Thus, a new routine was born for Riza. For the next few days, she woke up in a dormitory full of women, all in varying states of undress and all at the same time as a rather large, very shouty man rudely knocked open the door and yelled at them--Riza didn't need to know the language to know that he was in charge of waking all of them up after the second day of this.

From there, she made her way to the infirmary, no longer needing Saniel to accompany her as she quickly grew used to the environment. Though there were always people about, they, too, followed routines, and she had begun to learn many names, starting with those that shared her dorms.

Rather interestingly, they weren't all people in the same position as her, though the majority were, judging by their clothing. Actually discussing the conditions of their interments was a concept a tad too difficult for Riza to communicate verbally with her limited, but improving, language skills. However, in the cramped dorm, around three quarters, including her, wore the same outfit and shared the same, half-dead expressions on their faces. For the handful of important members--namely, those with colours--they tended to keep to themselves and clearly treated their clothing with far more respect than the rest of them did.

However, they didn't act with contempt or arrogance. It was a distant naturally derived from a sense of otherness but not one that was prejudiced in any way that Riza could tell.

Those in a similar position to her were quite friendly, for the most part. They acted with care around her, answering whatever questions she had and eagerly introducing themselves, in addition to exchanging pleasantries upon meeting up at a night time. None of the friendliness felt superficial, to Riza, but she was skeptical of where it was derived from; there was a distinct communal affection, she felt, extended towards her that she didn't see reciprocated towards one another--like she was being treated differently. Positive discrimination, in a way, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

It may all have just been in her head, assuming things where cultural differences was a good enough explanation and the language barrier making her imagination run wild.

Her job remained the same repetitive, tedious job that it was, using cleanse on those who were who needed it--which, it turned out, was more than just those with essence poisoning; simple things like infected wounds or illnesses were also treated with cleanse, Sylan had informed her--but the outpost was relatively small, and the frequency of incidents apparently that not that great (though, to Riza, having multiple people every day poisoned in some way seemed like a tremendously high injury rate) so she had quite a lot of idle time doing nothing.

Thankfully, after the realisation the other day, Riza spent most of her time using cleanse on herself, taking the energy out of her essence stone while she did so. Doing that meant she was expending essence on both cleanse and essence congruency, levelling them up. What seemed like something that would be hard to level turned out to be fairly quick with how much her well of spirit regenerated for it.

And, boy, did well of spirit do a lot. It took around three to four days for well of spirit to level up, the time increasing only slightly. As such, after the seven days of working, all three skills levelled up as she pumped so much essence back into her body, making her as pure as possible.

The end result?

Cleanse (10/10)

Cleanse an entity from any toxin, disease, or contamination

Cost: 10 es

Essence Congruency (10/10)

Use 11 active skills at the same time

Well of Spirit (9/10)

You have 180% additional Spirit

She was incredibly satisfied and happy with what she had accomplished, and cleanse could even be improved further!

Cleanse has reached levelled 10.

You can choose to spend a skill point to upgrade the skill or turn the skill into a passive.

Cleanse+

Remove any poison, toxin, disease, or curse from an entity

Cost: 20 es

Cleanse (passive)

You are immune to any poison, toxin, or disease

There was still the unanswered question of whether she’d retain the original skill if converted to a passive or not and no one could give her a satisfactory answer.

However, what was for certain was that she wasn’t interested in either of the options; being able to remove curses seemed intriguing but she had yet to come across a curse, to her knowledge, and even at the lowest level, cleanse already did everything she needed it to. And then, there was the option she could be immune to it all. While it would save her an occasional 10 essence every now and then, she regenerated enough that and used the skill infrequently that it didn’t really appeal to her--at least, the reservoir stone passive would probably help more in being cost-efficient.

Interestingly, essence congruency didn’t give the option to be upgraded. Two reasons sprang to mind; one, only aspected skills could be improved and essence congruency wasn’t an aspected skill (though, Riza didn’t know if this was true), or, two, skills that are already passives couldn’t be improved further.

There was always the possibility that both were wrong, but it didn’t really change anything.

But that’s not all that she did! Sylan also found himself with a lot of free time, even though he was doubling as both barber and doctor, and he turned out to be quite a nice guy to talk to.

For the most part, he was happy to steer the conversation, the burden of talking falling on him, but it didn’t feel like Riza wasn’t pulling her weight; most often, Sylan would explain to her parts of the human body--how everything worked.

