Over the last few dozen chapters, quite a few pieces of Erador’s magic and System have appeared in different places. Since not everyone remembers exactly what Perception does, how Professions differ from Skills, or why having mana at all is unusual, I thought it might be useful to collect the basics in one place.

This isn’t meant to reveal anything you aren’t supposed to know yet. Think of it more as a refresher on the rules Arien and the people around him already understand.

Spoiler level: Information revealed up to Chapter 70. No spoilers for Arien’s future progression.

1. The System Is Not Magic

This is probably the most important distinction to start with.

The System describes, measures, and enhances a person’s development.

It can help you become better at something, but it generally cannot replace actually learning how to do it.

Mana and magic are real parts of the world. They exist independently of the System.

Skills, Professions, and Traits are the ways in which the System formalizes and enhances what someone is, what they have learned, and the path they are following.

In other words, the System does not create magic.

It gives structure to progression.

2. Attributes: What Do They Actually Mean?

The seven main Attributes are:

Endurance: physical resilience and staminaAgility: speed and coordinationStrength: physical strengthPerception: awareness, observation, and the ability to notice patternsIntellect: mana capacity and the ability to manipulate manaWisdom: processing information, learning, planning, and strategyVitality: regeneration of stamina and mana

One important thing to remember is that Attributes are not direct replacements for skill, knowledge, or physical reality.

Someone with 200 Wisdom does not suddenly become an all-knowing savant.

A child with 100 Strength will not casually pick up a fully loaded farm wagon.

And a warrior with 150 Endurance does not suddenly have skin capable of stopping a direct sword strike.

Attributes enhance what is already there.

They strengthen your trained abilities, your body, your mind, and the things you are already capable of doing. They do not completely replace the need to develop those things in the first place.

3. Profession Levels: What Does a Level Actually Mean?

A person’s Level represents their overall progression within their current Profession.

Experience can primarily be gained through:

developing assigned Skills

killing other beings

certain Profession-specific methods

Most ordinary people never make it past Level 25.

For them, the System does not radically change everyday life. Their Skills are usually tied to their occupation and role in society, and their progression simply makes them somewhat better at the things they already spend their lives doing.

A farmer becomes a better farmer.

A blacksmith becomes a better blacksmith.

A soldier becomes a better soldier.

Another important point:

Level alone does not tell you who would win a fight.

A Level 50 craftsman will still usually lose to a Level 30 warrior.

The Profession, Attributes, Skills, Specializations, experience, equipment, and actual circumstances all matter.

4. Professions: The Direction of Growth

The simplest way to think about a Profession is:

Profession = direction of growth.

It is not quite the same thing as a traditional RPG class.

A Profession can:

determine Attribute growth when you level up

influence how you gain experience

improve your instinctive understanding of certain fields

lead toward more advanced and specialized Professions later

be changed if the proper requirements are met

For example, a Farmer could eventually become a Lumberjack, but only if they had developed the appropriate Skills and reached the necessary Skill levels to qualify for that Profession.

The System does not simply let someone select whatever Profession they want.

Your available choices are shaped by what you have actually done.

5. Skills: Learned Ability vs. Assigned Skill

This is probably one of the easiest parts of the System to misunderstand.

Skills can exist in two states:

Assigned Skills occupy one of your limited Skill slots and provide experience toward your Profession.

Unassigned Skills do not occupy a slot, and a person can have as many of them as they manage to develop. They represent their actual level of training and experience in a particular field.

The important part is that the Skill does not come first.

You first have to learn how to do something.

If you want a Swordsmanship Skill, for example, you need to learn how to hold a sword, understand basic forms, practice strikes and thrusts, and develop enough actual competence for the System to recognize it.

Only then does the Skill become available.

If you choose not to assign it immediately, you can continue training it as an unassigned Skill, up to Level 24.

If you later assign it at Level 24, you receive the Profession experience corresponding to those twenty-four Skill levels.

If you assign the Skill earlier, however, you gain its System-provided benefits while training it and can eventually move beyond that first limit.

At Skill Level 25, the first Specialization becomes available.

Skill slots themselves are limited.

You begin with five, and gain one additional Skill slot every five Profession Levels.

That is why Arien’s Skill choices matter.

Taking one Skill means potentially giving up another.

6. Skill Rarity & Specializations

Skills follow the familiar rarity scale:

Common → Uncommon → Rare → Legendary → Mythical

Rarity does not simply mean:

“This Skill is stronger.”

It also reflects how difficult the Skill is to acquire, understand, and develop.

Skills also have important progression bottlenecks.

The major ones appear at:

24 → 2549 → 5074 → 7599 → 100

Reaching one of those bottlenecks is not enough by itself.

To break through, the user must genuinely develop the Skill in some meaningful direction.

Casting the exact same spell ten thousand times without learning anything new will eventually stop being enough.

When someone successfully passes one of these thresholds, the System rewards them with a Specialization.

