[Reward: Unlock a low ranked skill of your choice.]

Confusion and anger roiled in my heart as I stared at the glowing blue box in the air. It hadn’t left my sight since the first night. I dreamt about it talking to me, whispering that they could give me power. That dream was a little too realistic for my tastes.

I know what’s happening here. I watched anime, and read light novels. This is a system. The kind I would see in a video game, never in real life. My body was still, and I could hear my parents snoring from across the house. I didn’t want to wake them up.

This was why they had been training me to say my first word. The semantics, the specialized fields, it was all to try and get me to unlock a good skill.

Why would the system put that responsibility on a baby? No newborn would understand what was happening.

I don’t think the parents understood either. Unless there was a way for them to check my system messages.

I wanted to think longer about my choice. I could even pretend to be a mute for a few years as I explored the options this world had. There was only one problem.

Mark of the Crijik (Passive): Level 1. Experience: 0.4%

The skill appeared in my mind every time I remembered the first night.

It was ingrained in my memory, a deep hole for an eye entering my vision, it’s body sealing a sun and stripping light from the world. My body shuddered when I remembered how I’d gotten this skill, but the real issue was that it was increasing in experience. That meant that skills could increase in level over time. I didn’t know what that meant for the skill’s power, but I didn’t want to wait a few years and then realize that I’d crippled myself by not leveling up my skill.

I waited a few days, but my parents had gone back to their usual routine. The only difference is that they would go out of the house for a few minutes every day, but they never took me.

I didn’t know what was important in the outside world. Maybe this place worshipped mathematicians. Or was filled to the brim with monsters. I went through the options in my mind. I wanted to be able to fight and be able to get a job if this was a modern society.

That means I just have to pick the right word to do both.

I couldn’t hold back a childish giggle at the thought. My throat hummed as I prepared it for my first word.

This is going to be fun.

“God.”

[Error: please select a low ranked skill.]

The response was immediate.

Okay. Being a god wasn’t on the table. That didn’t mean anything, I had plenty of options to try.

“Omnipotence.” My throat struggled with that word.

[Error: please select a low ranked skill.]

This was troubling. I was denying the reality of the words ‘low ranked’. There was no way the system would give a baby the power to become a god. Judging from what my mother had said during the first night, everyone had a system. I remembered finding myself in her arms, tears trickling over my skin. Emotions crashed together in my heart. Fright. Terror. The other babies had been carried away by their parents immediately after the illusion had ended.

I wonder what my mother and father picked. My father always carried an axe around with him. Maybe he’s a lumberjack. I’d never seen my mother do anything magical.

Angel, hero, savior, CEO, Superman. My other attempts failed as well. A puff of air escaped my lungs as I was faced with the reality that I wouldn’t be able to become as powerful as I wanted to be. This was a magical system, the stuff of legends. I didn’t want it to make me a financial planner or accountant. I wanted to do something magical with it.

The blue light mocked me as I thought of a solution to the issue. My lack of knowledge about the world wasn’t my only problem.

‘I don’t know what a low ranked skill is.’

The realization annoyed me more than it should have. I didn’t know if I would get another chance to pick a skill. If I picked incorrectly then it could affect my whole future.

I looked past the glowing blue box towards the ceiling. Colours etched into white paper swirled above me, threatening to fall down into my cot. My usual view of splinters and mold had changed dramatically to accommodate the terrible drawings my father had made. Each one was titled with a single word that he was hoping I would say.

My father’s fireball suggestion was starting to tempt me.

His drawings gave me an idea of what was possible. Magic. Real magic. This wasn’t a magician hiding his cards or sawing a woman in half. My father was telling me that I could conjure fire out of my hands.

It was strange that he focused on a single use. If I just said the word ‘fire’ I might be able to control the element itself.

Or would that be ‘fire manipulation’?

The existence of magic made me think that there had to be mana. I had even seen it. The golden light that had dripped through the cracks in reality during the first night. I’d seen it go into my body. An entire lakes worth.

The implication tickled at my mind as well as my heart. I could still remember my childhood, grabbing sticks off the ground and waving them into the air in the hope that they’d be a magic wand dropped by a wizard. Magic was every child’s dream. The ability to master the elements, and defy nature, I could imagine the endless possibilities.

Fire, earth, wind, water, metal, ice. The list was as long as a tree worth of paper. I just need to figure out which one would help me the best. My dad wanted me to learn fireball but creating flames out of my hands had little practical applications. My options were either burning down the house or not burning down the house. I might be able to create a campfire, but if this world knew about mathematics, then why wouldn’t they be able to make a flame.

