The Way Ahead

“So is there really a point to all of this? Other than you demonstrating how utterly outmatched I am against people like you, both on an Attribute and Skill level,” Edwin complained once his nose had finished healing. A broken nose was far from the worst injury he’d gotten lately, but it was still quite annoying and kept him from wanting to talk.

Worst of all, Adaptive Defense kicked in only after he’d taken the damage, meaning it was both harder and more painful to set it back in place than it had been to first break it. Next time, he’d know to disable the Skill first.

“But of course! It is valuable to learn one’s own limits!”

“An it’s fun to watch!” Yathal pitched in, Kyni barking his agreement.

Lefi chuckled, “And it’s fun, yes.”

“Glad one of us enjoyed themselves,” Edwin grumbled, though his heart wasn’t really in the complaint, “So… just so I can see how completely outclassed I am, I’m hearing? I could have told you that after a random solitary bandit managed to put a hole in my chest. I suppose technically the hole was kind of my fault, but that’s besides the point.”

Lefi glanced at Inion, who shrugged.

“Could you talk to me instead of her?” Edwin snapped, “Honestly. I’m the one being trained here! Inion doesn’t know everything about me.”

“Of course! It is simply that she is more aware of your level of strength on an objective scale.”

“Her info literally predates the Empire! I know about as much as her when it comes to how strong I am compared to the average adventurer or citizen.”

Lefi raised an eyebrow, and Edwin shrank away, “Fine.” He grumbled, “I’ll go sit with the other kids, then.”

He slunk off to where Yathal and Kyni sat in the grass, floating down and giving Kyni a good scratch between his ears. As intelligent as a person or not, he was still a dog and loved pets as much as any other canine.

He idly wondered if he could or should get a dog now that he was on Joriah. He’d always wanted one as a kid, but his family was gone from the house too much for it to be viable. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to the dog,’ he’d always been told, and while he agreed with the sentiment, both then and now… he still really wanted one. But he wasn’t sure if he would really be able to adequately adopt and care for one. His personal goal of feeding himself daily failed a long time ago, how could he remember to do the same for an animal he adopted? Bill contented himself with whatever grass they found on the roadside, but a dog would be much more demanding.

It still would be nice, though. Yathal and Kyni were utterly inseparable. Other than when they passed another traveler on the road, or when some noise or scent would catch the dog’s attention. He’d rush off to make sure whatever it was wasn’t dangerous, maybe give a friendly bark or two to let them know everything was alright, then he’d be right back to Yathal’s side, or serving as the boy’s steed at times when he wasn’t just riding on the carriage.

Sometimes, they’d work themselves into a puddle of boy and dog, each comforting and drawing comfort from one another. Other times, like right now, they would just be sitting next to each other. It was obvious that Kynigos loved his boy orders of magnitude more than anyone else, and would do anything for the kid.

It was… really sweet, and Edwin wished he had that sort of dependability from someone. Or just someone who was willing to spend time in preference to that of anyone else. Even Inion clearly preferred the company of Lefi over him. It just…

Edwin sighed.

He couldn’t fault people for preferring to spend time with certain people. Heck, he absolutely played favorites with the people he did like versus those he didn’t. You could only have one person who you most liked spending time with anyway, but was it too much to ask for somebody who would choose him over any other given person when given the chance?

He absently scratched Kyni’s stomach- the dog’s head was claimed by Yathal, of course- and looked around at the vivacious locale they’d chosen for their campsite.

They’d exited the forest about a day prior, and Edwin was happy for the change of scenery. Where they currently were camped was against a small hill a short distance from the road, the lush grass spilling out like an emerald carpet in all directions as far as he could see. The smells of the early-autumnal forest had also been exchanged for those of a windswept plain, the faint scent of late-summer wildflowers carried on the breeze and into Edwin’s nose as he breathed in. As he laid back into the grass, he stared into the sky. Far overhead, a hawk circled in its never-ending hunt, and Edwin sighed in relief.

It was nice, he decided. While Lefi and Inion continued to talk about whatever- presumably him- and Yathal sat in silence watching them, Edwin picked a blade of grass and idly peeled it apart.

“What’s that?” Yathal asked, and Edwin dragged his attention back to the wider world.

“What’s what?” Edwin asked, looking around. He didn’t see anything too unusual, what could the boy be wondering about?

“That… white thing. Over there!” the boy pointed to a part of the sky, but Edwin couldn’t see anything of note that way. It was mostly clear blue sky, was whatever he saw obscured against the…

“Wait, the cloud?”

“That’s not a cloud! It’s waaaay too big and puffy! And too white!”

Edwin chuckled, “What, have you never seen a cumulus cloud before?” he asked, before catching himself and frowning. It had been a year and a half since he’d arrived on Joriah, and there had still only been a single time he’d seen it rain. Even that one time wasn’t natural, so was it possible that…

“Have you ever experienced rain?” he asked Yathal.

“Oh, there was a couple of times! When I was a kid there was this one time that the Emperor himself brought rain and the sky turned really gray. It was all really wet for a long time and it was really annoying out in the field.”

