Now, to begin your education on everything I know about the system.” Adam paused, tapping his fingers against the side of the boat while he thought. “Hmm, now where to begin. At the beginning is as good a place as any, I suppose. Now when a man and a woman love each other very much…”

“Daad!” Jim quickly stops him, embarrassment underlying every word. “You gave me the talk last year! I don’t need to hear this again.” It’s unspoken but the implication is that having Gladys there makes the situation ten times more awkward.

“I’m glad you remember it so well, son. There will be annual quizzes to make sure you don’t forget anything important.” Adam jokes back, before returning to a more serious note. “Making babies isn't the only way for new people to come here though. Some irreverent sailors refer to our world as ‘The Leftovers’, all the bits and pieces that didn’t get used when the gods were making the rest of the universe. If you get around enough you’ll get an idea of what they’re talking about. Some of the seas I’ve sailed across have no business even existing, let alone being right next to each other out there. Places where the air gets so heavy the ship starts to float through the sky, places where everything but the water is frozen over, places where there is no wind or tide.” For a moment Adam seemed lost in his memory, before returning to the present and his eager audience of two. Gladys had already heard this all before, and was busying herself with some sort of handicraft that clicked occasionally.

“The point is that sometimes things from those other worlds find their way through to our world. I don’t know how it happens, but it does. And when these strangers arrive here, they sometimes bring things with them. New foods or animals, sometimes new magics, or strange abilities. A long time ago, someone arrived with what he called 'The System'. His gift was unique in that he could share it. Other travelers were able to pass down their unique traits to their children on occasion, but this person had a way of giving his friends access to this gift of his as well. It didn’t do much, simply let them know when they were injured or tired, and let them keep track of each other more easily. But the more people who accepted the System to use for themselves, the more it began to grow.

"It gave everyone who used it knowledge and it took their knowledge in return. Eventually the System could act as a teacher, helping people learn to do things they wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn otherwise. Still, for all that it gave people knowledge, that was all it could do. Until one extremely bright mage figured out how to feed the System power. A single mage’s magic split over thousands of people was barely noticeable, but once the process was started, it too grew as people trickled their own power into the System as well.

"That was hundreds of years ago, and since then nothing much has changed. Every now and again someone has a bright idea of some sorts as to how they can make the system better, but nothing that any of the cities or colleges have tried ever made a difference. The system is mature now, done growing as far as they can tell.”

“Where did you learn all this? And why did you never tell me this before now?” Jim asked accusingly once his father reached a point where he could pause. I was curious too and tried to show my support for Jim’s question with a few well-timed slaps before returning to my rowing.

Adam didn’t answer immediately, taking his time to think over what exactly he wanted to share. “The first is a rather long story that I’ll fully share with you later, but in short one of my voyages was spent transporting some of those mental wizards who study this sort of thing. It was a calm journey, and I picked up quite a few things talking with them when I wasn’t on my work shift.”

He paused to see how Jim took that answer before continuing. “As for why I didn’t share this with you before now…”

Once again Adam trailed off. I got the feeling that he hadn’t planned this out as much as he might have wanted to. Then again, he probably thought he still had a few years to figure it out, more time for Jim to be a child. Then something happened that made a retired sailor decide to leave his home, and Jim had to grow up a lot faster than his parents would have liked. I still didn’t know what exactly had prompted them to move, but I was fascinated by the hints I was getting into Adam’s history. This is a man who had sailed the seven seas, or however many there actually were in this strange world. But I was pulled from my thoughts as it seemed that Adam had decided on the honest and straightforward approach.

“I simply didn’t want to get your hopes up. While most people in this part of the shoreline have access to the System, not everyone does, and it’s markedly rarer if you head inland. Some people have other gifts that they use instead of the System that do similar things. Some species just aren’t compatible with it. Others simply are unwilling to connect to something else at such a deep level. Some people just don’t get lucky.” Adam shrugged, the gesture sending the boat swaying lightly for a moment.

“It’s life, and now that I’ve covered the history of the system, it’s time to talk about how the System works. There are three main parts of the System, even if they all relate to each other to some degree. You have your Class, your Attributes, and your Skills.

