Hidden Skill Quest? Thought Elise.

“Would you like to know about hidden Skill Quests?” replied the System.

Yes.

“Skill Quests are objectives set by the System to allow users to learn skills that their classes or species otherwise wouldn’t provide. These quests are often given to low-tier, low-rarity classes without specializations in order to assist their growth. However, they sometimes also exist in the form of hidden Skill Quests for beings that meet certain criteria.”

What are the criteria?

“The criteria for discovering each hidden Skill Quest is dependent on a proprietary algorithm that takes in numerous factors to determine when a user qualifies for a Skill Quest. Once a Skill Quest has been discovered, the user may complete it at any time to unlock the specified skill.”

How many hidden Skill Quests are there?

“I’m sorry. You are not permitted to access that information.”

Figures. How do I see my Skill Quest?

The System responded simply by showing a new window titled “Quests”.

[ {Mana Circulation} (Skill Quest): Perform basic circulation through all mana cores. ]

[ Progress: 1/3 ]

[ Reward: {Mana Circulation} skill ]

Are there other kinds of quests? She asked upon seeing the label associated with the {Mana Circulation} Quest.

“Yes! There are many different quests that users are completing at all times. Most quests relate to unlocking certain classes or evolutions. These quests are hidden from most users at all times, and can only be viewed under highly specific circumstances.”

Why are they hidden? Wouldn’t it be better if we could see them so we could choose our paths better?

“I’m sorry. You are not permitted to access that information.”

Elise sighed, then turned her attention back to the quest she could actually see. Knowing what evolutions she was close to unlocking would be nice, but it seemed that it wouldn’t be happening. Gaining {Mana Circulation}, on the other hand, was much more doable.

She turned her mind inward again, though this time, instead of focusing on her central core, she went to her lower core, located just above her pelvis. Her lower core was stiff, and the mana inside was stagnant, but she slowly worked it, focusing on each acupoint in turn, trying to either close or loosen them.

Progress was slow, and she had not made it very far before a noise from the room forced her attention away. She opened her eyes to see Maia closing the door to the room. And walking in with a smile. At the same time, Penelope sat up, her eyes wide open, looking like she had never fallen asleep.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Great!” said Maia. “He says he’s ready to leave right now, but he still has eyes from the Blood Syndicate watching him, and that taking his vacation almost immediately after we arrive will be too suspicious, so he wants to meet up in a week.”

“A week?!” said Penelope.

“He also said that if you were worried about your friend’s safety, don’t be. If he’s survived this long, he won’t be dying anytime soon.”

“What does that mean?” asked Elise.

“He doesn’t have Otto’s connections, so he doesn’t know exactly what your friend’s position is, but the fact that Otto contacted him and not someone else means that your friend is most likely a pit fighter right now.”

“A pit fighter?” asked Penelope. “Like a slave?”

“Yes,” said Maia. “However, since it’s been 3 months, that means he’s most likely made it to the upper levels. Especially since he started as a trained knight. And once you reach the upper levels, they don’t want to risk your life anymore. They either give you fights they know you’ll win, or they have special event fights with powerful healers on standby to make sure you don’t die. He won’t be having much fun right now, but his life isn’t in danger.”

“How does he know this?”

“Hans was a pit fighter once too,” said Maia. “He was one of their best before he escaped. He is very familiar with their treatment of their prized fighters.”

Penelope tried to say something, but Elise noticed something off about Maia’s words, and spoke first.

“If he escaped, why is he living so openly?” she asked. “And if the Blood Syndicate already knows where he is, why haven’t they done anything about him?”

“He’s under protection,” Maia replied. “I can’t tell you from who, but the Blood Syndicate won’t touch him. They just keep an eye on him.”

“Are you also under their protection?” asked Penelope.

“I can’t answer any questions regarding them.”

Penelope sighed. “Fine. Did he at least tell us where they are?”

“The Blood Syndicate is headquartered in the center of the Jungle.”

