“The Taming Skill is often a subject of controversy in academic circles. When imitating the magics of their bound Beast, Tamers do so with speed and fluidity. This comes at a cost, for drawing too hard from feral magics can induce the Beast High. If you have not yet read of the Northern Empire’s manipulation of the condition for their shock troops and the resulting military strategies, I would encourage you to do so.”

~Unknown

Two weeks had passed since my first Advancement. We still hadn’t gone to see Jusep; his parents weren’t allowing visitors, but word was he’d not only pulled through, but regained consciousness. I was relieved he’d survived the ordeal, but my heart broke for the poor kid. Were prosthetics and wheelchairs available options for him? I couldn’t risk asking. Tina and Tulos were becoming steadily accustomed to my ‘Skill-boosted maturity’ with every passing day, but I felt evoking half-remembered technologies would be pushing my luck.

Vix lost one of her tails. In the days following the incident with the fueha it began to dry and shrivel like a long, fluffy raisin. It reminded me of a video I once saw of a deer shedding their antlers. When she was ready, it just kind of popped off. Naturally, I had questions. Tina promised it was complicated and something we’d cover during my upcoming apprenticeship, but broadly speaking it was related to what she did to save Jusep’s life.

The prospect of learning directly from Tina about our shared Skill had me bouncing with anticipation. When I was finally given free reign to test my new limits, I discovered what a qualitative improvement Advancement bestowed upon a person. My muscles were stronger, my senses were sharper, my mind was clearer; everything was just better. It was the ambient mana passively cycling through my body.

I maintained a loose sense of my core space, enough to let me know how full my mana reserves were, but not much else. Simply focusing harder didn’t produce any insights into the secrets of my mana pathways. The merits of having a Skill like Mana Sense became increasingly apparent. I wanted it. It would probably be years until my next Advancement and it already couldn’t come fast enough.

There was a single instance in which I could more accurately feel the passage of mana through my body. It happened while meditating on Recovery. I say meditating, but it was more like sitting on my bed and trying to urge the cut on my hand to heal faster. Frankly, I’m surprised it accomplished anything at all. A pulse of power traveled down my arm and collected at the site of the wound, maintaining a steady, if sluggish, stream that figuratively illuminated the pathway. It was a sputtering match in an empty warehouse, so not much, but it was something. Like a bathtub slowly draining of water, the mana in my core started to empty as it sustained the Skill’s efforts to fix my hand. The results? I think some of the swelling went down.

Without a more sophisticated means to analyze the inner workings of my mana, every detail I was able to glean only left me with more questions. The obvious one was a matter of quantity. If ambient mana cycling improved my body a little, would more mana improve it a lot? Perseverance had to work double time while I resisted the urge to test that theory without supervision. Caution won out over curiosity. The prospect of popping my shiny, new mana pathways like overfilled water balloons was terrifying. Was it an actual risk? No idea, but I didn’t want to fuck around and find out.

***

“Which of the dogs do you think it will be?” I’d been badgering Tina with questions for days. The kennel was off limits until she was ready to guide me through the Tamer Bond, but I was growing impatient. My idle thoughts became increasingly occupied by memories of the Skill Tree. Taming [Dog] was incomplete, the branches without color, the leaves without their second half, and that wrongness was intrusive. It was an itch I couldn’t scratch; it was a buzzing in my ear I couldn’t drown out; it was a lingering bitterness on my tongue.

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Perseverance wasn’t of much help which initially baffled me. I’ve since considered a new hypothesis. If Synergy could make Skills stronger when they work together, it stood to reason that the inverse would also be true.

“I have already told you I cannot answer that,” Tina gently replied as she sliced vegetables into rough cubes and let them splash into an awaiting pot of water. I was self-aware enough to know I was being annoying, but her calm response to every question carried a note of sympathy, especially after I told her how antsy I was feeling.

“I know you did, but…”

Tina sighed and turned away from the task to give me her full attention.

“I know, my Will. It is hard. There was something we were waiting for, but… I will talk to your father.” Tina may have started to make allowances for my maturity, but in her eyes I was still ultimately a child. I had no idea what she and Tulos were waiting for or how it was relevant to my circumstances. Considering their understanding of the situation, I didn’t begrudge them for it. In their eyes, I was still their son, a child with a lot of childhood still ahead of them. If a smart baby offered to help file my tax return, I’d tell it to run along and play.

Did you hear that, Skills? She’s looking into it, so chill the fuck out for a minute. Perhaps unsurprisingly, simply asking the problem to go away didn’t work. I tried to put a positive spin on the situation. Dealing with an unbalanced mood and seemingly uncontrollable impulses could be considered practice for my inevitable second ride on the puberty train. Okay, not so much of a positive spin as the prepubescent equivalent of gallows humor.

***

Sleep eluded me all night. I was too excited after learning a new consensus had been reached. The crack of dawn would signal the lifting of my ban from the kennel and the start of the day Tina would oversee my first use of the Taming [Dog] Skill. Vigil lay sprawled on the floor, like he usually did. Since he was already bound with Tina, interacting with him didn’t get much of a response from my Skill.

It had rained earlier in the day, nothing too heavy but enough that the smell drifting in from my open window was damp and earthy. I found it soothing. Instead of wasting away the hours vibrating like a wound up cymbal-monkey, I tried to exercise my other Skills. My original plan for advancing Perseverance came to mind. Sleeping was a necessary waste of time, but every hour I spent dreaming was one I might have otherwise spent pushing towards my next Advancement.

I won’t be a kid forever. There is a time crunch at play here. Dying of old age before unlocking the Unnamed Skill would be… honestly, let’s go ahead and not even consider that as an option. The logic sounded solid in my mind; training more and sleeping less was a surefire recipe for success.

I’d once watched a video about the importance of sleep, something about it being when the body did most of its healing. Rest and recovery were connected in folk wisdom, so I was hoping the same would be true for my Skills.

Perseverance, you’re going to help me push through despite not sleeping. Recovery, you’re going to replenish my body as if I had. Let’s go! I was still personifying my Skills, but I decided to lean into it. It was probably a symptom of spending so much time in relative social isolation, but I digress. The mana in my Core started draining at an alarming rate as it flooded my entire body. It was like dunking my head in icy water, and a crisp clarity settled over me.

Tiredness was banished, drowsiness was dismissed; I was well-rested and refreshed.

This is incredible… Advancement had given me a connection to my Skills and mana that eclipsed all of my expectations. Every beat of my heart was accompanied by a pulse of mana and a wave of icy alertness. The sensation was so overwhelming, so empowering, that I hadn’t noticed my core run dry.

Where once there was ice, now there was fire and I quickly cut the flow as my Skills tried to draw additional power from a barren well. The pain lingered only briefly, but I wondered what might have happened if I kept on pushing. It was a harsh lesson and a foolish mistake. Unlike with pushing extra mana into my limbs, I had - incorrectly - assumed that using my Skills would be safe. As the last of the compounded effects of Perseverance and Recovery began to fade, I felt a fatigue that sunk deep into my bones.

All things had a cost. As sleep claimed me, I idly wondered where I’d gone wrong. At least I’d have some more questions to ask Tina in the morning.