Chapter 24 - The Grumpy Boy (1/2)
A couple of hours later, the typical alarm clock named Cinyah roused the boys from their land of slumber. Unfortunately, while Brance had seemingly gotten a good night's rest after the events several hours prior, the dark bags under Cynrik's eyes signified that he didn't.
Instead of jumping out of bed like he regularly did, still slumped in the depression caused by his bankruptcy in the RWT, Cynrik just pulled his blanket over his head and faced the wall.
Taking notice of his older brother's unusual act, Brance couldn't help but be slightly curious. But Cinyah's abrupt appearance in their room for good morning kisses, he couldn't be bothered with his brother's mood and greeted his mother with a smile.
Scooping up her youngest, Cinyah spun him around while planting kisses on his forehead and cheeks. ”Good morning, my baby. Did you sleep well?” she cheerfully asked before placing him back on his bed.
”Mhm, I had a good dream too, Mommy,” hearing Brance's loving greeting made Cinyah's smile nearly reach her eyes. ”I'm glad; go wash your face and head to the table before breakfast gets cold while I deal with this grumpy boy,” diverting her attention from Brance, her line of sight fell on the bundle of blankets piled against the wall.
”Yes'm” as much as Brance wanted to witness what was about to happen, he felt it was too troublesome and thus ran off to the bathroom to wash his face.
”Now, now, my little Cyn, what's wrong? You're normally so chipper in the morning,” Cinyah didn't pull the blanket off her oldest child and instead opted to sit on the bed beside the ball of blankets, causing several grumbles to emerge from the blanket pile.
Giving a slight giggle at this, she placed her palm approximately where Cynriks head should be. ”I'm sorry, darling, I don't speak grumpy; you'll need to use your big boy words.”
Knowing full well he was worrying her, Cynrik decided to pull one of his multiple stored answerless questions that had been bouncing around his noggin as of late. This one, in particular, he wasn't able to get any information about due to his lack of clearance online. While anyone could access the internet with their Watcets, both Cynrik and Brance had unbreakable parental controls that blocked them from getting any solid answers online.
Peaking his head out from the blanket shielding his body, he casually dropped his question onto Cinyah. ”Mom, why haven't I gotten any skills related to my Fire yet,” hearing this, Cinyah's doting expression quickly changed to a curious one.
”Well, my darling boy, that's because you haven't raised your Proficiency high enough yet. Once you reach a certain percentage, you'll naturally unlock these skills,” her answer only made Cynrik come up with several questions and seeing her child becoming confused and disheartened, she delved further.
”Let's put it like this,” Cinyah brought up her hand, and a small ball of fire burst to life and danced in her palm. ”Unlike Skills, Affinity relies heavily on how well you handle it; this is what we call Proficiency.”
”How much you use your Affinity and how well you use it will slowly increase this special Stat. If you want to get more skills, you have to raise your proficiency stat. For example, like Mommy is showing you, the first thing someone can do with their Fire Affinity is a simple and small fireball.”
Cinyah slowly began injecting more mana into the flame, causing it to grow at a visible rate until it was the size of a basketball.
”As your Proficiency number gets bigger, so does your control over your element, until soon you can do things like this,” shooting Cynrik a gentile smile, she closed her hand on the medium-sized fireball, and it straightened out, taking the form of a sword.