Inside the church library – though it would be better to called the tiny room cluttered with books an archive, Nate sat at a table, frowning at a plate full of ink with a dirty iron pea-sized ball at the center. Dana had told him to clean the ball the best he could, but only using his hands and without taking it out of the plate.
He was now regretting asking for her help.
“This is how I used to train my Clean skill.” She spoke.
“Wait, you used to have the same skill as I?”
“Well, yes.”
“Did you give it up when you got your light thingy or…?”
“Oh, no. I didn’t Erased my skill. I capped its level and then combine it with another to create a Silver one.”
“Wait, what?! Combine?!”
“Yes. Like I told you earlier; a person’s tier determines their maximum number of skills. The reason it also determines the highest tiered skill you can have is because you always need two level-capped skills of the same tier to make one of a higher grade.”
“Ok… I think I get it… If you don’t have the skill-slots you just can’t tier up because you don’t have the required materials to create a better skill... guess the math checks out too; you need at least two slots for a Silver skill and, therefore, three for a Gold… But how do you combine skills?! What does it entail?”
“Like anything related to skills, insight is what you shall seek, and power what you shall find,” she intoned ritually.
“You… what?”
“You will see in time.” She smiled, “There is another reason why my sisters and I did not answer your questions. For us, daughters of Selene, skills are of spiritual significance. Trials by gods tailored for each one of us. Finding our own answers to them is how we shape our destiny.”
“Aha… I am not gonna lie. I don’t follow.”
“Just try, Nathan. Find an answer to the trial before you.” She gestured at the plate.
“of course…” he muttered, “she said she’ll answer all of my questions, not that she would do so clearly… Alright, I don’t wanna touch this, but I supposed I have no choice. At least she can clean me up when we are finished…”
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Gingerly, Nate started prodding the little ball with two of his fingers. He managed to take some of the gunk of the thing… or not?
“Hey! These are… a magnet in iron dust?!”
“You are completely right,” she smiled, “that ink uses iron dust as one of its components, and metals like iron tend to stick to that ball. You’ll find out that cleaning it is no easy task.”
“Not easy, ha! How am I even supposed to go about it?!”
“That’s exactly what you need to discover… but please be careful not to lose it. It is costly to replace.”
“Yes-yes, of course, but how am I even supposed to…?” right then, his trembling hand dipped into the ink spraying some on the table, “shit!”
“Language child…” she grimaced, “As I thought, it would be better for you to be resting…”
“No! I am not going back to twirling my thumbs in that bed.” Nate grimace in disgusts at his dirty trembling hand, but quickly schooled his features, “I’ll manage.”
“As you wish. But remember, you have but one hour, then you’ll go back to your room, like it or not.”
Nate sighed and started working off the gunk, bit by bit. He needed to hold it with one hand and use the other to separate a plunk of inky iron dust at the time. The magnet wasn’t strong, but still he needed to separate the pieces from each other, before letting them go back in the ink. A delicate process not helped by his trembling hand.
“Fuck!”
“Language.”
“S-sorry ma’am…” Nate started muttering to himself, “What am I missing? Yes my hand is a mess but I am not here to make manual labor or Dana wouldn’t have…”
“Is Mother Dana for you, Nathan.”
“Of course… Sorry Mother Dana…” caught off mid-mumbling he drew the rest of his monolog inside his head.
She wouldn’t have made him do this if there were no results to be had in his current state. After all, this was not supposed to be a dexterity exercise, he was here to level up his Clean skill.
Ok, he could work from there. The next natural question was, how was the exercise meant to help him level up his skill?
“Hmm… How did I level Eavesdropping earlier?”
“What was that?” at the other end of the table Dana lifted her eyes from a book.
“Nothing! I… erm… heard a couple guys talking about leveling out their skill, and I was… trying to remember what they said…? Yes, that.”
“Nathan, try not to put too much thought in the paths other takes. That will only constrain you. Always nurture your own understanding...”
“That’s it!”
“What?!” she startled at his outburst, but Nate was already lost in his own world.
“Understanding…! That’s how I did it… I understood what the function Eavesdropping was and then prod it to do its job… that’s when it level…! But how does Clean works? What is its function?”
He rubbed an inky clump off the iron pea’s top end. It didn’t fall, because of the ball’s magnetic nature, but it slipped neatly to the side, living behind a clear section… a neat, almost perfectly circular clear patch at the top of his pea…
Oh! This must be the effect of his skill. But what was it doing? It was helping him clean, yes, but how?!
Experimenting, he pressed his finger on one side of the pea and turned it over to see how it looked. His finger had moved the dark gunk, leaving behind a tiny silvery half-moon mark, about what he expected from his nail pressing in, only a little too perfect… as if all the ink and iron particles had suddenly decided to make an orderly retreat from his pressing finger… an orderly retreat… order…
*DING*
- [CLEAN] LEVEL UP! –
- [CLEAN] is level 2-
A shit eating grin broke off Nate’s lips.
