[Time left till System unlock: 3:16:22:48]

Not long now!

Lucas checked the timer once again, as he'd been doing for the last week. Time wouldn't move any faster at his behest, but he couldn't help it. After so long, his unlock was finally within reach! Soon, her would be casting spells, healing the sick, fighting off all sorts of ne'er-do-wells--the anticipation was killing him! Heck, just being able to increase his stats would be boon enough. His options were completely open, the only limit to the magic he might wield his imagination.

With a big, glorious stretch, Lucas worked through the stiffness that crept in with the chill of night. His sheets tugged at his arms in an attempt to drag him back to sleep, but he knew he couldn't indulge in that instinct. It was time for the morning routine. He swung feet out to meet the cold wooden floor and made his way out of the large closet that held his bed. A quick stop at the washroom to rinse a little and he was ready to get down to business.

What followed was a sprint through his morning chores fueled by jerky and a need to finish quickly. First, he got a small fire going in the stove to chase the chill away. Second, he wiped all the shelves, tables, and counters in the kitchen and clinic room free of dust, putting everything in its proper place as he went along. That was a constant occupant of his morning routine, so there really wasn't much to be taken care of. Lucas ran through various other tasks and was nearly finished by the time his mom exited her own room.

"Morning, Lu!" She greeted him warmly in the kitchen with a hug from behind.

He relaxed into the hug for a moment, not really able to return it on account of his current position and preoccupied hands.

"This is for you, mom." He lifted the plate of eggs and bread above him just a little so she could see. It wasn't strictly necessary as she was still a fair bit taller than him, she could see the plate just fine. "How did you sleep?"

"Well enough," she tousled his hair before taking the proffered plate, "thank you for the meal, oh dutiful son of mine."

They both took a seat at the table that occupied the majority of the kitchen. Lucas waited quietly as his mother dug into the dish. A ashen strand of hair just like his own fell into her face, nearly entering her mouth with a bite of eggs before getting tucked behind a pale ear. A noise of delight escaped as she swallowed the first bite.

"Mmm, I don't know how you make simple fried eggs taste so good," she said.

"They're not really simple, that's how. So many things can affect the final flavor, and my eggs were definitely not that good when I started cooking for you. Took a lot of practice," he explained, though the smile that came unbidden revealed the pride he took with the compliment.

His mom froze, fork halfway to her mouth with another bite as she got a far off look in her eyes. "Yes...practice. Lots and lots of practice," she feigned horror.

"Hey! It wasn't that bad. Perfectly edible, really."

"Oh, yes. Penelope and Eliot's pigs got them down just fine."

"Exactly. Their later gut issues were entirely unrelated," the mother and son pair both nodded sagely before bursting out in the sort of laughter that people only have in retrospective reflection of trials weathered. In all honesty, it wasn't funny at the time. Just...nasty.

Lucas waited in silence while his mother finished up the meal. His thoughts drifted from one thing to another. Mostly magic and the System, but also his later plans. He had finished his chores quickly enough, so with any luck, he'd be free till around mid-afternoon.

"So," his mom started as she stood to take care of her plate, "how long now?"

"Three days, fourteen hours and twenty-two minutes," Lucas answered without hesitation.

"We'll meet with Elder Falon tomorrow then," she replied after a moment of thought. "He'll give you an introduction to the System so you're prepared for the unlock.

"I already know pretty much anything he could tell me," Lucas grumbled.

"It doesn't change anything," he received in answer. "Everyone in the village meets with an Elder before their tenth birthday. There is still plenty you don't know."

Lucas chose to drop the issue. He didn't want to argue over something so simple and it was possible he might learn a thing or two from the elder. Neither was he ready to disclose how much he truly knew just yet. He knew he wasn't like other children approaching their System unlock--he knew things no one else did. At least, no other ten year old. Who knows what high-leveled people have discovered and chosen to keep secret.

Lucas refocussed on the moment. While he was lost in thought, his mother had approached, just now wrapping her arms around him in embrace.

"Ok, come on." She said. "Help me set the clinic up for the day, then I'll let you go."

Together they moved on to the adjoining room. Not much was required to set the clinic up, and he had already cleaned in here earlier. The room was furnished with a comfortable reclining couch and a couple chairs--his mother's healing practices not requiring more than her own mana most times. There was also a small table on which their nice tea set would usually rest for any patient's perusal. After a couple minutes of rearranging and cushion fluffing, he was on his way.

