Two-and-a-half months passed in the blink of an eye. I'd kept with my training during that time. I'd gained one each to INT, WIS, and FIN. More strength eluded me, which made some sense. I'd already obtained a few points from the exercises I'd been doing. Diminishing returns and all. Interestingly, the INT and WIS had come at the same time as Reading had reached level 2. It seemed as if at least some skills had stat bonuses along with them when they leveled. I hadn't leveled the other skill, Language, yet so I was unable to confirm whether that one also had a bonus.
Mother picking me up snapped me out of my thoughts.
"James, it's time to get you ready."
I shook my head and smiled, eliciting a laugh. My back laid against the top of the wooden dresser in the bedroom we shared. Off came all of the clothes I had been wearing to be replaced with a clean diaper and something that looked a great deal fancier.
"It's a little big," Mother said to herself. She sighed. "It'll have to do. Maybe if he's not too hard on them I can sell them later."
I frowned at this. I hadn't heard much about our financial situation, but it looked like things were a little tighter than I'd had in my previous life.
Mother lifted me and smelled my ass. I laughed. She'd misunderstood my frown to be the universal sign of a freshly baked diaper cake. Deciding that I hadn't done the nasty, she put my shoes on. Hair was brushed and teeth were washed, completing my look.
From what I could see, the clothes on me were much like an ill-fitting tuxedo. Thankfully the ill-fit was on the 'too big' end of the spectrum. I shuddered to think of what I'd need to endure if it were on the other side. Mother was wearing a simple, neat dress with a floral pattern on it. I walked out into the kitchen where the rest of the family was. Max and Father were wearing clothes similar to mine, with Max complaining that it was stuffy and restrictive. He wasn't wrong, of course. Tuxedos were vile.
Anna grabbed my attention. She was meant to be the focus today and she certainly looked the part. She wore a white dress with a fancy-looking hair ornament holding her braided hair in a bun. The dress reminded me of communion attire.
I hadn't been religious, but I'd attended more than one for friends' kids. The age of this 'testing' seemed to be roughly the same as well. Maybe in a world with magic, divine beings might be real and have real influence on the world. It was too early, and too scary a proposition, to find out one way or the other.
"It looks like everyone is ready," Father said. He opened the door from the kitchen to the outside.
I'd been outside briefly before, but this would be the first time really seeing what the place we lived in was like. I was picked up and placed at the bottom of the steps leading from the door to the ground. The house I lived in was very much in the style of a 1950s development house... it was a small brick house with two bedrooms and one bathroom. It had more character than a McMansion, but it sure was cramped!
There wasn't much of a yard. The land near the house was mostly used for growing fruits and vegetables. I'd have put the total area, including the house, at about a tenth of an acre. The street, as far as I could see, was populated with similarly designed structures. It was a working-class neighborhood as plain as day. On a guard's salary, this was probably the best my parents could afford. The wall that protected us was about a quarter-mile from the house.
Mother grabbed my hand and walked away from the wall towards what was, I assumed, the center of town. I was glad that I'd trained my stats as much as I had. My short, little legs had to move quickly just to keep pace, and the distance to where we were going was at least a couple of miles away. I wouldn't be surprised if END went up at some point today.
The houses changed as we approached the town proper. They were larger buildings with storefronts at the bottom and residences above. These houses were three stories generally and tightly packed together. I'd have said it was a typical Medieval city except that the architecture was much closer to modern townhouses than the whitewashed wattle-and-daub style generally associated with that kind of city.
The streets were wide thoroughfares that looked like a concrete road where the concrete was instead solid stone, complete with expansion joints. In the distance, towering above the rows of buildings was a cathedral of some kind. it was of Gothic architecture and at least thirty stories in height. That made it easily the largest structure and the perfect landmark for people to gather for events.
A half-hour later, with my lungs burning and my legs on fire, we reached the cathedral. There was the expected crowd of families like ours with young children around five or six dressed up differently than the rest much like Anna was. Rows of benches were placed in the square in front of the cathedral where the families of the children waited. The special children were formed into a line snaking from the open doors to the cathedral and through the center of the benches.
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"Anna," Mother said, "you'll need to go to the end of the line."
Anna sniffed in annoyance.
"I know it's a long line. It won't take as long as you think. Remember that Daddy and I went through the same thing a long time ago."
Losing the battle, Anna stomped off towards the back of the line. it looked like we'd have to be here a while.
Two or three hours passed before Anna finally returned through the cathedral doors. She held a piece of paper in her hands. I got off the bench carefully and walked over to her. I gave her a big hug for being brave.
"Thanks, James," she said, mussing my hair.
I caught enough of the paper to see what was written on it. Her status!
Name: Anna McPherson Level: 1 Class: None
HP: 24/24
MP: 28/28
SP: 24/24
Attributes: AGI: 7 CHA: 10 CON: 9 END: 7 FIN: 8 INT: 8 STR: 7 WIS: 8 Affinities: Blue: 10% Green: 80% Skills: Language Lv3 Reading Lv1
Her stats were more balanced than my own, but I already had two stats higher than hers! Most interesting of all were the affinities. She had only two, compared with my eight, one of which was a lot higher in percentage. I didn't know what these represented.
Anna gave the paper to Father.
"As expected," he said. "Your stats are about average for your age, I think."
Anna gave Mother a different piece of paper Mother's expression was that of concern.
"It seems the church has its eyes on you to be a healer. Is that something that you want?"
"I'm not sure," Anna said with a puzzled look.
"It'll be a great education and you'll end up with an in-demand job. You certainly won't go hungry, but it's a hard life. Your father is pretty safe as a guard... you know, there's a big wall between him and danger most of the time. You'd likely end up with the hunters or as an adventurer, venturing into the wilds. It's perilous beyond the walls as I'm sure you know."
"Take a week to think about it," Father interjected. "The guards could always use someone with your magical talents if you wanted to play it safer. However, the schools outside the church that we can afford are not the best."
Anna nodded and said "Ok."
I could tell that there was an undertone of anxiety about the unknown with Max and myself. I knew Max couldn't read, so he couldn't explain his status if he knew how to summon it. Although I could read mine and probably mime my way through explaining it at this point, it would be very strange for me to do something like that. Maybe in a couple of years, I could pull that kind of stunt and not have it shock everyone. Still, I'd learned several things from that conversation alone. The Affinities in my status had to do with magic. it was likely that Green had to do with healing. Maybe blue played some part, too.
I sighed and reached for Mother's hand. The walk back left me as worn out as I had been on the way there. A smile came to my breathless face when I saw the message.
END +1
I fell into bed that night and summoned my status window.
Name: James McPherson Level: 1 Class: None
HP: 20/20
MP: 32/32
SP: 22/22
Attributes: AGI: 3 CHA: 4 CON: 5 END: 6 FIN: 7 INT: 9 STR: 5 WIS: 11 Affinities: Black: 10% Blue: 10% Green: 10% Orange: 10% Red: 10% Violet: 10% White: 10% Yellow: 10% Skills: Reading Lv2 Language Lv1
Slow progress was still progress. If I gained one to each stat each time I got a year older between now and when I went into the cathedral, I'd easily surpass my sister. I wondered at what age the free stats stopped. It was probably related to normal growth, so around fifteen to twenty would have been my guess.