After exchanging some words with Aok, Ali left with the portraits of the various animals. He hadn’t known Aok to be so well learned that the man could get all the portraits drawn and this experience made him respect the man more. At the same time, he was aware of how thick the stack of portraits were.

Looks like it’s going to be a lot of work for Ryu and me. I don’t get why I’m involved in the matter. I never once claimed I had experience or even interest in wood carving.

As soon as he returned to the store, Ryu took the portraits and skimmed through them quickly. An hour later, he selected three portraits and handed them to Ali.

“These three are the simplest. Practice with the scrap wood pieces until you’re certain you can do a perfect job of them.”

Having received his assignment, Ali went to the workshop and got to work. He chipped away at the wood block, finding it surprisingly calming. By his fourth attempt, his creation began to resemble the portrait. With his seventh attempt, he could proudly say his carving was great and the prompt agreed.

<

Your wood carving ability has leveled up to level 4.

( 47 / 68 XP to Level Up)

>

With confidence, he worked on a good wood block and the wood carving came out great, at least in his opinion. He gently set the carving aside to start on his second one. By lunch, he had completed his three assignments.

I didn’t level up my wood carving ability after finishing all three. It does get harder to level up, like any other ability.

Ali happily presented his three wood carvings to Ryu who studied them carefully.

“Acceptable,” said the man after a minute. “Go get lunch and come back for five more assignments.”

Before he left, Ali peeked to see how many his teacher completed. To his surprise, there were at least twenty completed carvings and, unlike his, they seemed to come alive. He shared his thoughts on the matter with Ryu.

“No worries! I’ll show you the trick to bringing your carvings to life once I think you're ready!”

Excited to see the trick, the teenager left to grab something quick to eat. On the streets, he stopped when Belen nearly collided into him.

“Watch where you’re going…oh, it’s you, Ali. What are you doing here?”

Since he didn’t get a chance to share what happened the night before, he updated Belen on his trip to the Badger Sector and his unexpected job as a wood carver.

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“You don’t happen to know why Aok is making us do this, do you?”

“I think he’s looking long term,” replied Belen. “No one knows when this war will end. Until it ends, we’ll probably be stuck in this city. He’s letting us find work that can help us while we wait. Last I heard, he is seeking out jobs for the rest of us too. However, he's rather picky with what we get for some reason.”

“Make sense! Hope he finds something you'll enjoy! I cannot imagine being stuck with something you hate everyday.”

The two of them didn’t keep chatting since Belen still had deliveries to finish. After his lunch, Ali returned to receive his five new assignments. It took him the rest of the day to finish all of his assignments and his wood carving ability leveled up once more. After gaining two levels, he felt his mastery of wood carving improved a lot.

Maybe I can finish more than eight carvings tomorrow.

For the next couple of days, Ali found himself getting into a routine. His completed wood carvings also increased bit by bit from the eight on the first day to eleven on the seventh day. He also gained two more levels as a result. The eighth day was when Ryu decided to teach him how to bring his carvings to life.

“First, here’s a new skill you need.”

Ali received the skill and checked his prompt.

<

Congratulations! You just acquired a new ability!

[

Ability: Deeper Understanding

Level: 1

Level Up Requirements: N/A

Type: Professional

Description:

Can be used with any art related professional abilities. While creating art, there’s a chance to make the art come to life. Chance is dependent on the professional ability level used with this ability.

Cost: None

Cooldown: None

]

>

“With this, you will start noticing things you miss before. As you get better at your profession, you will have a higher chance of bringing your carvings to life. Odds are pretty low for you at the moment though.”

“In other words, I still have a lot of work to do.”

After a week of doing wood carving, Ali realized that there were no shortcuts to mastering a professional ability. Even with the two abilities handed to him, he still had to work long days to increase the ability by a single level. He didn’t need to be a master to see the difference in quality between his carvings and his teacher’s. Not satisfied with the fact that his carvings weren’t good enough, Ali vowed to try even harder. He needed to reach a level where he could reliably make incredible carvings. Until then, he couldn’t be proud of what he made.

“Looks like we’ll be finishing the order in time,” said Ali one day during his break. “What would have happened if we don’t finish?”

“Death,” said Ryu simply.

I didn’t realize that I was almost signing my death warrant for accepting that order.

If there was one thing Ali learned, it was that powerful families outside of the slums were dangerous. Look at one of their members the wrong way and you could be killed. The more he learned, the more relieved he was that he lived in the slums. He couldn’t imagine living a decent life in one of the sectors as an ordinary artisan.

“We should finish early so we have some time to spare. No use rushing when we can make use of the entire time.”

“How about the competitions you spoke of?”

“That was just a lie!”