The morning of his father’s arrival was hectic. His mother and the maids pranced around the house making sure everything was ready.
Richard, his 3rd, and older brother, by one year, was visiting, as well as Agnes his sister, who was the same age as him.
“Right, is everybody ready.” Catherine, his mother asked.
“I’ll go and open the back door for them,” Nikola said.
“Nikola, he is your father,” Catherine stated.
“I was just joking,” Nikola answered back.
It was thirty minutes later when 3 carriages arrived with an entourage of knights.
“Come, let’s go greet your father,” Catherine said to him and Isabella.
“I’ve got an ear to pick, so it’s inconvenient for me to do so now.” Nikola refused.
Catherine just glared at him.
“Fine fine, let’s go.” Nikola relented.
The maids were already outside, and Catherine and Nikola came out as they were unloading,
“It’s good to see you, Robert.” Catherine greeted as she came over.
Nikola’s father embraced her with a hug, “It’s good to see you, Cathy.”
He released her and turned to Nikola with a neutral tone, “And you Nikola, Isabella, I hope you’ve kept out of trouble.”
“Yes, unfortunately for your wife, I have survived,” Nikola responded.
“Greetings Father, I have,” Isabella said in a small and meek voice.
Robert’s face went dark, Alison, who he had been referring to was travelling over, and overheard his comment. “That is no way to greet your father or your stepmother,”
“My apologies father, that was rude of me. I hope you have had a safe trip.” Nikola corrected himself.
At this, his siblings came over. “Good afternoon, Dame Catherine, good afternoon, Nikola, they repeated.
“Richard Long time no see, and I hope you two had a safe trip here.” Catherine greeted them too, the twins had beaming smiles on their faces, while Nikola and Richard started conversing.
“Well, well, brother, looking forwards to the baptism,” Richard said, antagonistically.
“Of course, brother, I need to wipe away that humiliating loss I had against you. What is it now, 15 wins to 1 loss? Then again, if you run away now, you can still claim to have the last laugh.”
“Haha, I will admit, you are more the fighting type, but brains if where it’s at,” Richard counter-argued.
“Too bad yours is just a decoration.” Nikola thought back.
Richard got angry; a small fireball lit up in his hand no bigger than half of his palm. “This is me now, scared yet.”
Nikola folded his arms and leaned in closer to have a better look, “Congratulations brother, that was what I’ve been wanting to see, you’re doing well.”
Richard extinguished his flame and sighed, “Not quite, this is just the basic spell, I shouldn’t be learning this yet, my teacher said the foundation is more important, but I rushed to practice a spell, and I ended up nearly missing the ballistics, Skill.”
“Ah, Yes, I read about that in a book on the tactical class,” Nikola asked.
“Throwing stones is the easiest way, but I thought it was beneath me to do it with stones, so I wanted to do it with the fireball, but I can’t throw it without the skill. ‘You need to know what you’re doing before you can practice magic,’ or so my teacher says.”
“So, you have the ballistic skill maxed?” Nikola asked.
“No, I need another 54% to max out. I’m at level 7 now.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Level 7?” Nikola was shocked, but he didn’t show it.
“Yeah, us barons have an increase of 2.5 levels to our cap or an extra 50% to our cap.” Richard sighed. The adults and other kids had already entered the house by now, it was just them two, chatting.
“Well, we can go down the river to throw stones in the coming weeks,” Nikola suggested.
“Yeah, I might have to do that.” Richard agreed. “You still training that routine you do.”
“Yep, how else could I manage such a win streak against you.”
“Haha, too late now, I’m pulling away from you too much now.”
“I’ll see about that.”
The two got along fine, something Nikola couldn’t say for his older siblings.
During the night, Nikola sat in a meditative position, he wasn’t going to use the meditation skill, but he was going to try and gain the Manipulation skill.
Yesterday he completed his affinity, and a little cyan spark came into being in his body, he could feel it right where his heart should be. The top and bottom ends seemed fixed, but the body was dancing around as if the concept of rest did not exist. On top of that, he gained a stat in speed, and his tattoo said he had completed the construction of a lightning core.
He focused his mind on it and felt like he had grabbed it. He tried pushing it and pulling it. And could feel it start to nudge. He kept pushing and pushing until an arc of lightning shot out from the bolt to the void of his body. His body shook all over, and he was stunned again, only it was as if he was becoming attuned to the lightning.
Once the arc stopped a small circle appeared, orbiting the lightning core, this circle had patterns written all over it, he recognised some of them relating to the runes he used in his magic script classes.
