A Weapon Worth Keeping

Lucas woke to the sound of somebody hitting wood with a hammer. Three strikes, a pause, three more, another pause. The rhythm was steady enough that his half-conscious brain tried to turn it into a pattern—impact and recovery, load and release—and by the time he opened his eyes he was already annoyed with himself. Iterative Insight did not make sleep restful when the first thought of the morning was force transfer.

He rolled onto his back beneath the lean-to and tested his left shoulder. Tight, but not bad. Sarah had called it “mildly aggravated,” which translated from medical language into Lucas language as stop being stupid for at least one day.

He sat up. Across Hearth, Daniel stood beside a workbench made from two log sections and a split plank, while the hammering came from a man driving wooden pegs into the frame of a new drying rack. Smoke hung low among the ashwoods and people moved between shelters. The settlement had become busy enough that mornings no longer felt temporary, and that bothered Lucas more than he expected. Temporary things were easier to survive. You did not have to decide what they meant.

Hearth had a name now. Storage racks. Rotating watches. Hunting parties. A medical shelter. A board where Grant wrote names, duties, routes, food estimates, and increasingly complicated arguments disguised as columns. People were building as if they might be here awhile.

Lucas looked down at the spear beside him, or what remained of it. The shaft had split nearly two feet down the grain after the Ridgeclaw fight. Daniel had wrapped the damaged section tightly with hide strips the previous night, but neither of them pretended that made it trustworthy.

Lucas picked it up anyway. The weapon had begun as a sharpened branch. It had killed monsters, saved his life, and taught him more about mana than any formal instruction he had received. Now it was firewood with sentimental value.

“That is the saddest look I have ever seen anyone give a stick.”

Owen walked past carrying two steaming cups. Lucas accepted one.

“What is this?”

“Hot water.”

Lucas stared at him.

“There may be leaves involved.”

“Which leaves?”

“The safe kind.”

“That is not a species.”

Owen drank. “Emily watched me make it.”

“That is marginally better.”

Lucas took a cautious sip. It tasted green. Not pleasant, not terrible. Progress.

Owen nodded at the spear. “You sleeping with it now?”

“I was protecting everyone from structural failure.”

“Heroic.”

Lucas opened Progression.

Human — Lv. 2

Progress: 86%

Mana Spearman — Lv. 2

Progress: 91%

Profession: Not Acquired

Nine percent. That was all that separated him from Class Level 3. Nine percent could mean one meaningful fight, or an hour of useful training, or nothing if he repeated things the System considered already learned.

Learning Saturation. He had not seen the term in an interface, but the pattern was becoming obvious. The first time he discovered something, progression came quickly. The tenth time he repeated it, less. The System rewarded development, not treadmill mileage.

Owen leaned over. “Ninety-one?”

Lucas closed the interface. “You cannot see that.”

“You make a face.”

“I have one face.”

“You have at least six. Ninety-one is the one where you are mentally trying to bargain with reality.”

Lucas stood. “I’m going to train.”

“With the broken spear?”

“No.”

Owen looked genuinely relieved.

Lucas carried the damaged weapon to Daniel’s work area. Daniel turned it over in his hands.

“No.”

“I didn’t ask anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to ask if—”

“No.”

Lucas sighed. Daniel set the spear down.

“Use a practice pole.”

“I need a point.”

“You need a shoulder.”

“Sarah has infected you.”

“She threatened me.”

“That tracks.”

Daniel pointed toward a bundle of straight ashwood poles. “Those are for the north barricade. Pick one that is not terrible. Don’t sharpen it.”

Lucas selected a six-foot pole about an inch and a half thick. Heavy, uneven, and not a spear, but good enough to practice movement. He took it to the eastern training area.

Marcus was already there, or technically sitting there and glaring at everyone who was training. Sarah had wrapped his ribs. He looked furious about it.

“How’s retirement?” Lucas asked.

Marcus raised one finger. Lucas assumed it was not affectionate.

“You get cleared?”

“Walking.”

“Congratulations.”

“Shut up.”

Lucas smiled, then began. No hard thrusts and no impact. Footwork first. Spear Familiarity settled into his movements, front hand guiding, rear hand driving, feet balanced, a point that did not exist aligned with an opponent that also did not exist.

