Chapter 25: Chapter 25: (Title is Spoiler)

The next day, I went to Arne’s house and rapped quietly on the door at the appointed time. A few moments later, the door swung open.

“I’ve got everything ready for you. Come with me to my workshop,” said Master Arne as he stepped out of his house. I followed behind him as he strode through the village. A few minutes later, the two of us arrived at another building. Unlike the houses most of the villagers lived inside, this building had no complicated set of doors to block the entrance. It was larger than most houses, and the interior was one large room. Inside, lying on a table, was a partially dismantled giant fish corpse. The inner organs had already been removed and thrown into a bucket. The meat of the fish had already been distributed to the village, and the scales and skin of the fish had been placed on another table off to the side.

“All right, so a few ground rules before we get started. First and foremost, don’t touch things before I teach you how to use them. Some of the objects in here are sharp, and you could hurt yourself with them. I know your body probably feels incredibly sturdy since you have two runes made, but I still don’t want you to get a cut and have it get infected or something, all right? A healer might demand a fish core as payment for getting rid of the infection, and if they’re running low on mana they might need one core as payment and one as an energy source. Two fish cores is a pretty expensive price for messing around. So don’t touch any of the tools before I teach you how to use them. All right?” Master Arne gave me an easy grin, but I could see a steeliness in his gaze that told me he wouldn’t take no for an answer here. I nodded.

“I understand, master Arne. I won’t interact with the tools or the fish corpse without your permission,” I said.

“Good. All right, let’s get started!” Arne gave me a more relaxed grin, before turning towards the massive fish bones in the center of the room. Each of the fish bones were larger than my arm, and some were taller and wider than Arne. 

“So, I’ll be teaching you how to process fish bones to make tools today.” He held out a knife towards me, a lovely tool with obvious art put into its craftsmanship. It had a handle made out of wood, with a leather grip. Parts of the grip were inlaid with pearls, making the knife a surprisingly pretty tool. The handle and blade were joined by a faint blue tinge I had come to recognize as the glue-like paste the village made from the organs of the great fish. The blade itself was a piece of bone, which had been carefully shaved down until it reached a level of sharpness that would allow it to cut through most objects.

“You can have this, but you need to hold it by the handle. And don’t swing it around, or play with it - it’s a tool, not a toy. If you mess around with it, I’ll take it away until you demonstrate that you can behave with maturity, so don’t treat it like a toy, all right?” I carefully grabbed the knife, taking a few more moments to admire its craftsmanship, before I turned back to master Arne.

“Now, I’m going to teach you how to create a knife made of bone first, because it’s simple to make, but incredibly important for dealing with fish bones in particular. Great Fish bones are very sturdy, especially when they’re filled with mana. Luckily, after a great fish dies their fish cores no longer supply their bodies with mana, making their bones softer and weaker. This makes it possible for their bones to be processed. I finished making the knife you’re holding last night, so that you would have a tool to work with, as well as an example of what you should be trying to make. You can consider it a present from me, as well as your first tool as my apprentice. Now, take this piece of fish bone,” He said as he handed me a piece of bone around half the size of my fist. Currently, the bone was fairly round – closer to a rounded rectangle in shape than the shape of a knife blade. He also grabbed a bone for himself, as well as another knife. 

“This is what I’ll be giving you for your first crafting assignment. I want you to make this into a knife. To start out with, you need to learn how to cut at the bone. If you try to strike at the bone directly, it won’t work very well: Fish bones are softer when a fish dies, but they still aren’t soft enough to be cut easily. If you swing the knife willy-nilly at the fish bone, you’ll chip the knife, and you won’t succeed in cutting the bone. However, take a look at the bone – do you see how there are tiny discolored lines in the fish bones?” I looked closely, and I could, indeed, see tiny lines in the texture of the bone. 

Then, Arne carefully used his knife to cut into one of the discolored lines, demonstrating how to interact with them.

