Trillia listened intently to her mother's explanation of each and every weapon there. Even the ones from the minotaur camp's armory were explained by her. Not Cordaos, Varga, or Mort interrupted her. From what Trillia could tell, she was simply the expert on weapons. Trillia scampered over to her mother's side when Amara beckoned her to.

"Ok, Trillia. A lot of these have enchantments and runes carved on them to make them very light. But I'm going to show you how to go over weapons. It's going to be a long and difficult night, are you sure you are ready? I know you've already spent many hours learning about your mana."

Trillia stared at her mother, thinking about all the stuff she had already learned. A bit of doubt crept into her mind. She was only three. Wasn't this just too much information? Her eyes darted to Amelia's, then back to her mother.

"I... I don't know if I'll remember it all. There's so much."

Amara patted Trillia on the head, offering the young girl a smile.

"That's ok. Let's start with some weapons I think might be beneficial to you, ok?"

Trillia nodded. They cleared off the table, and Amara had moved six weapons to lie on it. Motioning once more for Trillia to stand at her side, even pointing at the chair for Trillia to stand on.

"Use your scan. It is going to light up with just the name of the weapon as it does with anything that is not magical. You have to learn to ask the system for more information about mundane things. Ok?"

Trillia listened intently, nodding. The first weapon was moved in front of her, it was a minotaur weapon, far too large for the girl to actually wield, but Trillia had seen other orcs, not much older than her, be given weapons made to fit their size. It had a long three-foot shaft, made of some sort of dark metal, and dozens of runes had been carefully etched into it. Leading up to a large circular ball of the same metal, dozens of sharp metal spikes protruded from the head.

As Trillia started to speak the words to her scan, the information suddenly appeared in front of her. She was a bit startled.

"I didn't cast it yet? Wait... why didn't using my scan before let me use mana? Why didn't I have to say the words now?"

"Most basic general skills don't require mana, otherwise cooking would, so would sewing and many other things. It is primarily class skills that utilize mana, or skills called out as mana manipulating skills. Some general skills require Stamina, some later versions or high-level versions of general skills might require mana, or they allow you to use mana to enhance their effect."

Seeing Trillia nod in understanding, Amara continued.

"You don't have to speak skills to use them. In fact, in many battles, you won't have the time, or you may be unable to do so. The reason so many in the camp speak their skills, is because it allows the rest of the tribe to familiarize themselves with what otherwise might be an unknown effect. In addition, there are ways to enhance almost all skills and spells."

Amara went on to explain the definition of the words verbal and somatic before she continued.

"What that means Trillia, is that if I want to use a spell, I can simply use it by thinking about it. As long as I am familiar with the skill itself. I can vaguely gesture to get some extra power, and some people whistle to get extra power. Siege Mages will use overly grand gestures and extremely long incantations. Some will even use crystals that store mana to infuse extra mana into their spells so that they can tear down walls, with a spell that otherwise would be simple in nature."

Trillia nodded, sitting down on the stool now.

"Mom. Is it ok if we look at the weapons tomorrow? My head hurts."

Amara chuckled at that. Standing up, she moved the other weapons to the table and kept the initial six separate. Gently rubbing Trillia's back.

"It's a lot to take in little one. Come on. Let's get you some food and celebrate your amazing talent for universal manipulation. Tomorrow we can find you a weapon ok?"

Trillia smiled. Hopping off the stool and following her mother, the other adults didn't seem to mind. They probably knew Trillia was just exhausted and tired. She was a child after all.

Trillia watched as Cordaos prepared a stew for them. The minotaur had to have an absurdly high level of cooking. Trillia had asked him not to slow down at all. She wanted to see how it looked when people weren't going slow for her. The results were frankly scary. Cordaos used stone knives for most of his cutting. What Trillia had not expected, was that the minotaur didn't need to actually touch any of the blades to utilize them. Slicing into a half dozen vegetables all at once, making expert cuts.

Cleaning several pounds of megapede flesh all at once. Preparing the ingredients only took him a few minutes. As he moved the large slab of stone he had been using towards the pot, Trillia shot up to her feet.

"Wait! Will you teach me how to use the runes on the pot?"