The practice pole’s weight changed everything slightly. Thicker shaft, poor balance, more inertia. Lucas liked that. Perfect equipment could hide bad movement. Bad equipment complained.

He activated Mana Reinforcement. The mana entered through his rear hand and was immediately wrong. The practice pole accepted it differently than his original spear: wetter wood, less seasoned, the mana spreading unevenly through the fibers. Lucas adjusted. Iterative Insight sharpened the feedback—not knowledge, contrast. He had spent yesterday learning the difference. The Skill did not whisper answers into his mind. It made two attempts feel less alike when they were actually different.

Lucas narrowed the reinforcement toward the forward half and thrust. The pattern smeared backward. Again. Better. Again. Worse. He changed the sequence, flow first and movement second, and that was better.

Marcus watched from the log. “You know normal people just stab things.”

“Normal people break spears.”

“You broke yours.”

“Yes.”

Marcus considered that. “Excellent point.”

Lucas continued. After fifteen minutes his right forearm warmed and mana drained slowly, but his shoulder remained quiet. Good. He increased speed and the reinforcement blurred, not physically, but as the mana pattern widened when his intent shifted from control to acceleration. Same problem as before, except now he could feel the exact moment the pattern changed.

He tried again. Movement, then mana: too slow. Again. Mana, then movement: too rigid. He stopped thinking of them as separate actions. That was the mistake. His body did not move in steps. Plant foot, turn hips, drive hand, extend. The pieces overlapped. Mana should too.

Lucas drew the pole back and let reinforcement gather during the beginning of the motion rather than before it. As his rear hand accelerated, he allowed the mana to move forward with the action. Not hold. Travel. The pattern compressed toward the front. Lucas froze before full extension. Something had changed.

He reset and tried again, this time deliberately pushing the mana with the thrust. The effect was stronger and also messy. Mana surged too hard into the forward end and rebounded through his hand. Lucas hissed.

Marcus stood. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That sounded like something.”

Lucas flexed his fingers. Tingling, no damage. He stared at the pole. He had tried to make reinforcement move, not just exist. The Class was Mana Spearman: Mobility, Precision, Mana Integration, Adaptive Technique. Maybe he had spent too much time thinking about Reinforcement as a static state.

He tried again, gentler. Mana gathered as the thrust began, and Lucas drove the flow forward. For one fraction of a second the pole accelerated harder than his arms alone should have managed. Then the mana collapsed. The front end snapped downward and struck the dirt, and Lucas nearly fell with it.

Marcus laughed so hard he grabbed his ribs and immediately regretted it. “Ow. Worth it.”

Lucas ignored him. A notification appeared.

Meaningful Class development recorded.

Mana Spearman progression increased.

He opened it.

Mana Spearman — Lv. 2

Progress: 96%

Five percent. Lucas smiled. Not enough. Good. He had found something, not mastered it.

He spent the next half hour trying to reproduce the acceleration. Most attempts failed. Two worked slightly. One worked well enough that he felt a distinct forward impulse. Each successful attempt shared the same feature: mana moved with the weapon. Not through the weapon. With it.

He was halfway through another repetition when Sarah appeared.

“No.”

Lucas lowered the pole. “You say that a lot.”

“Because you give me opportunities.”

“My shoulder is fine.”

“I’m not looking at your shoulder.”

She pointed at his right hand. A faint red line crossed his palm where the rough wood had rubbed.

Lucas looked down. “Oh.”

“Break.”

“That is barely an injury.”

“Break.”

Marcus called from behind her, “Do what she says.”

Sarah turned. “You too.”

“I’m sitting.”

“Sit quieter.”

Marcus looked offended. Lucas retreated for twenty minutes. Exactly twenty.

Then Hearth screamed. Not one person. Several. North side. Lucas was moving before he consciously decided, the practice pole still in his hand.

People rushed toward the northern barricade. Grant shouted over them.

“Clear the gate! Hunters forward!”

Lucas pushed through. A Redhorn Grazer had somehow reached the edge of Hearth. Not alone. Two. One adult, one smaller. The adult was bleeding from the flank. Something had driven them out of the forest.

The larger animal slammed into a barricade stake. Wood cracked. People scattered.

Identify.

Redhorn Grazer

Beast — Lv. 4

F-Rank

The younger one veered left.

