"Another thing you all need to know about is skills and their relationship with classes and evolutions. Skills are split into active and passive. You get three of each, no matter the grade of your class. Skills also have no visible grade like classes do. That, however, is not because they don't have one but rather because they all share the grade of your class instead. While skills of two different people may carry the same name and even have the same grade, every skill can be thought of as unique. While that is technically incorrect for skills at their baseline of level one, it holds true for every level after that. Skills and their level strongly relate to the way you use the skill. Skills at level one are in their default state, the way the system created them. Leveling skills up is completely unrelated to leveling up your class. Instead of slaying monsters or other activities related to gaining experience, skills level by adapting them and changing their internal structure. That can happen by using them in novel ways, by trying to improve their efficiency or potency, or sometimes just by using them repeatedly. The last method quickly reaches a limit, though, and you will stop making progress in leveling up that skill."

  Huh, so both my assumptions were correct. In my case, [Flash] probably leveled up to level two so quickly because I was trying to reduce and increase its brightness and duration. I wonder how that is going to work for [Candlelight] though, the whole point of the skill is to be freely adaptable after all. Maybe trying to make more of the malleable fire with it is the right way to go after all?

  "Skills, unlike classes, also don't evolve, at least not in the way one might expect them to. After your class evolves, you will also gain a new set of skills. These skills can either be completely new or evolved versions of your old ones. In the case of evolution, some of the level you achieved will be carried over to the new skill. In some cases, skills also merge together to form new ones. In the usually rather rare case that a skill doesn't end up evolving or merging, what happens differs based on whether the skill is active or passive. If it is a passive skill, it fuses into your new class as a passive benefit of that class. These passive effects persist across further evolutions as well. If it is an active skill instead, it gets converted to a general skill, which can still level up and improve, but progress will be noticeably slower than before."

  "Passive skills are also slightly special in the sense that some of them have no level and cannot be improved. Actually, having no level is the expected and default state of a passive skill. Unlike with active skills, you have little influence on how they act. Passive skills that are possible to influence also carry a level along with them."

  "While you might have expected that already, skill levels are probably the most important factor when it comes to unlocking and qualifying for new class evolutions. Thus, you are strongly advised to not just focus on bringing up your class level quickly but also on leveling up your skills alongside your class. Don't be alarmed if your skill levels can't keep up with your main level though; remember that skill levels are separate from class levels. Until the higher grades, where you will spend significantly more time, it is rare for any skill to even surpass level ten. If you can surpass level ten for a skill while still in tier one or two, you have significant talent in that skill."

  "With that, I conclude your first and most important lesson on the system. If you have any general questions to what I just explained or specific questions about your class or any of your skills, feel free to ask me anytime. That's what I'm here for after all."

  I didn't have any direct questions I wanted to ask him. He explained the general outline of the system really well already, and I didn't really trust him enough to ask him about how to specifically improve [Candlelight]. He still gave off a slightly uncanny feeling, it was making me uneasy.

  Of our group, only Jane, our class president, raised her hand.

  "I do have a small question, instructor Wyn."

  Instructor Wyn turned to face Jane. She was a tall girl with a stoic expression that never seemed to leave her face. She had long black hair, just like me, though hers was a bit shorter in general. "Oh? Please ask away then, Miss [Swordmaster]."

  There he goes again. Did he really just reveal her class to everyone present here? We would probably have found out anyways sooner or later, but this felt really weird. Why was he doing that?

  To the side I could see the eyes of our marshal arts instructor bulge slightly as he heard what class Jane had. Was [Swordmaster] that good of a class? I wonder how it compared to [Hero].

  "What?! There is a Master among them?" Instructor Austen apparently couldn't contain his excitement and exclaimed what he thought. "I thought only at least tier four classes could be masters. Was it actually only dependent on the epic grade instead?"

  Instructor Wyn looked disappointedly at the other instructor. "Is this really such a big revelation to you? She isn't even the only epic grade among the summoned heroes. There exist no known rules to names of classes, no matter their tier or even grade. Just because there has never been a recorded instance of a rare graded or low-tier class with 'master' in their name does not mean it doesn't exist."

  Instructor Austen scratched his head in embarrassment. "Err, I was never one for all of this theory and research on the system. I'm more of a hands-on guy after all. What other epic-grade classes are among them?"

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  Instructor Wyn didn't miss a beat before pointing to Leyvin and Aurelia with a slight smirk on his face. "That young man has an epic class I haven't heard of before. It's called [Windwalker (Epic)], which is an oddly specific class name for a tier one class. Her class, however, should be well known to you and Carmelia. She is a [Sage (Epic)], a base variant of a class known to be the apex of elemental magic."

  Instructor Carmelia didn't say anything but stared intently at Aurelia, who shied away from her penetrating gaze.

  Instructor Wyn cleared his throat to focus attention back to him. "I apologize, Miss [Swordmaster], we got a bit sidetracked. You had a question for me?"