“Those are flaws in the way mana was conducted through the bones of a great fish. Each great fish has unique patterns left behind in its bones, based on how its runes were formed and the marks each rune left on its body. This leaves behind little flaws in each bone, which are softer and weaker than the rest of the bone. If you cut into those flaws, you’ll have a much easier time sawing into the bone than if you cut other areas. Then, once you have the rough shape you need, you’ll sharpen the bone by grinding a stone or piece of waste bone against the blade, until it’s properly sharpened. Does that make sense?” I nodded, before I felt the urge to frown.

“Fish have runes too?” I hadn’t observed the great fish we had hunted using any runes. I had seen it use an ability, much the way other people on the island could control things in their environment with four or more runes - however, unlike people, I hadn’t seen parts of the great fish light up during the fight.

“All things have runes, Miria,” said master Arne, giving me a grin. “Land Beasts, Fish… everything intelligent and alive in this world has the ability to form runes. You just can’t see where some animals, like the great fish, store their runes, because unlike humans they don’t form their runes on the outside of their body. Instead, they’re usually attached to their organs - meaning I usually see them while working, but hunters and fishermen don’t until the creature is dead.” Master Arne chuckled at that, before he took another look at the fish bone he had given me. “Anyway, so I want you to take the knife and try giving this bone a little cut…”

I did as he had shown me, trying to give the fish bone a slice from one of its weak points, and found the experience surprisingly difficult, even when I was cutting at the ‘weak point’ of the bone. Arne, however, seemed pleased, even though I failed to do anything besides nick the edge of the bone.

“Your grip on the knife is surprisingly good. I figured I would need to start teaching you from the very basics of holding a knife and using it without cutting yourself, but you already know that you need to cut away from yourself and not towards yourself. Good job.”

I looked at the knife, before smiling to myself. I hadn’t paid any attention to it, but when I grabbed Arne’s knife, I had subconsciously used the same grip I used when holding Sallia’s practice sword. The fact I gripped the knife properly without realizing it was another sign that I was truly starting to internalize Sallia’s lessons. Even if it was minor, I was glad to see my swordsmanship and combat ability slowly progressing. 

“Now, your grip on the knife handle was good, and your knife safety was also good, but your angle when cutting the bone itself was a bit off. Here, stay still for a sec. Let me show you…” Arne carefully gripped my hand, before tilting my wrist slightly to change the angle I was holding the knife. Then, he released my hand. “You want your cuts to line up with the discoloration of the bones, but you were tilted a bit too much to the right. Try again with this angle.” I tried cutting the bone again, this time using the slightly adjusted angle Master Arne had shown me.

“Good! Like that. See if you can find the right angle without me helping you this time - it takes a bit of practice, but I think you can get there. If you make a big mistake, or if you get stuck, I’ll give you advice or help you again as needed. Start cutting at this bone, and start by shaving off the edges a little. Don’t cut anywhere near your fingers. I’ll show you how to make a proper knife blade shape when you get rid of a bit more of the excess material…”

I cut the bone as Arne guided me through the process, and I slowly began to carve away a hunk of fish bone. The original fish bone had been nearly as thick as my face, but I was quickly carving out a piece of bone about the size of both of my fists. I continued to work, and Arne sat next to me, gently guiding me through the process. After I had a fist-sized hunk of bone ready, he showed me how to whittle down parts of the bone without damaging anything, as well as the process of whittling away pieces of the bone, sawing off unnecessary bits, and making a crude edge for my practice knife. I had, of course, messed up several times, and the knife I ended up producing was much closer to a waste product than a usable tool. I had messed up the structural integrity of the bone beyond belief, my knife’s blade was slightly crooked, and the edge was blunt in some spots.

Arne didn’t seem too bothered by this fact. Instead, he nodded as he watched me. “All right, good job. This knife isn’t particularly useful, but you’re starting to get the hang of what you should be doing. From here on out, I want you to try again, all right? It’ll take some time to get used to, but as you practice it’ll get easier and easier with more repetitions. You’ll be making real tools in no time as long as you keep at it!”

Arne handed me another section of bone, and I tried again.

