The easiest answer was to do nothing, for now. Even if the skill was a gift in order to be used, Soleil decided it was not worth destroying mana for nothing.
Not wanting to really have to put any of this into words to her other mothers, Soleil decided to call it an early night. Letters to home could wait.
Come morning, she and her mother wordlessly agreed not to speak until both were more awake. Soleil did note however, that it seemed like her mother had something on her mind.
It was not until after powering up the magitech crawler to pull the cart that she voiced what was on her mind. “I start every day by checking in on your soul’s radiance. I was always afraid you might stumble into channeling mana too early.”
Yeah. That made sense. “So is my soul brighter or something now that I’m level 7?”
Mother shook her head with a small smile. “No. Intensity is altered only by intentional adjustments. A positive adjustment suggests that you have reached an understanding with yourself or become more certain of something.”
“I raised [Fire Making] from Rank 0 to 1. It gave me 5 points of Adaptability. The other skill point automatically went into… that skill.” Soleil found little published in books on the Adaptability attribute. But that really should not have been a surprise. The closest analog to Adaptability in how Humans categorized their own soul was an attribute called Faith, something Soleil considered dubious to measure with numbers. Something to discuss later with a suitable human.
“I take it you remain committed to channeling mana and gaining Soul Levels?" Veilura's gaze and words carried a degree of calculation in them.
Soleil slumped forward onto her satchel, using it as a pillow. "Yeah. And not out of obligation or some purposeless need to know more. I'm sorry I don't have a clearer answer for you other than it hurts to bear this burden."
The purposeless comment looked like it stung her mother. Soleil briefly felt bad.
Veilura did not let it deter her from offering words of comfort. "It is okay Soleil. It is a lot. And that cannot be expressed enough."
Soleil sighed, her gaze unfocused as she pondered on all her new memories. "But no one should have to shoulder it alone. Not you or mana." Soleil's fingers pulled down the brim of her witch hat. "Calamity either."
Veilura took her time responding, but gave no inkling to how she felt about the matter. “I had hoped to engage you in discussion and answer any questions you might have, but you could probably squeeze in another hour of rest or two.”
No need to tell her twice. Although, she did have one question. “What would a negative adjustment to my soul's brightness mean?”
“I would start by looking for signs of corruption. But severe breaking of promises and certain abuses of power can all just as easily cause a dulling of one’s soul.”
“Oh.” That sounded foreboding. “Those all sound permanent.”
“They can be.”
“Why bring all this up now?”
Veilura turned to give her a most approving look, even going so far to poke at Soleil's hat with one of her tails. “Because I think you’re ready to be taught how to gauge how much trouble you are about to get into.”
Soleil watched as her mother's innocent smile developed into a vulpine grin.
***
“Focus,” Veilura said.
Soleil did just that, drawing upon a little focus to activate [Analyze.]
“Now reach for your Focus and project the skill onto something specific in the environment around you. This time I want you to maintain your hold on the skill.”
Her eyes sweeped the treeline for a berry bush.
A moment passed.
Another.
Her Focus drained away as the skill went to work.
[Analyze] began to show the plant in sharper detail. Light and something intangible seeped into the plant at a constant rate. The components of a cycle began to take shape before her eyes as she began to identify water mana being consumed. The cycle ended with trace amounts of air aspected mana being expelled back into the world. The planet itself thrummed with energies that Soleil simplified by classifying as Life and Nature Mana.
Her mother’s soft and gentle voice weakened her focus, amplifying the drain of the attribute required to maintain the skill. “Dismiss the skill and we’ll talk.”
Soleil did so, and took a peek at her own soul to find a total of four points of Focus expended in the brief period of time. A night’s rest had been more than sufficient to recover all of her attributes, but she still felt as if she had gotten a full day’s worth of mental and physical exercises done the day before. Drawing upon her soul was taxing on the body.
She was surprised to notice that her soul shrunk, while the plant’s mana grew. “ So. I don’t know how to say this other than stating the obvious. My soul is smaller.”
“Relax child. Your soul is just illustrating comparative soul levels. At a theoretical understanding of the [Analyze] skill at rank zero, the whole process should be taking you a few seconds. But you should be getting most of the standard information.”
Soleil shuddered as she tried to dismiss the sight. “That plant is at least five levels above me.” The thought had sprung fully formed into Soleil’s mind, an estimation given to her by [Analyze.]
Veilura smiled. “The less obvious takeaway is that the skill can show you gatherings of mana that accompany skill usage. Higher ranks in the skill will allow you to maintain the benefit after dismissing the skill for longer. You can use this to gain an estimation of how dangerous attacks to your physical and spiritual being will be.”
Soleil nodded. The sight that [Analyze] offered had disappeared immediately with the skill’s dismissal. It would be something to keep in mind for when she leveled up next. “There are other danger sense skills, right?”
“Indeed. Now follow me.” Her mother began to wander the tree line, eyes alight with the usage of a skill.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Someday soon, Soleil hoped she could raise her perception skills high enough to read what skills others were using.
Her mother stopped short after her ears perked up. A moment later she snapped her gaze towards something deeper in the forest. “Ah. An opportunity already.”
Soleil perked her eyebrows up, prompting a smile from her mother.
“How would you like to gain some experience?”
The little demoness almost squealed with delight.
“There is a pocket of corruption ahead, worryingly near to our home in the mountains for my taste. I’d like you to use everything you know to identify a source of corruption smaller than you, something you could easily incinerate.”
Soleil practically bounced on the balls of her feet, eager to be let loose to help fend off corruption approaching her home.
“I would like to reiterate my suggestion to stay within shouting distance. Stay away from any tree that no longer looks like a tree. And maybe avoid touching anything if you can help it.”
