— Aster —

Jane and I met up with Kyle and the girl on the way to a room that we had never seen before. This place seemed to get bigger and bigger every day. It was a giant room with a huge red crystal in the center surrounded by a large pool of water. At once we recognized the crystal.

“A Life Crystal,” I murmured under my breath now. Strangely there was no sense of panic or fear, just curiosity. As I said this Jane shut and locked the door behind us. Curiosity was replaced with dread as the door was locked.

I looked towards the girl and although she was trying to hide it, my fear was reflected in her eyes. This was something we had both been through before. We just stood there in silence until a knock on the door came and Jane opened the door.

Instructor came in with two boxes and placed them in front of us “These are your original belongings and the weapons you have earned. Due to your surprising display and the recommendations of Jane we have gifted you a pair of dragon gloves.” My eyes lit up. The gloves were so expensive it would be forever before I could purchase even the cheapest pair. “They are of course slightly different from normal Dragon gloves but you'll find out when you read the tag.”

Kyle entered the room carrying what looked like a heavy changing screen. He placed it on the ground and then came back with a second one. “Please change back into your normal clothes as you are no longer training. The final lecture will begin in a few minutes.”

Grabbing my box I head behind the curtain to change. I had one outfit beside the tunic and put it on. After putting on my jeans, plain grey shirt, a thin green jacket, and the scarf I bought what felt like years ago. Something about having the scarf wrapped around my neck felt right. I felt secure, warm, and safe. I knew it was an illusion but I didn’t care at the moment. I took a few moments just basking in that feeling before I reached down and grabbed the gloves. Immediately the gloves fell off, for one thing, the fingers were open. How am I supposed to smith with these? My fingers would be totally exposed and would most likely be burned. I quickly pulled up the card and read.

Dragon Gloves: Quick-fire Series

Special Ability: Able to resist extreme heat even overexpose fingers without compromising dexterity.

Special Ability 2: Stores large amounts of heat energy. Built up energy needs to be released periodically.

Color:

Black = no heat

Red = low heat

Blue = medium heat

White = high heat

Warning: No shock impact or magic reduction.

I stared at the card on the back of the gloves, not sure how I felt about them. I knew the gloves would come in handy but I was also looking forward to the magic protection of normal dragon gloves.

Instead of worrying about it I pulled the gloves on and equipped my new weapons. I looked at myself in the mirror attached to the changing screen “I look ridiculous.” The clothes I was wearing looked weird with all the weapons I had on me. I always dressed for comfort not so much for style, but after seeing myself I knew I had to get new clothes.

Fully equipped and clothed I stepped outside the screen. The girl began laughing causing me to turn my head. I was surprised to see that the girl had the opposite problem as me. Her clothing fit perfectly with her new weapons. Her gun strapped to her thigh, bow slung across her back, her dagger was in a sheath near the small of her back. I didn't see the brass knuckles but I assumed they were in her jacket.

I felt a pang of jealousy from seeing her. I tore my eyes away toward the instructor. He seemed to shimmer all over, it was definitely the shimmer. I tried to look beyond but they shine no matter how hard I looked I couldn't see beyond the illusion. Is he even real?

The instructor took no mind to my observation starting. “Please take a seat.” two seats had appeared in front of the changing screens. Taking positions we sat. “Now let me explain the things you need to know for traversing the world.”

“What we need to know? Like how Shadow Cats find work or Adventurer parties?” he didn’t look happy. I interrupted him.

“Or how we learn special skills?” The girl added.

“Yes. Yes. All those, but first I’m going to give you some information.”

This madhouse has been all questions with no answers.

“Now first I will ask you two things. First how long have you been here?” Seriously! More questions!?

It had to be longer than I expected, which should only be a month. So I guessed “One...No two months.”

“That sounds... About right.” The girl added.

“Wrong!” the instructor smiled “Try again.”

“Three months?” The girl questioned

“Wrong!”

Worried I asked “Four months?” the guild master shook his head no.

“Then how long?” the girl asked letting worry show in her voice.

“You have both been here for a total of six months.”

““What!?!””

I was in disbelief. I knew of at least twenty days and had guessed that I had woken after the first room after two weeks but maybe it was longer. Is that why I became emaciated like that? No longer able to contain my worry I asked “How could it be that long?”

“Well there were the days of training in the room, the recovery for both of you took about two weeks.”

“That only accounts for a month-and-a-half.” the girl blurted out.

“Well...Yes, the other part was the lessons. During the assimilation nights after the lesson, each of those took two to three weeks to assimilate the knowledge.”

“Then why don't we remember it properly?” I was starting to get angry. I had planned to meet up with my friends. There was no way they would wait for me that long.

“I have plans with my friends.” The Girl Interrupted seemed to speak my own thoughts.

“First let me reassure you that if you had plans to meet up with any of your friends who were looking for a job. Then you are fine. Most people fail to mention that one must stay at the guild for at least a year for training.”

It slowly dawned on me what he was saying. Feeling the anger drain away “So we still have six months?”

“Yes, six more months. In these next six months, you will learn things, take missions, and level your skills.”

“Level our skills?” now confused, the girl asks “What does that mean?”

