Sleep is for the Weak

“Next.” The tired priest said as he ushered the crying child past him, wincing because of the pitch of their cries.

The seasonal ritual where children get their new Bonds had to be his worst time of the year. Hundreds of children throughout the city and surrounding area all rushed in to get their Bonds, and it was his job to get a blood sample from each and every one of them.

Since everyone in the entire Kingdom received a Bond at the age of 5, the Kingdom used it as an excuse to gather blood from people, which could be used later to track them down if they ever became criminals. 

People didn’t like it, but no one was going to boycott their child getting a Bond. Being Bondless was a mark of great shame, and left one open to being taken and forced into slavery. Even if they didn’t like the idea of being tracked, they weren’t about to take those kinds of risks.

The next child in line came up and he pricked them with a needle, letting the drop of blood fall onto the magic tool that was used to store all of the children’s information. Symbols flashed over the orb, letting the priest learn a few things about the individual. Their name, age, race, level, and the total level of their general skills.

For most children, this wouldn’t really matter. They would be level 1 or 2 and it would be impressive if their total general skill level was more than 20. But every once and a while, it would be different.

‘Level 22 and total general skill level of 420. Looks like another noble’s brat.’ He glanced up at the name and his suspicions were confirmed. ‘Charles Colestar de Dalhurst. It’s the Duke’s grandson.’

“Is there a problem?” The polite and young voice of the child came. 

The priest looked at the young blond-haired boy, dressed in his fine clothes. His posture and expression made him stand out among the commoner children like a sore thumb.

“Not at all. The gods’ blessings be upon you.” The priest said, waving the boy along.

The kid's stats were high, even for a noble, but it wasn’t anything new.

The high nobility could get their children magic items that would drain their excess mana, stopping them from having to worry about excessive leveling before they received their Bonds. Not only that, they would be allowed to slay monsters that their families would literally tie down for them so that they could get easy levels and more towards their first Talent Point. That along with private tutors gave the noble children a huge advantage over commoners.

A commoner was gifted if they could get a single skill to about level 50 by the time they were 10 years old, so that they could get a Tier 3 Class. For the high nobility, starting with a Tier 4 Class was average.

And this boy didn’t just have his first Talent Point at the age of 5, he had 2. Kid would probably make it to 5th or maybe even 6th Tier off the back of his parent’s connections and that silver spoon he’s been sucking on since birth. 

The world was just so unfair.

“Excuse me. I’m next.” The voice of a small girl said.

The priest looked up to see a young girl with long red hair and the most tired eyes he had ever seen. The shadows underneath her eyes were so absurd as to make him feel refreshed simply by comparison. Despite her eyes, she seemed to be quite awake and was dressed in a red dress that went well with her hair.

“Alright. Give me your hand.” The priest said, holding out his hand to the girl, along with the needle.

She was uneasy, just like all the children, but her words were surprising to the Priest. “You just need my blood, right?”

“That’s right.” The priest said.

The girl then started to mumble something so rapidly that the words seemed to blur together, before lifting her thumb to her mouth.

In a quick motion, she had managed to cut her thumb open on her teeth, shocking the priest as she held her thumb over the orb and let it drip onto its surface. Then, she started to mumble again and 5 seconds later, the wound on her hand was closed.

“There. Was that good enough?” She asked him.

The man looked dumbly at her before his eyes went to the orb and he choked. 

‘Level 30! Total general skill level 2574!’

“Is there something wrong? Do I need to do it again?” The child asked him.

The priest just shook his head slowly. “You’re… free to go.” He said as he looked at the girl’s race to make sure she was human, before looking at her name. Scarlet Wright… Who the hell was Scarlet Wright? That was no noble’s name.

The boy before had been on the unreasonably high side, but this girl was just obscene. In order to grow to level 30, you need 6 times as much EXP as getting to level 22. Was it even humanly possible to earn 2574 general skill levels in 5 years? Not only that, the girl was definitely casting magic.

He would need to tell the High Priest to keep an eye on this one.

---

 

Scarlet felt sorry for the priest. He seemed really tired, so she cast a minor blessing on him to renew his stamina as she passed by.

After a little more than a year of constantly going to the slave camp to use her [Holy Magic] on the slaves there, it had quickly become her highest level skill.

...Actually, its growth had been suspiciously fast. Faster than she felt it should have been, even with it being indirectly boosted by 2 Talent Points. Even with casting several spells on 700 targets 2 times a week for 68 weeks, it still felt as though it should only have been around level 80, but instead it had reached level 107.

