Chương 19: Chapter 18

Path Unlocked! Path of Aethersensing (0/10) I stood up in my chair, threw my arms up in the air and cheered for all I was worth.

"You got it then?" asked grandpa. I nodded vigorously. My work over the past month had paid off, and I even beat my mother's time to unlock the Path of Aethersensing. She had said she took a few months while being twice as old as I was. Maybe I wasn't so terrible at magic after all? Maybe I was just suffering from a lack of 'fuel'. It was a pretty lie, but I seized onto it like a drowning man finding a piece of flotsam among the wreckage of my dreams.

"Excellent. Well done, Bastian. Well done indeed," said Cornelius in congratulations as he smiled at my antics. I think it was the first time that he had praised me to my face. Which was why his next words came as no surprise to me.

"Make sure the Path is in your list of active Paths and let's go again." I did as told, removing my Path of Coordination with some trepidation. I had completed it up to the sixth Tier and it now sat in my list of Completed Paths. I'd only lost a few days worth of progress along it which totalled less than ten steps, so I didn't feel too bad about it even if my mind railed against the indignity. Numbers go up! Not down! I demanded.

A small price to pay for my Aether Stat to start going up I reminded myself and sat back down. The rest of the lesson followed the usual trend, and even with the Path unlocked I still only successfully detected grandpa's aether one more time. The steps it provided were sweeter than honey, but not enough to even get me to the first tier.

"Why still hard with Path?" I asked as we were finishing up.

"Hmm?" Cornelius absently mumbled, as though taking a second to process my question.

"Oh, that would be the distance. The two you noticed were almost against your skin. Paths themselves don't teach you anything, even if the rewards they give can. They just measure your improvement and practise. Now shoo, I have some other work to do." I was summarily kicked out of his office and went wandering into the common room. As expected, mother was waiting there with Grandma Lucille and Henrietta. Henrietta ran towards me when I entered. Today her brown hair was tied in two braids that hung behind each ear.

Her blue eyes always reminded me a little of my mothers even though Etta's were a darker shade.

"Bastian! We're staying for dinner tonight! What should we play?" she yelled as she approached. My eyes flicked to my Status for a moment as I put on what I thought was a thinking face.

"Do you need to use the toilet?" asked my mother. My face went back to normal quickly, and I shook my head vigorously while blushing. Apparently thinking and constipation were somewhat similar in my mothers eyes. Come on, Mum! I railed mentally at the insinuation, I was thinking! Thinking! I returned to pondering the question without putting on a face to do so. I wanted to progress my Path of Climbing as a priority as it was probably two to three months away from completion.

Plus, it would help with Body Strengthening and maybe Balance. The pièce de résistance was my Path of Stealth. It had gained some steps as I snuck some of Leo and Thomas's food while they had visited. A little at every meal. Keryth had caught me every single time. The elf had said nothing though. With my successes over the other adventurers, I was in the final two hundred point stretch for my Path of Stealth, as I now knew that Advanced Paths only had five Tiers.

Which meant I needed to incorporate it into our game. I motioned Henrietta closer and whispered the game in her ear, causing her to nod and giggle. Grandma Lucille and my mother eyed us warily with knowing smiles. Mischief was afoot, but Etta and I were playing together and that was apparently more than enough for them to overlook whatever hijinks a couple of kids could get up to. My mother sat us down and had us take turns reading sentences from a book.

The letters were large to make it easier to read, but clearly not produced using something like a printing press so I still stumbled over a letter here or there written in the Helenian form of cursive. Etta did worse, but not by much, her lips pursed in focus as she clearly felt she was competing with me. There's no competition, Etta! I noted mentally, I've got more than a decade on you! The writing that followed was easier, though I was forced to admit that Etta had a neater script than I did.

Mother would call out a word for us both, and we would be forced to try and write it out, spelling and all. Then our work would be reviewed. My mother would give out two points per word in the form of strokes on our rough, brown, working paper. One for legibility and one for correct spelling. I was losing badly on the former even if I was winning slightly on the latter. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

I tried to slow down and not rush but my little hands were betraying me. They were inexperienced with holding the quill or the careful motions required to produce the letters. While I was certain I had higher Stats for Coordination than Etta, she had more developed fine muscle control just because she was a year older than me. Coupled with her at least half a year of experience over me, I was railing mentally at the injustice of time!

I took it as more proof that I only got out what I put in and made a plan to practise the careful movements in my own time as well as to never let my physical fitness start to decline. As our lessons ended, Etta and I made to run for it before being pulled up short and sat down for a quick lunch of incredibly tasty sandwiches. The bread wasn't warm, though it was still fresh at least.

