Later that night, after all the celebrations, Noboru sat awake outside of the dorms. He was reading, specifically he was reading the book that Aiden had given him. The information inside was very useful. It went into not just the basics of manipulation, but the advanced aspects and even the comparison of manipulation and magic. Manipulation is, quite simply, the act of manipulating an existing substance, hence the name. This means that, while you can control a given element to some extent, it is not all encompassing. A fire manipulator cannot control fire he did not generate, an earth manipulator cannot change the amount of earth in an area, an air manipulator cannot take the air from an area, etc. Of course, even with these roadblocks, manipulation is still very strong. The very capability to affect the world around you puts you leagues above someone who cannot. That being said, when compared to magic, manipulation leaves much to be desired. Magic is all encompassing. If you can think it, you can do it. Teleportation, reality bending, dimensional travel, mind control, etc, magic allows for all of these. But the way to use magic has been lost to time, there is no one alive who can use it. The only reason people today even know about magic is because of the old stories about the time of the ancients. A time when mages were widespread, and used their powers to create a flourishing planet.

Of course, nothing can last forever. People, by nature, are greedy, and eventually the world collapsed in on itself, going from peace and prosperity to war and scarcity. The planet remained this way for centuries, until the Goddess herself stepped in. She purged the world of mages, remade the tarnished lands, and allowed the world to recover. Many years have passed since and the Goddess is still worshipped today.

Noboru closed the book and rubbed his eyes. He was beginning to tire. The knowledge in the book was good, but there was a lot of it. He shifted in his chair, stretching lightly. Tomorrow the training would begin in earnest but despite needing rest Noboru didn’t sleep. Instead his mind raced, thinking of strategies and ways to counteract manipulation while not being able to control it. He had been lucky today, Prince Harold was not too skilled at manipulation so he was able to come out on top. However, it won't always be like that, there is sure to be plenty of highly skilled manipulators among the demons. As he was, he wouldn’t be able to win. But this world is fundamentally different from Earth, the him of today won’t be able to compare to the him of tomorrow.

The leveling system. That was how Noboru planned to get stronger. The problem was, he had no clue how the system worked. Sure, he was given a brief overview when he was summoned by Cardinal James, but it was never truly explained. But Noboru knew who to go to. He once again walked through the halls of the castle, and this time he made it to his destination without running into anything unexpected. He opened the door to find Aiden sitting in wait.

“I was wondering when you’d show. Honestly, I thought you’d be here sooner, you made me stay up late.” Aiden yawned in exaggeration. Seeing his theatrics, Noboru rolled his eyes.

“Well if you figured I’d come then you probably know why.”

“Yeah, you want to know how to counter manipula-”

“No. The book tells me enough about that. I need to know how to level up.”

Aiden paused for a moment, his eyes widened slightly before crinkling as he began to laugh. “Oh you took me by surprise there, boy. I forgot that you don’t know how yet, I mean it’s basic information in this world.” Aiden let out one last chuckle before gesturing to the chair opposite to him. “Sit, this’ll take a bit to explain.”

Noboru nodded and took a seat in the offered chair. “Alright, so to explain quite clearly, leveling up is not what you want to accomplish. Level is merely a marker of your strength, what you want is to increase your attributes.” Noboru tilted his head in confusion. He furrowed his brow and put his hand up to his chin in thought.

“I don’t get it. In every game, leveling up makes your attributes go up, so how do you increase your attributes without leveling up?”

Aiden shook his head, “I’m not sure what these games are like, but you’d be best off not comparing them to the real world. Now to answer your question, increasing your attributes is done by using those attributes. For example, to increase your strength you might lift weights, to increase agility you might do stretches or go for a run, to increase stealth you might sneak around, or to increase vitality you might let yourself be hit. These are all the simple ways to do so, but they will only increase your attributes by a small margin, the best way to increase your attributes is to fight. Combat, of any sort, will increase the attributes used within the fight, and it will do so way faster than any other sort of training. For example,” he rolled an information orb towards Noboru, “check your stats. You’ll probably find that they increased from that spar you had earlier.”

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Name: Noboru Tobe Age: 18

Level: 2

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Attributes:

Strength: 120

Agility: 115

Perception: 175

Intelligence: 150

Stealth: 120

Fortitude: 100

Vitality: 100

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Skills:

Hand-to-hand combat: Master,

Weapon Combat: Master, Combat

Strategy: Intermediate (High-Tier)

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Abilities:

?????

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Noboru was shocked at his stats. He didn’t feel any different, yet his strength, agility, perception, and stealth had all increased just from that small spar. On top of that, his combat strategy skill had changed as well. “Did my strategy skill increase from combat too?” While Noboru had spoken the question quietly to himself, Aiden answered as if it was directed towards him. “From what I can tell, probably not. I think that skill increased when you gained more knowledge of combat manipulation from the book I gave you. Of course, the combat probably increased it a bit too, but the knowledge from the book is what made it become High-Tier.” Aiden let his words sink in before speaking up again. “Now, it’s time for a small lesson, pass that orb.” After Noboru rolled the orb back to Aiden, the orb quickly powered up again and Aiden’s stats were now on display.

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Name: Aiden Kinfer Age: ??

Level: ??

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Attributes:

Strength: ??

Agility: ??

Perception: ??

Intelligence: ??

Stealth: ??

Fortitude: ??

Vitality: ??

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Skills:

All Manipulation: Master, ??

