Firana was a Wind Fencer.
My heart stopped for an instant. Wind Fencer was an Advanced Class and a powerful one nonetheless. My mind raced. The Marquis was a Fire Fencer, Sir Janus was a Shadow Fencer, and I had seen what those two were capable of, if only slightly. I squeezed my brain trying to recall the Wind Fencer page in the Book of Classes. It was one of the most well-rounded Elemental Fencers, with a superb speed stat and a wide range of support and mobility skills.
I was ecstatic about Firana’s accomplishment. However, after seeing her Character Sheet, I couldn’t help but harbor some wariness. It seemed reckless, if not dangerous, to give a hot-headed fifteen-year-old a skill like [Feather Fall].
“Firana?” I asked as we took a shortcut through the cluttered houses of the North District.
“Yes, Mister Clarke?” She replied, barely containing her excitement.
“Jumping from the roof is strictly prohibited,” I said.
“Oh! Come on!” Firana replied, offended.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Look, I’m as happy as a man can get, but you are asking for a lesson on free fall,” I threatened her, knowing her dislike for theory lessons. “You have to be careful, Firana. Let’s take [Feather Fall] as an example. Does it slow your falling speed or just reduce the acceleration of the fall?”
Firana focused her eyes on a point before her, and I knew she was peeking into her Character sheet.
“Does it matter? It says I would fall like a feather,” she said.
As expected from the System, the skill description was vague for someone without the [Identify] skill.
“When you fall, you are actually accelerating, so the more you fall, the faster you go until you reach terminal velocity,” I explained. “If [Feather Fall] sets your fall to a determined velocity, jumping from anywhere is safe. But what if it only reduces the acceleration? What would happen?”
Firana stopped walking and put the tips of her fingers on her temples.
“If [Feather Fall] reduces the acceleration, then… is it still dangerous to jump from high places?” Firana asked.
“Exactly! Sure, you’ll be safe jumping from a higher height, but you’ll have a limit of safe height. You’ll also have to account for the weight of your equipment. Your body might not endure a fall with twenty kilos of armor,” I explained. “And don’t forget Skills use mana to work. If you are out of mana, or your mana pool is too shallow, you will not be able to use the skill. [Feather Fall] can save your life or put it at risk if you are not mindful of yourself and the surroundings.”
Firana sighed, and I couldn’t help but feel like a party popper. “I thought it would be more fun.”
“A game is more fun if you know the rules,” I reassured her. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t use your powers, but to use them wisely.”
“I’m not Ilya. She’s the one who can act all wisdomous,” Firana grumbled.
It was good to see Firana cherishing the gnome girl.
“There are different approaches to solving a problem. Ilya might be more analytical, but many people prefer a more practical approach. You are a talented fencer, Firana. You’ll get the gist of it in no time,” I said. “And you have me. I know one or two things about throwing things into the air.”
Firana giggled and casually summoned her Character Sheet. “Alright, look at this.”
Name: Firana Aias, Human (Strong, Fast).
Class: Wind Fencer Lv.1
Titles: Aias Heir, Gifted.
Passive: Longsword Mastery Lv.2, Fencing Lv.2, Acrobatics Lv.1.
Skills: Aerokinesis, Windrider, Puncture, Feather Fall.
Feather Fall: Jump like a lemming, fall like a feather. [Identify]: This skill dampens the user’s falling speed and protects from falling damage.
That was a straightforward description, yet it was as shallow as a puddle. I wondered if that ‘protection’ was total or partial or if the dampening effect correlated with the amount of mana used. I sighed. I wasn’t comfortable limit testing the skill without a good safety net underneath.
Despite the System awarding me an improved [Identify] skill after my performance at the feast, I didn’t notice any changes in the System prompt. I sighed, channeling my mana and activating [Identify] for the second time. One thing was for sure: The System’s user interface was horrible.
Feather Fall: Jump like a lemming, fall like a feather. [Identify]: This skill dampens the user’s falling speed and protects from falling damage. Slightly decreases falling speed. Single activation. Instant. Mana dependant.
