Chapter 5: Magic And Skills
After 3 years I finally understood the people talking around me. I still didn't understand all the words. And of course their pronunciation of various words was huge question but still I could communicate at some level. I had said few words over the last year and now I would just say one or two phrases to communicate. They understood me good enough though. I was also strong enough to run and jump as much as I wanted. But with that came a new problem. My elder sister would just not leave me alone. I was like a new found puppy to her. She would drag me along everywhere she went. Only time I was relieved was when she would have to attend study classes or doing some sword practice. I was surprised when I saw her fighting 3 men at once and the fact that she was the one winning! They were pretty modern than I thought though, if they were letting girls fight with swords. Maybe in front of all this magic spells and skills miniscule difference in physical strength doesn't matter at all. Her name was Zhiralin. I call her Zhira. She was practically dancing the day I called her by the name. She was very easy going, energetic and very kid like. I mean she was a kid so I guess that will pass. My older brother was very smart and handsome. His name was Ruhakin. Everyone called him Ruhak. He was too cool though I suspected that he stole some of the cool lines from story books. he was always training with father. He was like a typical older brother, he was preparing for academy I think. Zhira always trained with a guy called Aras but ruhak, he would only train with father. I thought it must be because he was the heir or something.
And yes I found out that my father was actually lord of waccaria and city waccar where we lived was his seat. He was also named sword of the north. It meant that he was in charge of all northern lords and their estates. Which practically makes me a lady I guess. Haha in your face teacher Stacey who can't play a princess now !! I guess that book that I found in English was very old and it was written by one of our ancestors which makes us pretty old house. That book must be family treasure or something if they were trying so much to translate and protect it.
Evading Zhira was not easy matter but palace was big and with my ability I could hide in any wall like a ninja. When I was free from Zhira I spent almost all my day in my secret room which I made in library. I was going through all the books in library which now I could read. My pronunciation was worse than a kid which I realized after listening people talk around me. Whenever someone talked to me they almost never understand what I was saying but it was just a kids words for them so they tried their best to teach me, I was so embarrassed though. I thought I would show off my superior knowledge and be called genius but I was no better than any other kid my age.
I went direct to magic section. Because it was the thing I was most excited about so I started from there. I picked up the most basic of magic books. The details I gathered was something like this.
There are main 7 magic affinities fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, holy, and dark. A person can have 2 affinities. A Level 10 magic users can create their own mixed affinity like a fire and earth user could make lava, it also effects on which affinity is stronger than other like if you have water and wind and water is stronger than you can create blizzards and if wind is stronger than you can use water as thin throwing blades. And affinity with different skills also results in unique uses of magic like one of the most famous highsword commander kalyashi had only one affinity wind and his skill was named absolute target (he will hit target 100% of time in 200m radius, after that depended on his talent), so he used his bow and arrow in a way that people said, his one wooden arrow was so powerful that it could go through entire mountains and still had power enough to pierce iron shields !!
Nobel families had 2 affinities, more common yet significant people also had 2 affinities. Most were born with only one affinity. They could still learn skills of all the affinities but it won't be much powerful and it would be inefficient compared to magic with affinity. Magic spells were like an art form you had to imagine the amount of magic output, shape it in a way you could use them, throwing them required additional magicules. Anyone could create a magic spell ranked F to C (spell ranks are same as skill ranks, which is shown below). But magic spell ranked B and higher were rarely new almost everything was already discovered and very few reached a level where they could use spells higher than B Rank as experiments. It was rumored that a person could improve up to 100 level. But no one in history ever lived enough to test it out. Even elves from Almesia who lived for 200 years max were never able to reach level 100. So no one knows if it really is the ceiling or not. Most people in all their lifetime only reached 40 to 50 levels. Higher level than 50 magicians were considered sage. And level 50 up swordmasters were called swordsaints. Every level evolution took double the effort to evolve from last one. So it may seem like Level 1 then 2,3,4 but in reality it was more like 1 then 2 , 4 , 8 and on and on. So one can only imagine going into eighties or nineties of levels. To become a knight you required level higher than 15. And adventurers started at 10.
Skills were entirely different subject. Skills you were born with. Which were rare and much more powerful compared to those that you could learn physically.
5 ranks of skills are known :
1) F-Rank : Most basic skills like movement skills, observation skills, and art or home based skills, etc. (can be learned)
2) D-Rank : It's the most common rank people are born with. No matter how weak a person, he would at least have been born with D rank skill (Can be learned)
3) C-Rank : People are significantly more powerful most people become adventurer or soldiers in army, etc. (can be learned)
4) B-Rank : Powerful individuals from common birth who based on skills become knights, court members, famous heroes or champions. The Highswords members required minimum B rank skill to join.(can be learned)
5) A-Rank : Most nobility are born with this skill Rank. It's almost like a proof of noble blood. Not that much different from B Rank but still better.
6) S-Rank : Rare even in nobility. Every appointed sword in the realm had to send at least one S rank member to join highswords every 5 years.
There were rumors about R Rank skill too. It was said that first king had R Rank skill but there was no record of it. It was most likely just a rumor because no one in 1600 years had any R Ranked skill.
Affinities were just a little bonus type thing. You could still learn and use any skill or magic you wanted to use. It just won't have that bonus. Some of the custom made skills by people did require affinity as condition but they were only 3% of all the skills. In order to learn A rank skill and beyond one was not only required to complete some physical condition but also needed necessary mental state. That was why acquiring a skill higher rank than A was very rare case. Because condition to acquire skill never mentioned anything about mental state, they only described physical condition and if it suited the user you would get it. Success in acquiring them depended on user to user.
I was reading while sleeping on a couch that I had made with my skill. I had stuffed it with plastic since I couldn't remember what it was usually made of. I couldn't find any wool in the palace either. I thought about doing it with clothes but then it would be pretty hot so Polyethylene plastic filled with cold water was the best I could think of. It was a kind of water bag I guess ! I was well deep in magic theories when I heard one of the maid call my name,
" ….Neff lady Neff ! where are you? Everyone is waiting for you for Dinner ! "
I waited till she passed by library corridor then I went out of my secret room. And headed towards the dining room. Another butler who was also looking for me came from opposite side,
" Lady Neff ! everyone is waiting for you at the table. Come on. hurry up ! well let me carry you "
" No I walk…" I said.
Being carried by a man younger than me was overwhelmingly embarrassing for introverted me. So I walked with him to the dining room. Eating together was kind of a must here. You could do breakfast and snacks anytime you want but lunch and dinner were always done with whole family. Our family had 6 members including me. Father, Mother, Grandmother - from father's side obviously, Zhira, Ruhak and Me. I didn't knew much details but it was said in palace that father had two brothers one of them had died and other was banished or something. I knew nothing about my grandfather at all. Weird thing was that there were no paintings of him anywhere in palace and no one ever talked about him at all. I had tried asking grandma about him once but she just said that he was gone with a sad face filled with expressions of pity. There was some history to them but I guess I will never know until they decided to tell me on their own. Everyone was already at their respective seat. All of them turned their head towards me as I came dawdling and then a maid picked me up and seated me at one of the empty chair between my mother and grandmother. My mother tried to put napkin on me but I just took it from her hand. She does it every time even though I had showed her how good I could put it on by myself. She just never believed that I could do anything on my own.
" So Neff is finally here, Everyone let's start then. " My father announced.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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