Daniel went back, feeling foolish. Zachery's office had a kind of waiting room before it that now doubled as a teaching room. Zachery left the inside door to his office open and was in and out as he dealt with his own work. Dad had come to confirm it was safe as Daniel had requested and then left. Daniel half expected the room to be a Bond-movie style trap that activated once his guard was down. The doors would slam shut and a panel would open in the roof to let in poison gas or mutant sharks.

But nothing happened. He wanted to berate himself for being a dumb kid and blowing things out of proportion. He also absolutely would not go back into that field no matter how dumb he felt. But nothing happened. It was depressingly fine. Perhaps the sharks had inhaled all the gas and then died. Zachery mostly left him to it. More self-supervised practice. It made him want to go home, but that was even more foolish. He knew from experience he'd just end up bored and alone there, resorting to the same practice to pass the time. Besides, he didn't want to give the priests an excuse to point out that he needed their 'maturity field' to sit quietly and learn.

He did find himself starting to wonder if the state of his education was okay. Wasn't part of the point of schooling to develop social skills? Were there social skills? If there was some kind of therapy field at the end to help people adjust, then he wasn't going near that either. And if he was going to start asking for permission for how his life was going, he might as well start praying to Kyburad.

So his second day of schooling passed slowly. He mixed things up by also practicing his control of the movement of the flame. He remembered his mother saying the flame could burn if you wanted it to, but sadly burning the church down seemed to be beyond him for now. His flame skill, like the others, was level 1 and not increasing. Unlike the others, it did not have a descriptor like basic or eldritch. He didn't know if a domain skill could be a guidance skill. Maybe it was a guidance domain since that name started with dubious.

In truth, the priests had Daniel in checkmate to some extent. He didn't like them much and he didn't want their stupid answers. He would have been quite happy spending the next few years doing his own thing and ignoring every stupid thing they had to say. Except that's what they wanted him to do. After agonising about it overnight, he managed to convince himself to ask Zachery for a hint on his third day. There was wanting to be uninfluenced by others, and there was sitting in a room bored. One little hint can't hurt, right? The other driving factor was exploring the priest's principles. They didn't want to just give him the answers. But was that the same as not answering if he asked?

"Yes, Anne?"

"How do I make my flame stronger?"

Zachery considered this for a moment, perhaps weighing his answer against his religion.

"Belief," he said simply. Daniel waited for more but did not get it.

"Is that it?"

"Yes, Anne."

Belief. Not the worst of answers. He had worked the possibilities beforehand, not wanting a straight answer to cloud his assumptions too much. Belief in Kyburad would have been worse. For all he knew, Zachery just enjoyed being vague to sound more mystical. But vague was better even if for the wrong reasons since it left room for interpretation.

This meant he could go back to his wild imaginings about the workings of magic. Magic as whatever you believed it to be. Believe in the me that believes in you, or something like that. He summoned his flame on his hand, inspecting it. If he wanted to give this a good go, he should try to focus on doing something different from other people. Avoid being sucked into the beliefs of others, so to speak. What were the aspects of fire you would see in magic?

Burning, Mum had mentioned.

Destruction was obvious. Explosions.

There were mixed elements, lava, steam, light maybe.

Religious flames. Flames of purification, atonement, retribution.

More game-like associations with fire, crit damage, burn damage over time, maybe self-damage.

The last one was a no thank you, but it did act as a bridge to another concept.

Healing flames. Cauterisation was a concept used in games from time to time. It wasn't too common, but aiming for something different did not go together with common anyway. And he doubted there were healing flames or even healing magic here. That doctor had not seemed magical. He had never heard a reference toward calling a magic healer or needing a priest to heal with his Kyburad healing fire. He was decided. And with that settled, how did he go about turning an aspect of fire into a belief strong enough to become magic?

Brainwashing! It's not immoral when I do it to myself!

Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal.

He just had to repeat this over and over in his mind for the next few years and he would be set. In terms of an experiment of this possible method at least. He should probably keep an eye on Beatrix over the same period. That way he would have a control group for comparison of someone who hadn't purposefully driven themselves mental.