It had given her a 5000 EXP boost and had jumped her up to level 30 just a day before she turned 5, earning her that third Talent Point.

Scarlet had held off on using that Talent Point, deciding to wait for after she received her Bond before deciding on where she would spend it.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have good targets. There were so many perfectly acceptable targets.

[Dual Evocation] was still as valuable as before, even if she already had unlocked her [Holy Magic]. Then there was [Spell Crafting] and [Counter Spell]. Either of them would provide massive benefits on top of her existing benefits to both learning magic and her intelligence based skills.

But… Was she really trying to solely spec into magical abilities?

Her body was still very small, but with her stats, she was now able to start training for weapon and close combat skills.

She had just recently started training with the sword and shield alongside her mother, who after the introduction of carbon fiber composites was discovering that many things could be made with a weave, including armor and weapons. As such, her 4 Talent Points that she had spent in improving her weaving skills and her bonuses to all things cloth related could be applied to everything from platemail and weapon crafting, all the way up to crafting tables and chairs.

Even [Swordsmanship], when using a composite weave sword, was just another way of using cloth. Though it had a long way to go to catch up to her [Whip Techniques] and [Lasso] skills that she had been training for years.

Even so, her skills improved rapidly. Far more rapidly than Scarlet’s own. Though Scarlet had hundreds of hours logged in PVP to fall back on, which made their sparring matches… still completely one sided.

Her mom’s stats were RIDICULOUSLY high, with no stat below 2000 and a finesse that was in the 7000s. Even if Scarlet had been working hard, her mother was no slouch either and had grown 4 levels in the past 3 years, up to level 46. Most of it as a result of the broadened applications of threads created by the use of composite molding. In another 6 years, she would probably reach level 50 and her next Talent Point. If she didn’t get there sooner.

Reaching level 50 without the use of hunting monsters was almost unheard of, but if it was her mother, Scarlet didn't down she would be able to do it.

Not that Scarlet minded. After all, being as amazing as her mother was her first goal in this life. And today was her long prepared for next step in reaching that goal. She was finally going to find out what her life long Bond was.

She had no idea if her power training her magic based skills would have any influence on the outcome, but since there was no rerolling what Bond you got, she had done it just in case.

A powerful support based Bond would be invaluable in the future. Both for utility and as a safety net. Though she supposed she wouldn’t say no to a Bond that would only dramatically increase her physical stats either.

The cathedral was filling up with young children as the main event came closer and closer. Glancing around, Scarlet would say there were about 2000 5-year-olds in those large halls. The sounds of their young voices echoing in the high ceilinged grand hall.

That was fine. Such young children didn’t trigger Scarlet the same way adults did. Though she kept to the middle of the crowd, away from the priests.

What Scarlet didn’t notice is that after the other children got a look at her face, they tended to shift away from her. In truth, she had mostly forgotten about the shadows under her eyes, as people mostly just stopped mentioning them. 

She could have healed them, of course, but decided to leave them instead, as she figured they would return sooner or later and even though she wanted to be like her mother… there were consequences to being too physically appealing.

After a while, the main event started and an older priest in dark blue robes with golden trim came out to a podium in front of everyone.

It seemed as though it was customary to give a sermon before the awakening of the children’s Bonds.

They might as well not have bothered.

While the story was interesting, it was a little beyond most 5 year olds. Even if they weren’t all wanting to just get on with it so that they could get their Bonds already.

The story involved a newly created humanity, struggling to survive in a world full of monsters and beasts, turning to the heavens and shouting their frustrations, asking Father Sky why they were created to be so weak, why they weren't as fast as the rabbit or strong as the bear, why they couldn’t swim like the fish or fly like the bird, crying about how unfair and cruel their situation was.

After which, Father Sky came down from the heavens and basically told them to stop bitching and gave a ‘the power has been within you all along’ speech, before showing people how to access their Bonds. 

Scarlet found the story kind of funny, and wondered if it was actually real or not. As she listened, she occupied herself with shaping her mana into invisible pictures in the air to go along with the story.

She didn’t even notice the looks this was earning her from many of the Priests and Priestesses, who had enough [Mana Sense] and [Spiritual Attunement] to notice what she was doing.

Even the Head Priest nearly stopped his sermon to stare at the girl in disbelief.