The rest of the day wasn’t particularly eventful. I made a semi-usable knife on my fourth try. It was far from Arne’s works of art, but it was at least a working knife blade.

Despite how bad my first ‘successful’ knife was, I still got a bit of Achievement for it.

Crafting: Craft a [Basic] grade item

Achievement +15

The feeling of making a tool of my own was surprisingly good. It took me several hours of trying, and a few failures, before I made a usable tool, but once I was done, I was happy to see the fruit of my labor laying on a table in front of me. I spent the rest of the day smiling, as Arne congratulated me for my first success. After about six hours, master Arne dismissed me, saying my concentration was slipping and I should go get into trouble like other kids my age, so I went to find Felix and Sallia for the rest of the day.

* * *

Another year passed. I spent most of my time with Arne, learning my new trade. Felix and I didn’t have as much time to train with Sallia and talk about our old worlds as we used to, but we still made sure to spend a few hours as a group every day. Felix formed his fourth rune, which gave him control over bones.

Whenever he used the rune, he gained the ability to move bones in his surroundings, so long as they were within about fifty meters of him. He could theoretically turn the bones in his surroundings into a spray of missiles, and fight the way many of the other hunters and fishermen of the village did. However, this application of his ability was surprisingly weak compared to most other people in the village. Instead, Felix’s rune seemed to at least partially follow his interests. His ability specialized in making and manipulating bone tools, making them sturdier and more effective. If he held a bone spear, he could easily make it sharper, sturdier, and longer. I remembered seeing Claus do something similar during my hunting ceremony, but what Felix was doing was far more extensive - and also far more specialized. While Claus could still help a bone spear find its intended target by manipulating it in midair, Felix’s ability was almost exclusively focused on enhancing the tool itself. Moving an object mid flight was difficult for him, but at the same time, a bone tool enhanced by him would cut through another bone tool like a hot knife cutting into warm butter. Of course, he could also make a tool he was holding change shape mid-fight, which gave him a surprisingly high amount of options when it came to fighting. Although his rune was quite odd by village standards, it still gave him a very impressive repertoire of useful abilities, and while his mother and my parents seemed to find it rather weird, everyone acknowledged the usefulness of his rune.

Sallia and I congratulated him on finally getting a fourth rune.

Felix started teaching us how to hold and shoot a bow, and how to fight with a spear, since those were the things he was learning from the hunter he was apprenticed under. When we returned to the Market, we had no idea what weapons we would have available, so learning to use a bit of everything seemed prudent right now. After about four months, Sallia got another Achievement notification for reaching basic mastery in Spear and Bow use, although it took Felix three more months, and took me an extra five more months than Sallia. I couldn't help but feel jealous at how naturally talented Sallia was with weapons.

Skill: Gain [Basic] Mastery of an Archery technique.

Achievement +25

 

Since you have trained an Archery technique to [Basic] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Basic Archery] as an ability, for the cost of 250 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:

Keywords: N/A (This Ability does not have any keywords). Anytime you train with bows and arrows, your body will adjust itself and adapt itself to your previous knowledge of archery much more quickly and effectively. When reaching [Basic] Mastery of any archery technique for the first time in each body, your body’s Agility and Strength will permanently increase by 6 and your body’s Perception will permanently increase by 3. (Note - these stats are attached to your BODY. Not your soul. They will thus be lost whenever you die or swap bodies.) Glut Penalty: 2 Note: This Ability can also be purchased in the Market from an Ability Cube as well, as it is an Ability with no keywords. However, it will be more expensive than purchasing it after earning it yourself during a Reincarnation. You will need to purchase any Abilities you wish to keep within three days of returning to the Market. Please keep this in mind when considering purchases, and plan your purchases in advance.

 

Skill: Gain [Basic] Mastery of a spear technique.

