The gun skill group, though relatively new, has been surprisingly popular among at least the populace of Andrus.

  While its pioneer has not yet been found, nor have there been any attempts to find them so far. As all pioneers before them, it is suspected they will rise up with firearm in hand in only a short while.

  For now, this skill group hasn't shown any [Legendary] or [Epic] skills, but the amount of [Rare] skills born can be said to quite significant.

  The most common skill of this skill group is obviously a [Common] skill; .

  It hasn't shown any significant or special effects, as expected of its rarity. Though most of the [Rare] skills are mostly about the ammunition used by the firearms used, surprisingly. Examples being: , . Though there are more common types that seem similar to those of the bow skill group, like:

  , whose name was obviously given by an unrefined commoner, was about shooting at a long range.

  Its lack of aspected attacks and any sort of reason for its range have been theorized to hint at a skill akin to , though, of course that comes from 'Philosophers' that theorize about the existence of 'High archery' and other such skills, so I think it best to take their words with a side of suspicion.

  -Excerpt from 'Skill groups 20th edition', by 'Kall'

  "What the hell do you mean?! I'm not letting Andrew skin a rabbit alive! Are you insane?!" Andrew's mother, Dahlias, yelled.

  "It's the fastest way for him to get in touch with the life aspect!" The {Mad arcanist}, Lest von Balis, yelled back.

  But his reasoning was not sufficient for his opponent "Yea, it is. And there's also a reason why it isn't used!"

  "That's exactly why he needs to do it, it can give him a leg up on the competition!"

  "And you'd say that he needs to do it in order to not be left behind if everyone else did it!"

  "That is right, and I would be right in both scenarios!"

  "There's a limit to how much you can traumatize a child! He's already lost his arm you mad man!"

  "And he got through it with no problem! An extra dead runt won't do a thing to the boy!"

  "Enough!" She had had enough "I've had enough of listening to you talk about how traumatizing my son is fine because he'll get stronger, just a little bit faster."

  "A-AARHHHG!"

  Andrew, listening to the commotion from outside, found his teacher storming out of the house with heavy stomps. It seemed he wasn't the least bit pleased "We're going, right now."

  With a sigh he said, slowly calming down "Even if it isn't as efficient as I'd like, let's get you ."

  "Couldn't you just ignore what mom wants?" Andrew couldn't help but ask, standing up from the chair on the porch, honestly curious.

  "I could, I would like to. But sometimes, you don't do things even if you want to kid. Though I don't respect her, or her opinions, she is still your mother. And since she isn't harming you, I will still respect her role as your guardian," The old man explained, crossing his arms. Though his fists clenching on the rim of his clothes did not evade Andrew's sight "You'll understand in time, why."

  "Isn't she hurting my potential?" He reasoned.

  "Not enough for me to reasonably take away her authority over you, just wait 3 years. When you're an adult, I'll ignore her. Now, up and at 'em- Er, time to get going." Lest explained before walking off.

  Andrew followed behind, the two going at a brisk pace "So, what now?"

  "I'll give you a choice, either you train up to level 20 then practice up to level 10 before trying to force out life mana or you can start trying to get in tune and understand the life aspect in order to directly obtain ."

  Andrew took a moment to think, before asking "How long would they take?"

  "I don't know your affinities nor how talented you are, so I'm not sure. The former is better if you have a lot of talent for magic but not a good affinity for the life aspect, and the latter is better if you have a high affinity for the life aspect." He casually explained.

  Andrew pondered, letting his prefrontal cortex do its thing. Well, sort of ' would be such a pain... even more so...'

  "The latter, I pick the latter." He quickly gave his final answer.

  He couldn't help but pant as exhaustion took hold, his physique stat might've raised but it wasn't to the point of taking care of an entire acre of farmland with not even a single drop of sweat.

  While it wasn't even a tenth or a hundredth as intensive as when the crops were being planted and the soil was being tilled, it felt almost useless watering soil. He couldn't help but wonder how this would let him attune to the life aspect, he could understand why a women could more easily get in touch with it. They had a literal part of themselves that let them create and nurture life, going through that process would basically be a good ticket to getting access to it.

  Not that it was certain, it was but a ticket to it.

