It’s been another year or so. I’m 4 and a half now.

I haven’t seen my father since my 3rd birthday, so I’m guessing something happened to him. Mother doesn't seem too worried though, so maybe she knows?

In that time, I’ve been reading up books, and doing small quests with my mother. It seems this world is really like a video game.

In either case, I’ve leveled up to Level 3. Killing monsters isn’t the only way to level up it seems. Just gaining “experience” is fine.

How do you gain experience?

Killing monsters is the most obvious, and supposedly the most straight-forward. Technically it’s “defeat enemies,” so the stronger the enemy, the more EXP. Killing the enemy, after defeating them, only rewards extra EXP depending on the enemy.

Next is doing quests. The amount gained depends on the difficulty of course. Sometimes failing a quest even gets me EXP, surprisingly enough. It seems to depend on what happens.

From what what I can understand, EXP is literally just experience.

That brings me to the last method: Just doing stuff. Doing new things gets me experience. I realized that while slicing tomatoes, I gain a bit of EXP, but it gradually slowed down. Of course, after slicing the 10th tomato or so, the guage just stopped. Though, I did get extra Dexterity from it.

I’ve spent most of my time here just reading books though.

It seems my mother had a few books, and seeing as there aren’t any other kids, I’ve just been reading her collection. It’s basically just the two of us here, so there isn’t much else to do.

Most of the texts are about the gods, or different tales about heroes. There are also some that are just stories about random people. But I can't tell the difference between fiction and historical tales like this.

The books about the gods also don't seem to be holy books. Rather, they’re tales and stories about various elven gods. A couple mention human gods, but mostly those that have had direct effects on the Elves.

From my understanding, the general populace seems to acknowledge that these gods exist, but their worship is usually aimed at only a few of them. I'm curious about what a "god" in this world actually is. Each race seems to have a pantheon of gods they worship, and each god gives different blessings to people, based on their faith. However, it seems that gods of one pantheon won't (or maybe can't?) bless people of other races.

I don't know if there's actually a limitation to what they can do, or if there's favortism among the gods.

And then there are the Primordial Gods.

These are the first gods to exist, and are said to be the ones who brought all things into existence, including the gods themselves.

It's said that worshiping these beings won't bring you any blessings, but their existence is acknowledged by the gods, so these guys are usually just mentioned to remind people they exist.

I wouldn’t really care about them, if that’s all there was too them, but what bothers me is their names.

They’re all in English.

It’s said that there are 9 Primordial Gods, but only the names of 4 are known: Status, Vector, Clock, and Aether.

But no one notices the names are in English, because English is an unknown language in this world.

Technically “Aether” isn’t completely English (Greek I think?) but still. In fact, in both Human and Elven the word “Aether” exists the same way, and is said to be derived from the name of that god.

In this world, instead of “Mana”, they use “Aether”, which feels like the developers of a game just wanted to be original with their naming.

On the subject of Mana and Aether, I haven’t gotten to any books about magic. Well, there’s the book I’m currently reading, “The Principles of Magic and Aether”, which explained how the god Aether is the embodiment of all Aether in the universe, and explained various basic concepts, but it didn’t explain in detail how to use magic.

I wasn’t sure if my mother knew how to use it, or if she would teach a 4 year old, so I went ahead trying to learn on my own, using what I’ve gathered.

After finishing the 30th book I’ve read in this world, I set the book back where it belonged.

You have gained +2 Intelligence.

I’ve been gaining one or two points like this from reading for a while now, so I dismissed the prompt.

I went ahead and sat on the ground with my legs crossed, and closed my eyes.

The book explained that Aether is regularly absorbed into the body, and that the Aether taken into the body can be given instructions. This is how magic works, but I don't think I comprehend how to give it instructions.

It would be nice if there was a way to see Aether easily, but it seems that people can only see the effects of it, because its properties aren't fully understood.

