1 day.

Bright rays of sunlight disturbed my sleep and forced me awake. My body felt alive, and my thoughts flowed freely. I gestured with my hand and the dirt flew off my clothes. I got changed and walked out of the house.

It was time to get down to business.

Gerial hadn’t contacted me yet. I knew I was being watched; I just couldn’t see the people watching me. I looked around my house curiously, but I couldn’t see anyone.

I strode towards the large tree and sat underneath it.

“Is there anyone here?” I spoke softly. “Is it possible to talk with you guys without you being seen?”

I felt silly. I was talking into the air without anyone around me. Other than this tree and my house there was only an empty flat area.

A couple of rundown houses were in viewing distance, and the other direction led to the farmlands. Nobody should be able to sneak up on me.

“Yes, Master Silver.” A voice snuck into my ear.

I shut up and looked around me, and behind the tree. There was nobody there.

Where were they?

I didn’t know how powerful the church was. In this world I had only seen Zodiac in action a few times. Even that was indirectly. Maybe invisible guards were common.

My search was inconclusive. I returned to the tree and sat down, hoping that any people passing by wouldn't think I was crazy for talking into the air.

“There are a few things I have to clear up.” I kept my voice low. “A bird lives here. It’s my friend, and I’d like you not to harm it.”

There was no response.

“Also, I would like to ask you some questions about the church. Is that allowed?”

This time I paid attention to the mana around me. There was a faint shift, so slight that I almost missed it. It travelled over the wind and was carried towards me.

“We have noticed the bird. It was fed by your mother. We determined it was a pet. No harm will come to it.”

I wondered if the guard was being stoic on purpose or if that was his genuine personality. The guards around Gerial had been equally emotionless.

“You may ask any questions about the church. I will answer what I can. What I cannot, I will try to find out.”

“Good.”

I closed my eyes as the breeze blew against me. It was strange, talking to a man I’d never met whose job was to keep me safe. I would have to get used to it.

I was going to be asking him a lot of questions over the coming days. Right now, there was only one that mattered.

“Has the church begun deliberating my status as a Marked one?”

I hummed as I waited for the man to respond. I’d thought a bit about what I was going to do in the coming years. Initially, I was going to wait out the period until school began by levelling my skills.

Right now, there was the issue of the church and my family. Both of these would require careful attention, and time.

Depending on how long the church took to decide, I might be able to get to know my extended family properly. If they turned out to be bastards, well, that was that.

I wanted to give them a chance first.

Berlia had been nice.

The mana around my ear shifted. “The church began deliberating the moment your existence was revealed. The process will take a minimum time of two years. Until then, the church will not reveal your existence to the world.”

This guy was good at his job. I hadn’t even asked him about the time frame yet.

Two years. It sounded like a long time, but then again, the church was going to have to restructure its entire religion. Two different Marked ones existing at the same time was a recipe for a potential public relations disaster.

That gave me time to train and complete my other goals.

“Thank you.” I spoke.

I stood up, and then went back inside. Then I came out again, holding a bar of bird food in my hand. It was the finest the city stores had to offer.

I had figured out the puffer’s tastes by bringing it food for over a year. I’d always left the tree alone after dropping off the food.

This time I was staying.

I placed it gently in front of me, a stone bowl separating it from the dirt on the ground. Normally, I would leave the food on the tree, but the puffer was a little too… big for that now.

The incident with Eli had given me time to think. I had made plans, and figured out ways to use my mana, but I had also thought about what I was doing it all for. I wanted to survive and live my life.

But it wasn’t life worth living if I devoted it all to training.

My friends, and my family. I wanted to truly experience this world and cherish all that it had to offer me. First and foremost was the bird that I’d shared a room with.

I sat and waited.

My mum had told me that I had made a mistake, but it wasn’t me who would fix it. It was a decision that had to be made by the puffer.

The sun slowly rose above me as time went by. I’d gotten up early and I could see my mum and dad peeking at me through the window every few minutes.

I kept myself entertained by weaving shapes and etchings into the stone bowl. Wings, spears, and other drawings.

I was getting pretty good at it.

I needed some metal to work with. I would also have to ask Indra about the central spire in Zodiac. I hoped that it had a cultivation room for the metal element.

Attuning with the advanced element was a major boost for me.

They were two metal magicians in Zodiac. I was one of them. Well, technically I wasn’t a magician yet. I needed my class for that. It didn’t matter, I would get there.

I had tried to request the services of the other metal magician to help me attune. I’d gotten the response that he was currently being digested.

I wasn’t sure if that was a rejection or a genuine status report.

Something brushed against my nose gently, and I was startled out of my thoughts. It was a black and purple feather. I sneezed as it descended, and when my eyes opened the puffer was in front of me.

It was pigging into the food. The bar disappeared in an instant, and the puffer turned to me.

It squawked.

I stared at it, and it stared at me. Then its feet tapped against the ground as it moved towards me. Its belly moved the stone bowl aside, and it came up to my legs.

It pecked me.

Ow.

The puffer squawked again, and I saw that my leg was fine. Then it jumped, and its wings flapped in the air. It flew up above my head, and then I heard it descending.

It landed on my shoulder.

“You and I have to get to know each other better.” I smiled. “What do you say?”

The puffer chirped.

“Excellent. I can’t wait to introduce you to my other friends.” I stood up.

