Chapter 6: Jane's Awakening

Over the past month, Jane had gotten used to exercise. It was hard not to be a bit proud of being able to run 7-minute miles without running out of breath compared to her previous sloth-like state. She was never overweight, but she was quite nonathletic.

So, she had taken to running to school each morning a couple of weeks prior once her physical stats had broken 15 for each. The first few mornings she did arrive sweaty. However, once she neared 20 she didn't even need to start in her workout clothes to change after arriving. It would take at least 3 miles before she broke a sweat.

Jane had also not found herself to be noticeably stronger as her strength soared. At least without carefully focusing on being such. She had re-read the Dexterity stat description several times before deciding that it was subconsciously distributing her force through multiple muscle groups to make sure she wasn't applying too strong a grip to anything she interacted with without her having to focus on it. The weighted stretches and martial arts poses that her mother and her friends tricked her into also likely played a part in training her body to carefully manage its strength and balance.

The same was true for her Intelligence and Wisdom. She didn't notice herself having better mental acuity. After nearly quadrupling her stats compared to when she was first uplifted by The Council, she wasn't quite expecting to be dreaming of the world in more than five or six dimensions and running off with the desire to solve unsolvable mathematic proofs, but she did hope to notice some change.

Well, there was a change, but it was only a better use of her already well-adapted retention of information that she heard or read. So she didn't count it.

This was all that she reflected on as she arrived at school the day after she unwittingly raised her Player's level. She was careful to dress and act as she always had. No one seemed to be paying attention to her and she relaxed.

Her plan was to maintain a neutral state and not make the rookie mistake of thinking people will notice anything strange about her, which would be the quickest way to ensuring that they would. It'd also ensure that she would lose the perfect chance to test out her hypothesis of how the Aura Manipulation skill worked.

This plan went perfectly. Right up until she ran into ran into the first person over level 10 of her day: Ms. Winters.

~*~

In her second class of the day, Jane was feeling quite smug at feeling proven right that she could get by without being noticed by the other supernatural kids. So entering her Chemistry class, she was probably feeling a little eager to see if Ms. Winters would pay attention to her or not.

When she reflected back on this moment at a later time, she'd acknowledge that this was likely where she made her mistake.

Class proceeded as normal, with Ms. Winters setting up a lab to have the students follow the instructions on the board and them writing down observations. The last half of the class would be her actually covering the reasons why the chemical reactions occurred and the background of those chemicals they worked with. She assured the class it wasn't her being mean, and that she found students learned and respected information better by experience first.

As Ms. Winters walked around, Jane focused her attention on her general area as she followed the board's instructions. Jane hadn't spoken to the woman since that day after class and assumed she had not realized it was Jane she was talking with or had given up on her fake project.

Just as Ms. Winters nodded in approval of Jane's progress and was about to walk off, she turned back and looked closer at the girl in front of her. Jane made a conscious effort to keep focusing on her work and controlling her breathing. With her heightened mental perception, she could tell that none of the other students hadn't picked up anything strange, so she calmed down.

It was too late. Ms. Winters leaned closer and tapped the tiled surface of Jane's preparation area and asked to see her after class.

[table=white]Aura Manipulation – Beginner 2By acknowledging how your emotions and will affect the world around you, you gain the ability to control your Aura. True Masters who are at peace with their actions and memories and accept their place in the world can maintain a tranquil state and pass through life without affecting the lives of others.

Each level reduces the chance of unintentional leaks of personal aura by 2%.[/table]

Jane cursed herself silently for the rest of the class, because she just realized her fallacious reasoning. The skill gains experience in situations with perceptive people and emotionally charged situations.

~*~

After the other students had left, Jane was standing in an empty classroom before Ms. Winters' desk as she studied her. Jane wondered if she was going to take the obvious approach to see if her suspicions were correct or ask leading questions. It should be the latter due to her Class of Witch, but Jane was learning that life didn't always follow fantasy stereotypes.

"When you were here a month ago, you asked me for help on a project. How is that working out for you?" Ms. Winters asked carefully.

"I had to drop it. I didn't have the time to fully explore the material, so I went with a more standard premise." Jane quickly answered. If Ms. Winters wanted to be vague, Jane would oblige. Especially since she was still curious if she was found out or not. After all, it is as her mother said that in this valley people knew she was the child of a supernatural. Any change in her presence could be suspected of being awakened, but not of her having knowledge of that aspect of the world.

Jane mentally rolled her eyes at her thoughts. I'm over thinking this entire process. She doesn't want to break their rule of secrecy, but probably wants the chance to educate a kid. I'm just making this complicated because I like being in the shadows and suddenly being noticed because of an aura is annoying. Jane corrected herself.

Ms. Winters frowned. "That's a shame. I was curious to see how you'd do with it. It might have even gotten some of the other students interested in science, showing them it didn't have to be so stuffy."

