My Parasite Skill System

And my thoughts still were elsewhere–outside of this stifling room, under the not so stifling sun of spring, where lied about every kind of things that could and would certainly be appealing to me.

The master (who didn't even refer to himself as 'master' only, now–but as 'grandmaster') or constantly bragging old fart still was on the subject of mana.

Cleverly and with experience using all these basic hacks and knowledge he was so kindly giving us about mana would benefit every single one of us.

So let the apprentices jot down while the bragging mage speaks.

Equipment, armors, swords, bows, wands, jewelry, accessories, boots, gloves, potions, many other consumables, blah, blah, and blah.

It never ended … up till it ended.

"And now … and this might be of greater interest to you, young folks … let us actively be talking about skills, heh, heh, heh!" did the grandmaster guffaw joyfully.

Coming along with the end of this oh-so-boring explanation about magical energy (I swear practical and straightforward example would've pleased his crowd of attentive disciples way better) would now come what says he, will be of greatest interest to us all: skills.

It didn't pain me to admit it: my attention wasn't outside anymore.

Skills.

Finally some topic of interest to me.

The grandmaster is right, yes.

Skills are me. What I'm made of. Now, this interests me. Only slightly, though.

I've already been sitting here in this tight and tiny yet broad and large space for about two weeks, now … and as I'm not a newbie anymore, I know not to set my level of expectations too high.

Every time the masters are seemingly bringing something well enough interesting up; it always ends up being a false alarm to my craving.

Still, though. I listened the following:

For beginners, skills are about the preconceived means for one to be having recourse to use mana in an efficient way.

To use magic, as just previously contemplated, one has to order it around. Ordering magic around. Making it bend to one's will. Basically summoning it in order to go about using it in whatever way one would please.

Preconceived in the sense that it's already designed. A simple example that would only be about magic–that is to say, without involving any equipment, sword, bow, shield, wand, or whatever–would be the active skill 'Fire Bolt.'

It is attributed to the elemental of fire. And the orders over the mana are preconceived, in the sense that the spellcaster using that skill already has ideally learned it before trying to use it, and that it all goes pretty much easily when you know the formula.

Turning one's mana into fire energy with one's bare will and science; forming one's mana into a condensed ball; playing and fiddling with the penetrating characteristics and parameters of it (obviously, the <Fire Bolt> active skill was one to be thrown from a distance); lock one's target; and let the performed skill fly off!

And the grandmaster just performed that on some spectral puppet he'd just summoned beforehand telling us not to be minding it in vain.

<Fire Bolt> was thrown by himself.

It flew towards the spectral puppet and obviously damaged it.

Fusing with it, the spectral puppet turned yellow, then gray, then decayed instantly.

The fireball also was soon stopped and canceled by the summoner.

Hmm … that was cool. Super cool. At last, they serve me with something worthy of my attention, ha, ha, ha.

It sure isn't going to last for long, though.

"Ahem," the fire magician cleared his throat, "and this is an instance of the use of an active skill … a very basic one."

The priorly so calm crowd of young apprentices was doubled with expectation and eagerness to finally learn magic. There wasn't any one of the whole corpus of learners that hadn't been moved by that–except for me, of course.

This sure was cool. It'd gotten my interest. But so what? It's not like he would continue performing his little stuff before us, both diverting us and enlightening us at the same time, no.

They should know better.

And there the magician spoke, "Settle down, settle down," the ruckus and mounting blabbering started to become too intense for him, "settle down, settle down, young folks."

He then proceeded to say, calming his crowd and upsetting it, too, a bit: this wouldn't be a common occurrence. Such an illustration was only for the sake of credibility. So that the disciple knows what to expect. So that the disciple knows what he's dealing with.

–That is to say, authenticity.

With a promise of a bright future; the disciples knew to calm themselves down. All the motivation they now possessed shouldn't let themselves be overwhelmed.

Rather, they should stuff it back deep within themselves, so that first off, it doesn't go to waste (energy does that, sometimes), and secondly, that they know to be patient for their time and in the meantime be serious, diligent, and contented with all the boring stuff he would now be approaching.

Heh.

Knew it.

Here the bragging old man goes again.

Sinking back myself in the backrest of my chair; I listened still.

The following of what he explained still was of interest to me, surprisingly, even though it wouldn't last long.

He still talked about skills, interestingly.

That skill he just showed us? Anyone could use it thanks to it being a skill. That was to say, then again, a set of different orders and changes being applied to one's mana so that it easily manifests itself.

This was a skill. And learning it, anyone could use it. Under the condition that one possesses the fire as their elemental, obviously. That one chooses the path of the sorcerer (in most cases), obviously. And that one gets down to the task of performing it to the best of their capability, yet again: obviously.

That wasn't so obvious to anyone, apparently. Voices began going up.

The mage waved them all off pretty easily.

He continued:

Skills weren't always that easy, though. Because even though, with a skill and with the set of preconceived orders coming along with its teacher, one doesn't have to rebuild and remake it from scratch (beginners can't do that), one still has to have very good control over one's magic.

So that wasn't so easy.

And on a side note, even though skills were more of a beginner, intermediate, and advanced thing; grandmasters such as himself still resorted to them quite a lot.

But that was that: skills were skills.

And the more the skills, the more proficient a spellcaster would be.

Thus do many skills and experiences usually lead to victory. Be it in the art of war, of individual fight, of craftmanship, of alchemy, of politics, and of many, many other subjects.

Skills were that versatile … even though they mostly were used and conceived in order to fight, yes … they were still very versatile and of a great many differences of uses and applications.

Again, he repeated, thus do many skills lead to victory.

Thus do many skills lead to victory. Thus do being the possessor of many skills would lead one to victory. Would lead anyone to victory. Would lead me to victory. Many skills did that. They sure did that, and I knew they did.

When I had no skills at the beginning of my life; that was that–and it didn't certainly lead me to victory. Quite the contrary, from what I recall.

Now, though, this sentence I last listened from the mage kept going ringing and ringing again in my head.

I thought about it, again, and again, and again … and became upset again, as a result.

This was true. I got him. He was speaking the truth. It was just as plain as that. Many skills lead to victory.

Me, I wanted to become an adventurer because I would be growing strong thanks to it, and also because it was really fun-looking.

People around me were having fun, and I wanted to join them in that. Only that. Join them, and that would be it.

Now, I have joined them. According to them, I had. According to the human princess, I had. According to Old Sipping, I had. According to everyone present here, I was becoming that.

Those were the obvious first steps that, the one who could offer themselves should obviously be jumping on the occasion.

The first steps that I am currently undergoing.

You understand the comedy, now.

I should be going out, right?

Maybe I will.

Maybe I will, yes.

But maybe I won't.

Ending this comedy … how exactly?

It's boring. Very boring. But whatever. Maybe I won't end it. Even though it's the biggest comedy ever … and even though it isn't even funny.

Because, yes. At least, I'm spending time with her, now.

I'm spending time with Leafana.

My elven princess. And the monster's home.

She's seated right next to me.

And I turned to her, seeking her attention.