How could he have slept well last night, knowing that this might have all just been a dream? He wanted to get up and live and do stuff to help. But the reality was, he was getting ahead of himself.
So he slept as much as he could, so not at all because all he did while laying there was think about ways to help and in the end he ended up meditating through the night. Gathering Mana and gradually expanding his reserves whilst he slept.
When the light from his window become to bright to bear, he opened his eyes and whispered the words to summon his status screen.
“Status Open.”
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User: Lovus Eternius
Class: None
Level: 1
XP 0/500
Mana 17/17
Attributes
Body - 5
Awareness - 5
Mind - 5
Finesse - 5
Skills
[ New ] Mana Gathering Lv. 1
[ New ] Mana Expansion Lv. 1
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He closed the menu and let out a yawn as he sat up. The Skills he'd unlocked last night were a little like he'd had two mini epiphanies of knowledge he was certain that he'd always had. Knowledge that was simply refreshed and became slightly more prevalent in his mind. Although he’d already remembered how to awaken his mana to more readily become a mage. Which is something he believes his sister never got the opportunity to do because the world’s opinion on mana and mages was that you couldn’t awaken mana and in order to become a mage you had to have ‘talent’ for it. Couldn’t be further from the truth and he was a living example of just how powerful one could become in the end after starting from nothing.
He expected that his System would simply offer knowledge to those without it after they unlock a skill and the know-how to progress it. For him it simply renewed facts that he already had, thanks to his memories. Fortunately, they were accurate and the fact that his creation worked after being published and recreating the universe filled his heart with glee, but he kept a lid on it, never knew what kind of bugs there might be in the end.
“Very good.” He said as he kicked his feet over the edge of the bed and decided to get a headstart on the day he was ill-rested for.
He made his way downstairs from the second floor to the homey modern kitchen with a glass top stove and an island separating the dining room from the kitchen.
He opened the fridge and scrutinized its near emptiness save for the potatoes in the bottom drawer on the left, the bacon in the meat drawer on the right was still vacuum sealed. Up top was the carton of eggs – six left, would be enough for the four of them, probably. He pulled out his selection and set them on the counter.
Salt? Pepper? On the table. Replaced to the counter with the rest of the ingredients. Cast iron pan… present. He tried to pull it out without rattling it around like he was a Rock Band that just started blasting music just before 7AM. Didn’t want to wake anyone up again.
Cheese? Grader? In the fridge and in one of these many kitchen drawers, found and prepared. He'd work on the cheese last since it took the least amount of time to add at the end for an extra bit of flavor.
With the prep work for his rudimentary Breakfast Skillet done he started cooking. Hands defter than most despite his mediocre attributes which was again probably thanks to his memories. While it was somewhat disheartening to know that he wouldn’t be starting completely from scratch he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth – as the saying went. He simply continued cooking until it was ready.
Strangely, his dad walked in, covered in mud with his magic shotgun still primed and ready to fire. “Wait, dad. Were you outside all night?”
“Yeah, just finished performing a 10 kilometer radial sweep of the property. Didn’t see anything of interest, so you can rest easy about any potential intruders.”
“Dad I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I had a nightmare last night and ended up having a bad reaction to it.” Lovus explained as he made a plate for his dad. Umbriel was an interesting man, he recalled. He had a skill from working the nightshift that kind of interfered with his new schedule but it allowed him to pull all nighters a lot easier while avoiding becoming overly fatigued, but once it kicked in he couldn’t go back to sleep. If Lovus recalled correctly, his dad was a farmer now and it was his dream job, tilling fields, living free off the land and stuff like that.
Stolen story; please report.
“All the same, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Could’ve been a monster outside somewhere that has the ability to give people nightmares.” He said with a grimace, like he regretted spending all that time outside but refused to fault his son for activating his “insomniac” skill – Lovus didn’t actually learn the name of it while Umbriel was still alive. He took a seat at the table, his eyes glowing with interest as he caught the scent of the breakfast Lovus had haphazardly thrown together.
“Well, to make up for the disturbance last night… I made breakfast, here’s your portion.” Lovus slid it across the table as the man took a seat. He caught it with his knuckles and took the fork Lovus already had available for him.
“Smells good.” His sister Seranna walked in rubbing her eyes and looking like she got hit by a train – well maybe not that bad but her hair and clothes were a mess, with her pajama top half-tucked into her bottoms and one leg rolled up to her calf.
“Hey Ranna.” Lovus said as he plated up one for her as well, a portion equivalent to their dad’s. Because she was a big eater with an extremely high metabolism from what he remembered. Her pink irises assessed him from afar, suddenly on high alert. He set the plate down at her usual spot at the table and pulled the chair put for her. “A simple meal though it might be, I do hope you’ll enjoy it, beloved sister of mine.” He said with a smirk, the change in his demeanor from shit-eating twelve year old to his mock reverent bow and showy shit-eating politeness seemed to horrify her more than any practical joke he could play on his sister out of his former envy for her position as the oldest child and annoyance with how busy she had become once she started to take her future seriously.
