While Zeke was getting ahead and reading how the world works, Mikella decided to do the one thing she knew best–training.
And what better way than to train with someone that could easily command an army by herself?
A loud thump of wood echoed in her eyes as Mikella’s vision tilted backwards, crashing to the ground.
Pain rattled her backside, but her Pain Resistance made it easy to handle it. Though the experience is not all that different, at least in her eyes.
“Impressive movements, Mikky,” Val gleamed, shortening her name as though she was a long-time friend.
Mikella raised herself to find Val twirling her wooden training spear with a smirk.
Despite facing a wyvern nearly a month ago, that blow she just took from Val was worse. In a real fight, she would’ve died on the spot the very second the match started.
They were sparring with each other out in Val’s backyard, which also doubled as her personal training field. There were racks filled with training weapons much like their own, an array of hay targets and wooden dummies. All of which were on top of the well-cared barren ground, perfect for remaining stable to focus on one’s fighting stance.
Mikella forced herself back up, her chest burning with furious exhaustion. It all turned to moot when she tried to face even a few seconds against Val’s fighting. Even when Val promised that she would hold back without using any skills, including passive ones like Acrobatics, Mikella felt like each strike could end her life even with assurance.
Yet, she couldn't help but feel ecstatic, reminding herself of the time she actually enjoyed training to further her gymnastics career.
She loved improving herself, to be better than before. That was also why she enjoyed playing role playing games, at least the non-time consuming ones.
The idea of slowly but assuringly gaining more power the more effort you put into it. Especially now that this is another world where everything she gains is literally translated to her in the form of notifications.
It was ecstatic, euphoric even.
Mikella picked up her wooden sword with glee and faced Val as she put herself into a stance.
“Good, just the way I like my trainees,” Val smirked, and this time it was one filled with vicious excitement. “You are impressive, but you still lack a solid foundation. I’ll be sure to beat it into you to get things started.”
“Go ahead,” Mikella said, her own feral grin showing. “Show me!”
…..
Needless to say, Mikella ended up on the ground half the time they fought.
Even when Mikella used her skills–Hawk Eyes and Acrobatics–she couldn’t even stand up to Val’s simple might.
The sore loser in her is saying that Val clearly used some skill or something to get the upper hand. Even if she was a higher level, Mikella wouldn’t want to put down her maddening experiences before arriving in Eve Glade–yet, she felt that she was horribly wrong in that judgment.
Val clearly went through so much more than she ever could. What she went through in her lifetime put a mark on her stance, her movements, even to her very breathing throughout the fight. Even if Val used some skills–they were clearly not meant to do a lot of damage, like Mikella’s Hawk Eyes. They felt powerful, but that was that. Simple, yet effective.
Even if Mikella secretly tried to gain the upper hand using Hawk Eyes–just to do some bit of damage for her pride–it fell short to Val’s incredible reaction time.
The two women, finally finished with their spar, sat on the nearby wooden bench, used for resting and particularly for using Meditation. Gaining her energy slowly with deep breaths, Mikella couldn’t help but ask as many questions as Zeke did.
“Do you have a Mastery skill too?” Mikella asked. “Like a Spear Mastery skill?”
“Of course, on top of everything else,” Val said with glee in her tone, surprising Mikella.
“Seriously? I tried to learn other Mastery skills using different weapons, but only the Sword showed up for me. Am I doing anything wrong?”
“It’s natural that you wouldn’t get it, especially since one doesn’t naturally gain a Mastery skill before attaining a class.”
“Wait, really?” Mikella asked, but then recalled what they talked about about a week ago. “Oh, right, you said that my Mastery skill and Zeke’s Mana Perception were skills that we weren’t supposed to learn?”
“Not that you’re not supposed to, just that it’s incredibly difficult to pull off,” Val assured, standing upright with her hands pressed together on her lap. Mikella noticed that this beautiful woman didn’t even seem to sweat while she was nearly gasping for air and was damped with sweat. “You normally need a lot of resources to learn those valuable General Skills. Specialized training since you were young, or you just have a better understanding than others do in your situation. There were some cases like that, particularly with me and Cloud when we were young.”
“Huh,” Mikella said with a surprised huff. “So, me and Zeke are geniuses or something?”
“Probably,” Val giggled. “Then again, you have to be if you survived a dungeon at level 1.”
