Chapter 2

“Run! Keep running like the hounds of hell are chasing you down! No son of mine will leave this house with less than thirty Constitution!”Nick pumped his legs, forcing his lungs to keep working even though he really wanted to give up and lay on the grass.

His old life had been busy maintaining a mundane identity while furthering his study of the arcane, but it had mostly been a mental effort. He had done the bare minimum to maintain his health, but strenuous physical labor was entirely foreign to Nicholas Crowley of Salem.

“Yes, ma’am!” Came out of his mouth instead. Nick wasn’t stupid enough to protest his C-rank adventurer mother, especially when she was the only person for miles willing to teach him the basics of this world’s magic.

“On your left!” Devon shouted as he lapped him again. Nick ground his teeth, childish frustration driving him forward beyond what his desire for a powerful body did.

This torture continued for a good fifteen minutes more until his mother finally called for an end. “Alright, slow down, but don’t stop! Keep breathing through your nose and expanding your diaphragm as I showed you!”

Nick did his best to follow her command, though he couldn’t go through the entire breathing pattern she was teaching them. His disadvantage of being a magic class rather than a fighter like his brother kept frustrating him, but he didn’t let that keep him down.

“Alright, that was pretty good. Devon, you should concentrate less on lapping your brother and more on keeping up the pattern. You’ll never progress beyond Beginner in the Stalking Gait if you don’t fix your attention issue. Nicholas, think less and act more. I understand you have a more difficult time without the benefits of a compatible class, but I know a dozen Mages who mastered the Stalking Gait to great success. Do not let that hold you back.” Elena Crowley could be a harsh taskmistress, but she knew what she was talking about and tailored a regimen for each of her children. “The worst mistake an adventurer can make is thinking they must keep to their archetype. No one would expect a mage to outrun a monster, which is why you must be strong enough to do so! Live another day is your motto!”

With that, she dismissed them to go take a shower using the newly installed water heater. That such a small thing could be considered a luxury in this world still tripped Nick up, but he was grateful to his father for splurging on the magic item. He already had to suffer through harsh physical training, and cold showers would have seriously tested his patience.

Soon enough, he was clean again and feeling much more like a human—or well, like a person. This new world had many other species, and not the mythical ones he had read about in his old life—actual, currently-existent sapient species separate from humanity.

“Are you done? Gods, you always take so long!” Devon shouted, running past him to get back to the house, where the next part of their training would take place.

Chuckling to himself, Nick followed in his brother's wake, walking back to the house from the bathing area.

The inside of his new home was what he’d describe as medieval cozy. With a crackling fireplace to ward off the early spring’s chill, plush armchairs made of Thunderhoof leather stuffed with its wool, and wooden interiors, the only thing it lacked was a mug of hot chocolate and an old book about an extinct style of casting and he would have been in heaven.

“Good. Now that you are both here, we can get started. Sit down and drink your soup. I’ll teach you while you eat.” Elena said authoritatively, gesturing to the two full bowls and corresponding chairs.

Nick settled down, grabbing his spoon and shoving the delightful turnip and thunderhoof soup in his mouth. With the end of winter, they could finally begin using up the last of their reserves of dried meat, which resulted in much more nutritious meals than the usual seasonal fare.

“Last time, we reviewed the basics of Skills and Spells and how they differ from Traits. Can anyone give me a short summary of that before we move on?” Elena began, her voice taking on a tone Nick could recognize from his old teacher as repeating something for the nth time.

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“But mooom, I already know that! I don’t get why I have to do baby stuff just because Nick is here! The temple already taught me everything about that!” Devon complained loudly, letting his spoon drop in his soup and crossing his arms with a huff.

Nick barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing better than to show how annoyed he was with the pace his brother forced him to follow. He hadn’t told anyone about his reincarnation and didn’t intend to, which meant limiting himself to his older but slow-learner brother’s pace. It was torture for a nerd like him.

“Devon, we are going through the basics again because Vicar Alexander told me you were having trouble following along! Do not blame your brother!”

Devon pouted, even going so far as to bring out the puppy eyes, but their mother wasn’t considered a badass without a reason. She had personally hunted down the thunderhoof they were eating, after all. And that was a D-rank creature that usually required a team of guardsmen to bring down.

