Pi’ve was walking slowly back from his excursion, his head was spinning still processing what he had just underwent. People were walking around Pi’ve, and he received some glances. He noticed none of them. One person tried to get his attention, but Pi’ve did not stop walking. He needed food. He was famished to the point that nothing would stop him from getting a nice bowl of thick meat stew. Draining his stamina really did a number on his diet. No wonder wizards rarely needed food, when that factor depended on the expenditure on stamina.

  Traversing the many domes of Tharthillion, again with active use of the map, Pi’ve eventually arrived at his favourite inn. They always had stew, but it was not always meat, necessarily. Fish was the most common food down in Tharthillion, but once a week they did serve meat. It was Wednesday.

  Pi’ve sat down, ordered meat stew, a nice glass of kelp-wine to treat himself, and while he waited he brought up the first two of five notifications he had received.

  Race [] has levelled up: lvl 13 -> lvl 14. +4 free points. Stat points from class [] has been allocated, +2 free points. Max health is increased with one (1) point.

  Race [] has levelled up: lvl 14-> lvl 15. +4 free points. Stat points from class [] has been allocated, +2 free points. Max health is increased with one (1) point.

  Two levels higher, and 36 stat-points stronger— well, not quite, as he had yet to place the 14 free points he had received, but they could wait. While Pi’ve waited for his food, he could go through his notifications one by one, and delay his free point allocation to after he had seen the rest of the message. Maybe strength was not the optimal choice; he did not know what skills he had received yet.

  His fingers started to tingle; suddenly, he did not feel so fatigued anymore. The excitement of all this new progress really heightened his senses and gave him a small rush of energy. He was excited to see if he really had received a skill that was water-based magic. He opened his next notification, and, he was not disappointed.

  Skill gained: [] - Through force you have brought the properties of water to become familiar to you. You have a deeper connection with water. This skill grants you the ability to influence water in its liquid form. This is an advanced variety of corporeal manipulation, and brings with it greater control of the properties of water.

  Pi’ve rubbed his forehead hard. He had worked hard for years now to get this. His time with Eraol today had been the final push to finally unlock a skill in water manipulation. Experience which he had built up throughout the years in training with water suddenly felt like real knowledge he could use. The familiarity of water had become so ingrained in him now, that the Jin had finally granted him a skill, and it was glorious. The skill description explained it well enough, but the understanding he had was more precise.

  The waiter came with his stew not long after, and Pi’ve asked him if he could also get a glass of water. The waiter brought a glass of water right away, and Pi’ve instantly linked with the body of water as soon as the waiter had left. He focused on keeping the form the water currently held, and lifted it up. The water came out of the class, still with the glass’s shape, which Pi’ve thought looked odd. It seemed like his mind would not accept water being out of its container still keeping its shape, so the mind imagined a thin, almost fully invisible cup around the water. What was strange about the water was that the disturbance of the surface of the water now made the whole lump of water have minuscule waves, and not only the top part which would be exposed had it been in the cup. It was a weird thing, yet he knew now intrinsically that he could manipulate the water further.

  Firstly, he imagined a totally smooth ball, and with his willpower he transformed the glass-shaped water to change into a ball. As long as he focused and exerted some force upon the ball of water, no ripples danced upon it surface— it was as smooth as ice, or glass— but when he relaxed a little, small ripples and deformities covered the ball.

  For the next several minutes, Pi’ve manipulated the water, trying to force the water into different shapes. At first, it did not take a lot of mana, but once he exerted himself fully to compress the ball of water, mana starting to seep out of him rapidly. His head started to ache, and he remembered then that he had been low on mana even before trying his new skill, so he brought up a mana potion which Gaudol had made for him and drank it. He received 50 mana right away, and his mana regeneration increased to two points a second for twenty seconds. With more mana, he again increased the pressure on the water ball, and eventually, the ball started to form crystals from the inside and sporadically here and there, but when that happened, the water in the ball expanded so fast that water droplets shot out from the ball he was holding. The ball shrank little by little. He stopped adding energy, and the pressure was released.

  He then kept the slightly smaller water ball in front of him and started trying to stretch, or expand the size of it. At first it did seem to expand, but as the water-ball became larger, it needed to take in air from the outside to alleviate the pressure that was created on the inside of the orb. Eventually though, the ball of water was pulled so far that it turned into several smaller droplets of water, and at that point Pi’ve lost his connection to the water, and it fell to the table.

  While his experimenting was ineffective in giving him any new insight, or showing him how this was useful, he did have some new thought pop into his head. He remembered the book he had received in the tutorial, which stated that energy could be added or taken out of water, creating ice, or possibly boiling it. He had a better sense of water now, and surely that would be possible in the future. He had even seen Gaudol make water vanish that time when he had flooded his library. Was that boiling it away, or was that some other kind of skill. If Pi’ve could conjure water, maybe he could make it disappear too?

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  Skill gained: [] - Through repeated mana contact, you have unlocked the ability to turn your mana into a solid, yet incorporeal, object. Mana can manipulate objects, but it can also be a barrier. You gain the ability to turn your mana solid, making it harder for materials to penetrate.

  Back at the belltower Pi’ve had noticed his mana turn impermeable making the water unable to penetrate it. That was before the mana had become accustomed to the water. He then had had the thought about , which was the way his mind conceptualised it. He had suppressed the thoughts because he was in the middle of holding water from rushing in and potentially ruining a project, or hurting people. Now he knew what he could do with it.

