Chapter 6
After accompanying everyone to their home safely, Kai did the same and ran to hug his mom, hoping for a moment she could magically solve everything.
He explained what happened and felt somehow validated when his parents showed the same anger he felt. Keandra was the most vocal about it. If Alana didn’t stop her, she would have gone herself to beat them up according to her.
The burning heat of his anger gave way to a different kind of warmth.
In the end, there was nothing they could do. He doubted he could press charges for assault against a minor. As far as he knew the law didn’t protect him from much except murder.
After he made sure he was all right, Rellan left to see the ruins, his usual calm demeanor barely hiding his fury. They were his life’s work and after they stood for 8000 years they were being destroyed in a day by some moron.
Alana stayed with him and did her best to comfort him. She wanted to bring him to see a healer, the right side of his face was seriously swollen. It would have been funny if it didn't hurt like hell.
There were no ‘true healers’ in Whiteshore, but there was an herbalist shop that sold healing balms and natural remedies. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Denule—Lou’s parents—also took care of more serious wounds and possessed skills that helped with the natural healing process.
The good news was their remedies worked, the less good news was that Mr. Denule was nothing like his son and loved talking, especially gossiping. The next day everyone knew what happened.
No one was happy, the islanders venerated their ancestors. The Vastaire ruins were not part of their beliefs, but they had always been treated akin to sacred places.
Soon the news reached all the islands. It turned out Yatol wasn’t the only place where the Vastaire buildings were mined for stone. The same had happened on Yawei and Kanlun, respectively the second and fifth of the seven major islands.
The governor in Higharbor had sold them to some business from the mainland that planned to build luxury villas.
After people threatened to riot, the governor promised there would be no further mining. According to the official response, it was all a misunderstanding. The governor had no idea of their significance and was looking to promote tourism on the islands.
"Does he think we are all stupid? If it was a misunderstanding, he would not have done it so swiftly and in secret.” Rellan paced back and forth, giving way to one of his regular rantings while the rest of the family finished eating.
“He only cares about lining his own pockets and stopped when he got what he wanted to contain the outrage.”
Rellan had sued for an official reclaim, but the court in Higharbor had dismissed it. The governor had all the rights to use the land for the benefit of the community. The ‘benefit of the community’ being whatever they decided it was.
After the Baquaire Archipelago had been annexed, all the land not owned by a private citizen became the property of the state. The Vastaire ruins now belonged to the Republic to do with them as they saw fit.
Alana put her hand on his shoulder, “Dear, why don’t you go outside to get some air, we can finish cleaning up. I’ll join you as soon as we’re done.”
Rellan nodded his head distractedly and walked outside.
A moment later Alana turned to look at her three children, looking serious.
“Always remember that, while the Merian Republic likes to pretend they treat all their citizens fairly, their laws only apply if the two parties involved are considered equal. People from new lands aren't given much value, doubly so in a poor territory like ours.”
Then, as if nothing happened, Alana said, “Come on now, these plates are not going to clean themselves.”
* * *
“Dad, do they see no value in the last remnants of an 8000-year-old civilization? You came here representing a university, didn’t you?” Kai asked.
Rellan was helping him train Mana Sense. Progress was slow, but his dad was patient and complimented his every little improvement. Kai was trying to expand his range, while at the same time learning how not to get overwhelmed by the three-sixty view. His father told him it was possible to use Mana Sense like his eyes: seeing everything, while only focusing on one thing and leaving the rest in the background of his mind.
After his question, Rellan remained silent for a moment. “I did come here with a research mandate from the Altaria Academia Maxima, but it wasn’t a prestigious assignment. The Republic has a great interest in ancient civilizations, but since this is a place with some of the lowest density of mana on Elydes, any race that decided to settle here is not considered worth studying.
“The Vastaire ruins have already been plundered of all valuables and even their writings can only tell us so much. I suspect there are still some undiscovered ruins out there, but I can’t afford to fund a specialized team to look for them. Maybe if I was a better researcher…” Rellan seemed to deflate, his shoulders sagging in defeat.
“Dad, you have done a great job. You transcribed all the inscriptions, so nothing was lost. What could be better than preserving their culture?”
“Thank you, Kai, I only wish I could have done more. When I took this assignment, I knew I would not receive any help from the Academia, unless I made some revolutionary discovery. I was young and brash, I thought I could prove them all wrong and become a renowned scholar.” His gaze looked lost, reminiscing about the past.
“After it became clear my dreams would not come true and that I had been overconfident, I didn’t know what to do with my life.”
Kai wasn’t sure what to say. It was unsettling to have your parents being so vulnerable. Then, like a storm giving way to the sun, the shadows disappeared from Rellan’s face.
“It was right then, when I was considering going back to the Academia to continue my career, that I met a very smart woman. I asked her for advice and she told me to imagine myself in fifty years and look back at my life. Which was the choice that would make me happy?”
Rellan lovingly ruffled his hair. “I married that woman and now I have a wonderful family that makes me happy every day.”
