A few more months passed by before our next companion woke up. This time, it was Sallia. When Felix and I talked about our loose plans for this world, she seemed just as hopeful for our prospects in this world as Felix and I were. To my amusement, Sallia also had some complaints about how limited our sparks were. She wanted something that was more focused on swordsmanship rather than our current options, since she said that she wanted to devote this life to swordsmanship as much as possible. After her accomplishments in swordsmanship last life, Sallia wanted to wholeheartedly devote herself to the sword again this time, in hopes of emphasizing her greatest strength.

Unlike Felix, Sallia at least had a reasonable backup option. Our town's ember had the spark that focused on balanced physical ability boosts, which would still greatly supplement her swordsmanship, even if it wouldn't give her the exact skills she might want. Thus, Sallia grudgingly settled on that Spark, while Felix continued to work towards a crafting class for his first spark.

Her stats this time were a bit below average, especially in the most important stats, unfortunately. In particular, her absorption essence and manifestation essence stats left much to be desired, which was a real shame since those were the fuel for her primary magic systems. On the bright side, the fact that binding and manifestation essence were combined in this world and showed up on her status screen meant that she had a much less punishing time fixing and improving her manifestation stat, and with her latest ability upgrade, her absorption stat was less important than before. It would still improve the speed at which she formed new runes, but since all of her runes were now linked to her sword, absorption didn't directly limit her maximum strength anymore.

Physical

Mental

Essence

Strength: (73+100)

Grade 8

Intelligence: (99+100)

Grade 9

Absorption: (72+100)

Grade 8

Agility: (116+100)

Grade 10

Willpower: (108+100)

Grade 10

Manifestation: (74+100)

Grade 8

Fortitude: (118+100)

Grade 10

Perception: (93+100)

Grade 9

Binding: (128+100)

Grade 11

Alteration: (98+100)

Grade 9

In the meantime, as the months continued to roll ever onward, my own training continued.

It took me about two months to push from level 6 to level 7, which gave me a rough idea of just how difficult it was to level up a spark solely through training. I had gained six levels in a few minutes from killing a monster, and that had seriously warped my understanding of this world's level progression. However, two months for a level was probably a much more 'normal' growth rate for people who couldn't slaughter monsters at level 0. Most people seemed to awaken their spark around the age of three or four, and, if they were warriors, started to help defend the town during their early teenage years. Since later levels took more time than early levels, and this world also had twelve months in a year, that implied that most people gained around a level every 3 months or so.

I tossed all of my points into Vitality again, but I also decided to ask my father if there was a better way to progress. Flare roots were off the table, but I wanted to know if there were ways to speed along my progression and grow a little bit faster. I also wanted to find a way to make my six extra levels seem more believable. If my levelling speed was average for our town, and each level took two to three months to earn, the fact that I was a full year ahead of schedule would be very noticeable. Of course, I could also just sit around and pretend to grind my levels for an extra year… but I didn't want to waste that much time. We only had one world left to grow stronger and earn more abilities and Achievement, and then we would need to fight for more lives. I didn't want to waste a moment that I didn't have to waste.

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"Dad, is there any way to train my spark faster?" I asked. "It took me two months just to level up once. My Skill hasn't advanced from stage 0 to stage 1, either. I don't know if this speed is normal or not, but I'd like to be able to start helping the town faster. I don't want to just be stuck hoping that nothing goes wrong on the front lines while I hide in the hut."

My father looked up from the pot of stew he had been brewing, before he walked out of the kitchen, picked me up, and gave me a hug. He didn't seem to mind the fact that the stew was no longer cooking, since the oven relied entirely on fire magic to operate.

"Well, at your age, you don't need to worry about helping out. You're too low level to take part in real defensive actions against the monsters outside of the village. Besides, we don't actually need to fight against them that often - only once every one to three months. At your age, all you can really do is keep grinding out your levels and waiting. Unless the town actively supports you by giving you unharvested sparks from monsters or flare roots or something. But that's unrealistic - usually, that kind of treatment only happens for craftsmen who can't support their own levels, but which the town still desperately needs. Blacksmiths, for example, usually have their levels at least partially taken care of by the clan to make sure we always have weapons."

