Beck’s tongue was stuck to an icicle.
He was supposed to get [Heat Resistance] while he tended to the cactus field with Pa, but it had been two years since he’d gained [Shape Water] at 15, and it still hadn’t leveled. So, he’d used the Skill to freeze his saliva to try and cool himself down.
Except now, he was just going to get brain freeze and a dry mouth if he didn’t figure out how to melt it. As he focused on [Shape Water], he tried to feel the ice, the water that he was supposed to be able to control.
That was when Ma smacked him on the back of the head. That brought him back to the outside world. He was standing at the edge of the fence, holding a Kaiser blade upside down while he watched Pa work. Now, he turned, holding the back of his head with his free hand and preparing for a lecture.
Ma stood with hands on her hips, giving her son a look that made him wither immediately. The wrinkles on her blue face made her look significantly older than she was, the fact that her seaweed colored hair had yet to start drying, the only indication of her relative youth. She was already starting on her tirade as he turned, “Boy, how many times do I have to tell you to pay attention to what your Pa’s doing? He works hard to keep us fed, and you’re over here daydreaming instead of learning from him! What are you gonna-“
She was cut off by the whistle of the train in the distance. Their house was right next to the track, mainly so they could fill the tanks easier. Beck’s mother gave him a look that told him he wasn’t off the hook yet, then went to prepare for the arrival of the giant machine. His Pa wasn’t too far behind, entrusting the rest of the farming work to his son.
He was thankful he wouldn't have to try to speak.
As they walked off, he could hear Ma complaining to Pa. "I swear, it's like the boy don't even listen. I know he's still young, but what if something happened to us? He hasn't even gotten any Skills." After that hurtful remark, they had gotten too far away for Beck to hear. He watched them walk away, Pa just smiling and nodding as usual. The young man shook his head and focused.
Beck got to work harvesting the cacti, cutting open the first few and using [Shape Water] to transfer as much as he could from the plant to the nearest barrel. As soon as he was sure that his parents couldn’t see him, however, he immediately dropped back into focus on the ice in his mouth. He seized on what little was still liquid inside.
He could feel the headache building, and right as the pain threatened to bring him out of it, the ice burst into water again, which he quickly swallowed. Immediately, he got a notification from the System.
[Shape Water] has leveled up!
+1 Wisdom
It is now Lvl 2!
The young man stared at the blueish green box in his vision. The last time he had seen it was when he turned 15. He’d woken up to see that he’d unlocked his bloodline skill, the requirement for starting on the path to gain more skills. And now, after years of trying, he had leveled it for the first time.
By melting ice in his mouth to try and avoid a headache.
The absurdity made him laugh. Then, he remembered that his parents would finish with the train any minute now, and he hadn’t done much. He set about quickly chopping and extracting water from the cacti. He got about halfway done before Ma and Pa returned. Beck handed the Kaiser blade off to his Pa, then pulled on the thick leather gloves and grabbed the saw.
Ma started moving barrels into the basement as father and son worked on their main source of income. The train blew its whistle, and began departing. Ma and Pa had both maxed out [Shape Water], so they could produce water from pure mana, which is what they used to fill the tanks for the train, but the cacti infused the water inside with flavor and were edible themselves when all the spines were removed.
Plus, the barrel cacti that Pa grew produced fruit, so they would occasionally have something sweet to add to their meals.
As they worked, and after the train was no longer deafening, Beck started talking. "Pa, I been thinking. I haven't earned any Skills, and I ain't had much luck with [Shape Water] either. Could you give me a hint, at least?" He already knew the answer, but he figured he'd try anyway.
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After the question was out, Pa stood up straight, hefting the blade onto his shoulder. Beck hadn't inherited his father's size, but he had his square jaw and pale skin the color of sea-foam. If it weren't for the green hair on his father's chin and growing out of Beck's head, you'd be forgiven for mistaking them for normal humans.
"You gotta figure it out yourself, son. Gotta have the want-to for it, too." Pa's answer was always the same. Beck was tired of waiting for things to work. He had the desire for growth, but no one ever gave him any advice on figuring it out. He heard Pa sigh and realized he'd been pouting, which he promptly corrected.
"Son," Pa set a large hand down on Beck's shoulder, "You gotta realize, it took me longer'n you been alive to get [Shape Water] to ten. Skills take time and effort to take root and grow, just like our cactuses. You can't get anywhere tryin to rush things. Sure, some things happen just doin a thing, but if your heart ain't in it, you ain't gonna get the Skill."