And this wasn’t even with Belfore around necessarily; he was only there on every other day and Riza was endeavouring to be less and less reliant on him as an outlet for communication.

That’s what started her talking with Sylan; Belfore was occupied with doing something else and she was terribly bored, so she asked Sylan about the skills heal and cleanse (he didn’t have leech, as she found out). He was all too happy to talk about his expertise and how he was skilled at what he did.

The most fascinating things to come out of their discussions was both how he became a Neophyte of Life and how skills worked.

To begin with, as Belfore had alluded to but Sylan confirmed, practising any skill manipulating essence without the express permission of the Dominion was outlawed. They were the regulatory body in this regard, and had a government-backed monopoly of mages.

Normally, if you were caught, you’d be inducted into their service as a member of the lowest order--a neophyte. This sin, however, wouldn’t constitute the alienation of their your rights and so, they’d have the ability to choose what skills to take (though, there was heavy influence in this regard), what jobs to take, and where they should work.

It’s only when you get to the most malicious and evil branches are people punished further, such as life.

Riza didn’t quite yet know why life magic was so hated and with such vitriol when it seemed so incredibly useful and positive but those who practised it without permission were amongst the worst of the worst.

Normally, after doing the interrogation Belfore had done to Riza, a life practitioner would be summarily executed in accordance with both the law and their religious values. However, if the practitioner could offer valuable insight into the life branch, then the laws would be eschewed and they’d be inducted in as a neophyte, though heavily restricted in a form of slavery.

This contradictory way of enforcing laws, only doing what benefited them the most, left a sour taste in Riza’s mouth. She was at the whim of an organisation that was neither moral nor just but selfish.

Sylan didn’t go down this route, however. Instead, he began as a simply, mundane barber in the Dominion, healing people with natural tonics, contemporary medicinal theories, and cutting hair. It was only after a few years of doing this, slowly showing himself off as a loyal and hard working member, did he get the offer from Steward Andreya of transitioning into a Neophyte of Life. This marked Sylan joining Domain Five.

From there, he was brought along to fight monsters, level up, and took what skills he was told to take. Riza didn’t know what skills they were, however, for he refused to answer. All she knew was that heal and cleanse were among them.

And the way he used heal fascinated her. After talking to over with him, the bewilderment of the first day that both Belfore and Sylan showed when she revealed her essence stat began to make sense.

There was a reason she struggled to make heads or tails of the information the system provided her in regards to how to use the skills; she lacked the physical ability to interpret it.

Apparently, and Sylan was only willing to tell her of this singular stat, he had an essence of 5 when he first levelled up, gaining the heal skill. As she had learned, an essence stat that high provided the person the ability to actually see essence, and not just in the imaginary way she was doing it in her head. When someone used a skill that manipulated essence, that skill was visible. Cleanse, for instance, actualised as green light flowing from her fingertips into whatever entity she was cleaning.

What this meant was that after years and years of seeing essence in the world, seeing it behave dynamically and controlled by other people, once the system instilled its knowledge within Sylan, that knowledge slotted in perfectly into an already present framework over how essence operated.

He didn’t need to interpret the knowledge nor construct his own paradigm; instead, the system acted far more like a key to a door, granting him the ability to cleanse people.

This was the major reason why pursuing being a mage with an essence of 1 made you viable for a darwin award; even if you got a skill, you couldn’t even use it!

Frankly, Riza would be considered a prodigy if she didn’t have such bad stats; constructing your own interpretation of the dynamics of essence and actually being able to manipulate it was nearly unheard of. Belfore stated that, allegedly, the head scribe he looked up to, Duke Racheford, did just that, developing the foundational skill ‘linguistical immersion’ all by himself, without the system to aid him.

Sylan merely grumbled when Belfore recited those feats, reverence and adoration clear in his tone. Perhaps it was exaggerated, for Sylan contested that such things only occurred in folklore--myths of the past.

The talks were incredibly instrumental for Riza, both in the accumulation of knowledge as well as the bettering of her own speech skills. She had come so far that she could reasonably get by on her own by now, able to speak simple sentences and ask for additional clarification.

Of course, inquiries of any more complex or abstract topics--the sort of questions that interested her the most--were still outside of her reach, requiring Belfore to translate for her.

