“You, a swordsman?”

I almost laughed right in her face. While she was certainly in good shape, she was rather small and unassuming to be a warrior. Her? A swordsman? It was a rather fine joke if I do say so myself… So unless she had some godlike Skill to back her up…

“What kind of Skill do you have? Boost, Offensive?” I asked her, but all I got in response was confusion.

“Skill?” she tilted her head to the side, putting her hand on her chin in thought. “What do you mean, I have lots of skills, I’ve been training my whole life.”

“No, I don't mean basic skills, I mean your Skill, you know, the mystic abilities that make heroes… heroes.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen some people pass through the village do weird things with their Chi, like make copies of themselves or fly… nope, I don’t have anything like that!” she replied, leaving me dumbfounded.

Was she really stupid enough to try and be a swordsman without a Skill? Even if one trained their basic Chi energy their whole life, they couldn’t possibly come close to the raw power a single Skill user could release in an instant.

“You… don’t have a Skill?” I asked again, hoping she was just confused.

“Yah, nothing like that, nobody in my village can do anything special. But still, I’m really good, I’d show you but...”

“You really should rest anyways,” my mother cut in, standing up and heading towards another room. “Come, I’ll show you to our guest bedroom.”

The girl nodded and followed her, and I realized I still didn’t know her name.

“Hey, they might not have Skills in your village, but do they have names?” I called out to her as she walked down the hall.

“Mmm, your mother told me your name, Yi Zen,” she replied, stopping halfway down the hall. “I’m Xinyi, Tan Xinyi.”

I was left alone in the sitting room. She had seemed like a strange girl at first, but she only got stranger the more I learned about her… was it even possible to be from such a backwater village you didn’t know what a Skill was? It seemed unbelievable to me, someone who had grown up around heroes.

“Who are you, Xinyi?”

The next day when I awoke, my mother was uncharacteristically dressed properly. Even more than that, she was in her combat gear. Her long, bushy brown hair was tied back in a low ponytail as usual with a bright white bow. Her platinum colored armor glittered in the morning sun over her dark blue underclothes, and her longsword hung from a strap at her side.

“What’s going on, why are you dressed to fight?” I asked, and she sighed.

“Seems like Xinyi learned who I was, and she wants to spar. She asked for me to fight her seriously… you sure picked up a pain of a girl, didn’t you?”

“She doesn’t know what a Skill is, but she knows you?” the girl was becoming a bigger enigma every time I learned anything about her.

“I’d gather she heard about me when she got closer to the capital, it’s hard not to hear my name in passing even these days.”

“Though she didn’t have a sword.” I asked.

“I lent her a spare.” my mother replied, heading for the back door to a small training area.

Out of curiosity, I followed her. Xinyi was already outside, doing some warmup swings with an old but serviceable sword.

“Don’t kill her right after saving her, mom.”

This fight should have lasted an instant, a powerless child against the strongest sword in history. But my mother Xuan Yan’s first attack missed. Her peerless technique on the level of a god was dodged… I had never seen anyone evade her moves before.

Xinyi sidestepped my mother’s attack and countered, but her human level of speed was easily deflected by one of Yan’s many Skills.

They traded blows a few more times, pacing around each other, when something happened.

“Alright, time to get serious!” Xinyi exclaimed, as if to say she was able to dodge and deflect the blows of the strongest Hero without trying her hardest.

The fight became more intense, Xinyi moved far faster than I expected anyone could without a Skill, and for a second my mother was on the defensive. Of course, Xuan Yan wouldn’t pull out her full power in a sparring session with a teenage girl, but even then it seemed impressive to push her back at all.

“God Rend” my mother’s voice whispered, and a whirlwind of energy erupted from the ground around her. Xinyi was knocked back off her feet, and before she could get back up, my mother had her pinned under one foot, her blade at her neck. “That’s the end.”

“Amazing… I didn’t even see you move!” instead of being discouraged, Xinyi was excited. “Was that one of those Skills you were talking about? No wonder you’re the strongest around here!”

“Yeah, you’re quite skilled yourself.” I hadn’t planned on using any of my Skills, but I thought I might lose if I didn’t… and there’s no way I could lose with my son watching!” mother smiled and lifted the girl off the ground by the hand, then patted her on the head. “Tell me girl, did you come to the capital to be a street urchin, or did you want to become something more?”

I had a bad feeling about the future.

“Would you like to become a hero?”