Achievement +25

 

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Since you have trained a spearmanship technique to [Basic] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Basic spearmanship] as an ability, for the cost of 250 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:

Keywords: N/A (This Ability does not have any keywords). Anytime you train with spears, your body will adjust itself and adapt itself to your previous knowledge of spearmanship much more quickly and effectively. When reaching [Basic] Mastery of any spearmanship technique for the first time in each body, your body’s Strength and Agility will permanently increase by 4, and your Fortitude will permanently increase by 7. (Note - these stats are attached to your BODY. Not your soul. They will thus be lost whenever you die or swap bodies.) Glut Penalty: 2 Note: This Ability can also be purchased in the Market from an Ability Cube as well, as it is an Ability with no keywords. However, it will be more expensive than purchasing it after earning it yourself during a Reincarnation. You will need to purchase any Abilities you wish to keep within three days of returning to the Market. Please keep this in mind when considering purchases, and plan your purchases in advance.

I did find the fact the different stat bonuses we got for each weapon to be quite interesting. However, I still had no idea what ‘glut penalty’ meant, which made it very hard to figure out if I wanted to buy these Abilities or not in the future. In theory, spending 250 Achievement for 15 Stat points was excellent, even if it took a bit of training to get the stat points back online. However, without knowing how severe glut penalty was, I had a hard time figuring out what extra costs were added to each Ability. I hoped that by the time we returned to the Market, I would have a better idea of what glut penalty meant.

I also got some Achievement for crafting tools from bones over the course of a year, and also learned enough about crafting with bones to make tools on my own.

Skill: Gain [Basic] mastery of tool-creation.

Achievement +15

 

Since you have trained a crafting technique to [Basic] Grade for the first time, upon your death you will have the option to purchase [Craftsman’s eye] as an ability, for the cost of 500 Achievement. This Ability has the following effects:

Keywords: N/A (This Ability does not have any keywords). You gain a much better idea what material compositions work together well when creating tools, even when adapting to the differing laws of physics and magic native to each local dimension you encounter. This will give you a natural talent towards crafting items that will make you much better than other craftsmen with [Basic] Grade mastery, and may make it easier to reach [Intermediate] grade mastery. Glut Penalty: 8 Note: This Ability can also be purchased in the Market from an Ability Cube as well, as it is an Ability with no keywords. However, it will be more expensive than purchasing it after earning it yourself during a Reincarnation. You will need to purchase any Abilities you wish to keep within three days of returning to the Market. Please keep this in mind when considering purchases, and plan your purchases in advance.

 

You have gained [Basic] Grade Mastery of a crafting-related Skill for the first time

Achievement +200

I was more than a little surprised to see how different [Craftsman’s Eye] was from the weapon-related Abilities the Market had previously offered me. There had been a pretty obvious pattern to how the weapon related abilities worked, but this ability caught me more than a little off guard. It didn’t seem like something that I would want long term, so I doubted I would be purchasing this one. I did find the notification itself interesting, at least.

By the beginning of Storm Season, I only succeeded in making a tool three out of every four tries, and my tools were still far inferior to master Arne’s. However, they were usable, and I wasn’t wasting the materials I used to make objects anymore. Instead of just garbage, I was now making tools the villagers at least had use for, even if they would prefer to get a tool from a more experienced craftsman. I also got more Achievement for producing tools as time passed.

Production: Craft 25 [Basic] grade items

Achievement + 40

Production: Craft 100 [Basic] grade items

Achievement +100

As of now, I had 1140 Achievement saved up - enough to get one Attribute a full grade higher, back in the Market, and still have enough left over for some basic food supplies. I wasn’t sure if this was a big amount of Achievement or a small amount of Achievement for one life, because I had no clue how much it would cost to buy more lives, but I felt that I was at least off to a good start when it came to farming Achievement in this world.

As I continued to make tools, the diminishing returns I got for doing the same thing over and over again became more noticeable. However, I was happy that I was getting rewarded for my hard work. 