* * *
Like in a bad dream, ostentatious villas sprung up all over the island like mushrooms after a rainy day.
People were used to a few estates built over the years by private citizens that wanted to have a place to enjoy the tropical climate or retire. No one had anything against that, they were few and the owners spent large sums of money in the surrounding villages and towns.
This was different. There were already a dozen new villas that Kai knew of, all easily recognizable by their gaudy style and ivory stone.
Every time Kai saw that stone, it was like a slap in the face, a constant reminder of what happened. But no matter how hard he stared, they didn’t burst into flames.
He could only move on, but he didn’t want to let it go. He knew it was pointless, but giving up his anger felt like letting them win. His illusion of naive invincibility had been shattered, the world wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows anymore.
On Earth, be it talent, wealth, genetics or your home country, at birth everyone was already different. Still, in the 21st century, people pretended everyone was equal to different levels of success. It was far from perfect, but there was some degree of protection and opportunity given to all.
It was a sense of safety he had taken for granted. He now realized it was something people built; it wasn’t inherently there. Here, if he crossed paths with the wrong person, he could receive much worse than a slap without them suffering any consequences.
Eventually, time wore him out. It wasn’t the first injustice he experienced nor the biggest. His merry band helped him forget, the four rascals giving him no time to wallow in pity.
After the accident, they had all been affected, but his little band recovered faster than him in a way only children could. A few days later they were as carefree as always.
He couldn't keep brooding with them around. Uli and Oli would sniff any weakness and strike hard. May it be slipping a few leaves of critterbane in his clothes while he took a swim or stealing Ana’s prized purple star-shaped shell. No one was safe.
He would have to run after the laughing duo for the whole afternoon if he lowered his guard—he knew that from experience. It had allowed him to get the Running skill, but he preferred to avoid repeating the experience.
Being in a child's body must be influencing him, he enjoyed their stupid games way more than he should.
Damn me and my stupid thoughts.
Kai had decided he would be their mentor and he would not go back on his word no matter how hard it got. The fact he received the Teaching skill, after he taught them how to get Running, didn’t have anything to do with it.
The more mundane the action, the harder it was to get a skill. Kai learned there were skills for even walking and sleeping, but they were ridiculously hard to get and not useful. Running was the easiest mundane skill one could reasonably learn. It still required excellent form and lots and lots of practice running at different speeds till your legs and lungs gave out.
Sitting in a circle in their secret hideout, Kai was trying to teach his four apprentices what he knew about the Guide.
To level his Teaching skill, what mattered wasn’t only what he did, but what people learned. Thankfully it took into consideration how hard it was to teach someone. Otherwise, you’d have to find a genius that would understand everything, no matter how bad you were at teaching.
Uli and Oli weren’t dumb, but they had the attention span of a puppy on drugs.
Kai took a deep breath and repeated his explanation of how XP worked for the fourth time, staring at the twins and daring them not to pay attention.
Lou understood it the first time but kept listening out of politeness, while Ana was intently drawing in the dirt with a stick and murmuring to herself. Her parents had already explained it to her and she was too bored to listen. Kai couldn’t blame her since he would do the same.
“Let’s make this easy. There are two ways to gain XP: leveling skills and Life Experience.” Kai was trying to make things as easy as possible.
“Each time you gain a level in a skill you gain 100 XP.” That was only with red skills, it was 300 XP with orange ones, but it wasn’t relevant for them.
“As for Life Experience, you get it each week depending on what you do. From what I know the average for our age is around 40 to 50 XP each week. Now, how many ways are there to increase the XP gained?”
Kai looked at Uli and Oli with a smile, judging by their panicked reactions it wasn’t very reassuring.
“Fou— cough. I mean three, obviously there are three.” Oli answered, nodding his head sagely.
He purposely let his expression show the answer to encourage them.
Too bad reading my expressions won’t give you the next answer.
“And they are?” Kai continued.
This time their faces reminded him of a deer staring at the headlights of an oncoming car.
Oli started speaking to the great relief of his brother. “I know all three, but I want to leave Uli the chance to tell you the three answers.”
Uli glared at his brother with a silent accusation, as if he wouldn’t have thrown him under the bus if he had thought of it first.
“So, they are…?” Kai decided to play along, amused.
“You have to do something very… very—” Uli tried to take time, desperately racking his brain for answers.
“Something…?” Kai was relentless.
“Something new,” Uli answered confidently as if enlightenment hit him. Kai was sure Ana had mouthed the answer behind his back.
“Exactly, doing something you have never done before will always give you more XP. Now Oli, why don’t you tell me the next one since you know them so well.”
Uli burst out laughing, looking at his brother with schadenfreude.
“The second is doing something hard,” Oli said after a moment of hesitation.
Damn, Ana! Stop giving them the answers.
“Yes, the more personally challenging something is, the greater the reward. As for the third?” Kai looked at both of them. Ana must have gotten bored and returned to her drawings, because they kept frantically throwing glances behind his back.
