“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Aristotle

I did not spend the whole afternoon sleeping away as we were pulled across the endless ice. Although I did feel significantly safer with the four giants around. No, once I awoke, rather than alerting them to that fact and having to spend the rest of the afternoon slugging across the landscape on my skis I got down to some internal tidying up while I was wrapped up warm within the pelts and hidden from the icy wind and occasional flurries of snow. It was easy to understand why Nyx had spent the majority of her time wrapped up and away from it all. If she was a little older I would be tempted to kick her out to gain the cold resistance but as it was I did not wish to risk harming her in any way. Regardless, it was time for a little introspection. Time to take a detailed look at my status that I had neglected following up on all the changes that had occurred through our adventures since leaving Wester Ponente.

First up was the jump in levels. Life and death situations along with my near-constant use of magic to hold the boat together through the storm and then to keep us alive had levelled that metier the most. But all of them had seen some progress since I had last revealed my levels to my family for the first time. Still, 11 new levels were nothing to sneeze at, taking me to level 60 and providing me with another 120 free points that I could perhaps convince the Goddess of Luck to allocate for me at some point, or I would just have to wait a little longer. I was, after all, growing up and getting ever closer to the time that I could assign the points myself. In fact, I was nearly 7 (9 years 4 months) – I was no longer such an infant if still only a child by both my former and current world’s standards. It was interesting to note that I was still a lord despite my departure from the Wester Isles, I had not been expecting it to disappear, but it was nice to note that it had not.

Level: 49 ->60
Title: Lord
Métier: Singer Lv 11 ->12
Métier: Sailor Lv 12 ->13
Métier: Merchant Lv 8 ->11
Métier: Mage Lv 1 ->7
Name: Callen Kai Caelus Kasai Silversea

Age: 6 years 12 months 3 days -> 6 years 15 months 2 weeks 5 days.

Despite the wealth of experience I had received or rather experienced, I realised that this was as far as my current metiers could take me. It was time for a change. Luckily, I had not left home without a method. Still, I would get to that once I had dealt with the remainder of my internal audit and reassessed the best ways forward. I had earned a wealth of experience and my natural growth had continued to push up my stats in line with the gradual growth of my vessel. The nightmare nature of battling the storm had certainly helped with my vitality, endurance, strength and dexterity. While staying aware of our surroundings and their dangers continued to help my senses grow. Mind, Clarity and Magic had grown from the constant stress of holding our boat together with magic and dealing with the multiple stress points and fractures before its demise on the cliffs of endless ice. However, it looked like it had fallen or failed to rise as much that was just due to the sacrifice in magic stats of unlocking my male cousins to their magical abilities as we had done with Aleera to our female cousins prior to my departure. Magic was such a force multiplier for our family that the sacrifice was well worth the personal cost. Besides, as always in a feudal system, standing on top of the pyramid, I had gained more than I lost in terms of physical attributes from my cousins.

In fact, Charisma had risen the least, with no stats to be gained from any of my former common cousins and suffering the cost of isolationism on Wester Ponente with few to no social engagements. Luckily, luck had continued to rise, and I attributed that to Namir's and my unbelievable survival. The unbalanced nature of my stats bothered me in a way that they never had before. I couldn’t quite explain why but I supposed it added more character to the soul that my status quantified. That said, I was looking forward to the day when I could assign my free points and bring myself back into alignment.

General Experience: 1,234,567 /3,276,800
Health: 1630 -> 1790 Stamina: 1630 -> 1793 Mana: 1930 -> 1840 Psi: 1630 -> 1770

Trait: Long-lived, Fast Learner, Super Senses, Source of Mana, Quick Witted, Celerity, Durability, Supreme Strength, Charming, Lucky

Vitality: 163 -> 179
Endurance: 163 -> 182
Strength: 163 -> 177
Dexterity: 163 -> 181
Senses: 163 -> 178
Mind: 163 -> 177
Clarity: 163 -> 178
Magic: 193 -> 184
Charisma: 163 -> 165
Luck: 163 -> 169

