7 Years Later…

Congratulations!

Skill Rank Up: Engraving (Novice 1, 0%)

Your Dexterity increased by 1.

Aster smiled at the welcome notification and leaned back in his chair, taking a breath from his work in the smithy. He had been intensely focused on it for almost an hour now. It wasn’t everyday that he got a skill rank up and the accompanying stat increase and the fine detailed engraving he was working on in this dagger’s blade seemed to do just the trick to push him over to that next rank. He checked his profile to look at everything again.

Name: Aster

Surname: Seppen

Title: None

Age: 19

Gender: Man

Race: Half Winter Elf Half Airelian Human

Level: 0 (0/0)

Attributes

Strength: 24

Dexterity: 41

Constitution: 20

Intelligence: 46

Wisdom: 31

Charisma: 29

Luck: 11

Willpower: 15

Karma: 12

Resources

Health: 200/200

Regen: 2.4/minute

Stamina: 410/410

Regen: 2.0/minute

Mana: 460/460

Regen: 3.1/minute

Qi: 310/310

Inspiration: 207/240

Favor: 164/290

Affinities

Air: 0%

Earth: 0%

Fire: 0%

Water: 0%

Ice: 0%

Lightning: 0%

Metal: 0%

Wood: 0%

Dark: 0%

Death: 0%

Life: 0%

Light: 0%

Blood: 0%

Illusion: 0%

Song: 0%

Covenant: 0%

Gravity: 0%

Spacial: 0%

Spirit: Unknown

Time: Unknown

He still couldn’t find a solution to why his level never increased. When asking others they didn’t seem to have any issues. One scrap of information he had found in an old book seemed to say that Unblessed were level locked and not granted a complete system. Normally, when doing any type of activity, a person was granted experience and when they leveled up they were allowed to allocate additional attribute points but he never received any xp. While he was told 10 in all attributes might have been the average for an adult, it was really just the average starting point. It made the divide between the Unblessed and Blessed even more pronounced.

When it came to skills, he had learned from experience that the ranks went Beginner, Novice, Tyro, then Initiate. He had read that after those came Apprentice, Amateur, Intermediate, Journeyman, Artisan, Adept, Professional, Expert, Veteran, Maven, Virtuoso, Master, Doyen, Guru, Grandmaster and, finally, Sage. Enough ranks to last multiple lifetimes in his opinion. He quickly navigated to his Skills tab to take stock of his skills again and maybe see if something else was close to ranking.

Skills

Name

Rank

Level

Progress

Acrobatics

Tyro

34

27%

Aid

Beginner

54

40%

Alchemy

Beginner

13

26%

Armor (Chainmail)

Novice

20

22%

Armor (Leather)

Tyro

94

67%

Armor (Plate)

Beginner

2

3%

Athletics

Initiate

78

56%

Blacksmithing

Initiate

96

4%

Carving

Beginner

57

60%

Cleaning

Novice

9

9%

Combat (Axe)

Beginner

35

2%

Combat (Bow)

Tyro

97

86%

Combat (Dagger)

Tyro

35

10%

Combat (Mace)

Beginner

10

50%

Combat (Spear)

Beginner

64

13%

Combat (Staff)

Beginner

87

99%

Combat (Sword)

Apprentice

8

35%

Combat (Unarmed)

Tyro

1

93%

Cooking

Initiate

71

80%

Dancing

Beginner

65

96%

Deciphering

Beginner

81

47%

Diplomacy

Novice

70

86%

Drawing

Beginner

98

59%

Engraving

Novice

1

0%

Herbalism

Novice

13

69%

Information Gathering

Tyro

84

43%

Insight

Initiate

38

13%

Language (Common)

Tyro

41

73%

Language (Elvish)

Tyro

43

48%

Leatherworking

Initiate

1

55%

Lock Picking

Beginner

77

96%

Logging

Beginner

94

34%

Lore (Magic)

Tyro

83

79%

Lore (Selesolan)

