The building we were in was an inn dedicated to delvers. The first floor served food and drink, and the next three floors were full of small rooms. Aside from the large bathroom, our room only had beds for sleeping, chests for storage, and no further furniture.

Though we were sharing a room, there wasn't much point in me sticking together with Vyre and his party. They had some acquaintances here that they planned to visit, and were intending to eat with them tonight. I had enough preserved food in my [Item Box] to last the couple of weeks, although that didn't mean I wasn't going to sample the local dishes when I got the chance. They unpacked and then headed out, leaving me on my own.

I intended to head down to the tavern area to people-watch later in the evening, but for now I started here in the bedroom, spreading out my [Mana Perception]. The view was spectacular, albeit uninformative; the great dungeon was a sun, shining so brightly from under the earth that it overwhelmed all else.

That would be a problem. How was I supposed to detect combatants using [Stealth]? At a guess, [Mana Perception] would only be good for a couple of metres, while active scanning would be completely unusable. Maybe the arenas had some sort of shielding?

Actually, I did have a decent alternative now. I shut off [Mana Perception] and enabled [Soul Perception]. The range had increased by a metre per level, currently giving me a six metre radius. That wouldn't be enough to span the whole arena, but it was better than [Mana Perception]. Alas, it would do nothing to help me detect arrows or other weapons.

I looked around myself, spotting several souls in the adjacent rooms. With experience and a few level ups, I found it easy to tell humans and beastkin apart, and not just from the obvious shapes. Beastkin were more... wild? Chaotic? Neither the local language nor English had proper adjectives for describing the perception of a soul, but beastkin's were more active, the patterns shifting more quickly and with less order. I hadn't yet inspected the souls of other races, having not encountered any in my brief periods in Dawnhold since I'd ranked up the skill, but presumably they would have their own unique appearances.

There were certainly souls around now that were neither human nor beastkin. I could see an elf laying in the room next door, the flows within moving slowly but with an air of inevitability, and smelling distinctly of nature. Disturbingly, once I focused on him or her, they immediately sat up and stared straight in my direction. I immediately moved my focus away, wondering how they'd noticed me, and if peering into people's souls without permission would be considered rude.

The room on the other side contained a human party. Above was unoccupied, but since we were on the first floor, below was the tavern, which was very occupied. People were walking around, constantly moving in and out of my range, but I could see up to a dozen at a time. I spotted a dwarf, strong and smelling of metal. And then I spotted another one with the same short, pointy ears as the mage I'd seen earlier. But the ears were by far the less interesting part; she had wings! So thin I could barely perceive them, as tall as she was, but with a wingspan no longer than her outstretched arms. They were curved, wider at the top and pinched inwards at the height of her waist, making her look like some sort of butterfly. What other races had I heard about? Was she a fairy? I'd assumed fairies would be tiny, but again, that was an Earth assumption, and I'd never actually asked anyone how tall the average fairy was. Maybe they were human sized here?

The one I'd seen outside hadn't had any visible wings. Were they not physically there, or so transparent that I hadn't seen them? Did she fold them up somewhere? Was she a completely different species? My time in Synklisi looked like it was going to be very educational.

ding

Skill [Soul Perception] advanced to level 5

Ha, make that seven metres then. Maybe I should spend the whole night training this, in case it turns out to be useful?

Class [Spatial Mage] advanced to level 15

Class level increased all stats by 5

Never mind... I suddenly had more important things to do. While I was glad I wasn't going to miss out on the plus five to stats by switching early, apparently I was going to miss out on two intelligence, but I considered that a small price to pay.

Available classes:

Rank 1: [Apprentice Fighter]

Rank 2: [Monk] [Soul Mage] [Temporal Mage] [Thaumaturgist] [Teacher] [Trader] [Gatherer] [Bard] [Artisan]

Rank 3: [Analyst] [Body High Mage] [Spatial High Mage] [Eldritch Mage]

Sorry, but [Eldritch Mage]? You what? The body and space complex affinity was eldritch?

[Eldritch Mage] - A mage who can enhance their body with spatial magic. Euclidean geometry is something for lesser mortals to obey. Unlocks related skills. Skills related to mana sense or manipulation gain a bonus to levelling. Levelling boosts intelligence and physical stats. (rank 3)

Nope. Thanks, but I had no desire to turn myself into any sort of Lovecraftian horror. The complex affinity classes did tend to let you use spells that had the effects of both component affinities, and if it got teleportation, it may well be a superior option to [Spatial High Mage], but without it being in the library already, I couldn't be certain. Let's stick with the fighter route.