Joshua O'Moriarty, the head priest of the temple, had been told ahead of time that there was an unusually high level girl using magic among the children. One who had red hair, wore a red dress and had the most tired face you have ever seen, with the shadows dipping down to below her cheekbones. At first he assumed the description of the girl was exaggerated but… my Gods. Had she been too excited about getting her Bond and not slept for the last week?

But even without this on the nose description of the girl, he would have spotted her in an instant. Her mana levels were four times that of any of the other children, surpassing even some of the robed Priests and Priestesses. She also casually moved the mana in the air around as if she was just twiddling her thumbs or playing with her hair.

The fact that she had used ‘holy attributed mana’ in order to draw the invisible image of Father Sky had been a real eye opener. In fact, she was using several different attributes of mana at the same time.

If it weren’t for the fact that he could give this particular sermon in his sleep, Joshua probably would have fumbled it. And once it was over, Joshua signaled to the other Priests and Priestesses, who broke up into groups.

There were 10 stations set up to perform the ‘Awaken Bond’ ritual, each one receiving 2 groups of 5 Priests and Priestesses to operate the spell, with each group having one working while the other rested to regain their mana. The Head Priest being a group all by himself.

Scarlet didn’t rush to be at the front of the line. Despite being physically a child, she was still older than the rest of them, and she could be patient and wait her turn.

...That was what she thought.

As it turned out, each cast of the spell could only awaken a single child’s Bond, the spell took 2 minutes to cast and had a 30 second gap between casting. On top of that each line ended up with 200 children in it. 

200*2.5= 500 minutes.

...SHE WAS GOING TO BE WAITING FOR MORE THAN 8 HOURS!?

Scarlet whimpered to herself as she watched the Priests and Priestesses work, ever so slowly awakening one child after enough.

Even from a great distance, and with all the noise in the room, she quickly memorized those words they used for the incantation, and her eyes moved over the ritual set up, trying to study it as best she could.

She did her best to absorb all of it, but there were a few symbols she didn’t recognize the meaning of from her personal studies with spell words, rituals and enchantments, and there were a few magic items that were being used as well, which she couldn’t analyze at a distance like this. She needed to be closer.

...Huh?

Thirty minutes after they had started, the Priesthood was taking a more extended break to regain their stamina.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Scarlet internally cried out. This was a nightmare. This had to be a nightmare… but she never slept, so it couldn’t be a nightmare.

Then, Scarlet was struck by inspiration. She reached into her ‘Pocket of Holding’ and drew out her magic staff, much to the surprise of the children. She then cast ‘Strengthen Spirit’ on the Priests and Priestess. The ribbons of holy mana stretching out to the men and women and restoring their stamina.

Scarlet grinned to herself as the men and women could once again return to work and keep the line moving. She didn’t even consider how baffling it would be to everyone around her.

She had spent so much time using [Holy Magic] at the slave camp while doing her best to ignore the world around her, she kind of just got used to ignoring the stares.

“Excuse me, child.” The Head Priest said as he walked up to Scarlet.

“Um… Yes?” She replied, immediately feeling uneasy.

“There is no need to feel anxious.” The man said with a smile, standing back in order to give Scarlet her room. “I merely noticed that you seem to be familiar with magic and are rather far back in the line.” He said, looking at the massive group of children before her in the queue. “And I was wondering if you wouldn’t perhaps be willing to help out while you are waiting your turn.”

“Huh? Really?” Scarlet said, immediately standing a bit taller and with her eyes wide open. The Head Priest blinked, half believing he saw the energetic wagging of a dog’s tail for a moment.

Scarlet couldn’t believe her luck. An opportunity to practice her [Ritual Magic].

Unlike [Invocation Magic] and [Invocationless Magic], [Ritual Magic] required a lot of set up time, as well as expensive materials and more often than not, other people to assist in different parts of the casting.

As such, she had rarely gotten a chance to practice it herself, resulting in it being a much lower level than her other methods of magic. To be offered a chance to train it for a few hours as she waited was a stroke of luck. Not only that, she’d be able to observe the circle from up closer for several hours.

If she could unlock its secrets, maybe she could help Judith get a Bond of her own, despite being a slave. After all, while they said that you could only awaken your Bond within months of turning 5, doesn’t mean there might not be a way around that. The people in the story had been adults when Father Sky showed them how to awaken their Bonds.

“I’d love to help out with the ritual.” Scarlet said.

“...The ritual?” The Head Priest said, confused. He had been meaning to have her help by using magic to assist in the Priests and Priestesses’ rest.

