My day was interesting, my dad asked me why I was not pushing myself on my swordsmanship and I told him what Bart had told me the day before, he smiled and taught me a set of exercises that where light on effort but worked most of my muscles, we finished early and then I went for breakfast, after finishing all this it was time to go to the smithy.

 

- Come on little one you need to invoke the system, have they ever taught you that? – Ask Bart

 

- No they have not, if I need to I see my status on my mind. – I answer

 

- Try to manifest your status for yourself outside of your head it will consume a tiny amount of magic, so remember to focus on your magic, and keep it to yourself is your private screen. – Says Bart

 

This was not difficult but it still took me seven tries to get it right.

 

- Got it. – I told him

 

- Now use that same method of calling the system but this time use more magic and direct that magic to go into the sword and back into the system screen, try to not connect the system with your own status screen. – Says Bart.

 

- You know those instructions don’t make any sense right? – I tell him all confused with the instructions.

 

- Of course they do, that how I was taught and it works, now less talking more doing. – he answers me with a smile on his face.

 

I do try and at the beginning the only thing I could do was just call my own status screen, but at one point I just sort of felt a difference, I sat down to meditate this time I was not trying to look outside but try to see inside of me what was happening, obviously this was mission impossible, but I felt it there was inside my mind 2 different points one was for the system and the next one was my status screen and when I tried calling one the other came along, in my previous life I had problem moving my ring finger and my pinkie finger separately, this felt the same I had to make an effort to separate this 2 calls, I needed to call the system without calling my Status Screen, finally after an hour I was able to activate one without activating the other, now it was time to focus on the sword, so I needed to call the system and pour enough mana to connect the system to the sword I had just crafted, seems simple, took me more than 20 attempts just to get it right, finally I saw the screen for the sword.

 

Longsword

Quality: High

Effect: More efficient sword that helps make more damage to enemies.

 

- The description is sort of dull – I say

 

- Come with me – says Bart and we move towards his office in the smithy, we are almost never there, once inside he sits me down on a chair and continues.

 

- According to my teacher, and his teacher, the more info we discover the more info the system will give us, sadly this is something that a lot of blacksmiths know but very few can put into practice, for example 25 years ago we discovered that a certain rune in a shield caused air repulsion, before that discovery the shield was identified as Runic Shield, and the description was simple a shield with a magical runes who has a magical effect, after the blacksmith and the mage who discover the effect understood the whole process of the shield with that specific rune, the name and description of the shield changed, do the appraisal. - he says and gives me a shield that he had in a room at the back of his office.

 

I do the appraisal and what it comes out is different.

 

Runic Shield of Air Repulsion

Quality: High

Effect: This shield invokes a gust of wind through the magical rune that can be used to deflect arrows or attack enemies, bladed weapons will have a minor reduction of damage.

 

- Oh nice and it is understandable that the reduction is minor, if you try to hit something air resistance will affect you and a gust of wind will give a bit more air resistance but bladed weapons well they cut the air. – I say after reading the description.

 

- You talk like a mage – Says Bart – to finish my explanation, after the blacksmith and mage discover these 3 facts, that it caused bladed weapons to do a bit less damage, that it deflected arrows and that if used at the right moment it could cause an enemy to stumble, the description changed, not only for them but for everybody, all the shields with this rune in the kingdom after that day who were appraised gave the result you just saw, in other words if you discover something the system will record it and show it to everybody who does appraisal.

 

- That is …

 

- Remember the Gods gave the system to the mortal races to help us, but I think that is something that a lot of people forget the system will help us, not do our work for us, you are the one that makes a high quality sword, not the system, you are the one that will engrave the rune in the shield, magic will react to the rune you use but it is your work, not the system, when we do appraisal the system will use the knowledge we know to give us the answer, I’m sure the mage that helped the blacksmith had a whole parchment with all the experiments he did, and I suspect the system uses that as a reference for the description it gives us. – Says my teacher with seriousness.

 

Something just felt so right about that lesson, I just had to think, I finished my lessons with Bart that day and went back to the household, that day I did not study magic or did anything else, I was busy pondering.

 

I continued my training but my focus was on doing stuff myself, I had 3 years since I started my sword training but the last few months specially since the lesson with Bart, I saw my swordsmanship skyrocketing, I was able to get it to level 100, most people on this world would stop at this point but I kept pushing and finally it did happen, the oh so called Demonic Bite happen, my swordsmanship skill did a reset back to 1, but the color of the skill went from red to orange, I suspect this is an upgrade but how does it work? Why does everybody say that you lose proficiency?

 

The first thing I did to verify that this was an upgrade was to reduce my swordsmanship from level 1 Orange level to level 100 Red level, and it did happen, obviously after doing this it occur to me I was being an idiot since I could have verified this months ago with any of my magics or mana sense, since those had been at the orange level for a while, I ended up having a tunnel vision that I would test my theory with my swordsmanship and forgot about my other skills.

