Micah woke up on the bench, the Sun beating down into his eyes and his heart racing. Quickly, he sat up trying to process the events of last night. He only knew one person with a Rare blessing, and that was from an intermediate God. Stanley had been immediately recruited as an apprentice by Basil’s Cove’s Arch Wizard.

He shivered in the chill morning air as he imagined what sort of favorable treatment he’d receive with a Mythic Blessing from a Major deity. There’s no question that the guilds in Basil’s Cove would start a bidding war over his services. They might even send him to the Capital to train with the high nobility. Images of dreamy princesses, heaps of magical items, looted dungeons and slain monsters flashed through Micah’s vision as he sat still, grinning like an idiot.

“Status,” he said, unable to resist any longer. His vision blurred and the status screen came up, a light blue roll of papyrus covered in tight and efficient lettering just as Trevor described.

Micah Silver

XP -

HP 10/10

Age 16

Class and Level

-

-

Attributes

Body 5

Agility 5

Mind 9

Spirit 8

Attunement

Moon 5

Sun 2

Night 4

Affinities

Time 10

Wood 6

Air 5

Blessings

Mythic Blessing of Mursa

Blessed Return

Ageless Folio

Skills

Fishing 1

Librarian 3

Spear 2

Spellcasting 2

Micah nodded to himself. More or less average physical attributes combined with a strong mind and spirit. About what he had expected. The only real abnormality was his affinities. Unlike other attributes and skills, affinities were more or less considered static. Although an affinity could be changed through powerful rites of magic, the difficulty and expense of such rituals meant that they were rarely performed.

Instead, a spellcaster was more or less defined by their starting affinities. That wasn’t to say that a caster couldn’t make do with weaker affinities, but affinities determined the mana efficiency of a caster’s magic as well as the speed that they learned new spells. Theoretically, a scrappy spellcaster could make do with weak affinities and perseverance, but in practice affinities served as a sort of soft ceiling on a caster’s abilities. His affinities in Wood and Air weren’t bad, slightly above average as dedicated spellcasters usually had affinities in the 4-5 range. The Wood affinity in particular marked him as a potentially above average healer. Useful, but not nearly enough to justify a Mythic blessing.

The 10 affinity in Time was something else. According to Ansom’s books, Time and Order/Chaos were the two primal fields of magic, much rarer and more powerful than their elemental counterparts, but poorly understood due to their rarity. Order/Chaos wasn’t an unheard of affinity, albeit usually only welded at exceedingly low affinities by archwizards.

The only problem was that all of their spells were incredibly powerful and hard to utilize. Even with a 10 affinity, there was almost no way that Micah would be able to learn Time magic without years of experience and the levels that went with it. Worse, given the magic’s rarity, the chances that Micah would find anyone able to tutor him in Time magic were just about nil. Although the strength and rarity of his affinity marked Micah as a potential prodigy, it existed just past his grasp, taunting him.

His attunements were much more standard. Awarded by the three Major Gods for acts done in their service, each attunement was associated with its own mana pool, the size and regeneration of which depended on a combination of Micah’s level and attunement. Night, Sun, and Moon mana all had slightly different properties when applied to spellcasting. Micah’s Moon mana worked well for all three affinities while the Night mana was only really useful for Air spells. As for the Sun mana? It was better than nothing and he could use it as currency in a pinch.

Currency. Micah sighed. If he couldn’t catch the eye of some noble with his Mythic blessing, he’d need to find a way to earn attunement sooner or later. All exchanges required either a barter of goods or an exchange of attunement. Daily goods usually only cost slivers of an attunement, a tenth of a point or less, but expensive objects such as enchanted weapons easily ran into the dozens of points. Even if he could barely use Sun mana, Sun attunement was the primary currency in human kingdoms. At least there it could be some use to him.

Finally, Micah called up the descriptions of his blessing. His face fell, as his elation over his abilities left him like the water from a shattered pot.

Blessed Return

Casting time: 1 minute

The user casts their cognition through time back into their own body, five years in the past. Their level, affinities, and attunement are all set to the level they were at five years ago. Skills are not reset allowing the user to travel back in time with their skills at their current level. This ability is only usable once every five years (subjective time). 1/1 uses available.

Ageless Folio

Bound Item

The Ageless Folio takes the form of a tattoo on the user’s wrist. The user may freely withdraw the Folio, which takes the form of a thin book, at will. While holding the Folio the user learns skills 20% faster and all of their thoughts are recorded automatically in their own hand. The Folio has an infinite number of pages and the user instinctively knows on which page any information rests. Notes taken in the Folio will remain in the Folio even if the user utilizes Blessed Return allowing the user to retain notes from a previous life. The Folio is blank when bestowed upon the user.

How in the hells was this Mythic? Clearly the ability was powerful, anything that allowed someone to wind and coil time like a rope was insanely potent. Useful? That was a different question.

