Telling the story of what had happened to him was trickier than Rylan had anticipated, due to how many things he needed to leave out.

He told his father and sister about his daring escape, about the whale and their journey to the ruined city in a bubble of air. He told them about the former pirates and the Dungeons. He even told them about Maris and the Dehumidifier, and showed them Arphin. However, he left out the part where he'd received Maris's blessing, and the fact that Arphin was a Spiritgear. That information seemed too sensitive to share with people he'd just met, even if they were his family.

For similar reasons, he left out the part where he challenged a Champion's Dungeon only to gain an unknown Affinity.

He told them about the return trip, claiming Isai had finished his invention with some Aetherium they had dug up, and about their battle with Dreadmaw. And finally, he spoke of sneaking into the city through the caves below, claiming he suspected the Talons were looking for him, for reasons that had now become much more obvious. He made no mention of the price on his head, however.

Artoran was eating it all up, appearing entirely captivated by his story of pirates and adventure, so he felt like he'd mostly smoothed over the important details he'd left out. However, from the glimpses he caught of his sister's face, she didn't quite believe his whole tale.

The kitchen was equipped with a simple firemetal-topped stove hooked up to the mana grid, and while he talked, he worked on making some pan-baked rice cakes, like he often ordered for breakfast.

In fact, the only time he stopped talking was when he needed to focus on his Skill, and add some of his mana to the dough.

He didn't use his new Augmentation, adding only the stamina-improving kernels of energy to the meal. He wanted to improve their ability to boost Artoran's recovery, but that wasn't something he'd focused on until now, so he wasn't really sure how to start.

Something to work on, I guess.

Rylan wasn't great at making rice cakes, as they hadn't exactly been a staple at the Thistlethorn estate and he'd only worked lunch and breakfast shifts at the Knackered Hag a handful of times. Between that and all the talking he was doing, they turned out a little sloppy, but he was still quite pleased with the plate he slid under Artoran's nose.

"Mmm, smells good," his father said. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome," Rylan said with a smile, taking a seat at the table again. "I'm afraid we were out of gilderberry compote and I didn't have time to whip up a fresh batch, but I, ehm, guess I could bring some tomorrow."

Leahna, who had grabbed the cutlery and was in the process of cutting the rice cakes into pieces for her—their—father, froze and glanced over. "You're... coming by again?"

Rylan scratched the side of his head. "I'll be honest, I don't think a single use of my Skill is going to make much of a difference. I've never really focused on the restorative aspect before... But I figure I could start coming by to cook some lunch for you guys, keep trying. If you want."

Artoran reached out with a shaking hand to squeeze Rylan's. "You're always welcome here, son. And I would be delighted to eat your cooking."

Leahna's eyes flicked back and forth between them. "Kind as that offer is, milord," she said stiffly. "I'm not sure we can afford your rates."

Rylan blinked at her. "I wasn't planning to charge you anything... I mean, he's in that chair in part because of me, right? It's the least I could do."

Leahna pursed her lips, then nodded, and quietly started feeding Artoran, who looked at Rylan apologetically.

Despite the slightly awkward atmosphere, Rylan stayed a little longer. Eventually, despite the mana-infused food, his father started to tire, so Rylan excused himself to go home.

There was no need to force things. He had found his family now, and he had all the time in the world to get to know them.

Though he had achieved his original goal of finding his father, Rylan naturally had no desire to leave his comfortable job in The Knackered Hag. Thus, while his routine changed, it didn't change by much.

His hidden stash of coin was still growing by the day, despite that he occasionally went shopping for clothes or something to spruce up his loft. With his face covered, of course.

He would've preferred to keep his money in the bank, but that wasn't really an option with the price on his head. Either way, he wasn't too worried about being robbed, as he had Arphin and Izzy guarding his stuff most of the time.

As predicted, the little spirit had returned not long after, and now spent most days either playing with Arphin or hanging around Rylan, watching him train or cook.

Izzy was endlessly curious about what he was doing, and would often reach out a tendril of Quintessence to ask him a semi-comprehensible question through a series of impressions.

Rylan hoped his reactions to the occasional floods of information weren't too noticeable, but he felt like he was getting better at withstanding and making sense of them.

And of course, there was his family, which he now visited every afternoon around lunchtime, once his morning training was done.

He was slowly growing more comfortable around his father. Despite the state he was in, the man seemed endlessly optimistic and grateful for all the good in his life.

Some afternoons, Artoran would play on his gittern while Rylan cooked. Nothing fast or technically complicated, for obvious reasons, but Rylan still found the sound quite soothing.

He learned that his father's first Skill had in fact been String-Playing—which was the Skill associated with the playing of all stringed musical instruments—but that more than that, he missed the use of his Dancing Skill.