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Abilities:

Water Manipulation, Light Manipulation,

Earth manipulation, Privacy, ??

--------------------------------------------------

“Now I’ve hidden the stats I don’t want you to see, it’s something that can be done with my ability, Privacy. Of the abilities I’ve let you see, there’s something off, what is it?” Noboru thought for a moment before suddenly perking up.

“You have All Manipulation as a skill but you can only manipulate three elements. Your Skills and Abilities don’t match up.” Aiden smiled. “Correct. Now tell me, why do you think that is?” This time, Noboru was stumped. “I don’t know, maybe you have a skill for it? Does Privacy let you do that?”

Aiden shook his head and clicked his tongue lightly. “Wrong. To put it simply, Skills are your knowledge, while Abilities are the things you can use. So I know how to use all the different types of manipulation at a Master level, but I can only use water, light, and earth. Make sense?” Noboru nodded his head. “So that’s why all of mine are skills, it’s knowledge as opposed to things to use. I get it.” Aiden smiled.

“Okay, question 2: Why did I tell you about this?”

“Umm, to get me to understand the difference between skills and abilities?”

“That’s part of the reason, but not the whole one. The main reason why I told you about this was because you don't have many abilities. The only way for you to fight against people with overwhelming abilities is knowledge about those abilities. When you have skills, that knowledge will never go away, you will always be able to call upon it. This is the best way for you to become stronger. Your attributes will rise quickly when you begin fighting on the frontlines, you shouldn’t worry about those. You need to increase your skills before they send you out. And they will send you soon.”

Noboru bowed his head. “I understand, thank you. But what should I do to gain skills the quickest? Just read? And if so, what do I read?”

Aiden’s tightlipped smile turned slightly devilish as gestured towards the bookshelves in the room. “Before you leave, you need to have read at least one book from every section, you can exclude weapons and hand-to-hand since you already have mastery in those.” Noboru looked pale faced at the bookshelves that lined every wall and took up the back of the room. “By the way, there’s a lot of sections.” Aiden winked at Noboru before locking the exit door. “Now, get reading.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aiden watched the now asleep Noboru, still in a chair with his face laying on a book and drool beginning to spill out of his mouth. He smiled lightly, it’s almost like having a son of my own. He turned to his left and opened a drawer on his desk. He lightly took out the picture frame within and softly caressed the side. Do you think if we had a kid that he’d be like Noboru, Kass? He stared longingly at the woman in the picture. She was smiling brightly, with dark skin and even darker hair. The sword on her back and her rippling muscles betrayed the gentle look on her face. Please, come back to me. He set the picture back into the drawer and draped a blanket over Noboru’s shoulders before heading to bed himself. That one thought dominating the rest of his mind.

Morning came faster than Noboru could have imagined. His face was slightly stuck to the book under him, and it took him a moment to remember where he was. Crap, I fell asleep. I hope I’m not late to practical lessons. He unstuck his face from the book and tossed the blanket off his back before rushing out the door. He sprinted down the halls, and as he did so realized that he was faster than the day before. Huh, I guess my stats really did increase. It feels kind of weird, being faster without any real work.

Noboru arrived at the field where the practical lessons were supposed to take place, but he saw no one in sight yet. Am I early? Or maybe, I’m too late, and they moved somewhere?! He frantically looked around. But the sky, it’s barely turning light, I don’t think I’m late. Maybe I’ll go check the rooms, and see if the others are still there. Noboru began walking slowly towards the rooms where he and the other heroes were staying. However, before he got more than a few meters, a sudden movement caught in the corner of his eye drew his attention. A man jumped out from the bushes he turned towards, swinging something at Noboru. Noboru reacted on reflex, dodging the overhead swing by a small margin, before transferring the assailant's momentum into a flip, throwing the attacker into the group. A gasp flew out of the attacker's mouth as he hit the ground. He was clearly in pain, but he rolled away from Noboru and got to his feet. He had let go of his weapon when he hit the ground, so he now stood barehanded against Noboru. Still, he showed no hesitation as he rushed towards Noboru again. He threw a flurry of blows, each one aiming to take Noboru off guard, but no matter how he swung, he couldn’t hit Noboru.

Is it because of my increased stats? He seems so slow. I feel like I could dodge him all day. But he is still attacking me, so maybe I should restrain him. Noboru wasn’t even worried about being attacked, after all, the gap between the two of them was just too large. Just as he was thinking of restraining the attacker, he saw his chance. The assailant swung wide, trying to hit Noboru with a powerful swing, but Noboru backstepped the attack. He pushed forward the moment the attacker’s fist passed him, taking advantage of the awkward position the attacker was now in. He pushed the assailant back while sweeping his legs backwards, causing the assailant to fall over, and quickly moved to restrain him. He flipped the attacker onto his back and pulled both of his hands behind his back before kneeling lightly on his neck. He didn't want to fully choke the assailant, so he kept just a light pressure on his neck.

“Now then. Why did you attack me?” The reason why he wasn’t choking the assailant out and knocking him unconscious was because he wanted information. However, the answer didn’t come from where he expected.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

A slow clap rang out behind him.

“I knew you were good when I saw the fight yesterday but, I didn’t think you were this good.” Noboru turned to the familiar voice.

“You! What do you have to do with this!” Standing at the edge of the clearing, hands still together after clapping, stood Gaharad, with a sinister smile on his face.