When you have a blade hanging over your head the last thing you want is someone lowering it. If they do it on purpose they’re an enemy, and if they do it by accident they’re a moron. A very dangerous moron. You wouldn’t keep either person by your side, because they could push the blade further, but how you dealt with each type was different.

I had to determine which one the bird was.

“We have a problem.” I called out to the puffer. “Come over here.”

There was a flurry of wings flapping in the air. The puffer’s belly and wings obscured my view as it jumped into the air, and then it landed on the side of my cot.

“You’ve been swallowing the golden balls since the beginning, haven’t you?”

I shot straight to the heart of the matter. The puffer looked at me and chirped, tilting its head down slightly. It was nodding.

A wave of anger simmered in my heart.

“Did you know the ball was mine?”

The puffer shook its head again. Then it rose into the air and began circling the spot where the golden ball had appeared. Then it came back down, and repeated the process again.

I frowned.

Oh, I see. I had gone to sleep each time the second wave came, to try and avoid the thoughts of the pain I’d just felt. The ball of mana had stayed there in the sky the whole time, instead of coming to me naturally.

I asked the bird to confirm my interpretation.

It nodded.

That was important to know. I’d have to claim the skill quickly in the future, and do it in a private place. I looked around my room. I’d thought this place was private enough. I’d been wrong.

The price of that assumption had been paid, and now I would have to deal with the repercussions. I was going to have to do something. The next question would determine what that was.

“Will you ever do it again?” The temptation of intelligence was strong. “If I activated my skill and you were around, would you take it?”

I had to know the puffer’s intentions.

Whether it was an enemy or something that just hadn’t understood the consequences of its actions.

It looked at me, unmoving. It was unnatural for an animal to be so still, not a single feather out of place.

It was hesitating.

Then slowly, it’s body shifted, and it shook its head. It’s body language was clear.

‘No, I won’t.’

“That makes this next part a lot simpler.” I pointed at the door. “You’re going to leave. And you will never return.”

It chirped, not understanding. Or maybe not wanting to understand.

“Do you remember when we first met? I saved you from the cooking pot.” I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you were injured, and I tried to help you. Now I’m in danger and you’ve helped tighten the noose around my neck.”

“This is called betrayal. If there’s one concept you learn, I hope it’s this one. Betrayal always hurts, but it didn’t just hurt me now. It’s going to hurt me in the future, in ways I will never know.”

“I showed you my goodwill, but you abused it. There are no second chances for something this serious.”

It chirped again, not understanding. The puffer didn’t know the full situation, and it flapped its wings to show me that. I shook my head.

It didn’t need to know.

I laid back down. The conversation was over. The puffer looked at me and then flew back to its nest, quiet. The door was closed now, so it couldn’t leave. I would have to try and activate the Mark early tomorrow morning.

The next morning the puffer was gone.

I sat up, my body showered by rays of sunlight. Usually I wanted to start my mornings doing something productive, and avoid pain. This time I would be doing both.

It was time.

I had used the Mark four times now, and the Second wave had appeared three times. That meant that there was a chance it wouldn’t appear, or a condition to activate it that I hadn’t worked out yet.

My mana hadn’t regenerated too much over the course of the night. A quick use of my earth creation skill brought it back down to zero.

I prepared for the pain, my fingers curled and my body tensed…

Nothing.

No, there was something. A slightly uncomfortable feeling on my shoulder. I rubbed it absentmindedly. It didn’t hurt that much. It felt more like I was hungry, but in random parts of my body.

There was none of the usual feeling of scratches crawling underneath my skin, making their way up and down my body. That confirmed something I’d been worried about.

The Mark was causing the pain.

My fist clenched… and then I relaxed.

My dad’s talk had alleviated some of my fears. The pain caused by the Mark was strong, but my fear of it didn’t control me. My fears wouldn’t disappear, not so quickly, but they wouldn’t hold me back.

I also needed to find out why the Mark didn’t activate this time. There were a few options. Maybe there wasn’t enough gold mana in the air. I didn’t know where it came from, but if it needed time to gather then I’d have to give it time. Going into a new area and activating the Mark would work just fine if that was the case.

The other option was that the skill had a cool down period. It could refresh every day at a set time. Or every twenty-four hours after the last use.

It wouldn’t be a week. I had used the Mark in shorter periods of time than that.

It was something else I’d have to test. Another addition to the list. I laid back in my bed, my dirt and blanket wrapping around my body. I could feel the lack of mana gnawing at my body.

It felt like a puppy's tickles compared to the pain of the Mark.

I activated meditation, recovering mana until the feeling disappeared. I would have another talk with dad about the system today, and the skill he had mentioned. I also needed to test the Mark’s activation rules. I also had to ask Indra to explain magic.

