I sat in my room resting my head on my desk to free myself from a bubbling headache.

Doing so much thinking and writing in a single afternoon was surprisingly exhausting.

After about half an hour of resting my head, I sat up and forced myself to stand.

Not because I had any motivation to do so but because I was hungry and it was almost dinner time.

Right before I went downstairs to wait for dinner I tried to practice step six of my mana practice once again.

I spread out my Awareness and concentrated as much mana as I could control into a ball.

I then slowly span this ball around applying pressure with my Will around it evenly until it the ball becomes long and thin like a piece of wire.

While completing this step I could feel a subtle push like that of a skill helping me along even though I hadn’t learned one that dealt with mana yet.

With that unknown help, I was finally able to complete the step successfully which had been such a major roadblock for me so far and was able to better understand how to move mana around.

I was shocked that I was able to complete it and was even more shocked that I then even feel that fatigued from practicing.

All I did between my last attempt was write in my notebook I had no idea why I got such a sudden burst of enlightenment and competence but I had a couple of theories.

***

It had been a week since I started experimenting with mana.

I continued to practice the steps outlined to learn Internal Mana Manipulation and while yes, I was making extraordinary progress I was also drained.

Our academic classes were lessened as we prepared for the Astra, but we also had new courses like swimming and track and field to learn for the event while still improving our weapon skills.

I walked to my room after eating lunch my body hobbling with each step like a zombie.

As I got to the stairs which lead to my room I felt someone come up from behind, softly wrapping me in a hug as she placed her head on my shoulder.

“You look glum.” a girl whispered into my left ear sending a soft tingle down my spine.

I didn’t like when people I weren't extremely close to touched me out of nowhere but for whatever reason, I wasn't bothered by the elf maid’s random shows of affection. I found it relaxing.

Despite never really talking to each other it felt like we had a very strong connection.

“I’m not upset I'm just going into my room to practice some stuff that I learned recently”

“Oh really, and what would that be?” she asked with a curious smile naturally shifting her weight so that she leaned onto me more.

“Just some better ways of manipulating mana, I had a bit of an epiphany recently when it comes to flattening it out and forming simple shapes,” I said with a slight smirk proud of my relatively insane progress speed.

“By the way, I'm going to need a couple more training weapons from Kent namely a new halberd, rapier, and dagger.”

“The ones I had been using to practice my Advanced Melee Generalist skill got broken during practice.”

I had begun to practice my weapon skills with the stamina condensing effect that I learned from my tier 2 sprint skill.

I was also figuring out how I could enter that “zone” state where I split the floor open on accident but use it consistently.

I was making steady progress but the weapons that I was using were having a very difficult time keeping up with my strength especially since I inexplicable started to gain points in physical stats again through exercise after beating Kent in our dual.

Another strange phenomenon that I had yet to understand.

“Ask Kent to get those things for me when you find a spare moment and thank you in advance,” I said gratefully.

“No need, I’m the one who makes the weapons in the first place. I’ll bring them for you once I get the chance. I recently leveled up the skill I used to make them and I’ll put more effort into the new models I'm going to create so hopefully, you won't have them break on you again in the future. Giving me extra work in the process ” The girl mumbled in concentration so softly that I almost thought that the line wasn’t directed at me but at herself.

‘You the one who creates the practice weapons?” I asked quizzically.

“Only the melee and ranged ones as I don't have proficiency in skill-based magic, the reason I made them was to practice my druid skills. I already had a bunch just lying around when Kent asked me to borrow a few to help you guys practice,” She said absent-mindedly.

That made a fair bit of sense to me, while elves were a very diverse species they tended to follow nature-related classes like druids, rangers, hunters, and even forest guardians, or at least that was what I was taught during one of our classes.

Considering that she didn’t have a body type or temperament that suggested she was very physically active that meant that more than likely she was a druid.

“Come to think of it, don’t elves normally live in the forest? What's the story there? How did an elf end up working at a human mansion?” I raised an eyebrow before asking a couple of questions in quick succession.

“First off my name isn't elf it’s Gaine and to answer your question yes and no.”

“While yes, elves typically live in the forest it's not the forest itself that gathers elves but the world trees which tend to be at the center of large forests that the wild elves gather around” Gaine answered with a slightly offended but ultimately playful tone.

“I didn’t forget your name” I answered quickly.

“Yes you did, you always do, every time I meet you. As to how I got here I was born here”

I was genuinely shocked to hear that “So there used to be other elves in the mansion what happened to them?”

