It takes quite a while. We sit there at the edge of the well as the day picks up. A few people eye us suspiciously, a master and a slave just sitting and talking like this. It makes me self-conscious, but this is what Master Liina wants, and I remind myself that she'll protect me from anyone that has a problem with me, and focus on our conversation.

I go over a number of things like spell and ability lists, keeping in mind that she's a melee class and I have no idea if melee classes have any sort of special attack or self-buff skills like were pretty common in video games. My magic obviously doesn't have any cooldown times, but maybe other magic or other special skills do, so I mention those possibilities too.

Then there are things like possible conversation, or long range messaging functions, or even combat and experience logs. I already know altraska have a map function, though I don't, unless I haven't found how to get it yet.

There's even the possibility of things like a slave settings menu for her. The thought makes me a bit worried, but I mention it anyway. I know that she can set automatic punishments for me, but I have no idea how extensive or in-depth the list of options are since I only know the ones I've heard recited out loud.

For instance, is there a set list of things that can be set as punishable or is it anything that the master comes up with? Like, could she set a punishment for standing on my left foot for more than seven seconds at a time? I highly doubt that a list of preset, togglable options would include something so overly specific.

I don't even know why I'm mentioning this. Master Liina has already set the things she doesn't want me to do, it's not like I want to give her more ideas for creative ways of punishing me. I may be so fucked in the head that I feel safer being a slave at this point, but I'm not a damn masochist.

But the other thing that worries me is if there are more extensive menus like that, what else might they cover? Just looking at webnovels and stuff, there are lots of fantasy slavery systems out there. What if there's a mind control or brainwashing option that Master Liina just doesn't know about? Or, maybe just a log of my damn thoughts? Do I even want to know if such things exist? Would blissful ignorance be better?

For her part, she doesn't call out any commands to try and find out. I'm a little worried she will when I'm not around so she can look over any such possibilities alone, but... I don't know. I'll find out if it comes to that.

I have to remind myself again. I trust her, if she does discover anything and decides to leverage it, she'll be doing it because she thinks it's for my own good.

Turning the conversation from those thoughts, I go on to possible special skill or action lists. Lots of games, stories, and other fiction have it so when the character's skill in some specific thing grows enough, they're able to activate some special ability based on that. Like, if a sprinting ability grows enough, they gain the ability to super sprint briefly. Things like that.

I'm more skeptical of this possibility since Status magic doesn't really work like that here. As Malic explained, it tells you what you can do, it doesn't change it. But maybe stuff like that ties into other parts of the celestial magic. Free potential is a thing after all. That isn't part of the Status magic, but it directly affects you in a way that's reflected on your Status.

So maybe there could be special abilities accessible once your skills grow enough.

Once I finish my explanation on that, Master Liina does try it. I'm a little jealous. Altraska just need to call out a command to get their magic to work. Well no, I don't know if there's anything more to it than that. Maybe it's a mixture of the words and thoughts or something, it's hard to say. They never have to repeat themselves to get it to work though, so I don't know.

Master Liina mumbles through a few calls. “Skill List. Skills. Abilities. Special Skills. Special Abilities.” It's made more difficult by the fact that there are a lot of such similar words in Panir. Far more than English has. Which is... understandable, I suppose. They actually have skill systems and stuff that revolve around these things, so it makes sense they have a lot of words to refer to them.

Just combining a lot of the words together at random, she actually lands on something. “Special Action Magic Commands.” The hell? Why is that the one that works? It's such a random assortment of words, I'm surprised Master Liina even guessed it.

“Hohoho,” she sits and chuckles with a huge toothy grin. “Show Special Action Magic Commands.”

Special Action Magic Commands Fluff Dash Sunder Buff Dispel

I stare at the list that appears before me. It's a mixture of things that I get, and don't make a damn bit of sense. “Umm, Master? Can I see your skill list, please?” I ask uncertainly. She shrugs and shows me her Status, and I focus on the skills.

Skills Logic: 39 Grooming: 55 Reading: 32 Math: 22 Footwork: 56 Acrobatics: 33 Cleaning: 14 Speech: 39 Cooking: 24 Maintenance: 53 Sword Handling: 88 Shield Handling: 47 Physical Resist: 45 Magic Resist: 55 Poison Resist: 21 Spirit Resist: 12 Sex: 14 Rearing: 18 Leadership: 8 Training; 9

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I stare, and stare, and stare....

Then I finally see it.

“Oh. Grooming, Footwork, Sword Handling, Equipment Maintenance, and Magic Resist,” I list them off. “Those are the only ones above fifty. And if you match them up in order against your Special Action Magic Commands...” God damn that's a mouthful. I'll just call them Special Actions.

“Ahh, I see what you're getting at,” Master Liina says. “So Buff relates to Equipment Maintenance, not exactly what I expected. Let's see...” Using her hands, she starts to straighten up the fur around her pointed ears and says, “Fluff.”

All at once, the fur poofs up under her fingers. It fluffs and smooths all in one motion, to lie perfect and silky smooth without a sign of tangles in sight.

“Woah,” I gape a little. But a flicker of movement draws my eye over to the Party window, where I see that her mana has dropped to one hundred fifty three points. It reminds me to reformat the window into bars, to see that she just chewed through a full half of her mana in an instant.