Huh. Well, okay then. Interesting that Rhothos had such a dramatically flourishing ecosystem if it basically… never rained, but maybe the Rhothos river helped in that account? Along with the Verdant and whatever magical nonsense it provided, of course.

“Was that your only experience with clouds?” he asked, before immediately regretting his choices. The kid had just said that he had seen clouds before.

“Well, no. But clouds are really small and wispy, not like that,” he said, and Kyni barked his agreement.

“Well… that there is what clouds are generally like, and what most parts of the world will experience. You just don’t get rain because of the mountains, I guess.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, you’re in its rain shadow if I were to guess... Hey Lefi!” he called out, getting the attention of the well-traveled adventurer, “Have you ever been to the other side of the mountain range in the Verdant?”

“I have been much farther afield than that in my adventures! Why, one quest I undertook-”

“Great, great,” Edwin cut him off before he could get carried away, “What was the weather like there? Was it as dry as here, or was it rainy?”

Lefi laughed, “I scarcely saw the sun! It was all mountains and valleys leading straight into the ocean itself, and there were nigh more rivers than dry ground! Now, I had an adventure there at one point where-”

“Okay, cool. Thanks,” he redirected his attention to Yathal, “Yeah, that’s because of a rain shadow. Basically, water is picked up over the ocean and carried in the form of clouds until it can fall out as rain. However, because of the mountains, a lot of the water is kept from getting to this side of the Verdant and it all rains out either in the mountains or on the far side, where it just goes back into the ocean.

“If I were to guess, that cloud there means we’re getting closer to the coast, and the mountains aren’t blocking as much of the sky as they once were. We might even get some rain here soon!”

“I don’t think that sounds fun. Can we not?”

Edwin chuckled, “I mean, we don’t have much of a choice. Rain is a common occurrence most places, and a needed one when you don’t have a huge magical forest and river making sure your home isn’t a barren wasteland.”

“Better that than havin’ rain. Make the cloud go away!”

“Sorry, Yathal. Not much I can do in that regard.”

“So! You have powers you are ignoring, my friend!”

“I mean, I haven’t figured out how to use Refine, but that’s not for lack of trying. I just don’t dwell on my failures all that much.”

“Eh? Refine? I meant your Overcharge! It’s such a powerful Skill, yet you never utilize it!”

Edwin had given up on trying to figure out how Lefi knew so much about his skill list. Inion was probably helping him or something. “I mean… it hurts a ton when I use it, and Inion cautioned me away from overuse. Something about black goop buildup or whatever?”

“I told you, Edwin. It’ll be alright if you don’t overuse it!”

“Yeah! That’s what I’ve been doing!”

“How many times have you used it in the last four months you’ve had it?”

“…Twice?” Edwin knew where this was going and he couldn’t say he was happy about it, but what could he do?

“Ya! That’s not overuse! That’s neglect!”

“Fine,” Ediwn grumbled without any real weight behind the complaint, “I’ll train my Skill. It just hurts, you know?”

Truth be told, he had been meaning to try and use it more often. His Adaptive Defense might have been at a high enough level to help offset some of the worse effects of the Skill’s use at this point for all he knew, and it was too valuable a trump card to leave wholly unused. But complaining about it slightly when his trainers prodded him into working on it was his way of dealing with the soreness he knew he’d be dealing with.

“Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with. Just… remind me to prioritize getting some unicorn derivatives, okay?”

The magical animals, true to their Earth mythological counterparts, were exceptionally pure- a property that extended to their horns, hooves, blood, and more. That made them useful in everything from antiplague treatments to antidotes, and were on Edwin’s list of substances to stock up on.

“You know, if you wanted unicorns, we’re going in the wrong direction.”

“Yeah, I know,” Edwin sighed. Unlike their more mythological counterpoints, ‘real’ unicorns (a thought Edwin still couldn’t believe he seriously had) were more cervid than equine. That meant their natural habitat was sparse, warm woodland like that found in the southern reaches of the Verdant. They could live elsewhere, naturally, and there was apparently a family that lived in snow-covered lands where their white coats served as highly effective camouflage, but Edwin wasn’t keeping his hopes up to encounter any ‘arctic unicorns’ in his travels. He personally suspected that arctic unicorns might have been the original species, with the ‘normal’ variety having migrated south. How else would an animal evolve a pure white coat if not part of a snowy environment?

“But we’re also heading in the direction of one of the biggest trading hubs on the continent,” he mused, “We might be able to find some horns there.”

Unicorn horns weren’t like rhino horns or elephant tusks, fortunately. Though he had no doubt they were still hunted for the rest of their body parts, unicorns in particular shed their horns every year like their deer cousins and so were more readily available than they might have been otherwise. Overall, it mildly pleased Edwin that unicorn horn could be sustainably harvested.

Granted, he didn’t expect that they were, but that fact didn’t particularly bother him. Unicorns were just another magical creature, no particular degree of sapience in common members of their species greater than any other animal.

There was apparently an exception to all of this in the form of the ‘Noble Unicorn,’ but Inion had refused to elaborate on that when he had asked her to confirm what the book had said. Whatever. She said that there was no way the writers of the book had experience with it, and that their observations of the common unicorn’s primary properties were close enough to accurate as to be useful for him.

