Melmarc froze.
The distance of the portal was displayed above Ninra’s head. He stepped in her direction and it reduced.
127.99km…
Ninra looked at him with worried eyes. “Is everything alright?”
Melmarc took another step and it reduced.
Behind Ark, Dorthna’s attention was also turned in Ninra’s general direction. There was a small frown on his face, as if he had just noticed something annoying.
“Ignore it,” he said.
That got Ark and Melmarc’s attention. But it was Delano that spoke.
“Ignore what?”
Dorthna shook his head. “Not you, Delano.”
Melmarc looked from Ninra to his uncle. “You can see it too?”
“You know that status buff you got; August Guest? It’s one of its effects.”
“I know when portals appear?” Melmarc wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Dorthna shook his head. “No, a lot of Gifted know when portals appear. Your status effect helps you know where the portals are.”
Ark looked from Dorthna to Melmarc. “Is that what I’m feeling right now? It feels as if someone’s watching me.”
“Do you feel it, too, E?” Delano asked.
Eroms shook his head.
Melmarc was still confused. “Does it mean the Gifted know when a portal appears anywhere on the world?”
“Just the ones closest to them. Portals they can reasonably reach in reasonable time.”
And I have to help each time? Doesn’t sound like a fair trade.
August Guest gave him an increase in all his stats which was basically nullified by his Intruder status effect. So, technically, he was required to render all assistance in closing portals for no actual reason.
Shouldn’t being Gifted be a good enough reason?
It probably was, but something about the notification felt personal somehow. As if he was required by some unspoken law to help. It was like walking by and witnessing a robbery. Some people would argue that the moral thing to do would be to help. Which meant that helping was optional and choosing not to help couldn’t be held against you.
His notification, however, made it seem like him not helping with the closure of portals was going to get him in trouble. Like it was a crime. If he didn’t call 911 or help out, when the police arrived, they would arrest him too.
“It says I should render all the aid I can,” he said.
“Ignore it.”
Dorthna didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by the fact that a portal had opened up. In fact, he looked adamant that Melmarc ignore it.
He was a Delver once, so maybe he knows something I don’t know.
Dorthna let out a soft sigh and placed a hand on Ark’s shoulder. “Keep that fire breath ready, alright?”
Ark nodded.
Then he gestured at Melmarc to come and walked away from Ark.
Melmarc obeyed, though he felt uncomfortable each time the distance above Ninra’s head increased, until he was standing next to Dorthna.
“How far does it say now?” Dorthna asked him now that they were relatively alone.
Melmarc spied the number on Ninra’s head. “128.01km.”
“And how quickly do you think you can cover 128km?”
“Not very.”
“And what do you think you’ll be able to do when you get there. It’s illegal to enter a portal without government approval. All the companies get one before they can send in their Delvers. How do you think they’ll react if they arrive at the portal and see a kid coming out of it while it’s closing?”
Melmarc wasn’t sure how to feel about his uncle’s insinuation that he could successfully close a portal.
It’s hypotheticals Melmarc. He doesn’t really think you can close a portal.
“They won’t like it?” he answered.
“Correct. And companies usually have Delvers that know when a portal opens. Not all Gifted know how to locate it, but all Gifted above D-rank know when one opens up close by. And the companies have processes in place to also let them know where exactly the portals are. By the time you get there, there’ll already be at least one speed specialist or two waiting in representation of their company.”
“That’s fast.”
“It is,” Dorthna agreed. “And the bidding between companies and the government are almost as fast. A portal appears, companies bid, and the government gives closure rights to one of them. The announcement is made and the companies already have their team going in.”
“What of the portal rank?” The entire process didn’t seem to factor in the portal rank. “How do the companies and the government know what rank it is?”
“Companies aren’t the only ones with speedsters. The government has its own. And almost everyone has a scaling stone. Everyone will know what rank it is before you can knock off one kilometer from that distance you keep seeing over your sister’s head.”
Melmarc paused. “How do you know it’s on her head? Can you see it, too?”
“No. But you looked at her when I asked how far it was.”
“Oh.”
“What I’m saying is that this is not some epic origin story where you get your Class and end up helping the government close a portal before you even have the chance to train your skills. I know the sys—notification makes it seem like you have to be there helping, but you don’t. First, no one will let you into the portal without an affiliation or a Delving license. Second, even if you go in, you won’t be able to help.”
“Fakers aren’t that bad,” Melmarc muttered. “I’ve even got [Will of Hades] right now.”