Speaking of which, if I remember correctly, “Aether” was the “Air” that the Greek gods breathed, back in my old world's mythology.

So if Blood carries oxygen to every part of our body, and Aether is a form of “Magic Air”, in this world Aether is absorbed into the body through breathing, and carried through-out it, by blood, right?

You have gained +1 Wisdom.

That notification again—I've already learned that this doesn’t exactly mean I’m right. It merely means that I gained a bit of insight.

Still, my miscellaneous knowledge isn't perfect, and might not all apply to this world.

Well, let’s experiment, and put theory into practice.

With my eyes closed, I steadied my breathing.

Inhale through my nose, and exhale through my mouth.

A simple breathing exercise.

Next, I try to focus, while maintaining my breathing.

I focus on my heart.

How would you do that?

Ah, maybe a mental image of my heart should be fine?

Right. I try to imagine a single blood cell as it passed through my heart, and to my lungs. There is accumulates Aether, and then travels out of the lungs. After leaving the lungs, it travels along various vessels, as it enters an artery, and begins to pass down my arm. From there it makes it to the tips of my finger, and makes a return trip.

All the while it deposits nutrients and Aether to every fiber in my being. As this cell returns to repeat the cycle, another is beginning it, and another is only part way though.

No, that’s not all. Aether even pours into my body from the outside, permeating through my skin.

Every inch of my body is soaked in this resource, and is constantly being replenished.

The longer I focus on this process, the more I become aware of the sensation of Aether around me.

Soon enough, I feel like I can reach out and touch it, or perhaps even swim through it.

But it's little more than a sensation. This much won't do any good, so—

I try to reach out to this Aether mentally and—

Skill Discovered: Aether PerceptionThrough private meditation and knowledge of the mystical from another world, you have rediscovered a long forgotten art.

▶ Increased Fame if information is released to the public.

Aether Perception allows one to perceive Aether in its raw form.

Can only perceive Aether which passes through the body, and a short distance away.

Longer distances are possible at higher levels.

Ooh! That’s interesting.

Eh? The notification knows what I got the information about Aether, huh? Well ok.

But that was a rather lucky break. Was I able to perceive it because I knew the general process of how it entered and circulated the body? Well, now that I have the skill, I can perceive all the functions in my body. It’s kinda disturbing actually.

Well, I’m sure I’ll be desensitized to it soon enough. Besides, it's not an active skill. Not completely anyways.

It's technically a spell, as I actually gave my Aether instructions, like how the spell books said, and tried to find the sensation that matched my breath and blood flow. But it seems to be recognized as a Skill because it's more-or-less a passive ability.

I should be able to turn it off, but I decide to leave it on.

Afterwards, I try looking through some more of the books, skimming them by their titles, but there weren’t many on magic.

Maybe my mother hid the ones about magic? Or maybe they’re really expensive?

In either case, I decided to go outside, and practice this Aether Perception a bit more.

See Skill: Aether Perception

As I think that, a prompt appears before me.

Aether PerceptionProficiencyBeginner Level 1 (2%)Aether Perception allows one to perceive the presence and nature of all Aether.

Distance From Body Surface: 5 centimeters

Hmm, So I have to be pretty close to perceive Aether, huh?

After I unlocked Cooking, I saw this prompt, and my mother explained to me how the Proficiency levels work. It seems that Proficiency goes up 100 levels before being mastered. The first 24 levels are “Beginner”. Then it’s 50 levels of “Intermediate”, and then 25 “Advanced”, before finally the 100th level, which is “Mastered”.

As you might expect, the raise in mastery becomes slower as the level raises.

With that in mind, I decide to sit on the grass outside, and try to pay attention to the Aether in the air and around me.

My mother is tending to her garden, so she shouldn’t try to bother me for a while.

As I close my eyes, my focus once again returns to the Aether flowing around me. This time I take notice of the Aether which flows within the grass near me, and under my ass.