 

My second test was with my swordsmanship at level 1 orange and level 100 red test a simple overhead cut and try to see what was different, how the skill changed and why the loss in proficiency, my first try with my new swordsmanship failed spectacularly, and really entering meditation to use mana sense, and at the same time use the skill was impossible, something was not working and I decided to try and separate my meditation and my mana sense from each other I needed to be able to use mana sense without meditating, I also see my dad looking at me, for now I just go down a level to swordsmanship Red level 100 and keep doing my exercises so that no one notices anything strange.

 

- Dad I want to talk to you in private – I tell him when we take a break from swinging our swords.

 

- I have some time tomorrow afternoon, or is this urgent? – he answers me.

 

- No, it is not urgent it can be said tomorrow. – I tell him and smile.

 

I continued my day and did all my trainings, next day after coming back from the smithy and getting clean, I went to my dad’s office to talk to him.

 

- Hello dad.

 

- Hello Carter, what did you need? – he answers

 

- Can you bring the orb of privacy?

 

- Give me a minute. – he tells me and rummages on his desk until he gets the orb out and activates it, we both get covered by the green dome.

 

- Dad, I have discovered some things and I truly think that we have been infiltrated in the past by demons and they took lots of measures to ensure that this information got lost in some way, I do not have yet enough evidence to show this clearly but everything points towards this, and well I wanted to tell you what I have discovered and to ask for a private area to continue my training and experiments.

 

- You are going to have to be clearer about this. – Says my father.

 

- Well dad, first historically the demons have been attacking us with weaker and weaker forces every time, I do not know why this is happening like that but it is the reality, some of the few history books we have, show that in the first few wars and skirmishes there were some races of demons that were really big and powerful, ogres, giants, gargoyles, and others, while nowadays we only get goblins and orcs, why have they decided to attack us with only this, I’m not sure but I think is because it should be cheaper in resources for them, if they have weakened us enough then they don’t need to waste resources on more powerful units, this is just a conjecture.

 

- And why do you tell me this? – Ask my father.

 

- Well because I was able to verify that the Demonic Bite is false, I just got my own swordsmanship to go up a level to level 1 with the skill name being orange, you remember the first special skill of my class as chosen?

 

- Yeah the one about reducing the level of any of your skill to any lower level – then he stops to think and ask me – Are you telling me that you could go back to level 100 with the name of the skill in red?

 

- Yes, dad exactly that, and this is not the first skill I had that I have leveled up.

 

- What other skills have you leveled up? - I see how my dad is making an effort to maintain his calm but I see how this news has shaken him.

 

- All of my elemental magics and my mana sense, but I think I need to level my mana sense further, I have to be able to feel mana without entering meditation. – I answer – Dad I tell you this because I will be comparing things between the orange level and the red level, see what is different and maybe be able to create a training method for people once they get to orange level, you are in the orange level right?

 

- Yes, specifically level 7 with an Orange name – says my dad – you think one of these infiltrators in one of the past wars did his best to ensure we lost the methods to train our skills or to tell us what was happening with the skill once it level up.

 

- Yes, I think that, and I also think that they spread the rumor of the Demonic Bite to demoralize and depress the people, so people who level up did not get happy about it but got depressed, they did not put as much effort into it as before, and whatever we lost was never discovered again, now I need a private place to test all of this, I do not want to flounder about with bad swordsmanship and cause rumors to spread around our troops, also let me tell you what leveling up mana sense did for me, I also did some tests last night.

 

- Wait a second I need some water – says my dad and I see how nervous he is.

 

He pulls down the dome calls our butler and ask him for some refreshments, some cookies and drinks for both of us, after the drinks arrived we sit down, put the dome up and I continue.

 

- To tell you the truth dad, I should have tested this a long time ago and I did not because I was too focused on doing the test with my swordsmanship that I forgot I had other skills to run tests, so far I have not been able to run test on my swordsmanship or my magics, I need to be able to cast mana sense without meditating, I think this either can be done with more training or more levels, I’m close with my mana sense, my level is 93 Orange. – I take a breath and tell him about my only successful test.

 

- The only test I was able to run successfully was the one on my mana sense, when I was at the lowest level the red level I could only see the motes of magic, all the fireflies as I like to call them, but after the level up I could see even more fireflies and I could also see the energy that the system gives us for our skills – I take a pause and see how my dad is surprised by the revelation - yeah dad, every time we cast an skill there is a pearl color energy who moves through our body, and well when I went to the battlefield I saw this energy cause damage to the demonic forces, I was also able to see how people with higher level of swordsmanship could damage the demons with more ease, the Warrior goblin that attacked on that battlefield was able to shrug the hit of a soldier with a low level of swordsmanship, but it got hurt when people with higher levels attacked him.

 

- Oh now I see why you asked the king to see if we could either trap an orc or a goblin king, this people require easily 2 to 4 soldiers to get damage, and if this is a level up maybe those that have orange level swordsmanship will be able to… – my dad says and sort of loses track of his thought.

 

- Exactly dad, that is why I asked for that to test, but right now I have to find a way to train on the orange level, because I do not know what is happening, we need to be able to invoke our skills so that we can use the energy to damage the enemies. I hope that either by training or leveling up my mana sense I will be able to be active outside of meditation, that way I can compare the two levels and see what is happening.

 

I take a breath and eat some cookies and drink a bit while my dad does the same.