“Woah,” Master Liina makes a similar sound and wobbles a little. “That's a weird feeling.”

“Master, you just used half of your mana,” I tell her, assuming she's never actually used any before, being a melee class and all.

“Huh, so I can make use of it after all,” she smiles a bit. “I'll keep that in mind.”

“J-just, umm, remember that you only have two uses,” I hesitantly remind her. “Mana deprivation is really... unpleasant.”

It's pretty intense that it uses a full half of her mana to use them. Just to fluff her fur? Do the different special actions have different costs? Would a sword ability like Sunder really have the same cost as something that lets you groom yourself better? Not to mention, are the mana costs set or a percentage of maximum mana?

I'd say the latter, given how it required precisely fifty percent of hers, exactly one hundred fifty three points. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong. When it says that these are Special Action Magic, paired with a ridiculously high requirement of having a skill over fifty, I can think of them as channeling the celestial magic into a special use of that skill to do far more than you can do on your own.

That explains the huge mana cost, because it's basically having the celestial magic make you super overpowered for a single action. It also means that abilities like that shouldn't be abusable by mages. It makes it a choice between a lot of magic, and a single Special Action.

Keeping that in mind, I think about that concept myself, but can't manage to get anything like that. I guess my celestial doesn't have that kind of magic.

Moving on from that, I have to ask, “So, Master, you didn't know about Special Actions?” Of course she shakes her head, so I go on. “Because no one ever taught you? How does that work? Does the guild know about it?” Impossible. How could the adventurer's guild not know that any skill that goes over fifty gets a special magic-enhanced action to go with it?

Even questioning such a thing feels insane. Whenever a new game or expansion came out, the whole thing would be data mined within hours to fine every last digit and percentage of information on how every new skill, item, and ability functioned, and spread all over the internet within the day.

To think that this world's adventurer guild could just not know something like this makes me cringe. But... it felt like they didn't know about human classes either...

“Should we, umm, go tell them? In case they don't know?” I ask uncertainly.

“Don't worry, they're fine,” Master Liina says, and pets my head. Huh? She isn't worried about them knowing or not? But what if they don't? Or maybe she's not worried because they already do?

No no no, she can't know that they already know. Otherwise, she already would have heard about it herself.

I'm so confused, this doesn't make any sense.

“Yumi?”

“I-I'm sorry, Master, I don't understand. Why isn't it a problem that the guild doesn't know about this? It's really useful information!”

“Mm? Well...” she scratches her cheek. “I just suppose that if it's important enough, they'll know. Otherwise it probably doesn't matter.”

Huh? But, huh? What the hell?

I shake my head. “If no one tells them, how would they know?” Her brow furrows sternly, and I check my tone. “Sorry, Master. I'm just trying to say that this is really weird to me. In my world, all information was shared. Like... it wasn't just something that happened. It felt like the dispersion of as much information as possible, to as many people as possible, as fast as possible, was the right thing to do. Does that make sense?”

Master Liina whistles. “Now I get it. Like I said, this is why you're so smart, Yumi.” She rubs my head a little while she thinks. “I guess we just don't really think like that. I'll look out for information that can help me, like that Party info from earlier. But... it's not like I'm compelled to just collect and spread all knowledge like you seem to be...” She rubs her chin, considering for some time.

“Huh, it's a pretty big culture shock,” I admit. “But there was a saying back in my world: Information is power. I feel like that's even more true here. This world literally has special abilities that let you do magical things, but you can only do them if you know about them first. Wouldn't it be best for your people as a whole to let them all know about it?”

That's how human civilization on Earth existed throughout time. Whoever had the best knowledge, tactics, and technology won, conquered, and survived. I'd expect them to want something like that even more here, where they're basically in an endless race war...

Of course, this also means I'd be helping them exterminate or enslave humanity, but I highly doubt one little thing would change something like that. Not my problem, I tell myself. I just want to live my life comfortably.

Master Liina shakes her head, laughing. “Hah, you're totally right. It would be really shortsighted of me not to tell the guild just because it isn't something that comes naturally to me. Come on, let's go, we can keep talking on the way.

“Yes, Master.” I smile. I'm so glad she actually listens to me. Considers what I say. Cares about me...

We have to stop at the inn for Master Liina to get her stuff since she basically ran out of her room to find me earlier. From there, it's a short trip the guild, and we don't really get to much else before we go inside, up to one of the counters.

“Good day, what can I do for you?” the receptionist, a muticolored bird-altra that reminds me of a parrot, asks.

“I figured something out today and just wanted to verify the guild already knows about it,” Master Liina says.

The man blinks at her without comprehension for a moment. Is something like this really that unusual for their people? “S-sure, what is it?” he finally asks.

“I discovered that skills which reach rank fifty get special abilities associated with them. Here, Show Special Action Magic Commands.”

After a moment, the man nods a few times. “Yes yes, I have heard of this before.”

“Ah, alright. I just found out myself today, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't something new. Just something I missed.”

“Yes, it is not particularly well known,” he agrees. “So, is that all today?”

“Yup, that's all, have a nice day,” she bids farewell, and we head off.

“There, glad to hear they already know?” Master Liina asks as she ruffles my hair playfully, and I smile happily.