There is a certain type of silence that exists below the earth. It is an all-encompassing and powerful thing, an absolute absence of stimulation. The silence is pervasive. It is not gentle. It smothers you, it crushes you, and it seeps into the very being of who you are.

Alan had been living in such an environment for two years.

Now he was bombarded by a constant stream of noise and motion during the day. His perception was attacked by smaller sounds and furtive movement in the night. It was overwhelming. Yesterday, he had woken up early and tried to go out and take a walk around the city. As the crowds grew thicker and the day brightened, he had quickly abandoned the idea and instead made his way back to his new room to hide.

He knew he had a lot to do: find a place to live, find a way to make money, look into options to heal his arm, learn more about South Edge as a city, figure out how things worked in the Guild. The list went on and on, but he wasn't doing any of it and his headaches were getting worse. Instead, he had spent the entirety of yesterday hiding in his room.

He rolled over on his bed, putting his hand over his ear. Why couldn't it just be silent for a moment? It was early enough that the sun had yet to rise, but even in the early morning calm the tiny endless sounds drilled at his consciousness.

It wasn't just the noise, [Sense] was turning out to be a major problem. There was too much going on, too much to focus on. Within the stillness of the caves, each movement was important. He had existed in isolation, in complete stillness. He had trained himself to concentrate on the smallest motion, the slightest change, straining [Sense] to its peak because any change in the environment had been a matter of life and death.

That focus was now paralyzing him. The city itself was like a living being in constant flux. People walked, shoved, shouted, ran, played, gestured, lived. And that was just people. Horses pulled carts along the streets, dogs ran about yards, and the sheer number of insects that inhabited the city was astounding. Behind walls, under the floors, and on the streets, bugs of all shapes and sizes darted constantly.

He could [Sense] that there was nothing on him, but still, he imagined the small critters crawling over his skin and under his clothes.

In the hospital, he had been shocked enough that it just hadn't fully registered. Meeting and talking to people again, being taken care of by others, eating real food, it had all distracted him from the constant and never-ending MOVEMENT. It also didn't hurt that they had been giving him some sort of medicine which had the side effect of putting him in a state of blissful drowsiness for most of his time there. Now on his own, alone, exhausted, he was realizing the enormity of his situation and the task before him.

He rolled back over on the bed.

In the caves, he had been proud of his resilence, of the fact that he would keep going no matter the odds. It felt terrible to have that thrown into question now that he had made it back to civilization. Still, it wasn't like he had given up. Sure, yesterday he had done nothing but stay in his room, but he had concluded that he was alright with cutting himself some slack here. He was giving himself the benefit of the doubt. These things took time.

Easy to think, harder to believe.

A bell rang in the distance five times. Time to get going, he reluctantly got up. This was the first day of his lessons with Walter. He hoped the older man could tell him what was happening to him, even though he didn't like the thought of relying on someone else.

Opening the drawer, he pulled out and dressed in one of the three outfits he had been given. He was still getting used to operating with one arm and putting on the clothes took longer than he had imagined. He eventually found himself in a rough brown tunic that was too large for him, but still one of the nicest things that he had worn in a long time. As he adjusted the clothing on his body, he realized that he would need to figure out how to take care of laundry sooner rather than later.

Another item on the list.

For now, fully dressed, armed with the map he had been given, and a pouch full of money, he was ready to set out.

Walter glared at Alan from across the courtyard. He was holding a makeshift flag in his right hand, a pole with a red cloth tied to the top that hung loosely at the side. Next to him stood a girl who looked to be a few years younger than Alan. He wasn't sure what she was doing there, but the possibility of dealing with someone around his age, a girl no less, made him slow his steps as he walked towards the pair.

She was pretty for her age, thin with a delicate face and bright eyes. She absentmindedly moved a strand of blonde hair behind her ears as he approached. Glancing towards Walter, Alan couldn't help but contrast the two. The old man was short and mean-looking. His hair was nothing more than a grey wisp, and his skin looked spotted and dry. More unnerving was the fact that Walter was smiling at him menacingly with his rotten teeth. It gave Alan the distinct impression of approaching a dried mummy who held a vindictive grudge against him.