“Good news. You won't be trapped in a super-slow fall while your opponent waits for you underneath,” I said. “The skill only controls the falling speed, which means you have complete control over the fall as long as you have mana.”
Firana gave me a mischievous smile that didn’t foretell anything good, and her Character Sheet disappeared into thin air. Maybe I should’ve worded my explanation differently.
“I understand everything now,” Firana said. “You are a great teacher, Mister Clarke.”
“We should take things slow–” I replied, but Firana wasn’t paying me any attention anymore.
She ran toward the alley's exit and jumped. While she was in the middle of the air, she stepped on an invisible surface and propelled herself up, way over my head. Then, she made an acrobatic twist and softly landed, facing me.
“Ta-da!” Firana said as she panted.
I was out of words.
“I understand everything now! This is what you have been teaching us all these months. Activating the skills isn’t the hard part; the hard part is mastering them. It’s the same with Fencing and Longsword Mastery. The System gives us the tools, but we have to use them to their maximum,” Firana scratched her chin, just like Ilya when she was deep in thought.
“Y-yeah… of course,” I mumbled, still processing Firana’s performance.
[Awareness] helped me make sense of it. [Windrider] allowed her to use air as a solid surface, [Acrobatics] helped her adjust her center of gravity mid-flight, and [Feather Fall] controlled the speed of her descent. Maybe the System wasn’t as mindless as I thought.
“What about [Aerokinesis]?” I asked.
“I’ll use that later. I’m saving mana for my duel against Ilya. I already used a fourth of my reserves, and she has become increasingly smug with her new powers,” she happily replied.
I sighed yet again. Firana was the birthday girl, so her wishes were our commands. I couldn’t help but wonder how Ilya would deal with Firana’s new skills in a combat scenario. The gnome girl had been practicing tirelessly, and her [Entangling Vine] spell was almost an extension of her body. And there was the thing about mana. At a glance, it seemed Firana had the reserve advantage, but Ilya knew how to use it more efficiently.
Firana walked before me, whistling a happy tune until we reached the manor.
The kids waited for us on the stone step. Ash and Virdian tried to get the guard to chat with them while Ilya and Zaon looked over the younger ones. I could tell the old man was trying to keep an eye on the road while answering the kids' questions. At least the old guard remained true to Captain Kiln’s vision of the guardsmen force.
When they saw us, the kids ran over the parapet and swarmed Firana with questions. Everyone wanted to know if she had become a fencer, but she didn’t answer; instead, she walked directly to Ilya.
“I challenge you to a duel.”
The flock of little kids fell into complete silence, but Ilya just raised an eyebrow.
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“Do you think you can beat me just because you got your Class an hour ago?” Ilya asked, igniting the little kids' excitement.
“My class is a hundred times stronger than yours… no, a million times stronger,” Firana replied.
I wondered if she knew what a million was.
“That doesn’t make sense, you know?” Wolf pointed out.
“Silence, you overgrown olive! This is between Ilya and me,” Firana shut him down. “Tell him, Zaon. It’s my birthday today; hence, I have to choose what we should do. And I want to duel Ilya.”
Zaon looked around for a scapegoat.
“I think we should focus on helping each other…”
“Treason!” Firana interrupted him. “You’ll be next after I finish with Ilya.”
The guardsman looked at me with a quizzical expression as the kids laughed. I sighed in return. The next moment, the whole group ran around the manor into the backyard. The duel was on whether Ilya wanted it or not.
“She’ll start to take her Class seriously after level twenty or so. It happened with both of my boys. They are kids with Classes until they hit the twenties wall, then they calm down,” the usually silent guardsmen said.
“I hope you are right,” I replied, following the kids into the backyard.
Elincia knelt under the kitchen window, removing weeds from her herb garden. Only a few plants grew in the middle of the winter: a distant relative of the Winter Lily, whose roots served to brew a moisturizing balm, and a small thorny plant with red sap that helped with respiratory problems. Elincia noticed me and stood up.
“What’s happening?” She asked as she wiped her forehead, leaving a smear of mud.