The large Elementaren shifted and brought his kaiser blade down on a cactus. It cut through in a single motion, the blade burying itself in the earth as he released it and began to move the water to a barrel. "When I see you out in the field, you always got that look in your eye, an I can tell you ain't here. So it ain't no wonder ya ain't got [Tilling], or any of the other skills for this."
Beck listened intently now, drinking in everything his father said. He was usually daydreaming during his work. Then he started wondering why nobody had told him this yet. Had he just wasted two years trying to get Skills in a life he didn't want to take over? Or was he just not looking at it right?
Pa went on, "I know that look. Nobody told me for the longest time, neither. I'd been trainin to be a deputy, but I never had the heart for that line of work. Then I came out here 'n met your Ma. Made me realize just the kind of man I was supposed to be." That same smile was on his face, and he seemed oblivious to the fact that Beck was staring at him in disbelief as he hefted the blade again and went back to work.
Beck took more than a moment to recover. "You were gonna be a deputy?! And you just gave it up?" Beck had always dreamed of joining their ranks. The men and women who worked night and day to clean up the Rusts, to rid it of the things that would threaten people like his family. He'd dismissed the thought as childish long ago, but there had always been that desire deep inside, that little part of him that said 'Maybe I could make it'.
Pa just shrugged. "I just didn't have it in me. I learned the basics just fine, but when it came to the real thing? It was just too much for me. Besides, if I'da kept with it, I'da never met your Ma, and we'da never had you." He cut through the last of the cactus and turned back to his son. That was when Beck realized he had stopped pruning the cacti when the Skill talk started, and hadn't started back since.
He quickly remedied that, his father giving him the usual easy smile as he went to help Ma finish with the barrels. The large man was able to carry two at once, though they had to be set down to go into the basement. As he worked, Beck wondered at how much he seemed to take after his mother.
Maybe he would've been better off as a priest, but he just... Didn't have the conviction. The Archangels never appealed to him. Magir creeped him out, if he was honest, and Feila... No thank you.
Deputies tended to align slightly with Linala, but they usually didn't worship her. Nor was he actually interested much in fighting these days. Being deputized may have been a childhood dream, but he freaked out enough the last time he cut himself making a sandwich. He didn't want to get really hurt.
With all the cacti pruned and ready to grow once more, he headed back to the house to store the succulent pieces with the rest of their food. It was bland and tasteless normally, but Ma always knew how to make it taste good, somehow. Speaking of, she was currently at work at the oven.
You'd never know from looking at her that she was a priestess of the Archangel presiding over death and the dead. She just looked like an ordinary woman, if short and skinny. Her ability to heal and perform ceremonies to keep the dead from being turned into the undead kept her in high demand though, and therefore ensured that even when harvests were poor, they were still able to feed themselves.
Beck sat the sack of cactus limbs on the kitchen table and made to leave, but his mother was already there and pulling his ear. How she was so quiet, he had no idea. But she was already continuing her lecture from earlier.
"Seriously, Beck, I don't know what you expect to be able to do when you're older. What happens when me and your father get too old to keep doing these things? Or what if we die? How will you take care of yourself?" Despite her tone and the content of her speech, she was going over all of the food she had prepared and setting a bowl on the table in front of him. She gave a tug on his ear after that last question, and he sat on the stool already there. She let go of his ear as he started to eat the soup she had prepared, and started her worry-lecture once more.
"I mean really, you're still at level one for [Shape Water], and you haven't even learned any other skills. I'm half tempted to send you to your aunt-," Beck interrupted her between spoonfuls before she got onto that subject.
"Actually, I broke through to level two today." Ma stared at him, obviously processing. A smile lit up her face, and she very nearly knocked him over with the hug she smothered him with. He wasn't much bigger than her.
"My baby boy is finally growing up! Oh, what do you say about being a priest? It doesn't have to be Magir, but I can teach you the basics!" Ma pushed him to arms length. "Have you told your father yet?"
When Beck shook his head, Ma rushed him to finished eating and go tell Pa. He obliged, draining the bowl of bone broth before he ran out to his father. When he got there, Pa had finished with the barrels and was once more hefting the kaiser blade. He turned and smiled at his son, that same easy smile as always.
It was the last time he would ever see that smile.