“The Class is probably the most important part of the System, and the one that is the most difficult to explain. The best description I’ve heard is that a person’s Class is the intersection of their past, present and future. Not a very clear definition, but classes are loose enough that a strict description doesn’t work. Every person gets an initial choice of three classes that draw from those three categories in some way or combination. Sometimes it’s a Class to represent who they believed they were at a better time in their life, a Class to represent who they are at that very moment, and a Class that corresponds to their deepist desire of who they wish they could become. Other times it’s one Class that contains their past and present, with two exclusive classes for different choices heading forwards.

“”It’s tempting to pick your class right away, so you can start getting the benefits of it. If that’s what you want to do, then go ahead. None of the choices available to you will be truly harmful, you just might find yourself later on in life at a place where you’ve changed faster than your class can keep up with you. If I could go back I would have done things differently, but you’ll have to make your own choice without me telling you what to do, Jim.”

“How do I know which is the right one, Dad?” Jim asked.

“You take a few days or weeks to think it over, you talk to friends and family, and try and learn as much as possible so that you have a clear idea of what you want out of your class. You won’t know what surprises life has in store for you until they arrive, but knowing what you want out of your class from the start will go a long way towards making sure you don’t have later regrets.

"Knowing what you want is important because classes aren’t static objects. As you grow and change over time, they’ll grow with you. So while you can work to change any class into what you want it to be, it’s easier if you have a good starting point.

"Classes give you attributes every level, Skills every five levels, and redefine themselves every ten levels. Every five levels the experience cost doubles, so most people reach a point where they let their level plateau and decide that they’d rather spend their experience improving their Skills directly.”

“What is experience? I’ve heard enough people talking to know that it’s a thing, but I still don’t know how exactly it works.” Jim interrupted.

“”Experience is the currency that the System uses to keep the exchange between it and you equal. As you experience life, it changes you, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly. The System is able to share in a fraction of that change and growth, and provides Experience Points in return.”

It mostly matches up with what I had heard Lirillin talk about, even if it doesn't take into account those supposed factors of Impact, Intent, and Involvement. It's interesting to see how much motive force Adam attributes to the System, making it out to be something intelligent in and of itself, while Lirillin seemed to view it only as an underlying mechanism.

Adam doesn’t stop talking while I compare the two men. “It’s easy to get experience while you are young and trying out new things for the first time, so be aware that the amount of experience you get will slow down as time goes on. Some people try to compensate for this by trying riskier and riskier ventures, but it never ends well for them. Hopefully, by the time you’re getting less experience you will already be happy with the benefits that the System provides for you.”

Here Adam paused, his tone becoming solemn. “If there’s one lesson that I want you to leave here remembering, it is simply this: The system does not make you a better person. The history of the System, the underlying mechanics, some suggestions I have for good skills to learn early on; those things are nice, but I want to make sure you never forget that the System does not make you a better person.”

“That’s it?” Jim asked skeptically. “The System doesn’t make me a better person?”

“That’s it.” Adam confirmed. “It’s a rule that’s both easy to say and difficult to live by. The system grew over time to become what it is, and as you grow up with it you’ll find that it helps you grow in similar ways. It can help you become a better sailor, or a stronger fighter. You can turn yourself into a master chef or a skilled artisan. Just about anything you set your mind to, odds are good that the System has some way of making your goal more attainable. And it’s so very easy to think that the power and aptitude it gives you means something. But at the end of the day, it’s just power. Power gives you the ability to do many things. But the motivation and wisdom to use that power in the right ways must come from yourself.”

Adam let that idea sink in for a moment. “A level thirty sailor might be more capable than a level five sailor. He’ll have skills that let him dance around the rigging and never lose his footing, even in the worst of storms. He can arm wrestle a Kraken and go on a five-month voyage without blinking. It’s easy to compare him to that younger, newer sailor, and find the higher level one to be superior. He’s certainly the one I’d want to have on my crew if I were sailing. But just because he’s a better sailor doesn’t make him a better person. Hell, the odds are pretty good that he’s probably jaded and cynical from everything he’s seen and been through.

