Chapter 8: First Obstacle

Chapter 8: First Obstacle

As he entered the washroom, Ember could not wait to bring out his status screen.

Like the first time, his Insight and Mystic showed the biggest improvement, with Will following behind. Immunity, too, had risen substandardly, whereas his Might had finally reached the one-point mark. Perhaps now his punch would have the weight of a five-year-old.

Quite an achievement while he was a month shy of three. Ember sniffed.

His mana circuit had progressed quite a bit over the months, whereas the breath of mana had eluded him completely. Even now that he was Tier 2, there was still no improvement in it, which prompted him to believe that simply raising his racial tier would not be enough for his mana foundation.

Then he noted the EP requirement for Tier 3 and almost swore, despite suspecting it beforehand. That number had doubled once again.

As he washed his body, stripping off his clothes, Ember made a mental calculation to figure out how many skills he would have to improve to get there. If he got two good copper skills and managed to advance them to +9, that would net him 900 points. For the remainder, he had Mana Circulation and Heightened Focus.

As for getting a copper skill to max mastery, Ember had no hopes of achieving it in the short term. The task seemed nigh insurmountable for common skills, much less copper ones. He had only managed it with Focus because all his other skills required deep focus to function. Perhaps history would repeat itself with Heightened Focus, despite Mana Sense having an edge over it.

Mana Circulation was still quite arduous. With only one breath of mana to work with, he could barely practise it, with his mana needing half a day to recover.

Considering all that, he figured it would perhaps take two years at the earliest for him to reach Tier 3. Well, that was assuming he could acquire two copper skills early, and not just any skills that he couldn’t train constantly, like Mana Circulation.

Since he had learned that there were iron and silver ranks after copper, there might be a way to obtain higher-tier skills as well. Perhaps his father could help with that, though he feared the skill slot requirements for them might be higher. And considering his mother’s low tier, perhaps it was not nearly as easy as he imagined.

Of course, there were those potions. A thousand contribution credits might be a lot. Why else would his father have left his mother at a low tier for so long? That was to say, he shouldn’t place all his hopes on those expensive potions. They might be a last resort when he hits a wall.

A thought crossed his mind. If the threshold for a tier doubled every time, then would that not mean the next one would be 2400 evolution points? Dear lord, that would probably be absolutely impossible without—

Waving his status screen away, Ember ran through a rigorous mental calculation. What he learned did not delight him at all. As far as he could tell, meeting the threshold for Tier 4 would require eight copper skills at absolute mastery.

It’s going to be the biggest hurdle in my path, Ember reckoned.

Getting the first few levels in a skill was rather easy. He only had to grasp the basics. But once he passed the third or even the fifth point, each skill demanded meaningful exploration.

Was that why his mother was Tier 3 despite being in her early thirties?

That left him with more to ponder when choosing his next skills. There had been a number of skills awaiting in the status log. Unfortunately, all of them were of common rank.

He bet Running would be the easiest to master, considering how much he ran around every day. But it was still a common skill, and he was unsure what the criteria for its advancement would be. Rain’s copper counterpart of Running was only at +5, which meant it was not the easiest skill to master. Well, she had unlocked her system at four, and if Running had been among her first skills, it had taken her six years to get there. But Rain had not been diligent from the beginning.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

All these points made Ember more inclined to take Running, but he would still confirm with his father before acquiring any.

As he came out from the washroom, his mother had already awoken from her advancement, only steadying her mind, while his father stood with a napkin pressed to his nose. Her fair skin was now completely caked in black, tar-like impurities; if that were not enough, its disgusting reek permeated the entire room. And their house didn’t have a room-freshening construct in place either.

As soon as the stench entered his nostrils, Ember stopped breathing and dashed outdoors.

Sorry, Mum.

He waited on the hammock hung from the branches of the old oak tree. Some minutes later, his father came to join him.

“So you have reached tier 2,” the man said, peering down at him. “Can you tell me what skills you have?”

Ember considered it for a moment, wondering whether he should oversell or undersell himself. Ultimately, he chose to be straightforward and truthful.

His father took his silence as confusion. Then he slapped himself on the cheek. “Silly me,” he sighed. “You can’t read yet.” He shook his head, crouching to his level. “Em, do you remember what the names of the skills the System spoke to your ears?”

Ember bobbed his head. The system had not spoken to his ears, not since the first couple of times. But hearing his father, it seemed the system went full voice mode for the illiterate. How such sorcery was possible, he’d figure out one day.

“I can tell you have Mana Sense and Mana Circulation,” the knight said. “Have you gotten Mana Accumulation already?”

Ember raised his eyebrows, making a mental note of the skill. Then he shook his head.

His father seemed slightly disappointed, but continued, “Well, since you’re so spontaneous, you must have Running.”

Ember shook his head again.

“How about studying?”