I spent a few weeks learning to maneuver the boat with the rest of the fishermen. Flying using floatwood had a heavy demand on group coordination and teamwork, so it took me a while to reach a point where I wasn’t actively hindering the team. Finally, I reached a point where I wasn’t accidentally sending the boat in a weird direction, and so the team started teaching me how to manage the boat during hunts and how to cope with emergencies. After two months, I could blend in with the rest of the crew and coordinate the movements of the boat properly.

Three years passed. Felix and I turned thirteen, and Sallia turned twelve. In that time, our boat hunted a number of great fish, adding to the village’s food supply and giving me a fair amount of Achievement.

Slaughter: Assist the Locals in killing 10 Great Fish

Achievement +120

Slaughter: Assist the Locals in killing 50 Great Fish

Achievement +300

I had begun to notice that I always got an ‘assist’ for killing the Great Fish, even when I struck the finishing blow against a fish. While my rune ability wasn’t particularly offensive, I still inevitably struck the final blow against a fish from time to time just by hurling bone spears at it. However, despite that fact, I never got any Achievement for killing a Great Fish - I only ever got Achievement for assists.

After some discussion with Felix and Sallia about my experiences here, as well as our experiences in the Market, we concluded that the Market didn’t care who struck the last blow. Instead, it seemed to evaluate our overall contribution to a battle. Helping to reload ammunition or using mana to hold the fishing boat in the air was a contribution to a battle, just as much as actually harming a skeleton or a Great Fish. In order to get Achievement for killing something, we seemed to need to have the greatest ‘contribution’ in a fight.

Apart from my time spent hunting great fish, Felix, Sallia and I continued sparring with each other. Sallia brought her other two fighting Skills up to intermediate grade, but since Felix had five runes Sallia never quite managed to reclaim her spot as queen of the sparring field. As Felix and I grew more familiar with our rune abilities and grew more experienced in using them, Sallia had a harder and harder time winning against us. However, I was glad to see that this didn’t put her in a bad mood - instead, she simply took it as motivation to work harder on advancing her Skills and farming Achievement wherever she could, so that next life would be better.

My rune abilities, in particular, got significantly better as I practiced them. In particular, my illusion ability grew more and more refined as I poured hours of time into learning the ins and outs of making detailed images out of light. Eventually, became able to grab a fist-sized glob of water whenever I was near the ocean and float it over to me in less than a second, and transform it into a variety of images. My first, and most well-practiced image, was to create a ‘fake’ arm and weapon. It was hard for me to move my illusory arm with perfect precision, since I didn’t have the Intelligence to create a perfectly simulated extra limb. However, my illusion arm was realistic enough that it could fool Felix and Sallia during fights, allowing me to get in surprise attacks whenever they blocked the wrong arm. With extra practice, I eventually learned how to make my ‘real’ arm harder to spot as well, by camouflaging it and making my skin look like sand or water. It wasn’t perfect, but it allowed me to catch Felix and Sallia off guard during battles sometimes.

After learning how to make proper illusions, I started trying to make new things. I eventually figured out how to make an illusory flying boat, as well as a variety of other weapons once I started thinking about a potential second attack from the outsiders. With more work, I even managed to start duplicating some of the more common projectiles used by other rune abilities, such as bone and wood. None of my illusions were perfect, but on a battlefield with dozens of abilities and projectiles flying around I doubted anyone would notice. It still took me a few seconds to construct a proper illusion, even after I took to carrying around a bowl of water, but I doubted I could solve that problem unless I found a way to improve my limited Intelligence Stat.

Beyond just my Illusion practice, my swordsmanship itself continued to grow as well.

Skill: Gain [Intermediate] Mastery of a one-handed swordsmanship technique.

Achievement +150

You have gained [Intermediate] Grade Mastery of a combat-related Skill for the first time

Achievement +500

Since you have trained a swordsmanship technique to [Intermediate] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Intermediate One-handed Swordsmanship] as an ability, for the cost of 1000 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:

Keywords: N/A (This Ability does not have any keywords).

Anytime you train with one-handed Swords, your body will adjust itself and adapt itself to your previous knowledge of swordsmanship much more quickly and effectively.