“You don’t need to worry about teaching it to me. I’ve already memorized the prayer and the mana patterns.” Scarlet said, before demonstrating as such by rapidly speaking the prayer out.

“I see. ...Then please, do assist.”

---

Charles Colestar de Dalhurst had been standing in line patiently for 5 hours.

He could have used noble privilege to skip to the front of the line and receive his Bond first, but if his teacher ever found out he did such a thing, he would receive a strike across the top of his head with that stupid paper fan again.

A nobleman’s privilege is the price paid by the people in order to insure that those who protected them and upheld their rights are able to do their job. It is not something to be used lightly, and should always be used with the people as the ultimate ends, not merely a means. As skipping to the front of the line would benefit no one but himself, it was unbecoming of a proper nobleman to do such a thing.

...Damn this was taking a while.

Charles wasn’t used to just sitting around doing nothing.

His training had started as soon as he was old enough to hold a stick and had grown over the years until he was swinging a sword for eight or nine hours out of the day, growing himself to level 92 in [Two-Hand Sword]. To simply stand around for 5 whole hours doing nothing felt… criminal.

He listened to the other children around him, as they talked their nonsense and played with one another in games too childish to hold his interest, and Charles sighed.

An unfortunate consequence of leveling was that his intelligence was much higher than the other children’s. Between his levels and the few skills he had to boost his brain power, his intelligence was 327.

While not super high, it did mean that he had matured much faster than these kids around him. He was mentally in his late teens and it made it very hard to relate to them. Though even if each of them was ten years older, he doubted he’d have much to talk to them about. After all, how many of them are interested in training?

But after those 5 hours, when he was finally next in line, only for the Priests to take another one of their periodic breaks, he nearly let out a very childish scream of frustration. 

“Excuse me.” Charles looked up to see the red haired girl sitting at the edge of the magic circle. “I can perform the ritual for you if you are ready.”

“Are you sure? Aren’t you tired?” Charles asked the girl. She certainly looked tired with the dark marks underneath her eyes, but if you looked past that, she seemed very energetic.

“No need to worry. I’ve got a good grasp on how much mana the ritual takes and I have enough in me to do a solo run before I need to take a rest.” She replied with a smile.

“...If you are sure.” Charles said before walking towards the circle.

“Wait a second.” The girl said, holding up a hand to stop him. “You need to remove your magic items. Otherwise they might affect the ritual.”

“Understood.” Charles said with a nod, bending down to one knee and pulling up a pant leg so that he could work at the magic item underneath.

“Magic training weights?” The girl gasped, seeming to recognize the bands for what they were at a glance. The girl slapped her forehead in an act of frustration. “Why did I ever think of that!?”

“Excuse me?”

“Ah! Sorry.” She apologized with a slight blush. “I’ve just been having the hardest time getting my [Strength Training] level up. Being so light, it limits the exercises you can do to help train it, you know?”

“Yes. I know what you mean.” Charles said, a smile of excitement spreading across his face. “I had a really hard time myself until my teacher got the training weights for me. I’ve been trying to convince him to let me have heavier ones, but he says that training with them will affect my sense of balance.”

“Is that so? I guess having the weight centered around those training weights would affect your momentum a lot.” The girl said, tapping her chin. Then her eyes widened. “So what you need is a full body suit for it. Something like a diving suit, enchanted to be heavier. Or rather than weight, you can use stiffens, making it more difficult to move. Full body resistance training!”

“Does such a thing exist?” Charles asked. He was pretty sure if a better method of training was out there, his teacher would have found it.

“Maybe, maybe not. But there is the ‘feather fall’ spell which increases air resistance in order to massively decrease terminal velocity for a time. If reapplied to a material through a mixture of [Material Enhancement Magic] and [Abjuration Magic] it should be able to work.” She said, her face scrunching up before she started mumbling what Charles recognized as spell words, occasionally shaking her head, as if discarding an idea, before starting over again.

“Uh…” Charles said awkwardly.

“Oh, sorry! I let myself get distracted!” The girl said, shaking herself from her daydream. “Just stand there and I will start the ritual.”

“Are you sure you are okay doing this by yourself?” Charles asked as he walked to the indicated spot.

“No need to worry. The ritual circle does most of the heavy liftings.” She assures him before starting the prayers.

As she spoke, the mana built stronger and stronger. It was so dense that even someone without [Mana Sense] could feel it, but so benevolent as to be harmless. Charles felt it moving into him, reaching into his core, making him feel lighter and more ‘himself’ than he had ever felt before. Then, he felt something within him awaken.

