Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe looked around the library, wondering what she should start with. The selection was limited — this being a hunting school, all of the books here were related to hunting in some way. Most of the topics would likely be taught in one of the classes, too.

But that wouldn’t stop her from getting a bit of a head-start if nothing else. And besides, maybe one of these books outlined some interesting feats that she could work on while she was taking the classes. She grabbed one of the books on archery and sat down to read.

It was an interesting read, pointing out a lot of mistakes that she made. After watching the archer at the training facility she used before she had developed an intuition for utilizing her muscles better. But this book had diagrams of the body, showing how muscles were used in the process of drawing a bow.

It showed different forms, outlining how the different muscles in her torso would help or be impeded by the movement. The slight curve over his head that the archer used was shown as proper form here, all the muscles in the back fully engaged through the process.

It was fascinating to her, even if the skill gave her an intuitive understanding of what to do, it never told her why things were done that way. And maybe there wasn’t a huge need to understand them if skills just granted you an innate intuition for the task. But at the same time, if skills replaced this knowledge then there would be no reason for these books to exist.

She assumed that it came back to why she hadn’t gotten a dagger-fighting skill yet. Her theory, however accurate it may be, was that she couldn’t get the skill because she didn’t know what she was doing. She was never taught how to use a dagger, and so she can’t get the skill. Or at least not easily, anyway.

And if the same logic applied to levels even after you had a skill, then learning these details would help her archery skill out. She brought up her archery skill just in case.

- Archery (25)

She couldn’t remember what level it was at the start of the day, but didn’t think it was level twenty-five. Had she already levelled the skill just by learning the theory?

It begged the question then, was a high level archer a great archer because they were high level? Or were they high level because they were a great archer? With her current understanding, it seemed as though it would be because they were a great archer. You couldn’t get to a high level, a master of the art, if you didn’t put in the time learning it properly.

Her theory fell apart when she thought of skills like her Vampyric Charm — her highest level skill despite not understanding a damn thing about it. For the time being, she split up skills into two separate categories.

The first category were skills like her Archery and Gathering, maybe even her Meditation and Empathy. She could learn more about the underlying mechanisms and understand them better. She could research and practice them to improve her own mastery of them, and the skills would level to show her better understanding.

The second category were things like her Identify and Immortality, maybe even her Charm or Vampyric Resistance. To her current understanding, there was no way for her to better understand how they worked. No way for her to research the immortality and level it. The skills themselves were what gave her the power and she would need to level them to get any more benefit from them.

She was sure that she was missing something, some fundamental understanding that would make everything click. But she wasn’t sure how she would be able to research something like her Vampyric Regeneration. Maybe she could better understand her body’s anatomy?

Though, Regeneration didn’t require her thought. It was a passive, working all the time and as far as she could tell, there was nothing she could do to turn it off. Her Vampyric Empathy was unique in that sense, being almost like a passive and yet still having an active component.

The main difference between the two categories, as far as she could tell, were that the second category gave her something when the skills levelled up. It’s not as though levelling her Archery didn’t make her better at using her bow — she definitely noticed a difference between now and when she started.

But rather that when Identify levelled up, the difference was something that she couldn’t have possibly done without levelling Identify. When Archery levelled up, it made her better at what she already kind of knew how to do.

The first category seemed to quantify her ability, and solidify the intuition and knowledge that she already had. The skills made her own personal ability more accessible to her. The second gave her something that would be completely impossible without the system’s help.

Zoe sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking about it. There was something bothering her about that, something that stood out to her that just wasn’t quite right.

The skills shouldn’t be broken up into different categories like this. That just wouldn’t make sense, not to Zoe, not to her understanding of the world. There was a separate category for Feats, for Resistances. But not for passive or active abilities. The system made no distinction between things she was capable of herself and things she was not capable of herself.

It just didn’t feel right. She knew better than most that the system was flawed, breaking when it tried to make her a vampire.

But it did try to make her a vampire, didn’t it? Would it have told her that it made her a vampire? She thought that it likely would have, but only because of the class change. What did that mean for the skills that she was getting?

Were they also restructuring her in subtle ways to make her better at specific tasks? Was Identify really something that she wouldn’t be able to do without the system? Back home, before she ever had the skill, she was confident that it wouldn’t be possible.

But now? Could she really say that Identify was something the system was granting her, and not something the system had already granted her? If the system were stripped away tomorrow, would that be taking away all of the skills and power she had already accumulated? Or would it just be removing her ability to quantify them?

She wasn’t sure, if she was being honest. Some of her skills felt almost second nature to her at this point, like her Vampyric Senses. Which, now that she thought about it, was a good argument in itself for the system restructuring her. If the system disappeared, that wouldn’t mean her claws would disappear. That didn’t mean she would suddenly be mortal again.

Zoe rethought her perspective on her skills. The system would restructure her, whether her body or soul — or whatever else it interacted with, to grant her the capability to use them. The window she saw was an abstraction of sorts. A list of modifications the system had made to her so far, and an interface for her to develop herself in certain ways.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On one hand, it felt incredibly invasive. On the other, it was normal here, and did it really matter how it worked? Should she care if the system was rebuilding her on an atomic or maybe even smaller scale?

It was nice to have a better understanding of it at least. If her theory was right, then there should be no reason that she couldn’t better understand Identify and level her skill through that. Maybe she could spend more time analyzing mana structures, piecing them apart and building her own personal intuition for them without the system’s help.

The system should already have given her the ability to examine them, or maybe Identify specifically was a skill the system actively granted. After all, the result of using it was a system interface. For that matter, Vampyric Immortality could also be a system specific skill.