“The Jungle?!” said Penelope. “How?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t either. He just knows that’s where they are, and he has a plan to get in. Anyway, he says he wants to meet us at the Jungle in a week where he’ll explain in more detail. He also said that if we were bored, we should spend our time training because-” She made a mock scowl and deepened her voice. “‘You kids wouldn’t make it past the outer guards.’”

“He thinks we’re too weak? And he expects us to get strong enough to meet his standards within a week?”

“No, he expects us to prepare ourselves because-” Maia scowled and deepened her voice again. “‘I’m gonna put you guys through hell.’”

“He’s gonna train us?” asked Elise.

“Yeah.”

“How can we be sure that Nick isn’t dying while we’re spending a week waiting, and then even longer training?” asked Penelope.

“Otto said he’d inform me immediately if anything looked like it was gonna happen,” said Maia. “So if that happens, we can cut the training short and go in immediately. But again, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

Penelope crossed her arms, and didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t protest further. Elise had some of the same concerns about Nick, but if Hans was right, and he wasn’t in mortal danger at the moment, that made Sophie’s and Bianca’s positions more concerning. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, since even Otto wasn’t able to find them, but it still made her anxious.

“Where are we supposed to meet him?” asked Elise.

“He wanted to meet us in the Jungle,” said Maia. “He said it didn’t matter where, as long as we were relatively close to the city. We just need to go in, and he’ll find us.”

“Then we should probably just go in early,” said Penelope.

“I was gonna say the same,” said Maia. “Once we go talk to your rich friends, we should just go right in. No point in wasting any more time here. Elise?”

“Fine with me,” said Elise.

That actually sounded better to her, since she would be able to move around more freely once they left the city.

“Well, it’s probably too late to visit your noble friends tonight, but it’s too early for bed,” said Maia. “So there’s only one thing to do.”

“What?” asked Penelope.

“We need to get Elise a Hunter’s License.”

An hour later, Elise had her Hunter’s License. It looked almost like a driver’s license, with a small picture of her, and some demographic information, except it was made of copper, and hung from a chain around her neck. As they walked down the street back to the Third Tier, Elise found herself fidgeting with it, and occasionally staring at it.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The process of getting the license had been far more simple than she thought it would be, and even Maia was caught off-guard by how easy it was. The place they went to get the license was an office of an organization called the International Monster Hunters Association, which, in addition to granting Hunter’s Licenses, also kept track of monster spawn zones all around the world, and had connections all over the world. One of those connections just so happened to be the Jelorian Knights, meaning that with a vouch from Penelope, Elise was able to walk out with a Copper Rank license less than half an hour after walking in, and without taking any tests or showing any other forms of identification.

That left them with the rest of the night free, and more importantly, the rest of Elise’s transformation time. They could have gone straight back to the inn, but Elise was a bit reluctant to go straight back after not even an hour in her human form, and Maia seemed to feel the same. Penelope didn’t care either way, so she let Maia lead them through the city to an enormous garden.

The sun had just set, so it was dark outside, but the garden was still illuminated by strategically placed luminescent plants, creating a magical view. They spent an hour walking around the garden, enjoying the sights, and making small talk before finally heading back to the inn for the night.

“I’m gonna go hang out at the tavern for a bit,” said Maia when they got back to their room. “Grab a drink or two. Wanna come?”

“I don’t drink,” said Penelope.

“No thanks,” said Elise.

“Suit yourselves,” Maia replied, shrugging. “But this might be your last chance to let loose a bit before we’re stuck training for who knows how long.”

“I’m fine,” said Elise. “I wouldn’t be able to stay long either.”

“Alright. Well, seeya later then.”

Once she left, Elise flopped down on one of the beds, reluctant to change back out of her human form just yet. She wouldn’t be going anywhere until the morning, so she could afford to max out the cooldown. After a few minutes, she found her mind returning to the Skill Quest she had discovered. If she wanted to be productive, that’s what she should have been working on, but to do that, she had to return to her base form, and that would mean no more human form for the night.