  Still, he was slightly jealous. Just slightly, men also had their own aspectual inclinations. Though that wasn't displayed in pure affinities, those were not different between genders, at least not to any noticeable degree... From what he had heard.

  All that Andrew was certain of was that he hoped he had a high affinity, otherwise he might have to work for multiple years. But if he had a high affinity, something like... 50-60%, he could get this over with in a mere week. Then he could be done with this road block and start preparing to get his hand back.

  Not having a hand was a pain, he had- Multiple times in a singular day- Tried to pick something up with the missing hand. And each time it happened, he had to bother bringing his right hand over.

  ...He really wanted it back, like, pronto. Right now, not a single second wasted because of not having it.

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  But it wasn't there when he looked back.

  Bit of a shame, but it was to be expected.

  "Hey, kiddo!" Hearing those very familiar words coming from behind him, he took a glance and noted the approaching arcanist along with the appearance of another. Someone both familiar and another a bit foreign to his... Social space.

  Thalos, one of the two guild leaders, wondered along with his close old friend and young little pet up to him.

  "So, this is him?" Thalos asked, just for confirmation.

  "Yes, let me introduce you to-" Lest quickly began, probably out of habit.

  "No, no," Thalos interrupted "I already met the kid, to think the twerp with was your protege."

  The old man paused for a moment "Oh, so you've already met... It's not implausible. Anyways, Andrew, say hello to your new tutor."

  Wait... New tutor?

  Thalos also seemed to have something to add "And your employer, don't forget that."

  "Yes, also your new employer."

  ...Andrew took a moment to think, and finally asked the most pressing question "Employer?"

  Thalos nodded, responding with only a few words "Your employer, you heard correctly."

  "For what?" Once again, the young mage stated his absolutely poignant question.

  But Thalos, being a public figure, answered it without pause "To take care of my girl, I actually thought she was a he but I don't think male wolves have an extra hole."

  Andrew did not know what that had to do with a pup being female, but at least he could grasp from his gestures that he meant the dog to his side. Or was that the wolf he was talking about? Andrew ascertained it to be a plausible deduction and he quickly queried "That's a wolf?"

  "A gale wolf pup to be specific," Thalos quickly confirmed "Her name is Von, I named her before I realized I misgendered her. Still, a really good name, and I will not tolerate any heresy."

  Andrew took a look at the wolf whelp, surprisingly, it was both a wolf and a monster at that. Thoughhe couldn't really understand why Thalos would take it in as a pet, him not being a {Tamer}, he did know that monsters were dangerous. He wouldn't say he really wanted to 'Take care' of a monster without a skill to help him "...Could I not?"

  "No."

  He looked towards his actual mentor:

  "No."

  Andrew hurriedly leaned to the side as a straight and somewhat thin stick primitively pruned of its branches slashed towards, taking multiple steps to the left as his lacking hand was not taken into account in the process. But his tutor did not give him any respite, his mistake leading to a stern strike to his cheek.

  But Thalos would not stop to give him time to regain his balance, casually twisting his wrist and pulling the stick backwards along with his hip before releasing it with a safe fraction of his full strength "Get it together."

  Andrew clenched his teeth slightly, once again backing away while finally realizing the full worth of a higher physique stat. He regained his bearings but found another strike coming for him just as his eyes refocused, and without thinking his right arm was pushed forwards in order to stop the rapidly descending danger with his hand.

  Though he was struck once more, the strike passing through an imaginary shield with not even the slightest bit of turbulence. And Andrew, future one-handed sword aficionado, once again realized that he was screwed.

  That was happening a lot more than he liked for the last quarter of a an hour.

  It was frustrating, Thalos wasn't using any special tricks or skills or anything that could be considered completely above him. There wasn't a single [Legendary] or even just [Uncommon] skill being used, just the passive enhancement of .

  He could easily see what the biggest problem was- Outside of not being familiar with fighting, his balance. Though a hand wasn't a lot of weight in comparison to his whole body, that portion of lost meat was still accounted for without a conscious thought from him. And the small discrepancies between what he should've done and what he had done by means of habits formed throughout most of his life, though usually inconsequential and automatically corrected, showed their drawbacks in full in such a situation.

  He once again stepped backwards in a successful attempt to halt any unfortunate descent, taking rapid breaths while feeling his entire body while staring at the stick that was pushed forwards to his chest.

