"Are you really sure you're focusing like we talked about?" Alan could see Sara trying to reign in her frustration. Not that he could blame her.

He relaxed his focus, letting out a deep breath. It had felt right.

"Yes I'm sure. I've been doing the mental exercises every night, my MP just dropped by twelve, and I've gained some experience towards my next level since we started. Are you really sure you don't feel it?"

Sara made a face, shrugged and fell back onto the bench with a loud groan.

It had been four days since his test with the flags. Sara and Alan were sitting in the center of that same courtyard as birds chirped pleasantly in the morning air lending the space a tranquil atmosphere. The overgrown grass swayed gently in the morning breeze, making a light rustling noise. The courtyard had very obviously not been tended to in a long time and nature was aggressively reclaiming the area they sat in, but Alan didn't mind. Now that he was somewhat able to ignore the army of bugs [Sense] revealed, he was starting to like the space.

The schedule they had come up with, such as it was, had been to meet every day at the sixth bell, which was early enough so that [Sense] wouldn't overwhelm Alan on his walk over. The sessions would start with Sara teaching him mental exercises and foundations for [Mana Manipulation], at which point Walter would arrive to instruct Alan on how to control [Sense]. Walter hadn't arrived yet, but they had been practicing some basic manipulation exercises for almost an hour now with no obvious results.

"Ahhhhhhh!" Sara screamed out of nowhere, destroying the momentary peace. The birds scattered in a panic before quickly settling back down on an adjacent tree. Alan glanced over lazily; he was getting used to her outbursts of frustration.

"Alright I officially give up, Grandpa should be here soon and we'll see if he can do anything to help." She sighed dramatically and turned to Alan, looking him up and down. "But you are actually trying right?"

Alan stared blankly at her.

"Just making sure," she lay back on the bench they were sitting on, looking up at the sky. The cloudless blue sky reflected the color in her eyes almost perfectly.

Even though moments like this were frustrating, Alan found himself enjoying the sessions with Sara. While only thirteen years old, she was proving to be a capable teacher. She had been training herself to follow in her grandfather's footsteps since before she could remember, and now that she could acquire Skills she was officially able to enroll in the Mana Guild. Alan had not been surprised to learn that not only had she been accepted, but that she would be skipping 1st-year and jumping straight into 2nd-year classes.

After their first meeting, Walter had proclaimed that teaching Alan the basics would be a good experience for Sara. The old man had made sure to point out that he was so far beyond the basics that he would have a hard time even remembering such rudimentary exercises, which Alan took as Walter finding any excuse to get out of his responsibilities by forcing it upon his granddaughter.

Alan glanced over at Sara. Why anyone would want to emulate the crazy old bastard was beyond Alan, but he had to admit they were both knowledgable.

The silence stretched out, and Alan was just about to go back to practicing his manipulation exercises when Sara tilted her head to look at him. The frustration was gone from her features and her blue eyes now sparkled with mischief.

"Hey Alex," she started. "I know th-"

"Nope. I don't remember anything. Nothing to tell." Alan cut her off, already knowing what she had been about to ask.

"I promise I won't tell anyone," She pleaded with an enthusiasm that had been markedly absent during their practice sessions. "I'm great with secrets, and it's not like everybody doesn't already know you're lying. Seriously you're way too secretive, but whatever, I know you're being stubborn, so I was thinking about it and you don't even have to tell me, I'll just throw out some possible scenarios and you can blink twice if I'm getting close."

Sara had been pestering Alan every chance she could get about his mysterious past, and Alan had been forced to resign himself to these daily inquiries. He found silence to be the most effective response to the situation, but if he was honest with himself, he actually enjoyed Sara's company. She could be annoying bordering on rude, but she also had a genuinely open and curious nature. He was still getting used to being around people and having someone like her to plow through his social uncertainties was actually turning out to be... enjoyable.

"Ok so here it is, just blink when I'm getting close," Sara started excitedly, placing her hands on her knees and turning towards him.