When reaching [Basic] Mastery of any one-handed Swordsmanship technique for the first time in each body, your body’s Physical Attributes will permanently increase by 5. (Note - these stats are attached to your BODY. Not your soul. They will thus be lost whenever you die or swap bodies.)

When reaching [Intermediate] Mastery of any one-handed Swordmsmanship technique for the first time in each body, you will gain 30 Physical Attribute points. These may be distributed as you see fit between all Physical Attributes. (Note - these stats are attached to your BODY. Not your soul. They will thus be lost whenever you die or swap bodies.)

When using swordsmanship techniques, your relevant limbs will receive a small speed boost, equivalent to a quarter of a grade in Agility.

Glut Penalty: 15

Note: This Ability can also be purchased in the Market from an Ability Cube as well, as it is an Ability with no keywords. However, it will be more expensive than purchasing it after earning it yourself during a Reincarnation. You will need to purchase any Abilities you wish to keep within three days of returning to the Market. Please keep this in mind when considering purchases, and plan your purchases in advance.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Second Note: You can only have one Ability for one-handed Swordsmanship. If you have a lesser version of this ability, the previous ability will be deleted upon purchasing this one, and you will receive a discount when purchasing this Ability. If you have a specialized version of a one-handed Swordsmanship Ability, you may choose which Ability gets deleted. Please consider your purchases carefully.

Felix reached [Intermediate] Grade Mastery of his spearmanship, but lagged behind Sallia and I in one-handed swordsmanship.

I didn’t get [Intermediate] Grade Swordsmanship until I turned 12, making me wonder how long it would take to get the next grade of Swordsmanship. I was originally disappointed by this, since the name sounded rather unimpressive. However, I quickly realized that [Intermediate] grade weapons mastery was nothing to scoff at.

According to Sallia, [Intermediate] Grade Swordsmanship put Sallia and I at the same level as someone who had trained with a weapon for years. It was at the same skill level as a veteran soldier or mercenary. If [Basic] Swordsmanship mastery was at the same level as a new recruit of an army, [Intermediate] mastery was at the same level as a reliable hand at the sword who had spent years learning their craft. In other words, [Intermediate] swordsmanship would already be impressive enough, at least according to Sallia’s memories of her old world.

Unfortunately, once I reached [Intermediate] mastery, my skill as a swordsman didn’t grow very quickly anymore. I was still getting better when I trained with Sallia and Felix, but I could tell that it was much harder to grow. Sallia didn’t seem to have this problem at all - she kept improving at about the same pace as before. However, Felix and I started having noticeable problems improving once we reached Intermediate Mastery.

I couldn’t help but wonder how big of a difference the next grade of Swordsmanship would make, whenever Sallia reached it. It would be rather embarrassing, if I had five or six runes and Sallia demolished me purely using her superior skill with a blade. However, I hoped that the next grade of Swordsmanship would allow her to make some sort of astonishing comeback. Sallia’s talent in manipulating Absorption essence was extraordinary, and it was a huge shame that her Absorption Essence Stat was so cripplingly low. If she had been Grade 4 or Grade 5, she might have been the strongest hunter on the island, and she clearly enjoyed sparring and fighting much more than Felix and I. If Sallia could prove her value as a fighter despite her terrible rune count, she might still be able to do something she loved in the future.

Finally, my project as a healer finally got off the ground after a few months of practice and testing. Villagers started regularly asking me to heal serious and semi-serious flesh injuries, since there weren’t many flesh-related healing abilities in the village. Through that, I was able to rack up a little bit more Achievement and a fair number of fish cores. Many of the fish cores were spent by me to restore my mana throughout the day, allowing me to practice more with my illusions, but I still kept half of them for future ocean exploration purposes.

Influence: Successfully heal 20 humans with [Moderate] Injuries

Achievement +200

Wealth: Successfully accumulate 50 Fish Cores for your own personal use

Achievement +50

Unlike most other Achievement categories, healing didn’t provide me with Achievement for my ‘first time’ doing something. Which puzzled me a bit. But I still got Achievement for it, so I wasn’t going to complain. I also got some Achievement from a totally new category, called ‘Wealth,’ which surprised me a little. I had never thought posessessing material wealth would be Achievement worthy.

