With Aunt Dahlia’s help, I learn the basics of [Tailoring]. And after all the nonsense with other skills, I’m kind of glad this is just [Tailoring], and not separate skills for [Spinning], [Weaving], [Sewing], [Knitting], [Twining], [Rope Making], [Underwater Basket Weaving], whatever. Sometimes I get exhausted with how many skills there are and how many I’ve already unlocked and I don’t even have access to magic skills yet.

I’m told that subskills do exist but we can’t see our exact values in them, which is probably for the best.

My first major tailoring project, once I’ve gotten the basics down, isn’t a garment at all but a net. The village is sadly lacking in sports equipment and, despite not being a huge fan of sports, I plan to rectify that. My main objection to sports in my first life had more to do with not finding it very fun to watch someone else play a game. Also, I wasn’t terribly athletic, but that was mostly because I was busy all the time with both work and personal projects and it was easier to squeeze in a video game than take a week off to go hiking or convince a dozen other busy people to play a team sport.

And I never had kids… to which I’m starting to feel like I missed out on something. I feel more attached to the Corwens than I ever did to my family back on Earth.

I don’t remember the proportions of an actual goal used in soccer or anything, so I kind of wing it and it doesn’t matter anyway. The net is made from devil-goat wool, so it’s black rather than the white I remember seeing on most sports nets, but I painted the wooden frame in red and white stripes to stand out.

Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality toy. Skill acquired: Crafting (Tailoring)

“Hey, Mom, can you help me get this set up on the green beside the school?” I ask, gesturing to the completed goal frame and net.

“Sure, what is it?” Anise says, coming over to lend a hand.

“It’s a goal,” I say. “For throwing balls into. One team tries to keep the other team from getting the balls into the goal.”

“Huh, neat,” Anise says. “That sounds like something fun to do when we can’t go out and run dungeons. Plus it should be good Blocking practice. Did you make shields for it too?”

“The sports I remember didn’t usually involve shields but I see no reason why we can’t use them,” I say. “Training Blocking (Shield) is probably more useful than Blocking (Head).”

Anise blinks. “Do you mean to tell me that they deliberately blocked balls with their heads?”

“Yep.”

“Earth people were weird,” Anise says.

“You have no idea.”

We manage to get the goal set up, and Anise drives the frame into the ground to secure it. It’s not pretty, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it broke if someone threw a ball at it too hard. That’s fine, though. Making another one would get me more experience, after all, and I might even manage a quality rating higher than Poor next time. (Doubtful.)

Per my mother’s suggestion, I make a shield next, by which I mean I shoddily attach a strap to a badly carved chunk of wood and paint it red and white to match the goal.

Congratulations! You have crafted a Poor quality shield. Skill acquired: Crafting (Carpentry)

Wait, a shield is [Carpentry]? Seriously? If I’d realized that I would have made a crappy shield years ago. Oh well, I suppose it doesn’t matter at this point, and I’m just glad to have another skill unlocked.

The system favors innovation and doing a variety of different things. I hope I haven’t wasted opportunities by doing so many assorted things before I even get any experience bonuses for them. But I’m not too worried about it. Creativity is boundless. I’m sure I can come up with things to do for centuries to come, if I live that long. Or if Corwen decides to reincarnate me with the memories of this life like Grubwick did with Milo.

I’m still a bit disturbed over what happened with Milo, and no amount of Tending (Therapy) on the part of my relatives has helped, so I’m just keeping busy. I’m kind of glad it didn’t happen during the boat spectacle, but if the Usks were watching at all, they probably realized that attacking when there was a Heroic-ranked adventuring party in attendance was probably a bad idea.

“Why didn’t you ask to be called your old name like Milo did?” Anise wonders. “What was your name back on Earth?”

“Alexander Fizzlesnipe,” I reply.

“Never mind, I understand completely.”

I chuckle. “Drake a perfectly fine name and I have no complaints.”

I give my shoddy shield to Rowan to test it out, and have to adjust the strap three times before he can even hold it properly. Although he doesn’t say it out loud, his face says I have a lot of skill levels to gain before I can make a shield he’s willing to use in an actual fight. Or that might be my Clairvoyance (Empathy) skill telling me how dubious he is. (Reading that my friend thinks my shoddy shield is shoddy does not earn me any skill levels.)

“You know, you can say what you’re thinking aloud,” I say. “I haven’t unlocked a mind-reading skill yet. I won’t be offended if you hate the Poor quality shield I made to unlock Crafting (Carpentry).”

Rowan is taken aback for a moment, then chuckles. “Yes, I was hoping you weren’t expecting me to use this in a fight.”

“Just a game. Did you see the net we set up on the green? People will throw or kick balls at the goal, and the guard’s job is to keep them from getting in.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Huh, that does sound like fun and good training,” Rowan says. “And you won’t be offended that I hope this shield breaks immediately so I can get a better one.”

“I’m going to regret telling you to speak your mind, aren’t I,” I say. “At least I didn’t suggest that you block balls with your head.”

Rowan’s baffled expression requires no [Empathy] skill to read his mood.

The school’s toy room includes an entire box full of assorted sportsballs, all looking like they’d just come out of a 21st century sportsball factory. A grey-and-white Hearth cat was napping amid the balls and indignantly hops out to wash himself upon being disturbed. There’s an orange basketball, a couple of black-and-white soccer balls, a few baseballs, a volleyball, a purple foam ball, and several lime green tennis balls.

“Where did all of these come from?” I ask.