The days passed, her breadth of knowledge growing as well as learning more about her fellow members of the Dominion. She was on friendly terms with most of them, and talked shortly with them whenever she met one. Her foul moods and despairing outlooks being to alleviate, even if just slightly, as she started to settle into the routine, enjoying the relaxing, tranquil parts of the day and growing stronger, both by bettering her skills and becoming more aware of the world around her.

And then it all changed.

It was the final day, a whole week after the first day of work. Riza faintly recalled Belfore mentioning how a reply to his report would arrive in eight days, and today was that auspicious day.

It began as usual, waking up in her uncomfortable bedding that had started to grow on her, saying good mornings to those she slept with, able to refer to them by their own personal names, as she got dressed.

Riza wandered on down the same, familiar streets she had walked many times before, greeting those regulars she passed by with the same enthusiasm she showed her dormmates, and being greeted in return.

When she arrived at work, the infirmary, just one room out of many in the building, she felt the first inkling that something was off.

Saniel was there.

Apart from the first day, where Saniel had escorted her around the place, she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the guy up till now--after all, their duties didn’t cross paths. He had clearly been waiting for her, his white robes and yellow hood as immaculate as the day they had met.

“Riza,” He greeted, even his voice sounding ominous. Anxiety clawed its way into her mind as she felt her muscles tense, holding her essence stone firmly in her hand.

“You’ve been summoned to Steward Andreya’s office. Come with me.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, walking off down the corridor Riza had just entered.

They weren’t leaving the building but, rather, were walking to a different part of it. The young man opened some doors, walked up one flight of stairs, and entered a rather cozy looking space.

Two plant pots sat at the corners of the room, bookcases flush with books and a very neat and tidy desk situated in the centre, a stiff, uncomfortable chair perfectly aligned front and centre.

At that desk sat Andreya, her robes practically glistening from the sunlight streaming in through the large, opulent window framing the room. It was of a perfect white, the green accents in her hood elaborate and beautiful, portraying an immense craftsmanship surpassing both Saniel’s and Belfore’s in quality.

“Take a seat,” Andreya spoke, her voice authoritative and firm. Riza complied, Saniel closing the door behind them, trapping her in the room with all three of them.

“I have received reports that you are now somewhat competent with the language. Is this true?” Andreya asked.

Though the exact words Riza struggled to understand--and would be unable to replicate herself--context and familiar segments of words granted her the ability to at least partially understand the sentiment, if nothing else.

She nodded.

“Yes. Under the past week, you have been entrusted to me and were under my care. Since then, I have received some orders. You are being transferred out of my jurisdiction to the quarry in the province of Moya, helmed by Steward Dartov of Domain Nine.”

Riza swallowed, her mind trying to translate all of the words and figure out just what was happening. Some were familiar; Steward, transferring somewhere, and being under care. The difficulty came in deciphering whether the unknown words were names that did not need to be translated or something else.

“You are to join a caravan mid-day with others of your kind. From then, you’ll journey to Moya and resume your duties as a Neophyte of Life there. Reports detail of a brutal encounter recently, and they are low on life practitioners.”

“How long will it take?” Riza managed to ask through the fear holding her back. Andreya had done nothing to her yet apart from taking her prisoner--merely abiding by the laws of her organisation--but from what she had heard about this world, simply speaking out of turn may have been disrespectful.

“The journey or the assignment? Moya is only the next province over; the journey should take about six days if nothing unaccounted for occurs. As for how long you’ll be there, I’m afraid I do not know. It’s an indefinite service.”

“Thank you,” Riza replied, not wanting to seem curt or uncivilised.

“Good. You may leave and prepare for the journey.” As soon as she said that, Riza could hear the door wing open behind her.

Getting out of her chair, she quickly bowed towards the Steward before briskly walking away, heading back to her dorm.

The once comfortable, warm streets were tinged grey; the sky was cloudy, the air frigid and cool--making her skin sensitive even under all the clothes--and the security Riza had begun to derive from routine was nowhere to be found.

She rushed back, barely restraining her gait lest it turned into a full-blown run, and emptied her chest of all her belongings. There wasn’t much there, for she didn’t have anything to begin with, but she had accumulated a range of gifts from people.

It turned out, healing people from what could be a life-threatening poison or infection did wonders for making them feel in debt towards you. Not once in the past few days did Riza go hungry--even if she was late to eat, there were always kind souls ready to share some of their meals with her.

In addition, there was a poorly crafted leather satchel in her chest--barely holding itself together. Inside were sheets of rough, uneven parchment, charcoal wrapped tightly in some loose scraps of fabric, and a pretty looking stone.