Class changed to [Apprentice Fighter]

Skills available for purchase:

0 points: [Backstab] [Armour Break] [Mighty Swing] [Swift Strike] [Shattering Strike] [Rapid Shot] [Piercing Shot] [Weapon Style: One-Handed] [Weapon Style: Two-Handed] [Weapon Style: Shield] [Weapon Style: Dual Wielding] [Danger Sense] [Stamina Finesse] [Enlarged Health Pool] [Accelerated Healing]

Not as many artes there as I expected. Presumably they weren't weapon type specific. As tempting as it was to just buy everything, I'd been bitten by that before, so I resolved to be a little careful this time. First off, the pair of health pool skills.

[Enlarged Health Pool] - Your health pool is larger than normal. Higher levels further increase pool size. (Rank 1)

[Accelerated Healing] - Your wounds heal slightly faster than normal. Rate increases with level. (Rank 1)

That second one was worded differently to the other pool recovery skills, but there was no rank one equivalent for mana or stamina, so I'd expect it to work a bit differently. My status confirmed that the enlargement skill gave the same ten percent as the others. The only problem was in how to level them... I had no intention of deliberately letting goblins cut me up, but I didn't particularly feel like self-harming either. I waited a minute for any side effects to manifest, but nothing seemed to happen, so on to the next skill.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

[Stamina Finesse] - Manipulate smaller quantities of stamina and increase efficiency of its use. Higher levels increase efficiency further. (Rank 1)

This was the stamina version of [Mana Finesse]. It didn't make much sense to me, but then neither did quantising stamina in the first place. At least there wasn't a health version of it. Aside from adding some decimal places to my status, nothing else happened, but according to the library it would cut down the stamina cost of artes in the same way that [Mana Finesse] did for spells. One interesting question was if this reduced the stamina consumption of non-skill things, like sprinting. Again, that would make no physical sense, but I'd just been offered the [Eldritch Mage] class, so making sense was obviously not a priority for the System designers.

The next skill was the precursor to [Threat Perception], [Trap Perception] and [Monster Perception].

[Danger Sense] - Intuitively detect sources of danger. Higher levels increase acuity and range. (Rank 1)

An empty inn room was not a particularly dangerous location, so for the moment the skill did nothing. I held some hope that my new sense would tingle if I was about to dislocate my soul or otherwise injure myself again, but knowing my luck it would only fire at monsters.

Finally, I bought up the artes, one by one.

[Backstab] - Deal more damage by catching your opponent unaware. Higher levels increase damage. Multiplier varies by weapon type. (Rank 1)

[Armour Break] - Reduce the effectiveness of your opponent's armour. Higher levels increase effect. (Rank 1)

[Rapid Shot] - Increase the speed of a projectile. Higher levels increase effect. (Rank 1)

[Piercing Shot] - Imbue a projectile with the ability to ignore some amount of your opponent's defences. Higher levels increase effect. (Rank 1)

[Mighty Swing] - Imbue your weapon with additional momentum for your next attack. (Rank 1)

[Swift Strike] - Imbue your weapon with additional speed for your next attack. (Rank 1)

[Shattering Strike] - Reduce the effectiveness of your opponent's shield. Higher levels increase effect. (Rank 1)

I waited a few more minutes, but there was no sign of skill merges or new titles. Of those artes, [Swift Strike] and [Mighty Swing] were probably the only ones I'd have a use for in my upcoming fights, but back in a dungeon I could imagine [Backstab] making for a good combination with [Far Reach]. Common sense would dictate that the highest multiplier would be for daggers, while staves shouldn't benefit much at all, but it wasn't something I'd already looked up in the library, so perhaps I would be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of the library, I wonder where the nearest access node is? Might be worth asking, in case I want to look something up in the next couple of weeks.

As for the weapon styles, I decided not to buy any. I already had a higher rank style of my own, and didn't want to risk confusing myself by adding the knowledge from new skills. Maybe the two hander one would synergise in some way, but I didn't want to risk it.