"So I want you to remember how you’re treated by others now, while you’re just starting your adult life. Don’t make promises of revenge, or shy away from interacting with others. But when the shoe is on the other foot, once you’re the one with levels and abilities that others can’t match. I want you to remember how you felt, and to do better.”

I’ll try.” Jim promised.

“Good, good.” Adam coughed, realizing things had turned slightly more serious than he had intended. “Now where was I? Right! Classes give you attributes every level, which you can use to improve yourself in all ways. At first you have complete freedom with what you want to invest in improving, but every level will lock in some of those choices permanently. By level five you will only have one free attribute, and four that correspond with how you spent all the previous attributes leading up to that point. From then on out that pattern will stay the same, with an additional locked attribute point given after every tenth level.

"The most important benefit of classes are the specialized skills. While it’s possible to put in the time and work to unlock Skills of your own choosing, your class will give you Skills both at the start and every fifth level after. These skills are specifically tailored to you, and will help meet a need or desire that you have at the time of levelling up. Due to the increasing cost of levels, it’s not uncommon for people to either spend most of their time just before getting a new skill from the system, so that they have easy access if they need a new tool to solve an unforeseen issue, or to stop investing in levels immediately after getting a skill. The attribute points for the other levels are helpful, but they provide diminishing returns as your stats increase.

"That about covers it for basic information about classes. Oh! The name of your class will change every ten levels as well, as a sign of the growth that has taken place over that period.

"Classes, Attributes, and Skills. Attributes are the System’s way of improving your body, mind and soul. They do not do any single specific thing, but simply make you more. The four attributes that everyone possesses are Body, Mind, Spirit, and Perception, sometimes referred to as sight. While there isn’t any actual overlap between what different attributes improve, many of their benefits are complementary. Perception might govern your ability to absorb information, to more easily take in the world around you, but it pairs well with having a strong mind able to determine what is important or not from what your senses are telling you. Having a high body will not only improve your strength and speed, but will give you sharper eyes and keener ears, allowing you to hear and see more. It’s not a bad idea to have a good spread of improvements to your attributes, but more than one of my past compatriots has been tempted by the lure of focusing their improvements into a single attribute. It feels good to be stronger than anyone else, or to be able to run around blindfolded.

"Skills make up the largest category of benefits that the System provides. While a class is personal, and attributes are universal, skills are communal. Every skill is shared between all the people who have it, giving them power that isn’t completely theirs. The Class is just a method the System uses to guide growth, and Attributes are a refinement of self, but Skills let you draw on other people’s knowledge and ability, at least at first. As time goes on and as you use the Skill you’ll find that they become more and more familiar. It’s just like learning anything else, except that instead of having to do all the learning first before you can get it right, the System guarantees that you’re correct from the start, and lets you work your way up to the point where it no longer needs to help you. Once you’ve reached that point you have the option of evolving the Skill in question, changing it into something more, and letting the System help you figure it out all over again. Most of the time it’s not worth the effort and experience cost of evolving a Skill. If you have a Skill that lets you bake bread, then you’re probably gonna be happy if all it does is bake bread. Combat Skills are the ones most likely to be evolved, as it provides that additional bit of edge in any struggle.”

Jim thinks things over for a bit, before asking a question that comes as a surprise to both me and Adam. “Dad, what did you do before running the sawmill? You’ve never mentioned your past before, or told any stories about it. I just thought you had lived someplace boring just like Timberfall, but now you're telling me about these sights and things like you have personal knowledge of them. Who are you, Dad?”

I forced myself to keep rowing, even as all my attention focused in on Adam, waiting for his answer.

“I won’t lie to you, Son.” He said calmly. And I could feel Jim tense up on top of me, eager to hear whatever Adam said next. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll tell you everything. I was a sailor, once. Spent most of my life on the water. But I gave that life up when I settled down with your mother.. I know you want the details, and I do want to share them with you, but not now. You’ll have a hard enough time figuring out what you want to do with your future without my accomplishments and expectations hanging over you.”