Relationships weren’t fixed in a day. I knew that. The puffer was giving me a chance, and I was going to use it.

Now it’s time to give my family a chance.

3 days.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t push down my nerves, I embraced them. I made my way towards my mum and dad, and we sat down at the table.

They looked at each other, worried.

What I was going to tell them today was unavoidable. I had spent the last day and a half worrying about what their reactions would be. But not telling them would hurt them more in the long run.

It was time to tell them about the Mark.

I held my hands together, sweat gathering in my palms. My father placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.

It would be tough on them, in the coming years, but I knew that they would stay by my side through anything.

“There’s something I need to tell you about me.”

1 week.

A package arrived at my door today. I rushed towards the entryway, but my mum beat me to it. When she saw that it was addressed to me, she raised her eyebrow and passed it over.

I opened it in front of her.

Inside was a familiar small box. My inventory. It had taken a while for the church to recover it from the rift, but now that I had it back everything was easier. I hadn’t been able to practice my earth creation ability at all.

There was something else next to it. I had asked my guards to send Gerial a message, and he had responded with an object.

It was a transparent crystal.

This was the solution to the problem of using my Mark. There were skills that used high amounts of mana, but they took years to learn and level. Because of my Mark I had grown my manapool faster than I had levelled my skills.

Normally, people faced the opposite problem. They had too little mana for their current skill level.

The solution was to find an item that could absorb huge amounts of mana. This crystal was one of those items. I didn’t know how much mana it could hold, but Gerial had told me not to worry about needing a second one.

I poured my mana into the crystal.

For the first time in over a month I activated my Mark.

3 weeks.

“I’m going to need you to repeat that again.”

I couldn’t believe the words coming out of Indra’s mouth.

Indra sighed.

“You have been recommended by someone that wants you to be able to use the library within the nature spire.” He groaned. “Don’t get too excited kid. You’re young, and you have options. Management won’t easily hand over our skills to you if they think you’ll run off with them. They’ll take their time deciding.”

It was too late. I was excited. Because of my rank in the organisation, which was non-existent, I couldn’t access any other parts of the nature spire except for the cultivation room.

The true secrets of Zodiac were held in the floors above me. Most important to me was their library. Indra could teach me many things, but he wasn’t allowed to reveal company secrets to me. I’d had to go by feeling for skills this entire time. It had only worked for metal manipulation.

Now there was a chance to learn them properly.

It was clear who had sent in the recommendation. It was Master Wilhelm. That wasn’t all he’d done for me. William must have told him about my metal manipulation because he had sent me a solid cube of iron the day before.

It was wonderful.

I could only manipulate a small section of it. No bigger than my thumb, but it would help me greatly in the future. Before that I hadn’t been able to level my ability at all.

I hadn’t realised how restrictive the rules were until I got into the city and tried to use my metal magic. It turns out you can’t go around stealing or manipulating small amounts of metal. Even if it’s unused.

Local law-enforcement wasn’t happy about that. They could detect my mana being used, the same way I could sense it using my mana sense skill.

Except theirs was more precise.

I had to tell my parents that I was in trouble, and that I needed to register myself with the city’s magician institution. Metal magicians were rare, and much more heavily regulated.

That had been an awkward conversation.

A thought crossed my mind.

Did William know about my Mark?

1 month.

I stared at the letter in my hands.

It was from my grandma. She had been forced to cancel our get together.

Who had the power to block my own grandma from seeing me?

I knew our family was divided, but this was a shock. Then I looked at the package that came with the letter. My dad held it in his hands and shook it.

It was heavy.

My grandma mentioned that she had a choice, she could see me now, or she could give me the gift she’d intended to give me when I went to visit her.

She said I could always visit her once I reached school age. She lived in the same area as Koshima academy. She had moved there when Berlia had first been accepted. Her letter gave me the feeling that being a student there would help ease any ‘political’ tensions my grandma was facing.

That was at least another eleven months away.

I heard a gasp at my side. My dad had opened the package, and the sound of something banging into the ground resounded through the house. My dad and I didn’t care. We just stared wide-eyed at the thumb-sized bar of green material on the floor.

It was refined adamant.

My dad trembled as he tucked the bar away. He wasn’t supposed to be handling high ranked materials like this.

He and my mum had refused to tell me why.

I was working on it. I trusted them.

My grandma had sacrificed her chance to see me in order to get this to me. My dad had hit a roadblock in his regent creation, but now he could finally complete it.

I didn’t know who had forced my grandma to make this choice, but it had to be someone within the family.

My hands curled into fists.

I would find out who was working against me behind the scenes.

2 months.

[Meditation has reached rank 5] [Earth Manipulation has reached rank 5 level 2] [Earth Creation has reached rank 5 level 3] [Metal Manipulation has reached level 2] [Mana: 9700]

I had seventy points in intelligence now. Only five of the twenty times I’d used the Mark had yielded intelligence boosts. Even with the crystal it was tough to do things quickly. My mana regeneration was becoming more of an issue. My growth was steady as well.

That didn’t matter today. I had bigger news to digest.

My dad had finally finished crafting my regent.

I held onto the regent my dad had created. My dad said it was a special kind of regent. I would have to spend a week ‘connecting’ to it, and then only I would be able to use it.

I held it up to the light of the sun and smiled.

It was a mask.