“Some might think to craft a Build so multifaceted that they will be prepared for anything life can throw at them. It is often those people who life catches off guard.”

~Unknown

Running with my damaged back had been agony. Each footfall sent a shock up my leg that rattled my spine and made my eyes water. Flaring Perseverance and Recovery was all I could do to keep me from collapsing. Within the hour, I had drained through most of my mana; a waste born of petulance. I pushed myself to run further, even as the characteristic pressure behind my eyes began to throb the foreboding song celebrating my almost-empty reserves.

Fudge began to whine as every stab of pain almost sent me to my knees. There were moments when I felt Taming [Dog] briefly flare only to sputter out, as if desperately trying to help but being unable to do so. Even so.. I could have sworn that each flare of the Skill brought about a wave of temporary relief.

Fudge’s discomfort pulled me out of my frustrations. He had no way of understanding what was happening, of my need in that moment to bury mounting frustrations beneath something - anything. To him, I was just hurting for no reason…

“Sorry, boy,” I muttered between deep, shuddering gasps. As if on cue, that was around the time Tulos realized I wasn’t in my room like I was supposed to be. In his defense, I was usually good at following instructions.

Our discussion on the matter ultimately boiled down to a single exchange.

“If you promise not to do that again, I will not tell your mother about it.” There was no yelling, no scolding, just a deal that I was more than willing to accept.

I wrote Lionel back the next day. Cleaning my mana for the Mirrorscroll was marginally easier, a sign of progress that would normally lift my spirits. It felt hollow.

> Uncle Lionel,

>

> I understand.

>

> -Will

There wasn’t much else to say.

Sunrise. Sunset. Each day rolled into the other. Routine. Routine. Routine. I told my parents about my plans for Jusep. I also told them about Lionel’s warning. I couldn’t risk the possibility of the adults in my life sharing that information. It was a matter of trust. If I kept that secret, Tina and Tulos might come to question what else I might be hiding.

Those were dangerous thoughts for them to have.

Trust matters, and they’d also earned mine. It was in the soft, concerned turning of Tulos’ lips and the sympathetic sheen of Tina’s eyes. There are simply some looks that speak volumes. As I shared my doubts and shame, my parents wore expressions that crowed their love and understanding.

There were many things in my new life to be thankful for. It was hard to remember that, sometimes. Even so… I knew I was thankful for them.

“I want to Advance as soon as possible so that I can help Jusep,” I eventually told them, feeling a stab of guilt for only telling them a half-truth in the face of their parental compassion. They were hesitant, at first. Each half-stuttered sentence starter reminded me that they were wrestling with their own perceptions.

To them, I was a boy more mature than his years thanks to Perseverance accelerating my development. A misconception, but one that ultimately spawned the question: could a child like me, even a clever one, really make such important decisions on their own? They were torn on the answer.

Over the following days, we talked, we planned… and we compromised. In the end, Tina and Tulos were willing to support my drive for Advancement, but not at the expense of my childhood. I had to promise to make time to play, to socialize, to ‘be a kid’. It was a point they wouldn’t budge on. Truthfully, I couldn’t fault them on it either.

I’d just have to figure out a way to multitask.

***

If there were any further conflicts spawned from the Amy incident, they didn’t make their way to my ears. So far as I was aware, the situation had been dealt with by Hwan and Tina. Alternatively, it could have been that I was being sheltered from ‘adult problems’. Either way, I was content to let the matter lie until I was in a position to do something about it.

I had more important things to focus on.

Advancement beckoned, and I was no longer content to work at a measured pace. I trusted Lionel’s judgment; I would be best positioned to help Jusep after Advancement. That meant every day, every second I could shave off the time it took me to hit that milestone would be a victory.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

My routine became an unflinching thing wrought from steel. Every morning I would flare my mana into Perseverance and banish any traitorous reluctance that dared creep into my mind as I slept. There were no excuses. I had no job, no real responsibilities, if I couldn’t get my shit together under those circumstances - with the aid of literal magic, no less - then I would never accomplish anything.

Weeks passed. Months.

