Where is it? I should have come across whatever that light was minutes ago… Tercius hummed as he tried to use parts of his vision to peer through the homogeneous gray fog— without much success. I must have missed it.

He knew how difficult it was to keep a straight line during a proper fog from personal experience. It was almost like walking straight while blindfolded.

There was a lake near his little cabin, back on Earth. At certain times year-round, when proper conditions for such things arose, his little private piece of heaven would get covered by a roving blanket of white fog. The cover of moisture would bind itself to the proud evergreens, seemingly refusing to leave the valley.

At times, even Tercius who was intimately familiar with the valley and the surroundings would get lost and had to use the landscape to navigate. Here he had no landscape.

I do have a compass, though, he thought as he gave his focus to the messages. A compass, of sorts.

From top to bottom, there was Small Blade Mastery, Dexterity, Sneaking, Acting, and finally Familiar Bond.

Tercius focused on thinking about Dexterity, just like he did with Quick Learner, and gave his answer, Yes.

The message from the top, the one about Small Blade Mastery, disappeared from his view.

For a fraction of an instant, Tercius was frozen. What?! Tercius’s eyes went wide. But, but, but… That was my No skill… Not Yes—

A loud and clear pop occurred to his right and Tercius' original intention reasserted itself at the forefront of his mind and he turned just in time to see a large, bright but brief, flash of white light.

His mind was still reeling from the loss of the 'No' skill, and the fact that he would have to use another skill for that purpose when something glowy sped away with a frightening speed from the light's direction and a moment later the world shook.

Tercius did not dare move a centimeter from where he stood.

His mind was a mess.

Now I have to use another skill as a subject for the ‘No’ experiment, Tercius took a moment to compose himself. Stuff happens, move on. You learned something new, move on.

Only four messages remained in front of his eyes. I’m keeping Dexterity and Familiar Bond, so either Sneaking or Acting.

Small Blades Mastery, he invoked the skill with some distaste and the description appeared below the four new skill messages.

Small Blade Mastery (1)

The speed with which you gain familiarity with the tool is increased, while the skill is in use. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of use by a small degree.

Weapon Mastery skills were accelerators of learning speed for the first 40 levels, according to Lux, with interesting effects only occurring when someone passed that barrier.

Passing that barrier often meant gaining some kind of addition to their attack weapon or defense, mostly elemental kind of addition.

Lessons about mana affinities from Master Lazarus surged through his mind, very briefly.

A shield lined with stone and a white crystal covering a steel sword…

Mastery skills were one of the more popular sacrificial skills for the simple reason of being known far and wide. From pauper to Emperor, supposedly, everyone used some kind of Mastery skill.

Tercius felt as if this skill was redundant to him. Sure, he had enjoyed throwing knives, but…

He willed the description away, and only the four skill messages were left. So I need to accept or decline them from top to bottom. That would have been useful info a minute ago…

He started to move in the direction where that light came from and a few minutes later spotted a glimpse of the reason for which he came over.

Small flashes of color caught the clear part of his vision. A gray shape of some kind, large and rapidly expanding as he neared it. Blended into the gray fog, the shape was only visible because of twinkling rainbow lights that were all over it.

As he came closer, he amended his previous observation. With each step closer, the gray shape gained more visibility and started to curve both to the sides, and up and down.

A sphere. A giant gray sphere that made the tall eleven-year-old feel positively inferior.

Tercius tentatively raised a hand and gently touched the clear part of the gray surface— nothing happened. He could tell that the gray surface was as smooth as any finely processed metal he ever saw, just from a single glance. Probably even more. Tercius started walking around the sphere, noting its giant proportions and the multitude of different-colored objects that were attached all over the gray surface. These objects were the rainbow twinkles he saw from afar.

Crystals. Tracts of clear space existed between each crystal, with no apparent order. Some crystals grew in relatively close clusters, others completely alone. Some were green, others orange. Some blue, others purple. Crystals of all colors.

Hundreds of them.

They varied in sizes, shapes, and he noticed that the brightness of pulsing colors that each crystal had was different. The vast majority of the crystals he saw were of the fist-sized, simple-of-shape, dull-of-light variety. Tercius was surprised that they had color at all— in the world of gray fog only Cores had color, until now.

Is this where skills come from? Tercius thought in awe as he made a bold, yet not unfounded, assumption. Is this their assembly line? Their birthing chamber? Their sphere of creation?

The way gravity, or whatever its present equivalent was, functioned in this world was something very difficult to get accustomed to. First of all, its locus was always under Tercius. Always. He was able to move up, down, left, and right but gravity always pulled him towards where his feet were pointed. If he moved his feet vertically, suddenly vertical became horizontal.

In that way, he was always upright.

If he placed one leg up, as if he was going to step on a stair, he was able to move up— seemingly floating. Tercius changed planes of both vertical, horizontal, and diagonal variety and circled the complete sphere, fingers of one hand at all times caressing the smooth surface, as his eyes took in the hidden mystery. He was not as thorough as he would have liked to be, but he did notice something very eye-catching.

One… two… three… four… that one is the same as the first… that's the second, Tercius noted some extremely bright crystals in his circumvention of the sphere. Four very distinct, very bright, very large, crystals and four very persistent skill messages. A coincidence? So these crystals are skills? Infant skills? Seeds? Seeds! That's… wow…

He came near the brightest crystal and observed it. Reminiscent of blood, its red color pulsed with an eerie light. Tercius observed it from up close, noting its strange structure that was a mix of straight clean-cut shapes that grew out of some kind of lumpy, misshapen sharp-looking crystal patch of grass or moss of some kind.

It was beautiful.

