Being now 7 years old with a shiny new class, I now have access to the first set of skills that can really be considered “supernatural”. Insofar as the first tier of general skills were natural to begin with.

According to Corwen’s library, there are enhanced body skills for each attribute. Enhanced Muscles can make you stronger, Enhanced Feet can make you faster, and so forth. I have no idea what Enhanced Soul might do. I’m still not entirely sure what a soul is.

One skill I’m going for as soon as possible is called Enhanced Mind (Mental Library). It will let me bring up the text of books I have read in my system interface, limited by skill level. I’ll have to pick and choose which books to prioritize and for the moment, I’m absolutely going to keep these skill books in there once I unlock it. Being able to see the names and descriptions of skills I don’t have yet will be invaluable, even if it’s missing a lot in some areas.

Fortunately, the Corwens have a nerdy streak, or at least a munchkinny streak, and there’s a book with instructions on how to unlock it right here since it’s so useful.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be one of the founding spawns of a domain, with no idea what I was doing. I feel practically spoiled that for most common stuff, I can just ask someone. I suppose it means I have no excuse if I’m clueless and don’t make use of available resources.

Learning [Mental Library] requires meditating upon an open book, because of course it does. I suppose it would make sense that Enhanced Mind requires a lot of meditating. Since I’m now a [Psychic Child], I start off trying to use [Psychometry] on the general skills book while trying to meditate.

This book has been handled and changed by a great many people. I’m not sure how many dead Corwens there were, but it had to be at least four digits. An absolute blur of psychic signatures covers the pages, as well as both essence and moving aether somehow. My Inspiration meter plummets to 0 in an instant and even seems to go negative for a moment before snapping back.

Category Artifact Type Book Race Human Quality Perfect Rank Divine Aspect Knowledge Aether Core Corwen

Congratulations! You have analyzed a Divine artifact.

A ridiculous number of skill increases roll down my system interface window one by one. All those months I spent gleaning a single level in a skill and I’ve doubled or tripled several skills in a heartbeat. Was it just the bonuses from [Psychic Child], or the fact that this is a Divine artifact? Probably both.

And it didn’t unlock the skill I was actually trying to unlock. I suppose I can’t complain, but I’m going to need to wait for my Inspiration meter to recharge before trying again. Perhaps on a smaller book to start off with.

Before I go any further, I check out the little gear icon I hadn’t noticed appeared on my interface when I turned 7. An options screen. Why a reincarnator didn’t have this at birth, I don’t know. I suppose before 7, you get skills a lot more slowly. It’s not irritating to get one skill increase every few months, and I was earning them faster than normal. Now, though, my skill cap has gone up from 5 to 25 and I have a not-insignificant leveling bonus. The options screen has a dropdown for notifications.

Muted Hide all system notifications. Minimal Display only summaries and major Deeds. Condensed Display summaries, significant Deeds, and descriptions of new skills. Verbose Display all system notifications.

I decide to set it to ‘Condensed’ for now and glance through to see what other options there are, but don’t see anything else I feel the need to change immediately.

As for my Inspiration meter, I could go get some hot tea, but I think I’ll just sit here and try to unlock an Inspiration regeneration skill instead. That should be more doable now. Fortunately, the basic [Aura Sight] costs less than my natural regeneration rate so I can keep it up all the time.

“Clear your mind” isn’t a mantra that ever worked for me. During those yoga deep breathing exercises my sister dragged me to, I mostly just thought about television or video games. Maybe “clear your mind of anything important” is sufficient. I will spare you my wild fan theories about franchises you don’t care about.

Skill acquired: Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration) Description: The ability to gain Inspiration by relaxing your mind through consumption, analysis, and discussion of fictional media.

Why did I have to get a skill for thinking about arguing with idiots on social media about my pet lore interpretations!? This is so stupid and I walked right into it.

Burdock has mentioned that he’s got a skill named Enhanced Heart (Purring Inspiration), because of course there’s a cat-specific variant. Beware of villains petting cats.

Anise walks into the room. “Hi, Drake. Hard at meditating?” (She does not seem concerned that she might be interrupting my meditation.) “Unlocked any skills yet?”

“Enhanced Mind (Fantastic Inspiration),” I reply, opening my eyes.

“Oh, nice, I love that one,” Anise says. “But you don’t normally just sit and meditate for it. Usually I read or watch a play or something.”

“I was trying to unlock an actual meditation skill I could use when I can’t just sit down and read,” I say. “And it does work to simply imagine discussing fan theories with an imaginary person who disagrees with you.”

“I… will have to try that!” Anise exclaims. “My old party leader will be so pissed if he hears that.”

“Why?” I ask. “You didn’t drag smut into a dungeon, did you?”

“I totally dragged smut into a dungeon.”

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

I sigh. “Why didn’t you just use [Mental Library] to read?”

“I never actually unlocked it,” Anise says. “Hey, don’t give me that look. You make learning skills look so easy. You’re also smarter than me and I’m not too vain to say it. My Intelligence is 10. Not good for learning mind-based skills.”

“Mine’s 23,” I say.

“Huh, I thought it would have been higher.”

“I probably blocked off some of it with my memories,” I say. “Not that I’m entirely sure how it works. It hasn’t budged since I was born. In any case, I’m still working on [Mental Library]. I gained a bunch of levels in other stuff. Is that normal?”

I share the summarized system messages with her.

“Wow, nice!” Anise says. “Man, I wish I could touch things and find out what people were thinking sometimes.”

“I’m not quite at that point yet,” I say. “And I’m not going to ask what you would do with that knowledge.”

“I just wanted you to know, Aunt Magnolia’s baking you an apple cake for your naming day,” Anise says. “And I wanted to warn you that Griffin stole your lucky necklace again and is cheating at Leaves in the guest house right now.”