"You are a spy on a secret mission gone horribly wrong. Your codename was Arms, because of your dead arm of course, but you never let that stop you. You were planning to infiltrate a Territory in order to destabilize their government for political reasons, but a rogue Guild member stumbled on you in your attempt and... No? Ok, how about this." She shifted her position to face Alan more directly.

"You're a wisened criminal on the run after stealing from a wealthy merchant. You were able to get your hands on millions of drams in precious jewels, but there was a trap you hadn't accounted for which blew up your arm. With your arm rendered useless, you barely managed to escape and even had to leave the safety of the Territory borders to shake free of pursuit. Of course, you only took the risk in the first place because the merchant was wildly corrupt and your plan all along was to give the money back to the poor families that his business had bankrupted..." Alan continued to stare at her unblinking. Her guesses were getting specific and oddly dramatic. And why did they all have to include a bit about his arm?

"Ok, this is a good one. You are a prince cast out of your Territory by an opposing royal faction. Given the high stakes nature of the situation, you have to pretend to be a lost wanderer with no memories until you can plot revenge on the family that took yo-"

Alan blinked twice. He might as well have some fun with it.

"Wait, what?" Sara pulled back, and a skeptical look quickly took over her face. Her small nose scrunched up as her eyes narrowed. "Haha very funny, looks like even you can try to crack a joke once in a while."

Alan shrugged affecting nonchalance, "I really can't say."

"I mean I know you're messing with me..." Sara trailed off, blue eyes drilling into him. "You're not actually a prince... That'd be ridiculous... I mean it's just I haven't seen you make a joke and I was making up stupid scenarios..."

Alan raised an eyebrow mysteriously.

"But seriously though, I know you're lying," Sara said matter of factly, "...right?"

Alan decided to see how far he could take it.

"Ok, but you must keep this secret." He could easily [Sense] that they were alone in the courtyard, but he looked around conspiratorially before leaning in towards her, shielding his mouth with his hand. He whispered in hushed tones as she edged closer to hear what he had to say. "My true name is not Alex, but Prince Alex of Sine. The plotting of my nefarious uncle has forced me from my rightful place as next in line for the throne, but I'm here to..." he looked around again as if fearing spies or anyone listening. "I've already said too much."

He glanced over only to find a very unimpressed looking Sara.

"Really, that's what you're going for?" she asked dryly.

"Prince Alex." he repeated softly with a knowing nod in her direction.

"Oh Alex Alex Alex. I get you're trying to be mysterious. But really, as my first disciple-"

"Nope, not your disciple."

"As my hopeless disciple," Sara continued, "I am positively ashamed for you. Trusting your master with your secrets is supposed to be common sense. And you could at the very least lie more convincingly. Sine isn't even a Monarchy moron, an Oligarchy called the Federation governs it and the Chancellor that presides over it is voted into office. Meaning it is in no way an inherited position... even you should know that much." She managed somehow to look both disappointed and disdainful, completely ignoring the fact that he was supposed to have lost his memories.

"When you think about it, it's a truly tragic story." She stood up suddenly, talking to herself as if Alan were not sitting right next to her. "Enchanted by my beauty, he begged to learn from me, but he sadly lacks talent and worse he is cursed with an ungrateful and unpleasant attitude. Even so, being both beautiful and magnanimous, I give him my undivided attention, toiling away in the early morning to draw out even a drop of ability from his small and feeble mind. And he does not even trust me enough to tell me his past! He concocts idiotic lies, pathetic attempts at deception that would not even fool a child! Why am I cursed to-"

"Going well?" Walter interrupted, appearing at the southern entrance to the courtyard. He stared quizzically at his granddaughter, who was now posing dramatically, arms raised to the sky.

"It is going very unwell!" Sara shouted into the air, keeping her hands up for dramatic effect. An effect lost on Walter as he proceeded to ignore her and walk up to Alan.

"Figured as much. No progress?"

"Not really." Alan stood up, replying unhappily. The wrinkled old man was surprisingly spry given his age, and Alan did not have to wait long for him to sit down between them with a loud groan. Walter grimaced at Alan, his small eyes somehow receding into his wrinkles in the process.