“So! Do you intend to expand your repertoire by actually utilizing your Skills?”

Edwin sighed, “Fine. I don’t suppose you have some sort of training-assist Skill or whatever? I don’t mean Exceptional, but like a Skill that helps you utilize ones I have.”

“My friend, I have Skills for everything.”

“Awesome. So when we’re done lighting my body on fire, maybe we can figure out how Refine works?”

Overcharge

The strength rushed through Edwin’s body once more, empowering his every twitch and thought as mana permeated the fabric of his body and imbued it with immense strength. This time, though, he was trying something different. This time, he was attempting to concentrate the effect in his right arm.

At minimum, it should help Edwin fight off the full-body pain and fatigue that he usually felt during these training routines. At best, it might improve the efficacy of the Skill itself, magnifying its strength by focusing its area of effect.

It was hard, though. Edwin’s Mana of 33 was higher than any of his other Attributes, and his Basic Mana Manipulation was only 9. Sure, Mana Infusion was one of his highest-level Skills, but that didn’t help him all that much given it was already incorporated into Overcharge’s effect.

Still, he tried. Inion was holding his hand, providing him with moral support as well as being literally on hand in case he needed immediate medical attention. Lefi was standing a bit further back, blasting Edwin with a mix of beneficial Skills- including the dangerous Inspire Courage- imbuing him with the certainty that he would manage it this time.

Off in the corner of his awareness, Numeracy continued to tick up as he tried to fight the effect back to no real avail. Ten seconds, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen… He tensed up in preparation for…

The high passed, and Edwin’s entire body sagged with the unique sensation of electrocution and exhaustion combined with being set on fire from the inside out. It was getting better, though. Once Overcharge had passed the ten-second mark, Adaptive Defense had begun to have a noticeable difference on the intensity of the Skill’s backlash.

The switch still wasn’t instantaneous though, and while Edwin had found that with repeated use of Overcharge he could bring the pain down to… maybe a third? Pain was hard to measure. So was ‘harm,’ for that matter, but that was what Adaptive Defense supposedly guarded against!

Pain notwithstanding, he was learning a lot about his Skills. Adaptive Defense, for example, had a pool of resistance which was automatically applied to whatever was harming him most at any given time. The more he was harmed, the faster the switch. Once it was applied to a single source, it stayed tuned to that source until another form of damage began pulling the Skill towards it instead.

If he just let it go naturally, it would typically direct itself towards UV radiation and sunlight over the course of about six hours or so, protecting him from the heat of the day and sunburns. He could still tan, though, which was awesome. He had Skill-empowered sunscreen!

Its bias towards actual ‘harm’ meant that he couldn’t, in fact, level the Skill with or leverage its effects towards ‘tickling,’ much to Inion’s chagrin. Well, really it was his chagrin, because she wouldn’t stop trying. Gah. What happened to the days when she was perfectly content letting Edwin do whatever he wanted with himself? He missed those days. Yes, they had involved her throwing a lot of heavy and sharp things at him while he was blindfolded, but… no actually, now that he thought about it, he’d take the tickling.

“Edwin? How’s it going? Did it work?” Inion brushed her fingers against Edwin’s grimacing face, pulling him back to reality.

“Fine…” Edwin ground out, “I was successfully distracting myself there for a while, but it hasn’t fully faded yet. And no, no luck. It’s still my entire body.”

“Very well! Let us go once more unto the breach! Onward!”

Edwin sighed. This couldn’t possibly be healthy, could it? But Anatomy wasn’t yelling at him yet about any strange fluid buildups, so…

Overcharge.

One, two, three…

Edwin lay limply in Inion’s arms, looking up at the sky. For the first time in a long, long time, the stars were partially obscured by dark clouds drifting across the nightscape. It was an interesting shift in the weather, and while it hadn’t rained yet, Edwin’s intuition told him he should expect a drizzle the next day. His muscles burned to the point he could barely even flop around without using Flight- though calling on his mana was its own special kind of torture, and the day had objectively been a failure for his goals. Even now, he couldn’t so much as spare a single fingertip from Overcharge’s effects.

He was just glad it didn’t require any effort beyond momentary thoughts to play with his Status, though, as it helped him remember why exactly he enjoyed traveling with Lefi so much. The past couple of weeks really had been fantastic for his levels, he had to admit.

Level Up!

Skill Points 720→773 (Average level: 43)

Watchful Rest Level 28→30

Anatomy Level 39→40

Sapper’s Apparatus Level 47→49

Outsider’s Almanac Level 132→133

Adaptive Defense Level 27→30

Fresh Air Level 31→33

Flight Level 38→40

Overcharge Level 8→20

Longstrider Level 32→33

Alchemical Analysis Level 27→28

Fey’s Caress Level 36→38

Skillful Assessment Level 34→40

Prototyping Level 25→28

Basic Thermokinesis Level 22→26

Arcadian Elixir Level 24→26

Memory Level 62→63

Polyglot Level 66→67

Numeracy Level 36→40

Mana Infusion Level 86→87

Ritual Intuition Level 26→28

He wasn't sure, though, if that was really the best part.