Beginning

As we drew near the cathedral doors, we didn't see anyone standing guard, So I decided to just open them even though Kevin was worried. The cathedral was wide and there were plenty of people inside. Kevin seemed a bit stunned for some reason, but I paid it no mind. I decided to ask someone if they knew of a trainer that was here. Walking up to someone I asked "do you know if there is someone that could train me in art and that guy over there in shapeshifting?" "Just go through the door of your class, and there should be someone who can train you on the other side," she said. Now that she mentioned it, there were 5 doors placed just like in the place where I first woke up here. Those and an extra door between two other doors that served as the entrance and exit. I told Kevin what I was told, and told him to meet me at the brotherhood tonight. I walked over to the door with the paint brush over it and walked in. The room wasn't too big, but there was someone at a desk and stairs leading to another floor. Walking up I asked "are you the art teacher here?" "no, how is your skill level with art?" "...I have none" "then go to the next floor, first lesson is free." I nodded and went up to the next floor.

This room was the same as the first, except for the young man sitting in the corner rocking in a chair with his eyes closed. I walked over and before I could say anything he opened his eyes and looked at me. "I'm here to learn art," I said after a while. "What are your soul strength and mind stats at?, oh level too." Guessing he meant the soul stat when he said soul strength I said "I'm level 4 with a soul strength of 13 and mind at 15… but I have 6 extra stat points." "How'd you raise your stats without using stat points?!" he asked, a surprised expression on his face. "I just meditated a little." I said. It looked like he was debating believing me or not but it looked like he chose to believe me. It's understandable that he would be surprised though. In my past life I was unmatched in my mana control so what I just did in a couple of hours would have taken people of my current level months to get a feel for. But in this new world, that would be inefficient given the leveling system. After a bit he told me to get my brush and ink out. "I don't have one," I told him. He looked even more dumbfounded than he did before for some reason. "Weren't you given one when you came here?" He asked. 'Came here? What does he mean by that?' I wondered. "No?" "Like you didn't open a chest and get one or something?" "I opened a chest… All I got was a stick though." He sighed and handed me an old looking brush and some black ink that for some reason had started to turn yellow.

"First, you must visualize what you want to create. Then you must pour soul energy and mana into your brush and draw whatever is present in your mind. I'll demonstrate." I watched as he dipped his brush into some ink and after waiting for a second started to draw in the air. Last time I checked, painting was done on a canvas, so I was a little surprised when the ink stuck to the air. At first the ink only faintly appeared in the air, but after a couple of more times going over his drawing, there was a drawing of a sword that lay in the air. With a satisfied look he put his brush and ink away and picked the sword out of the air. The sword was hollow and looked like a 5 year old drew it, but it was still impressive."My painting skill is only at level 4, so this is the best that I can do, but it can still certainly do some damage," he said, swinging it around a bit. "I'm going to do it again but this time try to feel what I am doing instead of just watching if that makes sense." He said as the sword melted into nothingness and he picked up his brush and ink again. As he performed the same actions again I did manage to sense some of the energy that he was using. It was extremely faint and I was mainly only able to feel the mana. I wouldn't have been able to feel the unfamiliar energy that was mixed in with the mana if it had been by itself, it left certain blank spots in my vision. After he had finished he handed me the sword. "I didn't actually intend for you to feel anything when I was making the sword, If you did then I am impressed, but what I actually want you to do is sense the energies that are inside the sword now that you can touch it, and find the same energy inside yourself." After saying this, he walked back over to the chair that rocked and closed his eyes again.

I walked over to a wall and sat down holding the ink sword. Closing my eyes I tried feeling the soul energy inside or whatever. I could feel the mana pretty easily when holding the sword, but there was a blank area in my senses that was mixed with the mana that stumped me. I could feel that there was energy there but I could not feel any of its details, it just felt like I was looking at a river in the pitch dark. I couldn't see the river, but I knew it was there and I could hear it. After some time I felt the sword fade from my grasp. I opened my eyes and looked up. The instructor was still in his chair and he said "it's likely getting dark out so you should head out. The payment next time is 150 coins, and I would go to an art store to grab some basic materials." "I'll be back," I said. As I came out of the artist section, Kevin also happened to be walking out of the shapeshifting area. "How was it?" I asked as I walked up to him. "It was really confusing, the teacher said I should probably just go get to level 10 first before coming back, but there was someone else there that he was also teaching so I just watched them the whole time trying to grasp something." "Did you?" "Well surprisingly my Shapeshifting skill acquisition went up to level 4." he said.

We then walked to the inn that Kevin had been staying at for the last while. Not having any money, I just slept on the floor of Kevin's room. In the morning we decided that we should make some money so we went to find monsters and plants. Defeating monsters was a bit slow but each monster made around 20 coins, whereas each plant made like 2 or 3. So it was good to do both requests at the same time. Kevin was good at spotting the herbs and made finding monsters relatively quick. I tried learning which plants were which but it was a bit hard. Kevin was the one that needed to level the most right now so I let him kill most of the monsters. By the end of the day I had gone up 2 levels and Kevin 4. He was definitely excited about it. We also earned around 900 coins and split it 500 - 400 because he already had some money. Not wanting to waste money though, I just slept on the floor again.

In the morning I went to an art store to buy some materials. The cheapest brush was 300 and the cheapest ink was 100. I bought them both and went back to foraging with Kevin. Today we made around 1000 coins. Kevin went up 2 levels and I also went up 2 levels. At this point my stats looked like this, Level : 8 | EXP:10/350 | Beginner Artist | Stat Points:5 | Stats: Vitality : 5, Mind : 14, Endurance : 5, Strength : 5, Intelligence : 7, Soul : 26, Instinct : 5, Tinkering : 5, Luck : 0 | Skill Points 8 | Skills: Language, Mediocre Mana Control(level 3), Elementary Mana absorption(level 4), Elementary flame magic(level 2), Elementary ground magic(level 2), Elementary light magic(level 2), Elementary water magic(level 1). Kevin had gotten a shapeshifting skill and put two skill points into it. Tomorrow we planned on going back to the Cathedral.