“But!” Jim’s protests were cut short before they could even begin.

“I want you to be Jim; my talented son who I am so proud of, not Adam Jr; reborn again to sail the seas. My only expectation for you is that you do your best, whatever that might be and wherever it might take you. Someday, we can sit down again, share a drink together, father and son, and I will tell you everything you want to know. But I love you too much to do so now.”

The boat rocked, and from Jim’s grumbling it becomes apparent that Adam had taken him up in a hug. Soon he quieted back down, and the two men shared a tender moment.

“What your father isn’t telling you is that he loves the way you look up to him. He’s done his best to be a good man for your sake, and doesn’t want to risk any of that once you find out about his history.” Gladys interrupts the two, dryly sharing her own perspective.

Jim gasps at his mother’s revelation, while Adam groans.

“Your Mom isn’t wrong. My advice to keep yourself grounded against the power of the System comes from first-hand experience. And without you and her I would be a poor man indeed. I thought I had it all figured out, had everything going for me, only for it to all vanish in an instant. Everything I had worked for, had built my life around, amounted to nothing.”

Adam paused to gauge his son’s reaction to this new information.

“Since I had to start from scratch anyways, I decided to try something different. Haven’t regretted a thing.” A quick kiss is heard as he silently forgave Gladys for spilling one of his secrets.

“Those soldiers.” Jim spoke slowly, putting together pieces and past interactions even as he formed the words he was saying. “They weren’t just there to conscript me, were they.”

“Ha!” Adam barked. “If the Duke had any idea of my history he would have sent someone else entirely. I did a very good job of getting rid of any clues that might tie Adam the mill owner back to my past. There just aren’t that many other kids in Timberfall for them to collect to meet their quota, and most of the others have enough history in the area to make them less appealing targets. Of course, they can’t just leave it all behind when it comes down to brass tacks either.”

“Here.” I hear the sound of rummaging as Adam grabs a few things out of one of his bags. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but there’s no rush. We’ve still got a day or two to reach the cities at this pace. Whittle away while you think things over, and if you have any questions for me in an hour or two, we can talk about them then."

I continue to row as the pair settle into their hobbies, discussion finished for the moment. On one hand, nothing that Adam had shared was truly novel. The System was intuitive enough that most of his explanation was simply confirmation of what I had already deduced firsthand. Knowing more about my class though, that was both new and useful. The doubling of experience every five levels would quickly get out of hand, and now I had a better idea of why Lirillin had paused his own levelling. To focus on skills. Sitting just under level thirty, it would take an enormous 32,000 experience for every level from twenty-six to thirty, with the only reward for most of those levels being nothing but seven attribute points.

It was a harsher price curve than I had been expecting, especially since my own personal experience had only covered the first few levels where the price stayed the same. It meant that I would need to evaluate any longer-term plans with the assumption that I would have a limited number of levels and attribute points to distribute. At some point it simply wouldn’t be cost effective to continue investing in levels, no matter how tantalizing those perfectly tailored Skills might be.

On the other hand, while these limitations might be strict, they also went a long way towards ensuring my safety. The system wasn’t completely universal, since it sounded like quite a few people didn’t have access to it, and Adam hadn’t even mentioned the possibility of any monsters using it to improve their own capabilities. More than that, the steep cost of higher levels meant that there would be a soft cap as to how much power the System provided to its bearers. I didn’t have to worry about some level one-thousand king out there demolishing me with an idle thought. No, my problems were limited to more or less regular people and monsters in a fantasy world, obstacles that could be overcome, albeit with some difficulty.

And speaking of sea monsters, my Active Sonar proved its worth for the first time, alerting me to the presence of a large object underwater moving towards me at high speed. As I stopped rowing and began to move my oars to warn my passengers the monster entered the range of my Saltwater Sense. Even viewed as just a void it was horrifying. It had multiple spindly limbs, segmented and angular enough that I wasn’t comfortable calling them tentacles despite their length and flexibility. These legs seemed to have the ability to anchor themselves in the water somehow, letting the monster drag its body forwards towards one set of limbs while further sets reached out to secure its next foothold while still more legs flailed about as they reached for potential prey.