Rylan's half-sister, on the other hand, remained... standoffish. Now that Rylan was cooking meals for their father in the afternoon, Leahna often spent her lunchbreak at the stationers' shop where she worked as a scribe, to continue illuminating the page she was copying with decorative elements.

According to Artoran, she was doing so because she was paid per finished page, but on the rare occasions that she did come home for lunch, Rylan saw her frequently massage the base of her thumb, suggesting her hand was already tired come breaktime, so he wasn't so sure she wasn't staying at work just to avoid him.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Rylan decided to give her some time to come around to him a little. Frankly, he wasn't quite sure how to act around her either.

With all the extra walking back and forth and cooking he was doing, Rylan had been neglecting his afternoon mana exercises a little. So on one of his days off, while his father ate his omelettes on toasted bread, he started going through them.

After some initial moving of mana through his body, he once again pushed a small ball of mana out of the palm of his hand, through his Mana Shell, and then kept it hovering above his hand.

He was so focused on it, he almost missed how intently his father was staring.

"Not bad, not bad!" Artoran cheered when Rylan at last lost control and let the mana dissipate.

Rylan smiled sheepishly. "Thanks. I don't really know what I'm doing though; I know it's supposed to be the first step towards producing textured mana, but so far I've only managed to make it wobble a little, and I haven't a clue what I'm supposed to do next."

Artoran stared at him. Rylan stared back.

"Son," Artoran finally started, putting down his fork. "You do remember that I'm a Sapphire-Grade Quinthar, right?"

Rylan's eyes widened.

Seeing his expression, Artoran laughed heartily. "I get it, I get it... it's hard to reconcile what I used to be capable of with my current condition."

Rylan immediately felt bad. "No, I'm just a gullbrain... I would be honoured to receive your instruction, milord Thar."

Artoran smiled. "None of that now. And of course I'll teach you; ask me anything you want to know."

Rylan bit his lip. "What's your... How did you become a Sapphire?"

"You want to know what my Sapphire-Grade Skill is, don't you?" Artoran asked knowingly. "I don't mind telling you. It's Rotate. To be honest, I mostly used it to pull off sick dance moves, as the kids say."

Artoran rolled his eyebrows, seemingly by way of demonstration. Rylan barely suppressed a groan.

"As for how I got it, well, as part of the Contract the Talons forced on me, I got access to their knowledge base and tutelage—though I wasn't allowed to share any of what I learned from them, of course."

Rylan's stomach sank.

"However," Artoran continued with a twinkle in his eyes. "Since I already broke my Contract anyway..."

"You're not bound by it anymore?" Rylan asked, surprised. "Is that really true? Won't they know if you... break it any further?"

Artoran shrugged. "I don't actually know, but I used to feel this... pressure, whenever I was close to breaking one of the clauses. That's completely gone now, so I kind of doubt it. So, here's how it works."

Rylan leaned forward, eager to hear anything and everything his father could tell him about the subject.

"The first step to gaining a Sapphire-Grade Skill, is to pick one you want to work on," Artoran said. "Now, technically, all you need—apart from the required Attributes—is to learn to produce the associated textured mana. For this purpose, the Talons have a book full of drawings of various mana waveforms they've encountered in the cloudsea. I'm not sure if Malequints are the origin of all forms of textured mana, but there's definitely a lot to draw inspiration from down there."

Rylan frowned. "Hang on, but Malequints don't have Skills, right? How come their waveforms can be used to gain Skills?"

"Well, as you may have come to realise, that is the one area where Ethereon can be quite... flexible. If a Quinthar comes up with a new and interesting way to use a Skill that no one has ever done before, Ethereon will turn it into an Augmentation. Similarly, if a Quinthar comes up with a new and interesting waveform to texture their mana with..."

"Ethereon will create a new Skill?" Rylan asked, disbelievingly.

Artoran nodded. "Exactly! Supposedly, there are even additional rewards for triggering the creation of a new Skill like that. Pretty neat, huh?"

"Definitely," Rylan agreed. "By the way, you said the Attributes and the textured mana are 'technically' all I need... Why only technically?"

Artoran sighed. "Well, learning how to make textured mana by recreating a waveform off a page is kinda like... learning how to play a song on the harpsichord from nothing but sheet music, with no idea what it's supposed to sound like. An experienced musician like myself can learn a new song like that easily, but a novice? So, for your first Skill, it's highly recommended to get a teacher who can demonstrate the waveform, so you can get a feel for it."

Rylan's heart sank. "Right. But you can't access your mana, can you?"

"Actually," Artoran said brightly, "I can!"

Rylan blinked. His father had previously confided that he'd lost access to his Status and other Windows when he broke his Contract, and couldn't even get a response if he spoke to Ethereon, so this news came as quite a surprise to him. "Wait, you've still got access to your mana?!"