My class change over, I wandered back downstairs to the tavern. Part way through my growth spurt, I couldn't really be mistaken for an adult, but neither did I stand out quite as badly as I used to. I wasn't at an age where it would be completely unthinkable for me to have taken [Apprentice Fighter]. Of course, my total level was completely unreasonable, and there was no skill that would show my class without my level. Maybe there was a rank three version of [Secrecy] that permitted picking and choosing which information to hide, but even if so, it would be a while before I could buy it.

Looking around, I couldn't see anyone I recognised. I'd expected Xander's party to be around somewhere, but in this large city the chances of us bumping into each other were slim, even if we both happened to be staying in this same inn. I bought myself a drink and settled down for a spot of people watching.

From the first demon I'd seen, I'd assumed they were all hulking great red-skinned things, but that quickly turned out not to be true. They were by far the most variable of any race I'd seen so far, and I included the different varieties of beastkin in that. I saw one that was almost three metres, and another that was barely one. They did all seem to have horns, but their count varied from one to nine, and their length from a few centimetres to half a metre. Skin colours went from red to blue and every shade of purple in between. Some had wings, a tail, or both. They had classes I'd never seen before, like [Brawler], [Devourer] and [Brimstone Caster]. Most of them were also loud and drunk, and those that weren't seemed determined to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. I'd thought dwarfs liked their alcohol, but the demons were putting them to shame.

I saw a few more of the winged creatures, which [Appraisal] confirmed as fairies. Their wings were indeed invisible to plain sight, despite showing up to my [Soul Perception]. Perhaps they would be visible to [Mana Perception], but none came close enough that I could see against the glare of the great dungeon. They had classes that looked related to the elves, like [Forest Dancer] against the elvish [Forest Walker]. It raised questions as to what the class requirements were, and if members of other species could get them at all.

There were, of course, plentiful dwarfs, elves and humans around, but they were things I'd seen already, and I was on the hunt for more interesting specimens. I saw a few varieties of beastkin that I'd not previously seen in Dawnhold, with a group of foxkin sitting at a table. I wondered what sort of modifications needed to be made to their armour; their tails looked far too bulky and fluffy to adequately protect. Before I could think too hard on the topic, my attention was caught by someone else. A human-sized male with pale blue skin, but unlike the demons he had no horns. He had patches of what looked like scales, and his ears were unlike any race I'd seen before, distended from his head, and then branching upwards and downwards like some sort of plant. It looked like some sort of blue broccoli.

Tilyana, Elf, targeted you with [Eye of Judgement]

"It was you, wasn't it?" came a gentle voice to my side, causing me to jump in shock. "You see without looking, and perceive much that mere eyes do not."

I turned to see an elven lady was sitting at my table, having arrived completely without me noticing. Admittedly, I'd been focused elsewhere, but having someone get so close while I had [Soul Perception] active was shocking.

Tilyana, Elf, Oracle (57/127)

Rank four, and her current class level was one higher than my total level. "What was me?" I asked.

"The silent watcher. I believe you have the room next door to mine."

Ah, she was the elf that noticed me watching her? I checked with [Soul Perception], and yup, she looked exactly the same. Not that I knew for sure yet that I could tell everyone apart, but every soul I'd seen thus far had been unique in some way.

"Ah, sorry. I was looking for alternatives to [Mana Perception], given that the great dungeon is rather blinding from this distance. I didn't mean to intrude."

She tilted her head, maintaining a warm smile, but giving the impression that I hadn't convinced her.

"You are a strange child. You sound... inhuman. And yet human you must be. You see things that cannot be seen, and know things that cannot be known."

Umm... This was getting weird. I'd not dealt with many elves. Vargalas might be grumpy, but at least he wasn't quite so esoteric. How the heck was I supposed to respond to that? Sanderolas was sort of like this, but he went away on his own pretty quickly. He also didn't have a level well over a hundred...

"And yet you cannot share your sight, for I must not hear the answers," she continued. "Despite the dearth of nature, this city always finds new ways to interest me."

While I was still floundering, wondering how the heck to respond, she simply stood up and left without another word. Wow. How enigmatic.

Rather confused by the whole thing, I decided that perhaps I'd done enough people watching for the night, and headed back to my room to sleep. It wasn't until I was tucked away in bed that I recalled the strange blue-skinned man, and that I'd been distracted before I could appraise him to find out his race.