“Happy birthday my dearest child!”

I couldn’t help but let out a giggle as I saw mother present the giant cake she had made for me.

Today marks the one year anniversary of my arrival into this World, which honestly passed by in a blink of an eye.

Mother continued to train me both physically, mentally and also magically, which was what made this past year fly by so fast I suppose.

In this one year, I’ve made great progress with my physical training, which I assume it’s thanks to my dragon heritage.

On the other hand, my magic wasn’t really seeing much progress. Or at least, to me it did not look like I had much progress.

The best I have done was to extend the range of sensing the mana from the Mana Crystals. Before, I had to be touching them first in order to manipulate them, but now I could move Mana Crystals that were left on the other end of the room too.

The reason why I said I don’t feel like much progress has been made is because all I’ve done with this is just moving them around.

Even though mother kept praising me every time I did it… She’s a little biassed so I can’t really take her praises at face value.

Like seriously, she’s already gushing and fawning over me for blowing out the single candle on my cake.

I thought her affections for me would mellow out in this one year but it feels like they only intensified instead.

Oh well, I don’t exactly hate it after all and knowing that she really does love me does soothe me quite a bit.

One good thing is that my mana has formed so I could actually learn magic now, something I was already looking forward to doing.

After I had my fill of that wonderful cake mother had made for me, the moment I had been waiting for finally arrived.

I thought I would receive it in the morning but I guess they take the time of my birth into account, which meant I only got the things I bought with the character creator some time in the evening.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I would know I received it, but the first thing I got was already quite obvious.

A translucent screen appeared in front of me while I was in the bath with mother.

[Happy birthday!]

[Boon obtained: Screened]

[Magic obtained: Umbramancy tier one]

Oh neat. I got a boon and a magic skill, the boon being one of the useful ones too.

[Screened] is basically similar to a game’s menu screen, thus the reason why I received these notification messages. [Umbramancy] is, as the name suggests, the power to control and manipulate darkness.

I had chosen most of my skills to start at tier one with the consideration that I would be learning them while growing up anyway so I could afford to spread out my specialties to learn more instead of just specialising into one.

With the choice of having these skills brought to me over the years, it will give me a whole year to learn the new skills before I get a new one. By then, I should be proficient enough in the previous skill to be able to learn efficiently while dealing with the new skill.

I know this would later snowball as I get more skills down the years but I did take some boons that should help me deal with this.

The fact that I got only boons in my first year is a blessing too, until I realised that most of my banes were in the ‘lewd’ category so I would only start receiving them when I turned eighteen.

Totally did not plan that, by the way.

Mother noticed my change and nudged me with her chin affectionately, “What happened, my little one?”

“Ah. I just learnt a new magic, Umbramancy.”

“Ara, ara?! As expected of my little one! Already learning your first magic as soon as your mana formed! Mama is so proud of you!”

I was thinking if I should tell her about the system and how I’m just receiving items I purchased in the character creation before I got here… But I decided future me could deal with it instead.

She could tell I was already aching to test my magic out so we quickly got out of the bath after drying and clothing me. Mother still remained unashamedly naked which I already got used to… Which was a little concerning now that I think about it.

At least my body’s still too young to react to the sight of it.

Putting that aside, we were now seated on our bed and mother was watching me expectantly, my own anticipation matching hers.

Because I bought this option in the character creator to start at this tier, knowledge of what this magic was was already present in my head, allowing me to know what I could do at this tier.

If I am right, this magic should help me hide in the shadows when starting out, so I tried imagining doing something that would hide my hand to start out first.

A system window popped up as soon as I tried to cast it as the magic I had envisioned.

[Shadow Wall]

Despite it being called a ‘wall’, a ball of darkness formed around my hand, hiding it from view.

I was expecting it to be something like a shadowy mist or sludge but the darkness looked pretty solid, as though I was holding a vantablack ball in my hand.

I suppose the ‘wall’ is that it blocks out light or something? It certainly is hiding my hand from view and in the darkness of the room, it may as well be invisible.

Almost immediately, my face was shoved in between mother’s bosoms as she hugged me excitedly.

“Ahhh! My dearest child! My little genius! Mama is so, so proud of you!!”

Honestly, this is all just given by the character creator so it’s not like I learnt it from scratch. But I know that from now on I would have to practice the skill diligently if I want to get stronger with it.

Right now, at tier one, the magic skill itself was still useful. I could hide myself in the darkness and snuff out light sources for me to sneak around, perfect for hunting.

What’s more, this magic also gives me the added bonus of being able to see in the dark, so night time hunts are viable now.

At higher tiers, I could also summon shadow minions to do my bidding. Who doesn’t want to have a summonable army at their beck and call?

Speaking of which, there’s the boon that I got too.

While it functions similar to a game’s menu screen, it is not exactly a system as it does not give out quests and neither does it let me manipulate my stats or even possess an inventory either.

Still, it has the functions of telling me another person’s name and skills as well as my own. It also doubles as a task organiser in the sense that I can use it to write notes which would be extremely valuable to me in collecting materials to write my book with, especially when I still do not have a journal to write with yet.

There is also a clock and calendar too, with the calendar also available to be used as a planner. Very, very useful for me to keep track of events.

Since my face is still buried in mother’s chest, I tried to see if I could summon up my own stats to see in my mind.

The image of a screen popped up in my mind and I immediately took a look at what was displayed.

<strong>[Name: Aster Nilm</strong>

<strong>Title: None</strong>

<strong>Race: Meslatar</strong>

<strong>Stats:</strong>

<strong>25 Strength</strong>

<strong>30 Dexterity</strong>

<strong>50 Endurance</strong>

<strong>50 Magic</strong>

<strong>Skills:</strong>

<strong>Hunting (Tier 1), Cooking (Tier 1), Martial Skill-(Dagger Proficiency (Tier 1))</strong>

<strong>Magic Skills:</strong>

<strong>Mana Management (Tier 1), Umbramancy (Tier 1)]</strong>

Aster Nilm huh? I guess that’s my full name. I also have the feeling that if I were to concentrate, I could pull up more or less information according to what I wanted to know.

Ok, pretty cool. I don’t really have anything to measure the numbers against so those numbers are pretty much arbitrary for now. In fact, I realised there’s a few missing stats like ‘intelligence’ or ‘wisdom’. Heck, even ‘charisma’ and ‘luck’ aren’t there either.

Then I was reminded this wasn’t exactly a system and those stats aren’t exactly quantifiable like the four above is.

As for the skills, I’m not surprised to have those three since I have been hunting and training with the dagger for quite a while but the cooking one was surprising. I’ve only cooked during that time mother wasn’t around and it was just really simple meals. I guess that counts?

For my magic, Mana Management was a surprise since I didn’t really think what I could do so far could even qualify as the first tier.

I won’t complain, of course.

That brings me to mother’s stats…

I tried to use the Screen on her while she was still busy gushing over me.

<strong>[Name: ??</strong>

<strong>Title: Mommy, Mama, Mother</strong>

<strong>Race: ??</strong>

<strong>?? Strength</strong>

<strong>?? Dexterity</strong>

<strong>?? Endurance</strong>

<strong>?? Magic</strong>

<strong>Skills:</strong>

<strong>??</strong>

<strong>Magic Skills:</strong>

<strong>??]</strong>

I stared at the screen for a while, frowning slightly.

Either I was too weak to see mother’s stats or she was strong enough to hide her own stats from this Screen of mine, both of which are quite frightening prospects.

Just who really is mother?

Oh well, I’m already looking forward to trying out my new skills tomorrow!