So I've been thinking about my stealth options.
Honestly, I think my collection of Affinities and Skills make me quite stealth oriented.
But there was one thing missing—so I got to work with experimenting.
It took a few days of trial an error, until I was suddenly alerted with a title.
Bearer of LightYou have become the first to bear the “Light” Affinity.
I expected to gain this Affinity.
I did not expect to get a Title out of it.
Unlocking it really just needed me to remember some of my lessons in Physics class, from the year I died.
That said, I can imagine why no one's ever unlocked this Affinity before me—after all, people in this world don't understands how "Light" works.
But you know, controlling tiny particles with Aether is borderline impossible.
Actually, it took me a week to figure it out, and in that time, my Wisdom leveled up to 99, and Intelligence gained 23 points, all the way up to 263.
Having only 99 Wisdom pisses me off—and it's taking me all my willpower not to put a single point into it.
So yeah, it took a lot of intricate thought, and mental work to figure out how to manipulate things on an atomic scale.
Aether Perception really helped, but I couldn't really "see" anything at that level, and could mostly just feel the "energy" and "matter". After some tweaking, I finally managed to produce a spark of light, by forcibly raising and dropping the energy levels of a clump of matter.
Luckily, it was enough to obtain the Affinity, and unlock the title.
Once I had the Affinity, producing and bending light was so wasy that it was like all my hard work in the last week was a joke—but I still learned a lot about my abilities, and how light seems to work—in this world anyways.
Still, I had the same limitations as Sound magic—I couldn't focus my light in one direction yet, but even the cancellation of light was difficult. Twisting and bending light seems to work, so I've been practicing that.
Supposedly, there's actually a hidden parameter for ones "Affinities", so it's possible that my Light (and Sound) Affinities are just to low. There seems to be some genetics involved, so some races have better natural Affinities in one area than others.
But Light and Sound are too rare for any race to be naturally inclined towards it.
If I were to rate how easy it is to control my Affinities, from easiest to hardest, it would go something like this:
Wind → Light → Sound
At least, that's how it was if I only take into account the time when I unlocked them. At the moment, Sound probably has a higher Affinity with me than light.
—Well anyways, I decided to try practicing both Light and Sound magic every morning.
—After that, I tend to my garden.
I'm not really familiar with how fast plants normally grow, but I'm sure that my plants have been growing much faster when compared to plants in my old world. Maybe it's because the fertilizer is very effective?
—After tending to my garden a bit, I go about looking for child abusers to murd—bring to justice.
When I came across my first target, I thought I might be troubled down the line if I killed them—I was confident I could kill them, but I was worried I'd feel guilt and regret down the line. But it never really came, and as I killed more kidnappers, I sort of just got use to it.
However, lately, I noticed an increase in guards throughout the slums. No, that's not right—there are now guards patrolling the slums?
Well, when I asked, it seems that people have noticed the disappearances of people wandering into the slums. One witness said they saw someone receiving an arrow to the neck, while they were beating on a child, but the body was never found.
Well... it seems like it's not just poor people who have been disappearing, but servants sent by a merchant to "collect merchandise" also turned up missing.
That group of guys a week ago who were snatching up kids?—errr, I know nothing.
Nope.
—Anyways, after collecting a bit of fertilizer, I return to my garden, pull out the "raw product", and use sound magic to break it down and mix it with the soil.
It seems like the presence of the guards has lowered my stock of fertilizer.
Right, jokes aside, I also thought that making people into a blood soup would bother me, but surprisingly, I adapted pretty quickly.
It's not that big of a surprise—in my past-life, I wasn't very squeamish, and blood and guts didn't bother me at all. Though horror movies tended to disturb me, but when it's just calmly breaking meat down into its proteins, there's oddly no issue.
Finding the resonance frequency to meat took a few hour, and a lot of Aether, but once I got the right "feeling" for it, the rest was easy. On that note, I don't actually know the frequency; just the "feeling". It's like asking me to give a brightness value for a light—I can give you a number between 1 and 10, but I can't give you an accurate SI unit.
After that, I find the pair of Beastkin girls from before, and try to start up a conversation, but—
"Stop talking to us. You'll get us in trouble you know?" The older girl scolded me. She seems to be about 16, going purely by appearance. But I don't know how fast or slow Beastkin age, so...