The stupidity fed into his enthusiasm. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. This can work! Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. Flames heal. He carried on with his practice, now with an extra layer added on top of it.

His mum had taken him to church that morning, but his dad picked him up. They seemed to be working on a 'who would be closest at lunchtime' basis. But this afternoon was special! They were going out of town on a walk. The sanctuary was supposed to be safe in general, but taking kids beyond the walls before five years old was frowned upon. Which meant Beatrix couldn't come, but Daniel could. Tough luck, kiddo! And apparently, Dad wanted to take the opportunity to do something this afternoon, since he was leaving for the border in a couple of days.

So they went back up the hill but instead of going home went to the back of town by the wall. The stone wall was still thick here, but only just above waist height, more of a safety feature to stop people from falling off the edge. Dad lifted Daniel up to sit on it but kept hold of his hand to make sure nothing stupid happened. As if Daniel needed a watcher like he would jump off it without constant vigilance. Daniel took advantage of the handhold to lean back as much as possible, so he could tip his head and look down over the edge. Was there even a point to a wall here defensively when the hill was so high and steep? Daniel didn't know but the height and weird angle was making him dizzy. Thankfully his Dad pulled him back up while giving him a strange look. The view from the hill toward the other side of the town showed never-ending farmland outside the walls. Here there was a small wooded area hugging the hill below them, then past that there was a band of farms, thinnest here at the back of the town and stretching out to the sides. Past that was forest as far as the eye could see in front of them. Which was quite a distance from this high up.

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A few minutes later Mum showed up with Uncle Rory and Aunt Gemma. Away from the wall a little way, there was a set of stone steps that led down and then turned a corner to a short but narrow alley with the street above crowding its top. There was a metal gate at either end, which Dad swung open, and it led out onto a ledge, with steep stone steps leading away and hugging the curve of the hillside on the way down. Daniel looked around curiously while Dad shut the gate behind them. The ledge carried on for a short way, albeit more natural and less defined, past the gate. They could see more of the wall here, as it extended down the slope past the hilltop. But still, it looked to Daniel as though an adult could just walk the ledge a bit and then climb up over the wall without any help. Or just use the inviting gate put there. Sadly both the wall and the latch on the gates were too high by far for Daniel. But was the wall just there to keep kids and short people inside? or outside? There weren't even any guards.

"What is the wall for?" Daniel asked his parents as they made their way down. He was trying to avoid Rory hearing so he wouldn't have to listen to the inevitable 'to keep goblins out' response. His mum laughed.

"Ask your Grandfather when we get back," she said. "He enjoys explaining it to people."

"Has it got something to do with shouting at priests?"

"Pretty much."

The path at the bottom of the steps cut through the trees and across the thin part of the farmland. The trees were a strange reddish brown here, not what Daniel would expect, but he remembered that redwoods were a thing on Earth even if he hadn't been around any. The sunshine was warm out from under the trees, the recent memory of winter making the day feel nicer. The path here ran on a slight embankment, giving them a view over the fields despite being hemmed in by a hedgerow on either side.

"How do skills work with jobs?" he asked. A look passed between his parents. Another conversation that was not being spoken out loud. To be fair, that did seem to be his father's default form of communication. Sadly Daniels auto-translate didn't work on glances. Oh god, they could all be telepaths and just not telling me! My blessing could work as an explanation by blocking it!

"Did they talk to you about affinities yet?" Mum asked.

"No."

"Then I shouldn't have said that," she replied, her face taking on a disgusted expression, and Dad laughed. Daniel turned to him.

"I don't mind if you answer, Dad," he said.

"That's right ask your father." Mum encouraged, turning on Dad. But he just smiled, seemingly unfazed and uninterested in answering.

Mum threw her hands up and walked ahead to catch up with Rory and Gemma, but Daniel just smiled back at Dad and waited. Dad seemed to find this funny, but eventually, he relented.

"Most professions give skills. But you need skills to gain most professions. Most of the tier 0 skills are available without a profession. So most people choose a tier 0 profession that helps them level to a higher tier."

"You said most a lot."