I frowned. "I just think that one level per two months is really slow."

"Well… it's unfortunate, but that's just life," said my father. He patted the top of my head, before he planted a kiss on my forehead. "You don't have to feel that a level every two months is slow. At your pace, you'll be ready to join the front lines a little earlier than most warriors."

I pouted, before I sighed. I had been hoping for some kind of way to sneak in a few levels, and perhaps also make my levelling speed look more natural - after all, my six extra levels from killing a spider monster would need to be 'laundered' somehow. But it was clear that my father had no way to do so - or at least none that he was willing to share with me.

"What about Skills?" This was something that confused me quite a bit more. After I had discovered the System's assistance for people who were using a skill, I had honestly though that it wouldn't take too long for me to zoom through the early stages of skill growth. I had reached Basic stage with skills plenty of times before, and it usually didn't take that long to grow them to a certain level of power. However, this time, even with the help of the System, I hadn't managed to push my {Basic Ice Manipulation} Skill to stage one after two months of hard work. I wasn't quite at the point where I felt impatient yet, but I was starting to wonder if this was normal or if I was missing something.

"Those are a lot harder to improve, actually. The first few stages aren't that difficult, of course - but it can still take a few years to work your way through them. By stage 4, it can sometimes take decades for people who are slower. There are plenty of people in the town who are stuck at stage 4, and have been for years. As for stage 5, that's one of the things that distinguish the stronger warriors from the weaker ones. Every single stage 5 skill can play a huge role in strengthening someone's abilities," my father said. "There are only a few warriors with stage six skills in each town."

My eyes widened. Stage six in this world's system correlated to heroic grade. According to my father, there were multiple people with heroic-grade skills in each of the seven towns? That was absolutely ridiculous. Previously, in a population this size, I would have expected to find zero people with a heroic-grade skill. Heck, in a city one hundred times the size of our seven wandering towns, I still wouldn't have expected to find someone with a heroic grade skill.

But as much as I was impressed by the high density of high-level combatants in this area, my father's words still served as a warning. The System here helped, but it wasn't omnipotent. I still needed to be patient and work hard.

I decided to find a better way to launder some levels when I had a bit more time on my hands. Perhaps I could kill a monster, teleport its corpse into the hut, and then claim I had killed it in self defense, thus explaining my unusual levels? It would be tricky to pull it off in a believable way, but there had to be a way to launder my unusual levels. The town already knew that my stats were abnormally high, based on the last conversation I'd had with the [Priest], and so it would seem normal for me to accomplish things normal children couldn't. I also didn't want to be stuck pretending to grind out levels that I had already earned. That would slow down my growth, and I didn't want to slow down in this world. After all, it was our last world before we would need to fight for more lives.

I trained with that thought in mind as more months continued to pass by. About four months later, I had gained one more level, bringing me up to level 8, and put all of my extra stats into [Vitality]. More importantly, Anise awoke.

Just like Sallia, she had no problems with the plan Felix and I had created - of patiently waiting, striking out on our own, and then eventually building the splinter into something amazing. Her status Screen was also a bit on the lower side. Somehow, all of us had ended up with rather low rolls for our primary magic stat, which was a smaller problem than usual thanks to the nature of this world and its System.

Physical

Mental

Essence

Strength: (99+100)

Grade 9

Intelligence: (77+100)

Grade 8

Absorption: (101+100)

Grade 10

Agility: (106+100)

Grade 10

Willpower: (126+100)

Grade 11

Manifestation: (86+100)

Grade 9

Fortitude: (129+100)

Grade 11

Perception: (114+100)

Grade 10

Binding: (101+100)

Grade 10

Alteration: (88+100)

Grade 9

Unlike Sallia and Felix, Anise turned out to be located in the same town as I was located in, so the two of us decided to find a way to meet up. However, before I could plot my next course of action and find a way to launder my levels, I was surprised by a totally different set of news than what I had heard the first few times we had stopped.

"We've spotted another wandering town," said the [Priest], as he addressed the villagers who had showed up to the temple that morning. "Our embers will likely stop moving in about the same spot. Be prepared for battle, or trade."

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