“They’re a pretty common drop from a dungeon called the Stadium of Viscera,” Anise says, reaching down to ruffle the cat’s fur. “Dungeon drops often use weird materials like these that you won’t find anywhere else.”

“And this stadium has balls but no goals?”

“Well, the goal is to kill monsters and not throw things at a net,” Anise shrugs. “Haven’t been there myself. You either need a party of Heroics or a raid group of competent Elites and I had neither.”

Griffin, ever the curious four-year-old, appears out of nowhere (or the other side of the room, really) and says, “What are you doing?”

“We’re going to throw balls at Rowan,” Anise explains poorly.

“Okay!” Griffin grabs the volleyball with both hands and hurls it at Rowan.

Rowan skillfully and completely accidentally blocks it with his head. “Hey! We’re throwing balls at me outside, and when I have a shield ready.”

“Oh.” Griffin pouts. “It’s less fun if you know it’s coming.”

Anise takes the volleyball, and I hand Griffin the foam ball before claiming a soccer ball for myself. Rowan collects his shield and we head outside. It’s a beautiful summer day beneath the perfectly normal yellow sky.

As we’re playing “throw things at Rowan” (Griffin hasn’t quite understood that he’s supposed to try to hit the net and not Rowan), a familiar presence approaches.

“Looks like you’ve been having fun,” Meadow says.

“Meadow!” I say. “How’d your quest go?”

“It went well,” Meadow replies. “We retrieved the chalice of something or other from the crypt of whatever. I was honestly not paying much attention to the lore. There were a lot of traps and undead to fight. I’m still at Elite, but I didn’t really expect to get to Heroic from that. And… I got my class.” She seems to have mixed feelings about it.

“What class did you get?” I ask.

“[Dabbling Wanderer],” Meadow answers. “I was also given the options of [Charlatan Drifter] and [Tranquil Gatherer], and neither of those sounded like me. It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I don’t know what I was hoping for. I can live with it, though. It’ll do the job until I reach Heroic rank. Or turn 42, but I really hope I can get to Heroic rank before then.”

…

[Aura Sight] might be capped, but [Vis Analysis] is not. When I’m not messing around with crafting projects, I try to analyze some more vis. I spend some time hanging around in the guest house scanning the auras of travelers and residents. I get a peculiar reading from the innkeeper, Goldie.

Category Person Race Human Gender Female Rank Mundane

Your Clairvoyance (Vis Analysis) skill has increased to level 4.

Mundane? Now that’s not a rank I’ve seen before. I didn’t realize there was anything below Basic. I examine her aura more closely to try to figure out exactly what’s going on with it, and realize that it is missing some sort of quality to it that everyone else has, but I can’t quite put my finger on what. Fortunately, as I am not stranded cluelessly in the wilderness, I can just ask someone.

“Hey, Mom?” I ask. “My [Vis Analysis] skill says that Goldie is ‘Mundane’ rank. What does that mean?”

“Oh, that,” Anise says. “Yeah, she was born Hearthless, the poor thing. Never got named in a Hearth, so she doesn’t even have access to the system. Just has to make due with doing everything the hard way, I suppose.”

I blink. “Oh. I didn’t realize there were people without the system, but I guess that makes sense.”

It also stands to reason that I’m already getting bonuses from the system, as some of the things I can do are somewhat implausible for a five-year-old kid (even disregarding the psychic powers) and it’s likely to only get more so.

I also try to get a better analysis of my star necklace. I don’t usually wear it around the village, but I keep it on me when I go outside because it can’t hurt. But I have some skills I didn’t have last time I tried, and higher stats.

The problem is that I can’t detect aether, and dungeon-made artifacts get their powers from aether rather than vis like every biological living being uses. Corwen’s skill book doesn’t mention a Clairvoyance (Aether Sight), but the previous two reincarnators were not greatly imaginative so it wouldn’t surprise me if they never unlocked it.

So I go down to the core room (by the actual ladder and not the garbage chute). I figure the best way to learn this skill is to analyze the strongest source of aether nearby and see if I can figure this out.

Corwen Hello, Drake.

[Hi,] I reply. I’m not using actual telepathy here, but Corwen is reading my mind at all and it’s easier to think of it in terms of deliberate communication. It is perfectly normal for aether cores to be reading your mind at all times.

You steel your mind with comforting thoughts. Your Discipline (Self-Delusion) skill has increased to level 3.

Everything about these entropy-reversing crystalline aliens is perfectly normal, yep yep.

I wonder if Milo has this problem. And didn’t he die in the 1980s? How did they even get his soul if there were no aether cores until—

There’s something in the black hole, somehow. It’s not vis. I know what vis feels like. It’s like a different state of matter. Like water that has been evaporated into a cloud. The ghost of a dead star.

—until I probed the singularity and brought something back no one had ever seen before.

Your third eye catches a glimpse of a previously unseen force. Skill acquired: Clairvoyance (Aether Sense) Your Recollection (Flashback) skill has increased to level 3.

Corwen Why do you wish to know what you have forgotten?

[I’m alright with this. I would like an answer to my question, if you’ll tell me, though. How did Grubwick get a hold of Milo’s soul if he died before aether cores existed?]

Corwen He did not believe in an afterlife, so his soul remained on the material plane and did not ascend.

[Wait. Wait wait wait. Heaven is real? And people went there? No, never mind, this is a stupid question and a stupid thing to find surprising on top of everything else in this perfectly normal place. You know what, I think I’ve had enough revelations for the moment. I’m going to go identify this artifact now.]