“Firana wants to spar with Ilya,” I replied, rubbing her forehead with my sleeve.
“Did she get a good class?” Elincia asked, forgetting about the herbs and focusing on the sparring grounds.
It broke my heart to tell her what had happened during the ceremony.
“Yes, but some things happened…” I said.
Elincia took off her gardening gloves. She didn’t seem annoyed at all.
“When I told you I loved you, I knew things would happen more frequently,” she said. “What is it now? Lord Vedras fled the city? Did they find the culprit behind Raudhan’s poisoning?”
I shook my head. “The System Avatar contacted Firana to relay a message to me. He said we are behind schedule.”
Elincia stopped for a moment, confused.
“Alright. I think we can deal with that. With Lady Jorn helping around at the orphanage, you will have more free time to practice your runeweaving,” Elincia simply said. “After the tournament, we will have even more free time.”
“That’s not all. The Zealot who helped Firana during the ceremony saw it too, and she wants answers,” I said. “I’ll be meeting her tonight, here. We have to convince her to keep the secret from the Church. I don’t think the System Avatar is in good standing with the part of the System that grants Quests, so we should keep them separated as much as possible.”
Elincia looked at me with a worried expression. “Was it necessary to invite the Zealot to the orphanage? I don’t trust them. They are creepy.”
“The less people know, the better. I needed a place to talk without being overheard,” I replied.
Elincia’s face suddenly lit up.
“There are stories about the System contacting non-Zealots, and the Church already thinks you are special for your connection to the Fountain. We have to tell them the System warned you against Corruption and they will surely swallow it,” Elincia said, in a better mood. “Or we can bury the Zealot in the backyard.”
It took me a second to realize she was joking. That was too dark a joke to tell that early in the day, so I messed up her hair as revenge. Elincia headbutted my chest in return. I smiled. Things would be fine. In the worst case, I had to convince Prince Adrien and the High Priest that my ‘quest’ wasn’t anything from the other world.
“So, about Firana’s class?” Elincia asked, wrapping her arm around my waist and resting her head on my shoulders.
“You better see it for yourself,” I pointed to the sparring ground.
The younger orphans sat at the big stump, huddled together around Wolf, while Zaon grabbed a long stick and acted like the referee. Firana and Ilya stood in the middle of the training ground, dressed in full sparring gear. I couldn’t see their faces, but their body language revealed they were relaxed. It was a good sign.
“This will be a one-point sparring match!” Zaon announced.
One-point sparring was the closest sparring method to actual combat; participants were out if the opponent managed to hit them once. It might be a punishing methodology for aggressive fighting styles, like Firana’s, but it resembled reality the most. No matter how good a fencer was, it only took a single stab or even a graze to hand to disarm an opponent.
“Start!” Zaon yelled.
A vine emerged between Firana’s feet, but with the help of [Windrider], the girl jumped high into the air fast enough to dodge. The vine grew, searching for Firana’s ankles, but she used [Windrider] again to change her course mid-air. Mana flew freely through her body and I noticed her mana pool was half empty already.
“Two meters? That isn’t much range for a Hunter,” Firana mockingly said, landing outside the vine’s range.
Ilya broke the spell without saying a word, and the vine turned into dust. The little orphans were hallucinating with the skill display. They shouted and howled whenever the girls exchanged hits or used their skills to land a winning blow. However, Ilya fought defensively, using her [Entangling Vines] to create space whenever Firana pressed the attack.
Elincia and I looked at the fight in awe. Firana had the speed, but she seemed to understand that Ilya’s vine could nullify her skills if she got trapped. For her part, Ilya had an instinct to place the vine in the correct position to impede Firana’s overwhelming advance. I couldn’t help but smile. There was not much more I could teach them. They weren’t mindlessly swinging their swords anymore; they were trying to control the pace of the combat with their minds and bodies.
“I can’t believe the System made you a mage,” Ilya panted.
An external observer could think Firana was performing wind magic, but it wasn’t quite the case.