Specializations provide passive or active benefits related to the way that Skill has developed.

The first Specializations tend to be fairly broad.

Later ones can become much more specific and may significantly influence how the Skill is used and how it develops from that point onward.

7. Magic

Magic in Erador is not built around some radically unusual concept.

The important difference is how it interacts with learning and the System.

You cannot simply assign Mana Manipulation or a Fire Aspect and suddenly start throwing Fireballs.

You still have to learn.

The first step is normally Mana Sense.

Statistically, very few people discover it on their own, especially if they do not regularly come into contact with magic, magical artifacts, or people capable of using mana.

That is why someone with Mana Sense is extraordinarily rare in a small village.

The larger the city, the more magical the environment, or the more magically inclined the family, the more common discovering Mana Sense becomes.

But Mana Sense alone is not enough.

Mana Manipulation is what allows someone to actively influence mana and begin creating magic.

And this is where something that was intentionally somewhat unclear early in the story becomes important.

We are, after all, following Arien through a close POV, and during the early years of his childhood his access to information was extremely limited.

You do not need an assigned Aspect to cast magic of that Aspect.

A properly trained Academy mage can learn a variety of relatively simple spells belonging to different Aspects.

However, there is a price.

Without the corresponding Aspect, those spells are:

weaker

more expensive in terms of mana

more difficult to cast

harder to learn and master

The mage also has to learn each spell individually.

How quickly and how well they can do that depends heavily on their level of Mana Manipulation.

Spell Circles

Spells are divided into what are commonly called Circles.

A First Circle spell might be something like Flaming Fist: a basic offensive spell capable of injuring someone, but unlikely to kill a healthy opponent outright.

Fireball, by comparison, is a Third Circle spell.

Throughout Erador, you may sometimes hear someone referred to as a:

“Mage of the Xth Circle.”

This title refers to a mage capable of casting a spell of that Circle without possessing the corresponding assigned Aspect.

And the difficulty does not increase linearly.

The jump between Circles becomes increasingly severe.

The progression is much closer to geometric than arithmetic.

8. Aspects

Aspect ≠ spell.

An Aspect is closer to an affinity and deepened understanding of a particular branch of magic.

It improves:

understanding

control

efficiency

ease of manipulating that type of magic

Each additional Aspect is also progressively more difficult to discover.

Once assigned, an Aspect allows the user to manipulate that type of magic more naturally and directly.

But even then, it does not magically provide knowledge of spells.

Having the Fire Aspect does not automatically teach someone Fireball.

They still need to know the structure of the spell.

More importantly, they need to be capable of actually forming and maintaining that structure with mana.

The Aspect makes the process easier.

It does not replace the process.

9. Traits

Traits are not learned Skills.

They can be:

innate

connected to birth or social position

gained through specific accomplishments

gained through significant events

Their effects can be static or scale with Level.

Traits can sometimes also be lost.

For example, someone who becomes a king may receive the King Trait.

If they are later dethroned, they lose that Trait.

They do not, however, lose the Attributes they previously gained from it.

10. Putting It All Together

So, as a simple hypothetical example:

A child discovers that they possess mana.

They learn Mana Sense and later Mana Manipulation.

At around the age of ten, or sometimes earlier, their experiences and choices allow them to select a magical Profession.

That Profession influences how their Attributes develop and what kinds of progression become easier.

Along the way, they may also gain one or more Traits.

They may choose to assign an Aspect as one of their limited Skills.

Repeated use and genuine improvement increase that Skill’s Level, eventually opening Specializations.

But none of those things remove the need to actually learn magic.

That last part is probably the single most important rule behind progression in EoN.

The System helps. It enhances and rewards.

But it does not do the work for you.

11. For the Spreadsheet People

For anyone who enjoys the numbers behind the System:

Profession Levels

For Levels 1–24, the required experience increases by 100 each Level.

So:

Level 1 → 2: 100 XPLevel 2 → 3: 200 XPLevel 3 → 4: 300 XP

…and so on.

Reaching Level 25 creates a major progression threshold.

To reach Level 26, you need 5,100 XP.

To reach Level 27, you need 5,200 XP, and so on.

Skill Experience

The amount of experience required for each Skill Level depends on rarity:

Common: +20 XP per LevelUncommon: +40 XP per LevelRare: +80 XP per LevelLegendary: +160 XP per LevelMythical: +320 XP per Level

Experience From Kills

The amount of experience gained depends on the level difference between you and your opponent:

10 to 5 Levels below you: 20 XP 5 Levels below to equal Level: 40 XP 0 to 5 Levels above you: 80 XP 5 to 15 Levels above you: 160 XP 15 to 30 Levels above you: 320 XP

Bosses, rare creatures, mythical creatures, and other exceptional opponents can provide significantly more experience.

Hopefully this makes some of the System and magic mechanics a little easier to follow without turning the story itself into a rulebook. I’ll probably update this post in the future as Arien learns more and additional parts of the System become relevant.