(Altura-MC)

I arrived at the treehouse where the Village Head was waiting with a thump. I feared I had yet to master the landing, but well I was an Archduchess, I had the right to make my presence known.

“Good Morning, Village Head, what brings you here today?” I asked as I stepped into the treehouse. The Head was sitting on a makeshift sofa flanked by two members of the guard. Establishing it had been one of my better ideas. IT had solved so many problems, I no longer wondered why every fantasy city seemed to have one.

Its members multitasked as the military, the police, the city planners and basically everything else that one needed. I might have gone a bit over when assigning duties to the guard, at this point it was basically the government. Sans the politics of course. The benefits of being the sole ruler was that I didn’t have to deal with politics. Yet. I am sure that will come eventually.

“ This day treats me well, your grace, but I fear I bring worrying news. The recent changes within the city have left us a bit undermanned, your grace, and that has, um, caused some problems.” the Head said, looking nervous.

“Speak clearly, Head, what is it that has brought you here?” I asked frowning, I had expected that something serious had come, the Villagers had been trying their best to keep out of my sight since I had taken over.

I suspected that they were trying to avoid getting involved in any fight between the Clans and me. Being the valley’s sole source of food made them extremely valuable, but without power they were in an extremely vulnerable position.

“Our farms are under attack, your grace, we used to hunt the Qi-less beasts in the forests keeping their numbers down and stopping them from evolving, but the Clan sent for our men a few months ago, and then continued to do so every month. Most of them either returned to us or joined your guard, your grace, but the damage is done.”

“Some of the beasts have evolved, and the other villages have already called upon the Clans for aid. But my village, your grace, was under Clan Qunaris’ jurisdiction and well, we can’t really call upon them anymore. So, your grace”- the Head took a deep breath in- “I hope that you can aid our village, we are willing to swear the same oath we swore to the Clan Qunaris.” the Head said.

“I see… When you leave the city, tell the guard captain at the gate that I am sending a squad of troops with you to deal with the issue. If they prove insufficient I shall send more, you are my subjects, it is my duty to protect you. Besides, it is the reigning nobles’ duty to keep track of the beasts, so I won’t even be doing you a favour.” I answered.

“ This…thank you, your grace. On behalf of my village, I Village Head Verrin thank you.” the Head replied, bowing.

“And I accept your thanks.” I replied as I moved out, that it was over earlier than I had expected. Perhaps I could have some downtime after all?

I quickly walked back or rather snowflakes back to the ‘main’ treehouse. It was a nice long building that drew support from six tall trees and one small one on which it stood. It was apparently the original city hall when the Mansion was the entirety of the city.

Deciding that it was best if I did not inform Kerrin about my arrival just yet, I sat down on the nearest sofa I could find and summoned my stat sheet.

Name

Altura Selrin

Title

Archduchess (In name) (landed)

Element

Dragon Fire, Snowflake ice

Age

10 years

Seeds

Military (ungerminated), Royalty (Sapling-Early (390/600)), Energy (ungerminated)

Stats

Strength[The amount of brute force one can use]

18

Endurance[The amount of time one can work continuously]

22

Flexibility[The range of movement of the body]

20

Precision[The accuracy of one’s movements]

22

Perception[The ability to notice nuances and advanced concepts]

18

Intelligence[The ability to comprehend the advanced concepts]

21

Wisdom[The ability to effectively use the concepts]

22

Aura Force[The ability to force your will on your surroundings]

23

Combat[The speed of one’s reactions, ability to process situations and other general combat abilities]

22

Retainers

Kerrin

Late Seedling (330/600). Element of Blood, anomalous Seedling.

I had been keeping a very small lead on Kerrin for total Qi and was planning to keep it for as long as I can. I knew I would eventually be overtaken but well, it was free pressure that kept me motivated to grow more powerful.

It had been easy to forget that I still had enemies, death flags and that just about every beast in existence would love to kill me. I was sure that even now there was at least one person planning my falling, rooting for it.

It was why I had to grow more powerful continuously, failing to do so could easily have me die when the attack eventually came. Then there was the King. I had no idea what he thought of me letting Viona go. Although I had informed him through Duke Reiner, who I should really start calling father at this point, I had not received any response.

I hadn’t really tried looking for one to be honest. Better to just let things progress as they should, I was sure I would hear from him eventually. But that was not why I had summoned my stat sheet, I needed to start getting skills.

Aswelth had told me that they were an option now, though I was far less likely to get one than someone in a higher realm. According to him, skills were extremely hard to gain and harder to level. Even he only had six til now. But well, I also apparently had numeration.

After getting some advice from Duke Reiner in hopes of a cheat I had found out that one of the biggest advantages of numeration was in gaining skills. The skill system would show me how far I was from growing a skill, how likely I was to gain it, and how talented I was in it.

I had no idea how all of that related to numeration of the System, but well Xianxia logic. Leave logic at the door, the strong rule here. And the System was pretty strong. So just go with it, I suppose. Now to try to get a magic related skill.

I summoned three threads of mana, paying special attention to their structure, apparently that helped skill gain. The threads had a largely gelatinous structure, seemingly spongy while being immaterial. Otherwise, they were just a little thicker than a hair and could be as long as I wanted them to be. All it cost was Qi.

Actually, could I thicken them up a bit? Yes, yes I could. One of the tree threads was now about one centimeter thick. I had no idea what it did, but I suppose it was good to know. Hmm, what next, merge them? Might as well. It wasn’t as if I had any set idea what to do except concentrate more on the basics of magic.

And I merged the thick one with two small ones and produced…a thicker one. And was there any difference? I suppose I would have to try. I concentrated on the thread, turning it into an ice attuned one and let it go.

And then right in front of me stood a snowflake, not very different from the other ones. But one thing that I noticed was that it wasn’t growing darker, usually the snowflakes would start to grow darker from the second that I summoned them and finally grow dark and disappear into a bunch of sparkles.

Oh, wait, it did grow darker, it was just…doing it more slowly? Did I just figure out a way to increase the snowflakes' duration? Was this beginner's luck or something?

Skill proficiency gained!

(19%/100%) 81% to skill attainment.

Preliminary examination: Qi Talent High. Please perform more actions for a more accurate result.

So it had to do with my talent? Or was my talent so high because I figured it out so quickly? Dare I ask for an explanation System?

Talent Rating was derived based on your thinking process, ability to manipulate Qi, rate of increase of said ability and other factors that the System shall not reveal at this moment.

Apparently this is an explanation the System provides, perhaps you can tell me what exactly decides if I get the information or not?

The information brochure is a categorized set unlocked by satisfying certain conditions.

Common conditions are crossing a realm, unlocking certain subsections of the System like numeration, SubSystems etc

Please note that you shall not receive any notification on unlocking a new set of information. This is to reduce your dependency on the System’s stores of information. A dependency on the System has been shown to reduce the likelihood of a host to research subjects themselves, halting them in later levels of cultivation.

Wait…halting them in later levels…are you saying that later levels need research System?