Chapter 46 – Anna’s First Festival #1
“MORNING ANNA!” Jen and George jumped into Anlesa’s room.
[WOAH!] Eva was jumped by the sudden entrance.
“Morning Mother and Father.” Luna stood up out of their bed and replied in the most formal way possible to contrast their parents.
George quietly chuckled at Luna’s actions.
Jen asked, “Where is the excitement Luna, today is the day the festival starts.”
Luna continued with the bit, “Well dearest Mother, you have clearly managed to purloin it from us during our nightly slumber.”
Then the family laughed for a few seconds.
“Yep I did, I’m a fantastic thief.”
George added, “I wouldn’t call someone who would steal from their daughter a ‘fantastic thief’, that’s my opinion anyway.”
“Well, it’s all sunshine and rainbows if I give something in return.”
George quietly muttered, “Stealing is still stealing.”
Anna whispered back, “He’s right.” As Jen shook her head defeated and pulled out a small gift.
Jen handed Anna a small book, “Here is a congratulatory present for your second attribute.”
The book's title was ‘Jen’s Super Cool Notes on Manipulation *Attribute’.
Eva opened the first page and smiled, [What a very Jen thing to do.]
The gift itself warmed their heart. It was a short notebook of a few pages, recounting information about the Manipulation attribute. It was clearly written and made by Jen over the last two days, not only that, she put references where she got the information from.
“Thank you, Mum.” Anna closed the book, put it under her arm, walked over to Jen and hugged her. Jen gladly returned the favour.
Once the mother-daughter duo was done, George asked, “Can I have one too?”
“Sureeeeeee–” Syrus jokingly replied.
“–Yep!” Eva decided to add more enthusiasm to the response and gave George a large hug.
The parents and Anna split a little bit later. So Anlesa had time to get changed and prepare for the festival.
Anna put on some tie-on shoes that she could run in–there was going to be at least a little bit of playing with the other children. She put on some nicer clothes gotten for her on a previous birthday, a short-sleeved red shirt and long baggy brown pants–not the brightest colour, but they were comfortable. To add the final touches Anna put on the pendant she received for her 6th birthday, she had to replace the string a couple of times, but the pendant itself was well taken care of.
Having a few more spare minutes of time, Anna chose to further read her gift.
Page one went over the basic uses of Manipulation. How it increased mana control and allowed people to manipulate mana outside their body and within other objects much easier–this being great for certain artisan professions which was why Manipulation was high in demand.
Jen even listed some of the professions–smiths, jewellers, enchanters, weavers, potion makers, engravers. She even added a note that said, ‘There’s a lot of crossover!’
Page two went over some other benefits of Manipulation. How the natural effect of the attribute boosted mana flow and control even without using the attribute directly. It also went over how it can improve reaction time and the efficiency of strengthening the body with mana.
[Huh, I didn’t know about the physical aspect of Manipulation.] (Syrus)
[I doubt most people did, it would be written in the books but the general public opinion is that its use lies predominantly in creation. Which isn’t wrong. You can use a large kitchen bowl as a hat in the rain, but the bowl’s primary usage is still to eat from.] (Luna)
[...I did know of it, but as Luna said, it’s not the aspect people care about. And it is something you have to train for it to be truly effective, from what I heard it's only an insignificant boost without the effort put in, and most would rather spend the effort improving their craft instead… Not that I really noticed, due to my… condition, I doubt any of the physical improvements even manifested.] (Eva)
Page three spoke about more wild uses of Manipulation. From the different weapons some of the extremely rare combat users of Manipulation–flying knives, rope and wires, puppets, and traps. It talked about how they were used and the difficulties in learning each. The last section of this page referenced how Manipulation worked with certain other attributes, for combat or craft purposes, there was another note from Jen, ‘A very unknown field!’
Then there was page four. All that was on it was one message, written in large fancy letters, ‘Remember to have fun, explore and enjoy yourself, don’t worry about maximising your effort to achieve something (Money, power, etc)–unless you Genuinely enjoy doing that. We love you, Anlesa. Take care of each other, Luna, Eva, Syrus.’