The instructor began “This leads me to the second question. Have either of you looked at your Status Screen since your first training?” immediately I opened my shirt to try to see my status. Last time I saw it looked like a simple pattern on my chest. Now it has become much more intricate while slowly taking the shape of a budding flower. The girl looked down at the inside of her wrist and her pattern appeared as she looked. It appeared to be fairly intricate and what looks to me in the shape of a fist.

I opened my screen.

Name: Aster Datura

Level: Locked

Class: Trainee

Energy Type: Rogue

Animal Specialization: Cat

SubClass: N/A

Skills:

Combat:

Dagger: 6

1-Handed Swords: 1

Throwing Knives: 2

Chakrams: 4

Magic:

Mana Control: 3

Cats Eye: 3

Shadow: 1

Light: 1

Other:

Lock picking: 1

Pickpocket: 5

Trap making: 1

Trap Detection: 1

Stealth: 2

First Aid: 2

Tailoring: 1

Trap Disarming: 1

Words:

I stared at my screen. It had completely changed since I had last seen it. I didn’t know skills had levels.

“The leaf is a wondrous thing.” The instructor began by gesturing to the screens in front of them “They can quantifiably judge your skill level and relay them in easy to understand levels.”

“Why are most of them level one?” the girl asked, pulling me away from the screen.

“Yeah?” I hadn’t really noticed it until she said something I was still surprised about skill having levels.

“That is simple, the skill injection technique downloads the knowledge and their physical abilities into you from another person, but unlike the knowledge, the physical ability and muscle memory fade. Although the knowledge does as well, it's more like remembering a book you read a while ago. The knowledge is still there but takes time to remember.”

That explains the strange body experience but what about “So our levels will quickly increase in the skills that we were taught here?”

“Yes, skills taught in this method will level faster as you already have the knowledge. You just need to remember the ability and practice.”

“Can we still learn other skills?”

“Of course, it will just take longer to master. Once a skill reaches level one it will appear on your screen, once every ten levels the next set of information related to the skill will be downloaded to you. You can also hide your skills because a lot of random skills will begin to appear. Level one is considered basic competence, one to ten is a beginner, eleven to fifteen is intermediate, fifteen to twenty master, twenty-plus Mystic.”

“Why are we just learning about this?” the girl said rather agitated. Why would everyone hold back this important information? It seems like important information to have.

“Think back. It's extremely common knowledge. So most people don't even think about it. Honestly, you probably heard it before but thought they were talking about something else.”

Sure, common knowledge.

“That and it's tradition to learn it from your guild. The same is true of leveling.”

So no one is supposed to tell us anything? What about when we were highly skilled during the lessons? “What level were the skills when we were at the peak during training?”

“You were both around level fifteen of each skill. Leveling is different from skill leveling. General leveling happens once enough energy accumulates. Some people call it to experience honestly we're not one hundred percent what it really is but it can be gained in many ways. The first is by hunting monsters this is the most common. The stronger the monster the more experience, another is by accomplishing certain missions as a reward by the guild. Even that is a little iffy on how it works” he pulled out a blue egg. “Energy from the guild is accumulated in these eggs. Each egg will accumulate energy during your missions, the harder the mission better the experience. Each egg is created specifically for each mission. It pays only after the mission is completed. If the mission has failed it will shatter losing all experience.”

“How does it know if the mission has failed?” the girl asked.

“Simply put. Magic. It allows one task for a certain amount of time and also senses whether it is possible to complete. Very mysterious item, also each egg will actually display a screen explaining the mission in detail.” Putting the egg away he continued “One of the other ways to gain experience is being successful in pickpocketing, stealing, combat, blight even reading gives you experience, but the amount is very low when doing this stuff.”

Then what was leveling really? I had always assumed leveling made us faster and unlocked skills for us. Like we would magically know how to do new things but now that I thought on it that would never work. “What actually happens when we level up?”

The Instructor gave me a pitying look “I see you must be from one of those places... Simply put you heal faster, have more energy, more Mana, faster, stronger everything about you is amplified by your level, except your skills. Also, every five levels you will be able to create a unique Word starting at level one.”

“How do you not know this?” the girl asked disbelievingly.

I shrugged. How am I supposed to know something I was never told. They probably told everyone else, in those classes I didn’t take.

“As your level increases the experience needed increases. Making it harder and harder for a person to level. Now that part is out of the way please follow me.”

We followed the instructor heading towards the big red Life Crystal. He led us to the bridge that led to the crystal. On the bridge, Instructor stopped “The last couple things. First, to level all you must do is place your hands on the Crystal. If your experience is high enough you will level. Simple. Now finally for the next six months, you will be doing missions for the guild gaining both experience and pay. Completing missions outside the six months will still gain you experience and pay, as these missions are also much harder. To increase your rank you must do a test to determine if you are qualified. Each rank the harder the mission, the better payout.” Instructor finished “Now please approach and touch the crystal to finish your training.”

“Are we leveling?” I was now excited at the prospect.

The instructor was still smiling “Yes and no. There is also something that occurs on your first touch during training. Sometimes people level too. By the way, at the end of the remaining six months you should be at least level five.” now excited I and the girl quickly approached the crystal and touched it. The crystal began to glow.