Ivor stayed hidden, his body still, but his attention sharpened as he watched the fight unfold.
The four humans moved with loose coordination. Their weapons caught his eye first. Proper steel swords and daggers, not the crude bone weapon he had taken earlier. The metal rang sharply each time it met bone, a clearer, more reliable sound than anything he had heard so far inside the Scar.
They wore fitted black training clothes. The Vladiric family symbol was etched faintly into the fabric near their chest. Her black hair was tied back into a tight ponytail, keeping it clear of her face as she shifted positions. She wore the same dark gear, lighter and more flexible, cut closer to the body.
Then she moved.
She was in the rear one moment, shouting something sharp at the boys, and in the next she surged forward in a blur of motion. Ivor blinked seeing the sudden speed up. Her blade drove in deep, forcing the creature back.
"That's not how you use it," she snapped as she pulled away. "If you hesitate like that, don't bother activating it at all."
One of the boys swore under his breath and adjusted his grip, clearly frustrated. Another tried to mimic her movement, failed, and nearly took a bone blade to the ribs for it.
Ivor's eyes narrowed.
A skill.
He was sure of it now.
The pressure behind his eyes tightened slightly. Curiosity pulled at him hard, a familiar urge rising from somewhere deeper than thought. His body responded before his mind caught up. One foot slid forward, weight shifting instinctively as if he were about to step out from cover.
He froze.
His eyes widened as the realization hit him.
He pulled back instantly, pressing himself tighter against the tree, heart thudding once, hard. He forced himself to breathe, slow and controlled, and closed his eyes for a moment.
A memory surfaced without warning.
He was five again.
The Shrouded district. The small room filled with smoke and ash. His mother had turned her back for only a moment.
He remembered stepping closer to the fireplace without thinking. Curiosity, heat, something calling to him. He had reached out and pushed his hand straight into the flames.
Pain had come a heartbeat later.
Not the scream-first kind. The slow, shocking kind that made his breath lock in his chest as skin blistered and burned. He remembered staring at his hand in disbelief, red and blackened, smoke curling from his fingers.
His mother had dropped to her knees the instant she saw it.
She had dragged his hand out of the fire and pulled him against her, wrapping him tight despite his skin still sizzling. Her hands had shaken as she checked the damage, her breath coming fast and uneven.
"Why are you like this?" she had said, fear and frustration bleeding into her voice. "Why are you always so impulsive?"
She had held his burned hand carefully, pressing cloth around it, eyes shining as she looked at him.
"This is the second time," she had said more quietly.
Her grip had tightened just a little.
"You have to listen to me," she had said.
Ivor opened his eyes and looked down at his palm.
There was no scar. No mark at all. His father had always said his body healed too well, too fast.
He exhaled quietly and recalled one of the rules.
'Do not be seen unless I choose to be.'
He let the words settle and anchored himself where he was, pushing the impulse down. The pressure behind his eyes eased slightly as his focus narrowed again.
He stayed hidden and watched as the four continued the fight.
That single burst of skill by the girl told him more than he expected. For a skill like that to function, she needed attuned nodes. At least three. Maybe more.
The boys weren't far behind her. One of them tried the same movement a moment later, slower and rougher, but it worked well enough to draw the skeleton's attention. Together, that was enough to tilt the fight in their favor.
They looked young.
Younger than him.
In two months, Ivor would turn twelve. And he still had no attuned nodes.
His thoughts drifted back to what he had just read.
Skills weren't spontaneous tricks. They were built.
There were four categories: basic, intermediate, advanced, and ultimate but what mattered wasn't the name. It was the cost.
Basic skills demanded 3 to 6 attuned nodes to even function.
Intermediate skills took 7 to 15 attuned nodes.
Advanced skills between 16 to 30 attuned nodes.
Finally, Ultimate skills were commitments that shaped an awakened's entire path. They needed 30+ attuned nodes to even learn one.
Nodes weren't just markers of strength. They were connection points.
Each skill formed its own internal circuit, linking nodes together into a stable pattern. Once that circuit existed, the nodes inside it were no longer free. They were locked, maintaining the structure that allowed the skill to work.
Breaking a skill midway wasn't an option. Not safely.
Mana backlash. Circuit corruption. Permanent damage.
That was the real price.
The more nodes a skill consumed, the less freedom remained. Overlapping circuits caused instability. Shorted flows. Weak or failed activation. That was why people specialized instead of learning everything at once.
Rank advancement was the only reset.
When someone advanced to the next stage, the mana core refined itself and the circuit resynchronized. All skills except the one chosen for upgrade could be dismantled safely, their nodes freed for reassignment. It was the only time a person could change direction without consequences.
Until then, every skill was a decision.
A commitment.
Ivor exhaled slowly as he watched the two boys planned the activation of the skill together. They adjusted immediately, moving behind the skeleton, and together they brought the second skeleton down.
He understood now.
Why awakened fighters looked the way they did. Why they fought in certain patterns. Why mistakes were so costly.
Skills weren't power handed out freely.
They were paths you carved into yourself and then walked until you were strong enough to change them.
The pressure behind his eyes eased slightly as the fight ended.
The biggest lesson he took from the section on skills was simple and unforgiving. Once you chose a skill, you carried it until your next rank advancement. You could change it then, but only by dismantling the old skill and starting again from the beginning for the new skill. There were no shortcuts. Learning new skill required effort, time and above all Mana.
Every skill chosen was a commitment.
In a way, it wasn't just a technique or a tool, it was a path, one that shaped how your strength grew and what kind of awakened you would eventually become.