Cordaos froze in place, motioning to one of the others to help her as he held the large stone slab. Amara stood and walked over to the pot, kneeling next to it. Motioning for Trillia. Once the young orc girl was standing next to her mother, Amara wrapped her arms around her from behind, taking one of her hands, and moving it towards the pot.

"So most magical equipment, is made to take any form of mana. You could say that the majority of runes accept universal mana as a default. It actually takes more effort to create runes of a specific element."

Varga spoke up at that.

"The current theory is that the intent of a rune is more important in many aspects than its creator. I've forged many blades before, that had a rune to light the blade on fire. Those runes required fire mana manipulation to utilize. Because my intent was so that I could use them and not an enemy that might wield my weapon against me."

Trillia glanced at her father, nodding before her mother continued, using Trillia's finger to trace along each rune so that the girl understood them better. Trillia was fascinated by it. As her finger trailed over the runes she could feel her mana leaping and twisting inside her, urging her to let it flow forth.

"With what little I know of universal mana, you can choose to either use your base mana, in which case it will take less mana for you to use most general items, than it will take the rest of us. Or, you can choose to utilize a specific mana. Either way, the rune will work, but your intent matters. If I push my fire mana into this water rune, it will still produce water. Because that's what the rune and enchantments do. However, the water won't be the same as if Cord were to us earth magic."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Trillia was a bit confused now as she looked at her mother. Despite complaining of a headache earlier with the weapons, for some reason, the chatter about runes wasn't hurting her head. She looked back to the rune, touching it.

"What are the differences?"

"I will explain that, but first let's get some water in that pot, so we can start cooking."

Trillia grinned at that. Reaching out to the rune that produced water, she ran a finger over it. This time, when the mana inside her urged her to let it pour out of her hand, she didn't hold back. The rune lit up, water slowly filling from the bottom of the pot. Trillia's grin was ear to ear at this point. Once Cordaos gave the word she stopped filling it.

"Why don't we just use mana to heat the water as well?"

Trillia mentioned it after watching Varga puff a small flame from his finger into the wood below the pot.

Amara sat down and pulled Trillia over onto her knee, the two staring at the fire for a moment before Amara spoke.

"Your first question. If I use fire magic, the water will be warmer. Cordaos using earth magic might make the water have a mineral taste to it. A Water manipulator could make pure water, unburdened by any minerals in its most pure state. Someone with ill intent could push poisonous mana into it. Which could lead to the water and anything cooked in it being poison."

Trillia listened intently, staring at the various runes on the pot, as well as the many runes she was now beginning to see on other things, her mother's armor. Her father's weapons. Even Amelia's notebooks had runes on them.

"To your second question is two-fold. It is an expenditure of mana. Your father could simply heat all of the water in the pot with his fire mana. But doing so takes mana, not enough to really matter to us. The other reason is a warning."

Trillia wore a confused expression now. Watching as Cordaos slid all of the ingredients into the pot and began to season it with various spices. Spices that he seemed to pull out of thin air. The confusion however was directed at her mother, and she turned away to look at Amara, her own head tilting slightly to the side.

"Many creatures don't like fire. They don't like the light it produces. Also, many of the deities that orcs worship enjoy fire. It is why we keep the central bonfire going at all times. Even if the gods have lost faith in us and scorned us. This does not mean we have lost faith in them. So we continue to offer prayer. We continue to fight in their name."

Trillia sat there taking it all in. She said nothing more, lost in thought trying to wrap her head around all of it. Somewhere in her mind, she knew the only reason she could even begin to understand any of this, was because the system helped her to do so. She spoke happily in her own mind.

'Thank you, System. Sorry I ask so many questions all the time.'

The young orc still wasn't sure if the system understood, or cared. Trillia figured it was asked questions all the time. But she still wanted to be polite. She wondered if the system had made her a runt because it was angry at her, or angry at her parents. That made her a bit sad.

'Or maybe! Maybe it made me a runt because of universal mana. Maybe orcs aren't supposed to have it.'

The little girl thought to herself, rubbing her chin now as if she was some wizened sage. A wizened sage whose stomach rumbled loud enough to interrupt a conversation. A little grin crept onto her face.

"Sorry...."

As if in response, Amelia's stomach also rumbled. Cordaos only laughed.

"Good to see neither of you can wait for my cooking!"