She sighed, and looked at her plate before tasting an entire mouthful. Her eyes lit up with genuine glee but she tried to hide her expression. “Hmm… not bad.”
“Thanks.” He said with a falsely angelic smile.
She wolfed it down just as well as Mom’s meal. Speaking of mom, she walked in last and sternly looked at Lovus. “You made it? It better be at least as good as mine.” The softness in her gaze from last night was gone. Here was the former noble turned buff dock worker mom providing for the ex-military house husband Umbriel – for at least half of the year, until the harvest came along and gave them a much needed stimulus fund and the ability to buy more scrumptious things like various meats from monsters.
“Made exactly to specification, mom.” He said coolly as he took his place next to Seranna and started eating. Greasy eggs with bursts of saltiness from fried bacon and the gloriousness of melted cheese. Potatoes seasoned to perfection with salt and pepper.
Lyrra let out a sigh as she swallowed the first mouthful of her plate. “It's good. For some reason it tastes better than mine.”
“I read online that food tastes better when it's made by other people. This is really just because you become more nose blind to the scents of the food you are cooking so you can't really savor the taste as well. Smell is a very important part of taste after all.”
She nodded slowly, he figured she probably didnt really know what he was talking about, but neither did he… but it was for his mom's peace of mind so that she could just enjoy the food. “That makes sense.” She said and that was the end of the discussion until they were done eating.
Which gave Lovus time to ruminate on his path forward. Something more tangible than being the embodiment of a character who values “family” above all else like a certain series about cars and heists and racing. For now his short-term goal was to learn skills and develop himself to a state where he was at least on par with his sister’s innate talent so that he could support her, but not do everything for her. To that end he thought about developing support skills that would facilitate growth and make him more reliant on the Damage of others to kill monsters while developing a minor offensive skill to protect himself with lethal force when necessary.
The clatter of dishes knocked him out of his ruminations and his mom took his plate as he finished. “Hey mom. Do you think you and dad could teach me [ Heal ] and [ Mana Gun ]?”
If he could nab a couple skills with the Eternius System's inherent bonus to learning skills from teachers then he wouldn't have to spend as much time learning both skills plus a Root-class spell on his own.
“Remember the test score you got in your last Magics and Mana class?”
“43, a fail but that was because I didn't understand it. Mr. Sanza is just bad at his job as a teacher and fails to capture the essence of how to learn and teach oneself magic or even how to cultivate your own mana pool to gradually grow your own strength.”
Her eyebrow raised, “Cultivate your mana? Son I thought you were turning over a new leaf but you're still making up fibs to justify why you're the greatest and why everyone else is wrong. I will only teach you on the condition that you get 100 on your upcoming test.”
Lovus in turn could only look at her in disbelief, until he looked back at what he said and a sudden realization hit him square in the face: mana cultivation, it's laws and the science behind it had not yet been discovered and he was talking about something that wouldn't exist until sometime in the next five years thanks to a Mana Science Researcher named Jack Vaun.
He noticed his sister eyeing him suspiciously, like she knew something. Somehow or another he felt like she was the original discoverer of this theory. Or one of many who kept a heretical secret to themselves. Since the church had a tendency to execute anyone who even remotely questioned the beliefs of their so-named bible. On that point, he wondered how the church functioned today, considering the fact that the Eternius System now existed.
At any rate he slowly nodded, “Alright.” He replied coolly, not taking the bait. He could limit himself to the foolish ignorance and beliefs of how mana worked before Mana Cultivation became mainstream while also secretly growing his power until that day came. Mom would probably look back on this day with suspicion and wonder how he got so strong so quickly after it became a thing.
“Mom. What day of the week is it again? That nightmare messed up my sense of time a little.”
She exhaled long and hard through her nose, and spoke up as she finished cleaning the dishes. “Saturday.”
He got up and went to have a shower. “Gonna go outside for a while. I'll stick around the property.”
The shower turned out to be a reliable place to cultivate for the next twenty minutes, hot water rolled over his body and cleansed him of dried sweat from a bad nightmare and the clinging odor of fried eggs he oh so very hated but the rest of his family adored – eggs that is, just in general.
“Hey! Hurry up in there!” His sister banged on the door.
“Sorry!” He shouted, having lost track of time due to his meditative trance in the comfort of hot water.
He shut the water off, dried himself off and got dressed in his new set of clothes in the changing room… and tossed the dirty set in the hamper.
He opened the door and saw his sister grimacing as he walked into the hallway. “Hey.” She slammed the palm of her hand against the wall next to his head.
Kabedon huh… must be important… just another sign that she knows something about mana cultivation.
“I have a question… but it can wait until after my shower – going to your usual place?”
“Yeah, to meditate… which definitely has nothing to do with mana cultivation…” He intentionally avoided eye-contact to broadcast that his words were obviously a lie.
“I’ll talk to you then.” She said and went into the bathroom.
Lovus in the meantime went to go find a hoodie, his jeans and sneakers to go off to the very end of the property and slightly into the woods where he had gone to be alone a long time ago…