Mikella chuckled bitterly, agreeing to the point where it felt like it hurt her. After spending a week or so here, she learned just how incredibly lucky they were to actually survive such an ordeal.
Shaking off the depressing thoughts, she continued. “So, how do I gain more Mastery skills? Or any other skills that might be useful?”
“Get a class,” Val said, showing a snarky grin.
“Okay… how?”
“Reach level 10.”
“Okay, fucking how then?!”
She nearly shouted, not really in the mood to get teased by this woman. It was bad enough that she got her ass handed to her ten times over, but this was getting ridiculous.
After Val had her little fun, she waved her hand in a peaceful gesture.
“Okay, okay, so normally, you get a class at level 10. Once you get the class, for every level, you gain stat points depending on what kind of class it is. There are some rare classes too, with unique skills and decent stat increases. You still get the same amount of free points, if you’re curious about that.”
“Oh…” Mikella grumbled as she was just about to ask that. “So, do they have the same rarity thing like the skills do?”
Val shook her head. “Skills are the only ones that have a rarity tag to them. It shows just how difficult it is to learn and to use. Classes, on the other hand, can be rare because nobody else has it. They require some serious requirements to be met, such as overcoming a physical hurdle, or defeating a monster that you normally couldn’t defeat before.”
“Oh, do titles help with that?” Mikella noticed, realizing her title Opportunist was there next to her name.
“Definitely. The more titles you earn, the more chances you get for a better class. Though that’s not to say that there are useless classes. You can make even a simple Warrior Class be as powerful as a unique class that nobody has ever heard before if you work with your foundations and polish your skills. Having some decent equipment and good luck never hurts either.”
Mikella nodded, the conversation sounding more and more like a game.
“And you can get skills too?”
“Right. By leveling up, you get a choice depending on what you did on the class’ design and the actions you did beforehand. At this point, every choice you make belongs to you. So even two Warriors can be entirely different from one another.”
“Alright… so I guess I should get out there and kill some monsters to level up one more time.”
“Not yet,” Val said, stopping her with a raised hand. Mikella tilted her head at her as she responded. “Right now we’re trying to get everyone to believe that you two are so distraught that you need more time. We wanna teach you everything there is to know before we let you out.”
“But then how can I reach level 10?”
“Simple. Experience isn’t earned just by defeating monsters. Any task, no matter how simple, can help you earn a level or two if you work hard enough. That’s what we’re doing now. Besides, I want to teach you something that can help you get a better Class. Since you’re a fighter like me, it’s important for you to learn the General Skill Kinetic Perception.”
“Kinetic Perception?” Mikella repeated, sounding in awe. “So it’s just like the Mana one, like Zeke has.”
“Precisely. Just watch closely.”
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Taking her words to heart, Mikella did just that as Val walked over to the center of the field they just sparred on.
Kneeling with one leg, she put her hand on top of the ground, closing her eyes. For a moment, nothing occurred which got Mikella more impatient.
Then, she felt something shift. The air quaked as though something landed hard in front of her, her hair blowing away as she felt… something surging from where she was staring at.
Right then and there, the ground underneath Val shook and blasted apart, revealing a small indent of a crater made as though something crushed it underfoot.
Her eyes widened, noticing that even the surrounding area of the crater looked like spiderwebs crossing for several feet wide.
“This is a pretty inefficient way to use kinetic energy, but it’s just a small example of what you can do,” Val said, grinning when she spotted Mikella gaping wide. “Unlike mana, controlling kinetic energy is harder. Mana is made by the energy created by the planet itself–from the air, the water, the earth, and any natural sources for magical energy. Unlike mana, kinetic energy comes from the motion of our bodies, the constant rhythm of our movements and spirit intertwining with one another.
“In other words,” Val finished. “If mana is like water, then stamina is like blood. Water can be easily drawn, and can easily be tampered with. Blood, however, requires a more delicate touch… though sometimes it might be better to brute force it. If you know what I mean.”
Val winked, and Mikella was sure she understood exactly what she meant. Possibilities of increased power flowed into her mind, getting her absolutely giddy at the future prospects.
…..
Of course, Mikella and Zeke didn’t just up and leave Clara when they started their training. When it was decided that the three will stay in the Mystio house for now, they did quite a bit of information gathering and speaking with the other residents.
Cloud and Val were the lords of the town, along with some other well respected citizens who knew their way around managing a town. While the others were left with the minor affairs including taking care of the people’s grievances and inconveniences, Cloud and Val do their best to be up front with everything and keep it in line, whether it’d be complaints from within or outside the town.