"Well let's see what you got, kid. Sara told me last night that she can't even feel a hint of directed flow, but your experience is rising so you must be doing something. Probably something idiotic and dangerous of course, but still something." Walter raised his arms and held out his palms towards Alan expectantly.

Rather than respond to the insults, Alan placed his own palms over Walter's and concentrated. The old man's hands felt like dry leather but also had an unexpected sturdy quality to them. He idly wondered if Walter had invested some Points in Strength. More likely he was powered by pure vindictive malice. Casting his thoughts aside, Alan imagined a mental net covering his palms using the techniques he had been practicing with Sara.

He activated [Mana Manipulation] and focused, concentrating his mind in a similar way to what he had done many times before with [Sense]. In this case, he formed the image of a net against his palms and held it in his head. Once he had a solid image of his mental net, he shrank it in on itself over and over again, folding it until it only occupied an infinitesimally small space. During this process, his focus and mental imaging could not falter, any lapse in concentration during this phase or afterward would result in the Skill failing to activate.

The process alone would normally strain anyone's thoughts, but Alan had been using [Sense] continuously for years, and it seemed as if the two Skills operated on similar mental models. Soon his net was as small as he could make it, and his mental image was steady. According to Walter, he needed it to be small because his Intelligence was "disgustingly low," making him incapable of moving larger chunks of Mana at Level 1.

Keeping the net in his mind, he pushed outwards, moving it from his palm into Walter's. It felt like it should work. He could almost feel his net "catching" the ambient Mana. This part at least Sara had been able to confirm. For phase two, he wrapped the net in on itself and tried to direct it in a single stream, guiding the imperceivable Mana along a set trajectory.

Several seconds passed when Alan suddenly [Sensed] a violent movement behind him. Without time to think he barely managed to dodge the stick that went sailing past his body. His mental net shattered and Alan let out a breath he had not known he had been holding.

"What the hell?" he turned to find a very smug-looking Sara, arm posed to throw another stick.

"I asked her to do that," Walter responded for her. "You're still focusing on [Sense] too much even when you should be focusing on [Mana Manipulation]. If you weren't shitting the bed with those mental neglection tricks we've been going over, that stick should have hit you right in your ass."

Walter had given up on holding back cursing on the second day, in return for eliciting a promise from Sara that she would not tell her mother or grandmother.

"So if I succeed I get hit with a stick? Not much for motivation there." Alan turned back towards the old man.

"I'm motivating you, you little shit, by not dying from your mental pathways being overly stimulated before you can raise your piss poor Intelligence or we find some other solution." Walter's harsh advice was offset by the evil grin he was giving Sara standing behind Alan with the stick still in her hand.

"But moving on, there are a few things to discuss. Sara darling you can either stay or go at this point, up to you." Sara dropped the stick and sat back down, clearly ready to stick around from whatever her grandfather was about to say.

"So a few things," Walter began as Sara settled down. "Going over that little exercise just now, Sara I don't blame you for not noticing, and honestly I don't know whether to be fucking impressed or fucking disappointed. I think I'll go with both. Congratulations, you succeeded in directing external Mana in a steady concentrated stream into my palms. It's just that the stream was the thinnest I've ever felt. Fuck me, but if I hadn't been doing this same shit for years, even I would never have noticed."

"Usually we grow by moving larger and larger chunks of Mana, but well that's not an option for you so maybe the fact that you can move such thin streams of Mana is a good thing. Can't see how, given our main job is pushing enormous swaths of the stuff out of the way in the Expanse, but shit-on-a-rope, it's a place to start. For now, keep at it and raise your [Mana Manipulation] Level. Since you've caught on pretty quick, Sara can teach you some more advanced meditation tricks as well."

Alan didn't quite know how to feel, but it looked like he was using the Skill correctly, so he decided to count it as a success.

"Now I was thinking over ways to help you with your low Intelligence before you go batshit insane and I've landed on a few options. It will be up to you to make the final choice so listen up."