So, naturally, the first thing I tried was ‘giving’ the fish cores to Felix. I was hoping I could just donate 50 extra Achievement to each of them. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Neither of us knew why, so Felix returned my fish cores and we moved on. However, now that I knew ‘Wealth’ was a category I could earn Achievement in, the three of us decided to keep our eyes out for other kinds of ‘wealth’ we could stockpile. Hoarding Pearls didn’t work, and fish meat proved equally useless, so for now the three of us decided to assume we needed magic resources to get Achievement. We could absolutely be wrong about that assumption, but it was our best guess so far.

During those three years, Felix and I both stagnated at the same level of runes. It was increasingly difficult to form runes as one built more and more, so Felix still had five runes and I still had four runes. However, both of us were nearly done stabilizing our current rune - Felix thought he could create his sixth rune before turning fourteen, and I thought I could form my fifth rune within three months.

A few days after I turned thirteen, I happily looked through my Achievement. I was more than happy with my Achievement gains over the past three years, and I had now reached a total of 3,878.06 Achievement. I still didn’t know enough about Glut Penalty to plan my spending yet, but I was hoping that the Market tooltips would explain the term to me when we returned. Either way, having more Achievement was never a bad thing.

As the sun set and the three of us finished training for the day, I looked at the ocean while I flopped onto the sand.

“Good work today, both of you,” said Sallia, standing next to us. I could see that she was also exhausted, but her pride as our swordsmanship teacher kept her standing long after she should have collapsed.

“I’m glad that I’m still improving somewhat, at least,” said Felix, panting. “I want the Achievement rewards for getting Swordsmanship and Archery up to Intermediate, at least.”

“I think you can probably get there in another year or two. It seems to take several years for you two to get a weapon up to intermediate, but you’re definitely getting really close to - what’s that?” said Sallia, as her attention snapped towards the ocean. Felix and I frowned as we also glanced towards the waves.

“It looks like…” I trailed off, trying to recognize what I was looking at.

“A great fish? But why is it so weird?” Felix asked.

Unlike the usual giant fish, this great fish was much larger than its already huge brethren. If a normal great fish could be compared to a mansion in size, this thing was closer to the size of the average castle. However, that wasn’t the weirdest part.

The usual great fish of the islands had many eyes and slightly strange geometry, especially while they were still alive. However, this fish took weird geometry to the next level. Depending on what angle I looked at it from, it took on completely different shapes, looking like a normal fish from one angle, then something closer to a pufferfish from another, and like a squid from another angle. Its shape seemed to completely change as it swam around. However, I could instinctively tell that its shape wasn’t actually changing at all - my eyes just couldn’t fully comprehend what I was looking at, so I got a weird amalgamation of images when I looked at the creature. The only trait that remained consistent about the fish was that its body was translucent, letting me see inside of its body all the way to its internal organs. Inside of the fish, I could see a massive, crackling rune made entirely of light. It was almost as bright as a star. It had seven other deep-blue runes, although none of them were as unusual as the bright rune. Furthermore, the fish glowed like a lantern.

“Doesn’t that rune look like the lights inside of the waves during storm season?” asked Sallia, who had the highest Perception among us.

With a shock, I realized she was right. The rune of light in the fish very closely resembled the strange, massive balls of light in the middle of storms. I had always wondered what those lights were, but since the storms were incredibly dangerous, I had never been able to figure them out. Now that Sallia had pointed it out I could also see that the light inside of the fish looked very familiar. I suddenly felt much more curious about the fish - was it related to one of the mysteries of the ocean?

I turned back towards my companions, and they also looked at me, frowning and thinking. Finally, I shook my head. “Let’s report this to the village chief. Something is a little weird here, and even if it might be nothing, we should check.” I restrained my curiosity for now. I wanted to know more about the fish, and its unusual rune, but I wouldn’t have a chance to see the fish close up today anyway. Since that was the case, informing the village chief made the most sense.

I dragged myself back to my feet, fighting off a wave of exhaustion. Then, the three of us turned towards the village and began jogging back.