“Right, I’m going to give this one more attempt while my Inspiration meter is full, and then go over there and just tell him he can keep it. I’m not planning to be a Rogue type and he clearly is.”

“I’ll leave you to that,” Anise says. “Don’t forget the cake!”

I open up the book with the information about [Mental Library] and it occurs to me that it probably intended this to be the book to practice on because it’s so small and simple. This time, I manage to get the unlock before my Inspiration runs dry.

Category Object Type Book Race Human Quality Good Rank Basic Aether Core Corwen

Skill acquired: Enhanced Mind (Mental Library) Description: Hold in memory a number of pages depending on skill level. You must read a page in its entirety. You may remove pages at will to make room. Library active.

A book tab appears in my user interface. The current limit is 100 pages, which has been partially taken up with this little book. The big book, unfortunately, has quite a few more than my limit. I leave it for the moment and head for the guest house.

Griffin is, fortunately, not trouncing any grown adults at that silly card game. He has wrangled Rowan into playing. Rowan barely knows how to play and doesn’t even have his own deck, but the starter decks are common enough drops that there’s a few extras around that people got and didn’t want. For all Rowan’s composure, my [Empathy] skill tells me that he’s incredibly frustrated even if he’s hiding it under the guise of humoring a small child.

“Griffin,” I say from behind him in that ‘I know what you’re up to’ tone of voice.

Skill acquired: Persuasion (Guilty Conscience) Description: The ability to play upon another’s feelings of shame and embarrassment to persuade them.

Griffin squirms under the weight of one word said to unlock a skill I didn’t expect to unlock. And I hate it.

“I’m sorry!” Griffin exclaims. He folds his cards and takes off the star necklace, putting it on top of them.

“Isn’t that Drake’s?” Rowan says, raising an eyebrow.

[You’re trying to raise your Subterfuge, aren’t you,] I ask Griffin telepathically.

His eyes widen at the sudden message in his head, then nods. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any harm, I was just—”

[Relax,] I send. [I’ll give you pointers.]

“Really?” I ask.

[Wanna play along?] I send to Rowan. [This kid’s probably going to be my party Rogue eventually and it would be good to get his Subterfuge up.]

Rowan’s frustration fades, and switches to amusement as he chuckles. This conversation probably looks very odd to any bystanders. Still, I make a point of holding my lesson entirely telepathically. I can’t hear their actual thoughts yet, but I can read their emotional state, which is good enough for what I’m doing. I can tell when Griffin is confused so I can clarify something or put it in simpler terms.

By the time we’re done, Griffin has actually managed to unlock a skill or two. He doesn’t announce it aloud, but his emotional state shifts to elation, which is a fair sign of it. The emotions of a small child are simple and easy to read, even when he’s actively trying to be sneaky about it.

Skill levels increased: Clairvoyance (Telepathy), Clairvoyance (Empathy), Tending (Teaching), Tending (Babysitting)

I have to smile as I look over the skill levels that have appeared. If I’m going to be regularly getting four skills at once leveled up, I’m glad to have switched it to condensed notifications. I really think there’s just too many skills, but whatever.

“Let’s head back to the Hearth, Griffin,” I say aloud finally, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I heard there will be cake.”

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to bring me a piece?” Rowan asks.

“Did you get me any presents for my naming day?” I ask with a grin.

“It’s your naming day?” Rowan asks, mutters a curse, then quickly apologizes for cursing. “I’m sure I can find something before it’s not your naming day any longer. You’re 7 now, aren’t you? You got a new class?”

“Yes, I’m a [Psychic Child] now,” I say.

“That explains the telepathic lesson,” Rowan says, standing. “I’ll see if I can find you something suitable.”

“I was just teasing about the presents,” I say. “You don’t have to get me anything.”

“And you don’t have to get me cake, either. Kids should at least get something for the major milestones. Even if they’re not really kids.”

Griffin and I head back into the Hearth for my naming day and class choice celebration. There’s plenty of food to go around, despite this being the middle of the dark season. Corwen does not skimp on its food stores. I open gift boxes containing books (some of which I haven’t red), clothes (some of which aren’t made of black wool), and trinkets (some of which might actually be useful). Juniper made me the sort of drawings a 5-year-old would make that get stuck on the fridge with magnets, if our magitech fridge were magnetic.

I save a small piece of cake and head back to the guest house when the party winds down. Rowan is waiting for me, and shifts uneasily when he sees me, but brightens when he sees the cake.

“I found something,” Rowan says. “Fortunately, Corwen’s adventuring store is still open. The hardest part was picking something out that might be good for a [Psychic Child].”

“You really didn’t need to overthink this,” I say. “I mean, some of my relatives got me socks. I have four new pairs of socks. Two pairs of which are actually not black!”

Rowan pulls out a small notebook and slides it over to me. “It’s a day planner. It has sections for to-do lists and notes and things. The shopkeeper said it would integrate well with skills like [Mental Library]. You’ve said you don’t get quests, so I thought it might be useful for keeping track of your own goals.”

I put the plate with the cake on the table in front of him and pick up the notebook. It contains exactly 100 pages that are mostly blank aside from section headers and organization. I immediately put it into my [Mental Library] to test it out.

Rowan removes the napkin from over the cake and admires it for a moment before piercing it with the fork and taking a small bite. “Oh, this cake is amazing! Is your Hearthkeeper Epic rank? They should be, just from making awesome cakes.”

I pull out a pen from my inventory (because if I can carry around 5 kg worth of stuff, there’s a lot of small items that are very useful to have on hand at all times) and flip the notebook to a section on people.

“Rowan likes cake,” I mutter aloud as I write it down. I check and see that the appropriate page in my [Mental Library] has automatically updated. This could definitely be useful for remembering important things like that.