I felt the same way about water and ice. What if magic was basic, and all I could do was create a puddle. That wouldn’t help me much. If I was using it to fight, then I didn’t want to drown people to death. It sounded horrible.

Metal interested me. Practical, and efficient. If I could control metals or even create them then that would be amazing. I could make things to suit my needs, and I’m sure that people always have a need for metal. No matter what world they’re from. This house was made out of wood after all.

I ran through the options in my head.

“Time.”

[Error: please select a low ranked skill.]

Damn. I was hoping that would work.

“Metal.”

[Error: Metal is a mid-ranked skill. Would you like to take the foundational skill: Earth?]

My eyes lit up, and I clapped my hands together. This was new. The other words had just given me the normal error prompt, but I could use this one to expand my knowledge. If metal is in the middle ranked list of skills, that might mean that it’s the same for the other types of magic. And if earth is a lower ranked magic, then it might mean that the four elements are all lower ranked skills.

Ice. Lava. Acid. Those were the kinds of magics that video games usually included. I didn’t want to test if they were also mid-ranked, because none of them fit my criteria of being useful. I don’t know what I’d do if I accidentally gained the power to shoot lava from my hands. I could probably use acid to kill the suspicious mold that was slowly taking over the wooden ceiling.

Earth magic was useful. Especially if it could turn into metal magic. I could build structures, defend myself and attack when needed. A practical magic for all occasions.

“Earth.”

[You have selected low-ranked skill: Earth.]

[Please confirm you are choosing the skill: Earth?]

This was a lot of work to put a baby through.

[Visualization: please specify the use of your skill.]

What?

The blue box faded into the air and my vision shimmered, as though I was caught in a heatwave. Before my eyes the world warped and twisted, growing dark. Then a light appeared, glittering across my vision. Finally, I saw my body. I was floating above it, and an eternity of empty space lay between me and the sky. No. There was something there, beyond my vision.

[Visualization: please specify the use of your skill.]

The prompt popped up in my vision and I turned my attention toward it.

What was I supposed to do?

Earth. I concentrated. The word ‘visualization’ was self-explanatory. It wanted me to imagine using the magic. I stared at the empty space around me and then it hit me.

This was why my father had drawn pictures and placed them on the walls.

He was a terrible artist. Good thing I didn’t take fireball.

I raised my hand, and the physical copy of me on the ground followed. I took a look at the hand in front of me and blinked in surprise. The hand was a lot bigger than the baby below me. It was the hand of an adult. I looked down and saw my chest and legs were similarly huge.

It was my original body.

The one from before I died. I moved my hands down to my sides again, and the movement was copied by the baby body below.

How strange. Could this be my soul?

If I died and reincarnated it wasn’t too crazy to think that I had a soul. I tested it gently, the movements didn’t cause any pain. My toes wiggled, and I ran a hand through my hair. I miss my old hair.

I shook my head. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about this. I had magic to do.

“Earth.” I spoke out into the empty air.

Nothing happened.

“Earth.”

This time I conjured an image in my mind. A mountain with grass, and trees as tall as skyscrapers. The leaves billowed in the wind, and the trees gripped the ground. Even a cyclone couldn’t move them. Then there was a change. A rock shot up from the ground, dirt and dust pushed aside by its mighty speared tip. Around it cracks formed in the ground and from the depths of the earth rose a hand made of stone. It grasped a tree with its unfeeling fingers and cracked it in half like a twig.

The image solidified in my mind, more realistic than usual. Then I looked down. My physical body was surrounded by earth, and a space that had once been empty was filled with destruction. A mountain cracked half lay underneath me, the trees splintered, and the ground shattered.

Next to my body there were two objects, a spear made out of rock, and a hand made out of stone.

[Three skills detected: Earth Spear, Stone Grasp, Earth Manipulation. Please choose one of the skills to obtain.]

I smiled.

Earth manipulation was exactly what I wanted. The ability to move the elements as I pleased. I opened my mouth to speak, and then hesitated.

What if this didn’t go how I wanted it to?

Was earth manipulation really what I wanted?

I imagined what it would be like, moving the earth around me, shaking mountains, and throwing boulders with ease. I looked at the spear and the stone hand. They weren’t made using the power of manipulation. They were created from nothing.

I raised my hand and once again a picture appeared in my mind. This time it was an empty field. I gestured with my fingers, lifting them into the air, and following the motion a stone appeared, and then another. And another. Rocks, dirt and stones materialised and formed a mountain.

[One skill detected: Earth Creation. Would you like to obtain this skill?]

I smiled.

Perfect.

“I choose Earth Creation.”