Free Points: 10 ->120

Our adventure had seen explosive growth in some skills while others languished through lack of use. With 100 as the skill level cap for each tier, my extra sailing experience was funnelled into my other sailing skills once my original tier 1 sailing skill hit the cap. I wasn’t sure that cruising would be the normal name to describe our flight north in the centre of a cyclone, but we had certainly covered a lot of ground. I couldn’t argue with the growth in racing and seafaring as we have truly travelled the world now. The rest of the growth in my skills arose from the work building the boat that had so nearly survived the storm and our survival efforts here in this hospitable land at the northern end of the world.

Skills Tier 1:

Dance (Lv100) Sailing (Lv87->100) Singing (Lv83 ->84) Trading (Lv82->83) Meditation (Lv82 ->85) Time Sense (Lv82 ->84) Balance (Lv60 ->75) Fishing (Lv58 ->60) Sneak (Lv57) Acting (Lv56) Drumming (Lv55) Whistling (Lv50) Farming (Lv59) Knots (Lv55) Draw (Lv58) Listening (Lv50) Stitching (Lv50) Humming (Lv50) Insight (Lv50)Glide (Lv45)Poise (Lv43) Grace (Lv43) Charm (Lv42) Composure (Lv41) Ambidextrous (Lv36 ->40) Silent Step (Lv32) Inspect (Lv31 ->37) Sketching (Lv35) Drafting (Lv34) Lie (Lv26) Deft touch (Lv24) Posture (Lv22)Riding (Lv20) Cook (Lv20 ->26) Etiquette (Lv20) Appeal (Lv20) Sight (Lv20) Scent (Lv20) Detect (Lv20) Taste (Lv20) Measurement (Lv28)Carpentry (Lv20) Blacksmithing (Lv11)Mining (Lv10) Teaching (Lv10) Underwater breathing (Lv1 ->6) Hunting (Lv1 -> 5) Skinning (Lv1 -> 5) Skiing (Lv1 -> 5)

Tier 2:

Quick reflexes (Lv72 ->79) Sense Mana (Lv75)Eavesdrop (Lv63) Spellcraft (Lv63)

Spellsong (Lv63) Order (Lv49) Linguistics (Lv40) Memorisation (Lv40) Recall (Lv40) Composition (Lv40) Pain Tolerance (Lv38 ->39) Stealth (Lv39 ->40) Mind Sense (Lv35 ->36) Knife Arts (Lv29 ->33) Misdirection (Lv26) Haggling (Lv25) Observe (Lv26 ->29) Martial Arts (Lv25) Transplant (LV20) Cruising (Lv21 -> 49) Dart (Lv25) Heal (Lv16 ->18) Poison Tolerance (Lv11) Treasure Sense (Lv17) Intimidation (Lv12) Cold Tolerance (Lv1 -> 3)

Tier 3:

Echolocation(Lv65 ->69) Expel Mana (Lv70) Mana Manipulation (Lv69) Gale (LV63->68)Absorb Mana (Lv42) Boil (Lv50->53) Ignite (Lv40 ->44) Melt (Lv40 ->44)Command (Lv40) Deception (Lv26) Bargain (Lv23) Freeze (LV20)Racing (Lv17 ->34) Analyse (Lv15 ->17) Flash Step (Lv15) Seismic Sense (Lv11->14) Danger Sense (Lv10 ->12) Smuggling (LV5) Telepathy (Lv5)

Tier 4:

Block Status (Lv100) Iron Man (Lv66 ->69) Parallel Processing (Lv50) Material Manipulation (Lv40) Stone shaping (Lv33) Mana Drain (Lv30) Flight (Lv20) Sonar (Lv19 -25) Seafaring (Lv11 ->22) Air stepping (Lv7) Contract (Lv5) Magic Carving (Lv5) Rune Carving (Lv3)

Tier 5:

Mind fortress (Lv26) Multiple minds (Lv5) Omniglot (Lv25) Weapon Prodigy (Lv23) Music Prodigy (Lv31) Polymath (Lv14)Enigma (Lv1) Astral Projection (Lv1)

Tier 6:

Sense Soul (Lv1)

Believe it or not, I had gotten used to my status after nearly 7 years. It was a part of my reality, something that I could go days without checking compared to when I had first arrived in this world and checked it on a daily or even hourly schedule with an addiction that was similar to any phone I had ever had, just to see if I had made any progress that I might have just missed the notification for.