Redhorn Grazer

Beast — Lv. 2

F-Rank

Lucas felt mana building in the adult’s legs.

“Charge!”

The grazer exploded forward, not toward him, toward a group hauling water. Lucas ran. He had no spear. He had a pole. No point. No plan.

Marcus yelled behind him. Someone fired an arrow and missed. The grazer lowered its horns.

Lucas intercepted at an angle. Never stop the charge. Redirect. He had learned that. He planted his right foot and Mana Reinforcement entered the pole, too broad and with no time to fix it. The grazer came. Lucas struck the side of its horn with the pole, not a thrust, a shove. The impact jolted both arms. The animal’s head moved six inches. Not enough.

Lucas pushed mana forward. The strange movement from training returned as a pulse, and the pole kicked harder. The grazer’s head turned and its path shifted. Barely. Barely was enough.

The horns missed the first water carrier and clipped the second bucket. Water exploded across the ground. The grazer crashed shoulder-first into a storage post. The post snapped. The animal stumbled. Three hunters hit it from the side. Tessa’s arrow entered behind its shoulder and another spear struck ribs. The grazer kicked and a man went down.

Lucas circled. The animal recovered and mana built again. He felt it.

“Back!”

People moved. This time the grazer faced Lucas. Excellent. Its eyes were wide, foam flecked its mouth, and the wound on its flank was deep. Fear and pain, not aggression for its own sake. Lucas did not care philosophically at the moment. He cared about the horns.

The grazer charged. Lucas backed toward the broken barricade gap. He could dodge, maybe, but then the animal entered Hearth. He needed to turn it. The practice pole would not survive another full impact, so he would not take the full impact.

Lucas watched the mana gather in the grazer and watched his own. Iterative Insight sharpened the remembered success. Timing, not power. His earlier pulse had arrived after contact. Too late. What if it arrived before?

Lucas drew the pole back. Spear Familiarity aligned the movement even without a blade, and mana gathered in his hand. The grazer closed. Ten yards. Eight. Six.

Lucas thrust, not at the animal, at the space beside its horn. Mana moved with the weapon. He released the flow forward at the final extension. The pole accelerated. A compact pulse ran through his grip, and the front end struck the base of the grazer’s horn hard, much harder than Lucas had expected.

The animal’s head snapped sideways. Its front hoof caught uneven ground. The grazer crashed through the broken barricade instead of through Lucas and rolled. People descended on it. The fight ended quickly.

Lucas stood frozen, the practice pole trembling in his hands. A System chime sounded.

Ding!

Mana Spearman — Lv. 3

Class Growth Applied.

Automatic Attribute Growth:

Agility +1

Perception +1

Intelligence +1

Free Attribute Points Gained: 2

A second notification appeared immediately.

Your actions have demonstrated repeated integration of spear movement and directed mana release.

Class Skill pathway available.

Kinetic Thrust — Class Skill

Channel a timed pulse of mana through a spear-aligned attack to increase acceleration and delivered force.

Efficiency depends on timing, control, weapon compatibility, and technique.

Poor timing may reduce effectiveness, destabilize the weapon, or transfer excessive force to the wielder.

Acquire Kinetic Thrust?

Lucas stared. Not automatic. Available, because he had been doing something close enough to earn the pathway. He selected yes.

Ding!

Kinetic Thrust

The world did not change. The Skill did, or more accurately his relationship to the action changed. Lucas could feel a prepared structure where there had only been improvisation, a pathway. Mana gathered more naturally along the thrusting motion. Not free and not effortless. Just supported.

He tested the beginning of the movement and immediately stopped. Sarah was somewhere nearby. Survival instincts remained intact.

Another notification appeared.

Your current primary weapon is judged unsuitable for continued Class development.

A first Class Armament may be earned through a System Armament Trial.

This opportunity is available once during F-Rank.

Armament Trial requirements scale to current Class, demonstrated technique, and equipment history.

Begin trial?

Lucas looked around Hearth. People were dragging the dead grazer away from the damaged gate. The younger grazer had fled. A man sat on the ground clutching his thigh but remained conscious. Sarah was kneeling beside him. Grant was organizing repairs. No immediate threat.

Lucas read the notification again. Once during F-Rank. Earned, not a gift.

Owen appeared beside him, breathing hard. “What happened?”

