The Grand Weave

I continued walking along the shoreline, letting the wet sand sink between my toes. The sound of the waves subtly crashing onto the land was pleasant to hear, calming without being distracting. And with the sun setting along the horizon, the sky was a beautiful shade of colours.

"Cyrus! Come on!"

Yes, looking to the shore, all was truly perfectly calm. Unlike the city where I spent most of my life, this island was beautiful and serene. Even the subtle sounds of wildlife in the background contributed to this serenity.

"It's been three days! And they loved your cooking!"

If you ignored the more annoying sounds of life, one could truly-

"Seriously!"

Finally, I stopped and turned around with my hand dragging down my face. "Just let me walk in peace! Aaaagh!"

Celanae stopped a couple of feet away and crossed her arms. "If you would stop ignoring me, we could walk together."

"I'm trying to walk alone if you can't tell. Solo mode? Enjoying nature with just myself and my thoughts."

"And I'm telling you, you're being ridiculous. We already apologized, Cyrus. So can we stop with the silent treatment and begin talking again?"

I glared at the smiling elf. Long seconds passed with nothing but the sounds of water filling the air. Despite my blatant attempt at scaring her away, she continued to smile brightly until I gave in and sighed. "Fine. Silent treatment over..." I said dejectedly. I continued walking, and Celanae followed along beside me, matching my pace. "I still say Isaac's apology wasn't even an apology. I'm pretty sure he half accused me of it being my fault towards the end."

Celanae paused for a second before shaking her head and continued walking next to me. "No comment on that. Just know that he's been properly lectured on his apology skills."

We continued our journey along the beach till we reached a shady spot covered by a massive tree. Summoning a blanket from my inventory, I laid it out on the ground and sat down with Celanae joining me. After properly settling along the ground with our backs leaning against the tree's trunk, I motioned for Celanae to begin.

"Alright, what do you want to know? I can guarantee you; it's not nearly as interesting as you might think it'll be," I said.

Celanae simply smiled and pulled out a journal and pencil. "I'll be the judge of that. So let's start with something easy. I'll ask you questions, and you give me a rating that you think fits the best. Let's use a one to five scale. Alright?"

"A survey? Really? Isn't that a little basic?"

She shook her head. "We're simply trying to establish a baseline and then move on from there. Uncle Brelten asked us to help you, so that's what I'm going to do."

"Fine, fine. Fire away."

"Good. Let's start with physical capabilities. How confident are you in a fight against a tier one monster using only your spear?"

I paused and thought carefully. Realistically I would rate myself decent with my weapon. I used it to go hunting and fight inside that rift well enough. Except, when my memory drifted back toward yesterday's dungeon delve, I couldn't help but wince. Áine had to work extra hard that day because of how badly I let myself get overwhelmed. After giving it some thought, I confirmed my decision in my head.

When I looked over, Celanae was waiting patiently with her pencil ready. "I'll say two. I don't think I'm laughably bad at using a spear, but there are many times where I overextend or fail to react quick enough to prevent an attack."

"Okay. How long do you think you can last in a fight, endurance-wise?"

"Uhh. Three?"

She took a few seconds to write down my score and some things I couldn't see from my position. When she was done she began the interrogation anew, asking several questions for different scenarios.

By the time we were done, more than an hour had passed, and we made our way back to the inn. She joined me in the room and sat down beside Teddy, who looked over in surprise.

"Does this mean we're on speaking terms again?" he asked.

I sighed. "Yes, we are. I wasn't that mad, to begin with. It wasn't really that bad, but the surprise of it all, plus the four-hour lecture I received critiquing my food, was a little much. I mean, seriously, how did me making decent-tasting food on the spot result in annoying three separate groups of people? Fucking insane."

"Sorry. Won't happen again, I promise."

"Whatever, it's fine. So what now?" I asked as I looked toward Celanae.

She brightened up and leaned forward while opening her notes. "Well, there are a few things we can do to help you improve, but some of the things we'll have to wait till we get back to the capital. Some of the tools we used during our own training to tier one are stored away."

Teddy leaned over Celanae's shoulder and examined the notes. He then pointed to something near the top. "I been meaning to talk to you about this but haven't had the chance. Cyrus, do you remember on our way to the island, you asked Gadoor about his skill, and he looked at you strangely?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, the reason he looked at you weirdly was because you noticed he was using a skill."

This time I cocked my head in confusion. "What do you mean? Why would that be weird?"

"Gadoor was barely tier one. And even with my training, I wouldn't have picked up on his mana usage if I wasn't looking for it. There simply wasn't enough mana to be felt."

"There's another thing we noticed about that. When Isaac uses his Shade Walk active, there are times when you notice him before he reveals himself. That's extremely impressive, considering that Isaac has trained his mana signature to be as silent and hidden as possible. Shadow mana is naturally a hard aspect to notice, so that, combined with his training, makes it all the more crazy that you can even notice him at times," Celanae added while tapping her pencil against the page.

"Is that a problem then? And I can never detect him when he's actually in the shadows. It's only when he exits that I can sometimes sense him."

"Still, even if Isaac isn't seriously trying to hide his signature, you shouldn't be able to sense him at all as an untiered. Do you have a perception skill, perhaps?"

