Chapter 6 (Patreon)

Chapter 6 Despite having to stay in bed, Isabelle was still able to perform most of her village administrator duties. She could even attend

Chapter 6

Despite having to stay in bed, Isabelle was still able to perform most of her village administrator duties. She could even attend meetings, but only if those involved came to her, so she'd asked Jeric to move their bed to the parlour weeks ago. The parlour acted as a quiet room, making it impossible for wizards to scry on the conversations within. Closing the doors also blocked out all sound, which made it easier for her to nap when the village square was crowded with people.

Isabelle's green eyes flashed with mischief as she lay on top of the covers propped up by a mountain of pillows with a bowl of roasted peanuts resting on her swollen belly. She looked like she was ready to pop, but she'd been looking like that for over a month, so I didn't expect an exciting end to our meeting. If Ranic was concerned about stressing her, he wouldn't have been so adamant about me talking to her.

"So that's why I now have excellent quality roasted peanuts to share," I said, leaning back in the armchair beside the bed, wondering what she was going to ask me next.

Isabelle was toying with me.

Every time I'd tried to steer the conversation towards whatever plan she'd concocted, she would change the subject. She was doing this intentionally. It was payback for all the times I'd come to her with some crazy idea.

Instead of immediately turning everything on its head, as I had done multiple times, she was making me suffer through anticipation. It wasn't working. I found the situation amusing.

Isabelle ate another peanut. "I'll let Ranic know that his failures are appreciated."

"I can bring more if you want," I offered.

Isabelle tried to shake her head but squawked when she discovered she was lying on her hair, forgetting the brunette waterfall was once again long enough to be caught. She quickly leaned forward and moved it to the side and over her shoulder, glaring at the betrayal. Before the monster waves, her hair had gone halfway down her back. She'd cut it to just above her shoulders while helping hold the line during the first wave and had only started growing it back the day after I killed the giant.

Isabelle leaned back, adjusting her pillows. "It's a kind offer, but I'm trying to watch what I eat."

Jeric had explained to me that their baby was fully developed, so it wouldn't grow anymore as long as Isabelle didn't gain weight. That was hard to manage when you still had food cravings and couldn't move around to burn calories. But when the alternative could make you give birth to a fourteen-pound baby, you did everything you could to prevent that from happening.

"Would perfect carrots for carrot sticks be better?"

Isabelle squinted at me. "You wouldn't be trying to take advantage of my pregnancy to sell me you're ridiculously expensive produce, would you?"

I laughed. "Is it working?"

Isabelle laughed with me. "Serving perfect quality food helps nobles to generate experience at dinner parties, but it's not worth the cost for casual dining."

"But is it worth making your pregnancy more comfortable?"

Isabelle smiled and changed the subject, telling me she was tempted. "Why haven't you invested your attributes in charisma yet?"

I immediately felt the impulse to lie.

I'd been putting off investing my attributes since going through my recent threshold and didn't want to talk about why. But Isabelle was my friend. She was someone who only wanted the best for me. She'd asked an honest question, so she deserved an honest answer, not the one I wanted to give her.

I sighed. "I'm afraid of what will happen if I raise my attributes further."

She stared at me for several seconds, realising she hadn't touched on a light-hearted subject like she'd intended. "There are many reasons someone might feel the way you do. The potential to outlive your loved ones is usually the main reason. What's yours?"

"I feel less and less human every time they go up."

Her expression softened. "How long has this been bothering you?"

"Since I gained my last round of blessings. Going through my third threshold and becoming a champion made it worse."

Isabelle reached out and took my hand in hers. Her fingers were soft and warm, filled with comfort and caring, reminding me I wasn't alone. It was the kind of thing my mother or sister would have done when I was struggling.

"I remember you smiled for weeks after you went through your first threshold. What changed?"

"It got real."

Isabelle frowned but gave my hand another squeeze. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

"Attributes used to just be numbers on my interface. The changes were slight and barely noticeable. It was exciting to see me grow a little stronger, a little faster, a little better looking. But now, I'm so handsome I make it hard for people to focus when I'm around them, and my health is so high I don't view danger the same way."

"Isn't that a better way to live?"

"I don't think so. So much of human experience is wrapped up in shared pain that I'm not sure what you are if you aren't like that. I'm not sure what I am. I mean, I know I'm me, but I'm also not me."

"How so?"

