“Pilus, look!” Nodel exclaimed, blasting a fireball into the sea.

“Wh– Nodel, stop!” I said, grabbing her hand. I glanced around. No one had seen, as far as I could tell. “What are you doing?” I scolded.

She just grinned. “I’m getting pretty good at this,” she bragged.

I put my face in my hand and sighed. “You’re supposed to be keeping this a secret,” I muttered.

“I am!” she insisted.

“Throwing fireballs into the ocean is not how you keep a secret,” I said angrily. Her grin finally faltered, not fully chastised but hopefully reconsidering her actions.

Nodel had quickly taken to magic. Shortly after showing her the basics, she was able to rapidly shapeshift surprisingly large rocks through a series of shapes, barely using any MP in the process. She was doing things at an early skill level that would have zeroed out my MP and still had half hers to spare. I could only assume she was naturally gifted at pulling environmental magic down and using that in part for her spells, like I was now able to do with my simplest, most basic magic.

I made the mistake of showing her the other elements since she had taken to manipulating rocks so easily. Now I was paying for that decision.

“Sorry,” she muttered under her breath. “I just wanted to show you what I can do now.”

I sighed. “I’m not mad, just… kids like us aren’t supposed to be able to do magic, right? I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Although in truth I was more worried about myself. I didn’t want to get in trouble.

“I know,” she said. She fidgeted a bit, and I noticed she had put away her magic circle and had something else in her hand. “Here,” she finally said, shoving it at me.

I took what she handed to me, and looked at the item. It was a simple gold brooch, some kind of leaf pattern. “What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s a gift,” she said, suddenly shy. “I wanted to thank you for the magic circle, and for teaching me magic. And for being my friend,” she said, the last bit much more quietly.

Friend? I wasn’t sure friendship was actually possible between us, when I had decades of life experience on her, even if that life experience was from another world. I guess, insofar as it was possible for a middle-aged man to be friends with a six year old girl, that was in fact what we were.

“No problem,” I shrugged. “Thanks for being my friend too.”

Nodel smiled, and I felt the pressure of a notification. I opened my metasystem to see what happened.

Nodel Mirut added as a friend.

I blinked a few times at the new notification, as I processed the words. I brought up all my menus, glancing over them, seeing nothing new. I summoned up my mental keyboard, and mentally studied the letters. Some of my keys were already bound to menus, but most were not. I wanted to open a friend list, so I tried the F key.

My friends list popped up, showcasing a list of one, which was Nodel’s name. What good is this? Then I remembered how I originally discovered dismantling, a process that was now natural to me and I could do instinctually. I clicked and held on her name, and a submenu came up.

The options were “add to party,” “direct message,” and “remove friend.”

I tried adding her to my party, and I saw a blip appear on my map. Looking closely at it, I saw that I could now track Nodel on my map.

I glanced over my menus for a party menu, but again saw nothing. I concentrated on my mental keyboard, thinking of my bound keys. P was already for profile, not that I use it anymore, but I assumed that couldn’t be for the party. Group, maybe? I thought about pressing the G key, and my party screen came up.

The party screen, or group menu, displayed Nodel’s name along with her HP, MP, and status. It did not show skills or experience like a full appraisal, but rather, was like a useful screen to see the state of my friends were we in combat as a team. I selected her name from that menu, and saw a new submenu which read “message group,” and “kick from party.”

I tried clicking on the message group option, expecting a chat window to appear, or something like that. Nothing happened. Weird, I thought.

“What’s weird?” Nodel asked.

“What?”

“You suddenly said ‘weird,’” she said.

I glanced at my profile menu and saw a new notification.

Skill acquired: Telepathy

“Oh, wow. No, uh, nothing’s weird, haha. Thank you so much for the gift,” I told Nodel, removing her from the party and dismissing all my menus. “I’m glad to have a token of our friendship,” I said. I was more glad to develop another free skill, but I didn’t say that part. I started wondering about the implications of telepathy, distracted, but then noticed Nodel beaming. I sighed, and set aside my thoughts for later. “Want to go get some lunch?”

* * *

The telepathy skill didn’t let me read people’s minds, nor did it let me communicate directly into other people’s minds. I couldn’t control anyone’s will. In fact, all it seemed to be able to do was allow me to communicate with Nodel, my only friend–according to the metasystem.

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I did feel like I could command my familiars with a thought, rather than spoken word, but that kind of felt like it was the case before, at least with Treepo. Maybe that was just our bond, strengthened from long-term taming, but now it was easier even with the new guys. It wasn’t reliable, though. Gregory would often sleep through it, whereas if I gave him a strong verbal command he would wake and mostly obey. But with both telepathy and taming as such weak skills, there could be a lot of potential down the line. It would certainly be easier, in a way, to command a group of familiars in battle with thoughts.

On the other hand, if the familiars started being able to send their thoughts to me, that could get irritating. I didn’t need Gregory badgering me for food telepathically.

A party would make attacking the dungeon significantly easier, but there was no way I could bring Nodel outside of town. That would be useful in the future, maybe, although I had to be careful not to tip my hand and reveal any non-standard powers to the world. As far as I knew, these powers weren’t possible with 4-point, 5-point, or 6-point magic, and that was the limit of known magic.

Except, of course, that it technically wasn’t. Even if it were underused and limited largely to farmers, taming was magic too, but was none of the above types. One could argue that taming was more like brewing potions or enchanting, which also used magic without being within the schools of magic circles. Enchanting built on magic circles, though. I wasn’t sure yet how exactly to classify all of that. I was sure there were other things which used MP but hadn’t been formalized in the modern theory of magic circles.