Unlike the rapid motion of the Aether flowing inside my body, the Aether inside grass is slow moving and predictable. What’s more, I even take notice of the Aether carried by the sunlight, which is also soaked up by the grass. Interesting.

Pretty soon I realize that the Aether inside me, the Aether inside the grass, the Aether floating around, and even the Aether carried by sunlight have different properties. I can’t put them into words, but calling it flavors could work. Flavors of Aether.

Aether Perception has Leveled Up.

Hah, just like that, huh? Well that seems easy enough.

Checking up my Aether Perception skill again, it looks like my range of perception increased by 5 centimeters. Will each level just increase my range by 5 centimeters? If that’s the case, then at mastered I’ll have a 5 meter range. Or maybe the rate will increase at Intermediate and Advanced?

I’ll find out eventually.

Still, if I'm going to learn magic, perhaps I should ask my mother about it? She never clarified whether or not she knew magic. Her books seem to indicate that magic is accepted in society, so I probably won't be burned at a cross for practicing it.

So while she's harvesting fruits, I walk up to her and ask—

"Mommy, teach me magic," of course I try to play up my childishness.

Mother responds by looking back at me with a smile, "You want to learn magic huh?" She asks, setting down the basket.

I nod my head vigorously, and she seems to find that cute in some way.

"Well first tell me how much Aether you have,"

I quickly look at my status screen—"3480, is my maximum," I tell her.

—Ah, should I have kept that to myself? Yeah, I probably should have. The elven woman in front of me seems thoroughly shocked, as she seems to run some numbers through her head.

Right, I forgot that this was a game-like world, where Mana/Aether is determined by Intelligence.

I didn't know how she would react, but she merely picked her basket back up, and got back to gardening.

Huh?

"When I finish this, I'll be sure to teach you what I know,"—That tone sounded rather serious too.

Ah, maybe I should have given a lower number, and cut off a digit or two?

Well, what's done is done.

"That was a pretty absurd number you gave me," Mother said, as she sat across from me, in a style I could only call by one name: seiza.

"W-well that's how it is," I said, trying to avert my eyes, but some sort of pressure kept me from doing so. I also sat in the same way, on the hard wooden floor.

"232 Intelligence. A number like that shouldn't be possible for a boy like you, you understand that, correct?

No, I knew that much. But her tone has changed a bit, hasn't it?

"You know in most circumstances, I would have suspected you were a spirit who over took my son." Is that possible? Wait, did she think I was possessed?

Wait a moment—is my mother secretly a high level?

So it would have been dangerous if she acted on that assumption, right?

And she suddenly let out a deep sigh.

"I did think you were too smart for a boy your age," She finally said, her tone returning to normal. "Reading those difficult books, and not complaining one bit about it. But very well. Mother will teach you magic," She said.

Of course, I was still a bit bewildered.

What was with that serious atmosphere earlier?

But she'll teach me magic now?

Great!

"You've already read most of my books. You should have come across one called The Principles of Magic and Aether. Did you read that one?"

"Yes," I nodded. Her tone changed again, but it's not as serious as before. So the danger's passed, right?

"Then, you understand that Aether exists in all places, and that our ability to store it is based on the power of our minds; correct?"

I nodded—that was the basics of basics, so there's no way I could forget.

"All magic requires detailed instructions to be given to Aether, in order to carry out ones will. That is the principles of magic—enforcing our will on the world, via the power granted by Aether itself."

"However, Aether can neither be seen nor felt—not in its raw form anyways. To use it, you must draw it out by will, using an affinity."

"I don't have an affinity though?" Am I supposed to have one? I don't remember if the book mentioned it...

"That's normal. Usually you have to acquire certain conditions in order to obtain an Affinity. Someone who plays with fire regularly will obtain a Fire Affinity. Someone who mines or collects rocks will obtain an Earth Affinity. A devout follower to a god will be granted the Divine Affinity, and so on. A child such as yourself wouldn't have an Affinity," she explained.