Dorthna flicked him on the head softly with his finger. “It’s not about your class, Mel. It’s about your experience. Trust me, there’s no weak class. Even [Barista] has its uses inside a portal in the right circumstance.”
Melmarc found that hard to believe.
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“What I’m talking about is your experience,” his uncle continued. “You don’t know the range of your detection skill. You just found out how long it lasts. You don’t know how strong the buffs you’ll get will be.”
“I don’t know how quickly they weaken or how long they’ll last.” Melmarc was already picking out more issues in his head. “My selection time is probably very poor, and I haven’t figured out what skills I can’t use.”
“You don’t really need to worry about that last part,” Dorthna said. “I’m pretty sure you’ll have problems with world skills. They are pretty difficult to replicate. As for the skill with all the question marks, I’m very sure mine is a special case.”
“Does it have something to do with why you retired so early?”
Dorthna grinned mischievously. “Maybe.”
Melmarc had been sure he wouldn’t get an answer to the question, but he couldn’t blame himself for trying.
“Alright.” Dorthna turned him towards Ark. “The government puts every aspiring Delver through that internship program before they even join a Delving school for a reason. It teaches them how to live as strong Gifted, before sending them to school to learn how to be Delvers. Trust me, before you know it, your phone will be ringing before you even notice a portal has opened.”
Melmarc caught Delano scribbling in his book.
If I had chosen jotting, would my handwriting just become a bad version of itself or would I have his handwriting?
With the little distraction that wasn’t so little, and the pep talk from uncle Dorthna, Melmarc wasn’t as worried when Ark prepared to blast him with [Breath of Fire].
Everyone cleared out from around him and Ark let him have it.
The first thing Melmarc noticed was one of the advantages of [Breath of Fire]. While he didn’t feel any pain, he also couldn’t see anything but fire in front of him.
Tactically speaking, if Ark’s opponent had a high fire resistance, Ark could at least use this as a tactical advantage to create a blind spot.
The second thing he noticed was how the skill [Will of Hades] worked. The flames actually just licked above his skin and clothes. It was like it just flowed over him rather than pressing into him.
To his senses, it was like someone was applying pressure on him the more intense the flames grew.
Definitely a magical type of resistance.
It made sense that [Will of Hades] could also control fire.
“Alright, that’s enough.”
The flames guttered out at Dorthna’s words, and Eroms walked over to pat Melmarc on the shoulder.
At first he thought it was some kind of congratulations, until he noticed Eroms was still patting him. When he looked at his shoulder, he saw a whisper of smoke emanating.
There was a small singe in his shirt, just at the shoulder.
Some of the fire had gotten through.
Ark was staring at the burn. “It usually takes longer before my clothes start burning.”
“You have a three percent mastery, Ark,” Dorthna said. “Your brother has a negative twenty percent mastery. It'll clearly not go the same way.”
A three percent mastery?
It hadn’t been that long since Ark got his class, had it? Three percent mastery was a quick growth. At ten percent, a Gifted would be offered their first upgrade. Ark could choose to make the skill stronger or he could opt to get another skill.
Do Classes granted by Guardians work the same way normal Classes work?
The only example they had to decipher from was Dragon-knight, and apart from the earlier years of her Delving days, there was almost nothing known about her class now. She had [Dragon Scales] and [Dragon’s Breath].
She could’ve gotten more skills over the years or just specialized on both skills and made them grand, but no one knew. And the only people who would be able to tell would be those who went into portals with her. And none of them were saying anything.
If she wanted her secret kept, I wouldn’t say anything either.
The woman had a pet dragon, of course no one would be willing to cross her.
For the remaining hours before Delano and Eroms’ curfew, Melmarc learned a few more things about his skills.
The fact that a buff was gotten from a human did not necessarily mean the mastery would be scaled to one hundred percent. Sometimes it was a hundred percent, and sometimes it was less.
Most of the buffs he’d picked up from Ninra were scaled around fifty percent mastery.
No matter what human activity, Eroms or Ark indulged in, he could only pick up skill buffs from them, and the mastery only fell lower the longer it had been since they’d used their skill.
At some point they’d waited an entire hour after Eroms had used [Gluttony] before Melmarc had tried to select the skill. The mastery level had been too deep into the negative for him to even consider selecting it. Almost a negative hundred percent.
The effect of using [Knowledge Is Power] without using [Bless Your Kindness] was also determined. If he did it three times, his head felt heavier. If he did it six times, he became unable to think straight. His mind became foggy and remembering things became difficult.
Dorthna made him rest from time to time to prevent mana fatigue, but the highlight of the entire event was in the final piece of information he learnt.