  "Yes. My name is Jane, so please stop referring to me by my class. I don't particularly mind you revealing it so openly, but I still prefer being called by my name. Anyways, my question was about the naming of one of my skills. It's called [Minor Blink], a skill that supposedly teleports me a certain distance in a particular direction. Does the 'Minor' prefix carry any special meaning? Does the existence of [Minor Blink] imply the existence of something like [Major Blink] or [Greater Blink]?"

  "I apologize, Miss Jane; I will use your name from now on." Instructor Wyn apologized with a slight smile still clearly visible on his face. Wonder what he finds so humorous. "Congratulations, you are in great luck to receive a space aspected skill so early in your path. They are among the rarest types of skills to exist. As for your two questions, the answers are 'maybe' and 'probably'. Instances like this where a skill carries something that looks like a prefix occur occasionally. From what we know, however, just having something like [Minor Fireball] does not guarantee getting the skills [Fireball] or [Greater Fireball] later on, even if both of them are known to exist. Whether or not it actually increases the chance of doing so is unknown. While it seems reasonable to assume so, it's hard to prove without any substantial evidence apart from educated guesses."

  The moment he used [Minor Fireball] as an example, a shiver ran down my back. How much did he actually know about us apart from apparently our classes and their grades? Was it just a coincidence, or did he know I had that skill? He didn't seem to have particularly noticed me yet. Not that he should, I only had an uncommon class after all. I shouldn't stand out among my classmates, of whom some apparently even had very extraordinary epic classes.

  "Any more questions for me?" Instructor Wyn queried after he finished answering Jane's question. Nobody raised their hand. "No? Then I guess we're finished with that part then. Continuing onwards, you will get an introduction to mana and magic from instructor Carmelia. As these are also fundamental in nature, we will not split you up just yet. After the lesson, however, we will separate you depending on whether your class is more physically based or more magical in nature. You will then start some practical exercises and lessons with your respective instructor; Carmelia for the mages and Austen for the physical fighters. As for you, young [Windwalker]," he turned to talk to Leyvin, "your class is a special case as it is, from what I can see, a full hybrid class. You can choose whether to attend the lesson with Carmelia or Austen depending on how you want your class to develop now and in the future. Both are good choices for you, this is completely up to you. If you can't decide, just attend both or switch every now and then."

  Maybe he could actually see skills then? How else would he know that [Windwalker] was a hybrid class after all?

  "Now then, I will take my leave and hand you over to Carmelia for now. I thank you for your attention." He didn't wait for any response before briskly turning around and leaving. What an odd guy.

  We all turned to face Carmelia as she began to start her introduction to magic.

  "Mana and magic are fundamental concepts in this world. Understanding what they can do and how they work is just as important as understanding the system is. Every class, no matter if physical or magical in nature, uses mana. In this case, magic is a kind of catch-all term for any effects caused by mana. Strengthening your body with mana is just as magical as casting a fireball is. If you think about it that way, the line between physical and magical classes becomes blurry as a matter of definition and interpretation. There is a reason that your class is not assigned or labeled as one or the other by the system. Fundamentally they are the same after all. Why we make this distinction ourselves has only one major reason, namely the fighting style. While I can teach you a lot about magic and how mages fight, I am unqualified to instruct you about close combat techniques or handling weapons. That instead falls squarely into the domain of instructor Austen."

  I see, so my class would be defined as magical in nature, since the way its provided skills use mana is more 'mage-like'. There's not much more to it than that; it's a man-made distinction after all.

  "As some of you might have noticed, for some classes the system doesn't just display the rarity next to the name of the class but also some other words like , , or . These are what we refer to as aspects. Aspects can be understood like different flavors of mana. Mana generated by your soul is unaspected in nature. What is special about unaspected mana is that it has no influence on the physical world. In other words, you can not cast magic with unaspected mana. Only after giving it an aspect that is somehow involved with the physical laws of this realm can mana be used to influence reality. The process of giving an aspect to mana is also known as aspecting, while the process of changing mana of a certain aspect into a different aspect is known as transmutation. From what we understand, the system labels aspects by what known concept that mana is closest to. That also means that just because two different mages use mana that carries the same label of does not mean that they use the same type of mana. There are an infinite number of aspects, and every held aspect can be considered unique. The only known possible exception to this rule is the aspect mana granted by the [Hero] class. Holy mana is very special in its relationship with the system. Many scholars argue that it shouldn't even be classified as an aspect, but I disagree. The system will have a reason for labeling it the way it does."

  Oh, so the [Hero] class also gets a unique type of magic along with it? The more I hear of it, the unfairer it sounds. How is anyone supposed to keep up with that? Why are we even here? shouldn't the hero be able to handle the threat alone with how many benefits the class brings? I doubt that uncommon-classed me will be able to do much to change the tide.