"Let's start by outlining the problem. You have an Intelligence of four, which hurts me just saying out loud because it is gods-damned pathetic. At the very least we'll need to raise that as much as we can on your next birthday, with [Mana Manipulation] and [Sense] that is the barest of the bare minimums. For a kid with a ridiculous amount of Points in Luck, that's some shit luck since you said your birthday wasn't too long ago, so we don't have time to wait for that."

"So other options. You have five Skills accounted for: [Mana Manipulation], [Sense], and three fucking mystery Skills that you're too much of a little shit to tell us about. Knowing you, they're some shitty things that serve no purpose at all. Here's the part where I once again strongly encourage you to tell me what they are since it could affect the options you have at your disposal." Walter paused and waited for Alan to say something.

Alan only shook his head no in response.

He really did want to tell Walter about [Sustain] [Vital Strike] and [Hide], but he had only known the man for less than a week and there was no going back once he came clean. Those three Skills had too many unknowns attached. They certainly didn't paint a pleasant picture of Alan's mysterious life before he was found stumbling through the Expanse. Best case it would raise questions, questions which Alan did not want to answer and he worried that his "lost memories" excuse would no longer suffice. Worst case, one of his Skills was illegal in Saga. [Vital Strike] in particular was worrying, it was hard to imagine a Skill that revolved around dealing killing blows to vital areas would not be, at the very least, taboo.

Walter grunted at Alan's lack of response. "Well, I can't force you to tell me your Skills if you don't want to, but you're only fucking yourself over kid. Whatever the case, you have one Skill slot left, meaning we need to choose a Skill that will help your mind process all of the information [Sense] is throwing at it. Unfortunately for you, most Skills that could help have an Intelligence multiplier. More shit luck and not the best solution."

"Before you start bitching, let me throw some good news at you. You also have forty-four Dexterity, and that my boy is something we can work with. Dexterity increases the speed of MP regeneration, helps with your balance and your reflexes, and it improves the speed of your thinking. Now its nothing compared to Intelligence for rewiring your brain to process large amounts of information, but some Dexterity-based Skills might work for our purposes. I was talking with some friends who have more experience with such things, and we came up with two potential Skills you could acquire that might help."

"[Accelerate] is the first one. The name kind of says it all. Simply put, while activated, you get faster. Everything. Your movement, reflexes, and the speed at which you think. From what people say, it feels a bit like when you allocate Points into Dexterity. If we can level it enough where you can leave it activated for extended periods, then it might help you with your [Sense] problem. Then again, it could make it worse, might just boost [Sense] to pull in more information and fry your brain that much faster."

"No idea, I don't know anyone with both Skills to comment. So the best case is that it works and the worst case it that it could make you go insane that much sooner. So that's option one."

"Option two?" Alan asked, not quite loving what he was hearing.

"Option two is [Fast Cast]. This is an interesting one. At higher levels, it all but removes anything but the longest cooldowns and decreases your activation times for any Skills that require time to prepare. It's an active Skill but it increases MP regeneration by a fuckload so it's an easy one to keep activated constantly. From what people say, it feels like your mind is humming. It doesn't lend to your speed of thought like [Accelerate] would, but more like something in your subconscious mind is going into overdrive."

"This could be better suited to your problem since a lot of the processing for [Sense] probably happens subconsciously. It has the benefit of being a rather well-trodden path. It is a popular Skill because it can be upgraded into [Merge Cast], which doesn't help your situation but is a damn cool Skill to have."

Alan didn't like the number of probablys and maybes Walter's explanation contained, but it was more than he thought he would get out of the ancient husk.

"What does [Merge Cast] do?" Alan asked out of curiosity.

"Basically, lets you combine two of your Skills into one for a period of time. At higher Levels, you can even merge three together. I've seen it used for some gods-damned impressive results. Has some drawbacks of course, but you can probably see why it is a common Skill to go after. Helps with a lot of crafting professions and not hard to activate either."

Alan asked the question that had been on his mind since Walter mentioned using Skills to combat his [Sense] headaches. "What about Vitality-based Skills? My Vitality is at fifty-nine, which is a significant amount higher than my Dexterity. Shouldn't there be something to help me with this?"