Thankfully, they weren’t the greedy sorts that would make the people suffer while they enjoy the benefits. Each luxury they have is equivalent to their own hard work and determination. Instead, they are the ones giving back to the people by providing them security and supplies with their wealth, such as how a noble takes care of their land.
Due to this, it was clear that Cloud and Val were respected among their citizens and peers, including their own daughter.
Ana, being about 11 years old, was too young to be accepted to the system. However, that didn’t exclude her being taught on the ways of the world and the system through the use of lectures made for younger folks.
The large lot near the lord’s house was used to teach the young, and all of them can attend regardless of their social standing. Due to this, Ana is occasionally meeting the other children of the town, socializing and showing everyone that even with the most powerful parents in the town, Ana is still approachable and lovable as a girl could be.
And now, Clara would be joining that said class along with Ana.
The first time they heard of this, Mikella was mixed between ecstatic relief and horrifying anxiety. She wanted Clara to be left with actual children and actually live like one rather than how they were living in the forests for the past two weeks like savages.
On the other hand–by her estimation–Clara is a special little flower that would wilt and die if anything untowards happened to her. Even if she knew that it wasn’t the case, there was a reason why Clara was so close to her sister than to any friends she made back in her school in their old world.
Zeke managed to convince her that they can’t exactly get stronger to protect her while taking care of her at the same time. Especially if they might have to fight monsters again to gain levels. If there was one thing they learned, they have to get stronger to get the answers they need to find out why they were there to begin with.
And so far, there is no hint of finding any answers regarding that for the past month. In the end, Mikella let Clara go to the class on her own, taken by none other than a nice older woman who acted as the children’s teacher.
Though ‘older’ might be wrong, as she was just a smidge younger than Cloud and Val. On a side note, Cloud and Val were actually older than they appear–nearly fifty years old.
That certainly shocked the young adults. It was no wonder why they kept seeing them as children. Apparently the higher one’s level, the longer they stay in their prime. Apparently upon reaching the Journeyman stage, you can be as old as a hundred years old and still look like a prime adult in their early thirties.
And just like Cloud and Val, their teacher’s level was high, so her appearance was that of a fresh mid-twenty year old woman with quite a lot of vigor, something that is apparently important when handling rowdy children.
Begrudgingly, Mikella let Clara stay with the nice female teacher and Ana, Val’s daughter, to learn peacefully as though she was back in school. That still didn’t stop her from thinking how she was doing whenever she was in the midst of heavy training with Val.
And during the time when Clara was there, Ana made it her mission to become her friend–whether Clara wanted to or not.
…..
Vivian had always been the one teaching the children of Eve Glade. She would always wake up every morning and gleefully head to her workplace to take care of molding young minds to be of proper use to society.
It was proven by her being accepted as an official caretaker of their country, granted a class that allowed her to gain skills that helped her take care of children easier.
The reason why the caretaker class is necessary to have a license is that a teacher’s mindset could easily influence the younger minds to accept radical ideologies. If one isn’t careful with their proceedings, they could have a dangerous individual with a radical mindset to easily influence the children with the class. And since the children cannot have any resistances without the system’s aid, it was basically leaving them like sitting ducks to a hunter.
As such, teachers swore into the system’s contract depending on their country’s laws before accepting the caretaker class by their country’s factions. Vivian is one such proud teacher granted by both Cloud and Val to let her be a teacher and caretaker.
Her skills aren’t necessarily manipulating the children’s minds, far from it. They allow her to ease her way into the children’s guard, helping them trust her more easily as many children can be closely guarded even without realizing.
That way, the caretaker can listen to their inner woes and struggles, including anything that could involve potential troubles within their own homes, an area which the teacher can never enter so easily.
Of course, there are limits. Not in the way that the teacher is too underleveled, but that some children just aren’t that affected by the skills. She likes to call those children special in a way that even the system couldn’t comprehend.
She believes that is a good thing. It meant that they are on their way to become more than what was initially shown. While she hadn’t had a chance to handle such a child yet, it would be an honor for her to help shape them into proper adults.
But for once, she was finding herself in a bit of a snag.
“Be my friend!”
“No!”
Ana, the lords’ child, was currently chasing the new visitors’ child around as though she was an animal that she wanted to pet. Her name was Clara, and she is the special child that her skill couldn’t help ease into her guard.