Jane nodded. "It's just as well. I wasn't finding much evidence for other areas, so with just your friend's research I'd have needed to recreate the results and that'd require expensive equipment." Jane sighed. "That's just too much effort for a small part of a paper. Even if it is for potential university credit."

The conversation drifted off from there, leaving Jane fairly certain that she didn't allay Ms. Winters' suspicions but the woman not finding an easy segue into confirming them.

~*~

A week passed.

Jane didn't come across many higher-leveled supernaturals like Ms. Winters, the people at the gym, or her mother's friends during her normal routine. After the skill level up for Aura Manipulation, Jane changed her approach and tricked her mind into accepting that she was already caught and everyone knew her secret. There's a certain ease that comes after a secret is out, so this helped her not have as much subconscious anxiety so that she could better remain unnoticed.

It seemed to work, Ms. Winters still occasionally watched her but she had leveled up her skill two more times to level 4 as well as gaining a level in Acting. This told her she was on the right track.

During the past week, she also seemed to have hit a wall in raising her Intelligence and Wisdom. Yoga was also giving very minimal returns after a week compared to the passed. As in nothing happened.

Jane would be worried, but she had already progressed so quickly in training that even supernaturals would be shocked with her results if she confided in any of them to ask for advice. A normal person would likely take a couple of years to reach her fitness level doing the same exercises.

Jane, instead, decided to focus on her other abilities until she was happy with her level of Aura Manipulation. Observation was the best place to start since she truly was uninformed.

Leaving school, she headed towards the park. Jane reminisced at the last time she came this way after school; she had gone to return the books she borrowed from the library five weeks ago. She had already broken her promise to Ms. Pettigrew of visiting more often due to the excitement of training her body.

Actually, she had neglected quite a bit in the past month. She didn't even try leveling up Observation or Cooking. Jane resolved to correct this to avoid falling into the trap of obsession with gaining power at the expense of everything else.

Finding the familiar bench at the pond, Jane sat in silence. She let the sun's warm glow caress her skin as she closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of birds calling one another merge with the lake's rippling waters as the wind blew across.

"Yes", Jane said to herself, "I need to slow down and reevaluate my plans."

This was how Jane began her habit of spending at least 15 minutes a day sitting quietly outside in nature.

~*~

Jane thought quite a bit about how to increase her Observation skill in such a way that it would increase its usefulness. Her first thought was to spend time studying people, but quickly decided that it would defeat the entire purpose of remaining away from the supernatural community if her focus on them suddenly released her aura. So, she broke her thoughts down into a list of what she needed to help decide how to go about achieving them.

Target's stats

Target's skills

Potential threat level if above can't be achieved.

At least color code the target's name for generalized threat level in relation to my own Player level.

Information about location's name.

Information about item: name, components, present use, potential use, value.

The present skill seems to rely on her own personal knowledge. However, the only time she used it it did pick up the plant having been urinated on. This indicates that the System is willing to supply unknown information directly related to the observed target.

Jane thought about the steps she would need to take.

To asses a person she would need to study up on what makes a person a threat and those warning signs. That comes from knowledge of the psyche to determine potential motive, body language to see outward warnings, knowledge of any training to deduce their skill level, and possibly knowledge of weapons and protective items. Some of this information she'd get after training combat-related skills and others she would have to study books on a wide-variety of topics.

The same could be said for being able to identify and analyze items and locations. She'd need to study many more books than she already had to recognize things. Perhaps knowing them would trigger the System into giving her additional information outside what she knows based on commonalities. Sort of a heuristic analysis.

Value would come once she got involved in the supernatural world. She could probably get some indication while she read antique guides to be able to recognize items. She'd probably also have to spend some time reading more about economics than just textbook theories. Commodities markets would be needed. Then, she could find similar outlets for the supernatural world.

If she got all of this information, she could most likely have the System change a target's name's color based on their known level and analyzed items' strength in relation to her own. It already shows level based on their combat prowess, so adding in their equipment shouldn't be too much to ask.

With this in mind, Jane stood and walked to the library.

~*~

Entering the library, Jane smiled at the ever-present Mrs. Pettigrew and walked over to greet her. "Hey, Mrs. Pettigrew. How are you?"

"Jane, where have you been? You promised to visit and it's already been over a month! Don't you know it's not nice to take advantage of the elderly's feelings? I might die of a broken heart." The woman sulked playfully.

"I was busy!" Jane insisted.

"Too busy to spend a few minutes on your way home from school visiting?" Mrs. Pettigrew held up a hand to stop Jane's next comment. "Come more often, dear. Besides, I was mainly wanting to show you something I had in the back. I didn't expect it to be so long before you returned."

"Oh, you didn't have to do anything special for me." Jane replied.