"With skills, there is an exception to most rules."

"What sort of profession helps you level?"

"Townsperson lets you pick a bunch of profession skills so you have more choices for the next tier. Apprentice is quicker if you know what direction you want to take," he said. "But those aren't the only ones."

"Hmm."

Daniel tried to think of what to ask next. He wanted a way to ask about affinities, without feeling he was being mean to his mother.

"Why leave everything to priests? Grandfather doesn't even like them."

"One teacher is better than a hundred," Dad said

Daniel shook his head. Was that a saying here? Skills made it more plausible. Would a teaching skill count as mental manipulation? He found it strange for parents to not want to deal with things themselves. Maybe it was a cultural difference thing, or maybe his concept of proper parenting didn't match real life. If parents weren't ever willing to dump uncomfortable topics onto teachers, then things like sex education would not have existed on modern Earth.

"Guidance stones have strict standards to be able to use them," Dad continued, seeing that Daniel wasn't satisfied. "It makes it easy to trust the priests to live up to their beliefs."

"Do you believe the same thing?"

"I believe that if you agree to a rule, you should follow it."

"But you told me about professions," Daniel pointed out.

"That's allowed."

"Will you tell me what else is allowed? Or is that not allowed?"

Dad smiled a non-answer.

"What about Mum?"

"Your mother thinks we're silly, me and the priests," Dad said, smiling again but looking sheepish this time, "She's going along with it to support me."

Daniel thought about that. It seemed he wasn't going to ask about affinities after all. If he didn't want to get stuck playing the priest's games, talking to his parents instead was a good option. He just needed to find a way to do that without putting pressure on them to betray their principles.

Rory had stopped to wait for them as they reached the forest, letting Mum and Aunt Gemma go ahead. There was a look of humor in his eyes, that helped to connect the dots between his behavior in the past and Grandfather laughing about priests. I guess that's where he gets it from.

"Marcus, Laura was calling for you," he said as they got close. Dad moved forward into the forest to catch up, leaving Daniel at the back with Rory.

"Hey Anne, do you know what is north of here?" Rory asked coaxingly, gesturing forwards at the forest. He looked like a man with a joke to tell. Which was fine with Daniel, he liked jokes, he could play along. It wasn't like something Rory said was going to shock him.

"I do," Daniel said, "Forest!"

"No, silly, past the forest."

"More forest?"

"Past that."

"The end of the forest?"

"Past that."

"More forest again?" Daniel asked, laughing.

"You are probably right," he agreed. "Now will you please take mercy on your poor uncle?"

"Hey, Uncle Rory, what is north of here?" Daniel asked.

"Good question, Anne! If you travel far enough north you'll reach the Land of the Builders."

"What's a builder?" Daniel asked, his eyes going wide. Dwarfs? Gnomes in steampunk mech suits? He was sure he had read some fantasy series where a race was called builders. Probably more than one.

"Nobody knows, they've never been seen."

"Why are they builders then?"

"Because the whole country is filled with stuff they built. And every night some of it gets taken apart and made into something new."

"But no one sees them do it?"

"No one who has come back."

Daniel looked sideways at Rory. He was losing enthusiasm for the story, but Rory seemed to be gaining it.

"Some people think if you went deep enough into the country you could catch them during the day while they are sleeping." Rory continued.

"And that doesn't work?" Daniel asked, not wanting to ask.

"No. It's a big place. If you want to go far in, you'll have to stay there at night time. Can you guess what happens then?"

Daniel shook his head.

"If you stay there at night," Rory told him with relish, "They'll build with you too."

He laughed, and Daniel tried to smile along with him. This guy is an asshole!

Daniel sped up, trying to close the gap with his parents. He glanced from side to side as he went. There was too much forest to keep everything in his vision at once. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go home!

"Aw, Anne, I'm sorry," Rory said as he was left behind, "It was just a funny story, I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm not scared!" he declared loudly.

Thankfully his parents had stopped to wait. He ran up and took his mother's hand.

"Something wrong?"

"No, of course not."

He needed fireball magic already to burn this place down. Being a child was awful. He was tired of being a coward.