Chapter 4  

The walk home was uncomfortably silent. His parents were convinced he almost drowned—which he had, just not for the reasons they thought—and were beating themselves up for it.

His sisters didn’t know how to respond to the weird atmosphere. After a few unintelligible mutters among themselves, they ran ahead.

“I’m so sorry, I was too impatient for you to get the Swimming skill. I was a fool, why did I leave you alone? What was I thinking?” his mother said. She repeated that same sentence a dozen times, carrying him in her arms, despite his protests.

Mat didn’t know what to say, the truth carried too many secrets and his castle of lies would come tumbling down. But he couldn’t stay silent either. He couldn’t let them think they were bad parents.

After they got home, he decided a compromise was the best option.

“Mom, I have to tell you something.” His voice little more than a whisper.

Alana’s keen ears perfectly heard him. “Yes, sweetie?”

Now came the part where he asked his mother what the Mana Sense was in vague terms, putting forward his best naive face.

This is surely going to get me more levels in Acting. Dammit!

After a lot of back and forth caused by his confused explanation coupled with her disbelief, Mat repeated the whole speech to his father. His mother kept throwing expectant looks at Rellan, as if waiting for him to come up with a reasonable explanation for their child’s crazy story.

His father remained silent, trying to maintain an impassive expression, something he wasn’t very good at. Judging by how many times his brows moved up and down, he was equally astounded.

It’s just a feeling, but this might not have been the wisest idea…

Mat tried to dry his sweaty palms against his clothes and squeezed his Acting skill for all it was worth. This was supposed to be the smallest of his secrets, he truly learned Mana Sense by chance. He expected his parents to be surprised, not this shocked.

To put any doubt aside, Rellan proposed a simple test. Mat was annoyed they thought he was lying, but—on second thought—he realized he was doing exactly that, just not about Mana Sense.

Rellan got down on one knee to be at his height and put his empty palms in front of him.

“Kai, I need you to focus and use the skill you got, tell me if you see something.”

A spike of panic shot through Mat. After he got the skill, he hadn’t noticed anything different. He hesitated, unsure of what to do, Meditation and Acting worked passively, helping him improve. How did he use a skill actively? What if he wasn’t able to?

Calm down, it must not be that hard if they’re asking their two-year-old son to do it. You’re overthinking this.

Taking a deep breath, Mat focused on the air over his father’s palms with a solemn expression. He tried to recall the feeling when he learned the skill.

As if pressing a button, something clicked in his brain and the world turned alight.

Countless bright particles were swirling around him. He could see them outside of his field of view, which was disorienting. The lights moved in his vision, but he wasn’t seeing with his eyes. The skill was called Mana Sense, not Mana Sight.

Before he got overwhelmed, he closed his eyes. That was more manageable.

He took a few moments to admire the spectacle, then turned his attention to the task at hand. In front of him, two shapes of flowing lights overshadowed everything else: his parents. Focusing where Rellan’s hands should be, he almost burst out laughing. A wonky, smiling face glowed above his father’s right hand.

It was such a weird sight that took him completely off guard. It was so out of place, reminding him of an emoticon back on Earth.

Well, I suppose that works.

“Your right hand, Dad.” Mat giggled, pointing. The three-sixty sense was starting to give him a headache. He deactivated the skill and opened his eyes.

A series of surprised expressions flashed on his parents’ faces before they appeared to accept the undeniable truth.

“Did I do something wrong?” Mat asked, uncertain. He was sure he was going to get at least a couple levels in Acting after this.

“Absolutely not, sweetie. It’s just… very unusual. People don’t usually get that skill without help, let alone without any guidance at all.”

Was it that extraordinary? He got the skill by chance.

“Is it because there is little mana where we live?”

Rellan assumed his familiar teaching voice. “Not exactly, a higher mana density would certainly help, but only if it’s very high. The most important thing is the difference from what you’re used to.

“The Essence of the World is everywhere around us, but our senses are so used to it we don’t notice. It’s only when we move to a place with a different density that we realize something is different. If you were in an area with scarce mana like this island and moved to a place with ten times the concentration, you would certainly notice something amiss. It would also work if you moved to a place with less mana, but with more it’s usually easier.”

Alana threw her husband a look, but he was too lost in his thoughts to notice. Mat took a second to realize no sane person would expect a two-year-old son to understand that explanation.

His father was usually more knowledgeable, but his mother was way better at explaining.

“Maybe some rich mana current touched the shores while Kai was swimming,” Rellan hypothesized to his wife. “It’s rare, but not impossible that a higher concentration of mana was brought by the sea currents. It’s only weird I didn’t notice, it must have been very small.”

Before his father could rethink his theory, Mat changed the topic. “Dad, are you a wizard? Can you throw fireballs out of your hands? Smiling fireballs?” Mat mimed what he believed a powerful wizard would do with exaggerated gestures throwing his arms around.

Rellan smiled. “I’m sorry, Kai. I learned the basics when I was young, but in the end, I chose to follow a different career.” A hint of bitterness in his tone.

Occupying the silence, Alana added her thoughts. “Even if Kai encountered a temporary higher mana area, it’s still impressive he got the skill. He must have some affinity with mana. Do you think we should find him a teacher, dear?”

It was weird how adults sometimes talked as if you weren’t there. He distinctly remembered his previous parents on Earth arguing about his medical situation right in front of him, or even doctors giving bad news after bad news as if he wasn’t within earshot. He might only have been seven or eight, but he understood enough.

