The same as yesterday, I woke up and did all the general chores stuff, plus what Mama needed. It won't be long before I have a new sister, and Mama's getting a little grumpy in the mornings. Making breakfast for her is helping, and I guess I've done it enough to actually gain a skill for it.
You have acquired a skill:
[Novice Cooking (Lv. 1)]
Improves the quality and taste of all food prepared by you, and may add health or mana restoration properties to dishes with higher quality ingredients.
Special Interaction:
Due to [Soul Connection], your soulmate will always gain the maximum effects and buffs from food you cook, up to your skill's personal maximum.
I was excited about this skill, as it would be very useful throughout my life. Food I made for Mama would be more nutritious, and if I ever camped out while adventuring with Ciara, I could guarantee we would have something with flavor.
"Mama, I got the [Cooking] skill finally!" I beamed at her, and brought her breakfast to the table.
"Congratulations, sweetie! Be sure to put work into levelling it. Mine has evolved and merged into some other things, so it's more specialized now, but it still does work every day. Though, with the rate you improve your own skills, it shouldn't be too long before it evolves anyways." Mama looked at me thoughtfully,
"You mean my skills are levelling faster than other people's?" It hadn't even crossed my mind that this was a possibility, even with all the other weird stuff that I could do. It just made sense that everyone would progress like I did if they focused on their skills. "How much faster, do you think?"
"Based on what you've told us, and how fast our craft's skills leveled, around five times faster for things you really focused on. Part of that is probably us being less tunneled on those parts of us, but it's at least a two times increase in speed. It probably has something to do with one of your higher stats, like luck or karma. They never really get this high, so it's hard to see a correlation in the lower numbers. The point is, you may work extremely hard, but your progress is even faster than other workaholics, so make sure to take some time off every once in a while. You won't fall behind or anything if you do." Mama got up and kissed my forehead. Before heading off to work. "I love you, sweetie. Never forget that. Have a wonderful day with your girlfriend." She hurried out of the room after seeing my face change.
I was bright red with embarrassment. I knew Ciara was my soulmate, but I hadn't really thought about what that made us to each other outside of that. I never thought of her as my girlfriend, but it fits. Though even just thinking it is enough to deepen the shade of my face, and reduce the number of brain cells that were actively working.
It took a few minutes to calm down and push the thought out of my head, at which point Papa came into the kitchen, and noticed my flushed face.
"What's the matter Amara? Your face nearly matches your hair right now." Papa sent a playful jab at me, but it took me a minute to respond.
"Mama said something that got me really embarrassed, like, worse than normal. She called Ciara my girlfriend. And it's got me confused about what we are to each other now. It makes sense to use that word, but it makes me all flustered to think about it." I let my worries flood out to him, and he put a hand on my shoulder to comfort me.
"It seems like your massive stats may have caused some changes prematurely. This type of stuff shouldn't affect you so much for another year or two. My best guess is that you're going through puberty early because of one of your stats, and it's causing some uncomfortable or embarrassing thought processes. It happens to everyone once they become a teenager, but its causing turmoil in you early. Thinking about that, I'm suddenly concerned about how your body is going to develop of your mind is so ahead, but your aging slowed too much. Whatever the case, know your mother and I are always here for you. Ciara probably will be as well, but she's in the same boat, so go to her for comfort more than help, if you really need it. We'll cross the other bridges when we come to them. For now, focus on your project. Everything else can drop by the wayside until it's done. Remember always, we love you with all our hearts, and wish the very best for you." Papa also gave me a kiss on the forehead, then picked me up to give me a hug. Afterwards, he shuffled me out the door to get on my way to the smithy, and my amazing project.
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I stopped by the forge to let Mr. Darius know I needed to grab something for the finishing touches on the sword, as it might take a bit for them to be finished. Afterwards, I headed towards one of the more reputable gem shops in the craftsman's district, looking for a few specific gems of higher quality and purity.. The first was a citrine, the second, a ruby, and the last was a garnet. These three gems were then taken to an enchanting runecarver's workshop to be engraved with a magic circle.
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Luckily, because the circle was relatively simple, the price and time needed were within my budget, only nearly emptying my coin pouch. They were enchanted to slowly absorb mana of their primary aspects. Citrine for light, ruby for fire, and garnet for earth. These were the three primary aspects that were present in the mithryl we created that Ciara did not have access to. I had a feeling it would be important to use the sword to its fullest.
After a while, I got back to the forge and got started on shaping the blade. A few hours later, the blade was finished and I had to find a suitable grip material from the back shed again. This time around, the material that called out to me was a vibrant purple. I had no clue what it was, but it just felt right.