"Finally decided to show up did you?" the old man said simply as Alan came up to the pair. Two beady eyes behind a mass of wrinkles bore into Alan.

"I made it, I'm sorry I'm late," Alan responded. He had run into some trouble finding the exact courtyard where Walter had wanted to meet up for class. It was a small grassy area located in the center of Hubert Hall, which as far as Alan figured was more of a maze than a building. Even with [Sense] he had to have people point him in the right direction to get to his destination.

Looking at the man, he suspected that Walter had purposely chosen a hard to reach location for their meeting. Alan's head had started to ache again and his mood was sour. [Sense] had been grating on his nerves especially hard today. The headaches were definitely getting worse.

The two stared at each other as the silence built up. Alan wasn't sure what was supposed to happen now, but somehow he didn't want to give the grumpy old man the satisfaction of asking.

"Uh..." the girl broke the silence, glancing between the two of them. "Grandpa?"

Walter groaned and tore his eyes away from Alan long enough to glare at the girl next to him.

"Yeah yeah sure," he cleared his throat, looking back at Alan. "Frankly I don't give a fu-" he stopped midsentence as he glanced back at his granddaughter. "I don't give a flying hoot where you came from or who you are. Hell, I wouldn't believe you if you told me. If you want to lie to the Guild, to me, to whoever, I don't really care. Simply put I don't care about you, or care for you. That said, I do care about my reputation so we might as well try to do this right. Lie all you want, but be on time in the future and be honest when you tell me about your Stats and relevant Skills." He glared at Alan, "do you have the papers I asked for?"

Alan handed over the papers that outlined his Skills and Stats. He had a copy to give to the Guild as well. It was heavily edited, but he had been truthful about his Allocation and about the Skills that were related to mana.

Walter glanced over the documents. While he did so the girl next to him, presumably his granddaughter, held out her hand.

"I'm Sara, as you might have guessed I'm his granddaughter. When Grandpa came home and started talking about you, it sounded exciting, so I volunteered to help out," she smiled.

"Alex," he took her hand and shook it. He felt nervous and sweaty and hoped she didn't notice, or would at least blame it on the heat. It was a strange feeling, being upset, grumpy, and nervous at the same time. Also what exactly had sounded exciting about this?

"Don't mind grandpa there," She said. Walter grunted unhappily at her comment as he continued reading. "He looks mean and angry and likes to put on a tough front, but he's a big softy really. He was pretty well known back in his day, so you actually got really lucky to get him to teach you."

"Back in my day?" Walter grumbled as he read. "I'm well known now."

Alan glanced at the man, remembering how he had complained that he would not be able to spend as much time with his favorite granddaughter. Somehow he thought that her perspective might be a bit skewed when it came to him.

"Somehow I think your perspective might be a bit skewed here, but I'll keep it in mind." He said bluntly. He was trying hard not to focus on [Sense]. "I don't think he likes me much and he has already pretty much said that he's actively rooting for my failure."

Walter had given up reading and was glaring at Alan.

"Enough chit chat," Walter scowled, interrupting the conversation. "First of all, you’re right I don’t like you. Second of all, I can't say I much like being talked about behind my back even if it's in front of me. I've read over your Stat papers." His frown deepened.

"Your level in [Sense] is too high," He said directly. "It doesn't make sense. With your Intelligence at four, which is pathetic by the way, you shouldn't have been able to level-up [Sense] at all, let alone get it to eight. It's not that Intelligence is a multiplier for the Skill because it's not, but at higher levels there's too much going on for the mind to process. Having a higher Intelligence doesn't affect the Skill itself, but it re-wires your brain in a way that allows you to process the information coming to you more effectively. Frankly, we thought that having at least one hundred Points allocated to Intelligence was a hard condition for activating [Sense], but it looks like we were wrong so hurray for you, you may have just improved our understanding of its activation requirements. How are you feeling? Any headaches? Fever?"

