The tip of Kao’s blade hovered at Orn’s throat. “You have been distracted all morning.”

“Skills do not make any sense!” Orn blurted out, as he felt the point resting on his neck.

Kao stepped back and raised and eyebrow. “What brought that up?”

“I have been thinking about it since I visited Aunty and Uncle. Skills seem arbitrary, and are supposedly unteachable. Then Aunty showed me what she teaches to everyone.” Orn rubbed at his throat with the back of his wrist, “What is going on?”

Kao’s blades disappeared, and she rested her hands on her hips. “So that is what has been eating at you all morning, “This is going to take a while to explain.” Tilting her head in the direction of the old oak she turned on her heels.

Orn sheathed his blades and followed the goddess, who took a seat in the grass at the base of the tree. Removing his sword belt, he followed her example placing his back to the tree.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “It will probably make more sense if I give you a bit of context first. Are you ready?”

Orn nodded.

Kao took a slow breath. “Before there were paths, people would learn like young children do now. They would try things and slowly learn to do something. As they got older, they would master their trade. Others would work at a skill but never quite reach it. That was the only way things were done. There were no instant skills, just a lot of hard work. Some would be a bit better at certain things and would struggle with others. Magic and healing were extreme examples since you were either born with mana or you were not.”

“Those were better times.” She smiled and closing her eyes, rested her head against the tree trunk.

With a sigh the smile faded, “Then my sisters gave people paths. Why spend years to earn a trade through hard work, when at five you could be practically given those same skills? Why risk choosing something you would never be good at, when you can just be told something you can do well? Often, the skills given by my sisters seemed better than what a person might have earned. So most chose to take a path. Now it is what their priests have everyone do.”

“So, if you do not take a path you can do whatever you want?” Orn asked, “Does that mean everyone could be like me?”

Kao snorted, “Unlikely. My sisters would send their priests to purge the nonbeliever as a heretic. But if they survived long enough, yes. That person would be a bit like you. They would have to earn their skills, but if they tried hard enough they could gain them. But no matter what they did there would still be a key difference,” She looked pointedly at him. “they do not have a goddess’s blessing.”

Smiled to herself she continued, “You learn faster than you should and I gave you access to mana. I want you to be able to do anything. Do not forget everyone is different though. Some men do not grow large enough to hold the line in a shield wall. Others do not have steady enough hands to work glass. Even ignoring the physical limitations, there is a larger issue. Who would they learn from? Teaching how to anything critical is all but lost on this continent.”

Her smile faded at she considered her next words, “The truth is that the paths were, and are, a trade. Kneeling at the loom lets the goddess make changes to your innate abilities. They make it so you will struggle to learn anything that is not related to your path, but related things come to you naturally. The trade will instantly give you skills, but the insidious part is they also get to determine how good you can get with them. They simultaneously accelerate and limit the person.”

“Wait. You said it makes it hard to learn other skills, not impossible. Does that mean people could learn skills that are not part of their path?” Orn’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand why people would not just learn other skills.

Kao nodded slowly, “They could, but everyone is too accustomed to being given everything. The few related skills my sister’s do not give are learned so easily everyone assumes they were already given them. Anything people have to work for, especially if my sisters made it harder to learn, are considered impossible. That is what your aunt teaches the children. It is something they can learn and will pick everything up easily. It also matches the lie that you stop learning skills after your pathday.”

“If it is harder to learn things that are not related, how do they determine what is related?”

Kao shrugged, “That is determined by my sisters. They made a lot of rules about it. Some things are place, some are culture, and I swear some of them are just random. Take your aunt’s herbs and medicines. Those are needed in the forest as there are a lot of toxic plants and venomous creatures. But those same medicines are a core part of being an apothecary. At the same time a hunter in the hills to the west would have no use for them at all.”

“But that does not answer the question. Everyone speaks as if teaching is not something that happens... But then they do it. And even call it teaching!” Orn struggled to make sense of the inconsistency.

“To some extent they know. They just make excuses for it. The priests tell them that they are just helping someone realize a skill they already have. It is the same with the challenges some cultures will do. It is not practice, but accessing the skills you already have. You will hear people talk about growing into their paths. I know it is strange, but most will not think too deeply about it. You should remember people get their paths when they are children. They grow larger and are better able to use their skills, not realizing that some of those skills were not a result of getting stronger, but getting better at something. But the connection between learning skills and growing up makes it blurry. Add to that the priests telling them whatever my sisters want, and you get a lot of people denying the truth of the world around them.”

“But why would your sisters do this? What could they gain? ” Orn felt he was missing something and just could not find the last piece to make it all fit.

“Control.” Kao nearly spit the word. “If a person is not only told what to do, but they make it easy to do, the person will probably do it. This means a lot of the randomness of the world disappears. They each have reasons for this, but the main thing is it makes their jobs at the loom easier.”

Orn spent the rest of the morning talking about skills with Kao. In the end, the answers he got just made the world around him seem mad.