Tough Love

The following morning Kyle and Emma were sitting opposite at a table at Al’s inn, Emma glaring at the disobedient boy.

“And, what do you have to say for yourself young man?”

Kyle pouted, he had been sent to bed immediately after getting a chewing out from the irate woman after he had blown his own cover as they returned from the battle against the Barghests, and thought it was very unfair that he had to put up with this sort of treatment again.

“Sorry Mum,” he mumbled finally.

Emma continued to glare at Kyle for a few seconds after this so-called apology causing the little boy to hang his head.

“All right then, I guess I’d better give you something to do, sorting out your Skills can wait until we get home, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else on the way,” she said finally.

“Fi.”

“Yes Ma’am!” Fi squawked jerking her head upwards in surprise.

“Show him his School List.”

“Uhh…Okay.”

School List-½ Slots available

Mana School

Rank 1- Master 1 Spell to increase Rank

Spells

· Mage Light-Creates a ball of stationary light. MP Cost: variable. Casting time: instant. Duration: variable. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Spell Mastery 0%

None- One Magic School available for selection.

Each time a School Ranks up you can gain a new Spell or an improved version of a Mastered Spell.

To attain a Divine Magic School, one must request a priest of sufficient rank to convert them or attain a religious type Class e.g. Priest, Paladin.

“Should I choose another School?” Kyle asked cautiously.

“…No, not yet, you should wait until you get your Class,” Emma said after a moment of hesitation.

“But…”

“It’s too big a decision for you to make right now, you’ll get your Class when you turn fifteen, we’ll talk about it then,” Emma stated.

Fi looked at Emma in surprise, “That’s seven years of growth you’re telling him to give up on! Are you sure?”

Emma’s face was serious as she looked down to meet Fi’s gaze. “He needs to focus on Ranking up the Mana School first, it will increase the level of Mana Manipulation faster than other Schools will, and if he does pick another School it could block off some of the Classes he could get.”

Fi nodded, this was true, increasing the Proficiency Level of Mana Manipulation was a must for any magic wielder and as they didn’t really know what Kyle’s talents might be yet, this decision did make a certain amount of sense, so she reluctantly deferred to Emma’s judgement.

Kyle looked between the two in confusion, trying to figure out what was going on, however it seemed that he wasn’t going to get an answer to that question.

Seeing his confusion Emma smiled briefly, remembering what it was like for her when her own mother had started teaching her about magic. In retrospect, her mother had used a very similar argument against Ai, and an eight-year-old Emma had looked at the two in much the same way.

“Alright dear, I suppose we should get on to casting your first spell. First I want you to create an image in your mind of the spell you are going to cast.”

Kyle started to imagine a small glowing orb floating above his outstretched hand, “Ok, I think I’ve got it mum, what’s next?”

“You should be able to feel the Mana that resides within your body, I want you to imagine a small amount being channelled into the image as you speak the name of the spell,” Emma said keeping a close eye on her son.

Kyle concentrated, feeling something deep within his chest resonating, the sensation only growing as time went on. As he mentally reached deeper within himself, he reached the source of this unusual sensation which he assumed was his internal Mana, a mass of warm energy that gave off a calming feeling. With the first part of his task complete he then started thinking of a way to somehow join this energy with the image in his mind, concentrating he imagined a small tendril of Mana reaching out and attaching itself to the ball of light in his mind and spoke the name of the spell.

“Mage Light”

Suddenly he felt a draining sensation as the tendril of Mana he had started with started to grow, opening his eyes he looked towards his outstretched right hand, a slowly growing ball of blue light was suspended above it.

“Mum! I think I did it!”

“That’s great dear you can stop now,” she replied with a worried look on her face as she stared at the orb.

Kyle looked back at the Mage Light to see that it grown from the size of an apple to the size of Kyle’s own head and showed no signs of stopping, trying to figure out what had gone wrong he felt the draining sensation from the tendril of Mana he had attached to the spell originally had also grown and his inner source of Mana was about to be drained dry. Quickly he banished the image from his mind and the light disappeared leaving him feeling exhausted.

“So, what did we learn?” Emma asked Kyle with a small smile on her face.

“I don’t know what I did wrong, but maybe it has something to do with the way I gave the spell the required Mana?”

“Don’t worry too much dear, most people don’t get it right on their first try,” Emma said consolingly, “What you have to remember is that the Mana inside you wants to get out.”