She wallowed in reluctance for a time until she noticed something odd with the mana in the room. She sat up in her bed and looked over to find that Penelope had sat down on the floor next to the other bed, and had her eyes closed, meditating. While it was hard to sense the mana in someone else’s body, she got the vague sense that Penelope’s was moving around inside her, and quite rapidly, based on the occasional bits that flew from her head. Elise observed for a few minutes until it suddenly ground to a halt and Penelope’s eyes flew open.

“Did you need something?”

“Sorry,” said Elise, leaning back. “I was just- Were you doing Mana Circulation?”

“I was.”

Elise hesitated for a moment, before speaking again.

“Can you teach me how to do it?”

“Teach you?” asked Penelope. “Do you have the skill?”

“I don’t, but I just got a Skill Quest for it earlier.”

“A Skill Quest?” asked Penelope. “I thought those were for first tiers.”

“It said it was a hidden Skill Quest. Can you teach me how to do it?”

“I can try. I didn’t learn until I got the skill though, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to help much.”

“I mostly just need to know how it works,” said Elise. “I’m going in blind right now. I barely even know what mana circulation is.”

“I can help with that at least,” said Penelope. “{Mana Circulation}, is the second foundational skill for anyone with a magic focused class. Or evolution, I guess. The other one is {Mana Sense}. {Mana Circulation} basically just purifies the mana in your body, which makes it easier to control, and also lets you store it a bit more densely. The easier control is the main part though. Using magical skills with pure mana is much faster than with unpurified mana, and though I don’t have {Mana Manipulation}, the mages I know who have it say that pure mana is ten times easier to work with.

“The way it works is that your body has three cores- actually wait, does your body have three cores?”

“Yeah,” said Elise. “My base form and human form both have three.”

“One between the hips, one in the chest, one in the head?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good. So your three cores all have slightly different functions. The central core– the one in your chest– does the main purification work. It will remove almost all the impurities, and then distribute the mana both to your body, and to your other two cores. The lower core– the one between your hips– also does purification, but not as much as the central core, and it does more distribution to the rest of your body. The upper core also purifies mana, but rather than distributing it to your body, it is responsible for circulating and controlling mana outside your body.

“Both mages and warriors tend to have well-developed central cores, but mages usually have much more active upper cores, and weaker lower cores, while warriors will have strong lower cores and weak upper cores. I, being a warrior, have a very strong lower core, but my upper core is relatively weak and inefficient. I’d be willing to bet that you’re the opposite. You don’t have any body-strengthening skills, right?”

“No,” said Elise. “Not yet, at least.”

“Then in that case, don’t worry if your lower core seems small or less powerful than your others.”

“Got it.”

“The {Mana Circulation} skill is a passive skill that keeps your mana lightly circulating at all times, though not very quickly,” Penelope continued. “When you meditate, it speeds up the process, and makes your mana extra pure until you expend it all and absorb more dirty mana from the atmosphere. As you level the skill, the passive effect gets faster and faster, and my mentor told me that once it reaches level 175, it’s about the same as the meditation speed.”

“I see,” said Elise. “How does it feel to use it properly? The way I’ve been doing it is kind of closing the core off so that it inflates with mana a bit, and then letting it deflate.”

“I think that’s kind of the right idea,” said Penelope, scratching her chin. “I’ve never really thought about it before, but yeah, it is kind of like breathing. Mmm, no, it’s more like a heartbeat. Except with 3 hearts. And they don’t all beat at the same time. It’s usually the central core that pulses first, and then the other two right after as the mana from the central core reaches them. And when the mana travels from the cores through your body, it follows specific paths like blood vessels.”

“I did notice that, actually,” said Elise. “It was really faint, but I thought I noticed some kind of pattern. I’ve only been able to work with my central core so far though. I started with my lower core earlier today, but I’m a little hesitant on the upper core. I had a teacher before, and he warned me against absorbing mana through my head too much.”