  The skill was in theory a simple one. It turned mana in its purest, almost misty form into something which certain stuff could not pass through. He knew that he could not make the mana impermeable without having a medium he was focusing on. If someone threw a rock at him, but he did not specifically focus on the rock, the rock would pass through any mana without problem. It was a skill were if he knew what he was trying to hold back, the mana would create a barrier for that specific thing to not pass through. That was what happened to the water when he held it. He had focused on the water, trying to not have it pass through, and once he had managed it, the water could not penetrate the mana. Had there been a fish, or a floating seaweed coming his way, it would have passed right through.

  The implications were many. The biggest one, Pi’ve thought, was defensively. If somehow, someday, an archer wanted to shoot him with his arrows, Pi’ve could conjure a wall of mana, make it impenetrable for the tip of the arrow, making it collide, thus blocking the projectile. It would probably, but with more difficulty, also block magical attacks coming his way, though he really did not think that that would— Murgun had done exactly that he remembered suddenly… and Tiselle had probably used a skill similar, or identical to the one he had now. Alright, it was good that he had acquired this skill then.

  This skill was more difficult to assess, as he could not make anything fly towards himself to try to block it. But, what if he could make mana impermeable, or in other words , and make the mana fly away from him. He could essentially make spears of mana which could be used as weapons.

  The room suddenly went dark. Nothing had actually happened, except Pi’ve’s inner thoughts going dim. He had a vision of the large, murderous crab on the back of the ship; its gnawing, yellow eyes flashing as the lighting struck, sending shivers down Pi’ve’s spine. What if he had shot mana bolts at that crab… had it then penetrated the thick exoskeleton of the monster?

  The waitress came carrying a bowl, and Pi’ve snapped out of his spiralling thoughts. The stew steamed steadily, his stomach growled. It was so easy for him to forget his hunger, and that had been a fact ever since he had become a wizard. He wondered if he even needed to eat, or if he ate because he always had. He probably did need to eat, and sleep, although he had slept less and less the passing years.

  He was incredibly happy with the skills he had received. Not only because they were good, but because he had finally been given fruit for his labour. Now that he was finished with going through the skills and eaten his stew, he had one more notification to open.

  Profession available. Open to view selection.

  Profession(s) available:

  As a Mage, you have the ability to unlock professions. Professions are specialisations in your class, and are unlocked whenever you advance in the direction of a certain set profession. Once unlocked, you may accept the available profession(s), or you may choose to ignore them in search for another profession. Once you choose a profession, you forfeit the right to choose another profession until you have reached level 10 in that profession. Once you have reached level 10, you may add another from the list of professions if available.

  NOTE: Limit for amount of professions set at three (3). You currently have 0/3 professions.

  Current professions available: Two (2)

  [] - Through spending time as a builder, your familiarity with foundational building-blocks has increased. Grants the skill [] - Like a chisel or knife, you may carve objects into different shapes.

  [] - Through becoming familiar with water, you now may locate water where others think there is none. Grants the skill [] - You can sense where water is, even if you do not see it. Draw water from inorganic matter and from the air.

  Pi’ve did not have a difficult choice to make. Two professions were available, and they were both good. Yet, there was one which stood out. While had some good things about it, it really did not fit his vision of what he wanted to become. He was following the footsteps of Gaudol, and everything he could do to become a better water mage, he would do. He picked .

  *DING*

  Profession [] chosen. Skill granted: [] - You can sense where water is, even if you do not see it. Draw water from inorganic matter and from the air.

  It was amazing. He could draw water from basically thin air now. If he gathered enough, he could drink it if he were in a place with little water. He was a fully-fledged water wizard now. He had to check his status menu.

  StatusName: Pi’ve

  Age: 23

  Race: [Human - lvl 15]

  Class: [Wizard - Mage]

  Profession: [Reservoir Locator]

  —

  Health - (103/104)

  Mana - (66/560)

  Stamina - (112/220)

  —

  StatsStrength - 41

  Toughness - 17

  Intelligence - 42

  Wisdom - 56

  Willpower - 33

  Perception - 41

  Endurance - 22

  Free points - 14

  —

  Race skills[Inspect (Unique)]

  Class skills[Conjure Light (Common)]

  [Corporeal Manipulation (Uncommon)]

  [Impermeable Mana]

  Profession skills[Water Connectivity]

  [Conjure Water]

  Titles[One and only (Unique)]

  [King Bringer (Rare)]

  It was nice to finally have some new skills. Getting new skills though was absolutely tremendous. He noticed that the skills were sorted within the and skills with some sort of order to it. Race skills only had one, being . It was a useful skill, but it was also the only skill he had in race. Maybe race was a rather specific and hard type of skill to get.

  Class skills seemed to be tied directly with being a wizard, and seemed too to be rather general. It was skills which needed only pure mana, and was not tied to any specific type of casting.

  Profession skills though, was more specific. He now had two profession skills, and they were both tied to magic of the water affinity.

  He had 14 free points to allocate, and even though endurance and toughness were the two clear losers in points, he chose to wait to allocate the 14 points. He wanted to do some more trials with his mana, to see if 560 mana in his pool was really enough now that he had more skills. He also knew that his stamina was tied up to the regeneration of mana, so he wanted to see if endurance would be better to raise than wisdom, which gave mana. He wondered if he could make his stamina points more effective too.

  Pi’ve paid the clerk, and went towards Gaudol’s home. He wanted to share everything that had happened.