Maybe her immortality is separate from the skill itself, her body was already restructured after all. Maybe her new body just naturally couldn’t age, and the immortality skill itself was just quantifying the number of additional stats the system has given her.

If that were true, then that meant there could be a plethora of other skills that were system specific. She once more, for the final time, tried to clarify her thoughts on the skills.

There were two categories after all, but they weren’t what she thought initially. There was the first category, which were things that she could personally do. Archery, Vampyric Senses and Gathering fell into this category. Whether the system was around or not, her hearing was better than it used to be. The system made a permanent change to her, and she was stuck with it now.

And the second category were the system skills. Identify and Vampyric Immortality fell into this category. Things that weren’t even skills, just system functions. It still felt strange that they would be combined together into the same list of skills, but it felt better than her previous theory at least.

Meditation and Vampyric Regeneration both confused her though. Meditation felt so real, so intense. But the bottom line of what it did was increase her mana regeneration. Could she do that on her own? She supposed she could, meditation was an active thing she had to focus on. But was that just a way of telling the system to increase her mana regeneration?

What would the pressure she felt be then? Was that the system baring down on her? It felt just as logical as imagining it as ambient mana in the air that she was attuning to. It could go either way for her.

And Vampyric Regeneration was even less intentional. It just boosted her regeneration by some amount. Was she just better at healing wounds now? Or did the system restore her health faster than the average person because of her skill?

She shook her head. There were too many questions she had. One day she would need to find some more concrete information on the system and how it worked. But for now, she wouldn’t be able to get any real answers by wondering about it alone in a hunting school’s library.

Zoe stood up and put the book she was reading back on the shelf. She didn’t end up getting as much reading in as she wanted, but she felt good about her time anyway.

She left the school and made her way back to Joe’s tavern. The sun was just beginning to set when she arrived and opened the door. There were only three people in the tavern, all much too drunk to make out what they were saying.

Joe was in the kitchen cleaning up the mess from the day and Zoe walked up to knock on the door.

“Hey Joe, you got a room here tonight?” Zoe asked.

“Hmm? Oh hey Zoe. Yeah, sure do. You’re not going for the spring master feat anymore?” Joe asked, grabbing a massive stock pot and making it vanish into his storage item.

“Well I was going to but I messed up I think. I’ll probably still spend most of my time outside, I’ve just kinda gotten used to it at this point. But I want a comfortable bed tonight,” she laughed.

Joe chuckled and summoned a room key for Zoe. “Third door on the left. How’d you mess it up anyway?”

“Well I’ve signed up for the school of hunting interesting targets,” Zoe said.

Joe laughed, “Really? They called themselves shit? And you paid them?”

“Yeah. Alright, look. The city hall person said they were good. And they seemed professional. And for the record, I think they’re pretty good. Just bad at naming things.” Zoe said.

Joe laughed some more, “Well as long as they’re competent, what do you learn there anyway?"

“Hmm, so far not a whole lot. But I should get dagger-fighting, tracking and stealth as new skills hopefully. Just need two more after that by next year.” Zoe said.

“What do you think you’ll get?” Joe asked as he put away some more of the dishes.

“I’m not really sure yet. You got any ideas?” Zoe asked.

“Well your friends Ash and Lila have a farm right? Could get a farming skill. And then maybe alchemy or art?” Joe suggested.

“That’s not a bad idea actually. Oh speaking of, I did end up sending a letter off and I told them to leave a message here so they might end up stopping by or sending mail or something.” Zoe said.

“Yeah I remember, I’ll let you know if I get anything.” Joe smiled.

“Thanks Joe. I’m gonna head up and get some sleep, it’s been a long time for me now. Good night Joe.” Zoe smiled back.

“Good night, Zoe.” Joe said.

Zoe made her way up the stairs and found her room. It was a different one than the one she and Rizick shared for a brief time, but it looked the same. Which made sense, even in the modern world hotels used the same layouts for their rooms. Or was that right, actually? This was modern too, just a different modern.

She put her stuff down and jumped onto the large, soft bed. Moments later she was sound asleep. She had a dream of relaxing for years at a time, centuries flying by as the world changed around her. Wars fought and won, countries created and lost. All while she sat on the sidelines watching it like it was a new tv series she was interested in.

When she woke, she stretched and headed downstairs. Joe was in the kitchen, getting started on his normal morning duties.

“Morning Joe,” Zoe said as she walked into the kitchen.

“Morning Zoe,” he smiled at her. “Been a while since you’ve woken up here, huh?”

“Mhm. Thanks for the room last night Joe, the bed was really nice.” She said.

“No problem, will you be staying for spring then? I’m happy to help out but if you’re staying long term I’m gonna need you to pay, what with you not being so down on your luck anymore.” He said.

“No probably not. I’ll be back now and then if you have a room but I’ve kinda grown used to just staying up all the time and getting a lot more done. Or just having the time to watch some birds in a park sometimes.” Zoe smiled.

“Well I can’t promise I’ll always have a room available then, sorry. Spring’s not very busy anyway, though.” Joe said, dumping a bunch of meat from his storage item into the large pot of golden stock bubbling away on the stove.

“Yeah that’s fine, don’t keep a room just for me. Anyway I gotta get going, can’t be late for my second day at school.” Zoe said.

Joe chuckled, “Alright, have fun then.”

“Thanks, see you later maybe.” Zoe said.

She left the tavern and started making her way over to the school. Maybe they’d learn some dagger-fighting today she hoped. The knife had been burning a hole in her motivation ever since the first day she tried practising with it.