The rest of the year was fairly uneventful by comparison. I didn’t get to see Nadi once she was part of another creche, but I continued seeing my mothers and younger siblings while delivering meat from the tribesmen’s hunts, and continued guiding my younger brothers towards developing themselves to better survive their First Blood rituals, when they came of age.

  Daru continued my own training. Once he was satisfied with my [Blood Restoration], we began to work on [Blood Control], which I picked up quickly thanks to my practice controlling mana outside of my body through [Manakinesis]. Controlling my physical blood with Blood energy was a bit different, and if I lost a physical connection to it, my control would fail, but that was apparently common to even a very high skill level. It was possible to control it fully separate from the body, but it would likely take me years to master that, not unlike any other Uli. Perhaps it would take me fewer years than others, but it was nonetheless a long-term goal, not something to accomplish immediately.

  In the meantime, [Blood Control] opened the door to some other new skills.

  As Tovar, my skill focus had been largely on magic, most especially combat and utility magic. Outside of learning magic, I had trained with weapons. Both of these focuses were to increase my survivability in future lives, though neither magic nor weapon use had proven that helpful in this life beyond the base stats I had acquired along the way.

  Later in my life as Tovar, my time was spent managing my domain, raising my family, and then enjoying the fruits of all that labor. I was surrounded by people to keep my days interesting, and there was always something demanding my attention, even once I formally handed off management of Nialdan to the next generation.

  So I hadn’t really sat down to learn any kind of crafting. I could vaguely recall a host of DIY skills I had needed in my life on Earth, but that would have leveraged power tools and was more about construction and necessity than art.

  “Carve a bit deeper there,” Daru said, watching me as I held a small amount of blood in the form of a chisel to work the ivory. “You need to be delicate along stress fractures as to not chip off a section by accident, but if you’re that delicate here, you’ll be at it for days.”

  I took a steadying breath and tried again, following my father’s instruction. This was a small scrap piece that came from one of Daru’s bigger projects, but it was still valuable, and my fears about messing up and ruining the ivory were making it hard for me to make much progress.

  Bit by bit, the piece of ivory took shape, but soon I found Daru taking the material from me. “That’s enough for today,” he said, looking it over. “We’ll continue tomorrow.”

  I almost protested, but realized my hands were shaking slightly. It was a combination of frayed nerves from all the mental focus I had put into it—even with my high Brain stat, it was still stressful—plus fatigue on my Blood from the ongoing skill use. I could even feel the muscles in my shoulder and neck complaining, though that might have been from my own tension while carving more than the physical demands on my Brawn.

  While I never particularly considered myself an artist, I came to enjoy the technical challenge of trying to make what I envisioned a reality. Most of what Daru carved were primitive tools—blades, spoons, even stitching awls for tent production—and while they were works of art in their own right, they weren’t overly decorative. These were functional items first and foremost. Spending days of additional time to inlay the handle with intricate details was a waste of time for each and every item.

  But Daru clearly could invest that time and his skill into such things. Some of his own possessions were quite intricately carved. As I picked up the basics from Daru’s teachings, I began to get more ambitious with what I wanted to create. While ivory tools broke and thus had a limited lifespan, the idea of creating something tangible which could outlast me in this world was intriguing. Nialdan was that, in a way, but it was a whole system, and it could fail and disappear in the next human-demon war. Carved ivory could last thousands of years, maybe even tens of thousands, far into this world’s future.

  Soon enough, Daru was happy with my efforts, and I was working on tools of my own to contribute to the tribe.

  At some point while working on a piece, I felt something click into place. Surprised, I pulled up my System, and blinked a few times at the notification.

  “What?” I said aloud in disbelief,

  Daru looked over at me, frowning. “Is something the matter?”

  “I… got a carving skill,” I said, seeing no reason to hide it. Daru nodded.

  “Good, that means you’re making progress.”

  “You knew? Why didn’t you mention it was a skill?”

  “It will not help you on a hunt, or in a fight with another Uli. So what does it matter? It’s hardly an important skill. It merely tells me that you’re learning the craft.”

