The Mother, after hearing the questions, replied, “There are special enchantments that can be used to check someone’s levels, but it is only used at the Academy and the palace.”

She takes a deep breath and continues, “and there are different ways to level up faster than others. One of the fastest is to kill creatures. Killing an animal will give you the least, as it is not full of mana. A monster will be in the middle, as it has a moderate amount of mana and beasts give the most, but they are also the hardest to kill.”

El asks again, “How do you know what level a creature is?

And the Mother replies, “If you every become an adventurer, there are encyclopedia’s full of monster classification. You will learn at that time.”.

Hearing this line of question from El and nothing from Goras, the Mother could already guess who would go further in life. One was curious and inquisitive even at the young age of five, while the other didn’t even know what was going on.

She said to the boys “I have called you here to tell you that from now on, you will be expected to help out around and outside the Church until you are 15, after which you are free to go where you wish. But until then, you will contribute. If you are finished with all your chores, you can go outside the Church and play in the city. Go do your chores.”

After hearing all of this from the Mother, El was still curious, however he did not want to arouse the Mothers ire and left the room quietly.

Over the last few days, El had gotten much more information than ever before, but he still had a billion questions that needed answered. He also needed to think about what actions he needed to take for his future. El went to his room and started to ponder his choices since he was exempt from doing chores today.

The first thing El needed to decide was whether he wanted to go to the academy. It seemed like information was very scarce in this world, and learning about magic seemed even tougher, especially given that there were very few to no books. El was also considering his options on how to get rich. One thing that came to El’s mind was building a spinning wheel, but seeing that people already had decent clothes, dyes would probably be more lucrative. He thought about concrete, which he had not seen used anywhere, but it would require supplies he was unable to get. El knew that he would not really be able to do much until he was 15, which seemed to be when people were considered to be adults, and so he went about his everyday life, not noticing much of a difference of having his mana “unblocked”.

When he was twelve, El finally leveled up for the first time. He was about to fall asleep when suddenly, he saw the words:

Level 1 reached. [Recall Memory] skill gained

They were curious things, skills. For no one knew how they came to be. No one knew how they worked, and yet everything was dependent on them. There were, of course, studies done to figure out how skills worked, and they were somewhat successful. Some {Scholars} claimed that skills were completely random, that they were unrelated to your wants, however this was clearly false. It had been observed throughout history that people somehow seemed to get skills that would be useful to them, like a farmer getting [Rapid Harvest], or priests and priestesses getting [Detect Faith].

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El had received his first skill after seven years, and it was a curious skill.

It was widely accepted that lower leveled individuals received skills that were “lower”. Meaning that a farmer would not get [Rapid Harvest] as his first skill, it, in fact, was a hallmark of the nineteenth level, when the farmer had demonstrated that he was good at most other aspects of farming. And yet, a level one child without a class had received this skill. El was oblivious to the rarities of skills, for he had not received any training.

Having received his skill, El was delighted. His knowledge was lacking in terms of how one would use skills, and he thought it wise to ask the Mother’s input on what he should do. The next morning after finishing his chores, El went to the main room, where the Mother was always located, and greeted her.

“Good morning, Mother” he said, and the Mother, looking up, replied, “Good morning, El, what brings you to me this early?”

Not wanting to waste any time, El was quick to say, “I got my first skill yesterday, and I don’t know how to use it.” Hearing this, there was a smile on the Mothers face, as she had been expecting this question.

She said, “All you have to do is close your eyes and speak of the name of the skill. It will automatically activate.”

“Will I always have to do that to activate all of my skills?” El asked, hoping that it would not be the case.

“No” the Mother replied. “There are three stages to activate skills. The first is speaking it. You need to remove as much sensory details as you can and think of the skill before saying the name of it, and it will activate.”

After pausing to catch her breath, she continued, “The second method is hand gestures. If you have practiced your verbal incantations and are familiar with your skill, you can attribute a certain gesture to that spell, and it will activate. And if you have practiced it to the point that you are very familiar with the skill, just thinking of using the skill will activate it”

After hearing this, El took his leave from the mother and rushed to his room, wanting to use his skill for the first time. He was of course aware that he could have asked the mother for information on the skill, since it was likely that she knew something, but he did not want to let anyone know what skills he had.

Since he was planning on leaving the church as soon as he was able to, it would not be a good idea to spread the knowledge of his skill to others, just in case it would be used against him in the future.

This skill that he received seemed harmless, and some would have thought, “why not just ask about the skill?”, but it needs to be realized that not knowing someone’s skills makes them dangerous. El had read enough stories in his past life of Churches overreaching, and while the people in this branch of the Church were all kind to him, if something were to change in the future, them knowing all of his skills would not be ideal. It did not matter if they knew that he had a skill. If fact, it would be beneficial to him, since if they ever got off in the wrong foot, they would know that he had an unknown skill that could be used to harm them. It was the threat of what the skill could be, rather than what the skill actually was.

One might, of course, ask, “why is a level one skill so important, since it has been established that they are not very strong?”, and the answer to that question would be that any skill, even a level 1, if practiced enough and used at the right time could change everything. A [Sprint] skill, while usually only a level three skill, could, if used correctly, change the course of a battle.

After arriving at his room, El checked to see if Goras was still there, and seeing that he was not present, El sat down on his bed and focused on his skill.

Closing his eyes, El intoned, [Recall Memory].