Alan felt a surge of hope at the question. "I have pretty bad headaches which I suspect are related to [Sense]. They seem to get worse in busy areas, or the more I use my Skill. Sometimes I get nauseous but that could be for a number of reasons I think. Is this a normal thing?" Alan tried to keep the desperation from his voice.

"Figured as much. The symptoms you're describing with your headaches are what we hear from people with low Intelligence who have increased [Sense] too far for their own good. By low Intelligence, I mean lower than two-hundred, so you fit well into that category. And it only gets worse. In these cases the headaches don't go away and start to compound, usually takes several years or more after leveling to have it become unbearable, but given the complete disparity between your Stats and levels, I imagine it will happen much faster for you. [Sense] isn't a Skill you can turn off so you're probably just going to go insane in a few months anyway which will save me a lot of trouble."

He had hoped for better news, and Alan was genuinely worried by what he was hearing, but Walter didn't pause.

"Given your memory loss," Walter rolled his eyes, making it clear what he thought of the story. "We can't know how you were able to do any of this without already going mad or becoming some sort of hermit. Just so you have a reference, I have [Sense] at level seventeen, and my Intelligence is two-hundred and eighty. My level in the Skill hasn't raised in over ten years because my mind won't handle the information overload at higher levels, and it becomes increasingly harder to gain experience once you hit that wall. It shouldn't be possible for you to be at level eight not only because you're too young to activate the Skill, but because your low Intelligence level means that you should not have been able to focus [Sense] in any meaningful way that could increase it."

"So what I'm saying is that you shouldn't be possible and I don't like you." Alan waited for him to continue, but Walter just crossed his arms and nodded with a pleased expression on his face. As much as Walter didn't seem to like him, at least he was straight forward.

"I mean I appreciate the information," Alan said carefully, "if not the personal attacks. But I don't have the Points to raise my Intelligence at the moment, and I don't think I even would want to since my Allocation skews in a different direction. Is there any other way to fix this?"

"None, your Stat allocation is an idiotic mess. Basically, you screwed yourself over for life, and if you hadn't by some miracle activated [Mana Manipulation] no Guild or job would have you." The old man smiled.

"Ow!" Walter yelled as Sara kicked his ankle.

"Be nice grandpa!" She turned and gave Alan a thumbs up and a wink. Alan stared at the two expressionless.

"Ok fine," The old man rubbed his ankle. "If it were possible, I'd say we need to decrease your Skill level, but that's not a thing so we're left with trying to get you thinking in a way where you can ignore your own perception. Whatever we do, we do not want to increase your level any further, so if you notice your progress in the Skill going up as we practice, let me know immediately."

"For now, I have a little test prepared for you. I have placed some flags in the area just like the one in my hand." Walter lifted the waist-high flag fluttering in the wind. A simple red cloth tied to a wooden stake. "They are various sizes and whatnot, but I'm going to give you 90 seconds, and I want you to find as many as you can and tell me whatever other details you notice about them. That should give me a good idea as to your proficiency with the Skill before we go further."

Alan nodded his head. "Will they all look like that?"

"You tell me," Walter said, arms crossed. "Any information about the flags you find will count in your favor. Size, material, anything at all. No time like the present. We'll begin on the count of three. One, two, three!"

Alan wasn't ready but didn't hesitate and immediately closed his eyes and concentrated. For some reason, he felt determined to impress this angry old man. The condescending tone, the headaches, the unfamiliar environment, it all grated on him which instinctively made him want to fight against it. His MP was at 95, and his SP was full, so that meant he had 90 seconds to use up 183MP. He knew that showing off everything might raise questions, but just by being here he raised questions and he found that he wanted to prove himself. Whatever that meant, whatever the reason, he wasn't about to hold back.