I attached the grip to the hilt, then started etching and shaping it. The design was similar to the last blade, but with carnations and lavender as the flowers. They bloomed across the guard, carnations in the center, flowing out to lavender towards the ends, where there were two gem sockets, yet to be filled. At the pommel was another socket. This one was for the citrine, as the most complex of the three additional aspects, it was to be the central one.
I finished polishing up the etching, and amazingly, the mithryl within the flower etchings changed colors to match the flowers, a light metallic red for the carnations, a d a deeper blue for the lavender.
I went on to sharpen the edge, and finally, the only remaining step was to insert the three gems that were currently being engraved. It wouldn't be done until the next day, on which I would also present the sword to Ciara. But tonight, we were meeting at dinner, so I had to contain the excitement I was feeling to make sure it would be a surprise.
But before that, I had to have a short conversation with mother Irina. I arrived home to see that everyone else had already sat down, ready to eat. Mama and Papa had already made a plate for me, and so we started eating as soon as I sat down. Everything was peaceful and the food was delicious, as expected from Mama, who made the best food I've ever eaten. To be fair, she's also the one who made all the food I've ever eaten, apart from small snacks in town, but still. Really good stuff.
After dinner was finished I asked mother Irina to speak with me in private for a minute.
"What did you need, dear? I hope there's not some sort of problem." She looked at me, a bit concerned.
"There is something I need to ask you, and it is kind of serious. Have you talked to Ciara about the aging and lifespan changes that come with stats yet? Because she needs to know, before it's too late." I hoped my face looked serious enough to relay how important this was.
"What do you mean 'before it's too late'? That stuff shouldn't really be an issue for years. I just thought I'd bring it up when she was closer to maturity, like my parents did for me."
"The problem is, if she doesn't know about it soon, she may never physically mature at all. If she plans on doing the same thing I did, she'll be using all of the stat points she's accumulated over the years when she finishes her apprenticeship. She should be physically thirteen or fourteen at that time. But when she does that, she will gain an ageless body for sure, 100% guaranteed. She'll be stuck at that age forever, and so will I. I plan on using my stat points to make sure my body stays the same age as hers, so she won't feel out of place as much, no matter when she does it." I looked at her with determination. "Plus, she'll realize that she's going to most likely outlive her parents, her other friends, anyone who doesn't hit the required stats. I want to be there for her when she has that realization, so I can comfort her, so please let me know when you are going to talk with her about it, okay mother?"
"I never thought about any of these issues. I forgot she was gaining stats so rapidly, and didn't even register it as a problem. This is going to be a rough conversation when we have it. And now that you're saying it, I should work harder to hit the stats I need. I don't want to make her worry about losing me to old age. I need to get back to work on improving myself, for my daughter's sake. Thank you for talking about this with me. I needed to hear this." She bent down and gave me a hug and a kiss on my forehead.
"It was just as much for myself as it was for Ciara. I don't want to see her troubled by this suddenly down the road. I needed a while to get over the hurdle when it was accidentally dropped on me. I don't want the same thing happening to her. Thank you, mother Irina." I hugged her back, then we went back into the kitchen to chat with everyone else for a while.
After dinner, Ciara and I went back into the forest clearing to train our magic with Ms. Jasmine and Trix, and I had a question for them. "It's possible to use more than one aspect in magic without items like foci, right? Like we did with our tandem magic?"
"Yeah, it's possible, but not very easy. Especially the way you use magic. Just manipulating mana to do what you want, without any foci or chants, it's very difficult to command more than one, or to keep a clear image of what you want each mana type to do. We can do some exercises on it tonight if you'd like?" Trix was helpful as always, with magic anyways. After that, we got started learning how to manipulate multiple aspects of mana at the same time. It was tough, but before the end of the night, both Ciara and I had managed to merge two aspects into one effect for our magic. I used fire and earth mana to create a small instant fire pit, a great thing to be able to do for camping.
Ciara, on the other hand, mixed her dark and water mana to somehow make poison. I'm not really sure how that interaction worked, but it did, and it gave her a new weapon for her beast hunting arsenal. Maybe dark mana corrupted the original purpose of an aspect, as water is supposed to be pure, a thing of life, and the dark reversed it into a putrid mass of death. It was interesting to think about, but we did all we could for now. Doing any more would be exhausting, and also take us past our curfews, so Ciara and I bid farewell to our teachers, and headed back into town, hand in hand. We had to split up again once we got into town, and I returned home to lie down again at the end of another busy day.
As I drifted off to sleep, I remembered that the sword would be done tomorrow, and that I'd get to see the look on Ciara's face when I presented it to her. Hopefully it lives up to her expectations.