All valid and obvious points of safety, but if her mother only had simple things left to say, that was permission enough. Besides, Veilura was simply the best at hide and seek. Nadir excelled at hiding. Brigid could leverage her strength and speed to identify and reach hiding spots at an alarming speed. But Veilura was not someone Soleil expected to ever outsmart or outpace.
And so Soleil took off at a run into the woods, slowing to a jog only when the air began to grow heavier than air mana tended to allow. Proximity to corruption alone always came with a sense of wrongness that could easily be identified if you knew how.
Just knowledge of the Concentration skills was enough to tell her that the mana was all wrong in this stretch of the woods.
When the plants changed in hues from vibrant blues and greens, Soleil slowed to a cautious walk.
Water and nature mana began to grow weaker here, marked by a withered or less vibrant appearance. But that was not enough to confirm the presence of corruption.
She could see ashen colors deeper in, but she dared not approach anything growing unnaturally shaped thorns or appendages.
Soleil trailed around the edges of the corrupted plantlife until she found a flower with only a single gray bulb. That looked weak enough. Soleil checked her surroundings to make sure nothing was approaching her before focusing on summoning up her ability to [analyze.]
Three seconds passed.
A bright white light shined like a beacon, growing to double the size of the bulb and causing her own soul to wither.
Soleil’s focus broke as she stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. A length of thorn-coated vines pierced her arm. Soeil hissed as her vitality poured out of her soul and absorbed the damage done.
Pulling away and rising to her feet, Soleil turned round to face the vines coiling around a wilted flower. She could see no visible sign of open corruption, but a single corrupted bulb had been enough to register as at least 10 soul levels above her.
If a single flower held too much corruption, what was she looking for?
Soleil put some distance between herself and the pocket of corrupted plants, enough that she felt safe to examine her status.
Vitality: 7/10
Focus: 14/20
Had that thorn really dealt that much damage? Something about it seemed odd to her. That level of harm felt intentional.
Soleil circled back around. She would have to be careful. If she wanted to have enough Focus to burn out the corruption, she would need to identify her target with the next use of [Analyze.]
But how to identify less obvious traces without her active skills?
Herbology might have served her well here, had she Focus to spare. It might have told her if there was something wrong with the plant, but she could not be certain.
No. She would need to rely on her instincts and logic, which did not exactly have a great track record after last night.
Soleil approached the coiled vines covered in thorns. She took a deep breath and opened her senses up to the frightening world that her sensitivity would show her.
Suddenly she could make out the clear divide of the forest creating as much distance as it could from the expanding corruption. A war fought in inches. And her attacker had been anything but.
She rounded on what she now saw to be a wounded and cornered flower fending off attackers that had already pierced its defenses once. The flower was doomed, corruption emanating from its own seeds. To scatter them would be to help spread the corruption. The ailing plant and mana all seemed to understand this predicament, shielding itself from the rest of the forest and corruption both.
A lonely and stoically doomed entity doing what little it could.
Soleil fell to her knees in front of the plant. Slowly it began to brandish its thorny vines in an attempt to ward her off.
“I’m here to help.” Soleil whispered before drawing on her focus once more. A Focus-fueled [Analyze] told her what she expected to find, a number of seeds that did not even register as Soul Level One festering like a wound in the plant before her.
Soleil went through the process of gathering everything she would need to make a fire. In proximity to a dying flower, Soleil refused to leave it to chance. She fed her [Fire Making] skill two points of Focus to spark a small flame.
The flower sagged at the sight. Was it giving up?
Soleil spoke in the most gentle voice she could, again tapping sensitivity to read the plant’s reaction before speaking. “Let me burn the seeds.” The plant froze at her words.
A moment passed before the thorny vines began to retreat.
Soleil thanked the flower before drawing upon the last of her focus. At rank one, [Mana Manipulation] responded readily to her bidding. Each activation would still cost her precious Focus, but what she had left would probably be enough to move the fire towards the seeds. Which would be just as well. Any longer than a second or two of contact would likely threaten the plant.
Soleil pushed with the skill, gathering up stray fire mana to flock towards the corrupted seeds. At the last second before her reserve of Focus ran dry, Soleil pulled the fire mana away. The skill dismissed itself as her soul’s mana ran out.
It was her turn to sag and wilt, exhausted from the whole experience.
Soleil's soul gained a level.
A few minutes later, Veilura’s words roused her. “Very well done, Soleil.”
Her eyes blinked open to find the flower’s color enriched with the makings of a bud red with fire mana. It almost looked vibrant again. Had she done that?
She slowly rose to her feet, feeling unsteady but simmering with accomplishment. “It’s not much, but it seemed to make all the difference to this little flower.”
“There is no difference too small when it comes to saving a life.” Her mother supported her as they made their way back to the cart.
By the time they reached the cart, Soleil had recovered a single point of focus. It was enough to draw upon and take a peek at her soul.
“How do you feel?” Veilura asked.
Soleil gave her mother a tired but triumphant smile. “I almost don’t care about having reached Soul Level Eight. I want to heal the whole forest if there’s time.”
“The smallest of seeds are not to be underestimated. But you identified them with enough energy to cleanse them. And that is to be commended.”
“What should I have done if I ran out of Focus?” She searched her mother’s expression before providing an answer of her own. “I think I would have asked you to save the flower for me.”
Her mother leaned close before drawing her daughter into an embrace. “I am so proud of you my Little Sun. There is no shame in asking for help. I would have gladly acted on your behalf.”
Soleil’s cheeks filled with warmth as she committed to putting her next point into reaching rank one of [Analyze.]