Which got me thinking—

"Then what Affinity do you have?"

"Water, Nature, Wind and Divine," She said.

Ah, she was probably a follower of Aien, right? It explained my title, Aien's Gift. I read a bit about that goddess in some of mother's books, but it doesn't seem she has a great role in Elven society. Then again—she's a fertility goddess, so she doesn't seem to make many appearances. But she might actually be considered quite important, especially because of that.

"What kind of magic do you use?" After all, just because you have the affinity, doesn't mean you use that sort of magic.

Well, back in the day, I was a pretty well known healer," She declared proudly. "Of course, I was well versed in Wind and Nature magic as well," She added.

"This house was actually created without cutting down a single tree. I merely offered the trees my Aether, and commanded them to build our home."

Oh, that's pretty cool. Seriously, it's very impressive, you know? It seriously looks like the house was built from logs, but that was probably in the event a human found the house, and thought it was suspicious.

"Of course, that kind of magic is a secret among we elves, so I had to disguise the fact I used that kind of magic," She confirmed my thoughts.

"So what are you going to teach me first?"

She nodded, as if to tell me she was getting to that. "Wind magic, probably. I've had you help me with the garden for a while, but you haven't obtained Nature Affinity, so you probably don't have a good disposition towards Nature magic anyways."

I should have unlocked Nature magic by now, is what she's saying right? Well, she's had me help a lot, but like she said, my Gardening Skill is only at Beginner level 4.

Is there a level requirement for the skill? And if so, does that mean my Gardening skill is raising slower than usual?

But then...

"How do I unlock wind magic?"

As I asked that, mother seemed to realize an issue. "Oh right, Wind Magic's Acquisition Condition is of the manual kind," She muttered.

Wait, what does that mean?

Mother seemed to be in thought, but as I was about to voice my question—"Well no, your Intelligence is high enough, so you should be able to do it,"

"Do what?"

"Well, even though certain skills or titles can grant you an Affinity, there is a third way. The so called manual condition. A person can reach an Affinity by trying to give their Aether the instructions to reproduce the effects. But it requires an innate understanding of this Affinity to work. Because wind is so simple, almost anyone can acquire it, but few bother to, for the same reason."

Waa—h? Like, manually telling my Aether to bend the wind, huh? It does sound easy, but probably not something a regular child can do.

"It's also rarely the first Affinity someone receives, because you first have to learn how to guide your Aether first. But you're a smart boy, Aishean, so I think you'll do fine."

Ah, so I'll finally learn how to command my Aether, huh?

It wasn't as easy as I thought. The instructions were simple and straight-forward, but forcing wind to move at my command was difficult without the Wind Affinity itself.

At some point I realized that I must be doing something wrong, because my aura of Aether wasn't moving as I instructed it.

Once I realized I need to focus more on my Aether than the wind itself, the Aether began to move at my command. But converting it into wind then became a second obsticle.

At some point, I did manage to create a small gust of wind, but it was hardly enough to get Wind Affinity.

But once I figured it out, I was able to blow wind rather easily, even without the Affinity.

And when I checked my status screen, there it was.

Aishean SendallRaceElf / HumanGenderMaleAffinityWindTitlesSon of Aseal

Son of Kradeal

Aien’s Gift

"Good. Now, let me teach you how to actually use your Affinity, and some of the more basic Wind techniques."

Author Notes:

So I was going to post two chapters today, when I realized I didn't like how this chapter went, and rewrote about a third of the chapter. I don't know whether the rewrite is better or not, but I like the direction better.

For the most part, my draft just had it so the mother never found out about his abnormality, but I wanted him to at least have some direct instructions when it came to magic, instead of him fumbling around, trying to figure it out later.

Feedback and suggestions are appreciated.

I'll be rewriting parts of the chapters I already wrote today, so expect Chapter 3 tomorrow.