Today was going to be a big day.

My father thought so too as he barged through my door, inscriber in hand. I stared at his wide smile and clapped happily. His joy was infectious to my baby instincts.

“Alright champ. I’ve thought about it all night, and I think I finally have a grasp on what to teach you and how.” He smacked the side of his inscriber. “Unless you have any more surprises for me this morning? You’re not going to start walking are you?”

I shook my head.

“Good, good. I wasn’t expecting you to start talking. I knew you were intelligent, but until I could have a proper conversation with you I didn’t know how much.”

My dad moved up to my cot and leaned over me. “I’m going to do a show and tell today. You’ll see a lot of cool stuff, but please remember that everything takes time. I know you’re a fast learner, but there’s a reason we take things slow, no matter how intelligent you are.”

I nodded and smiled. Then a thought crossed my mind.

What did the intelligence stat do?

Intelligence had been a priority lately, but I wasn’t sure what the stat did. It was easy to assume that it would make me smarter. But in what ways?

If I got ten thousand intelligence would I literally be able to solve all of the world's problems? If so, why hadn’t anyone done it before.

I still lived in a wooden shack with holes in the roof, and Zodiac’s scriber division existed to create new variations of symbols as well as examine new symbols.

Wouldn’t a person with high intelligence just memorise all symbols and immediately know the answer to everything?

There were high school courses dedicated to learning about the system, and I’d bet there were higher education courses on the subject. Min-maxing personal stats and discovering their uses is the first thing anyone would do, let alone a society that lived alongside the system.

It was the first thing I was doing, after all.

I looked at my father, and noticed he had stacks of papers sticking out of his pockets. He had a full day planned for us, possibly even a full week or longer.

I would ask him about the stacks when they came up naturally in conversation. I didn’t want to derail him from explaining the system, it still made me uncomfortable, and the benefit of calming my heart and mind was too big to ignore.

I saw the front paper’s title peeking out.

‘Benefits of the system.’

Yeah.

I’d ask him about intelligence after.

My father lifted me up and placed me in his arms. As we walked out the door I felt something strange. There was something missing here, and it wasn’t the bird.

It was my mum.

I looked around and frowned as I couldn’t find her cheerful smile. I looked at my dad, and he didn’t look worried. It was unusual to see her outside of the house.

I put it at the back of my mind as we made our way to Zodiac. My father’s plans to teach me about the system clearly included the use of symbols, and I had a feeling that library skill he’d told me about would need them to unlock it. I examined the changes to my skills as we walked, trying to see what had changed.

Earth creation(I): level 2. Experience 20.2%

Earth manipulation(I): level 1. Experience 20%

Fear tolerance(I): level 2. Experience 0.01%

Mark of the Crijik(I): level 1. Experience 8.3%

Meditation(I): level 1. Experience 80%

Earth creation was getting harder to level. I had more mana, and a higher mana regeneration rate, but it hadn’t increased as much as it had when it was level 1. That confirmed that more uses were needed to gain experience at higher levels.

I’d assumed that already, because that’s how it worked in video games, but it was nice to confirm it.

The Mark had increased a lot. I frowned. Every time I checked it, it was growing. It had been consistently growing since I’d received it, but now that I knew there was more to the skill I was scrutinising it.

There was only one assumption about skills that I was sure was true: Skills only increased in experience when being used.

The Mark was gaining experience even when I didn’t activate it. What did it mean? It meant it was being used.

I just didn’t know how or what it was doing.

I swear I saw it marked as ‘passive’ once. Before I’d activated it the first time. More questions about the system to ask my dad.

The biggest surprise was the leveling of fear tolerance. The moment I thought of the skill I was hit with system messages.

[Fear Tolerance has reached level 2] [Fear Tolerance description: You can accept your fears.]

The messages only appeared when I thought about the skill. I tried to think of how I’d seen them before with earth creation. I’d thought it was automatic, but I’d been observing earth creation on purpose as I leveled. These types of system messages must appear when I focus on them.

The level up had to be because of my discussion with my dad about the system. I’d gone out of my way to confront my fears, and overcome them. I smiled at the improvement. The description wasn’t much, just like the one on earth creation, but now I knew how to level the skill.

We walked up the creaking stairs at work, bid a quick hello to Cassandra and Femew, and then my father moved me into an office I’d never seen before.

“We’ve got a bit of time until we have to go to the observatory.” My dad brought out the stack of papers he’d been carrying. “I made some lists for you. First is the things all beginners should know.”

My dad placed a page in front of me. It had three items on it.

How to modify your system for beginners.

Basic stats and their explanations.

Classes.

“Pick your choice champ.”