Theoretically he could go back five years and train his skills, but Micah didn’t even know how that would work. Humans only gained access to their status screen at the age of sixteen. If he were to travel to when he was eleven he wouldn’t even have any way of tracking his progress. Of course, he’d have to give up everything. His body, his attunements, any levels he earned. They would all be thrown away for the uncertain chance that the next iteration of his life would somehow yield a better result.

It was powerful in theory, but the idea of having to live his childhood once again, drew a shudder from Micah. He needed adventure, to defeat monsters and conquer dungeons until his aura was fat and heavy with attunement. Returning to his eleventh birthday only to be scolded by his mother for every perceived misdeed was the exact opposite of what he craved.

He groaned, wondering what Ankros’ blessing would have been. The God of Darkness and Struggle wasn’t a popular subject in human kingdoms. The fact that he openly antagonized humans, sending monsters and barbaric Durgh after them so that humanity could ‘hone itself in combat’ against his children didn’t earn the God many friends.

Even that life of isolation and distrust would be acceptable if he had a proper Mythic blessing. For every blessed individual, their blessing was the core of their identity. A unique ability or skill that set them apart from others and gave them an advantage in combat. In every story of legend, the hero’s blessing was their signature move.

Rasdar the Bold had the Mythic ability to create a great dragon from flame that he could control with his mind. Nissia the Usurper could control the flow of all liquids, including the blood inside her opponent’s bodies. Even an Uncommon ability would let someone ignore poison, summon a powerful bound weapon or strike someone with their minds.

Micah? He had a book that helped him learn faster and an ability that he couldn’t use without sacrificing everything. Admittedly, the book was useful as a utility skill, but its power was far from Mythic.

At least he had two skill ranks in spears and spellcasting. With a little bit of wood and air magic he could become a neophyte battlemage and offer his services to an adventuring guild. Most of them were looking for people capable of casting healing spells and Micah could already hold his own against low level beasts even without any magic.

“Micah!” Esther screamed, running out into the garden and jumping onto him, careful to avoid the tomatoes for fear of raising their Mother’s ire. “You weren’t in bed! Did you get a blessing? Tell me what you have!”

He rocked back from her onslaught blankly before smiling wanly. It’s true that his ability wasn’t properly Mythic, but the book alone wasn’t that bad. It was certainly better than the frequently mundane Common abilities.

“I guess Mursa spotted me studying magic all day so she gave me a book,” Micah did his best to crack a smile, summoning the Ageless Folio for Esther to see. It didn’t look all that impressive. The book had cracked and battered covers, inlaid with basic geometric designs and wrapped around a handful of yellowing sheets of paper.

“Does it have spells or some sort of lost secret knowledge,” Esther looked skeptically from the book to Micah. “You promised that you’d at least get an Uncommon ability. I bet Sandy chores for a week. If I lose, you’re going to be the one doing those chores”

“It is Uncommon,” Micah’s face strained under the weight of his forced cheer. “It gives me a 20% increase to learning skills and it has infinite space for taking notes. With this I’ll be able to save years worth of research in becoming a wizard.”

“You have affinities then?” Esther’s eyes were sparkling once again as she snuggled up against Micah.

“Wood 6 and Air 5,” Micah nodded at her. Desperately he wanted to tell her everything, pour out his grievances over his decent but underwhelming skillset, but he knew better. Anything he told Esther, her best friend Sandy would know within hours. The rest of the street would be in on the secret twenty four hours after that. It had certainly happened before.

If Micah wanted to avoid everyone mocking him over his more or less useless ability, that was the only choice. Already he could hear it. “Mythic Micah.” Gods, it even alliterated. He’d never be able to live a name like that down.

“Super cool Micah!” Esther jumped up from his lap, narrowly avoiding the tomatoes. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad right away! They’ll be so excited. Two Uncommons. Wait until Sandy hears that!”

He watched her scamper away, all energy and excitement. There was something about her enthusiasm that wore away at Micah. For one brief second he’d had the world laid out in front of him only to have it jerked away. He sighed.

No. It was time to stop dreaming about being a hero. The Mythic title was little more than a cruel prank, but the Goddess did provide him with the power and affinities he would need to carve a comfortable life for himself. He took a breath, reorienting his expectations. He would never be a champion of freedom and justice rubbing shoulders with the nobility, but it was well within his power to help the local guilds clear the nearby dungeons and retire to research like Keeper Ansom.

He smiled weakly to himself as he got up from the bench, smothering the dreams he hadn’t dared to articulate even two days ago. From inside the house his mother called out to alert everyone that breakfast was ready. His blessing might not be what he longed for, but they were certainly better than what a lot of people made do with.

He smiled weakly to the empty garden. Maybe if he kept repeating that to himself he’d even start to believe it.

Micah glanced toward the door inside and thought of his Mother. As disappointed as he was, at least he received a blessing. Sighing, he walked into the house, trying to make plans for his future.