“I leveled.”

Owen grinned. “Knew it.”

“And I got Kinetic Thrust.”

“Of course you did.”

Lucas looked at the third notification. “And apparently my spear situation has offended the System personally.”

Owen’s grin widened. “That seems fair.”

Lucas selected Begin trial. The interface changed.

Class: Mana Spearman — Uncommon

Rank: F

Trial Type: Technique Validation

Location: Localized Instance

Duration: Until completion, withdrawal, or incapacitation

Lethality: Enabled

External assistance: Prohibited

Primary objective: Demonstrate competent integration of Class fundamentals.

Reward quality depends on performance, not speed alone.

Enter?

Lucas stopped smiling. Lethality enabled. Of course. Nothing in the Hollow Reach came with padded corners.

“Not now,” he said.

The prompt remained available. Good. He dismissed it.

Owen frowned. “You said no to free spear?”

“It isn’t free.”

Lucas explained. Owen’s expression shifted.

“Lethality?”

“Enabled.”

“Maybe use a stick forever.”

“Tempting.”

Sarah approached. “What did you do?”

Lucas looked at her. “That question has become hostile.”

She took the practice pole from his hands. The front six inches had split, not badly, but enough. Sarah closed her eyes.

“Please tell me you did not fight a charging grazer with an unsharpened construction pole.”

Lucas thought about wording. “No?”

Sarah stared. “Sit down.”

He sat. She checked his shoulder. Tender, no major strain. His palms were worse: blisters, one torn. She cleaned them while Lucas reviewed Status.

Strength: 10

Agility: 14

Vitality: 10

Endurance: 10

Perception: 13

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Willpower: 10

Available Attribute Points: 4

Four. Two held from earlier, two new. He left them unspent. Kinetic Thrust was new, and he wanted a baseline before attributes changed the feedback.

Sarah wrapped his right palm. “You’re smiling.”

“I got a Skill.”

“That does not make the skin on your hand less missing.”

“Kinetic Thrust.”

She paused. “Does it involve thrusting?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Lucas laughed. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“Today?”

“At minimum.”

“Fine.”

“And tomorrow depends on the shoulder.”

“Less fine.”

She stood. Lucas looked toward the damaged barricade. The Class Armament Trial waited quietly in Notifications. Not today. Maybe afternoon.

Sarah turned back. “I can see you thinking.”

“That is invasive.”

“Rest.”

Lucas did, for almost three hours. He ate, helped Daniel inspect the broken gate without lifting anything, and listened while Grant argued that the grazer attack meant something dangerous was moving through the northern forest. That mattered. The wounded Ridgeclaw yesterday, the fleeing grazers today, the large unidentified tracks near the spring. Three pieces. Not enough for a conclusion. Enough for concern.

By midafternoon Sarah checked him again, then made the mistake of saying, “You’re stable.”

Lucas stood.

“No.”

“You said stable.”

“I know what you heard.”

“The trial doesn’t require me to leave Hearth.”

“That is not better.”

“It’s a System instance.”

“That is somehow worse.”

Lucas waited. Sarah stared at him. He waited longer. Finally she sighed.

“What happens if you withdraw?”

“It says withdrawal is allowed.”

“Then you withdraw if the shoulder starts hurting.”

“Yes.”

“If your hand opens.”

“Yes.”

“If you feel dizzy.”

“Yes.”

“If you decide proving something is more important than not being permanently injured.”

Lucas hesitated. Sarah pointed at him.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Owen volunteered to watch him disappear. Grant came too. So did Marcus, despite technically being under orders to sit.

Lucas stood in an open patch beyond the eastern barricade and selected the waiting notification.

Enter?

Yes.

The world folded. Not vanished. Folded. Hearth compressed into a line of light and sound disappeared. For one impossible second Lucas felt neither falling nor standing. Then stone formed beneath his boots.

He stood in a circular chamber maybe fifty feet across. Gray floor, gray walls, no door, no ceiling he could see. Soft light came from everywhere. The practice pole was gone. His damaged ashwood spear lay on the floor in front of him. Of course.

A message appeared.

Use the weapon that carried you to this milestone.

Objective One:

Demonstrate control.

Three waist-high stone posts rose from the floor. Each held a suspended wooden ring.

