The Wave always happens over the course of seven days. The first four days are called the 'time of arrival', the time over which new humans appear. The fifth day, Victoria had learned, is called the 'Day of Training' as it is the last day the new arrivals can be trained. The sixth day is the 'Day of Preparation', and supposedly the busiest of them all. The seventh day is aptly named the 'day of the Wave'.

Some time had passed, and it was the morning of the fifth day, the 'Day of Training'. To the new arrivals, this is a special day. The first half of the day was their last chance to raise their Skill levels, but the second half would be even more important.

In small groups, they would go hunting. It was everyone's chance to kill a single monster and gain their first level and gain stats before the big fight. It is supposedly a peculiarity of level zero that you only need a single stat point to reach level one, the equivalent of killing a single level one demon. Every future level up would require you to earn ten demons worth of experience equal to your own level.

Until now, she had trained only her Household, and Fashion Skills, as well as her magic in the mornings. Then she would meditate to regain as much as she could before the bell was rung, and the rest of the day she would help Grandma Meg where ever she could.

Of course, there had been morning training for the new arrivals already during that time. But Victoria believed that that had little merit to her. The reason was simple, they were only taught combat Skills there, none of which she would be able to raise quickly enough to matter.

Well, not quickly enough to matter to her at least since she could already fight well enough. When she was young she had ballet lessons, but when she stopped, she began to learn Martial arts instead. But after just a while, she always became acutely aware of the various weakpoints of different styles.

Some had too much focus on punches, others too much on kicks. Most only taught fighting without a weapon, and most of those that did, neglected what you should do once you lost it. In the end, she never trained to a professional level in any specific style, but just enough that they were useful.

At first, it had taken her a while to reach a level where she was satisfied, but after the fourth or fifth, she noticed that she could reach that level quicker and quicker. First, because she simply had more experience in general, and then because more and more techniques started to overlap with ones she already knew. And the same went for weapons as well. At their core, nine out of ten weapons are long sticks with pointy ends and edges on the sides.

Until now, what she had to train, were her Household and Fashion Skills, as they would rise in level significantly faster.

"Status."

Name: Victoria Bright

Waves: Lv. 0 (0/1)

Class: Wife T1

Level: 0 (0/1 exp)

Stats:

Endurance: 10 + 0 + 0

Strength: 10 + 0 + 0

Concentration: 10 + 0 + 0

Willpower: 10 + 0 + 0

Magic: 10 + 0 + 0

Magic power: 10 + 0 + 0

Talent: Learning Lv. 1 (0/55 exp)

Skills:

High-heels: Balance Lv. 15

High-heels: Surfooted Lv. 15

High-heels: Style Lv. 15

Needlework: Sewing Lv. 22

Spindle: Thread spinning Lv. 13

Styling: Clothes Lv. 4

Styling: Hair Lv. 3

Cooking: Timing Lv. 6

Cooking: Cutting Lv. 3

Cooking: Temperature Lv. 4

Movement: Dancing Lv. 10

Body: Agility Lv. 5

Body: Meditation Lv. 2

Body: Sleep Lv. 2

Magic: Mana-manipulation Lv. 1

Capoeira: Punch Lv. 1

Capoeira: Kick Lv. 1

Enhancement: Beauty Lv. 11

Enhancement: Precise strengthening Lv. 2

Telekinesis Lv. 3

Telekinesis: Helping hand Lv. 9

Telekinesis: Needle Lv. 13

Water: Creation Lv. 1

Water: Cleaning Lv.5

Call: Andrew

single-use grant Skill: single-use: Reset Status

This was more than enough proof of her hard work. First of all, were, of course, her High-heels Skills. With all three of them at level fifteen, she could already move better and safer and more beautiful in High-heels than without them. Which felt very strange if she was being honest.

Next was obviously her sewing Skill, which had reached level twenty pretty quickly, as it was the one she used the most, but then slowed down quite a bit, and her new trad spinning Skill which had reached level thirteen over the course of many hours of making thread from raw flax fibers.

Then there were her Styling Skills. She had tried raising them at first, but quickly realized that she would need a mirror and more then two different sets of clothes if she ever wanted to raise them properly.

Next on the list, were three new Skills she had earned. Cooking Skills that helped her with Cutting ingredients, as well as guessing times and temperatures. Of course, the only way to raise those had been by cooking, and while they had enough food, they didn't have enough for her to experiment with. The only exception had been the Timing Skill.

Then, there was the Dancing Skill. This one, she hadn't trained quite as actively, but instead tried to incorporate in her every movement. It had been a bit of an experiment on how far she could stretch the definition of Skills, and while the Skill was growing slower than others, she was surprised at how much smoother and more elegant she could move. While the impact in specific areas was small, it affected every single action she took. Even causing a wry comment from Grandma Meg on how she was turning more and more into a Fairy.

To Victoria, that was just reassurance that she was on the right track to surpassing her own humanity. That she was on her way to becoming something better. If she stopped being human in the process, well, she wouldn't mind. Though she knew that in reality, she was still far from that. At best, she had taken a more visual first step towards it than other people.

Here Body Skills were a bit strange. On one hand, there was Agility, which she wasn't sure about why it was growing comparatively a lot quicker than the other two. Too slow to be a Household or Fashion Skill, but still a lot faster than even Telekinesis, which she seemed to have a talent for. And on the other hand, there were Sleep and Meditation. Sleep, she didn't notice any difference, but Meditation, she had improved enough that she almost regained as much Psy as she did Aura and Mana.