Walter shook his head. "More shit luck there. We already know you have some Vitality Skill or other that is triggered in some way by eating large amounts of food. Tell me, how's that working for you?"

"Not great," Alan admitted.

"You're damn right not great. You're not the first to be in this situation, maybe the first to be so far into it that your head ended up deep enough in your ass that shit is coming out of your mouth, but people have leveled up [Sense] too much for their own good before. It's not a physical problem so right off the bat most Vitality Skills are going to be useless to help you. That said there are some Skills that give you a bit of mental fortitude, but not only are the activation requirements a bitch on those, they still don't help you out. This isn't about mental or physical resilience, you simply need to be able to think through loads of information."

Walter reached in his back pocket and handed Alan a crumpled piece of parchment.

"Anyway you're going to have to trust me on this one, Dexterity is your best bet and [Fast Cast] and [Accelerate] are your best options. There are some others that might work, but these were the only two we found with pure Dexterity modifiers and are also straight forward enough with the activation requirements. I took the liberty of copying over the details of the Skills for you. Better choose well, because I know you don't want to be doing something like losing your mind before you get to show up that piece of shit Rueben and his annoying brat."

Alan reached out and grabbed the parchment from Walter's hands.

"Ok!" Walter clapped his hands. "Now that we have that out of the way, let's get started."

Walter had Alan focus on ignoring [Sense] for the rest of his session, and despite Walter's constant grumblings, Alan was pretty sure he was getting better. Today's practice had consisted of walking around the courtyard. He would focus [Sense] on areas that were "boring" where less movement was going on, and in doing so, ignore his perception around him by concentrating on that single spot.

Alan likened it to being in a conversation with a group of people. Except while the conversation was going on, there was a voice screaming in his ear giving him details about the subtext of what everyone was saying. His goal was to try to get the yelling voice to talk about a separate, more boring conversation that was happening in the distance, and while he did this he still needed to pay enough attention to respond to the original conversation.

His metaphor needed work, but suffice to say it was hard to separate his focus in such a way and more often than not he found himself bumping into trees and tripping over roots jutting out of the ground. Alan couldn't help but remember the mirthful glee in the old man's eyes when he ordered Sara to sneak around and throw small pebbles at him intermittently.

Getting hit was considered a success.

Still, progress was progress. According to Walter, his stumbling around was a good thing since it meant he must be ignoring [Sense] to a certain degree. If it hadn't been for [Sustain] Alan would be covered in bruises and cuts at this point. As it was, the Skill had easily absorbed any damage he might have taken.

Alan was now back in his temporary apartment, considering the dirty parchment in his hands. Walter had written down information on both [Accelerate] and [Fast Cast].

[Accelerate]

Activation requirement:

A minimum of 40 Dexterity. You must move swiftly over uneven terrain at speed equal to or over 12 meters per second for a period of 30 or more seconds.

It seemed straight forward. He was pretty sure he couldn't run that fast at all, let alone for thirty seconds, but he assumed Walter had a way around that. Alan moved on to the second Skill written in the same scratchy handwriting.

[Fast Cast]

Activation requirement:

A minimum of 10 Dexterity. Cycle through any three active Skills, taking no more than a quarter of a second between deactivating one and activating the next. Do this 100 times in a row.

That was even simpler. He would have to work out MP usage and the exact details of the cycle, but he was confident that he could activate [Fast Cast] immediately if he really needed it.

Going with either Skill was a risk, but he could feel that his headaches were getting worse at an alarming pace. Alan didn't think he could afford the time it would take to do more research, not that he would even know where to begin. Walter had proven himself knowledgable and dedicated, if not pleasant, so Alan would trust that these options were good ones.

He stared at the parchment, thinking over his plans, but already knowing which Skill he would choose.

Over the last several days, he had outlined a rough plan for himself. It was time to take a more active role in deciding his life, and only one of the options gave him a long term advantage for what he would be trying to attempt.

He just hoped it was the right choice.