  And once again, he pushed his right leg to the left as he twisted backwards through means of rough instinct. And once again, his evasion was relegated as moot because the opponent wasn't some fifth-rate merc, leading to the momentum of the piercing blow shifting to a horizontal strike.

  While he once again resisted a tumble, he made a large movement, forcing forwards his arms before then pulling them back. An unstable footing keeping him on edge as his hand an upper limbs forayed about, finally leading to some trouble, making Andrew almost topple.

  But he focused, for some reason not savagely interrupted in his constant near paranoid attempts not to fall over. His arms spun around as he tried to find a way to force himself forwards, too scared to raise a leg or anything else, but still desperate enough to arch his back forwards in a singular push.

  He looked around for a moment, checking what he was being told by his senses, and... He had gotten back to his feet!

  Andrew couldn't help but smile, it was just [Common], sure. But a new skill was a new skill!

  "I can't believe you didn't even have ," He heard Thalos state "Basically everyone in the capital has it, the skill is literally baked into almost every educational system throughout the continent. Even I have it, even if it's only in the single digits."

  Andrew though, was more focused on something implied in the scornful dialogue instead of the words themselves "How did you know?"

  "A skill, if that wasn't obvious."

  It was, in fact, obvious. Though Andrew didn't exactly know how to say that while not riling him up accidentally, so he said nothing instead.

  Taking his silence as an answer, Thalos continued "Don't worry twerp, I'll teach it to you in time. It's a good skill, but I really think you should at least have most of the fundamental skills in your status before you start with anything a bit more complicated. For now, you'll be getting to level 10."

  "Why level 10?"

  "Because 10 is a number I like, okay?"

  ...

  He quickly laughed over the silence "It's just a joke, don't take it too seriously. I want you to get it to level 10 because then the effect is large enough to make a difference in the lower end."

  "Lower end? Of what?" Once again, a term that he had never ever heard of, appeared. And Andrew was not one to like not knowing what a term meant.

  "The lower end of levels, at the higher end every single skill level counts due to the near inconsequential differences in stats."

  Andrew couldn't help but twist his face in confusion.

  "You don't have to understand it right now, okay. Just know that having high level skills is real important for when you finally reach level 40 or 50, if ever," Thalos said, obviously having noticed "But enough questions, I have to teach you something actually important."

  Thalos quickly cleared his throat "So, is more than just standing stably on two feet or getting back to that. Just like how isn't just swinging a sword to attack, its also using a sword to defend and the planning that occurs in a sword fight, along with a lot more. , is well, a sense of balance. Don't constrain your thoughts to desperately regain what was lost, but instead find the best way to obtain and hold on to it. I'll give you an example, just give me a bit to think."

  After a moment of silence, he nodded before continuing "Alright, so, just now you were about to fall over backwards."

  Thalos leaned backwards with both feet on the ground, somehow finding the exact spot where he was about to fall over. Even swaying his arms about just like Andrew had "This is basically a replication of what just happened, with an extra hand. But the same rules apply, currently my centre of mass is just on the edge of my 'Base of support'. If I were to lean just a bit further backwards my centre of mass, basically the centre of my weight- You'll start to feel it in time- Will go beyond that and I'll start to fall over.

  So, what you did was basically tugging your centre of mass back into your base. But that's slow and easily interruptible while also being unstable. It works, yes, but its not the best option." He stopped his arms, and slowly he started to lean further backwards, before completely losing his balance and falling backwards.

  But he twisted around, raising a single foot and turning with the other as the base, suddenly now with his face directed at the floor. Afterwards he used the raised leg to boost forwards, he hadn't fallen over but instead used the fall to quickly run.

  Though, with a single hop he directly stopped his momentum "As you could probably see, there are more than one way to regain balance. I could've also rolled, done a backflip or even continued to spin, draw my sword and slice back at an enemy if they pursued. Give it a try, practice is the best teacher, behind me. Practice is the second best, I'm the best tutor to ever breathe."

  Andrew, as suggested, leaned backwards and let the world pull him down. Before trying to turn around, and fell on his side because of it.

  "Don't worry, you're still young. You'll get better in time, but don't think our spar is done yet twerp. Get on your feet, I better see you getting soon."

  Andrew couldn't help but take a sharp breath in response.