The crisp morning air greeted him upon his exit, the sky lightly overcast and the world colored in shades of brown and grey. This early, the small huts immediately neighboring his own house still cast shadows along the village paths. Despite what the cold might have led him to believe, there was not yet enough moisture to turn the ground to mud.

Lucas followed his chosen path north, making his way past house after house and into what amounted to the village's market district. The village population was just large enough for the market to not be pointless, but still small enough that most goods that passed through this area to be exchanged through barter, rather than the trade of coins. Still, a designated market district might have been ridiculous if it did not also serve as a place of gathering for festivals and official meetings.

The market ended around a dozen paces from the barrier wall, one of the sole stone constructions in the village boxing us in on all four sides, with one gate to the south and another just ahead of him. That was his destination this morning, and often where he headed when he had some unexpected free time as well. However, he halted his approach as the gate's massive wooden door swung open and outward. In walked a large group of warriors armored in an assorted mix of leather and metal with weapons strapped to their backs and sides. Lucas took in their arrival in an instant and darted to the side of the street, where a line of barrels would provide cover almost all the way up to the wall.

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He kept his head down and slowly crept closer to the warriors. Closest to the end of the line of barrels was a man with a shield strapped to one arm, a spear held in the other, and a short sword sheathed on his hip. The man was not paying any attention in Lucas's direction, caught up in conversation with a couple other members of this group while the rest entered the village.

At the end of his cover, Lucas got down into a position that would allow him to cover the distance to the spearman with the greatest speed. He had to rush before his target moved on, bumping into the last barrel in the line with a slight thud. Mentally kicking himself, he shot off, but one of the warriors had already noticed him and the spearman looked over.

"Attack!" Lucas cried.

Three paces. He made it three paces following his cry before the world spun and suddenly he wasn't charging anymore.

"Now, what have I caught here?" The spearman said. "How did a little goblin make its way into the village?"

Lucas refocussed at his words and stared defiantly back at his captor, swinging slightly side-to-side and suspended from his ankle.

"This won't do at all," another warrior clucked and came into view, "we'll have to question it on how many others have made it in."

"I'll never talk!" Lucas decreed.

The spearman's face took on a sinister grin, only undercut slightly by the brown lock of hair that fell directly into his eye, forcing him to prop his spear against the wall and brush it to the side. "Oh, we have ways of getting around that..."

Without any further warning, the man's now-unoccupied hand latched onto Lucas's slide.

"No--hahah...stop! Stop!" Lucas managed to wheeze out, "I-I'll talk--hahehaha...Eugene, I'll talk!"

The world spun once more and he was back on his feet, this time with Eugene's full attention.

"Alright, where do you think you're going now, Lucas? Shouldn't you be helping your mother get ready for the day's business right about now?"

"Already did. Shouldn't you be headed to bed right about now," he countered. "Night patrol is always such a chore, after all."

"Wise words--almost like I said them myself--and I will, soon as you tell me where you think you are headed," Eugene struck back. "Don't think I've forgotten your penchant for sneaking out into the woods--Mary would kill me if I just let you out there unsupervised."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Lucas lied. "Clearly, I just came over to say hi. Will you be coming by the house again later?"

Eugene just stared down at him in silence--briefly broken by the thud of the gate when the last of the patrol made it in the village, upon which they were all dismissed by the present captain of the guard--for a few moments while Lucas stood unflinching.

"Hmm, ok then. Consider yourself warned at least. I'll try to come by for dinner later," he clapped Lucas on the shoulder. "Now get out of here; go do kid stuff."

"Yeah, yeah. Go to bed," Lucas called to the man's departing form, a mumbled 'cheeky kid' carried back to him on the wind.

Eugene was probably the closest thing Lucas had to a father. Their relationship wasn't quite the same, as the man and his mother weren't officially involved, but it still made him the closest approximation to a paternal figure Lucas had ever had. There was a story behind that, surely, but his mother never spoke of it and he didn't ask. The most he had gathered from hearsay among the villagers was that Mary showed up at the gates one day with baby Lucas in arms and was given shelter. Shelter eventually turned to residence when her work as a healer earned them enough money to buy a small house.

Mary never voiced any interest in romantic relations throughout Lucas's life either, despite being quite young still and garnering the attention of a fair number of men in the village. Eugene wasn't an exception to this, though his mother never turned him away as with the others. They maintained a close relationship within platonic boundaries, seemingly with an unspoken understanding that it would not grow into any more than that.