"I used to stand near high places and think a fall from here will kill me. I'd get scared. My hands would sweat. My legs would tremble. Now, all I think is that will hurt. My fear is entirely gone… I'm not sure what I've become."

Isabelle groaned and let go of my hand. "This is going to sound harsh, Arnold, but I'm far too pregnant to dance around your problems."

"You don't have to-"

"You're becoming something better," Isabelle said matter-of-factly, talking right over me. "You are becoming what humans are without physical pain and suffering, without limitation. You are turning into what we aspire to be, not what we are limited to."

I stared at her, shocked by her abruptness and by her phrasing. "Excuse me?"

"Arnold, let me give you some advice. Stop thinking you're the first person in our world to have your problem and talk to us. Let us in."

That was good advice, but it wasn't what had caught my attention. I held my hand up to stall Isabelle because what she had said about me becoming better was making my mind race off on a tangent. Facts about this world and the system that didn't make sense to me before were suddenly beginning to make sense.

I ran my fingers through my hair to give me time for the thoughts to clarify and then met Isabelle's gaze and grinned. "What you just said made it sound like you think the system is causing us to evolve?"

Isabelle blinked. "Causing us to what?"

"Evolve."

"I don't know that word."

"Evolution is the process by which one animal changes into another over millions of years. When that occurs, you say the animal has evolved."

"What has that got to do with your concerns and fears?"

"Nothing. But what you said made me think of evolution."

"And you think the system is doing this evolution thing to us?"

"Maybe. I'm suddenly seeing patterns that I couldn't see before."

"Because of what I said?"

"It wouldn't be the first time someone in your family has done that to me."

Isabelle hadn't been there when I'd done something similar with Emily, but she knew about it. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need a sounding board."

"I'm listening."

"You described the way we change as getting better, which to me sounds like the system is causing us to evolve instead of making us stronger through magic." Several odd thoughts I'd had about the system in the past suddenly clicked. "I mean, it makes sense that it might be making us evolve if you take everything into account."

"How does that make sense?"

Isabelle clearly wasn't following, but that was actually helpful because it forced me to clarify my thoughts.

"The system wasn't built by beings as technologically primitive as anyone on this world, so causing us to evolve into what the system needs us to become to function properly is a logical step in its development." I scratched the back of my head as I considered the matter further. I knew I was onto something, and focusing on this was easier than talking about my personal fears. "Evolution would also explain why attributes can't go above 1,000. The system can't evolve us beyond our genetic limit or the limits of its own understanding of genetics."

"The academy of lore teaches that attributes are magical enhancements. I have the journeyman attribute theory lore to prove it, so what you're saying has to be wrong."

Attribute theory lore was a minor branch of system theory lore, which made it easier to gain ranks because of its narrow field of study. I'd managed to achieve journeyman just through my discussions with Salem. He hadn't wanted to go into such depth on the topic, but my endless curiosity about attributes and nagging questions had forced him to.

However, now that I thought about his explanations, they didn't make as much sense to me as they had at the time. Evolution fit everything I knew about attributes far more cleanly than magical enhancement, and Salem had always prefaced his statements with 'it is commonly understood', which was now a dead giveaway for when he was trying to hide the truth and not break the Prime Directive.

The regent's granddaughter, Cassandra, suddenly came to mind.

"If attributes are magical enhancements, it doesn't explain blessed children."

"They're a magical anomaly."

"That's just something you say when you don't have an actual answer. Receiving a genetic trait seems far more plausible than some glitch in the system."

"It's not a glitch. We just don't understand the cause."

I was too deep in thought to reply. "If the system is changing our genetics, the magical change associated with attributes would likely just be part of the genetic change." I was on a roll now. "Evolution would also explain why you have to lose your attributes when you're resurrected. You're body and soul aren't aligned. It's like trying to resurrect a soul in someone else's body, which, while possible, has extremely low chances of success."

"You've lost me."

"I'm saying that attributes do not represent a magical change imposed by the system but a genetic change. These genetic changes increase your body's magical affinity, which supports the genetic changes that make you stronger, tougher, more charismatic, and so forth. They also increase how much magic resides within you because the entire point of the system is to generate magic. If that's all true, then experience is the glue that holds all these genetic, magical, and physiological changes together. It's what allows us to overcome the physical and magical limitations of genetics."