She was extremely guarded, often trying to hide behind her older sister who was also worried for her. The man in the family, apparently not related to the two at all, was the one that suggested that Clara should be with her so that the two can focus on gaining their ground.
A respectable decision to which the older sister begrudgingly accepted. Despite them being young in their early twenties, Vivian was reminded of two worried parents having to let go of their child for the first time.
It was strange, especially since the man has supposedly only been with them for a short time. As Val explained to her, they were stuck in a perilous situation involving some bandit raid, and the three were the ones remaining alive. As such, the man took heed of their situation and aided them to this day.
So it wasn’t much of a surprise that despite them having no relations, Clara was currently calling out to ‘Bobo’ for help, which Vivian supposed was the man’s name. Thankfully, Val helped ease her in by saying that Sissy means sister and Bobo means brother.
Clara was constantly screaming for both Sissy and Bobo’s names while running away from the smiling, almost hysterical Ana demanding that she’d be her friend.
“Ana! Come here!”
Vivian called out, hoping that it would be enough before Ana goes ahead and actually tackles Clara to the ground. Being the good girl that she is, Ana immediately went over to the teacher much to Clara’s relief.
“Yeah, teach?” Ana asked, tilting her head confusedly.
“Ana, maybe you should give Clara some room for herself, yeah?” Vivian said sweetly, facing her directly as though she was a grown adult. She wanted to show Ana is her own person, and doing this will help Ana be more at ease and respected. Another helpful lesson learned by the many years of handling children.
“But she’s not talking to anyone,” Ana declared, clear concern rising in her face. “She’s living in my house too, so I want her to be my friend!”
“I know that, Ana,” Vivian replied with a frown.
The worst part about this situation is that Ana had a point. As far as they know, Clara refuses to be with the other children, often hanging by herself by drawing on the ground and looking over to the house where her Sissy and Bobo were at. In fact, she was doing that for the better part of the hour, which apparently Ana decided that enough was enough.
Ana’s heart was at a right place, but she was going at it the wrong way.
“Ana, Clara has been through some tough times,” Vivian explained as easily as she could. “Do you remember the stories I told you? About the wars and the victims it causes?”
“Yes’m,” Ana nodded. “War only kills people, and the people left behind alive are only hurt, so war is never good.”
“Precisely,” Vivian nodded. “While Clara hasn’t been in any war that we know of, she’s the same as the victims. She was hurt, she’s scared, and she can’t trust others so easily. That’s why, Ana, you need to let her be comfortable around here first.”
“But…” Ana’s eyes fell to the floor. “I wanna be her friend.”
“I know, Ana,” Vivian smiled sweetly, brushing Ana’s short blond hair slightly. “But don’t worry. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to be her friend. I only mean that if Clara doesn’t want to talk to you, just let her be. Give her time, and eventually you two will be fast friends.”
“...How long will that take?” Ana said, clear impatience taking over.
“I can’t tell you. Every person is different, so you need to be strong and wait for Clara to be your friend. Otherwise, she’ll end up hating you. You don’t want that, right?”
Ana quickly shook her head. The notion alone of being hated by Clara was too horrible to even think for her. Vivian beamed as she looked over to Clara.
She already knew that wouldn't be the case at all. After all, if Clara truly didn’t like Ana, then she wouldn’t be staring at her nervously, almost as if she felt guilty for refusing her.
She’s seen this before in other children. The ones who became victims of abusement and troubled times. She wasn’t sure what happened to her, but it was clear that the experience left behind by the bandits had left her scarred. The only people she trusted would be her siblings, the only two people she knew so far.
Val was an obvious one, considering that she was so likable it’s hard to hate her. If she had to make a list, her Sissy is first at the very top, and Bobo is a close second. Val is easily third, and so far, both the teacher and Cloud were next after her. Cloud knows of her circumstances, but his striking eyes can be a little daunting for children to get used to.
Ana was certainly the last on that list, but judging from how Clara was looking at her, it didn’t mean that she was bumped off.
Just a little bit of time, and the children would be the best of friends. This was what Vivian’s instincts, years of experience from teaching children, was telling her.
She also knew, from the years of being a teacher, that the concept of ‘time’ was utterly pointless to teach to children. What could be just waiting for tomorrow would be a lifetime for them. So she eagerly waited for the two to be friends while Ana was visibly struggling while holding herself back to be Clara’s friend.