Lucas picked up his spear. The split shaft creaked. He almost laughed. The System had a sense of humor. Maybe neutrality could still be petty.

A line appeared.

Strike each target using Mana Reinforcement.

Weapon failure does not automatically end the trial.

Lucas breathed. Control, not maximum output. He reinforced the spear in a tapered pattern, dense near the point, smooth transition, no hard boundary.

First ring. Thrust. Clean. The ring cracked but stayed suspended.

Second. Lucas changed the mana slightly to account for the split, less density near the damaged grain and more support around it. Thrust. Clean.

Third. He accelerated more and the split widened. Lucas stopped before impact and reset. Iterative Insight clarified the mistake: too much movement. He used less. Thrust. The third ring broke.

Objective complete. The posts sank.

Objective Two:

Demonstrate force without surrendering control.

A stone figure rose from the floor, human-shaped and without a face. A small red mark appeared at its chest.

Strike the marked target using Kinetic Thrust.

Lucas swallowed. First use. Formal use. He set his feet. Mana Reinforcement first? The Skill description did not require it, but the spear did. He applied the tapered pattern, then Kinetic Thrust. The new pathway felt distinct. Mana gathered along the movement rather than soaking into the shaft.

Lucas thrust. The pulse came too early. The spear accelerated before his structure aligned and his right shoulder twisted. He aborted. The point scraped stone. Pain, not bad, a warning. Iterative Insight sharpened the feedback. Timing. Again. Later.

He reset. Kinetic Thrust gathered. Foot, hip, hand, extension, pulse. The spear snapped forward and the point struck the red mark. Crack. A fracture spread through the stone figure. Lucas’s split spear screamed as wood fibers separated another inch.

Objective complete. Lucas exhaled. The figure sank.

Objective Three:

Demonstrate adaptation.

Lucas stared. “That is vague.”

The floor opened. Something climbed out: stone, four-legged, low, roughly the size of a large dog.

Identify.

Trial Construct

F-Rank Construct — Lv. 4

The construct charged. Lucas moved with no pause and no explanation. He sidestepped. The construct turned sharply, faster than a grazer and less flexible than a hound. Lucas stabbed. Stone resisted. The spear point skidded and the construct hit his hip. Pain. Lucas rolled. The spear survived, barely. He stood.

The construct charged again. Kinetic Thrust could add force, but force into stone meant force into the spear. Wrong answer. Lucas moved laterally. The construct followed. He watched mana and found nothing. It was not alive. No readable internal flow. Different problem.

The construct lunged. Lucas stepped aside and struck its rear leg. Wood against stone. Useless. Wait. Not stone everywhere. The joints had gaps.

Lucas circled. The construct turned and its front leg compressed. A seam opened at the shoulder. There. Lucas feinted left. The construct committed. He reversed and the spear point entered the seam, not deep. He reinforced around the point. The construct jerked. The spear twisted and the split opened. Lucas released reinforcement instantly and saved the shaft. Maybe.

Adaptation, not force. He changed grip, shorter, more control. The next charge came and Lucas let it. Step, turn, spear point into the joint, Kinetic Thrust. A tiny pulse, not maximum, just enough. The point drove through the seam. The construct’s leg collapsed and it crashed. Lucas withdrew.

The spear made a sound like tearing paper. He looked down. The shaft was almost gone. One more.

The construct pushed itself upright on three legs. Lucas could attack the head. Bad. Center mass. Bad. Other joint. Good. It charged awkwardly. Lucas moved, reinforcement only in the forward foot, Kinetic Thrust minimal. The point entered the opposite shoulder seam. Pulse. Stone cracked. The construct collapsed and stopped.

Silence returned. Lucas lowered the spear. The shaft separated and the front half fell to the floor. He stood holding three feet of broken ashwood.

A message appeared.

Control: Accepted

Force: Accepted

Adaptation: High

Weapon Preservation: Failed

Lucas laughed. “Fair.”

Your armament history emphasizes:

Spear use

Mana compatibility

Adaptive reinforcement

Precision over raw force

Technique under imperfect conditions

Generating F-Rank Class Armament.

Light gathered in front of him. Not dramatic, no heavenly choir, just a line of pale blue that lengthened from the floor. Wood formed first, dark gray-brown, straight and smooth. Then metal: a narrow leaf-shaped spearhead, dark silver with a faint groove running down the center. A butt cap formed at the rear. The finished weapon floated for half a second, then dropped. Lucas caught it.