Well done, you have successfully deduced the nature and purpose of attributes, showing a greater comprehension of attribute theory lore than any being in this world, earning you not one but two new ranks of understanding in this field. You can now boast that you can understand attribute theory lore as well as any Master.

The light that enveloped me wasn't as bright as the light that had enveloped me when I became a sage, but there was the same beam of light extending from me to the ceiling. I sat there stunned, unable to process what I was seeing as I read the notification. It was telling me that I completely understood what attributes were and how they functioned, but no one else did. It opened up so many possibilities. And it had come about because I didn't want to talk about my fears and insecurities.

The notification faded and was replaced by another.

Congratulations, you have progressed Attribute Theory Lore by two ranks that were unreached in the history of this world. Unlocking this understanding has earned you a new title: Sage of Attribute Theory.

Your Sage of System Theory and Sage of Attribute Theory titles have been forcefully merged, evolving into the Sage title.

Sage

Level: 1

Effect: People find you 50% more interesting when speaking about lore.

I barely read the notification as I remained in place, shocked by what I was seeing and by everything this discovery hinted at. If evolution played a role in the system, then so much of system theory was fundamentally flawed. It was like the way they were trying to understand the system was entirely wrong.

Isabelle cleared her throat, taking slow, deep breaths to remain calm as she continued to cover her eyes with her hand to block out the light. "Now that we're done with your little tangent let's finish our previous discussion."

I was still glowing, but her nonchalant attitude snapped me out of my shock. "I'm pretty sure I just gained two world-first lesser achievements for the village, which is 20,000 village points."

"It does look that way."

"Are you seriously going to pretend like nothing out of the ordinary is happening right now and go back to our previous conversation?"

The corner of Isabelle's mouth twitched towards a smirk. "You said so much of human experience is wrapped up in shared pain that you're not sure what you are if you aren't like that."

If she wanted to play this game, I would play this game. I could totally carry on our conversation like nothing had happened, but I was going to get payback. "Isn't it?"

"Only if you completely ignore our hopes and fears. Our wants and desires. Humans aren't just suffering. We are more complex than that. And the suffering we do have isn't universal. It's individual. Your problems aren't the same as someone else's, and you are lying to yourself if you think that's true."

"I know that."

"Then what's the actual problem? Tell me from your feelings, not from your head. How do you feel when you think about your attributes rising?"

I sighed as the glow began to fade. "I feel like I'm drowning. Everything changes so quickly that I struggle to keep up. I went from having an idea of how I could level without farming to capturing a giant in a year. I went from living as cheaply as I could to having more money than I knew what to do within that same year. In the past year, everything has changed again. I employ thousands of people doing all sorts of jobs I don't know about. Nothing stays the same long enough for me to feel like I've found my feet. Now I look in a mirror and don't even recognise myself. Those changes to my face and body are permanent. I can't take them back. I barely know where I am or what I'm doing. I have so little control over my life."

Isabelle lowered her hand as the light faded. "Arnold, do you know who you want to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"You feel lost right now. Your world is constantly changing, and so are your capabilities and opportunities. You've been in survival mode so long that it sounds like you never found your feet, but you keep moving forward, keep taking action, and that only makes this unbalanced feeling worse."

"Ranic said something similar, but I know what class I want now."

"I'm not talking about a class. I'm talking about what sort of person you want to be? Do you want to be highly educated? Do you want to be well travelled? Do you want to be known by the movers and shakers of this world? Do you want to be wealthy? Do you want to have a wife and children, or do you want to have a long list of lovers? Do you want to make friends in all kingdoms and visit them regularly? That's what I'm asking. Who do you want to be? Because when you know who you want to be, you might not know where you are, but you will know where you're going and can build a path to get there."

"I want to be someone with choices."

Yaceb had helped me see that.

"Being able to jump off a building and survive without a scratch is just another choice."

"I used to think that, but it changes the way I think. It's changed the way I assess risk."

Isabelle laughed, causing the bowl to fall off her belly and scatter peanuts across the bed.

"Why's that funny?"

"Arnold, that's what competence is."

"What?"

Isabelle lowered her hand and squinted. "A competent farmer can walk into a bullpen aware of the dangers but able to take a risk someone like me couldn't. Like that competent farmer, you're now competent at being injured, so of course, you will assess risks differently. You're no braver than you were before. You just can't be injured as easily, so you consider more actions as safe."

