. One by one they finish their cleaning, leaving only Potato, Kiwi and me. We share a look and I start to fiercely concentrate my magic on my spoon.

And… nothing happens, I fail but Kiwi succeeds. It hurt to lose against a kid and be compared to … Potato.

Tierra invites me to follow him to do some gardening. The afternoon pass as we discuss and I help him. He is like a plant collector that can’t stop showing me and explaining me every single particularity. He didn’t talk much when we cooked but you can’t stop him on the propriety of his babies. And I personally find this amazing, magical even. He explains me that placing a sky-vine around the trunk of a dark pillar changes the fruits of the pillar to become sparkling when bitten. He names this fruit honey-star, and It’s like eating sparking honey, totally fantastic.

As a reward for my help (tasting his fruits and giving my opinion, best job ever) he explains me how the system works.

The class is just a representation of what you do, you level, and gain stats. The harder, meaningful, and skill demanding a task is the more you level. Class have tiers, a beginner spearwoman is the first tier and will give me fewer stats than being a spearwoman, and even less than an expert spearwoman. Fortunately, you gain the stats retroactively when class upgrades.

To upgrade your class, you need to have a high enough class skill level.

Skill level is the key to progression. On one hand, If your mains class skill level is lower than your class level, you will level up slower, on the other hand, if your skill level is higher than your class level, you level faster. If your skills are high enough you can evolve your class.

Sadly, there is no skill given magically for archiving a specific level, no skill shop.

This means no teleportation, flying, or anything too overpowered. The only way is to arduously train and evolve each skill. Well, anything is possible with magic.

By aligning a skill with your class you transform it into a class skill. A class skill gives better guidance, level faster, and most important you can construct (system assisted) synergistic effect between them, and even fusion them to create a fantastic skill.

If I gain the healing skill and pass it as a class one I could fusion it with War Shout to create a healing Shout. And by having a new skill I could evolve my class to maybe Screaming Healer!

----

The day passes as I daydream of possible skill and training. I also change my stat point repartition to favorite my mentals attributes and make my training easier. I need more mana, more regen, more will to shape it, but there wouldn’t be a day when I do not add points to my endurance. Let’s just first have the same number everywhere, with endurance on top if there is something left.

Understanding the system is like receiving a new toy and Tierra does not hesitate to answer my questions, even the strangest ones like, is it possible to delete a skill? Or can skill level decrease if we don’t use them? The answers are no.

I can see that he likes teaching, or at least he is proud of showing what he knows. He gives me a final piece of advice at the end of the day, just before we need to split our way for dinner.

“This is between you and me. I think that the system is a dangerous tool pushing people towards power without meaning. If you want to learn something, just do it, accomplish whatever you want. But now that you know how the system work tries to forget it. To not live to see the number going up, only use it as a tool to see your progression. Your level will mean nothing when you die and will think about what you accomplish in your life.” He says with an imitation of the sage man.

“Thank Tierra, but knowing that I could fly by evolving a skill is just too exciting, even if you find it childish for an old soul.” Intrigued I ask. “It’s hard to guess because everybody has different physiology. Just how old are you, Oh wise Tierra?”

This makes him smile. “Ah yes I talk like an old man. I indeed start to be old at 23 but I’m three years the junior of Choco, the oldest of us! Maybe I will soon catch him up, Ah.”

What? I take a few seconds to understand all the implications of this sentence.

“Tierra, where are the older men?”

He freezes for a second, his stupid smile disappears. “…The old one goes to the village of the old people, of course, it’s a bit faraway… I need to go cooking the dinner, see you tonight.” And he turns away and leaves.

The faraway village of the old people… For all his talent with plants and cooking, I am certain he has zero skill in storytelling. I keep this info in a corner of my head, I will not forget to ask Choco tomorrow.

----

I dinner with Clementine and the kids, Choco is not back yet. As we wait for him before leaving the house, Clementine leaves to her room and comes back very excited. With a beaming smile, she gifts me three beautiful wooden bracelets in shades of blue. The craftsmanship is exquisite with clouds reliefs identical to my dress. “It’s for you, I made them today. They will make your storytelling more dynamic; I hope you like them.” She mimics me moving my arms on the stage.

I hug her. She is the best. “Thanks Clem, they are beautiful. But did you just mean that I move my arms too much!”

She opens her eye wide, rising arm arms in the air comically “…No”, the kids mimic their mother. And we laugh.

Some aspects of the village may be very creepy but they are touching people.

I empty my mana trying to clean myself but fail. It’s a bit awkward but there is no place to wash has everyone knows cleaning magic and the river is infected with crocodile monsters. Clem is nice enough to use her magic to clean me, It’s like I’m a kid, very embarrassing.

----

Same as yesterday I am kindly requested to do the show. This time the smallest kids are on another stage, so I don’t have ALL the village today. I am ready and decide to divide my time between two stories, one for the kids, one for the “adults”. First, a bit of Harry Potter as wildly requested, and then George Orwell Animal Farm. It’s a short novel about freedom and dystopia, a caricature of human totalitarianism played by animals.

I am quite proud of myself for remembering it. The blessed are visibly obsessed about being eaten if they leave the village. A tale of farm animals wanting freedom to escape this same fate, I hope this will touch them. Well, even if the story quickly slides toward injustice and extreme violence.

It goes really well and in the end the public is widely applauding, and I gain a couple of skill levels.

----

I again wake up screaming, tormented by the same nightmare. This wake-up Cinnamon, she hugs and calms me then quickly fall asleep in my arm. She is so sweet.

Again, I meditated trying to sense my mana and doing my shaping exercises. It’s has been three days with the same dream and I don’t want to spend my life like this. I know it because it had taken years to stop my daily nightmare on earth. Ignoring then will do nothing, I need to separate my fears from reality. My mind needs to understand that I am safe, they will not come back. It needs to separate the reality, the facts, from the feeling, my fear my pain.

And what will be better to make understands my brain than to show him that I can hunt monkeys? Now that the plan is made there is no coming back, I need to do that as soon as possible. Some monkey will die this afternoon, I can’t stop my morning magic training.

I have a good feeling about today.

????: 25

Journal note:

Oro presented me to Anna, short of Ananas who crafts paper windows and painting canvas. She was nice enough to create me a book and lend me some ink and a brush. In exchange, I told her everything I know about paper manufacturing. I also told her roommate, a stone manipulator, about clear glass. I don’t know much but I hope this will help them.

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System notes:

Spear mastery Lv100 > Class: Spearman Lv50 = leveling class faster, possibility of class evolution (master spearman)

Spear mastery Lv50

Leveling class caused by Difficulty, Merit, Skill.

Difficulty: Killing a level 1 goblins can give you a level up if you are missing an arm half-dead on the ground. It's not the level on the encounter that counts. The more the task is subjectively difficult the greater the experience.

Merit: Do something really important for you and you gain level. If you stop a plague by just pushing a button you could gain tons of level if it means something to you. If you just push a button because someone asks you to do it you will not gain much, or maybe nothing. The subjective meaning of the task is a great factor in leveling.

Skill: Did you use a particular knowledge or skill to do the task. the more someone involves all his competence the greater the leveling.

This means slaying a level 1000 dragon who is almost dead, without meaning it, and without using any competence will give you no level.

----

In the village, the interiors of the house are all very similar. There are the individual adult room and the common room for the kids and guests. It’s even a mark of adulthood to have his own room.

I was invited by Rocko to have my own room in exchange for telling him all my stories. It almost hurt me to say no. I want to know more about Clementine and Choco, I am slowly becoming their friend. And the kids would never forgive me if I do not continue their private story session.