The plants were more growing better than I ever would have expected, and I was experimenting to find out if the input also played a part in how well mana farming would play out by having the same type of plant being infused with my mana to capacity and it being watered by normal water, mana infused water and mana conjured water.
I had just finished watering the last plant when I see my sister enter the house. Well I say see but it’s more exactly hear.
“YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT!!!” She came screaming to mother from 50 feet out, getting some of our neighbors to look out their windows to see what all the racket was about.
“What is it?” mom says to her as I also enter the house to see what could possibly have my sister in such a good mood. “What happened that made you come home running and screaming” mom says clearly a bit annoyed at her.
“Me and Alana were checking out what old man Craster brought with him this time, when I spotted an odd piece of ore, I asked him what it was and he said he had no idea” She rapid fire started in on the story and it was a bit hard to understand every word as she was clearly very excited about it. “I don’t know why I was attracted to it but I asked him how much he wanted for it, he wanted 1 silver, but I managed to talk him down to 8 large copper coins.”
This conversation instantly told me that I had a massive gap I should look to get fixed as soon as possible. How does money work here and what are things worth. I can’t believe I spent almost 6 years and even started considering a career as a crafter without once considering money.
By the look on my mothers face, the news my sister brought didn’t excite her as much telling me she was most likely scammed into buying some junk ore. “You paid how much for a piece of ore?” my mom said in that quiet calm voice of hers that promises the sky will fall on your head. It was barely more than a whisper and yet I knew for sure I could have heard her on the other side of the house as a shiver travelled up my spine.
“I-I-It’s not like that!” My sister defended herself, and stuck to her guns despite being a bit intimidated. “I cracked it open and this is what was inside” She then pulled out two bright green gems the size of pebbles and my mom's eye instantly shot open.
“Wow those are real emeralds, I’m sorry sweetheart, though just because it worked out this time doesn’t mean that you should be trying to make such risky buys in the future” She said quickly reining in her enthusiasm in order to finish her lecture on impulse buys to my sister.
“Yes mother I know that but that’s not what has me this excited, I got the skill [Opportunity Sense] right after I finished buying the ore” her excitement going right back up to where it was when she entered the house, practically yelling there at the end.
My mom went through a series of emotions in about half a second, from confusion to recognition to pride and then to what I could only guess was dread as she instantly moved to cover my sister's mouth with her hand.
“SHHHHHH! You can’t be yelling about things like that” Her voice is quiet and filled with fear. “Darling, do you not remember what we talked about when you got your Apprentice trait? I told you not to show or tell your skills to others unless you absolutely trust the with your life and here you are screaming you got a Rare skill”
“Are you trying to get yourself taken away, nobles are always looking for people with Rare skills to get into their service, especially now, who else knows you got this skill?”
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“Nobody yet, Alana and I separated and when I got it I rushed home to tell you” she said while her face turned a little pale as she finally got a grasp on the situation at hand.
“Good you should make sure it stays that way, as for you Ajax the fact that your sister has a rare skill does not leave this house do you understand me?” she said to me in a more serious tone than I ever heard her use.
“Yes mom, but is her skill something like having mana?” I ask trying to get to understand how rare was having mana compared to the gift my sister had.
“That’s hard to say, you see darling skills are split into different tiers, there are common skills, uncommon skills, rare, epic, legendary and supposedly mythic skills. The ability to use mana comes in the form of mana sense and expel mana, both are very rare but they are still uncommon skills whereas your sister has a rare skill” she seemed to have calmed down a bit and pulled me over to the table and started giving me a lesson on skills.
“You see skill tier represent not only how hard they are to get but also how specific they are” she said and stopped seeming to think how to explain this to me “well you father will tell you this a bit later anyway and it’s not like everyone doesn’t know it already, so for example let's use your father, he has the common skill Hammers and from it he developed the uncommon skills blacksmithing and precise blow. You see all attainable skills are for the most part common and uncommon, with a few rumored rare ones, the rest of the skills come from the skills on a previous tier becoming more specified. Sometimes a skill comes from the combination of more than one skill like having blacksmithing as well as sense mana and expel mana would result in mana smithing which is a rare skill”
“The reason you sister should be careful is because she unlocked a rare skill so young it means she has a good chance to use it to gain an epic skill in her life and nobles want to grab as many user of epic skills as possible, despite the fact that I have a low levelled rare skill I it’s not as important because of the fact that it took me long to barely unlock it.”
“What about Legendary and Mythic Skills?” I am euphoric with all this new information I was getting.
“Legendary Skills are kingdom treasures, not even most of the best in their field in the kingdom are thought to possess one just the geniuses, as for Mythic skills they are stories of heroes from the past or tyrants that supposedly had them, and not a single person alive today has one.” she said with a far off look, most likely remembering those stories. “You see ,sweetie, all skills get harder to level as you get them higher and every 10 levels there is a big jump, however something else is used to determine what rank a skill is, if it was just how often it appears sense mana would be counted as a rare skill otherwise. You see common skills follow the 10 level difficulty jump increase and that's it, uncommon skills however have a test, not much is know about it since it is not openly shared but it’s said that every person has a different way of getting the skill to break through to level 75, rare skills are even more restrictive having tests at level 60 and level 100. Epic skills do so at Level 50 and 75, people speculate that 100 as well but nobody has confirmed that, most likely because getting an epic skill to 100 is more a dream than a possible reality. I don’t know anything about the Legendary tests let alone the Mythic ones so don’t ask.” She winds down her lecture , cutting off my questions right as I was about to ask them.
Judy is sitting in the chair opposite me her behavior the complete opposite of what it was when this lecture started, then she was fidgety still overcome with energy at her achievement, clearly having heard about the classification before but at some point mom must have started explaining something she hadn’t heard about yet or something she mustn't have been paying attention to back when she was being taught as now she had a focused look on her face, most likely thinking about what skills she could try to use at the same time to unlock other skills, after all affinity with one skills meant you most likely also had affinity with other skills that linked to it, the only counter example appearing to be if you have no affinity for another base skilled required.
“Mom, do you have a book that lists known skills and what their tier is?” I ask thinking that having some path trees opened up to me would be a good thing so I don’t have to discover everything by trial and error”
“Sadly no, after the last small rebellion 10 years ago the king decided to remove such knowledge from easy access to prevent people grouping up some many skills all under one leader, if you want to find out now about what curtain skill will lead to you have to become an apprentice to someone who has had the skill for a while and knows them.” She said looking a little sad I think I’m not the only one interested in getting more skills.
This interest in knowledge and creativity that I have, I find that it’s not based on who I used to be back on Earth, sure that is a big influence but I can see some of my parents reflected in me. The person I was back on Earth, the unlucky lazy person who suddenly woke up died in that alley. I am Ajax, who I was will always be part of me but, in order to thrive in this world I need to let who I was be all in respect to the knowledge I have gained. My emotional and moral decisions will be those of Ajax, raised in this world to Silvia and Sam, brother to Tom and Judy.
On this day I made the decision to rise as high as I can not for the sake of who I used to be but for the sake of who I am now, where I am now and for those that are important to me.