People acted as if children were dumb as rocks and would instantly forget anything they shouldn’t remember. This time he was all too happy they moved on from the strangeness of his situation to care.

Mat listened in silence. He was two years old after all. It would be weird if they treated him any different.

I suppose it’s part of being a child. Adults decide for you without asking your opinion, thinking they know better.

Alana and Rellan were discussing whether to give him any opportunity they could get or let him be a child. He would have liked them to ask his opinion, but it was true he didn’t know enough about this world to make an informed decision.

Dammit! I guess I’ll have to trust their judgment.

There were no proper experts on mana in Whiteshore, at most they knew as much as his father. If they wanted a proper teacher, they would need to go to a bigger town, maybe another island, which made the decision more difficult.

Better wait for a couple years before considering sending him to a tutor. There was no point hiring an expensive expert when there were many fundamentals he still had to learn. Rellan would teach him what he knew for now, and then they would revisit what to do.

Mat was fine with the decision. He wasn’t in a hurry anyway. His carefree life at home was too good to abandon.

He was happy he had been able to use his baby charm to convince Alana to continue the swimming lessons under strict supervision the next day. What was the point of living on an island if you couldn’t enjoy the sea?

Now that things had settled down, Mat remembered he had yet to check his status.

Name: Matthew James Reece

Race: Human

Profession: None

Body stats

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 3

Constitution: 4>5

Mind: 7

Spirit: 7>8

Perception: 5>6

Skills (4/7):

Meditation (lv28)

Acting (lv7>9)

Swimming (lv1)

Mana Sense (lv1)

Race: Human

Grade: Red ★★

Next enhancement➔ 0/20,000 XP

The new skill was written in orange instead of red, a definite proof of it being some kind of ranking system.

The race enhancement was extremely underwhelming. He awaited it for so long and it only gave him 3 extra points, nothing else. He had worked for two years for that! Half of his stats hadn’t even changed.

Kai started brooding when a thought hit him.

Wait a second…

Rellan said the most important factor to unlock Mana Sense was the difference in the mana density from what you’re used to. What if he was the one to change? Suddenly improving his Perception might have made something he ignored become noticeable.

It was a flimsy hypothesis at best. He wasn’t even sure Perception included mana sensing. Maybe he truly got lucky, though it was hard to think it was a coincidence that happened after he enhanced his race.

Once exhausting all his brain power with speculation, one thing became clear, he was tired of piecing breadcrumbs together. It was time to grill his parents for some answers.

* * *

Mat imagined himself marching to his parents demanding answers, it didn’t exactly go like that—in truth, it didn’t go like that at all.

He had to put together bits and pieces from a dozen conversations during the next few weeks to get a decent idea of how the Guide worked.

The most important discovery was that to fully unlock the Guide there were two milestones or seals. They were the reason why the Guide completely ignored him for now. The first was at seven years of age, when he would be able to modify the Guide to his preferences. He would unlock the customization option. While the second at fourteen would unlock the ability to get a profession.

Until then, the Guide was stuck in child mode and there was no secret password to get access to the complete version.

“It’s for your own good. You can learn how to best use the Guide without getting overwhelmed and committing mistakes,” Alana told him. Mat wasn’t convinced.

Okay, maybe letting a child choose a class whenever they wanted wasn’t the best idea, but why block the customization option?

The idea of having to wait for years was so frustrating.

He learned how the color tier system worked. Honestly, he should have guessed it himself when the second color turned out to be orange. It followed the colors of the rainbow or of the visible light spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. At least in theory. Neither of his parents had ever heard of anyone with a skill above Green, and even that was only through hearsay.

Races followed the same colors, not only for the sapient ones, but also for each bird in the sky and fish in the sea who managed to awaken and unlock their own version of the Guide.

Each tier was additionally subdivided into a three-star system, from Red ★★★ he would then reach Orange ★ and so on.

Not all races started at the same level either. Even humans could be born higher than Red ★, but with the low mana of the Baquaire Archipelago, it never happened here.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, the Guide always offers a path for growth, you must work hard to gain Experience Points and you can reach and surpass anyone. Even better, you can improve in the peacefulness of our island.”

Mat was skeptical. Starting from the lowest point possible, no matter how you put that: it was a disadvantage. The question was how big.

As for the benefits of a higher grade, his parents proved evasive. After pestering them for more, Rellan told him the red-tier would give a handful of extra stats.

“Those who are born Red ★★★ will get higher stats as they grow. When you earn it for yourself, you’ll get the same benefits all at once. It doesn’t matter until Orange anyway. And all the best people I’ve ever met earned it themselves.”

His father was trying to be reassuring, but that wasn’t Mat’s takeaway. It was nice knowing that getting Red ★★ was going to grant him benefits until he reached adulthood. However, if even his parents admitted that Orange was important, it must be a big change. His father’s words also implied some people were born at Orange directly.

Alana truly didn’t seem to care about it, though Rellan sometimes let a sliver of bitterness escape. Mat knew he was from the Merian Republic on the mainland, but he rarely talked about his life there.

On the continent of Talthen, not everyone started at Red ★. He had come to the Baquaire Archipelago for research purposes and decided to stay after he fell in love with his mother.

Who knew what life was like on the continent? It sounded like an exciting place. He couldn’t help but daydream about exotic places and adventures.

He wanted to explore all of it.