Chapter 8 – Mana, Skill and Job

Lucca arrived at the capital short after thanks to the teleport system. He looked around and saw the capital was bustling with people as usual, it seemed that the monsters that caused the massacre outside was already an event of the past.

Lucca walked calmly towards the direction of the cathedral and after an hour he could see the big structure that was the base of the church. He moved inside and saw numerous people praying, waiting for healing, confessing and so on. He moved towards a nearby clergyman about info of the church.

The clergyman instructed him to move to the reception in a corridor nearby. After going through he saw a large queue, he went there and started waiting his turn. After a quarter of hour had passed he was greeted by a nun and he asked where he could learn a job in the church while delivering Ann’s letter.

When the nun saw the seal on the letter she had a surprised face and said something to another sister while passing the letter and saying to Lucca follow her.

Lucca followed the sister towards the inner parts of the building until a big room, there was an aged man who accepted the letter and opened. After a few minutes he finished reading and looked at Lucca, his gaze fell on Lucca and after some time he muttered lightly “I see”.

Lucca kept quiet, he did not know why he was asked to come here because of the letter. This man clearly had some power within the church, since he had such a large room within the cathedral and he was the one who read the letter after the sisters panicked.

“Lucca Bright, hmm… By this letter I can see that you want to learn a job, despite still not being sixteen, is that right?”

“Yes”

“The letter explained me your situation, but you still have to pass our test if you want to learn the job, is this fine with you?”

“Yes… but, I don’t know which job I will be taking…”

“Haha, guess that young lady didn’t told ya” – Laughed the old man, after a few seconds he continued – “We are in the church, so obviously the job learned for young people is [acolyte]”

“[acolyte] is it…” – Lucca had a dejected face, he was a fighter type, he didn’t understood why Ann would make him learn this job.

The man saw Lucca’s worries and continued – “It seems you don’t have a good grasp of what a job is, nor an acolyte, guess I should explain since the young girl didn’t.”

“First of all, the mana, it’s the power (tool) that granted us strength. From the world view-point mana should be called its own blood. For us, living beings, mana could be interpreted as air and food. The same way living beings need air to breath and food to live, mana has become a vital function within oneself. Are you aware of monster crystals?”

“Yes”

“Without the crystal monsters would have their mana go wildly and they would die due to internal injuries. Although humans don’t have crystal like organs like the monsters, our heart and lungs were modified to be able to ‘breathe’ the mana from the world and supply our system with it, and this mana is used to produce those type of phenomenon.”

Said the old man while waving his hand and a beam or energy was shoot to the ceiling.

“This is the aspect that I called as food (energy). Now why do you think monsters attack cities or seclude themselves in isolated places?”

“I don’t know”

“Monsters are aberrations generated thanks to mana, while some of them are mutations from normal beasts, such as wolves, condors and so on. The most normal type of monster is the type who is born from mana itself. Such as the undead or demons, those are corrupted souls born from places with volatile mana. Of course, sometimes there are monsters born from only mana itself, though those are close to beasts and don’t possess any intelligence from the soul.

Now comes my second point about Mana, do you happen to know what would happen if a take one of those monsters born from mana and leave them in a place with low concentration of mana?”

“They become weaker?”

“That’s right, for those monsters, they need places with plenty of mana to live, if they abandon their habitats, they must move to another place with abundant mana, that’s the reason when territorial fights break between the monsters, the losers have to move out and usually those target the places such as our cities, that’s why I saw mana is also like air, they need to live.

By the way, although it’s not necessary for you now, but when one has large capacities of mana, the same things happen to us, therefore if you have to go to a place with low concentration of mana, you have to prepare items to replenish it. I’m sure you already have gone through mana starvation, now imagine this effect multiplied, that’s how bad it is.”

(Although I always had used mana, I never knew such things, no wonder Ann was always worried with me)

“Now that mana is out of the way, it’s about skills or magic. From the letter I’m aware that you have good mana manipulation and used it to battle, but as the young girl said, those aren’t skills, look”

The old man stood up for the first time, despite being an old man with long hair, he was considerable tall and had a body that didn’t match his rugged face. He waved his hand and a beam of light was shot to the ceiling once more.

“This is similar to what you have been doing all this time, utilizing mana to create phenomenon that interfere with the laws of the world, such as the ray of light just now or concentrating mana in my eyes to strengthen the vision and so on” – The old man coughed and sit once more – “While those are certainly useful and help people, since it’s easy to learn and have good effect, still they aren’t skills nor magic. Skill is the act of creating phenomenon within oneself.

With the former being the type of utilizing mana to interfere with the laws of the world to create a phenomenon, while the later creates laws within oneself to execute it. Look”

The old man once more extended his hands towards the sky – “[Holy Cross]” – A beam of light on the shape of a cross was formed and irradiated a divine feeling – “Comparing this and the beam of light previously, which one do you think it was the stronger?”

“The one just now is clearly stronger” – Said the amazed Lucca while staring the cross that stood firmly in the air.

“Haha, that’s right. Also, I used almost the same amount of mana to execute both”

“It’s so much more powerful and consumes almost the same amount of mana?” – Lucca was shocked, he couldn’t believe that despite being such a power gap between the two types, the mana necessary was almost the same – “Now I see why said all those things…” – Muttered Lucca while admiring the skills.

“Yes, in fact it used a little more mana because I maintained the effect, otherwise it would be the same” – The man stared at Lucca’s golden eyes and continued – “Then, continuing the conversation, about jobs, it’s nothing special actually, job is just the common name for those who learned all the basic skills of a specified type, for example, to have the job (certification) of mage, one would need to know the basic magic of fire, ice, thunder and earth.

In our case, the most basic job (certification) that can be learned in the church would be acolyte, which is given to someone who knows [Heal], [Cure], [Protection] and [Blessing].”

“I see, so jobs are just names given to a person who has mastery of a specified set of skills” – Muttered Lucca while agreeing with the Old Man – “But I don’t understand why Ann would send me here to become an acolyte despite I never using magic once before”

The old man took two items from his drawer and put in front of Lucca, the first one was a portrait of a young Ann with other sister and the old man, the second one being a crystal ball.

“There’s probably two reasons, the first one is that Ann learned her job here, after all” – The old man pressed the crystal ball on Lucca and continued – “Put your mana in this crystal”

Lucca didn’t understood why he was asked that, but he charged his mana inside, then the crystal shined a bright golden color with blue and green colors on the sides of the spectrum.

“It’s as her said” – Muttered the old man while looking the mana – “Your natural mana is of golden color, the holy type” – The man stopped and gazed his golden eyes once again – “Usually our race don’t have aptitude for a specific job (skills) like other races, such as elves or dwarves, but you have innate holy mana, that’s the best aptitude possible for learning and using skills of the holy class. That’s the second reason you was sent here”

The old man averted his gaze and looked to the window. Right on the opposite side of the capital there was another imposing building.

“Of course that doesn’t mean you have to abandon your own style to become a healer or something along these lines, as I said, job is just a title bestowed upon having the basic set of skills. You can always learn any skill or job later, but having innate Holy type it would be a waste to not learn any Holy skills, don’t you agree?”

Convinced by the man lecture, Lucca also looked in the window toward the other imposing building. He had finally understood why he was sent here, he was determined to learn the acolyte skills and then the fighting skills in the other building, the fort where the knights of the kingdom were stationed.