Novice

12

55%

Lore (Winter Elves)

Novice

65

60%

Mathematics

Novice

70

12%

Meditation

Tyro

39

1%

Painting

Beginner

57

14%

Perception

Tyro

97

86%

Persuasion

Tyro

1

9%

Reading

Initiate

99

49%

Resistance (Fire)

Beginner

9

3%

Resistance (Ice)

Beginner

5

11%

Resistance (Illusion)

Beginner

5

11%

Resistance (Water)

Beginner

5

11%

Sculpting

Beginner

27

33%

Singing

Beginner

96

74%

Skinning

Tyro

42

53%

Tailoring

Novice

38

29%

Tracking

Novice

89

90%

Trading

Tyro

32

64%

Trapping

Novice

64

77%

Weaving

Beginner

78

87%

Writing

Tyro

83

46%

His Drawing was getting pretty close, perhaps he could sketch out a few more armor designs and get it ranked up this week! In his excitement to continue to rank up, he moved a bit too quickly, knocking his hand into the table and dropping his etching tool onto the stone floor which broke with an audible snap. Asher winced and bent down to retrieve it with a frown, ‘What rotten luck that such a small drop would snap the thing in two!’ Aster stood and went to a decently sized storage room that connected to the main forging area. Shelves upon shelves of tools and materials were organized neatly in the room.

When he found what he was looking for, Aster stretched his arm up as far as he could, trying to reach the small etching tool that was evading his grasp on the top shelf. ‘Of course it would be on the top shelf.’ He thought grumpily, cursing his luck again. He was an adult now, looking exactly like he had originally designed this body so long ago in Limbo, and had continued working part-time at the forge but his half human heritage brought him to the final height of 6 feet and 1 inch or 185 centimeters according to the Elvish metric system Aster was surprised they used. The average height of most adult Elves though was 200 centimeters no matter what gender they were, which meant Aster was on the smaller side for an elf but the taller side for a human.

Frustration was starting to creep up on Aster; however, as he stretched his body further up, standing on the tips of his toes, when the light around him became shadowed and a hand reached over to grab the tool for him. Aster wrinkled his nose at the pale hand and spoke without turning around, “Quit showing off, Saelak.”

There was a soft low chuckle, “I can’t help it. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. I promised to protect you when I got taller, remember?”

Aster turned around to look at his friend who was shrugging at him. Saelak was a full grown elf now at 18 and he no longer wore the heavy fur clothing that Aster had met him in as the mage had gained full control of his powers and became a formidable presence among the nobility. His clothing spoke to his ability by showing off as much skin as possible and his three markings indicating his status as a Trimagi. In the center of his forehead was the symbol for Ice, a prominent and beautifully detailed light blue snowflake, Water was near his right temple, a dark blue droplet that seemed to ripple almost, and near his left temple was the symbol for Illusion, a magenta arcane eye with what looked like sparkles around it, all three were highly detailed which Aster believed put him around the 4th rank of Initiate, for each. Saelak handed the tool towards Aster as he swiped it from his friend in mock indignation, “Bah, you’re still decades away from being able to protect me, kid.”

Saelak readjusted his thin rectangular spectacles, pushing them further up the bridge of his straight nose. “Right, right. ‘Aster, the Old Man’ will never need protection.”

Aster gave him a grin and said valiantly, “I think you mean ‘Aster, the Awesome Hero’!” as he held the newly obtained tool into the air like a sword.

Saelak gave off a deadpan response, “So much ego for a pipsqueak”. Aster gave a laugh which broke Saelak’s feigned seriousness as he joined him in the bout of laughter. Saelak noticed once again the marking on the center of Aster’s brow, an angular black X that crossed out the area a blessing’s symbol would have been. The mark of the Unblessed which was given when a person came of age and there was no Blessing discovered. Saelak smiled sadly and followed Aster back into the main forge area and couldn’t help but think of the title he silently gave to his friend, ‘Aster, my Cursed Hero’.