Slithering through dreams (Snake Isekai ?)

Skill growth -  It happens to all adventurers at some point. You join the guild with your best friend, form a party, go on the same quests, and somehow she grows her magic aptitude faster than you! Goes up in ranks, eventually dismantling your party (“because they are worried for your safety!”) only to join the party of your crush! But no, it’s totally platonic and professional! And then a year later you get a wedding invitation in the mail! Yes! Everyone experiences this! 

So, at that point you might be asking yourself, what happened! Why, even though you practiced more you ended up falling behind?

Well, we are not all created equal. If you are a mage, some types of mana might be easier for you to manipulate. If you want to use body strengthening, your body might conduct some elements better than the others. This is also true of physical skills, not everyone can be tall and muscular. 

But those are the things that most people with advanced training skills can recognise (the Guild does provide services of trustworthy, totally not underpaid trainers, for competitive prices! feel free to go to the nearest branch, and get a free training session with a promo code MARIKA. Remember the code, MA-RI-KA! Actually ,write it down now!), and as such can be easily worked around

But there are things apart from that, more related to the mind. For whatever reason some just “understand” certain movements, properties or elements better. Many famous spells are results of this conflict between users aptitudes and the substance they “get” the best, like Fire wave - an application of Archmages Furbelly aptitude towards fire element, with his instinctive understanding of the sea, formed from living on a ship for most of his childhood.

Age is also important. It is well known that many species have times in their lives when they are best at learning languages, or basic mana manipulation. Similarly, there appears to be periods of time, alter in life, when some more advanced skills flourish the most (for example, many nature magic practitioners advance significantly in their skills after becoming parents)

Finally, there is Influx. Influx is a rare phenomena that tends to happen when a user is in a state of prolonged skill usage, especially in a life and death situation. A warrior in the middle of a war zone, will have their physical skills increase greatly, so will a sailor during a hurricane, or guild assistant during morning new job postings. What many forget to mention, is that the change is not always positive. Skills might go up only for a moment, causing a one-in-a-lifetime show of brilliance, only to then fall below what they were before the event. In other words- Influx is a state during which skills levels can greatly change.

[Editor's note: Please get someone to rewrite this when we get less busy, and scold that foolish clerk!]

White Anglersquid - An S rank monster. Nothing is known of its origins, nor what it evolves from. We only know that they come from the darkest, deepest regions of the ocean. 

They look like a mix between a fish and an octopus (even though they are called squids). They have a powerful Jaw, located where the top of the octopus head is, with sharp teeth. It’s real power comes from its crushing strength, capable of smashing even a Bixis shell. 

They nearly never venture towards more civilised parts of the oceans, but when they go out to hunt, they are a catastrophe. Without any malice (or apparently any emotions at all) they eat as much as they weigh (which is more than a medium dragon), after which they catch even more creatures, then attach them to their body, by “melting” them in, only to digest them later. Some loremasters believe they can gain some of the skills possessed by creatures assimilated this way, but more research is needed.

They tend to target only mana rich species, so if you find yourself in their proximity, best luck, and try to use any magic hiding skills and abilities you might have, and you might be left alone.

Soul magic- Detailed explanation is only accessible to adventurers with special permissions. If you encounter anyone using or talking about using Soul magic, please report them to local authorities. If you meet a monster that seems to use soul magic, run away, and report them to the guild.

If the guide has detected you reading this entry, you have been registered. Please do not run away, do not fight, and calmly come to the nearest librarian, so that you might be brought for questioning. 

Do not run, it’s futile, there are multiple trackers on you now. I repeat, Do not fight, do not resist. You are only hurting your case.