"Okay, well done!" Miria said, as Alice neatly gutted the attacking saproling with one of the sharper steak knives, and Zach and Janet stood nearby. Jack and Joey trained in the background, Joey working to pick up his own basic set of skills.

"No shit. You got anything more dangerous? These guys are too easy." The wolfgirl growled out, dismissively kicking the monsters corpse.

Miria sighed. "Uh huh. You want to fight a murder squirrel then? Right, of curse you do. Okay, I think you can handle it... Let's get Claire and Chomper though, just in case, yeah?" She said, and Alice sighed.

"Ugh, fine, whatever." She said, prompting a laugh from Miria.

"You know, you could chill with the attitude. Like, maybe a little bit?" She said, and Alice gave her a dirty look, prompting another laugh. "Right, okay, fair enough I guess."

Alice groaned. "Oookayy, fine, I'll chill a little. But lets hurry things up, yeah? I don't want to take forever."

Miria nodded. "Alright, will do."

"Okay, I'm ready." Claire said, chomper at her feet, while Alice and Zach stood by them. "You two both have your new skills, 'Dodging' and 'Melee Combat', with a couple levels in each? Alright, glad to hear it. Go ahead then, pick your monster and we'll cover you if you need us too."

"Fuck yeah, finally!" Alice said, pacing forwards, before flinging a rock at a murder squirrel in the branches above her. "Hey fuckface! Come get some!" She shouted, growling and readying her weapons, before pouncing on it as it landed in front of her. The monster frantically dodged, attempting to counterattack only to be dodged in turn, before finally she managed to catch it with one knife, pinning it down while she frantically stabbed it with the other. "Fuck! Die!" She said, hissing and shaking her scratched arm, then sighing and turning to Miria. "...You said something about a short sword and shield? That sounds nice actually. Oh, and I need some healing, yeah..." She said, walking over to Claire, who promptly topped her up.

Miria nodded. "Yeah, we'll get you some better weapons. Might be a day or two though, I'll need to talk to Jack and Maxim about it. Though actually, you should talk to them too, so we can make sure you get something that works well for you."

"Huh, well okay, that's useful." Miria said, looking at her new skill. "Would have been more useful if I got it at the start of the day, but I suppose it is supposed to get more difficult to get more skills as you accumulate them."

Jack shrugged. "Well, even so, I think I'll see if I can pick up a copy. Probably should ask Sarah and Claire to do so, as well."

Teaching
- Common Skill (1 Star)
- +2% ability to teach others per level.
- +1 CP per level.
- +1 CP Regen per day per level.

Miria sighed. "Yeah, you're right. More stuff to do. Well, c'est la vie, I suppose."

"So you want to learn *Magic*, eh?" Claire says, grinning, while Sarah lets out a small laugh and Zach rolls his eyes.

"Uh, yeah, hopefully. If it's not too much trouble." He says, fidgeting a bit.

"Yeah, I have no idea how hard it will or won't be. You've got MP though, so you should be able to manage something?" Sarah says uncertainly. "It'll be interesting to try... Maybe start by teaching him your meditation skill? Actually, I want to learn that, too..."

Claire nods. "Yeah that seems the easiest place to start. I want to pick up 'Teaching', too, like Jack suggested. So, okay, I've got a little garden that I made for meditating, it's pretty nice. Nothing too fancy, but still..." She says, leading them around the building. "Take a seat on the concrete, I guess. So, meditation isn't just about sitting quietly, it's about controlling the mind. There are two main components you're working with, attention and awareness. Attention is your primary focus, think of it like a spotlight you can aim around, while awareness is more of a background, well, awareness of everything else that's happening around you. Now, to meditate properly, you want to bring and hold your attention to the 'meditation object', usually the breath, while maintaining background awareness..."

Claire hummed to herself, steadily growing out another section of the hedge wall. She'd laid in well over half of it by now, most of the apartment buildings first floor hidden from view, especially along the sections that were closer to the forest. Finishing the last tree, she turned around and went to check up on her students. "Well? Hows it going?" She asked, and they both climbed to their feet.

"Well, I think we've both got the new skill. I'm not sure how to actually cast magic? But I think I might be learning to sense my internal stores...? I'm not sure. Any idea what to do next?" Zach asked, and Claire shrugged.

"...Try drawing on it and casting something, maybe?" She suggested. "Here. lemme show off my 'Shape Earth' spell, and see if you can do anything like it?" She said, beckoning them over and making sure Zach had a good view of her hands as they lit up with a nimbus of green gold magic, and she shaped a small hill of dirt out on the lawn.

Zach leaned in close. "...Maybe? I dunno, I could kinda feel what you were doing a little bit... Let me try." He said, before claosing his eyes and taking a deep breath - and then a reddish gold glow lit up over his chitin. "Hey, it worked!"

Basic Protection Magic
- Common Skill (1 Star)
- Can cast protection spells.
- Can learn protection spells from other practitioners, with moderate difficulty.
- Automatically learn one random protection spell at first level and every other level thereafter.
- Can create new spells with significant difficulty.
- +2% spell effectiveness per level.
- +2 MP per level.
- +2 MP Regen per day per level.
- Can learn up to 1 spell per level.

Harden
- Cost: 1 MP
- Casting Time: 1 second
- Duration: 1 minute
- Range: Personal
- Increases the strength of armor, including natural armor.

They both looked it over. "Very nice. And a whole new kind of magic, too, that'll be useful. It's weird though - my magic is really picky about what it wants to let me do. It's very clear that *I'm* not supposed to be casting anything like that..." Sarah says, chewing on her lip.

Claire shrugs. "I think I could learn it, or something close? But not exactly the same, yeah. Weird that magic is so opinionated... But then, it does seem to fill in a lot of the blanks when we use it, and generally behaves as though it has some level of awareness..."

Sarah nods. "Yeah, exactly! When I was meditating, I was feeling out my magic in the background, and I felt something like that... Might be a good avenue for further research? Probably need to wait though, we have other stuff to do."

"Yeah, probably. Honestly, I'm impressed with how easily you picked things up Zach - that wasn't more than a couple hours, yeah?" Claire asks, and Zach nods.

"Yeah... I'm not actually sure how good my spell is? Doesn't specify how much of an increase it is... We'll have to test it. And I'll see what other spells I can get. Might be something that's interesting to you?"

Sarah shrugs. "Hey, I'm always down for more magic! I'd love to see what you can come up with."

Joey shrugged awkwardly. "Uh, yeah, I got a new spell... I'm not sure how good it is though, seems kinda niche? I guess you're welcome to see it though." He said, while the other three stood around him. "It's called 'Lesser Sense Flammability'... Name is pretty descriptive. Lets me know how easily things will catch on fire and explode. Can sense some stuff through walls that way, even... Well, here. Watch closely." He said, before holding his hands out, a nimbus of red and blue magic lighting up around them, then a matching nimbus surrounding his head. "Here's the description."

Lesser Sense Flammability
- Cost: 1 MP
- Casting Time: 1 second
- Duration: 5 seconds
- Range: 100 feet radius
- Sense anything that could catch fire, how easily it could catch fire, and how well it would burn once it did.

"Oh, hey! That's really neat actually. Okay, let me..." Sarah said, before matching his casting. "Very nice! And several new references I hadn't seen before... This is huge, dude."

Zach blinked at her. "...It is? It barely even does anything though."

Sarah shook her head. "Eh, it does some stuff - but more importantly, it means I can make spells for sensing all sorts of stuff. This is a major breakthrough, man. It opens a lot of doors for me."