Kyle thought about this for a while before realising that the tendril of Mana he gave the spell had acted like a river, the Mana flowing down it into the spell, he hadn’t done anything to stop the flow, so the Mana had continued to flow into the spell. Once he had realised this he started to think of ways to control the flow but eventually came to the conclusion that he probably didn’t have the skill for that level of control yet.

“Mum, should I just give the spell portion of my Mana instead of trying to control the amount that flows for now?”

Emma nodded, pleased that he had come to the conclusion that his control lacking now.

“Yes, that’s probably the easiest way to control the amount of Mana you use, now drink this and try again,” she replied taking a small glass vial out of a pocket and holding it out.

“What is it mum?”

“Just a Mana potion dear, it’ll restore your MP.”

Kyle eyed the viscous liquid inside warily before taking the vial and drinking it.

“Ewwww, it tastes really gross!” Kyle said causing Fi and Emma to laugh softly at his distress.

With a pout once again forming on his face he cast the spell once again, this time he imagined taking a small amount of Mana in a pail and pouring it into the spell and a small glowing orb appeared over his hand briefly before slowly winking out.

Emma clapped at his obvious improvement, “Fi how much MP did he use for that?” “Just three, so he has 42 remaining after drinking that potion.”

“Alright then, while when we leave I want you to cast that spell until you reach 10 MP, Fi keep track of it for him, and try to get to the point where you can use 5 MP most of the time, it’ll help level your Mana Manipulation and ranking up your Magic School,” Emma said.

“Why 10 MP mum?”

“If you use up all your MP continuously you will start to get headaches and will eventually even lose consciousness.”

“Ahh…10 MP it is then Fi”

Fi wriggled in amusement as Kyle worriedly agreed with his mother, at least he would know not to overuse magic, but she knew that getting the average MP cost down to 5 MP would take longer than a day.

“There’s one other thing dear, it’s about our Racial Variant.”

“Ok, I’m listening,” Kyle was very interested in his Racial Variant as his mother had been close-lipped about it up until now.

“Did Fi Identify the Barghests from last night?” Emma asked.

Kyle frowned at the seemingly unrelated question as he answered, “Yes.”

“So, you know how the screen said that Barghests were ‘Pure-blood’ monsters.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how this relates to our Racial Variant.”

“Well, dear there are broadly speaking three different types of monster; the Pure-bloods which are ‘true’ monsters the ones which either appeared when the System came or are descended from them, Undead, animals and humans that died but their souls didn’t leave their bodies, and finally the most common of them all Mana Mutants which are descendants of animals that were changed by large quantities of Mana.”

“Ok and what does this have to do with us?”

“Well, you see, we’re technically Mana Mutants, your grandparents were forced to participate in an experiment to increase humanities ability to use magic.”

“Why would people do that?”

“The people who were running the experiment believed that every other Race should be treated as less than humanity, but they also knew that a lot of other Races were better at magic than humans and they decided to try to change that.”

“These people sound like Denzel.”

“A little bit dear, anyway they trapped your grandparents and a couple of hundred others in a Dungeon and forced them to live there for years and eventually children were born, some were normal humans, and some were special, some having non-human features like blue hair or skin, and when they started using magic their eyes started glowing and strange symbols appeared on their bodies.”

“And you were one of them?”

“Yes Kyle, anyway the people responsible for these experiments called themselves the ‘The Empire of the One True God’ but here in the kingdom of Teressia we call them ‘The New Byzantine Empire,’ but anyway, how this actually relates to you learning magic today is, you now have glowing eyes and when you cast blue markings appear on your body.”

“What!??”

Fi just started cackling as Kyle leapt up and ran towards the mirror behind the bar before gasping in shock at the sight of his once ordinary blue eyes which now were lit from within with a faint glow.

“Muuuum! Why didn’t you tell me this would happen?”

Emma was trying desperately to keep a straight face as Fi gasped for air in between bouts of laughter, “Well dear would it have changed the fact that it was going to happen?”

“Well no I guess not, but it’s still not very nice!”

“No, it wasn’t, but neither was sneaking out of the inn last night was it?”

Just as Kyle opened his mouth to whine again Jerald crashed through the door.

“Kyle! Check out this Skill Crystal I got for you!” he shouted running up to his son.

Emma shook her head at her husband as she got up and walked over to the bar.

“Dad, what’s a Skill Crystal?”

