By day five I sure that while Aunt Desdemona was seemingly considering other groups she was actually only interested in the Red teams, and within them just Red 1. To start with I thought she was focused on the pair from ‘The Blessed Land’ but when they stopped for the midday meal, I noticed that the male from the system that they called ‘Earth’ fool the instructor and successfully misled him about the gains that he had made that morning. He only reported half the gains. How was he not affected by the command ring that I could tell was still part of him? Somehow the amount of power that was flowing through him had doubled. I was unable to detect what skill had triggered the improvement in his mind that could have had this result. It appeared to affect both his body and spirit as well. His skills were in flux, shifting and new points of power becoming pre-apparent. Something significant had certainly happened.
The practice and skill gains I had achieved overnight were clearly more useful than I had ever expected. I came to realize that ‘Perception’ was more powerful outside combat than within it. It was most unexpected. During the morning I gained a further 2 points over the 2 I had gained from the exercises. And this was just by observation rather than the painful exercises that I and my maids had worked on most of the night. As he went through the changes my basic awareness improved by 2 levels. And when I noticed the deception I had a sudden upgrade in my Perception from Common even though I was nowhere near upgrading it. I now had Uncommon Perception, and I gained a skill that was considered dubious. ‘Truth seeing’, while it was only a basic skill I started to fear for my life. This was one of those skills that got you killed. Every family had secrets that had to be protected and this skill had the potential to expose things kept better under wraps
Aunts senior maid lay her hand on my neck within a moment of gaining the skill, I shuddered with fear, expecting to have my neck snapped. I was surprised when I received a title, a legendary Title called ‘Skill Concealment’. It hid it self and also hid the ‘Truth Seeing’ skill. Desdemona's voice echoed in my mind, ‘Speak not of this to anyone but me’.
I don’t know what happened for the rest of the afternoon as my mind was spinning out of control. Flicking between the description of the new skill and the title. Even my power levels had received a significant boost.
What’s more, granting a title in this way was costly to the person who triggered the title, so perhaps I was not to be a sacrifice after all.
At the end of the day, I was sent back to my quarters as normal.
My maids forced me to continue my training as I had instructed them. In my distracted state I was surprised that by the end of the extended training, I had leveled my uncommon perception all the way to 12 out of 30. I had gained 1 new skill, a title, and over 20 skill points in an extremely difficult skill to level all within a day. I could expect many flow-on effects downstream of a base skill such as perception.
The next day when we returned but oddly there were even less members of the sept with us. Of the other families and septs, ours was the only one left that had a principal left attending. With my understanding of the politics, this meant that the teams had groupings had been allocated, so only the fine details of resources and team additions were left. So why was my Aunt still here
Rather than sitting at a respectful distance from her I was moved inside the outer ring of my Aunt’s maids. I had always suspected that these servants were dangerous, but from this location and the new skill that I had gained, I could tell that they were immensely dangerous. The only aspect that sprang to mind was “ASSASSIN”. Before fear overwhelmed me I was nudged to view the Red 1 team.
If the new revelation about my aunt’s maids was shocking something else had happened to the one called Fonial his power had multiplied. Not just a fast increase in power as had also happened to the others in the team. He now had Presence. Yet he did not have a class yet. Then again that is bad enough but I was going to have to reassess my aunt. Teachers did not have assassins as maids. Just maybe, I had not been as respectful in my mind as I should be. Someone that has assassins as junior maids, had more than just presence, that had to have Political Power. They were dangerous people. And I had been dismissive, and least unlike many of my peers I had kept my mouth shut. By all the gods, who was my aunt?
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To distract myself I focused on Red 1. Overnight the presence that was Fonial the leader of Red 1 had consolidated. He easily could have dominated the trainer at this point, even the other two were at the cusp of forming presence. Once they had classes they would be outstanding leaders yet next to their leader they were minnows next to a shark. But after all their trainer would be able to hold his own due to the control curse that had been applied to all the incoming heroes.
Yet within moments of arrival their trainer had been dismissed to bring food, like a servant. He raised no objection, Issued no instructions. I attempted to focus on the team leader. Using his name brought about its own dangers. After attempting to parse him from a distance through two sets of shields, I gave up, all I could tell was he had presence and by the evidence could command a trainer who received special training to prevent this very issue.
For a brief moment, I switched my awareness and used all my Identify skills at the maximum power that I had on that leader and had a flash that he had multiple skills in the curses stream, Yet even as I gained that information he issued a command to both of his subordinates and two new shields snapped into existence, just below the training shield.
Subconsciously I had been aware that the red training circles had been claimed by the family sept. Normally this claim would reduce the details that any other family could scry but as my vision expanded after the clear blocks that had been raised I realized that three inner guards were running the powerful mist wall around all the Red teams. The result of this meant that no other sept would even be aware that their vision and presence had been blocked.
For the rest of the morning I pushed and wormed, I used all my tricks and skills to attempt to penetrate those shields, To start with it was easy enough yet I gained very little information here and there, but as I did so they would come back stronger and I could learn less.
When the midday break arrived Steven was returning with servants carrying mid-grade food, rather than the slave rations that they had been recieving. It was only the return of the trainer that offered me glimpses of the team. All three had to be working on their minds, or spirits as from what I could see, no physical activity was occurring. An argument started between that man and the trainer. Before it could move to a physical conflict, the Trainer was smacked hard by one of my aunts servants. It was swift and fractured his mind. He would never be the same again. This only raised more questions in my mind. If one of the servants both had the ability, and the authority to act in this way. While it seemed that I had gained status, my actual position was far lower than I ever understood. The lifting of the veil was a very uncomfortable experience.
During the remainder of the day, I had more progress in my own mental attack skills than I had had in the preceding half year. But I still could only penetrate for moments at a time. During the morning the attacks often suffered from moments of counterattack. But in the afternoon, while it was painful and the potential for real damage existed the shields hardened over time but I felt that I was getting on top of them. After all, attacking is the best form of defense. Since they were no longer attacking I was winning.
When they were about to leave the protection of the circle shielding, they dropped the shields that they had held. I suddenly realized that they had been using my attacks to train their shields. This type of behavior that I could have expected from my Aunt, but not a random bunch of heroes.
I had been focusing my awareness on the female, hopefully, I had more affinity and would be able to parse her skills. I could tell I was making progress during the morning but it was not until the instructor returned, and she commanded him to wait. SHE DID NOT HAVE THE CONTROL CURSE AS PART OF HER SYSTEM. This revelation triggered skill upgrades in truth seeing, awareness, and my own spirit pillar. It should not be possible. This glimpse into her skill set showed that she had gained a spirit-based shield. This was not a skill that she had previously and was not a skill that developed spontaneously.
With that realization came a strong probe at me. The maids and my Aunty just let it pass without any interference. My maids and Ester were suppressed by someone close to me. Before I was able to defend myself, my skills were exposed. I knew that he had gained access to my name, class, level, and most of my attributes. I was able to get my shields back up but Fuck. At this distance that should not be possible for some annoying nothing. It was clearly the shithead of a team leader.
I knew that I had to train and gain levels in my skills. This was unacceptable !!!!!!! Anger flooded my mind. I probed back and only gained access to his name before bouncing. He expected the response and left that information exposed. What’s more, I am entitled to depend on my maids and servants that is what they are for.