Having come to grips with my progress, the second thing I needed to check was my internal world. This had two aspects to it: my Mind Fortress, and the Soul it rested in. The largest change to my mind fortress was my map room. There might be gaps to it, but I had significantly expanded my understanding of the world, and Callen had mapped it accordingly.

It was not perfect, but my sensory skills allowed a highly detailed map of the sea floor when it was within reach of my skills and the ability to sense time meant that even the gaps between what was known and what was unknown were reasonably accurate and I could trace our path through the sea all the way north to the endless ice. Seeing how far the storm had taken us before smashing us against the cliffs was a little terrifying. It would be a long journey home.

Every mind was busy keeping note of our progress and continuing to build, populate and update the map of our surroundings. “Carry on Callen.” I gave him a mock salute before working my way to the others. Without a ship to sail he seemed to be enjoying the mapping nature of our explorations.

Caelus was in the observatory, studying the minds travelling around us. All the information gathered was sent back to the command deck to view it all from but it seemed like my minds liked to wander. We would go to the separate spaces to concentrate on our tasks.

Bjorn’s Level was still above where I could inspect up to. However, I was able to observe a title to his name. He was a Jarl. It was the same with Namir, so I could not be completely sure who was the strongest. The rest of our new companions, though were within my skills and abilities to assess. Ivar was level 72, Ragnar was level 64, and Erik was level 34. He seemed a lot lower in comparison to the rest of the group but if he was the Jarl’s son, then it made sense for them to be out here in the wilderness levelling him up to take his place as chief on his father’s passing.

“Kyrus is sitting in our soul. If you’re looking for him.” Caelus commented on my arrival. Taking a break from staring up at the stars in the sky that represented the minds around us and nodding to the outside of the observatory and the rest of our soul.

“Thanks.” I replied and made the subtle shift of stepping out from my mental mind fortress into my soul.

Now that I had soul sense I could see my soul wrapping around my mental fortress manifesting as a mountain it rested upon in a sea of experience. Kryus was sat down the slope wrapped up warm against the cold winds that somehow seemed to penetrate from reality even into our inner world.

“It’s the environmental mana.” He pointed out the occasional ice forming in the sea of our experience. “It reaches us even in here.” Still, it has been helpful in understanding how our Cold Resistance formed.” He added.

“How did it help?” I asked. The knowledge would come naturally when reabsorbing my minds at the skills end but sometimes it was helpful to talk things through to consolidate my understanding of the knowledge.

“It isn’t just a resistance to the physical temperature that helped to form it but a resistance to the mana type as well.” He explained. “The temperature is so low it flavours the ambient mana or the mana type causes the extreme low temperatures. Either way while our body is affected by the temperature and mana our soul also appears to be coloured by the ice mana.” He postulated.

I nodded my head in agreement at what seemed to have happened. “Okay, but other than sensing our soul, why are you out here?”

“I was just contemplating what else might be possible with Astral Projection.” He answered.

“Meeting the Gods and Fortuna all happened instantaneously. Our body didn’t disappear but our soul was able to traverse instantly to wherever it was that they were. Mightn’t it be possible for us to do something similar independently.”

“Fortuna took us outside of ourselves so it is certainly possible. But not sure how far we would be able to go on our own.”

“I’ve already checked and we can make it to Namir and back.”

“He . . .” I started.

“He didn’t notice my presence.” He interrupted stopping me in my thoughts. “What I’m wondering is whether we can make it to Wester Ponente and back.” He ruminated, explaining why he was waiting for me on edge of our soul sea.

“Want to find out?” he asked.