“Ah, yeah, that can be dangerous,” said Penelope. “But it should be fine as long as it’s not only your head. Too much mana in any part of your body isn’t good, but in the head, it’s especially bad, since it can have weird effects on your brain. That’s why mages get headaches when they cast too many spells, actually. Their upper core is what handles all that external mana, so too much mana passing through it can have adverse effects.”

“So if I’m circulating the mana in all three cores, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I don’t think so. But it still stops you from doing the meditation version for too long, since you’ll get a headache after a few hours. Higher Willpower will reduce that effect a bit, but even then, it’s still not great to send too much mana to your head.”

“I see.”

Elise had never experienced that before, even when grinding out her spells underground with Sindri, but she assumed that must have been because she simply didn’t have enough mana for it to be an issue. Or she just wasn’t practicing long enough. Or by taking such long breaks to practice meditation in between casts, she had negated the effects. Most likely, it was a combination of all of the above, but either way, she was glad to have finally found out why Jens had advised against starting her mana absorption practice with the acupoints on her head.

“I think I have enough to work more on my own,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” said Penelope. “If you need more help, just let me know.”

“I will.”

Penelope leaned back and closed her eyes again, returning to her circulation while Elise retreated back to the center of the bed. She took a few seconds to get her mind in order, then changed back to her base changeling form and started her mana meditation.

Penelope’s words had given her a new perspective on her cores. She had indeed been thinking about them all wrong. They were not containers to be filled. They were filters through which the mana needed to pass. She zeroed in on her central core again, and rather than trying to mess with the acupoints, she tried to manipulate the core as a whole. Nothing happened at first, but after some time, she managed to get it to expand just a bit. The expansion had the same effect as trying to close the acupoints had, causing her core to fill up slightly with mana. She released it, and a small amount of purified mana was ejected.

Though Elise believed Penelope when she said it was more like a heartbeat than breathing, for Elise’s purposes, she chose to think about it like breathing, at least until she could get it more under control. This was mostly because she had no control over her heartbeat, but the sensation of inhaling and exhaling was familiar and controllable, and greatly helped with the visualization of her cores.

Once she was confident she could consistently “breathe” with her central core, she turned her attention to her lower core, and did the same there. She did not make as much progress on this one, however. Unlike her central core, she had not been working on the lower core at all, causing it to feel stiff and almost brittle as she tried to inflate and deflate it. After about an hour, she could do just a little bit. It was barely noticeable, but the mana definitely increased within the core, and was expelled into her body.

She cracked her eyes open and pulled up the Skill Quest, but the Progress was still stuck at 1 of 3.

I probably need to get both working at once to get more progress, she thought.

She went back to her meditation, and started working toward getting both central and lower core working at the same time. If not for Penelope’s description of the two cores not beating simultaneously, she would have been at a loss for how to do it. Out of curiosity, she tried getting both working at once, and unsurprisingly, neither did anything. Splitting her focus like that was not possible. Getting the central core working, and then jumping over to the lower one though? She felt that would be possible.

Unfortunately, she discovered that switching from one core to the other wasn’t easy. She hadn’t expected it to be, but it was proving to be a bit more of a wall than she thought it would. She could get each one to circulate independently, but it was always too slow. By the time she got the lower core to do what little she could manage, the central core had long since stopped outputting pure mana for it.

She practiced this for over an hour, but by then, she was actually starting to get worse. She opened her eyes, and immediately yawned, finally noticing how exhausted she was. She had barely done anything that day, but her body felt a bit sore, as if she had been running around. She guessed it was due to the excessive circulation of mana through her central and lower cores, based on what Penelope had described.

The knight herself had finished her own circulation practice, and was now laying in bed. She didn’t quite sound asleep, but Elise could tell that she was trying to sleep. Elise lay down on the bed, thinking she would just rest a bit while waiting for Maia to get back, but not even a minute after she decided to “rest her eyes”, she was asleep.

Later, she woke with a start to the sound of the door slamming.