Blacksmith vs. the System

"… And, that's the last thing you need to pay attention to while helping members of your group develop their skills," I continued explaining. "It's easy to push yourself too much and expand all your Health to improve your skill, but don't forget that, we're still in the dungeon, and we have enemies. Safety first," I added, which finished the long list of guidelines I wanted them to follow.

"Yes, sir," they responded in concert, and for a moment, I felt like I was back in the classroom, and hit by nostalgia. Amusingly, I had always hated teaching in the classroom, treating the education of the undergraduates similar to a necessary chore like paperwork.

It was amusing that what I treated as a chore could turn into a fond memory. Benefits of a literal apocalypse, I supposed.

Though, that nostalgic feeling was not an accident. What I had initially planned to be a twenty-minute long tutorial had turned into a three-hour-long monster orientation session similar to what I held for every batch of grad students.

Despite the reminiscence I had felt, I made sure to take multiple breaks, giving them time to discuss and recover, and I used the gap to check the first two floors. It was fun to teach again, but I didn't want to neglect security just because I was doing something comfortable.

And, to their credit, it looked like they learned what I was trying to teach better than a bunch of post-docs with over-exaggerated senses of their own importance in the world.

"Everything clear?" I asked. They said nothing, but I caught a few hesitant glares. "I'm not going to get angry if you missed something, or want some clarification," I said. "None of you are children, and I don't want to treat you as such."

Even with that guarantee, it took a while for one of them to raise a hand and ask a question. "How are we going to check people's Health?" he asked. "We don't have any skills to do that."

"Good question," I said. "You don't need to keep an accurate measure. Just roughly keep an eye on the impact, and occasionally remind them about the security." They looked surprised, but I had a feeling it was less about the answer, and more about the delivery.

One problematic thing regarding the prevalent Feudal perspective was that people didn't really appreciate questions from their 'lessers'. Though, once again, I wasn't sure how much I could blame I could put on the System, and how much of it generally fell onto our general human nature.

After all, I had seen many of my coworkers acting like they were insulted when asked questions. And, they were professors. Answering questions was an explicit part of their job descriptions.

That triggered a wave of question and answer, covering everything I had been speaking about during the last three hours. That was good news. It showed that they had listened. It was always a pleasant surprise to see students actually listen and learn, rather than sleeping in the class until the exam week before panicking about exam questions.

The Q&A session lasted equally long. "Then, let me ask a question of my own," I said. They tensed, which made me chuckle. "Don't worry. It's easy. How do you make those flowers bloom with such incredible colors?"

They looked at me, surprised. "What do you mean, sir? We just … do?"

"Yes, but what are the steps that you follow?" I asked. "Do you let the flower glow first before focusing on the color? Or, is there a way to combine the two?"

All of them looked at me, surprised. Well, not all of them, I corrected. Just most of them. "Sir?" Terry spoke. "It might be different for advanced combat skills, but that's not how Nurture works."

"Maybe there's a difference between an external skill and a class skill," I said. "Explain to me how you do it."

"I create an image and impose the changes I want. And, the skill handles the rest," he said, like talking about how to breathe.

"And, is this like this for all of you?" I asked. They shared hesitant glances. "I'm asking, because, for me, it's more like a numbered action list," I said.

"Mine is more similar to that," one of them admitted, then three others joined.

I paused for a moment, feeling shocked and annoyed at the equal measure. "S-sir," Terry spoke, hesitant. I noticed the others looked at me, looking tense.

"It's nothing you did," I said. "I just realized I had missed something fundamental. Let me think about it for a minute," I said as I stood up, and started walking.

Moving helped whenever I dealt with it.

After three years of trying to study the implications of the System, I realized that, not for once, had I asked any questions regarding how other people interacted with the System, assuming that it was the same way for all. For me, it was almost a step-by-step action list, one that I could modify as I wished.

I had just assumed that everyone worked the same way.

In a way, it reminded me of the time I had learned about aphantasia, which meant some people were utterly unable to imagine something visually. It was a condition that was about brain development, which meant people who belonged to that category couldn't picture anything visually.

Of course, just because it reminded me of aphantasia didn't mean that it was fundamental. Maybe it was just some kind of habit. And, there was a chance that it didn't affect anything. And, even if it did, the discovery was something beneficial.

No, I was annoyed, because after three years of trying to study the System, I hadn't even thought about questioning people about it.

Admittedly, the way people perceived the world was not something we questioned often, and even if we did, finding the right questions could be difficult. It was why, let alone complicated, abstract conditions like aphantasia, even simpler ones with actual life impact like color blindness or dyslexia could be challenging to discover.

However, it was a good lesson. Just because I had achieved some success in my solo research didn't mean it was the best way to develop.

I chuckled. Just yesterday, I was smugly explaining to Maria about the importance of cooperation for science and human development. And, today, an impromptu workshop that I had treated as a chore — an important chore, but a chore nonetheless — allowed me to make a major realization about the way we interacted with the System.

Admittedly, I had no evidence to believe that it would be important. Maybe, ultimately, it would be as trivial as aphantasia — at least, to my knowledge as a layman, as I was not a neuroscience expert — or maybe, it would prove to be fundamental.

But, regardless, it represented an avenue of research.

And, it was time for the first experiment.

"Alright, sorry for the interruption," I said as I returned. "Terry, you were telling me how to change the color of a flower," I said.

"Yes," he said, hesitant. Still, he went through his simplistic explanation again, while another one passed me a flower seed. I placed it on the ground, closed my eyes, and imagined how it would look once it grew.

A simple flower, with alternating white and black leaves.

[-4 Health]

It was a different feeling, as if I was trying to force a square peg through a round hole. Disorienting, but nowhere as disorienting as trying to quickly switch skills.

Or worse, trying to reverse Meditation.

When I opened my eyes, a flower of my exact specifications greeted me. I couldn't help but smile at my success.

"Very good sir," they congratulated me, but I could see that it was more about my position than the achievement. Not that I blamed them. It wasn't the fact that they could do better, but also they had seen me raising a small forest in one breath. Compared to that, a little multicolored flower was not exactly a great achievement.

I ignored them as I repeated the same experiment, but this time, imagining white leaves, with little black straight lines going across.

[-4 Health]

This time, the results weren't as impressive. The leaves were mostly white, but with most of the black straight lines had instead come out as gray blotches. However, the failure made me smile even more.

Was this the difference between me and the other blacksmiths when it came to modifying recipes and switching out steps? Maybe, maybe not… Either way, it was something to be followed up on later.

I thought about my team of pseudo-assistants, thinking about asking them to repeat the same test, maybe even repeat it for all two thousand. But, after a moment of deliberation, I decided against it. I was already asking them something outside of their comfort zone, and from experience, I knew that adding too many items to that list could backfire.

"Thank you, Terry. It was very helpful," I said, which made him smile. Positive reinforcement was a critical weapon for any educator. "Now, I think I have burdened you with enough extra tasks. Why don't I leave and let you go on ahead with them."

"Thank you, sir," they said as they stood up and dispersed.

I was happy to see them act more confidently in my presence. They were slowly stopping to act like they expected me to flip at them for the smallest mistake like an incompetent sergeant.

However, while that made me happy, my mind shifted back to my latest discovery the moment I left the camp, measuring the relative merits of the two approaches. The benefits of mine were clear. Without that systemic approach that dissected the System feedback into smaller steps, I could have never achieved what I did.

But, it was clear that their method had advantages as well. And, it was for me to find out how to maximize it for every skill.

As soon as I finished some of my ongoing projects…