In order to get rid of the feeling of dread that was hovering over me, I decided to begin testing my [Fireball] magic skill to see its potency and its possible different uses.

Finding a large bug a few feet away from me, I formed a fireball in my hand and threw it at the bug, looking intently at the results. Though the fireball wasn’t as impressive as I had hoped, it was still able to instantly kill the insect. I also noticed that I still received the same vitality and exp as I did by crushing them.

Deciding to look for a larger target to continue testing my fireballs, I turned my head to look upwards at the sky and decided that the birds that would pass by every once in a while would do.

Finding a small bird that was flying a little too low for its own good, I charged up a fireball to three times the size of the previous one, and marveled at the fact that there was some magic force preventing me from being harmed by the ball of fire in my hand. Deciding to leave that matter for later, I focused on the bird as I threw my fireball at the bird and watched it let out a screech as it fell to the ground.

Looking at the dead bird on the floor, I began to think that this would be a more efficient way to grind for levels, as I received significantly more exp from the bird that a tiny bug. Thus, with a bit of excitement, I made an even larger fireball and aimed at large bird that was passing quickly. However, much to my dismay, the bird simply screeched as it flew right through the fireball.

Seeing the large bird survive with a few burned plumes as it rose to the sky, I began to form another fireball and threw it to the ground. At that moment, I figured out the problem and, making an even larger fireball, I was able to prove my hypothesis.

The problem with my fireballs was that they were, well, just balls of fire…

Unless the fireball was large enough to cause great burns on whatever I threw it at, just in the same way that people can run through fire without being burned, so is the same way that the fireball can impact something and not cause enough damage to incapacitate it. When I threw the small fireball at the ground, I was able to see that the ball simply dispersed without leaving much of a trace in the ground. However, when I threw the larger one, I was able to see small fires remaining on the grass where I dropped the ball.

…

………

I should probably put out the fire before it spreads…

Having put out the fire, I decided to test out my control of them and see how large I could make them become. Testing this out, I noticed that after making a fireball with a radius larger than half a meter, the fireball would begin to destabilize before dispersing in my hands.

After discovering my current limit for making fireballs, I decided to put a stop to any more testing, as I was becoming very aware of my depleting mana.

Unlike in a game where you could freely allow your mana to deplete to zero, by this point, despite me still having half of my mana remaining, I was beginning to feel a strong mental strain on my mind that was making me want to bang my hand on my head.

Sitting down on the ground for a minute to let my mana reserves replete and also get an idea at how fast I was to replenish my mana, I decided to pay attention to Ailya who was going around and squashing every bug she laid her eyes on.

After 30 minutes of just looking at the girl during which I disappointedly discovered that my mana reserves where replenishing themselves at a very slow pace, even if I had crushed some of the bugs that were unfortunate enough to get near me, I saw Ailya stop for a moment before turning to look at me somewhat surprised.

Deciding to use [Veritas] to see if something had happened, I immediately understood what had occurred.

“Congratulations Ailya, you leveled up!”

“Leveled… Up?”

“Yeah, wait… did you not know people have levels that determine their strength?”

“My mom never mentioned anything about them…”

Wondering if normal people were even aware of the existence of levels, I began to think about how to explain it to Ailya as I said.

“Well, so basically, everyone has a certain level that goes up the stronger you get. Yours used to be level 8, but now you’re level 9. Tell me Ailya, what did you feel when you leveled up?”

Pondering the question I had asked her, Ailya nodded her head slowly as she turned to me and said:

“I did feel like something had changed inside of me, but I couldn't really tell what it was.”

“Is that all you felt, do you not feel something telling you that you can pick a new skill or ability?”

“No, I don’t, why? Should I be feeling something like that?”

“No is fine, don’t worry about it…”

As I had been looking at Ailya with [Veritas] the entire time, I knew that the same phenomenon that allowed me to choose among a new skill or ability when I leveled up, was occurring to Ailya as well. Thus, deciding to see if I could influence what skills she would receive, I told Ailya:

“Ailya, I want you to think about getting the [Heal] magic skill, okay?”

Not questioning my order, Ailya began to earnestly desired the skill as a strange phenomenon that I could not understand began affecting her and causing the mana inside of her to become unstable as a new skill was introduced to her. With her mana calming down rather quickly, I could see that Ailya had now gained the [Heal I] magic skill.

With this I was able to learn a few things. First being, that I could not tell when someone was close to leveling up, or even at which point of the process they were. Secondly, I was also, not able to tell what the phenomenon that allowed both me and Ailya to gain new skills and abilities, was. And, while I would like to say it is a result of both of us having tier 10 souls, the truth is that I had such a choice from the first moment I leveled up, even though at that point I only had a tier 1 sould. The last thing I learned was that I was able to influence what skill or ability Ailya was able to choose. This was extremely important as I could allow her to follow down a specific path and allow her to specialize as a certain build.

As It was always better to optimize a build, rather than to spread all your skill points into everything around, I could allow Ailya to become incredibly powerful, though that was still far off into the future and for when I had a better grasp about what would even be a ‘good build’ in this world.

Thinking back on the insanely powerful man we had just come across, I couldn’t help but feel fear returning to me at the thought of one day having to fight him. Deciding that him knowing Ailya’s name was too great of a risk, I looked Ailya straight in the eye as I called out to her saying:

“Ailya”

“Yes?”

“Since there’s people that are out there looking for you that might want to harm you, I think that using your name might become dangerous, even if you don’t look the same as before. That’s why…”

Feeling guilty about changing another thing about the girl in front of me, I hesitated to finish off my sentence. Ailya however, being able to intuit what I was asking, simply gave me a vibrant smile as she told me:

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t mind even if you change everything about me. The thing that I would hate the most would be to be an inconvenience to you. So if my name is going to cause trouble for us, then I don’t mind getting a new one, especially if it’s one given by you.”

Hearing her answer, I felt a small pang of guilt in my heart as I closed my eyes and thought seriously about the matter. Finally, deciding on a name, I opened my mouth and said:

“Ailya, my name, my full name, is Alexandra Morgan. Since I don’t want to change your name too much from the one you already have, your first name for when we are in public will be Alice. And, in order to signify that the two of us are sisters, your last name will be Morgan. Therefore, from this day on, so long as we are in public, you will be known as Alice Morgan. Is that okay with you?”

With her expression brightening at hearing her new name which shared last names with mine, Ailya’s smile expanded until it seem to reach across her whole face as she simply answered enthusiastically:

“Yes! It is!”