Though she was not all too familiar with gemology, she had enough physics knowledge to know how gemstones formed; what she had was simple quartz, cloudy, occluded, and small. As one of the most common crystals, it wasn’t a surprise it was given to her as a gift, barely the size of her pinky.

The bag closed with one large button on the side and Riza swung it around her chest, settling it comfortable against her side.

The days were short--indicative of winter--and though she hadn’t been awake for long in her opinion, what position the sun was in that could reasonably be constituted as ‘mid-day’ was soon, so Riza set off for her location.

Andreya didn’t explicitly say where she should go, but there was only one location that worked; the stables. Right near the quartermasters place, the stables was a congregation of wagons, carts, horses and mules, and she frequently saw many people ride off, out of the village, during her days there.

A few people had already gathered around the caravan of wagons--a good five in total, though only two were for transporting people. The three cargo wagons were covered in blankets, obfuscating the cargo they were transporting, while the other two wagons were devoid of people apart from the presumably drivers caring for the horses pulling them.

Horses. Yes, not mules; it seemed that the Dominion had the financial capital to spring for stronger beasts of burden.

Riza introduced herself to the men and women who would be driving this caravan. They were relatively polite, most of them accepting her limited ability to converse. One of them, however, was quite curt and rude, cutting Riza off and wanting her to stop bothering him.

She could understand; she was interrupting him from doing his job.

Over time, other people began to gather, both to store cargo in the wagons as well as preparing for the journey. Nearly all of them wore the simplistic clothes like Riza did--a gambeson, white tabard, and whatever else they decided to adorn themselves with.

None of them reached out to talk to the drivers, only really talking to each other and Riza, once she joined in.

She learnt their names--some familiar while others completely new to her--and tried to ingratiate herself to the best of her abilities.

All of them, it turned out, were neophytes. Most of them were Neophytes of Rock, though there was one of fire and another of water. No one wearing colours were among them.

At some point, while the soon-to-be travellers were talking to each other, a driver came over, asked a few pointed questions to their preparedness, and half of the group curried off, Riza included.

As it turned out, she hadn’t prepared sufficiently at all; those who remained with the caravan wore large bags upon their backs, a bedroll affixed to the top and a cloak covering them all.

So, Riza turned towards the quartermaster. Time and time again, she was surprised by the economy of the whole place.

It began with Renald; he sold wool but received little coin in exchange; he didn’t even seem to be planning on spending any money at the market.

And then there was Sylan as well. For neither his medical help nor helping with people’s hygiene, he received no payment in exchange. However, this could at least be argued that it was all a part of his job requirements, and so payment would be in one large portion periodically, such as a salary.

But then, there was the food; people freely ate the stew and bread without paying a penny to the cooks who made it or the people who handed it out. It was all free.

Getting free bedrolls and cloaks from the quartermaster just cemented the idea in Riza’s mind; currency was not as valuable as she thought it would be. She was still working on the concept, currently believing there existed a ‘social capital’ of sorts where you reputation gave you products.

She had somewhat experienced it already, receiving gifts and tithes free of cost. Maybe it wasn’t altruistic generosity but a rather complex system at play? She didn’t know and lacked the ability to express those thoughts.

Instead, she made do with the knowledge that actions were important, collected her gear, and returned back to the wagon.

Some time passed, Riza eagerly talking to the Neophyte of Fire about her skills.

She was a young woman--though, obviously, taller than Riza--and energetic to boot. She enthusiastically greeted Riza and was the epitome of cheerfulness; the prospect of the journey ahead seemed to delight her.

Her name was Twyla and she had only been a Neophyte of Fire for a little less than a year. As was customary, she was hesitant to discuss her exact stats but freely talked about what skills she had picked up.

Dutifully, she had followed the path laid out for her, picking up what was considered the ‘essential mage package’ of well of spirit, well of essence, and knowable essence. The life blood of a mage was essence, so this trifecta of skills were among the first neophytes were told to learn.

Afterwards, she had learnt firebolt and a meta-magic skill; a new concept to Riza.

Firstly, firebolt seemed to be identical to solar ray, leading Riza to believe the differences weren’t described by the system.

Firebolt (1/10)

Fire a bolt of fire that deals 15 damage

1m range

Cost: 1 es

Meta-magic, however, was interesting; Riza had briefly looked at the tab but hadn’t thought much of it.