Tercius tentatively touched it using just the tips of his fingers, tension stringing his hammering heart. Nothing happened. Tercius gave himself some distance from the sphere and just took in the whole picture into his eyes. Just the scenery was worthy of a good long-term memory. Too bad that it's marred by bold lettering all over it.

From his position, he was able to see three of those bright crystals including the red one, while the fourth crystal was placed on the other hemisphere and therefore placed in a blind spot. He had to take a small gamble, that had large odds in his favor.

Yes, he thought.

The large gray sphere lit up a bright white light for just a moment, and then it dimmed— leaving Tercius blind. He ignored the pain of the expected flash and moved past the temporary blindness, focusing his complete attention on his hearing. The popping sound that followed was the loudest Tercius ever heard, the proximity to the epicenter giving him a more focused experience. It wasn't a pop like he initially thought, Tercius realized. It was a crack of glass.

As his eyes slowly returned to normal he saw that the red crystal he used to observe had moved away from the gray sphere, a red trail leaking from the spot the crystal behind left. The shattering sound he heard was the sound of crystal as it snapped off the sphere.

In all of that jumble of action, one thing held his breath and complete attention. The red watery trail that followed the crystal.

Its mere presence felt powerful. The trail was… Tercius felt more alive just from being there. The trail was Energy, Tercius realized. He almost jumped to see why the Energy was red and only his buckling restraint held him back from trying to take a small sample with Energy Manipulation. He did not want to damage the skill, yet he desired to see what that Energy was. What had made it… 'more'. Why was it… 'more' than the other one.

All of the powerful red Energy streamed into the small crystal and as soon as it drank every drop of the precious resource, the crystal flew away with a ludicrous speed. It vanished into the foggy distance and a now-familiar sound echoed a few moments later as the land shook.

Tercius stood there, just basking in the pleasant presence he had felt. It took him a while to recover. That Energy felt like… he had no words to describe it. He was a statue, stuck in a moment of bliss that felt like an eternity of everything that ever was condensed into one infinitely small moment— it was SO difficult to shake off. It took all that he had, every scrap of control he could muster, just to get a grip on his bearings.

Dexterity, he thought, drunk on the sweet juices of the heavenly presence he felt.

Dexterity (1)

Your ability to perform closely controlled and purposeful physical movements is increased by a small amount, while the skill is in use. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of use by a small degree.

A useful skill to have, Tercius thought as he moved to where the crystal used to be and observed from up close. The wound was closing with visible speed, the jagged crystals covering the sphere before he was able to see what was beneath. Probably just the sphere's surface.

His eyes observed as the little patches of jagged crystals moved about, rearranging themselves in a more orderly way. He saw where new growth would come about. But the most interesting part about the whole thing was that the previously red crystal growth was now plain white, one familiar to him.

Are all of these crystals made of Energy? But… How is that possible? Tercius' mind whirled. There are hundreds of crystals on this thing… Is this because of my special circumstances? Did the abundance of Energy in me lead to this? Or is this something that occurs to everyone?

Tercius' eyes grew round. Is this why people take longer to gain new skills? It's not because of old age… well… not precisely, not biologically speaking. All of these additional crystals suck up all the available Energy, is that it? Like leeches…

There was a saying Tercius often heard from Rona, a little bit of folk wisdom that the wise woman was prone to share.

Be it success or failure, we always learn a little something from everything. Everything shapes us.

Everything shapes us, those words repeated themselves time after time as he looked from crystal to crystal. Tercius laughed as he looked at the crystals. Everything seems to be a tad too much.

He looked at the recovering white crystal moss and a memory of a lesson from his grandmother came to his mind. Pruning.

—His grandmother tapped a few branches with her long stick. "See how these obstruct the lower ones from getting sunlight? Say I were to remove them. What would that mean for the lower branches?"—

What would happen if I removed them? The question lingered on Tercius' mind as he looked at the crystals. He swiped at the messages, annoyed with their taciturn presence.

He dared not try to prune them now, no matter how much he wanted to. When he thought about it some more, he realized that he was not even sure how he would go about doing it. With some amusement he thought, I will need something special for this kind of garden. Crystal shears? A laser? Some kind of contained explosion?

Tercius focused on the sphere beneath the crystals. The patch of land on which the crystals grew on. When he accepted the skill, the sphere had lit up like a bonfire for a single instant.

Presumably, it was what had lit up those times when he gained the initial notification of the available skills, but he was not sure. The crystals did have a glow to them, and who was to say that they were not the ones who flashed when they… matured? Matured.

He looked at his remaining skill notifications. Stealth, Acting, and Familiar Bond.

The fact that the Familiar Bond was the last on the list made him breathe a little bit easier.

Just because of the word 'bond' he would wait to be near Amber before he accepted the skill. That just felt right.

He turned his attention to the two remaining skills. Assassin, or even a thief, came to mind as soon as he made a connection between the names. Useful to have, no doubt about it. It was a difficult decision, Terxius sighed.

He wanted to do a 'No' experiment to see what would happen in that case. Tercius was not sure how easy it would be to find this… Garden of Skills— the name seemed especially appropriate— in the future without the unique compass he had this time around.

Half an hour of running in a straight line, when he barely saw two meters ahead? He had missed the Garden of Skills by around six minutes of his considerable running speed and without his second skill acceptance— to guide him like a beacon— he would have had to go back at the start and do it again.

Maybe I can find a skill to help me with something like this? A map skill of some kind? A skill for orientation? Oh, a skill to measure time would be great. Maybe something like a minimap skill with a clock under it? Is that possible? Well, Visualization is in the right branch…

Tercius daydreamed of days long gone and some possibly yet to come, where a minimap was part of his life. Everything just to make the decision of choosing between the two skills a little bit further away.