For Lucas, that meant Eugene would help them out every now and then, sometimes coming over for dinner and spending time in comfort with the mother and son pair. He'd even started teaching Lucas how to use a spear--which he had taken to with enthusiasm--when he had time available and Lucas wasn't helping with the clinic or off doing his own thing.

He didn't understand why the two adults never made a move on one another, as it was clear to him that their feelings were mutually reciprocated, albeit repressed. Surely they would both be happier if they were honest with each other?

It didn't really bother him though, as everything was just fine as it is. He sometimes lost himself in daydreams about magic and adventure, but the truth was Lucas wouldn't change a thing about his life--he didn't need anything more.

We don't need much in this small corner of the world.

His thoughts returned to the present. Looking around, he observed no one in the vicinity casting any attention his way. People were starting to come out in force by now to occupy shops and stalls, and every single one was busy with their own business. Perfect conditions for sneaking out a certain gate.

He wasn't able to open the gate itself of course. For one thing, that would very likely be noticed and for two, it was remarkably dense and heavy--meant to be operated by System-enhanced guards and to keep out System-enhanced invaders. No, Lucas's avenue of escape would be the slight gap between the top of the wooden gate and the overhanging portion of the wall. With greater speed than he showcased in his earlier charge, he ascended to the gap using the few ridges on the structure, squeezing through and dropping to the other side seconds after starting the climb.

Lucas picked himself off the ground and dusted his hands on his pants. The gate's surface on this side was significantly smoother, so he wouldn't be able to reenter the village through this path later. That wouldn't be too big a problem though. He'd just swing by the creek on the east side of the village where there was sure to be some people washing baskets of laundry and blend in with them upon their return. For now, he had somewhere to be.

An earthen road extended to the north, and Lucas followed it for a good five minutes, jogging into the uncultivated forest before stepping off to the left and hiking west. A few minutes later he arrived at a great behemoth of a tree that must have lived for centuries before expiring and now served as his hidden refuge.

Lucas had to climb on several monstrous roots extending nearly half a dozen paces from the trunk to get closer. Where the roots met the trunk, roughly two-thirds his height from the ground, there was a gap hidden from view just wide enough for a child to slip through. Beyond the gap, a little hollow opened up just enough for Lucas to sit comfortably on the dirt floor, rested against yet more roots.

There was also enough room to store the little cloth bundle he kept there, with the package of roasted nuts he'd be visiting later inside. However, now that he was finally alone, with no reasonable chance of anyone stumbling upon him, Lucas turned his attention back to the intangible currents in the air that he always had to fight to ignore around other people.

No one else could see these streams in the air but him. Once upon a time when he was still ostensibly a baby, he tried asking his mother and the other villagers that would sometimes watch over him about the currents, but he was written off every time. Furthermore, the villagers ignored them so completely that their blindness was made clear.

It took a couple more years after he stopped asking others those questions for him to identify what exactly he was seeing. His revelation came when he first got to watch his mother practice her magic and craft in the clinic, and he detected a smaller current within the electric blue manifestation of her healing. It was mana. Not as the rest of the world saw it, but in a less refined, natural form.

From that day on, he took nearly every spare moment he could to observe and try to interact with the mana, eventually discovering the tree hollow in an effort to find someplace safe and private where he would go undisturbed. To this day, he hadn't discovered much else. Lucas could alter the flow of the currents physically, though the alterations were unpredictable and everyone could do this, they just didn't know. He also observed the effects other System-granted Skills had on the currents, with variations appearing based on the type of Skill and affinity. The height of his achievements was when he managed to siphon a small stream of mana for a current into his body.

That resulted in the worst fevered illness he'd ever gotten, leaving him bedridden for a month. He didn't do that anymore.

On the positive side of things, that little experiment bore great fruits, for after he recovered from the fever his sense of mana evolved. Every living thing held some amount of mana within itself, but it was only after that event that Lucas's eyes were opened to his own internal mana. It was the barest whisper compared to the world around him, but it shone with a radiance unseen elsewhere. Not yet possessing the capability to see another person's internal mana, he could only assume mana changed somehow when it existed inside a being.

Today, he had a goal. Though the possibility of danger in this was clear to him, he was determined to find a way to manipulate his internal mana--maybe even manifest magic--before his System unlocked. Such an achievement would surely catapult the quality of his initial Skills. This would be how he pulled ahead of all the other village kids his age.