He instantly flashed [Sense] outwards in multiple bursts. To save MP, instead of expanding it outwards in a bubble around himself, which was the most natural way to use the Skill, he focused and sent out tiny needles of perception towards the areas he was interested in exploring. He was able to flash around twenty needles at once, and his perception shot outwards in lightning quick pulses. He ignored the ground beneath him and the sky above him, focusing on places where flags might be located. In ten seconds he had a good overview. He could already feel a terrible migraine coming on, but he gritted his teeth and continued to the next phase.

He estimated [Sense] had expanded out around four hundred meters. So far so good, his MP was now down to 54/95.

He had counted 14 flags in that brief moment and several objects of interest that might be flags. There were also several areas where his perception could not penetrate. He noted those for later. Walter had asked for Alan to give him details, so Alan sent out larger, more focused streams of [Sense] towards the 14 flags he had found. They were various shapes and sizes and he tried to keep track of the differences, but his head was pounding now and he was starting to lose focus.

He felt a wave of nausea pass through him, and his head radiated pain. Eyes closed, he sat down and breathed deeply sending out [Sense] at a slower, more steady rate. He didn't want to pass out.

Once he had categorized the flags, he focused on the five objects that he was uncertain about. One, about two hundred meters out, was very small and his head hammered in his skull when he tried to concentrate on it. He bit down hard on his tongue, using the pain to center himself.

He didn't know why he was taking the test so seriously. But he suspected Walter had set things up for him to fail, and he didn't like losing, or being looked down upon. He was finding a core of pride in himself that he refused to extinguish. He had survived situations where many would have died and he wasn't about to let some sad old man get the best of him.

The next several seconds was spent looking into the other objects. He decided two more were flags.

Next, he would focus on the areas he couldn't correctly [Sense]. Time was running out, but he needed to give his mind a quick rest first.

"20 seconds left!" Walter called out from across the field.

Only 20 seconds. He could endure it for that much longer. Alan gritted his teeth and [Sensed] out towards the empty areas which he named perception "deadzones." He felt a flash of agony stab through him and held in a cry of pain as he braced himself against the ground. He spat out and breathed heavily.

His MP was at 3/95, some of the flags were quite far away and were costing him a lot of MP to look into. Could he have been more economical in how he tackled this challenge? He transferred all of his SP except 5 into MP, and soon he was back at 91/95MP. He gripped at the hard rocky ground to settle himself.

He refocused on the deadzones and found two that seemed softer. It was hard to describe, but somehow they seemed malleable. He pushed his perception harder into them and with a sudden popping feeling was [Sensing] inside of it. In the center was a flag. It was murky and his head felt like it was about to explode, so he wasn't able to grasp any real details.

"Five seconds!" Walter called out.

Alan stopped [Sensing] immediately and threw up on the ground, panting and heaving in the summer air.

"Three seconds left, but I guess we'll call it there," Walter said tonelessly, looking down at Alan.

Alan's body felt cold. He shivered in the warm air, and the throbbing in his head continued relentlessly. After 90 seconds, he was mentally and physically exhausted. He could only hope it had been worth it. Shivering and trying to warm himself up, he promptly threw up again.

"Not a pretty sight that," Walter said without a hint of sympathy. "I knew [Sense] would be hard with an Intelligence of four, but if this is how it's going to be, then you're pretty much worthless till you raise it. Did you even find any flags? Hopefully, we can call this charade what it is and let the Director know it's not worth the time until you raise your Stats."

The old man's casual dismissal of his efforts and Skills somehow calmed Alan, and his breathing came easier. He glared up at Walter looking down on him.

"I discovered seventeen flags, not including the one that was next to you." Alan's voice came out hard and angry. He pointed, starting with the ones closest to him. "There was one right out of sight to your left behind that tree over there, and a smaller one behind a column supporting that stone building. The pole on the one behind the tree seemed to be made of metal I think, though materials are still hard for me to determine properly. The flag part of the smaller one was overly large and dragged against the ground. Those flags were around twenty and thirty meters away respectively." Alan continued, "I found two on rooftops over there. One was on that brick building behind the chimney, it was slightly taller than the one in the courtyard, and the other was on the building next to it. You can actually see that one up there if you squint. They seemed to both be made of wood, but the pole was thicker on the last one. I estimated both to be about 50 meters away."