Artoran nodded. "Controlling our own mana is one of the few things we Quinthar can do without Ethereon's assistance, after all."

"Huh... I mean, I'm happy for you, but I'd kind of expected your Mana Core to have been deactivated as well."

Artoran shrugged. "To be honest, when I first realised it, I was surprised too. I think it might just be more effort for Ethereon to suppress a Mana Core's generation than to leave it be, but I can only speculate. Of course, without my Skills or Mana Shell, I can't do much with it, so I mainly feed what I produce to the grid to offset our consumption; it's one of the few ways I can still contribute to the household. Now, I unfortunately have only the one Sapphire-Grade Skill, and I'm not too well versed with any other waveforms, so unless you meet Rotate's Attribute requirements, I might not be of much use to you."

"What are the requirements?" Rylan asked. "That is, if you're willing to tell me..."

Artoran smiled. "Of course I am. They're a Dexterity and Mind of 3, and a Presence of 4."

Rylan's rising enthusiasm plummeted just as quickly. And apparently, Artoran could read as much off his face.

"Not enough Presence then, huh? How close are you?"

"Ehm... I'm off by five points," Rylan admitted sheepishly.

Artoran winced. "Right. That doesn't sound like a feasible option then."

Rylan sighed. "So I'm fogged."

"Well, let's not be hasty! I'm sure you've experienced some forms of textured mana on your journey. Can you remember what they looked and felt like?"

Rylan's brows drew together. "Let's see... When we'd just landed, I saw a fogtopus using mana with... a shearing effect, I think it was. It looked kind of jagged, and Soren said it corresponded to the Sapphire-Grade Skill Cut. But I only saw that once or twice from a distance, a long time ago."

"Cut requires a Dexterity of 4, and an Endurance and Mind of 3," Artoran said. "What else did you see?"

A little stunned by the casual reveal of exact Attribute Requirements, Rylan continued. "Ehm, I also witnessed Captain Hammermore use Smash. That texture looked like concentric circles spreading outward, and I have a bit more of a feel for that one, though I also only saw it twice."

"Smash requires a Strength of 4, and an Endurance and Mind of 3," Artoran cited. "Do either of these match your Attribute spread?"

Rylan hesitated for a moment. "No. I've got a Mind of 4, Strength, Dexterity and Perception of 3, Endurance of 2, and a Presence of, well, minus 1."

Artoran nodded thoughtfully. "So you're two off of either. Did you witness any other forms of textured mana?"

Rylan scratched his head. "Just one. That one I actually know quite well, I guess. Though I don't know what Skill it's linked to. We, ehm, encountered a Sapphire-Grade Malequint Ramtusk at some point that used a textured mana that looked kinda like..."

Rylan glanced around, and found a piece of paper and a quill standing on a little side table. He grabbed them and started to draw the pattern of alternating right angles that he still vividly recalled.

"Ah, I think I recognise this one!" Art spoke enthusiastically, his eyes lighting up. "Just to be sure, what did it use this for?"

"To instantly turn corners," Rylan replied, suppressing a shiver at the memory of the massive beast barrelling towards him.

"Then there can be no mistake: this is Redirect! It's a Skill that allows for a sudden change in the direction of motion, very versatile. It's a bit of a rarer Skill, but I should remember the Attribute requirements..." He closed his eyes and muttered for a moment. "Yes, I'm confident it's a Dexterity of 4 and a Perception and Mind of 3. Since you have a Dexterity of 3, that's one off, still."

Rylan straightened, his eyes widening. "No, that's perfect: I still have a free point saved up from Knife-Fighting!"

"You do?" Artoran asked, blinking. "Wow, you have a lot of Skills... but that's great: it's a texture you're familiar with, and you can meet its requirements!"

Rylan smiled so wide that the corners of his mouth were starting to hurt. At the moment, however, he wouldn't care even if he ripped them; he finally had a solid path towards Sapphire-Grade!

"Now, before you fly off the handle, let me manage your expectations a little," Artoran said. "Even with all that, you're still going to need a lot of practice to get there. That fourth point in Mind will help you, as will my tutoring, but learning how to make Textured Mana doesn't happen overnight. You've got your work cut out for you, and you shouldn't neglect your other Skills either. Sapphire-Grade Skills are, in the end, auxiliary: they're almost always used in conjunction with your Emerald-Grade Skills."

"I'll try to contain myself," Rylan said, the intensity of his smile lowered to a more sane level. "But don't keep me in suspense either, please! How should I start training for this?"

Artoran chuckled. "All right, all right, hold your kelpies. We'll get to the practical portion soon enough, but first, let's talk about this waveform you've drawn..."

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