While her Capoeira, and Martial arts Skills were something she hadn't worked on until now, she intended to change that today.

Meanwhile, her enhancement Skills had, just like dancing, increased just by applying them continuously in her everyday life. One she just had to always keep going, and for the other, she was still prioritizing precision and timing over the efficiency of the strengthening itself.

Her Telekinetic abilities had increased by leaps and bounds. Not in terms of Skill levels, but through her own abilities. And while she had been training only her basic Telekinesis at first, as it would be the most efficient, she had also begun to use Helping hand. A telekinetic manifestation of a hand that seemed to count as a Household Skill, that she had first used reflexively when she almost dropped the cooking pot. When one of the two good needles broke, she also started to use a telekinetically manifested needle to sew. It had taken a while to get used to, but now she was almost as fast as Grandma Meg at sewing.

And finally, there was Magic. While she was still far from good enough to use it in a fight any time soon, on the third morning she had finally managed to just barely cast a spell, but once she did, she quickly got a feeling for it and got the Mana-manipulation Technique and the Water: creation Skill soon after. From there, cleaning magic had been only a few failed experiments, and luckily very little collateral damage, away. Though her Mana usage was still wasteful and inefficient, forcing her to decide if she wanted clean clothes or a clean body. At least with the amount of Mana she had left after she finished her training.

Of course, to Victoria, her first level was just as special as it was to anyone else and she didn't want to miss out on it and the little bit of extra survivability it could give her. A point or two might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but currently, just a single point would increase one of her stats by ten percent. So, despite Grandma Meg being unhappy that she couldn't help today, she still wanted to participate in this last training. And she hoped to get some combat Skills, even if only level one.

As such, she had forgone training with her energies this morning so she could keep them for fighting demons, concentrating on her techniques instead.

It was just after breakfast, and Victoria was making her way over to the training field, and already she could see the difference from just a few days prior.

She and Daniel had come on the first day, so there had only been those here who had arrived closer to the fort and everything had been pretty empty. Now, people were everywhere. The fort had been build to keep two-hundred-and-fifty people safe, not for them life there. And once the Wave was dealt with, there were supposedly several expansion projects waiting.

Victoria was just about halfway to the training grounds outside the Fort when she suddenly looked right into a pair of bright blue eyes.

Ferdinand wasn't really sure what was going on. First the earthquake, then those messages. Then he almost took his door to the face, only for everything to turn black and feeling like he was floating. Then another message.

ERROR_19364823629

Apologies for the delay.

Then, a pair of beautiful emerald green eyes looked into his. He could feel the force of his jump continue to carry him forward and right into the other person.

Before she had any chance to react, the person bumped right into Victoria, bowling both of them over. Not even her High-heels balance Skill was enough to keep her standing as it happened so suddenly.

Freddy's mind worked fast. He randomly flew right into a person, and he noticed that they had beautiful eyes. It was all he needed to know to be sure it was a girl.

In a split second, his mind connected all the dots and he knew how to react simply from experience. The first step was to move his hand to the sides, as they were currently on a direct collision course with her chest.

Alas, either his reaction was too slow, or the girl's chest too large and the distance too short. His thumbs got caught in the Fabric of her clothes, causing his hands to turn inwards and triggering a palmar grasp reflex as any human has it.

Not even a second had passed and they were still falling when Victoria could feeling the other person suddenly groping her chest. Her eyes went wide and her lips parted, prepared to throw insults at the perpetrator, something even the most saintly woman would be forgiven for considering the circumstance.

Then, she hit the floor, her head luckily landing in an especially soft spot of dirt. But before either scream or insult could leave her mouth, another pair of lips met her own, muffling the sound.

She was completely perplexed, her mind in a disarray of different emotions. On one side were the anger, indignancy, and embarrassment at what that person had done. On the other side were surprise, her public face, and a hint of understanding that it might have been an accident. People normally don't appear out of thin air after all.

Before Victoria could properly gather her thoughts, the boy, as Victoria had noticed, managed to take his hands off her chest and plant them beside her body like he was doing push-ups. He was fast enough that his upper body was propped up before it had a chance to fall onto hers. Before quickly standing up without touching her any further.

As extraordinary as the situation was, Freddy wasn't unfamiliar with this kind of situation. Before the girl had any chance to say something, he bowed in a perfect ninety degrees and said: "I'm sorry! It wasn't on purpose. How can I make it up to you?"

The last part was something he had only included because he was feeling like his apology was lacking something. Normally that was the point where he would assure them that he wouldn't repeat the mistake that caused the situation to happen, be it turning a corner too quickly or not looking forward while walking, but he just didn't know what he was supposed to say. "I will make sure that I don't teleport in front of people anymore!"? No, the situation was simply too absurd.

Victoria stood up and wiped off the dirt of her clothes. Before she had been able to express her anger, he had already apologized in a very direct manner that made it hard for her to say anything. Also, he was clearly wearing comfortable clothes, as you would at home on a Friday afternoon. And despite his bow, which made her suspect a Japanese heritage, she could see that he was looking around confused. It was quite clear that it had been an accident.

Still, with his quick apology, and the almost-kiss, he had taken any chance from her to express her anger. It didn't take for a slightly sadistic grin to spread over her face and she answered: "Oh, I know just the thing you could help me with..."