"Of course not. But it's there all the same. Would you like to see it?" Mrs. Pettigrew asked, then added. "That is if you feel you still deserve to."

Sighing, Jane nodded. "I promise to be more regular now that I've got the time."

"Time's one thing we're all short of, dear." The woman replied as she turned and walked through a door behind the counter that led into her office. "Some more than others."

Jane shook her head as she followed. They stopped inside the office and Jane was asked to close the door behind her.

After a minute of awkward silence, Jane asked, "What am I to be looking at?"

"Look down."

Jane did. "It's a nice rug."

"It is, but that's not it. Move it aside." Doing so, an outline of a recessed hatch nestled just off to the side of the closed door that was covered by the rug was revealed. "Open the hatch and go down. I keep it in the cellar since it's valuable. Knowing you for so long, I thought you might enjoy it."

Climbing down the ladder, Jane was greeted with a dark room and fumbled along the wall for some kind of switch to turn on the lights. Mrs. Pettigrew followed. "Just keep walking to the end, dear. It's a straight passage. There's no light here to make it harder for thieves who happen to discover it. At the end is another door. There's a light just inside."

"I've never heard of thieves in the village." Jane remarked cautiously. She trusted the woman, but knowing that she was related to Ms. Winters and the odd turn of events was throwing off warning bells in Jane's mind.

"This was built years before my time. Food and valuables were kept underground for safety. If the building burnt, you'd at least have something left. There's cellars all over the village." Mrs. Pettigrew replied in a bored tone as she urged Jane forward.

They eventually shuffled their way in the dark to a locked door. "It's locked." Jane said.

"Shouldn't be, just turn and twist the handle. There's no key." The woman said.

Hearing this, Jane was starting to feel better. If something sinister were to happen, there would be a locked room. So she twisted the handle to the side with difficulty. It was stuck. Likely from disuse, she reasoned. She pushed down on the handle with more determination and eventually the door opened inward to reveal a brightly lit room with nothing in it.

"Well done." Mrs. Pettigrew said, pushing Jane into the room since she was staring without moving.

"Is this what you wanted to show me? Because there's nothing here." Jane said finally.

"I wanted you to see the door." The woman said, amused.

"The door." Jane echoed, monotone.

"Correct. I had my suspicions a month ago when you had a sudden interest in meditation and Yoga, Alicia did as well last week when she thought she picked up your change in aura. You just confirmed them." She said.

Jane suddenly realized where she was. "This is an Instance! You can only get in by Will and control of the world's energy."

"Correct again. I wasn't sure you knew about this at first, but I met your mother the other day and she let me know you awakened last week. Alicia came to me and said she suspected, but were playing coy. So, I decided to bring you here and force the issue." Mrs. Pettigrew said sinisterly.

Seeing Jane's head drop, Mrs. Pettigrew laughed. "Don't feel bad. I've watched you since you were little. I know you don't like others paying attention to your business. Not giving into Alicia's questions and staying away from other supernaturals is smart, even if nearly all in this village are harmless to you."

She went on. "Which is another reason I decided to bring you here. Your mother mentioned you were going to keep a low profile before you can hide your aura enough to start learning skills to defend yourself. That's a good mindset to have. This Instance is for my coven's use only, so only a few people are aware of it. In here, you can train to suppress your aura without having to expose yourself to others."

"How do I do that?" Jane asked, curious. "Mom just tossed me a book discussing a skill to manipulate my aura and sent me on my way."

"Most supernaturals don't even bother training to control their aura. It's all about time management, really. There's tools that have been created to detect a supernatural's aura fairly well, some of the more expensive ones even detect minute fluctuations. So, they decide to focus on other techniques." Mrs. Pettigrew gave Jane a conspiratorial smile. "But smart Witches learned early on that being undetected and passing as a human was our best defense. So we have mastered the art."

Seeing where this was going, Jane took her cue. "You're a witch?"

"You could call me that. We give each other classifications depending on how they want to focus on manipulating Mana. Your mother's focused on enhancing her physical abilities such as speed and strength. She'd probably be closer to an assassin if you were comparing her to one of your fantasy books that you read when younger. Your father is good with pushing his control of Mana into external objects and excels in the sword. So he'd be a swordsman." Mrs. Pettigrew informed Jane.

Continuing, she discussed those classes that focused on directing the world's energy into spells. "Witches are similar to how you'd read in stories. We use Mana externally and direct it at others with our intent and Will. This is more subtle than Wizards. They prefer more flashy effects. Flashy effects take a lot of time and practice to pull off, which is how they spend most of their time. Witches also devote time to studying the effects of herbs' magical properties and chemistry to make medicine. Wizards don't see the point. They could inject you with Mana to heal you. So can we, but it's better use of resources to use a potion or you'll find yourself out of Mana when you need it most."