“It’s just sooo boring. I’m much better than the others at swords! Why do I have to remember all those boring facts when I can just beat up everyone?!” Devon grumbled, sounding precisely like one of Nick's old classmates, who then went on to receive a scholarship for sports. Unfortunately for him, this world didn’t have colleges ready to throw money at him, and even the knightly orders who maintained schools wouldn’t come looking on the frontier unless a great talent appeared.

“Because unless you know those boring facts, you’ll make terrible choices and ruin your build, which means you’ll start to lose against those you can now beat, no matter your natural talent,” Elena explained, more than used to her child’s ways. She took Devon’s hand and forced him to look up. “I’m doing this because you both have a lot of potential. You can even aim to be recruited in a good knight order if that’s what you want to do in a few years. But you won’t get there if you ruin your build.”

A moment of silence followed, but eventually, Devon nodded, defeated.

Seeing that there were no more complaints, she turned to Nick, "Now then. Nicholas, please give me a short summary of the last lesson so I can start telling you how developing specific skills can affect your Traits.”

Nick swallowed the last of his soup and politely dabbed his lips, enjoying the look of frustration his brother sent him more than he should. “Skills are the most common form of power the System recognizes as worth crystallizing. They can be inherited, developed, or earned through innumerable ways, though the easiest is to receive instructions from someone who already has it. Spells are similar to skills but usually confined to those Classes that can use mana. They can affect a wide range of things and can only be learned or developed, not bestowed.” There was much more than that, of course. Even just a preliminary study had shown an incredible variety, but a kid wouldn’t know about that.

Nick took a deep breath, still sore from all the running he had done. His body was sturdier than the average eleven-year-old in his previous life, but it was still mortal. “Finally, Traits can only be received from the System as recognition of a great deed or, as the temple says, from a God, though it is disputed exactly how involved they might be. A person usually only has one or two Traits, counting the one they get from the Class Ceremony.”

And wasn’t that a big surprise? Apparently, everyone knew that gods existed in this world, but there wasn’t much religious strife. The reason behind that, and the thing Nick still struggled to understand, was that those beings had once been mortal and achieved their power through growth rather than divine nature.

“Good, though don’t think I didn’t notice your little game there. Annoying the priests might be fun, but you have to remember that they don’t have to teach you anything. If you are too cheeky, they are well within their rights to throw you out.” Unsaid went that he would not like the consequences of being thrown out.

And with that, their second lesson started, and it was supposed to be a rest day!

Finally alone in his room, Nick sat on his bed, trying to come to terms with how much his life had changed.

He had always been good at going with the flow, and this quality had allowed him to avoid freaking out and drawing notice to his change.

Of course, his family had noticed he was different, as had a few others he interacted with often enough, but kid Nick had always been a bit more withdrawn and shy than his older brother, if prone to fits when sufficiently provoked, and everyone had simply decided his change had come from the Class Ceremony.

The people in Floria barely interacted with casters, a few adventurers down on their luck notwithstanding. Though Mage was a basic class everyone could get, it had a low chance of appearing in a family that didn’t already have a magical lineage. Given the multiversal habit of casters to seclude themselves from the world to study the arcane, they were understandably shrouded in mystery. It wouldn't be too weird for an already shy kid to spend less time outside with the other kids and more on his own after receiving such power.

And Nick had a very good reason for wanting to be alone, despite genuinely appreciating the free instruction he was getting and that he would have never imagined possible in his old world.

TRAIT NAME

PROFICIENCY

DESCRIPTION

Parsimonia

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Occultist Class Trait that increases mana efficiency, allowing for greater stealth and endurance in casting.

Blasphemy

Unique

Unique Trait that guarantees independence from external influence.

Parsimonia was already a different enough Trait from what he had been told to expect. According to Vicar Alexander, mages usually received a Trait related to their affinity if they had a pronounced one or a generalist Caster trait to aid in their magic use. Parsimonia was different enough from the others that Nick hadn’t felt comfortable sharing it, but luckily, one’s status was considered a private matter after the Class Ceremony, so no one had questioned him.

It was good that no one had because his second Trait was sure to raise alarm bells if his first hadn’t been enough.

Just the name was enough to make it obvious he wasn’t exactly a god-abiding citizen, and since nothing little Nick had ever done should have warranted such an ominous thing, he was sure the temple would have called the Inquisition—if it existed in this world.

Blasphemy was the kind of Trait legends spoke of. The gift one would receive from a god after slaying a powerful archdemon or curing a plague.

Nick had gotten it because he didn’t belong. And it delighted him.