‘What?’ Nikola was shocked. He brought himself back to the real world.
Looking at his arm, he was shocked.
---
Gained the basic mana manipulation training 1/5 55% complete, -1% mana cost to spells, +0.01 to Int, Wis, Per per level.
You gained the basic lightning arc spell, 1/5 28% complete. 1 mana per second to cast
* Consumes lightning mana
* Creates a bolt of lightning from anywhere on your body, 3 inches of airtime per level.
* does 1 point of heat damage per second per level
* 10% chance of causing stun. +1% per level
* A source of electrical energy.
---
‘What the hell?’ Nikola was shocked,
He noticed Emma was asleep on the floor again and decided to test this spell out.
He placed his two index fingers about an inch apart and focused his mind on the spell, suddenly the circle orbiting his lightning core lit up, and an identical magic circle lit up around his wrist, giving the place a gentle cyan glow. A bolt of lightning shot out from the core, through the centre of the circle and straight up to his right arm, straight to his hand and across the finger.
*SNAP!!!* “Ah, fuck,” there was a blinding flash of cyan light, Emma woke suddenly from the noise and lights to see what had happened.
“Damn it,” Nikola was shaking his left hand, or more specifically his left finger.
“Milord, are you ok?” Emma got up and headed over to him.
“Yeah, yeah, I was just being stupid, go back to bed,” Nikola said, it was time for him to go to bed too.
---
He spent the next two weeks improving his skills as much as possible, in preparation for the baptism ceremony.
It was the morning of the baptism ceremony; Nikola was just going over his stats before he left his room.
---
Level 5/5
HP 11.87/14.70
SP 14.70/19.43
MP 16.20/21.00
Exp 174/174
Pow 7.50 [7.88]
Den 7.00 [7.35]
Dex 8.00 [8.40]
Spe 7.50 [7.88]
End 7.00 [7.35]
Int 9.00 [9.45]
Wis 7.00 [7.35]
Luc 5.00 [5.25]
Pre 5.00 [5.25]
Per 13.00 [13.65]
Basic Study training 5/5
Basic Sword training 5/5
Basic Shield training 5/5
Basic Magic training Script 5/5
Basic Modern Fitness training 5/5
Basic Maths 5/5
Basic Blacksmith training 5/5
Basic Mana Meditation training 5/5
Basic Tinker training 5/5
Basic Mana Manipulation training 5/5
Basic Ballistic training 5/5
Basic Spear Skill 5/5
Spells
* Basic Lightning arc 5/5
9 free skill points.
---
Nikola had a problem, according to the book on baptism, free points are lost when you go to the next tier, and Nikola had 9.
He could spread them out, or put them into one or two skills, his main skills at the moment were Int, perception by default, or Density and Dexterity were joint 3rd. The metal affinity gave him a stat point in Density, and lightning seemed speed focused.
‘fuck it, these are extra points anyway,’ he decided to add them to speed. It would make a nice combo, speed plus density, and this will give him a nice boost.
---
Spe 7.50 -> 16.50 [17.33]
---
He felt a severe burning sensation ripping through his body that lasted a good minute or so.
‘Fucking hell, what was that.’ He gasped in relief when it stopped.
He stood up off his bed and topped over to the floor. This all happened in a few seconds.
‘What was that.’ He moved his arm, which was moving faster than before, more than twice as fast.
‘Oh, yeah, I’ve just doubled my speed. This won’t be noticeable at all.’ He mused to himself.
At this moment, Emma came in with a fresh set of clothes for today. “Milord, what are you doing on the floor.” She placed the clothes down on a chair and rushed over to help him.
“I’m fine, my body just feels funny at the moment,” Nikola said.
“Do you want me to call for help?”
“NO, no, I will be alright, just give me a moment.” Nikola panicked then; he didn’t want anyone to notice. It was bad enough that Emma saw.
He slowly rose to his feet, trying extra careful to be slow.
He slowly took baby steps, until he got somewhat used to the changes.
“Are those my clothes for today?”
“Yes milord,” Emma confirmed. “Are you ready to get dressed?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
He got dressed but noticed it was plain, a white tunic and black leggings. “Em is something wrong with my usual ware.
“Em, oh yes, during the baptism it’s custom to wear simple clothes, and as it’s your first time, you have to wear a white tunic.” She commented.
“I… see.” He didn’t know much about the tradition of the church.
Once he was done, Emma asked him to leave and head downstairs. He seemed to be the last of his family to get ready.