Gestation, John Gold [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

training the dogs - using me. Not being afraid of pain is an odd sensation, and you feel much more confident when you know that you can heal up any cuts the dogs’ teeth make.

Rachel stops by in the evening. She stops by a lot, always asking me to tell her how I learned my spells. She’s wearing a dress with a corset and a short, light-green skirt with matching tall boots. When she comes, I just look at her and smile. Father shouting at me and the dog latching onto my arm bring me to my senses pretty quickly, though I almost die before I’ve had my fill of looking at her.

“You’re too young to be staring at girls.”

Rachel turns bright red and spins around. Grunt and Ownie, who popped out from behind her, practically double over laughing.

As soon as night falls, father tells me that we’re done for the day.

“Hey, Sagie, sweetie, help me out…” When Rachel uses that voice, I can’t help but say yes. “I want to learn magic, too. The problem is that mages won’t listen to me, though they might think twice or give me some terms if you asked. I definitely can’t fight, and paying a hundred gold for a spell… I don’t have that kind of money. When father found out, he started looking at me funny.”

Why does she have to look at me like that?

“My punishment is over tomorrow, so we’ll go together. I’ve been wanting to go to the library anyway. I was there, but I didn’t get to read anything.”

“You know how to read? But you’re so little! Or do you need picture books?” Rachel, feeling cheered up, goes back to laughing at me.

I’m not five; I’m twelve! She has such a biting tongue.

“I’m not little!” Everyone who sees me laughs at my tone and the expression on my face.

When everyone leaves, I sit down and start to think about other skills I could pick up. I’m almost maxed out with the ones I have, which means it’s time to learn new ones. Also, I’d like to pick up a pet for myself at the fair. When I told father, he recommended that I find something useful. It’s been more than a week since the game officially opened, and I’ve noticed a lot of new players. There are more kids in our village, though I don’t talk with them much. I’m still stuck to my house with astral anchor.

I want to be a wizard! I make up my mind to start working in that direction. I’ll need information about magic and mages as well as the class.

Also, I need to find a way out of the orphanage. Project Chrysalis could help with that, though nothing’s coming to mind.

You can read about mages at the library or ask at the magic stand, and I’d like to visit the Academy of Magic, too. If the training there is similar to what I do in real life, I can start preparing even now. I need to find everything out. It’s almost an hour to run to the city, three if you’re walking. I can’t run every day, so tomorrow will be all about looking for information.

It’s a long walk, and Rachel talks the whole way. I think she spends all her free time in the city. But she came to visit me every morning and evening, right? Her athleticism is only up to 3, so we have to walk to the city.

Bernard teaches me a Space spell.

Spell: Telekinesis

Description: Lets you move things with your mind. The maximum weight and distance is equal to your intellect.

Effect: Move items weighing up to 20.4 kg

Distance: 20.4 meters

Mana: 1/kg

I practice the whole way. While I wait for Rachel, I find a good-sized stone and get to work. First, I send it spinning around in a circle, then I send it hovering above my head. That turns out to be a valuable lesson: when I relax, it falls and hits me right on the top of my skull. Rachel howls when things like that happen, making wisecracks about the level of my intellect. I’ve never heard anything like it at the orphanage or even at the space port—we have plenty of direct insults there, but not so many round-about hints.

Rachel doesn’t ask about my attributes, and I hid them at father’s recommendation. “Never show your attribute window to anyone—that would show them your weaknesses.” Because of that, Rachel can’t tell that none of the stones do me any damage. I can’t work two spells at once though. When I activate the second, the first one goes inactive. On the other hand, I can control several rocks along the same plane, though keeping even two going separately is beyond me. I need something more for that. I have the feeling that I need to do two different things at once, and my consciousness just isn’t ready yet. The same is true for my other spells.

As we walk into the city, Rachel tells me that she’s going to look for Bernard, and I set off for the library. Murokami is still sitting there at his desk.

“Hi, Murokami. I need to get in, but I can’t ask my father to come. I can leave you money as security for the books though.”

“You can go in. Here’s my card. Use it if you want to check some books out.” I wasn’t expecting that at all. The one-eyed monster grunts. “I saw the battle at the fair. You beat my nephew in the final, and I trained him myself.”

“Thanks,” I say as I take the card from him. “Hey, what class are you? That friar was really strong.”

“Not telling you. Why do you ask?”

That didn’t go well—learning that would have told me about his weaknesses, too.

“I’m sorry. What I’m looking for is information about mage training and the academy.”

My answer elicits a barrage of laughter. Murokami even falls off the chair, though he continues his horse-like whinnying.

“Kid, do you want