0th Tier

Alteration Mastery

Control the intensity of a skill with finese

Cost: Variable

Seeker Mastery

Increase the range of a skill by 10%

Cost: 10% of the skill's cost

Maximise Mastery

Increase the intensity of a skill by 10%

Cost: 10% of the skill's cost

Twyla easily revealed that she had selected the maximise mastery skill which could double the strength of any skill, though it didn’t act like a linear slider, able to adjust the strength between many different values.

A cascade of thoughts jumbled about in Riza’s head about how this meta-magic worked. About how regular magic worked, as well.

Alteration Mastery. That intrigued her. Whenever Riza used leech or cleanse, there was no option to use it at half power or anything--it was all or nothing. And that just didn’t make sense to her; the way she envisioned the skills was by individual particles flowing. More essence being used, more particles are flowing. Surely, by throttling the number of particles, she could adjust the power minutely?

The answer was no. She had tried and failed, and even Belfore told her you just can’t do that.

But the confusing thing was that she could. With reservoir stone. She didn’t have to just dump all her essence into it--she could go one at a time--and could withdraw a variable amount from it.

So, what was the difference? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get her head around it.

And so, it was that opportunity of learning that made alteration mastery so fascinating to Riza; it gave her a chance to test things out, to see how magic worked at a greater depth.

But it just wasn’t worth it. Riza couldn’t bring herself to plan for the purchase; she already had other skills of higher priority.

So she went back to talking to delightful, fun Twyla.

The woman was a bundle of energy--she must’ve had high physical stats--and genuinely seemed to enjoy talking to Riza, no matter how slow the conversation was. Maybe she just liked someone taking a genuine interest in her?

Or, rather, maybe it was because there were similarities between the two of them? For one, while the majority of people at this outpost were variations of tannedness, though all distinctly ‘white’, Twyla’s skin was naturally tanned, a shade browner than the majority of people here. Her hair, too, was far closer to black than to the very common dusty brown that most people had.

However, the most striking difference between Twyla and the common folk wasn’t the difference in skin colour, but something than transcended humanity; her teeth were sharpened points--all of them--and her ears bore an unusual shape to them. They were sharp and angular, tapering in a thin point.

But, most beautifully of all, were her eyes. Rather than a dull, shallow brown, they were majestically violet and green. A swirling nebula of colour shone in her eyes and Riza couldn’t help but be drawn in by them.

Like Riza, Twyla was other, though she seemed to not particularly care about that.

Thus began Riza’s education on the other races in this world. While she may have been rightfully ignorant by thinking only Skaldians existed, there were numerous other people inhabiting the land other than Skaldians--though they seemed to make up the majority of the people.

Apparently, Twyla belonged to a race of people called ‘Nefema’, a somewhat nomadic group of people who persisted to live in estrange and delocalised locations even under influence of the Grand Regent’s desire to assimilate them into a homogenous culture.

Or, at least, that was how Riza interpreted things. Twyla described her people with more colourful, but more personal, language. Such as her upbringing in a village full of people like her, and the subsequent recruitment drives that occurred, even as the village kept packing up and moving.

She seemed to bear no ill-will against the Grand Regent, nor the people that approached her to induct her into the Dominion. She was promised great things in her future--everyone in her village was--if they acceded to be formally governed by the Grand Regent. When such an offer wasn’t enough, they resorted to individual recruitment, offering to enlighten members of the community so they could make a more informed choice later on in life.

A large number of people had apparently signed up for that, a communal duty of protection aroused in them, and Twyla naturally followed along.

She was recruited, stuffed in a wagon for a dozen other Nefema and taken to another outpost. There, she was shoved through a basic education and subsequently transferred out here which she’s been ever since.

Though, to Riza, the story was tinged with sadness, a replica of numerous over nations she could remember doing similar things--though, never any specifics. But, underneath the bubbliness joy that Twyla exuded, Riza could sense a strength there.

She didn’t get the image that Twyla was ignorant, infantile, and able to just go with the flow because she failed to grasp the full weight of the situation. Rather, it was her driving motivation, supposedly--duty.

Twyla was driven, determined, and she could respect that.

Mid-day was upon them almost suddenly, Riza too lost in conversation and thought to be paying full attention to her surroundings.

After a call of the leader of the caravan, there was a commotion of motion as neophytes and drivers all clambered onto the wagons, getting themselves situated comfortably and prepared to head off.

This was the start of a long journey.