Perfect balance. Not perfect for everyone. Perfect compared to what he had used.

Identify.

Channelwood Spear

F-Rank Uncommon Class Armament

A System-forged spear generated from demonstrated Mana Spearman fundamentals.

Properties:

Mana-Conductive Shaft

Reinforced Tang

Balanced Profile

No active enchantment.

Attunement: Not required.

Lucas stared. No damage bonus, no glowing stat package, no absurd effect. A good spear. A real one. He loved it immediately.

The System added one final line.

Armament Trial complete.

F-Rank first-armament opportunity consumed.

The chamber dissolved. Hearth returned all at once.

Owen was mid-sentence.

“—long do you think—”

Lucas appeared. Owen jumped. Marcus stood too fast and grabbed his ribs. Sarah’s eyes went directly to Lucas’s shoulder. Grant looked at the spear. Nobody spoke for three seconds.

Then Owen said, “That is significantly less embarrassing.”

Lucas ran a hand over the Channelwood shaft. “It has a name.”

“That makes it worse.”

“Channelwood Spear.”

Owen considered. “Acceptable.”

Daniel arrived thirty seconds later and inspected the spear without asking permission. He turned it, checked the head, and ran a thumb over the tang.

“This is cheating.”

Lucas smiled. “That is what Owen says about planning.”

Daniel handed it back. “System made?”

“Armament Trial.”

“Cost?”

“My old spear.”

Daniel looked at the two broken halves that had returned beside Lucas. “Seems like it was already mostly paid.”

Lucas laughed, then tested Mana Reinforcement, gently. Mana entered the shaft and kept going. No hesitation, no strange dead spots, no fighting the grain. The Channelwood did not make the Skill stronger. It made the signal cleaner.

Lucas shaped a tapered pattern. The mana settled with almost insulting ease. Iterative Insight sharpened the contrast between this and the improvised ashwood. Weapon compatibility. The phrase from Mana Reinforcement’s description finally had a proper example.

Lucas stopped. He wanted to do fifty tests immediately.

Sarah pointed toward medical. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You made the face.”

Owen doubled over laughing. Lucas looked around at all of them.

“This has become harassment.”

Grant ignored the argument. “What level?”

“Mana Spearman three.”

“Human?”

Lucas checked.

Human — Lv. 3

Progress: 4%

He blinked. Race Level 3. He had missed the notification during the trial. Another message waited.

Human — Lv. 3

Racial Growth Applied.

Strength +1

Vitality +1

Lucas opened Status.

Strength: 11

Agility: 14

Vitality: 11

Endurance: 10

Perception: 13

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Willpower: 10

Available Attribute Points: 4

Human Level 3. Mana Spearman Level 3. Profession none. Still F-Rank. Still very early. But the numbers felt different with a real weapon in his hand, not because they were large, but because every one had a memory attached. A charge. A mistake. A hunt. A broken spear. A lesson.

Lucas looked down at Channelwood, then north toward the forest. The wounded Ridgeclaw. The fleeing grazers. The mana-rich spring. The five-toed tracks wider than Priya’s hand. Something was moving out there, something strong enough to make predators and prey change their behavior.

Chapter 11’s problem, if the universe had any sense of pacing. The universe had shown no evidence of that so far.

Lucas rested the spear across his shoulders. His left shoulder objected and he immediately lowered it. Sarah noticed. Of course she did.

“Medical.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Owen stared. “Did you just surrender?”

“I have a new spear. I have become wise.”

“You have Wisdom thirteen.”

“That too.”

They walked back into Hearth. Behind them, Daniel picked up the two halves of Lucas’s original ashwood spear.

“Keeping these?” he called.

Lucas looked back. The cracked wood had carried him through nine chapters of his life that felt longer than the thirty-two years before them. He thought about throwing it away. Instead he nodded.

“Yeah.”

Daniel tucked the pieces under one arm. “For what?”

Lucas looked at the Channelwood Spear, then at the broken one. “Reference material.”

Owen groaned. “You gave him a Rare learning Skill and now he’s collecting broken sticks.”

Lucas smiled. “Research.”

The System did not chime. Good. Not everything needed a reward.