Authors Note: This chapter has wall of texts. I tried my best to space the paragraphs.

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“Skill system is what everyone in this world has access to. It naturally helps an individual to bring out the magic energy that is dwelling within themselves. Of course, it can also help the individual to manipulate the magic energy that surrounds this world.” (Aaron)

“Wait, wait… so what is magic energy? Where does it come from? Also, what does it look like? Are you able to see it? 

Where is it?”

“Woah, slow down. I will try to explain everything. First, magic energy cannot be seen by naked eyes. No matter how good your eyesight is you cannot see magic energy. But, you can perceive it by feeling the magic energy’s flow. You can think of magic energy as the air. It exists everywhere, all around us. Even underwater, you will be able to feel the magic energy. It also exists inside of us. Now to explain where it originates from nobody knows. It’s kind of embarrassing to say it but the researchers never figured it out. Nobody knows why people are able to access skill system, where it comes from, and the person who started it all. Some may say it’s the gods but nobody in this world have met the ones called “gods”. There are people who worship different gods but it’s hard to actually provide a solid proof if they exist or not. Personally, I don’t believe in one. There are many cults out there who actually gets gullible people to do things for them.”

So those kind of people exist everywhere huh… it seems like the magic energy is a lot close to mana in games. It make more sense for me to understand it this way because they use “skill system”. Different world, skill system, and mana. I say this is pretty cliché but it’s not like it’s a bad thing. Who wouldn’t want to live in this kind of world where they have magic? Like this old man was able to shoot a fireball! I thought about it but I should explain to you guys how this guy looks like. You guys are probably imagining either a fat man with his stomach bulged out or a man with white hair that looks very old? I guess? You know what I mean… anyways, let me describe him. He had a haircut that was well trimmed on top and short on sides. Hmm if I were to describe it style it would be a two block cut? His hair color was brown and so were his eye colors. He also had a nice five o clock shadow. He just had wrinkles in some places that made him look very mature. His body wasn’t too muscular nor skinny rather it was well built. He would make a perfect actor in a movie.

While I was thinking of unnecessary thoughts, Aaron continued with his explanation.

“Though the researchers haven’t figured out where the magic energies source, they do know that this magic energy exist inside of us and around us. And, because it exists inside of us, the researchers believes that the individual is able to access the skill system.

Now let’s move on to how to access into a skill system. If you say , you should be able to access into your information and it is only visible to you. Of course, if you wanted to you can show it to other people by transferring that information into a specific scroll. You don’t have to say it out aloud. You can just mutter the as well.

Now, when the status comes up you should be able to see your level, skill points, and skills. We don’t know what exactly level is but we just assume that it is needed for the skills. You are able to increase your levels by accumulating points. It can be through killing monsters like the wolf demon that attacked you.

You are awarded with 1 skill point when you level and are able to put up skills. These skills consume 1 point but as the levels go up it costs the same as its skill level. For example, if your skill level is 1 and you want to raise it to 2, you would need 2 skill points instead of 1. If you are trying to do skill level 2 to 3 you would need 3 points.”(Aaron)

“I see, do you mind if I just try it out right now?”

“Sure, go ahead” (Aaron)

Okay, that was a lot of information for myself to take in but I understand most of it. Simply, this world operates like any role playing game would except it’s not a game. First, I’m going to check this thing by myself.

MaelstromLevelSkill Points72288/288Unique Skills•Lucky Me!Experience Gained MultipliedSkill Points Gained Per Level + 3

Formula: Level + 3(Level) or 4(Level)•Family CrestAnyone Who Shares This Crest Cannot

Be Tamed. *Must Have/Form A Bond To Obtain The Crest.Skills

Woah!!! This is so cool! Now, I understand why Aaron hovered his hand into the air. He was trying to touch this status chart. Let’s check my level.

My level should be… what? 72!?! What the hell? How is my level so high? Wait is this high? I don’t know how easy or hard it is to level. Let’s not go crazy yet…

“Uh… Aaron? Can I ask you something? What level are you?”

“I’m level 54.”

Oh damn. He is lower than me? That’s insane! And How come I have so many skill points? Shouldn’t I only have 72?

I scanned through the status chart in confusion and noticed the unique skills. When I read it, that’s when I noticed why I was able to have this much skill points.

Experience gained multiplied, and Skill points obtained per level are +3. This explains why my level and skill points are so high. But what did I do to level?

Hm…

Ah! It’s probably the creature but was that enough for me to level this much? That wouldn’t make sense. Unless it multiplies my experience by thousands or even more.

“What’s wrong? You look surprised about something. Is there something wrong with your status? Status also shows the persons state. For example, if you were poisoned, it would state on the status bar saying that you are poisoned. Other people can look at your status. You can only see other people’s level if their levels are higher than the other.” (Aaron)

“No, No. Nothing wrong. Just really surprised at my status. Sorry about that, you can go on and continue explaining. Thanks.”

“Now… Where was I? Oh, yeah. Since now you understand let’s move onto the skills. When you click on the skills you should be able to see many icons. When you hover over them you should be able to see the skill name and its information.”

Like Aaron said, there were many skills. First, it started with 3 Icons. Melee, Ranged and Magic. When I hovered over them one by one, it gave more Icons.

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While I was checking the skills, Aaron continued to explain.

