"I’m bored," says the little girl, lying in the tree. The forest is quiet, and the absence of animals and bugs is to be expected in early winter. The forest is far from silent, as the collective effort of three can attest. "Me too," says the sweat-covered teen, swinging his sword. Steam constantly rises from his form in a blooming column. "Didn't you say this would be very quick?" says an identical teen, steaming just as much. Sighing at the two, a shirtless boy falls on his back, his butt planted in the middle of a half-engraved circle on the stone tablet.

"I'm bored too, but you don’t see me complaining!" Derrick complains, snorting as he continues. "You can help me engrave!" he says, shaking his head and looking down at his calloused hands from chipping the hard stone. "Don’t you have "Chisel Proficiency"?" he moans as he rubs them together before dipping them in a red liquid. The healing liquid is doing nothing to the callouses, though it relaxes and numbs the worst of the cramps.

The girl in the tree straightens her back as she looks down with dispassionate eyes at the poor boy’s folly. "And who told you to pick up carpentry?" She says, remembering the time she invited him, he declined. Said he was busy with farming. How is framing more important? She shakes her head. Derrick snaps up with a look on his face as he says, "I have farming, masonry, blacksmithing, glassworking, tailoring, and art, with all pre- and post-millstone skills." Breathing in, he pauses for dramatic effect before breathing out. "I planned on doing carpentry next month, then butcher, baker, and advanced apothecary work."

Even if the lineup had been half as good, he would have been drafted into the royal army, but his friends' only reaction is a collective sigh before muttering, "Did he evolve into Insane yet?" an uncommon class with one disadvantage and thousands of benefits. "I heard that!" Huffing, he finishes the engraving, a perfect circle as far as the eye can see. He touches it and activates the system, muttering, "Infuse construct 20 mana." This inefficient method of infusion resulted in a brief flash of bright light before fading, and a slow, placid breeze entered reality, moving leaves, grass, and hair.

* Learn skill Engraving – Level 1>5 Engraving – Perks Available (Variant)

"Wahoo!" By his books, a variant skill is always worth the effort. Turning around, he can see the piercing eyes of his friends. "Sorry, I just got a," he says, raising his hand and scratching his head a little. "A variant?" inquires the swordsman on the left after completing his set with his twin. Their answer was a bit of a shock, as the two usually ignore conversations while they are fighting. "And what makes you so sure?" Derrick always liked pulling these two out longer when it came to them; they just don’t interact enough! "We recently acquired one." "For sword training." "Elemental infusion." "Cold." Immediately after words, the boy still sitting in the middle of the circle claps his twig arms, sounding more metallic than flesh. "Congratulations, Brothers; will you keep it?" Derrick observes that their half-and-half talk had improved.

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* Level 21 Channel Mana

Most people in the village don’t like variant skills, usually with the reasoning that they are too specific or silly for serious use. Derrick and his cabal of friends disagree with this view. "Yes," they say at the same time. Do I regret it? Derrick thought of the pros and cons for giving what amounted to limited telepathy. His eyes widened at the prospect of such an evolution. He looks back at the two brothers as they go about practicing their new skill. "I give them a good 50-50," he says honestly. Channeling some of his mana in the established channel, the winds pick up speed and the temperature of the area drops slightly, causing the brothers to look more like living clouds than people. "We got?" “Another one!" they said, prompting Derrick to pause and look back at the two living smokestack exhausts as their forms grew fluffier, slowly spreading their influence as they rolled across the grass like a bank of fog. "What is it called?" Derrick asks, his curiosity piqued, inquiring about skills is a bit rude. But When you acquire a large number of variants in a short period of time, they usually have an assigned theme or a set of curiosities.

* Level 22 Channel Mana

"Obscured Blades Perk"; "Fog of War" Nodding his head, he returns his full attention to channeling and sensing with Twigs as they practiced esoteric senses. "Can I join?" asks Jill as she shows a mana wood carving statue of a bear with antlers in her hand. Holding out a hand, Derrick passes the small statue to Twigs before adding a small copper ring to one of the antlers and channeling the rest of his energy. Today is training day, or a free day if you are younger than seven. Everyone unwinds and relaxes doing whatever they love, polishing old skills and working out possible builds with their parents if need be.

* Level 6 Sense Mana

* Level 3 Mana Sight

For Derrick and his crew, they just do the minimum work and coast on the cool breeze. There aren't many things to do in the winter. Jill likes to weave baskets, chop firewood, and make trinkets with minor magical properties. The twins like hunting, tournaments, and mutating their training skills, giving birth to matryoshka skills for them to grind as well. Twigs, their brother, enjoys hunting as well, but he spends far more of his time on masonry and tanning than they do. Finally, Will isn't here because the sack of shit took a negative without consulting anyone, and now he can't stand cold temperatures, despite the fact that he said sleeping in the heart of a forge was, and I quote, "worth it." And who knows—if the twins can get a cold infusion, maybe we can do a heat infusion the same way for him. I guess I have plans for the future.