Walter's face seemed frozen mid-sneer, the only thing moving was his eyebrows rising as Alan continued.

"There were five in various buildings, and one in an alleyway, but rather than set in the ground, it had either fallen over, or you just threw it there without planting it. We are now in the 50 to 100-meter range. I'll describe them more once I'm done listing the rest, though as I get further out it becomes harder to be certain of details. There was a tiny flag, not much bigger than my hand around 250 meters out, it was stuck on the side of a potted plant in a doorway. I honestly am not sure if that one was part of the test, but it was a flag, so I counted it. In that same range-"

"Hold on," Walter sputtered, hands out. He turned back towards his granddaughter standing next to him. "Was that small flag one of the ones you hid?"

She smiled and nodded enthusiastically. "In the prep guide you gave me it allowed for it, I was thinking for sure he wouldn't find it though!"

"Keep going," Walter motioned for Alan to continue.

Alan went on to describe the other flags he had discovered and whatever details he could name about them. There were flags in rooms of buildings, in windows, on pathways. Walter nodded along, and he started marking off something in a notepad he had brought out. The old man's mood seemed to have done a complete turn around as Alan continued to list more and more flags.

"Finally," Alan said, wanting this to be over with so he could do something for his throbbing head. "There were a few areas... where I'm not sure how to describe it but I couldn't [Sense] into them. One of them was around 80 or so meters out, and I was able to push into it somehow and [Sense] a flag in there. The flag seemed large, but I couldn't focus on it for too long. The other deadzones were further away, I couldn't penetrate them."

Walter stared at Alan for a moment. "Well fuc-" he bit his tongue as his eyes darted to Sara, who was sitting patiently next to him. "Sorry, let me give you some medicine to help with your head, you really pushed yourself and [Sense] headaches are a bitc- really hurt." He reached into his pockets and pulled out a small black pill.

Alan was in no shape to be suspicious and immediately took the pill and swallowed it. There was no immediate effect but he hoped whatever it was that it would start working soon. It tasted familiar, and he remembered what the guards had shoved in his mouth when they had found him stumbling through the Expanse. Alan had been upset to note that the headaches persisted even when he had SP available, meaning [Sustain] wasn't helping here.

"Thanks," he panted. He imagined a slight easing in his mind, a shift of focus. Feeling awful but a bit better, he looked Walter directly in the eyes. "So do I pass?"

Walter stared blankly for a moment before bursting out in laughter. Unlike his dusty and frail look, the laugh boomed out of him. It lasted for a while before he leaned over, smiling. His rotten teeth and wrinkled face looked no less menacing than it had before, but there seemed to be an almost joyful glee in his small dark eyes.

"Kid, this test would be challenging with [Sense] at level 10. And I'm talking about people with years of experience, high Intelligence, and a lifetime of training. I let my granddaughter here set most of it up, and honestly was expecting you to fail miserably, which would get me off of the hook. Fuck, I only spent the time to do it so thoroughly so that I could go back to the Director and honestly say you failed if anyone looked into it. You found seventeen out of twenty-five flags, one in a hidden zone, I had planned for you to find one or two at most."

Walter paused, and his dark smile widened.

"I don't know who you are or what level of hell you popped out of, and like I said, I don't care. Once I'm done with you, you'll be a mother-fucking monster. That cock-faced, son of a bitch Rueben has been going on and on about his genius apprentice this whole year, as if he and that kid are the gods' gift to the fucking world. I can't wait to see him shit his pissflaps when the results of the trial get recorded." The old man barked out another loud, raspy laugh into the empty air.

Alan looked on, unsure about how to feel. He glanced uncertainly towards Sara who was staring open-mouthed at her grandfather.