“No, I'm the only one. my parents were humans just like you”

I got even more confused and it must have shown on my face because Gaine immediately explained herself.

“A group of elves is originally born when a human is chosen by a world tree and accepts to be its caretaker the other natural born elves are typically just the children of these original caretakers”

“About 7 years ago when I was four years old my mother asked if she could bring me along to work as she had no one to take care of me while she would be gone at the time”

“When I got there I meet the tree, we hit it off and I agreed to become its first guardian,” she said with a smile.

“You are eleven years old, why are you so tall and mature?

“Wait before that, a random tree started whispering in your mind telling you to become its guardian when you were four and you just accepted?!”

“What does your mom have to say about this?!”

“Where is she now?” I asked in a worried tone.

“Yes I’m eleven, elves are just taller and look more mature than humans and no, my mother didn’t like my choice and protested against it heavily or so I’ve heard I don't remember the whole thing too well.”

“That's why she was promptly fired and removed from the premises, I haven’t seen her since,” she said casually as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

So this tree just had this girl sell her life away at four years old and when her mother tried to stop this she was fired for it.

My jaw felt as if it would drop to the floor.

Now, after they captured her they have her working at their mansion.

“What do those being the “Guardian of the tree” involve and what does it have to do with being a maid”

“Oh, it's just a temporary job I’m doing right now as I'm not of age yet and haven't fully come into my classes or become a true elf yet that will happen after I turn 15 and have my next evolution,” she said with a naive smile.

Once I’m 15 years old, I’ll have a position just below that of your father and even now I’m not treated as a regular maid” she said with pride clear in her face and posture.

“I just didn’t feel comfortable watching people around me doing work while I was just sitting around doing nothing it made me feel uncomfortable so I specifically asked for them to give me some chores so that I could pull my weight around the mansion.”

“As of right now, all I have is a class ability called “Revitalize Soil” which I have to cast every day to help keep the tree healthy that is my only true job requirement right now as well as miscellaneous matters like making sure the tree gets watered on time and the excess leaves get trimmed, little things like that”

“As a reward for my service the tree helps me too, it expanded my life span, gives me buffs and extra stats, helps regulate my emotions and it gave me a special class among other things,”

I raised another eyebrow and then sat in silence processing what I just heard.

I looked at the tree and for a second, it looked as though all of the dark engravings of people I saw on the tree's stem were staring at me I felt a shiver run down my spine and quickly looked away.

It felt as though my soul would be extracted from my body and fused with the rest of the engravings if I stared too long at it.

The information Gaine just gave me confirmed that the tree was indeed sentient like I expected it to be at the very least.

“I mean as long as you are happy with what's going on who am I to inject myself into your situation?

“What are these world tree things anyway?”

“It's just a really old tree that has been gathering power for hundreds of years any tree can technically become a world tree as long as it can live long enough that is”

If the tree in the tree room was that old it also meant that the mansion must have been around that age as well unless the founder of our family built the house around the tree which considering the strange substance on the floor I wouldn't be that surprised if it was.

“What else do you know about that tree in particular? Do you know what the engravings on it are for?” I hoped to finally get an answer to one of my longest-held questions since I came to this world.

“I know about as much as you do, part of our contract wasn’t that you must inform me about everything about yourself and vice versa so I genuinely have no idea you should ask Kent about it but don't get your hopes up because he never answered my questions before either,” she said a hint of curiosity entering her voice.

“Already did, he didn't give me a direct answer so I dropped it. Knowledge like that is probably a privilege of being the head of the family.” I replied disheardedy

“It's not a huge problem since you're going to be the family head anyway,” she responded quickly and unreservedly.

“Their’s no guarantee of that, but it doesn't matter to me that much anyway, as I don't want to be the family head in the first place,” I said before Gaine gave me a coy smile while not commenting any further.

I finally used the break in the conversation to break out of her grasp almost throwing her to the floor.

She looked at me for a second with what could only be described as the shock and anger of a recently awakened banshee.

I shot her a small smile and a laugh before secretly hoping she was ok and waking up the stairs.

The talk about being family head got me thinking about the mission our father gave us when we had dinner on our first birthday which was to see and communicate with the spirit within our pendants.

I had already managed to finish the process of seeing the spirit but I wasn't able to communicate effectively yet, nor could I command it to do anything.

Mostly because I was more focused on practicing my melee skills and magic rather than advancing my family skills which so far had yet to produce anything interesting.

Now was the time to change that.