Trillia smirked and nodded excitedly, food was always good. She slid off her mother's knee and sat next to the fire, staring intently at the runes. Amelia came over to sit next to her, and the two girls began discussing the runes. Amelia's notebook had other runes written down and what they did.

[Basic Runic] Level 0 obtained!

You have a fascination for runes and mana. This skill will allow you a deeper understanding of runes if you continue to study them.

Trillia blinked, explaining the skill she got to Amelia. The minstrel grinned.

"I have that one as well. You're going to love it. Oh! Wait, hang on!"

Amelia stood up and quickly ran off. The adults raised a brow but said nothing, lost in their own conversation. They were talking about the scouts again. Trillia had nothing else to do while waiting for Amelia so she listened intently.

Varga scratched his own chin - this being the culprit to teach Trillia the motion - a short well kept dark green beard. A rather stark contrast to the pale blue skin and bright red eyes.

"Even when the thing isn't rupturing, we lost two scouts who thought they could cross it safely. Halfway over they were overcome with mana sickness. Causing their buffs to fade and send them plummeting. I'm not sure how we're going to get scouts across honestly. It's something we will have to look into. Can you minotaurs make a bridge?"

Cordaos stirred the pot, occasionally tossing in more spices or other vegetables that didn't take as long to cook. Shaking his mighty horned head.

"Nothing serious. We had initially tried to make a stone bridge across but at the halfway mark the cost to form mana into solid earth grew to thousands a second. A dozen of our best earth mage builders passed out when they tried to brute force it. I'm not sure what the hell it is, but it's evident it's not something we can easily deal with."

Amara was spinning a dagger in her hand, absent-mindedly staring at the fire as she did.

"What if we launch someone across?"

The others stared at her like she was a loon. She raised a hand, shaking her head.

"Think about it. We have someone with a dash, or short-range teleport ability to get ready. Give them a storage crystal and have them pump all of their mana into it. The minotaurs can raise them onto a stone platform. Once high enough, we have the earth mages launch them forward and tell them to time their blink to cross the center threshold."

That seemed like it could be scary, but fun! Almost like flying. Trillia looked at her mom with admiration. Cordaos groaned loudly.

"By all things holy and unholy Amara. That's one of your more crazy ideas... Don't some of your scouts have a blink ability that lets them just cross the distance?"

Amara leaned her head back.

"Yeah...there was some sort of barrier, preventing it from happening from the ground. We couldn't fly over it either. The barrier seems to go up a few hundred at least. We didn't go higher. Lest we anger a dragon or something. I just thought that if they were already traveling from being launched and they had no mana, maybe the mana sickness wouldn't catch them in time? Or the launch itself would send them over? It's only what, thirty or forty feet?"

Trillia thought she seemed angry or frustrated. She didn't really want to interrupt but curiosity got the better of her.

"Is that not a lot?"

It seemed like a lot to Trillia, but she was so very short and everything else was so very tall.

Varga chuckled and stood up. He crouched before he pushed off the ground. Trillia tried to follow him with her eyes but had lost him after what she thought was a height equal to about seven minotaurs standing on each other's shoulders. A second or two later, he landed with almost no disturbance to the ground. Trillia sat there with wide eyes.

Amara grinned at that, scootching over to sit next to her daughter.

"I suppose you've seen us battle, and travel with the tribe. But you've never seen us fight alone, have you? Your parents aren't weak honey. I have a form of temporary flight. Cordaos can jump hundreds of feet."

Trillia was even more confused now, turning to look at each of them in turn.

"Why don't you guys just jump or fly everyone across?"

Cordaos was the one to speak up now.

"Tried that. Mana sickness debilitates some people for days or longer. If we cross back over it kills them. One of my scouts was willing to test, even with healing. The man died three days after I brought him back across the ravine."

Amara nodded.

"There's also another issue. If we leave the tribe, monsters won't be as scared to attack. So we can't just deliver the letters ourselves. We exude an extremely potent aura to those we are hostile to. It scares off a lot of weak monsters that might otherwise attack."

Trillia felt her head hurting again. She pulled her knees to her chest and leaned her head on them. It was all just so complicated to her. She wondered where Amelia had gone, tuning out the adults as they continued their discussion. Her little brain just couldn't take it anymore. She knew her parents were strong that's why her mother was the Chieftain. She just didn't realize how strong.