“Thank you…” Anna smiled and closed the book.
She left her room to reunite with her folks.
George and Jen were still making breakfast so Eva announced, “Let me join in.”
“Sure dear, can you grab the bowl from the table then?”
“Understood,” Luna replied, picking up the bowl as she passed and walked over to her parents.
The family worked hand in hand to create a fitting breakfast for a busy day of mostly fun–with a tiny bit of work.
Once they were done, they had bowls of grain, meat, and a couple of different sauces for them to enjoy. They all dug in, and the family had a large fulfilling meal together.
With that, Jen and George only had to check up on a few things and then all that was left to do was to enjoy the rest of the day.
The book's title was ‘Jen’s Super Cool Notes on Manipulation *Attribute
That made me laugh. Jen is such a dork. Hope she doesn't get into the pattern of writing them otherwise she has 3 more to write. (That probably won't happen but it's funny to imagine a bunch of handmade attribute manuals on Anna's shelf.) Doubt she will be able to come up with one for Eva's 2nd because exotic attributes seem to be more unique but knowing Jen she'd try anyways.
Luna having a laugh at her own formal speech is fun too.
I don't mind if you're a bit late on chapters. That's still way more consistent than a lot of other authors. If you don't have a patreon or something and you're on this site that means you're probably writing for fun so make sure to pace yourself. At the end of the day it's not worth writing if you aren't enjoying it.
Since this was a pretty uneventful chapter I'm going to ask about genres. I haven't seen much action in the series yet and adventure is pretty much limited to going to the city, the woods near the town, and heading up the river. Will there be more of that stuff later? Just wanted to ask. (I could ask about the beastkin and demon tags but those are probably just future characters so I won't)
Tyftc
Jen being a dork is one of the reason she is such a fun character to write.
I don't mind if you're a bit late on chapters. That's still way more consistent than a lot of other authors. If you don't have a patreon or something and you're on this site that means you're probably writing for fun so make sure to pace yourself. At the end of the day it's not worth writing if you aren't enjoying it.
I will make sure to pace myself, I do write for fun, and have been burned out by it before, that was a horrible experience (It destroyed my motivation to write, while I still wanted to write, I couldn't do it) . I do want to do a patreon one day. Partly because it is an incentive to keep writing, (Not sure if I will put Triiffic-Soul on it, I think I might just put new 'In-Development' work in it). I have been a person to pause projects for 'important reasons', even when I should still have the time to keep working on them, so in a way, I'm thinking of doing a patreon just so I will never have an excuse to pause writing all-together for extended periods of time.
Now, for tags and genres.
Yep, your right for beastkin and demon. Demons have already been mentioned, and some cases of exotic attribute clans look extremely like beastkin. So I figured to use the tag.
Now for action and adventure, yes there will be more. There have already been hints of places that might be visited, and I've slowly tried to drip in action but there will be more of it later. For a more detailed explanation, spoilers below, but it will be going into a bit of the writing process, and potential spoilers. So if you want, come back to this comment later down the line.
Okay, so those two tags were planned to have bigger emphasis earlier on, but were delayed.
So what happened, is this new family plot got extended. In truth, in the planning phase Anna would only be around the family for 20 twenty chapters before going on the adventure genre. This was changed for the better, I needed more time to flesh out Syrus, Luna, and Eva. I could've done that on the adventure, but doing it the family home environment gave me a different way to approach it. Which I think was worth it. This family of goof balls has been a joy to write.
Saying that, all my plans for the story never changed. Events that I plan to happen will still, it was just everything got pushed back, so that this village family arc (for a lack of a better name), would last longer. It did mean I got to flesh out more aspects of certain things before stuff happened.
As I said, I'm happy with my choices. Eva's arc alone made the choice worth it (Not to mention everything else). The story will shift to a more actiony adventure story, there are many places to see and many people to beat up.
Thanks for reading,
.