That wasn't how I'd been looking at this.

"Are you sure?"

"Would you fight a troll in hand-to-hand combat?"

"No. That would be suicide."

"Does the thought scare you as much as it did before you became a champion?"

"Obviously."

"See, you haven't changed. You're just more competent at being injured, so you assess risks differently. Jeric and I are no different. We never would have confronted Durg'un to try to save you without all those blessings you gave us."

I raised an eyebrow.

Isabelle smiled. "Okay, we would have confronted him, but we would have been far more concerned."

I raised my eyebrow further.

"Okay, that was a terrible example. Neither of us thought our actions through. A better example was our participation in the monster waves. We knew it was unlikely we'd be killed instantly if something reached us, so we didn't feel as much fear when we gave our support and took risks to save others."

That made sense.

"So, this is normal," I said.

"It is. But it's not something you grew up expecting. So, please stop thinking you're the only one in our world with these problems and talk to us. If not Jeric and I talk to Torvac and Misk. I'm sure they'll tell you the same thing I just did."

"What about my face? Why do I hate how I look?"

Isabelle gave me a sad smile. "If you were depressed, I would tell you that's just part of depression, but I don't think you're depressed. I think it's because you no longer see your parents when you look in the mirror. You've lost a connection to where you came from."

That hit hard. "Can I fix it?"

"You can't take back the changes you've gone through but can learn to accept them. Write to Illia. High-level bards typically have charisma as high as yours. I'm sure they go through something similar and have ways to cope with it."

That wasn't bad advice. "You're a good friend. Thank you for this."

Isabelle reached out and squeezed my hand again. "Just agree to help with my plan, and we'll call it even."

I chuckled. "So, you're finally ready to tell me what you've cooked up."

"Well, you did earn Blackwood another two world-first lesser achievements, so I feel like watching you squirm some more would be a little cruel."

"Only a little?"

Isabelle folded her arms and pouted. "The entire point of this drawn-out conversation was to make you squirm and know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of your craziness, and you went and out-crazed me."

It was time for payback. "All I'm hearing is that you're indifferent about my achievements, and you want me to make these breakthroughs outside of Blackwood from now on. Do you know how much another village would pay me for my understanding of resurrection lore? I'm pretty sure I can get it to journeyman."

"Don't you, dare!"

"When someone generates as many village points as I just did, you would think the mayor would show a little bit of appreciation."

Isabelle smirked, realising I was teasing. "A world-first lesser achievement is well below your usual contribution."

"It was two discoveries."

Isabelle unfolded her arms and sighed. "I suppose I could host a dinner in your honour for two world first lesser achievements."

"You would need perfect quality food for that, or you might not get as much experience as you otherwise could have."

Isabelle laughed. "I can manage that much, but Ranic and Adoya will be beating down my door shortly, so we need to discuss my plan."

This back-and-forth was fun, but she had a point. "I want to point out that I wasn't the one trying to hold up this conversation all afternoon."

"But you are the one who forced us to cut it short."

"True. What's your plan?"

"I want to expand the experience program for the southern farmers."

Over a year ago, Jeric came to me with a plan that would help the farmers in the southern provinces who didn't have any levels. Isabelle, Emily and I had gone down there to offer their nobles a chance to help these destitute farmers through the change of fate mechanic. The southern nobles had been more than willing to hand over their noble experience to sponsor their farmers because doing so would generate more experience than they spent within a few decades.

In return for their experience, I agreed to loan the farmers the experience they needed to reach level 10 and train them for a year. Those who excelled would receive more experience, training, and long-term employment opportunities.

Until we got down there, none of us had realised how big the problem was, so we'd had to turn a lot of people away. That had never sat right with me, but there were limits to what we could do in a village the size of Blackwood, and that hadn't changed.

"We can't take more people," I said. "We're already going to be overstaffed with how many we promised to take."

"I have a solution to that. During a recent orc famine, the city of Longhill was targeted. The orcs ate everyone who couldn't flee.

"How does that help us?"

"The orcs left the city untouched, so Radian would be forced to repopulate it."

"They did what?"

"It's a common orc tactic. They've learned that if they leave our homes and businesses undamaged, we'll come back because the loss of so much infrastructure and equipment is something we can't afford to lose with our system."

"That's horrible."

"Enemies are rarely kind. And to starving orcs, we're nothing but food."