“Well son, it’s a type of magical item you can use to get a Skill without spending Skill Points,” Jerald said, seeming to deflate as he realised that Kyle didn’t really understand why he was so excited.

“I’ve already got my Mana Manipulation Skill for free from my Racial Trait though.”

“Yes, you do Kyle and that’s great, but you see it’s traditional for parents to buy their children a Skill Crystal when they get their Companion.”

“Why?”

“Ok, so back before Companions were a thing, people just got their Class whenever they wanted,” Jerald explained, “so they had Class Skills which they could use to get more Skill Points and unlock new Skill But, after people started to wait to get their Class they started to have a difficult time getting Skill Points because they couldn’t level up, especially seeing as some races, like humans don’t have a Skill given to them by their Race.”

“So, they started to get Skills from these Crystal?”

“Yes, and it’s a tradition that has lived on to this day.”

Kyle was finally starting to get excited now, if he got another Skill he would be able to get Skill Points that much faster.

“So what Skill did you get me Dad?”

“Alright, I got you a Skill that no-one should be without, it’s a Mastery Skill which means that you can unlock new bonuses and sub-skills when you level it up.”

“Like my Mana Manipulation? Ok, but what is it?”

“Don’t you want to know about the other types of Skill?”

Kyle sighed as he realised that his father was really getting into explaining how Skills work, “Fine.”

“Cool, so General Skills just have the one Bonus that just continues to increase, and Crafting Skills are pretty much like Mastery Skills except as well as bonuses you can learn to use new types of materials every few Levels.”

“Wow you were right, that was cool dad.”

Emma hid a grin at Kyle’s reply, “Jerald, just tell him what Skill you got him.”

“It’s the Unarmed Combat Skill.”

“I don’t get it what’s so great about that?”

“The Unarmed Combat Skill is one of the best Skills you can get your kid when they get their companion son, you don’t need tools or practice weapons to use it, and it’s affected by all of your physical stats.”

“So?”

“Remember how Thomas managed to hit that Barghest last night son?”

Kyle nodded, still not really convinced that he wanted this Skill.

“Well Thomas mostly focusses on information gathering through his Class Skills along with some healing Spells, but he has a very high level in Unarmed Combat, which means despite his lower physical stats he can pretty much hold his own in a fight by himself anyway.”

“Alright but why do I need this Skill?”

“If you get this Skill you don’t need to worry so much about what could happen if you lose your weapon in a fight if you’re a warrior or an enemy getting in too close if you’re a caster, it’s just a smart Skill for anyone to have.”

“If you say so dad.”

“Kyle your father is right, and Skill Crystals are very expensive-”

“Actually dear, the merchants we saved last night sold me this at half-price.”

“…Or not, anyway he’s right this is a very useful Skill and you should thank him for it, we’ll all teach you our own little tricks so that you can figure out your own style of fighting, it’ll be great.”

“Thanks dad,” Kyle said taking the small green crystal from his father, “how do I use it?”

“You just grip it tightly in both hands and say ‘activate.”

Kyle did as he was told, and images of various punches and kicks started to pass in front of his eyes and when they were done FI showed him his new Skill.

New Skill Unlocked!

Unarmed Combat-Mastery (Non-Class Skill)

Level 1-0% to next Proficiency Level

Mastery Skill that provides bonuses to fighting unarmed. Related sub-skills can also be unlocked.

Current Bonuses

Increases damage dealt by unarmed attacks by 1%

Sub-Skills

· Leg Sweep-Increases damage by 5%. 20% chance to cause Knockdown. Costs 5 SP. Cooldown: 5 seconds.

“Whoa, that was weird.”

Jerald and Emma grinned at each other as their son held his head between his hands with a slightly dazed look in his eyes.

“So, I got a Sub-skill as well?”

“Yup, and you’ll be able to get other ones later, the available ones will change each new Proficiency Level,” Jerald replied, he was looking forward to training his son, he missed the old days when he travelled with his party, and he was happy and a little worried that Kyle wanted to follow in his footsteps.

“Well Kyle at least we have a lot of things to work on in the next few years, this’ll give us a good head-start too, Mastery Skills cost a lot more Skill Points to unlock,” Fi said as she leapt into the air coming to rest around Kyle’s neck her, head resting on his left shoulder with a satisfied look on her reptilian face.

Kyle reached up to stroke her head as he and his parents walked out the door.