After a few more seconds of fun, Kai realized he was acting like one of those teachers that stared at you for a minute when it was clear you didn’t know the answer.
I’m becoming a monster.
“The third thing to keep in mind is the result of your actions. If you do something exceptional, no matter the circumstances, you’ll get rewarded for it. For example, if you save a town, even if it was an accident, your actions had an undeniable impact and you’ll get rewarded.”
Kai turned and tapped Ana’s shoulder to get her attention, this was the important part.
“This is the most ambiguous method and I’m not sure I understand it completely. The Guide seems to calculate some sort of objective standard. If what you do is above that, even if it was easy and you have done it a thousand times before, you’ll get bonus XP.
“If you are a genius painter, you'll still get rewarded more when you complete a piece, no matter if it was effortless for you.
“It’s also interesting to notice that this rule seems at odds with the other two. The easiest way to guarantee above average results is doing something you’re good at, which usually means something neither new nor challenging.”
Noticing the twins were already whispering with each other, Ana looked lost and even Lou appeared confused, Kai ended his lesson.
I guess I went too speculative, they’re still children. I wish I had someone to bounce ideas with.
The only people he could freely speak with were children that couldn’t understand half of what he was saying. How ironic.
His four poor students looked spent, who was he to let such an opportunity go to waste?
“The last to get to the beach is a mollusk,” Kai shouted, already running.
As if he had thrown them a bucket of icy water, the four woke from their stupor and stumbled after him. Kai could hear protests of unfairness being yelled, he gleefully ignored them.
* * *
A few hours later, Kai was laying on the white sand enjoying the sun. The little devils had avenged his slight by trying to drown him, which then resulted in an all-out brawl in the water. Kai was dead tired; it’d been a while since he drank so much seawater.
He was the youngest of the group and even months made the difference when you were so young, let alone years.
Closing his eyes Kai summoned his status to review his progress.
Name: Kai Tylenn
Race: Human
Profession: None
Body stats
Strength: 2>3
Dexterity: 3>4
Constitution: 5>6
Mind: 7>8
Spirit: 8>9
Perception: 6
Skills (6/7):
Meditation (lv28>38)
Acting (lv9>18)
Swimming (lv1>29)
Running (lv1>11)
Teaching (lv1>6)
Mana Sense (lv1>10)
Race: Human
Grade: Red ★★
Next advancement ➔ 18,833/20,000 XP
Steady growth in all his attributes except perception, but he expected that. After the very first years of life, your senses were pretty much set. It was possible he would get one more point if he had overlooked something, but he didn’t expect much until he enhanced his race, which wasn’t that far off.
His skills menu showed the hard work he had been putting into learning new ones and leveling them.
Meditation was getting harder and harder to improve. He was happy with the result, even if not as much as with Swimming. He got a boost thanks to his previous experience, but he was also working hard for it.
He was attending swimming lessons with the other kids of the village and with his friends they often ended up playing in the sea. The skill included all ways to better move in the water, not only the swimming styles he learned on Earth. Getting good at play-fighting in the water and trying not to get drowned counted too.
Running was also improving at a fast pace. Not surprising since it was the skill he used the most. Looking after four brats tended to do that. The only reason it wasn’t higher was that he had learned it recently.
Acting and Teaching were harder to train, but he also had fewer opportunities to use them.
But the hardest skill to train was by far Mana Sense. It was the skill he spent the most effort on, training with his dad. He activated it each day till he got a headache, but he only gained 10 levels. At least they were worth three times the XP, that was something.
His biggest worry was the fact he had almost filled his seven skill slots. They had seemed many at first, now he couldn’t comprehend how he ever thought that.
There were countless other skills he wanted to learn and he didn’t want to abandon any of the ones he had. He had learned how to read and write from his father and now they were working towards the skills for both actions. Without even counting all the other physical skills he wanted to get. He was sure he was so close to getting Climbing.
His parents told him that after the First Seal at seven years old, the customization option included the ability to discard old skills and refuse new ones. Until then he would automatically learn whatever he got offered.
Usually, it wasn’t a problem, kids rarely filled their slots before seven, but that wasn’t his case. He had around three years to wait, an eternity. And that was only to be able to choose what skills to have, he still wouldn't be able to have more than seven.
If he had not been meditating regularly, he would already be panicking.
He had also asked his parents if there was a way to increase his skill slots, but they were adamant that they would talk about it when he was older. From their reaction, he was sure there was a way, but it must not be something easy.
I'm certainly not going to find a solution laying on the beach. Even if the sun is so nice and warm…
Gathering his will, Kai was able to uproot his butt and get going home. Maybe he could guilt trip his parents into answering by threatening a few tears. A child had to use the weapons he had available.
Walking the familiar dirt path, Kai was almost home when he felt something was wrong. It took him a moment to realize he didn’t see or hear any people around. At this hour the village was usually full of activity.
Increasing his pace, Kai finally heard some voices, but it wasn’t the familiar cheery bustle.