"As you can see from those few examples, nearly all classes share some commonalities. So it's never good to rely on them except in a broad sense. People also can choose to branch out and learn skills for anything given enough time. Personal preference blurs distinctions even more. So I say I'm a Witch and run a coven that focuses on my specializations, but even then the few members I oversee have different paths." The woman summarized.

"So you've got a way to help me train my control of aura?" Jane asked, getting the woman back on track.

"I do. It's simple, really. One of my ancestors learned how to make the tools to detect aura. The process has been refined over the years by a number of people, especially when my great-grandmother married someone from a major organization that trained elite assassins. She took some of the detection concepts and some of the enchantment knowledge that was collected and came up with what we use now." Mrs. Pettigrew said walking to a far-corner of the room.

Pressing her hand onto the stone wall, it opened up to reveal a panel that resembled a computer interface. Jane asked, "Is that a computer?"

The woman laughed. "No. Computers operate on the premise of directing electricity in predefined patterns and each piece works towards doing something with all of that electricity and displaying meaningful information. This is an Instance where Will defines how Mana operates. There's electricity here which is a form of energy, and Mana is also energy, but it's more limited than Mana. Mana can take some shortcuts if you have a clear-enough intent and strong enough Will."

Pressing a few areas on the screen, Mrs. Pettigrew continued. "If you wanted to compare enchanted items like this to a computer, think of it as gathering a set of instructions, envisioning how they will be executed, and then providing enough resources to make it happen. Then, compress all of it into a program and put it into a stream of Mana that will send it off to an operating system in the form of a primed item that can keep that Mana from dispersing. This allows you to interact with all of that."

"So what are you doing, then?" Jane asked.

"I'm setting up this room to emulate a person who has basic aura sensing abilities. When you can get by undetected at this level, we'll step up the difficulty in increments until you can stay undetected from someone who has mastered detecting even the most minute traces of aura fluctuations." Mrs. Pettigrew explained.

"Wow, that's convenient." Jane enthused.

"It is. Then we'll emulate a person sensitive to detecting auras and a tool that checks other aspects that can hint at someone being a supernatural." The older woman said, smirking. "Now, go stand in the center of the room."

Jane did. "How will I know if I'm being detected?"

"You'll know." Jane heard before her world was plunged into darkness.

Updated list of Stats and Skills in Spoiler

Spoiler :

[table=white]Player Information:Name: Jane BlackthorneClass: PlayerHP: 280/280MP: 500/500Title: NoneAffiliation: NoneStats:Strength: 26Vitality: 28Dexterity: 32Intelligence: 50Wisdom: 50Luck: 26 (+10 System Access Bonus)[/table]

[table=white]Acting - Beginner 6Through the use of emotional manipulation, body language, and tone of voice you have shown you have what it takes to sway hearts and minds. With each level increase your lies become 1% more believable, even if they are poorly constructed.[/table]

[table=white]Aura Manipulation – Beginner 4By acknowledging how your emotions and will affect the world around you, you gain the ability to control your Aura. True Masters who are at peace with their actions and memories and accept their place in the world can maintain a tranquil state and pass through life without affecting the lives of others.

Each level reduces the chance of unintentional leaks of personal aura by 2%.[/table]

[table=white]Cooking – Beginner 1You have decided to join the lovers of domesticity and gastronomy in this age-old art. True masters of Cooking understand that food is as much an art as it is a science splashed with a dab of magic and love. Meals you prepare have a 1% chance of being edible per level, regardless of your effort.[/table]

[table=white]Meditation – Intermediate 2Through calming your mind and centering yourself, you've found the benefits of self-reflection and introspection. Stillness brings oneness with the Universe and all life within it. True masters of Meditation can sustain themselves solely on the energy of the Universe.

Each level increase in Meditation brings a 1% quicker recovery rate of Mana per minute while meditating.

Gains towards Intelligence, Wisdom, and Luck have a chance to slightly increase while meditating.[/table]

[table=white]Observation – Beginner 1By watching the world around you suspiciously, you have learned how to glean information out of the most innocuous of details. With each level, your insights reveal more information about your surroundings.[/table]

[table=white]Unarmed Combat – Intermediate 4By incorporating your knowledge of the body's movements and its weight distribution through a variety of poses and exercises, you can see how it would be used to effectively be used in combat.

Each level, physical attacks given and damage negated is 1% more effective.[/table]

[table=white]Yoga – Beginner 8By understanding that the body is an extension of the soul, you have found that through Yoga you can strengthen the body. True masters of Yoga have gained spiritual awakening and insights as they incorporate Meditation in their practice.

Each level increase in Yoga brings a 1% quicker recovery rate of Mana per minute while performing the skill.

Gains towards Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, and Luck have a chance to slightly increase while performing Yoga at rates of 0.3%, 0.3%, 0.8%, and 0.1% respectively.[/table]