I could feel it when one of those legs came into contact with me as I suddenly froze. There was a filmy sensation that covered my entire hull, a possessive magic that kept me still while the spider maneuvered itself around me. Some fingerlike appendages stretched out from its leg and spread across my hull, only to retreat a moment later. This strange monster was apparently smart enough to know that wood didn’t make for a good meal, which relieved me about my personal safety while still boding ill for the family inside me. It was only a matter of seconds before the creature would come across them, after all.

"In the water!"

Fortunately they weren't idly waiting around, oblivious to their future demise. Gladys was quietly panicking, while Jim seemed focused on keeping track of where the monster was. His running commentary completely covered up the noise of whatever Adam was doing, and I had to hope that between the three of them they could drive the monster away somehow.

Being frozen had numbed most of my sense of touch, but I still felt it when Adam pulled my left oar out of its socket. He had spotted the monster before it had found and attacked them, and was preparing to do something about it. Blind and helpless as I was, I simply waited, hoping that his hidden strength would be enough to keep him and the others safe.

“[Power Stroke]”

I was a novice to using Skills, relying mostly on the aid that the System provided to make them work. I had been able to observe Lirillin work his magic, and had gotten a better appreciation for the depth of knowledge present in skills from it, but Lirillin by his own admission was someone working to improve his skills and their potential.

Adam wasn’t in either category. He had gathered a lifetime of experience before his sudden retirement, and despite never using his skills since then that didn’t mean they had grown rusty or weak. When Adam invoked his Power Stroke, I watched in awe as the oar began to swing, the droplets of saltwater outlining it's determined descent. This was a technique that had been used a million times to help propel a boat through water, had been mastered fully and then had been taken further than ever before, possibly multiple times. Adam’s current strike made my attempts to use Power Strike seem laughable. I was concerned with simply making sure I could hit harder than usual, but Adam knew with assurance that his stroke would land in the right place, with enough power. What he focused on when using the skill was movement.

Most oars could grab and move the water only around the flat blade, and even then a fair amount managed to slip around the oar when it moved. Adam defied that logic, and as he brought his oar downwards it pulled the very sky along with it. Further than I could feel, further than my intuitive sense of skills could interpret the air surged downwards following that slender piece of wood, and made contact with the ocean hard enough to make everything still for a moment.

The creature underneath me might be a sea monster, and a terrifying one at that, but it still belonged in the sea. It had no idea Adam's attack was coming until it had already hit, and by then it was too late.

Water is almost incompressible. The force that Adam delivered was kept from dispersing by his will still keeping it held together. The creature had the unique experience of suddenly being the softest object in the area, and how that tied into the path of least resistance. In a split second it was pulped flat by a wall of water looking to transfer the motive force behind it, and a split second later my hull felt that same force. Pushing only underneath me, I was shot out into the air like a cork from a bottle, and after hanging weightlessly for an endless second, fell back into the water with a final splash. I could still make out the vague outline of the creature, but it was already breaking apart, no longer able to hold itself together.

A few moments later I felt Adam return my oar to its proper place, triggering the automotive enchantments to begin moving once again. I let them, still in shock as to what I had witnessed.

“[Quick Cleaning]”

Gladys broke the stillness of the moment, using a casual skill to clean her husband off.

“A bit less force, next time, dear.” She requested, as if what he had done was nothing out of the ordinary.

Me and Jim didn’t have anything to say to that. Adam did. “Yes, honey.” He answered.

The powerful batsman chuckled, as if a humorous thought had just come to him. “This is why I let your mother handle the spankings, you know.”

Jim giggled in disbelief at the thought of being on the receiving end of one of those swings, which slowly morphed into full blown laughter as the stress of the situation caught up to them and slowly faded away. I couldn’t laugh, but I too felt more relaxed as I continued on my voyage. I might not be able to handle sea monsters by myself, but I had the feeling there wouldn’t be any more problems on this voyage.