“I’m not a mage, Ily. I’m a Wind Fencer! The System recognized my greatness and gave me a powerful Advanced Class.” Firana proclaimed with a smile from ear to ear.
Elincia gave me a quizzical look, but I pointed toward the training ground.
“I will never recognize the power of a [Fart Mage],” Ilya replied, prompting a wave of hysterical laughter from the kids. Then, she summoned an offensive vine.
Firana jumped two meters into the air and aimed for Ilya’s back; however, a second vine awaited her at the landing spot. Firana tried to maneuver, but her mana pool was almost dry. The vine wrapped around her ankle, anchoring her to the ground. Then, before she could react, a third vine emerged and grabbed her wrist. The fight was over.
Ilya turned around and ceremoniously bonked the top of Firana’s head.
“Three of them? You were able to summon three of them all this time?!” Firana complained as she remained immobilized.
“All warfare is based on deception,” Ilya replied with a know-it-all expression.
I couldn’t believe Ilya had hidden her full powers for a whole week so she would have the upper hand against Firana.
Ilya’s winning tirade didn’t last long because the younger kids invaded the training ground and knocked Ilya down as they congratulated her. A moment later, Firana suffered the same fate. Very few could withstand the unrelenting power of overly excited kids.
“Firana is a [Wind Fencer], for better or worse,” I said, and Elincia couldn’t hide her tears of joy.
I decided to forget about our problems and enjoy the moment.
* * *
You have obtained Toxicity Lv.1. Temporary.
Potion effects greatly decreased.
I knew gushing Stamina Potions would eventually lead to a detrimental status, but I needed to remain awake. If the System Avatar had to use Firana to contact me, then something had gone wrong with our plan. As always, we needed allies. I bit my nails as I looked out the reception room’s window, searching for Astrid’s figure in the dark.
Elincia was strangely silent that night. She roamed around the room like a locked beast, muttering to herself. After I told her the details of the ceremony, she had become silent—meditative. I decided to let her process the events at her own pace. I had just as much thinking to do. Things had become too real, too quick. Runeweaving was no longer a quirky skill for turning pebbles into Christmas lights, and the System quest was no longer something to accomplish over a lifetime.
I knew the stakes were high, yet I only had a few runes to show.
I had attempted to contact the System Avatar through my mana pool several times during the day, but he was nowhere to be found. Unless the System's security subroutines had quarantined the Class acquisition trance, the System Avatar would try to contact me during Wolf’s ceremony. Assuming he would get a Class instead of going the orc way.
Conjecture was all we had.
A shadowy figure appeared from the web of alleys. My [Night Vision] allowed me to see her before she saw us. Astrid hid her face beneath a long, dark cloak. Without her Zealot uniform, she was almost unrecognizable. She had done well in hiding her wolf ears. There weren’t many beast folk in this part of the continent for her to go unnoticed.
“She’s here,” I announced, gazing through the shadows, looking for Corin. The girl was nowhere to be found. Astrid had come alone.
Elincia stopped roaming around, and we crossed the doorway into the front yard. The plan was simple: if things went south, keep the orphans away from trouble. I didn’t know what level Astrid was, but I hoped I was enough to deal with her if she turned hostile. People were generally ignorant of a Zealot’s capabilities, and even the Book of Classes lacked information about their skills.
I went over the story that Elincia and I had prepared. I was a Scholar interested in the System; I had found the investigation of a previous teacher at the orphanage and gained a research skill that allowed me to establish a strong contact with the Fountain. As a result, I received a cryptic Quest related to Corruption. I’d keep it simple while I tried to fish for information. Everyone in Ebros believed the System was a natural phenomenon. Contesting that preconception could be dangerous.
Astrid crossed the iron gate and pulled her cloak back.
Before I could greet her, Elincia crossed the front yard in a flash. I felt like a cold wave hitting my body. Elincia siphoned mana from my pool at an alarming rate. Astrid’s eyes shot wide open as Elincia grabbed her by the cloak and threw her fist back. My mind connected the dots before I could move my feet. Astrid was the third orphan who had betrayed Elincia.