This time I hesitated to answer. There was no reason for me not to trust Celanae, and her taking the time to sit down and help me plan what I could do to improve myself was already more than enough of a reason to trust her completely. However, even with Teddy knowing about my status as a Reborn, nobody knew the full extent of my status sheet besides Cal.

Teddy looked at me warmly and waited while Celanae noticed the small interaction between the two of us.

The more I considered revealing my full status sheet, the more I found that the cons of not doing so would only hinder me in the future. If the others had planned on doing anything nefarious to me, then I was already fucked from the start. With a resolute look, I pulled up my status sheet and examined the minor changes.

STATUS

Name: Cyrus

Race: Reborn (Felkin)

Age: ??

Tier: 0

Active Skills:

(T:0 R:4) Summon Familiar: Verdant Healer: (Áine )

(T:0 R:4) Summon Familiar: Resplendent Inferno: (Zharia)

(T:0 R:4) Racial Skill: Dimensional Storage: (Chomperz)

(T:0 R:4) Spirit Lord's Invocation

(T:0 R:4) Summon Familiar: The Dead Will Provide (Erebus)

Passive Skills:

(T:0 R:4) Etherious Blood

(T:0 R:4) Sovereign-Threaded Soul

Perks:

Legacy of the Obsidian Crown

Scion of Calstrax

Demonic Blood

Child of Mana

Dread Guardian's Apology

The dungeon was an excellent source of essence, and during the past two nights, I managed to bring up the rest of my skill to rank four. I was slacking when it came to my meditation practice, but I found it awkward to suddenly include the ascetic exercise in my daily routine.

I stared at my status, hesitating as the two people on the bed next to me waited silently. With a final glance towards my status sheet, I willed the system to share it with them. While the system sent over a request to theirs, I waited and watched for their reaction.

Teddy's eyes widened in surprise, and he looked at me concerned before glancing toward Celanae. For her part, she had her mouth open while she stared at the space in front of her with a frown.

"Cyrus, are you sure? I know I shared mine with you, but it's okay that you didn't. I can turn down the offer if you are uncomfortable about this," Teddy offered.

I shook my head and motioned with my hand. "Go ahead. I think it would be silly to hide my status from you guys when you're taking the time to help me. And it's not like I wouldn't have told her eventually. At least, you already know what you'll see."

The two shared a look between them before nodding, and I watched them accept the request. The familiar look of someone looking at something involving the system overcame their faces, and I watched as their eyes slowly drifted from side to side. While I expected Teddy to, at most, look somewhat surprised at my status sheet, Celanae was the one I expected to have a more dramatic reaction.

Two minutes went by, and Teddy looked at me seriously. Beyond shrugging his shoulders, we watched and waited for Celanae to finish. After five minutes, her eyes gained focus, and she looked at me with a blank expression on her face.

It was only after I noticed Teddy slowly backing away did I recognize something was wrong. When I tried to ask him with my eyes what the issue was, he gave me a strange smile and leaned away.

A cracking sound was heard coming from Celanae, and I searched and found her pencil was now split into two halves. With a gentle exhale, she closed her notebook and placed it on the side of the bed. She then stood up and turned to face Teddy.

"Oh Theodore, just how long exactly have you known? And don't try to deny it. You've alluded to that fact for a while," Celanae asked in a sing-song voice.

Teddy fake coughed and weakly smiled. "Well, Cyrus and I made an information pact back in Helio. So not that long, really."

Celanae snapped her fingers, and four barriers popped into existence and surrounded Teddy. He glanced nervously at them before turning back to Celanae and holding up his hands in a pleading gesture. "Hey now, let's calm down. I couldn't have shared that information anyways. You know that something like this wasn't mine to give out."

Suddenly the barriers grew inward by a few inches, and the panels started to press into his legs. Teddy tapped on the gemstone-like panel and stared back at Celanae with worry.

"You let me read those books in front of him! Do you know how embarrassing that is?" And then she turned around and pointed a finger at me. "And you! You let me spend an hour talking your ear off explaining the plot to "Gallerian's New Life"." She put her hands on her face and tried to hide the blush that grew on her cheeks.

"Hey, I actually enjoyed that conversation. Even though the part where Gallerian received the blessing of world dragon and evolved his legacy into a super-duper special version made me roll my eyes, I found the story interesting," I said placatingly.

Celanae visibly shook with what I assumed was anger and embarrassment, but I wasn't entirely sure. When Teddy made more tapping sounds against the barrier, she raised a twitching hand and faced the man. Luckily for Teddy, she canceled her skill and moved toward me instead of squishing him into a pancake.

The crazy-looking elf loomed over my sitting form and glared at me. "Show me."

"Huh?"

"I said, show me. Show me the mark. Take your clothes off."

"Uhmm... listen, usually you have to take a bloke out on a first date at least. I wouldn't say no to a good mea-"

"Cyrus, I swear to the gods, I will trap you in a box for the next nine hours if you don't shut up and show me the mark."

I chuckled, and when Celanae started to raise her hand, it evolved into a nervous laugh. With a resigned slump, I raised my left arm and held out my wrist. Willing the mark to appear, I jumped a little when a barrier appeared under my elbow, and another two sandwiched my hand in place.

When Celanae summoned another pencil and brought her journal over, my shoulders slumped even more. With a glance to Teddy to confirm my fate for the next couple of hours, I at least tried to get comfortable as she began to sketch out my mark.

I was starting to regret showing them my status sheet.