  It had been a long time since I had bothered thinking about the nature of skills. The Five Guardian Faith had people so tight-lipped about it that trying to investigate was fairly fruitless, though I had enough confidants later in my life that I was able to learn a bit about it. Mostly, those were other people like me, who were learning to be mages, so their skills mirrored mine.

  Through my whole life, and so far in this one, I had only gained skills that were about using the different kinds of “magic” in the world or skills that seemed to do with combat. At some point, I had just assumed those were the only skills.

  But of course that couldn’t be right. The Five Guardian Faith had people’s first skills guide their lives’ directions. Sure, for magic or soldiers that would share similar skills to mine, but what about the other people? Since there seemed to be tons of things that didn’t seem to give a skill at all, I had assumed they just didn’t have skills, and thus were free to choose an occupation, or follow in the footsteps of their parents, but perhaps I had been mistaken.

  Or maybe things were just different in this world. Perhaps sculptors in Argadia didn’t have a similar skill in that world. It was too late to find out.

  Meanwhile, for this life, if there were other things I could do to get skills, it gave me something else I could focus on other than just killing my fellow Uli for Blood. Not that I could entirely avoid that if I wanted to stay alive, but I was glad to have another System-driven skill I could focus on.

  * * *

  When a full year had passed since my own graduation from the creche, it was again time for the First Blood ritual for the next group of boys who had reached the age of maturity.

  Standing with the other adolescents, the boys who had fought through their own battles but were not yet tribesmen, I watched as half the new boys died, marking the other half as Bloodied.

  I clenched my fists in rage as my brother, Daru’s next eldest son after me, fell in his battle against a larger boy. Without the Brawn from a past life, even with training, Daru’s children were just smaller and weaker than the others at this age. This system selected for big and strong youth, and while there was potentially some room for the clever and crafty, ultimately these boys were too young and under-educated to reach a point where they could strategize their way out of a loss. Not that the First Blood ritual really allowed for that, anyway; they couldn’t bring in weapons or alter the arena, so there wasn’t much planning could do.

  The only hope was superior [Grappling], and while that was a viable way for a smaller kid to win against a larger one, there just wasn’t enough time to teach my siblings more than the basics. Not to mention the fact that I was hardly an expert myself, with my skill only at 2. I helped a few boys pick up the skill so far, but getting them superior enough to win against a bigger and stronger opponent required a lot more than I could teach.

  And so, more boys died to their stronger peers for the strength of the tribe, and another First Blood ritual came to an end. Being able to see it through this time only revealed more of the horror to me, and I got to see what was a “normal” amount of Blood Fever for a newly Bloodied boy, rather than my own extreme case. They did fall into a weakened state, but only a few fell unconscious, and it didn’t last all that long.

  Unfortunately, witnessing the First Blood ritual whipped many of my own peers into a bloodlust that resulted in a few challenges after what had grown to be a relatively quiet period in my life. I was again forced to fight and kill other Uli teenagers, growing stronger in the process. My Blood stat had been sitting comfortably at 9 for a while now, but with the new kills under my belt, it reached 11, then 14, then 17, then 21.

  Each higher-level kill was earning me slightly more Blood than the last, as the list of names on my body grew larger, with longer trails of secondary names. I was inching towards becoming a tribesman, myself. For better or for worse.

  * * *

  With the next round of boys dead or Bloodied, the next round of girls came into their first heat. I didn’t have as much to directly concern myself with this one, as I didn’t have a sister at that age this year, but again I found the camp rather overwhelming to be in as the younger boys began to peacock, amped up from the pheromones.

  At least most of the boys who had the Blood to challenge me were a bit wiser, now. Most of them avoided each other at this time of year, so they could face challenges with a clear head. I only faced one challenge, which took me to Blood 25.

  When the breeding season passed, and we gathered for the claiming, one of the tribesmen spoke up.

  “Has anyone seen Bora-il Aqil?” he asked. “He has not returned to my tent in several days, but there was no challenge.”

  “La-arin Mulu is missing as well,” another said.

  An examination was done on all the boys, but no one bore their names, so the camp was searched. It was a bit outside of camp that the blood was found, and a bit of the fur of the attackers.

  The mantises had returned, and this time, they had succeeded in their hunt.