"I know that, but how does this help us?"

"Nobleman Briston, the only surviving heir to the Longhill estate, has recently come of age. He intends to petition the king to lift Longhill's abandonment order so he can rebuild his family's legacy. He wants to use the million fields his family owns to produce the grain needed to raise pigs to trade with the orcs. He believes his grandfather cutting food ties with the orc tribe they traded with was why their city was targeted by the other tribe during the famine. He's agreed to take and train every farmer we send him in return for the noble experience he needs to reach level 25. He's currently level 10. Those that show exceptional skill will be sent to Blackwood for further training to fulfil our obligations for our existing contracts."

A thousand possibilities came to mind as I realised how much opportunity now lay before us. It was overwhelming. It was terrifying. It was vast and confusing and really annoying to be on the receiving end of. I felt like I needed days to think through all the possibilities of what Isabelle had proposed. I really wanted to go away to process everything, but the conversation needed to continue.

Isabelle laughed at my changing expression as I tried to process everything she'd said. "This is so much better than I thought it would be."

While she laughed, I did my best to control my expression, trying to appear unfazed. With my charisma, I could have completely shut down my emotions, but that would have been a dead giveaway. "Have you spoken with the southern nobles about this?"

Isabelle had been dodging their questions for months.

"They aren't happy that we've taken so long to begin taking farmers, but they are happy that we're willing to expand the scope of those we are willing to take and shorten the wait time. They also like the idea of helping keep the orcs fed, so they're happy with the new arrangement but upset with the old one."

If the southern nobles were okay with this, then it would work, but it also created another problem. "Part of the reason we were taking those farmers was so they would level here and help eventually raise the level of my farm manor and the house of scholars."

Having farmers collectively gain a million levels on my farm would cause both my farm manor and the Ranic's House of Scholars to level up.

Isabelle smirked. "I spoke to Ranic about that. We have a solution, but you're not going to like it."

"Please don't tell me I'm going to have to pay to transport people across the entire kingdom twice."

"That's not the solution."

"Good."

Her smirk grew. "All you need to do is go to Longhill and let people stand on you."

I stared back. "What?"

"Ranic mentioned that while wearing your manor ring, you count as being on your farm and receive all the buffs from being there. Technically, this makes you a part of your farm. So, if you lay on the ground shirtless, you count as a piece of your farm no matter where you are. If someone then steps on your back without touching anything else, they are technically standing on your farm. And if they level while doing so, they are leveling on your farm."

"You can't be serious."

"It's a well-known exploit by farming scholars."

"How many people were you thinking of taking?"

"All of them, but we'll start with 100,000."

If I loaned out a single full-experience crystal, 918 farmers would reach level 10. With more than a thousand farmer experience crystals stored around Blackwood, changing the lives of 100,000 farmers was possible, even if they all eventually planted a perfect crop, and I had to give them enough experience to reach level 20.

 Jeric and I had come up with a way to sell more of my experience, but this was by far the best use for everything I'd created. Not only did it help people, but the noble experience we would earn from taking so many was more than what Emily needed to reach level 100. There was only one little problem.

"You want 100,000 people to stand on my back!"

Isabelle continued to smirk, not bothered by my shouting. "I'd organise for more, but Nobleman Bristan can only train so many at once."

"You're turning me into a doormat."

Isabelle laughed. "At least you'll be a beautiful doormat."

"No. There has to be another way?"

"There isn't. It's either this or tens of thousands of people travelling to Blackwood. However, I notice you haven't rejected my idea of expanding the program."

"A lot of things have changed in the past year, but my feelings about helping those farmers haven't."

"Then you want me to move ahead with my plan?"

I did. "On one condition."

"Anything."

"You have to be the one to tell Jeric."

Ever since Isabelle had started staying in bed, Jeric had been as clucky as a mother hen. He still acted the same with anything related to his well-being or work, but Isabelle was an entirely different matter. No one was allowed to stress her out, Isabelle included.

Isabelle's smirk vanished, and she placed her hand on her belly. "Would you really make a pregnant woman do something so stressful?"

There was a loud knock at the door, and Ranic started shouting. "Arnold, I know you're in there!"

I jumped out of my chair, seeing my escape route. "Look at the time. It appears my next appointment has come to find me. Good luck with breaking the news to Jeric."

I dashed for the door, ignoring Isabelle's protests.