“You probably have noticed, but these skills do not give you the specifics. You already saw my fireball right? That’s not actually a skill rather it’s something that I have created by manipulating my magic. In order to be able to specifically manipulate the magic energy into fire you have to put a point in fire mastery. If you want to manipulate your magic energy into water then you would obviously have to put a point into water mastery.

Now, for melee combat and ranged combat it’s different. The person who put points into these are able to use magic energy to manipulate their movements. They are also able to manipulate their weapons with magic energy. As an individual put more points into melee combat they are able to learn sword movements naturally and able to use it. So for example, a person who has no knowledge of swordsmanship can become a swordsman with just 1 skill point into the melee combat. Same goes for Ranged combat. Vice versa.”

“I see. Skills are amazing. Hmm… So what’s the point of raising them to higher level if there are no specific moves to learn? Wouldn’t level 1 skill and level 3 skill be the same? Not sure, if I explained it right so let me try to give you an example. Let’s say you learn the move at level 2. In order for the person to learn a better move than fireball they would have to reach level 4 of fire mastery, but since that is not needed wouldn’t you able to create a really crazy moves without having they high level?”

“I get what you are saying. You see, the higher the masteries are the person is able to manipulate more magic energy. Let’s say that the size of a fireball you can create with skill level 1 is 30 cm. With level 2 you are able to use your magic energy to create up to 100cm. The person with higher mastery skill is able to use more magic energy.

A person that has fire mastery skill maxed out should be able to burn up a whole kingdom by himself, but the person would need that much amount of magical energy, or be able to convert natural magic energy with efficiency.”

“Wow… I see.”

“It’s pretty hard to level up so try to make sure that you are raising something that you really like and need. Skill points are hard to come by.”

At those words, I kind of felt bad. Why? Because I’m rigged! Super rigged. They have hard time leveling up and get only 1 point per level but look at me! Actually, being a cheat isn’t a bad thing. I’m pretty sure there are stronger people out there.

I checked the skills and I noticed that the max level for the combat, ranged and magic skills are level 15. How many points is that? 15 + 14 + 13… 1 points? 120 points? What the hell? That’s so many points. I forgot to tell you guys that the magic mastery has many branches of elements. It has Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Ice, Lightning, Light, Dark, and Recovery. To max all of this think about how many times you would have to level. I mean at least I have the unique abilities going for me, but for these people it’s going to take forever.

“Now let me explain the about the slaves. First, only criminals are enslaved, but there are different kind of circumstances why people can become slaves. One can become a criminal from breaking the laws of the kingdom like trying to overthrow the king, being in debt and has not paid back, or simply because the individual has killed somebody. There are also people who forcefully enslave a person. These people are usually the ones who works in the black market. The slaves are usually the demi-humans. They are hated by the humans due to the war that broke out long time ago. You may ask if they enslave humans as well. No, they don’t. Because, it’s against their beliefs that they don’t enslave a human being. The demi-humans are trying to establish peace by action but the humans are taking advantage of it.

I’m going to now explain the process of enslaving a person. The person who enslaves would have to have a skill called tame at level 12. At first, it was only used to enslave animals, and monsters but people found out that they are able to enslave humans, and demi-humans as well. Not many go for this skill though because they would have to be level 78 in order to reach tame to level 12. This would mean that they would only have to raise tame skill and would not be able to level up unless they have somebody to help them. So you are probably thinking, how are there people with tamer skill level 12 and up. There are scrolls that only nobles have that passes on the level 12 tame skill. Of course, once it’s used it disappears. There was another summoned one who came to this world 100 years ago and he had a method of producing many of these scrolls. He then sold it all to nobles and have disappeared since then. Many nobles who obtained the skill have died from aging but there are many scrolls left unused and kept. The nobles are just planning to only have one of their heirs as a tamer and use them to enslave people. Of course, this is double edged sword. There are nobles who use it for the good and there are nobles that uses for the bad.

The person who are higher level than the tamer cannot be tamed, but these nobles are usually level 25 and higher because they are able to level up by paying high leveled adventurers to level them up. People who are not adventurers are usually lower than level 20 and are targets to becoming a slave. Of course, there are rules from the kingdom to make this crime punishable but the tamers can just silence the enslaved people. If the slave’s levels lower they cannot go against its master.” (Aaron)

“So, how do people avoid becoming a slave? Can’t the nobles just take anybody as their slave long as their levels are lower?”

“Yes, but there is one way. Of course, you would need to be a noble to have this ability but it’s the ability. Once the individual has a crest from somebody they cannot be enslaved unless the person with the family crest becomes enslaved. The taming system is very unfair but there is nothing you can do about it.” (Aaron)

“I see… How does one become a noble?”

“You can become a noble if you pay certain amount of money and be an adventurer with a rank B or higher.” (Aaron)

“I see.”

So I got really lucky with the skill, I should be immune to the skill since my level should be higher than the average people. Damn, it sucks for the people that wants to live peacefully.

“Anyways, it’s getting late, why don’t we call it a night for today and talk about it more tomorrow.” (Aaron)

“Yes, thanks for the explanation. I really appreciate it. It helped me a lot.”

“Ha ha, no problem. No need to be so grateful. Hmm, before we go though, I have to figure out where you are going to sleep.” (Aaron)

“I’m fine with sleeping on the log. Don’t worry about me.”

After I said that, I heard a soft voice from my back.

“You can come sleep in my tent. There is enough room for a person since the tent is for two people.” (Sera)