The meat and gravy filling may have been leftovers from the night before, but it was almost as good as when my mother had just finished cooking it. I tried not to fill my belly too much, since I had plans, but Etta had no such compunctions and finished off my leftovers as well, smearing gravy across her face much to Grandma Lucille's chagrin. After we were cleaned up, I led Etta out the front door and looked around to see who was watching. Across the road was the new trading outpost.

No sign of the Kellins, the couple that owned it, out front so I guessed they were inside doing something, or more likely Frederick Kellin was off visiting some of the other members of our community to deliver goods or pick them up. With the coast clear, I turned back to Etta.

"Alright, you understand the plan?" She nodded her head, braids bouncing slightly.

"We sneak out back, and I help you climb up. Then, you wave, and I run inside and bang on Factor Hawthorn's door then run away like it's a prank. I hide in the kitchen and keep doing it till he comes in to find me!" I was actually impressed she managed to remember everything I told her. Our lessons had gone for at least two hours and yet she still had all the main points. We skirted around the outpost, going from the front to the back.

Grandma Lucille was following, albeit slowly, likely trying not to interfere with our game. By the time she caught up, I should be out of sight and she should be following Etta back inside. Getting around the back of the outpost, I dodged my mother's garden and moved to where I saw some decent handholds in the wood to start pulling myself up. I kicked off my boots and socks quickly.

Then, with my hands on the wooden wall, Etta scooted down underneath me and tried to push me up, doing more to hinder than to help but I didn't say anything lest she change her mind and not assist me with my planned stealthy incursion. My fingertips grabbed hold of a gap in the wood, and I started to pull myself up, my muscles straining at my own bodyweight but more than up to the task. I pulled myself up a few more handholds as I got my bare feet in place and started using their ability to push me up and balance.

Within ten seconds, I was up above the first story door and hidden behind some wood that was meant to buttress the small overhang that shielded the back door from the rain. Grandma Lucille came around the corner and caught the tail end of Etta dashing into the now open backdoor. The old woman didn't seem bothered in the slightest, slowly following the girl back inside. The entire time, I didn't move for fear of giving away my position. As soon as she passed inside, I went back to climbing.

I didn't look down after the first time, realising just how high up I had gotten when compared with how small I was. A fall from this height wouldn't kill me unless I landed truly badly, but it would hurt! Inch by inch, I pulled myself up until I got to the third story window for my bedroom. I was about to climb inside when I heard a loud caw.

Hanging onto my own windowsill, which my mum had opened up to air out my room, I looked down to my mother's garden to find a large crow resting on one of the wooden fence stakes. I couldn't tell if it was the same crow as last time, but instead of eyeing a few of the juicy vegetables hanging on the plants in the garden, it had its head cocked to the side watching me.

We waited there like that for a full ten seconds, which is longer than you think in a staring competition, before it let out another loud caw and took flight, once more heading north. I shook myself, wondering what that was all about, before finally pulling myself in through my open window. Sneaking out my own door, I silently padded down to grandpa's bedroom. The door opened without a sound at my gentle push, and I took in a far more lavish room than my own one.

The bed was bigger, with room enough for two if you didn't need to have a lot of personal space. He had another desk, though this one was smaller with a mirror on it and a few keepsakes carefully placed across its surface. I saw a lock of tied blonde hair like an old fetish or perhaps a keepsake, and my thoughts drifted back to the story of my grandma. I decided to leave the keepsakes alone. My plan was to conduct a harmless prank, not to inflict unnecessary cruelty on the old man.

I moved to the bed and grabbed one of his pillows. This would do nicely. Then I quietly snuck back out and moved down the stairs to the second floor where I waited. I heard a giggle below me and a quick set of knocks followed by the patter of boots as Etta bolted back into the kitchen. A moment later I heard the office door on the first floor open.

"Bastian, what are you up to? I'm trying to work!" Cornelius grumbled. I figured this was probably the second time Etta had played knock and run on his office if she kept to the planned timelines. Third, if she got too excited and started early. Either way, I was thankful when I heard Cornelius heading for the kitchen. Quickly and quietly I moved down the stairs. My mother wasn't in the common room so I darted past and straight into the old codger's office.

I slapped down his pillow in his chair where he couldn't miss it and was back out the door in a flash. My footfalls were quiet, the noise faintly present, as I intentionally didn't use my Muffled Steps Skill in case grandpa sensed it. Then I was free and clear and heading for the front door where I ran into my mother as she was coming back in.

"I've been looking for you, my little man. What mischief are you getting up to?" Her words were delivered with a gentle smile, and I grinned in response.

"Penny!" called my grandfather, his words laced with annoyance as he found my little present. My grin got even bigger, both at pulling one over on the old man and for the additional steps that went into my Path of Stealth at a successful reverse heist.