The time on his phone told him that Delano’s curfew was fast approaching.
Ninra sat at one side of the gym already bored, and Ark was already growing worried about Spitfire. They’d left it home alone and he was worried it would grow bored and get broody when he returned.
Melmarc wasn’t exactly sure how a broody Spitfire looked. To him Spitfire always looked the same. Maybe it was something of a bond Ark had built with it. He would ask Ark when they got home.
“One last one before we go,” Dorthna said. “For this one, I’ll need you to notice the indicators on everyone immediately. As fast as you can.”
It was a new trick. Dorthna had only always emphasized on how quickly he could pick a buff since it would determine a lot of things in a combat scenario.
He understood the purpose very well. He couldn’t well be thinking about what skill to pick when his teammates were fighting. It wasn’t like his enemy was going to wait for him to choose.
But now, he needed to detect everyone immediately.
Now that he thought of it, as he prepared to activate [Knowledge Is Power] he hadn’t even bothered with everyone’s indicator the entire day.
“Do I just activate it with everyone in front of me?”
Dorhtna shook his head. “Let everyone be where they are. See if you can feel the skill. You said you can tell if there’s an ant on the ground with the skill. I assume it’s not like you’re looking at the ant. So let’s see if you can also tell where everyone is and what their indicators are without looking.”
For the exercise everyone came closer so that they would fall within his range.
[Skill Knowledge Is Power is in effect.]
The burst of white static spread out around him, and came back.
Another thing he’d noticed was that the weaker he was, mana-wise, the slower it took for the burst to expand and return.
When it came back he prepared himself, trying his best to think about everyone in the room. Hopefully the knowledge would come to him almost immediately.
[Skill Knowledge Is Power is concluded.]
[All stats are increased by +0.5 for eight minutes.]
[Life forms detected: 5.]
[You have received 5 Potential buffs.]
Melmarc ignored the buffs he could choose from and tried to see if he could notice the indicators without looking at them.
He knew where everyone was but not what color their indicators were.
“Did it work?” Dorthna asked.
Melmarc shook his head.
The knowledge didn’t come to him like most of the irrelevant ones did.
His uncle nodded contemplatively. “Maybe it’ll get better with use. You’re still at zero mastery after all. the more you use the skill, the higher the mastery will grow, and the better your understanding of it.”
He looked around the gym and drew in a conclusive breath.
“Alright, everyone. We don’t have to go home, but we can’t stay here.” He paused, then pointed at Delano and Eroms. “Actually, both of you definitely have to go home.”
Delano threw him a mock salute. “Where else would we go? It’s a school night.”
As everyone gathered themselves to leave, and Ark arranged the punching bag, Dorthna asked Melmarc a surprising question.
“What does my indicator say?”
Melmarc hadn’t really thought about it, which was surprising. The secret of Dorthna’s class and rank was there for the taking. It had been all day.
Maybe that’s why you didn’t look.
It felt like a heavy invasion of his uncle’s privacy to peek at the man’s secret. But now that he was asking, Melmarc was more than happy to take a look.
He looked at it and froze.
[???????? (?????)(???)]
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Dorthna poised his lips in acceptance. “You can’t see it.”
There was something in his voice. Disappointment perhaps. It was like he’d asked for his own sake, not Melmarc’s.
It was like there was something he had intended to learn from it.
“Not even my rank?”
Melmarc shook his head.
Dorthna let out a resigned sigh. “Well, it was worth a try. Don’t beat yourself up. It just teaches you more about your skill. It seems there are things you won’t be able to see.”
Dorthna gave him a soft pat on the shoulder and started making his way for the exit like the others.
Melmarc wanted to follow after him but his legs felt like lead. He just stood there, watching his uncle go.
“You coming?” Ark called after him. “Or you want to wait behind and lock up?”
“He can’t stay behind and lock up,” Dorthna refused, roughing up Ark’s hair playfully. “Come on, Mel. Let’s go.”
Delano gave Melmarc an odd look before hurrying back to him.
“You good? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Melmarc wasn’t sure how to answer that. Like everyone else, Delano still had his name and indicator above his head, and the distance of the portal was still hovering in one direction, no longer above Ninra’s head.
He guessed it was the direction of the opened portal.
He checked Delano’s indicator. It was the same vibrant green he’d expected it to be.
[Delano North]
After a moment, Melmarc’s feet obeyed, and he took a step forward. All the while he returned his attention to the exit and continued to stare at his uncle’s indicator. It was there, above his uncle’s head. Clear as day.
[???????? (?????)(???)]
It was red, with a hue of grey.