"Muu~ You two. I even offered to kill your master, but you're so cold." I offered a few days ago to kill them, but I received a slap in return.
"And I told you, it's better to leave us like this," She snarled back at me.
Well, that's not untrue. If I free them as they are now, they'll just be stranded here. Unless I plan to take them all the way to their home country, I shouldn't needlessly interfere. It'll just make things harder on them. The two are born slaves, it seems. That's my assumption anyways, but that's not uncommon. Traveling to the southern region, and bringing back slaves is very expensive, so it seems most Beastkin slaves are bred here, especially because the Beastkin countries have allied in various ways, and offer death to slavers.
So these two were certainly born into slavery.
"Then~ how much is it to buy this one?" I asked, pointing at the smaller girl, closer to my age. She seemed to flinch when I pointed at her, but averted her eyes away. Ah, how amusing.
"Why do you do this?" She asked. "Do you want us to get punished?"
"Has your master punished you for talking to me?"
"No, but that's just because she doesn't know. Surely once she finds out, I'll receive lashes—more if she finds out I was even hiding it from her!"
—She? Her?
Ah, that's right, she did mention before that her master "doesn't do lewd things to her," huh?
But she still sounds mean.
"Well I just wanted to talk to a few cute girls, you know?" I said nonchalantly with a shrug.
"Tch—and what's with that hood? You never take it off, like you're trying to hide something. Why don't you go back to your parents or something?" Ah, she's ignoring my comment, and trying to get rid of me, huh?
Mentioning the hood is like pointing out that I have something like a weakness, right? If you're a slave or not a human, I'll call the guards to say you're harassing me or something. Because she belongs to a merchant, she does technically have higher standing than me, who is a half-elf, even though she's nothing but a slave.
Weird how that works.
Still, if she's going to offer me a threat—"Well first I have to teach your master not to hit people so—"
Huh—?
Ah... I was slapped again.
Still, I'm curious about her household and conditions.
I haven't gotten any of their names yet by the way. The older girl doesn't want to associate with me. After the 3rd or so day, she started actively telling me to leave her alone, before a slap came later.
In just a few days, we became very intimate, to the point of having a physical relationship~
I wonder how hard she would slap me if I told her that...
No, it's best not to voice that out loud.
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As night approached, I had a short meal, and then began to train as intensely as I could.
I've noticed this before—but the weirdest thing about since my reincarnation was my personality change. No, my attitude towards a lot of things is the same, but in the latter years of my past-life, I became increasingly lazy, and had began to browse the internet more often than hang with friends.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I wasn't a complete shut-in—otherwise I wouldn't have died—but it was enough that, if something seemed like I'd need to put unnecessary effort into it, I just wouldn't do it.
So I was somewhat elated when I became a baby, and had to do nothing but suck on a very attractive elf's nipple, and sleep.
But then I found something I haven't had since entering high-school—motivation.
I became interested in learning about this world, and mastered the language in just a year. In my past-life I was called a lazy smart-ass, but I doubt I could have learned two languages within the span of a year.
And then when I learned of the Stat bug, I pushed myself to train diligently, which is not something I did in my past life.
It's off putting to think that my mindset has somehow changed, without knowing the cause or the extent.
If I had to make a theory or hypothesis, I would say that maybe it's a weird of this body's genetics, and my old "soul's" personality.
Well it's fine. All of my stats are raising at a considerable pace as a result, so I find some satisfaction in that.
So I don't really hate this mysterious change, but it's worrisome.
—Putting those thoughts aside, after my training I go on a night patrol like every night before.
As one might expect, the crime-rate at night seems to be higher, because people feel they won't be caught at night.
But recently, the number of kidnappers have dwindled. It seems word about me has reached most ears—not that I mind. I'm certain the only people who have actually seen me are kids, so it's fine.
It at least lowers the number of punks going after kids.
That said, tonight seems to be going like a lot of nights recently, and I can't find any fertilizer.
Well that's fine. At least it shows how feared I am.
Still, I don't think I'm particularly strong.
Stat wise, I estimate I should be close to level 200, but that assumes no one ever trains their bodies, and only rely on stat points. And taking into account my Debuff, I probably look like a level 100 Mage.
But I'm sure that actual combatants train their stats in a similar fashion to me, so I don't know how I compare to actual fighters.