I pushed my body to its limit. Tulos told me that my early Advancement would spare me many of the detrimental effects of extreme exercise with a young body. The bruise on my back healed within a week, and I was similarly spared any long lasting issues. Recovery was starting to show its worth, and the windfall of proficiency points I gained over that period of time made it clear that I couldn’t keep ignoring such an important facet of the Skill.

Now that I had experienced first-hand how Recovery would help me treat injuries, it was like the loosening of a mental lock. A cognitive tumbler clicked into place. Injuries would hurt, but I would get better.

It made justifying my more extreme Skill training choices easier. It could never be anything big; I wanted to keep my efforts secret from Tina and Tulos as much as possible. The injuries I inflicted on myself needed to look like they came about naturally. Accidentally. One week I punched a tree until my knuckles bled. I think I fractured something, too. Another week I stomped on a pointed rock, then I had to dig it out and run despite the injury.

It sucked. At no point did I enjoy the pain and more than once I needed Perseverance active to even follow through with my actions. Even so… I regretted nothing.

Do it for her.

Every moment of doubt, I reminded myself why I was pushing myself so hard. I wasn’t ignorant to what I was doing. I told people, I told myself, that I was working so hard for Jusep’s sake. It was true, as well, but Jusep was ultimately only a short-term goal, something attainable I could use as a stepping stone towards the true heights of my ambitions.

There was only one person I shared the true scope of my plans to. Well, one dog. Fudge. Whenever I needed to push myself beyond my limits, I made sure to reassure him that it was for a good cause. I knew he couldn’t understand the words, not really, but I threw everything I could at the Tamer Bond to make sure my feelings came across.

It was difficult, but it got easier. All of my Skills were growing, and even the lessons with my parents, or practice with mana manipulation saw steady improvement as I became a human grindstone. It was the type of thing I could never have conceived myself accomplishing in my first life.

I was changing… but those thoughts were for the night.

***

Dog Level 9/10*

The asterisk was new. Fudge had continued to grow, as young dogs were wont to do, and with every passing day he crept closer to the first bottleneck. I had to assume the newest addition to his System window meant that he had hit it.

I didn’t mention the asterisk to Tina, but hinted that I had a sense of Fudge being ready to Advance, an explanation she seemed happy to accept. Since that revelation didn’t surprise her, I felt content in my initial conclusion.

Once I hit the bottleneck in Taming [Dog] Tina would show me how to guide Fudge through his first Advancement. That day was likely still at least a year away.

My progress with the Tier-0 Skills was notably faster than it had been with Perseverance. I had the mana and relative control necessary to more actively push the Skills beyond the realm of the mundane. Even so, time remained my biggest barrier.

It gave me more time to work with Fudge. I continued my games with him, the activities that might hopefully unlock some kind of Skill enabling him to become the ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ of dogs. Most of them felt foolish, but I had a breakthrough.

I’d been periodically dedicating a portion of mana to Recovery to slowly revitalize my memories of all things ‘quantum’. Again, I was no physicist, but surely there were nuggets of valuable insight sprinkled throughout decades of media and a few high school textbooks.

I had remembered quantum superposition because of Schrodinger’s Cat being so prolific in the zeitgeist, but there were other quantum theories. The one that sparked my newest idea was quantum entanglement.

My understanding was limited, but I was under the impression it could be summarized as two ‘things’ inexplicably joined despite the distance between them. If something impacted one, it would be experienced by the other… kinda. One day, as I was pushing calming emotions over to Fudge before attempting a bout of self-injury, a thought came to mind.

Isn’t the Tamer Bond kind of like quantum entanglement?

Fudge and I were connected and could affect each other over increasingly long distances. It was a stretch, but still… Having another avenue to explore, to exploit, as I pushed for Advancement was more than welcome.

***

Taming [Dog] Level 9/10

Current proficiency points: 899/900

I was eight years old when it finally happened. I stared at the screen as excitement threatened to overwhelm me. Months- years of hard work had paid off.

A lot happened during that time… but honestly, not a lot of it could be considered significant. To my knowledge, Jusep remained largely withdrawn, though that was only going off of the brief, irregular updates Hwan gave us. Tulos remained diligent in his work. Tina had raised and sold another couple of litters to serve as livestock guardians both in Elbura and in the surrounding towns and villages.

It was business as usual.

The sound of a baby crying yanked me from my thoughts.

… Almost business as usual.