The mana stopped pushing into him as his own body began to sweat energy, the deep golden light coming from him gathering and condensive until it took on a form and life of its own.

A lion cub, nearly as big as Charles himself, got up from the floor and opened its jaws wide in a long yawn. 

(It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Charles.) The lion cub’s voice echoed within his mind. (Let us get strong together and make sure that no one can ever take what rightfully belongs to us.)

The cub had an arrogant spirit, and the message in what he said didn’t line up with the things that Charles had been taught, but the boy was too ecstatic to care. “Yes. Let’s.”

“Oh, he’s so cute.” The red haired girl said with a giggle. “Congratulations on your new Bond.”

“Thank you. And thank you for performing the ritual.” Charles said, giving a gentlemanly bow. 

(What does she mean cute? She meant cool or manly, right?) The lion said, a bit flustered by the girl’s words.

“Don’t forget to give him a name. That’s part of the ritual, remember?” The girl instructed Charles. “Do it quickly please. I have to keep feeding mana into the circle until you’ve picked and if I run out you’ll have to start over again.”

(Yes. Tell me, what shall be my name?) The lion cub asked. His tail swished so fast that it looked like there were three of them… actually, on closer inspection, there were three of them.

“Alright, I’ve got it. From now on, your name will be Leon.” Charles declared.

The mana around the lion cub condensed further, solidifying his existence within the world. (Leon. That is a good name!) The newly named Leon said with pride.

Well, it was certainly a better name than most. As 5 year olds are the ones asked to give a name on the spot, names like ‘Buggy’ or ‘Poop’ aren’t unheard of. And then the Bonds and their owners would have to live with the humiliation of the name for the rest of their lives.

“And we are done.” The girl said as she cut off the mana to the circle. “Now for my break.”

Charles watched for a moment as the girl stood up and walked off to the side before he turned around and went to retrieve his training weights. He took a moment to refasten them to his legs and arms before standing back up to go, when a thought occurred to him.

He hadn’t introduced himself to the girl. He didn’t even know her name.

Looking around, she spotted her sitting on the floor not far away, her legs crossed, her arms loosely in front of her and her eyes closed. Her shoulders were moving slowly up and down as she breathed in and out with long deliberate breaths. It was almost as if she was sleeping sitting up.

“What are you doing?” Charles asked, forgetting his original reason for coming up as he saw her odd behavior.

The girl’s eyes opened slightly. “I’m meditating. It helps me to rest my mind and body.” The girl replied.

“Meditating?” Charles repeated, not familiar with the practice. “Is it a type of magic?”

“Not at all. Meditating is just a practice of breathing and loosening up your body.” The girl replied with a small shake of the head. “You see, things like stress, excitement, fear, all emotions have both physical and mental symptoms. As you feel that emotion, your mind sends messages to various parts of your body telling it how to react to whatever stimulus you face, building up energy and stress within your body. In that way, your body reflects the state of your mind.”

Charles nodded his head. This was his first time hearing this, but it made sense to him. Emotions were mental, but they produced physical results.

“But your mind is also a part of your body, so there are things that you can do with your body in order to trick your mind into giving the response you’d like. Resting your body rests your mind.” The girl said, putting a hand to her stomach and taking in a deep breath before slowly exhaling it. “Meditation is a method for fooling the mind and body into believing that you are in a deep sleep state when you really aren’t. Do it properly, and it will help you relieve stress that has built up within your mind and body.”

“I see.” Charles said with a slight frown. So it was a way of resting more efficiently. He could definitely see the value in such a thing. “Can you show me how to do it?”

“Well… Sure. It isn’t complicated, but don’t you need to get back to your family?” The girl asked with a tilt of her head.

“...If my father ever found out that I gave up a chance to learn something new, he would definitely scold me.” Charles replied.

“Is that so? Then I’d be happy to show you how it's done.” The girl said with a nod of her head. “By the way, I’m Scarlet, Scarlet Wright.”

“I’m Charles Colestar de Dalhurst, and the pleasure is mine.” Charles said, finally introducing himself to Scarlet.

Scarlet Wright? The name didn’t sound familiar to him, but he still had yet to memorize the names of every noble family within their territory.

Perhaps he could ask his father about her. She was one of the few people his age who had seemed interesting to him. She must have trained really hard to be so good at magic already.

He would like it if they could be friends.

---