As such, I want to avoid fighting guards and knights, whose power I'm uncertain of.
I know that the common citizen in most places averages between level 10 and 20, but statistics regarding the levels of the nation's forces is of course classified.
I've heard there's a skill to analyze people's stats, called "Status Analysis", but I don't know the requirements to obtain it.
It might be related to the Primordial called "Status", seeing how the name is actually in English, but I'll look into it later.
—Well tonight I didn't find anyone, so after a few hours, I return to my "base", which is basically a hut next to my garden.
I'm basically a squatter, as I can't really afford a home.
I've recently only eaten fruits, with some spare meat I bought, using money from my victims. As someone who grew up in the modern world, I just can't survive without meat, you know?
That said, a when days started coming where I couldn't get any money to buy meat, I had to leave the safety of the village, and kill a couple rabbits for food.
Despite the rough town, the average level of the surrounding area is quite low.
Or perhaps I'm just weird with my perception of strength, due to my experience with games?
Well whatever.
I cook myself a nice meal, and without anything else to do, I sleep.
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—It's morning again.
As usual, I have a light breakfast, before looking after my garden. I've noticed the first signs of fruit beginning to show, so I'm sort of satisfied.
Come to think of it, didn't mother tell me that most of her plants have a Nature Blessing?
That might explain why the plants are growing up so quickly? Though, I don't know for how many generations the blessing is in effect though.
As a result of my work, my Gardening skill has reached level 12, but still no Nature Affinity.
Being an elf, my natural affinity with nature should be pretty good, but I guess my "personal affinity" with it is quite incompatible, huh?
At the same time, I haven't unlocked Divine affinity, even though I try to pray to the Idol of Aien, that mother left me.
Well, I was an atheist in my past life, and I have huge doubts regarding the gods, so that's likely a reason. It would be nice if I could make full use of my blessing, but I guess if I'm not sincere, I'm not marked as a follower by the "system".
It's disappointing, because I would like to be able to use healing magic, so I'm considering trying to unlock it manually, via surgery, but my knowledge of anatomy is... limited. And I don't know if that'll actually give me Divine affinity.
—Putting that aside, I immediately got to training my Light and Sound magic.
Mostly, I'm trying to practice "bending" light and sounds. I made the hypothesis, that in order to focus either into a specific direction, I need to learn to "bend" them into that direction.
By default, creating light is fired in all directions, but with a properly constructed spell, I should be able to twist the light going in the wrong direction, all into a single vector.
Of course, this sort of thing can only be done with a spell—but spells are a pain to construct from scratch, especially on the fly. But they offer a level of consistency I can't acheive by simply "willing" the magic to do my bidding.
If I had a magic stone I wouldn't mind, but without a way to record my spells, I would rather not spend much time constructing complicated spells.
Well, there's merit in learning to construct a spell at high speeds, but it's like learning to try and speed-draw a person's face in accurate detail.
Well whatever; I'll figure it out.
As usual, I get back to training my body. As you might expect, it's getting a bit harder to actually raise my stats, but I've made considerable progress.
StatsPoints40Vitality189 (38)Intelligence263Strength215 (43)Wisdom99Agility280 (56)Dexterity115
Amazing
This is the results of half a quarter year's training, huh?
Dexterity raised oddly fast, so maybe being half-elf really helped there? I'm a bit bothered by how fast it rose, but I'm probably worrying needlessly.
I wonder how someone who spent a serious portion of their life training would end up?
—Putting that aside, I rested up after after gaining two points in Strength and Vitality, and began my day patrol.
However—
I didn't expect to be interrupted soon after starting my stroll.
"Boy, we would like to have a word with you."
Surrounding me were a number of figures on all sides.
I didn't even notice them—
Ah, I don't think I'll be able to outrun these guys.
"As long as you're not too rough, I won't bite," I claim, while trying to keep clam.
—Still, I'm panicking about what I should do, even if I try not to show it.
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Author Note:
Really slow chapter, as you can see. Just wanted to get an idea of how he's been spending his last few days, and how he's slowly accumulating money for the future.
AIshean isn't a great planner or anything, so he doesn't quite know what course of action he should take to get to where he needs to go. Though sometimes it seems decisions are made for him.
As always, feedback and suggestions is always appreciated.