Rina has already been able to communicate with and command the soul trapped in her pendant.

Earning Rina the first family point away the any of us in our generation put her starkly ahead of both me and Emma in that aspect except Emma was catching up fast and was on her way to accomplishing the same feet by the end of the month.

I would be damned if I was the last person who managed to earn a family point meaning everyone had to wait for me so that we could pick a specialization together.

I would have to put both rest and the stuff I was learning on hold if I wanted to achieve that which was disheartening since it meant that I wouldn’t be able to learn Internal Mana Manipulation by the end of the month as I planned.

I grabbed the pendant from my neck and started using my skill Minor Soul Sense Level 8.

It was getting close to its first evolution already which was exciting.

The only problem was that I could only keep the skill going for about three minutes at a time and by my second attempt in a row, my head would already start to hurt.

As usual, my eyes began to glow an unnatural color as I tried to form my energy into accurate, clean, and organized shapes and patterns.

Mini sparks flew out of the pendants interlocking with each other until they formed the shape of a young woman in a charred white robe.

The small lady about the size of my palm looked down with a blank stare.

The only movement she made was the occasional rubbing of her hands together or the light swaying of her hips.

What had now become the easy part was over, the next step was creating a temporary link between the two of us using the skill Minor Soul Control level 1.

I had recently come to realize that the way we manipulated our souls to activate our family skills was much different than the way we manipulated stuff like stamina and mana which felt almost like a gas that you manipulated with your mind to achieve certain things.

For our family skills, it is hard to explain the difference but its sort of like how when you are in a room you don't normally feel the air around you unless you move your hand fast or unless you feel the wind hit you.

Similar to this the soul energy that fueled my skills wasn't some outside power but was a substance that was constantly floating around within my body.

All my family skills did was change the density of it to form certain patterns and when the skill was over that energy simply defused, rejoining its brethren once again

To use an analogy

Using mana and stamina felt like you were molding clay into certain forms while using your soul felt like you were surrounded by my clay and shaping it from the inside.

I noticed that the more I used my soul-related skills the more thick and viscous this “soul energy” within my body became.

This gradual change made shaping my soul easier and the effects they produced more powerful over time which was not something I noticed with my stamina and mana which felt more fixed with how well I controlled it completely determining its improvement.

Another way of thinking about it was that my soul was an actual muscle that could be trained and evolved when using skills while mana and stamina were like gasoline something to be burned away completely to receive the desired result.

Changing my mindset of how I used my family skills helped make them a lot easier to use so I promptly passed that information on to my sisters.

Using my Soul Control skill I made a set of complex shapes whose basic function was to act as a release point and an anchor for my soul.

I placed it on the palm of my right hand so that it would be as close to the soul in my pendant as possible, doing otherwise was a mistake that I grievously paid for on my first attempt.

I pushed my soul through this anchor releasing it into the outside world as a thin string that produced an ungodly sensation.

I felt as though my entire existence was being pushed through a straw and that I was the one doing the pulling.

I eventually extended this thread until it reached my target, the charred soul I had begun to call Mary for convenience.

As the thread touched Mary I could instantly feel pressure pushing back against my Will and my soul.

The once docile soul began to flail around and scream silently in what I could only imagine being intense agony.

The resistance made it feel like I was trying to force a sharp nail into a wall with my bare hands alone.

Once my soul finally entered Mary, the second phase of the skill began.

Using only the small amount of my soul that I now had inside of Mary my new task was to create a three-dimensional structure much more complicated than the two-dimensional one I used to see souls in the first place with would help me to entrap Mary’s soul under my control.

Once this process was completed on a particular soul it would be much easier to do it again on your subsequent attempts.

The task was difficult enough on its own but Mary didn’t just sit ideally by while I tried to convert her, she used the force of her soul to relentlessly beat against mine until the painful throbbing in my head that was produced was too much for me to bear.

I was forced out of Mary’s soul which almost made me collapse again right then and there an experience I was getting was too accustomed to at this point but I wasn't done I needed to retract my soul.

I slowly reeled in my small thread of soul back into my body but my lack of focus caused some of it to disintegrate into the surroundings.

Once I finally sucked everything back in I felt as though some of me was permanently gone.

I was less for lack of a better term.

I wondered if I failed at using that skill too many times and if I would not have enough of a soul to use it again.

Despite my fear I grit my teeth, I could let my sister beat me I laid on my bed taking a short name to recover from my head ac then the moment I woke up I would try to use the skill again.