During our training sessions, Sallia eventually decided that we were fit to start sparring with each other. Even though Felix currently had a two rune advantage over Sallia and I, he was still surprisingly close to even with me in physical abilities, since his base physical Attributes were much lower than mine. I had started with grade 5 strength and grade 6 Agility, while Felix had started with grade 4 strength and grade 5 Agility, meaning that when it came to physical abilities we were evenly matched. This made me feel more than slightly surprised, and allowed me to realize I had been slightly discounting how useful physical stats were. Even though we could tack on 3 grades to our physical attributes in this world just by relying on runes, having a higher starting grade meant that we would surpass the normal physical abilities given to us by each rune. This could add up to a massive advantage long term, although it would take a lot of Achievement to make work. 

However, I could only properly fight Felix  when he didn’t use his bone rune. Anytime he did, he ended up demolishing me on the training field. He was able to create weird and unpredictable trajectories and movements with his weapons that I had no way of defending against, because his sword could bend like a sentient noodle mid-swing before hitting me from a totally unexpected angle. He could also afford to burn far more mana than me during a sparring session, meaning that I got soundly trounced by Felix whenever he got serious in a fight.

Sallia, by contrast, somehow managed to squeak out wins against Felix in some fights, despite having the same stats and mana pool as me..

Even though Felix’s bone manipulation added an entirely new dimension to sparring, one that I had a very hard time dealing with, Sallia’s natural talent in close-range fighting allowed her to cope with Felix’s weird attacks in a way I simply couldn’t. She would dodge attacks that I couldn’t see coming, and then use the gaps in Felix’s movements to create counterattacks. She was also much more efficient in using her mana than Felix and I. Every time she needed to dodge, she would burn the perfect amount of mana to just dodge an attack, never wasting a single drop of energy. She used exactly the amount of mana she needed to force Felix into a corner when she attacked. Most importantly, she had a sense of rhythm that neither Felix nor I had, which allowed her to control the battlefield far more effectively than her Stats would indicate. 

She still lost against Felix more often than not, but it was pretty close to 50/50. Which was pretty insane, since Felix had double her rune count. 

Embarrassingly enough, this put me dead last in our group of three when it came to fighting with physical weapons, at least for now. I simply hoped that whenever I got my third rune I would start winning training spars more often, because my physical stats would soundly trump Felix’s physical stats again, although I suspected with three runes Sallia would become queen of the sparring sessions until Felix formed his fifth or sixth rune. I couldn’t help but feel like none of the combat styles or weapons here quite suited me, although I couldn’t put my finger on what felt off about them. Since I had no way of resolving my doubts right now, I just threw myself into training as hard as I could, in order to prepare myself better for the future. 

Storm season came and went. Sallia and Felix continued to watch the storms, and eventually, their Stats both went up by 1 more point, pushing them into a new Grade.

Sallia seemed incredibly thankful for this, and nearly cried tears of joy when her focus problems were partially fixed. She still had a hard time sitting still and focusing for long periods of time, but she no longer constantly fidgeted every few seconds. She also had a much easier time focusing during practice sessions. She and Felix also reported that they got an extra twenty Achievement for raising one of their Stats by a grade solely through their own hard work. It wasn’t a huge boost, but it was better than nothing. I was a bit surprised it didn’t result in them being offered a purchase option for a new ability, but since I didn’t know the rules around new Abilities yet, I decided to just take it in stride and move on.

Interestingly enough, once Sallia and Felix got an extra grade to their Willpower, watching the storms no longer benefitted them at all. Meanwhile, I still got tiny but noticeable improvements in my Willpower as time passed. Eventually, it reached +5 total, putting me at 135 total Willpower. It would probably take me a few years to build up to 140 Willpower, where I would stop benefitting from watching the storms.

Finally, storm season passed again. Sallia turned six, and Felix and I turned seven. Sallia was ready for her first hunt. At least, that should have been the case, but much like the first renewal festival Felix and I had witnessed, something terrifying interrupted Sallia’s adulthood ceremony right after the fishing boats set off for the first day of hunts. Something I hadn’t expected at all, even though I really should have, given some of the hints I had already seen on the islands, and yet somehow caught me totally off guard.

Less than three hours after Sallia set off for her first hunt, foreign sails appeared on the horizon.

 

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