I remembered when I had talked to Vorel about 3-point and 8-point magic and he mentioned that 7-point magic hadn’t been possible for anyone, so it isn’t like it was entirely untested, it just didn’t exist. Or rather, it didn’t exist, yet. Once upon a time in this land, there were no magic circles, and only spells.

Perhaps, using what I knew, I could develop new magic. Would that be the right thing to do, though? Could I even do it? Even if I could, should I do it? Vorel had said people died trying to figure out 7-point magic, but more than that, people could die just by trying to do 6-point magic without knowing the finer details, and it was even possible to over-tax your MP with 4-point magic. Nodel might be a prodigy, for whatever reasons, but as a regular kid I once shot an earth bullet too hard and almost passed out. If I did develop new magic, people could die trying to learn it. I would have to consider this very carefully. I would first need to learn more about what works and doesn’t work with current magic circles.

* * *

Thoughts of new and powerful magic were overwhelming. Whatever I would end up doing, one thing was obvious: I needed to get stronger. The more powerful I became, the more MP I had to work with, and the safer it would be for me to attempt larger and more intricate spells.

I had a clear goal in mind, short-term, which was to try and defeat the rank D dungeon I had discovered in Mirut Jungle. Now that I had evolved beasts, I hoped I would be better able to rely on them in battle. Evolution reset their levels and gave them more room to grow, so the first order of business would be to get Treepo and Birdo back to level 10, and ideally get myself to level 12 so I could strengthen my own skills.

Treepo’s paw strikes and hind kicks were significantly more powerful now, and he had enough HP that he could take some hits without being at such a high-risk of getting killed. As he and Birdo were earning significantly less experience on the rank F beasts I had mostly limited them to before, it was time for them to properly commit to fighting rank E beasts. That meant they would be mostly fighting their former main predators and beasts of similar strength.

I watched, taking a pure support role, as Treepo engaged in battle with a striking vipis, the beast which would have happily feasted on him when he was smaller and weaker. It was amazing to see him hold his own against the snake-mantis creature. Gregory napped on my shoulder, completely unfazed by the battle his peers were engaged in.

A vipis was largely an ambush predator, so once it was exposed, it was much more limited in what it could do. Its forelegs were deadly, but if one could get behind them, they weren’t particularly well armored or quick. Treepo and Birdo tag-teamed the beast, Treepo luring it into attacks and opening up opportunities for Birdo to swoop in and carve up the predator’s main body with its talons. After each strike, the vipis was moving slower and slower, losing blood and losing leg functionality as the limbs took damage. Treepo had only been cut once, and a mild cut at that.

I applauded the pair when the vipis hit the ground, all HP lost to the duo. “Well done, you two!” I said. Treepo ran over and I rubbed his head, and Birdo swooped down to land on a nearby branch, a proud look in the bird’s eye. “Let’s dismantle that thing and turn it into lunch,” I said, pointing at the dead vipis.

After grilling and eating some vipis steaks on the beach, enjoying the midsummer weather and the sound of the ocean lapping against the sand, I contemplated next steps. The two beasts had developed a working strategy against a vipis, and they were still gaining EXP, but in the dungeon this kind of tactic would be insufficient. In order to challenge the two, we would have to seek out a griffator or two and make sure they could hold their own against the formidable fighter.

Even if the familiars easily took care of such an enemy, it would probably take weeks, if not months, to get them fully leveled. It would likely be fall or even winter before we could comfortably try to clear the dungeon. I leaned back in the sand, looking up at the bright blue sky and the large, beautiful gas giant this world orbited.

Slow and steady, I thought to myself. Nothing to it but to do it.

* * *

“Behind you, Treepo!” I shouted to my familiar.

Treepo grunted, rolled out of the way of the swinging branch attack, and spun, screaming at his ratman attacker. Birdo was holding back another, keeping them from ganging up on the high treehopper. He lept, landing on the ratman’s face, and kicking off hard while tearing at the creature’s scalp. The ratman fell, and Treepo pounced again, ensuring that it was finished off. Birdo slashed a talon at the other ratman’s throat, finishing off the battle. They had taken out the whole group on their own.

I walked over, healing them both up, and checked their stats. “That did it! You’re both level 10 now!” I congratulated the familiars.

It had taken even longer than I had thought. I forgot how much time it could take a beast to gain thousands of experience points, especially without the ability to cheat by eating higher ranked beast meat. The only higher ranked beasts I knew of in the jungle were in the dungeon, where the corpses were consumed by the dungeon itself, so we were limited to grinding and eating other rank E beasts. Ratmen might be rank E, but only because they worked together and used some simple tools. Individually, they were significantly weaker than the predators which had mostly migrated south for winter, and experience had been hard to acquire, save for the occasional one which stuck around to take on the ratmen.

I was eight years old, level 12, and now had two level 10 rank E familiars. And I had Gregory, who was rank F, who mostly ate all our meat and slept, but it didn’t hurt to have a mascot.

I had put most of my level 12 SP into advancing one-armed, with the remaining points distributed into detect, stealth, and acrobatics, to get a little bit more of an edge in combat.

I opened up my stat and skill menus and looked over how far we had come.

Pilus Horgson (Lv 12)

HP: 131/131

MP: 144/162

Status: Absorption (minor), Protection (minor)

EXP: 439/1200

Skills: 4-Point Magic(+), 5-Point Magic(+), 6-Point Magic(+), Acrobatics, Appraisal(+), Brewing, Butchery, Cooking, Detect, Inventory(+), Literacy, Map, Needlework, Negotiation, One-Armed(+), Ranged, Stealth, Taming, Tanning, Telepathy, Two-Armed, Unarmed

Familiars: High Treehopper (Lv 10), Flying Nodmouse (Lv 10), Rainbow Vicaw (Lv 10)

It was time to conquer the dungeon.