Chapter 2: Choices

Chapter 2: Choices

Ethan stared at the disembodied screen of runic scripts. A suspicion and many conspiracies crawled through his mind, but he held them down, his eyes fixed on the glaring text. If not for the days he had spent as an infant, he would have believed he had gone insane.

Still, something like this was completely beyond him. Then again, compared to his reincarnation, a video game’s status window seemed more believable.

He frowned at the name at the top of the screen. Is that the name they have given me? He thought. Well, Ember certainly sounded better than Ethan. Hopefully, it was common in this world, or he might be ostracised for being a chunni.

His attributes seemed lacklustre at best, except for Will, Insight, and Mystic, perhaps. Well, what could he have expected from a baby? Definitely not shooting fireballs any time soon. Ember glared at each section, hoping for more information to appear. Sadly, there seemed to be no “hover or toggle for more information”.

His eyes dropped to the new skill he had learned, and finally, something appeared.

[Mana Sense (Copper) : +1
The ability to sense mana around you and within you.]

That was something, though he was a little peeved to learn he had already spent half of his skill slots. And there was only one skill he had learned. Even with his feeble mind, he could do the maths.

Three skill slots seemed unnecessarily high for a skill like Mana Sense. But if all the RPG rules he knew applied… There should be a way to increase the skill slots.

Hey, is there a way to increase the skill slots? He asked the void. Come on, disembodied god of RPG. Answer me, please.

To his surprise, more texts flickered onto the screen.

[Hint: You can gain more skill slots as you evolve your Race.]

That’s good to know, he muttered internally. Umm, what do you mean by evolving race? Is it like how I think it is? Like how humans came from monkeys?

Only silence answered him.

Ethan, or rather Ember, darted his eyes to the top of the disembodied page.

[Human: Tier 0 (10/300)
Average in strength, average in aptitude, but humans carry the potential to shoot through the abyss and rise among the elder races. At tier 0, you are nothing different from a carbon-based sapient animal.]

Hmm, does that mean with enough attribute points and mana, I will turn into a pure being of energy or something?

The better question was how to get more points to meet that 300 progression mark. He remembered gaining the skill had granted him those 10 points. So perhaps raising the skill would too. Ember had all the time to test his hypothesis.

With his cries quelled, his parents left him alone once again, with his sister to look after him. Alone in the crib, Ember concentrated, his pupils contracting with seriousness. For a moment, he remained like that. Then a whole new world opened to his senses.

Mana was everywhere.

Thin wisps of it floated in the air. Some concentrated around his elder sister, while many more seemed attached to the lights, even when they were not glowing.

So they don’t use electricity here, huh.

He remembered the skill description said it could help him sense the mana within him as well. Now, how do I look inside?

No amount of concentration opened a way. This time, he was truly stumped. Even after spending almost half an hour, all he gained in return was a weary sense of helplessness and a growing headache. Mana Sense, it seemed, had exhausted all his mental energy, and Ember had no choice but to fall asleep to recover the bare minimum of mental faculty.

When he woke up, it was afternoon. The man of the house had refreshed himself and changed into an easy tunic, now sitting on the couch with his arm around his mother, exchanging soft words and laughter. That was a change of scenery from his previous life. A home where the parents loved each other as they loved their children—what else could he ask for?

Then he saw their lips closing in.

Ember shut his eyes involuntarily. He began to count. One, two, three… all the way to ten, and finally chanced opening one eyelid to peek.

Nope! They were still at it.

You two, come on, get a room already.

Thankfully, the familiar scripts flickered into his view once again, distracting him from the couple.

[Would you like to learn Mathematics (Common)?]
[Required Skill Slot: 1.]

His delighted expression was soon punctured by a thin line between his brows. His face turned ashen.

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So you want me to learn mathematics? And here I thought I had left behind those cursed calculus, differential equations, integrals, and real analysis all the way on Earth.

Nope!

The window disappeared.

Even if it cost one slot, he was not going to waste a precious skill slot on something he was not even good at, not to mention its practical use.

Yes, calculus might have been world-changing back on Earth. But this world had magic, and magic seemed to make physics rather… flexible. There were practically more than two suns and islands floating in the sky.

Only a fool would take mathematics as their foundational skill. One could argue that it would advance his Race. A beggar can’t be a chooser, but he could choose something else instead—something he was actually good at.

Something related to mana would be fantastic, or something he had learned in his old world that might come in handy here as well.

Ember ruminated on the seventeen years of life he had lived. Football was something he enjoyed. He had even been good enough to play at the college level. There were probably no games like that in this world, though he wouldn’t be surprised if they had a Hogwarts version of it somewhere. Not that he was in any condition to play it.