Saint

about 500 kilometres to the south of the capital of the Laurence Kingdom in the holy city of Alime, a nun was silently praying, diligently offering up her gratitude to the gods. Surrounded by nature with a stone altar packed with offerings in front of her, the nun wore unassuming black clothes and a black veil with white lining, on her chest she wore an emblem of the church, one of the major multinational religious organisations which worshipped the gods which had gifted mortals [skills] and magic.

The nun had been silently praying since sunrise, clearly evident by the buildup of morning dew which had evaporated in the early noon sunlight as she prayed to the goddess of the sun. If this had been any other normal day, the nun would have continued praying in this matter for a few more hours.

But then something strange happened, she received an oracle.

[A NEW SAINT HAS APPEARED AT THE LAURANCE MAGE ACADEMY.]

Opening her eyes in shock, her orange pupils shone as mana circulated throughout her body due to the surprise of receiving an oracle. Rushing from her position of prayer to a nearby notebook, the nun hurriedly scribbled down the oracle she received along with a sketch of the new saint as her hands shook with sheer exhilaration before confusion overtook.

"A new saint? Why was something that important told to the lowly me?... Ah, I need to report this to the bishop!"

Remembering her duties, the nun left her site of prayer as she rushed to find a bishop who held the minimal amount of authority to deal with something as important as a new saint. Running past her fellow nuns and even a few monks, the nun caused quite a stir in the otherwise quiet and serene mountainside cathedral that had been her home for the entirety of her life. Making her way to the administrative part of the cathedral complex, the nun stopped outside a reinforced heavy wooden door, the nun fixed her veil and hid the few locks of long red hair which had come loose as she ran while calming down her breathing. Knocking a single time on the door once she had made herself presentable, the knock was quickly answered by the sound of an older man on the other side.

"Enter."

Having received permission to enter, the nun rushed into the office, ignoring most of the norms of politeness and respect she went directly up to the bishop's desk and slammed her hand's down on his table which was filled with documents.

"I've received an oracle, a new saint has appeared!"

"What!?"

Initially, no more than just slightly annoyed at the nun's rudeness, the bishop quickly took part in her level of excitement.

"He's a student at the Laurance mage academy, I know how he looks too."

"... We're leaving right away."

While the nun had some idea of the importance of the news she had just brought, she didn't realize just how important it was, making her confused at the bishop's immediate words.

"Your holiness?"

"Since you can identify the new saint you're coming with me, sister Rachel, we're leaving this cathedral in 15 minutes using a griffon, pack whatever you need in that time."

"Eeeh!?"

-

"Arg!-"

With a groan of pain, Tom forced his eyes open before attempting to figure out what kind of condition his body was in.

Clearly, he wasn't doing that great.

"Tom!? Are you okay?"

Alerted to the fact that he had woken up, Elizabeth of all people rushed to his side, her face was clearly reddened from crying and was fraught with worry.

As for why this woman was behaving so radically different all of a sudden Tom had no idea, and it would have to wait as there were more pressing issues at this point.

"What the hell happened?... Did I kill that thing?"

While Tom had regained consciousness, his memory was still hazy. The last thing Tom remembered was him putting his all into one final attack after his left arm had been messed up considerably, he had no idea if that plan even worked out in the end or if some of the instructors managed to break into the cage made out of lighting and rescue him.

"Yes, you killed it, after that you passed out and the instructors carried you here and had you healed up. Why did a monster like that suddenly appear?"

"... I have no idea. Could you leave me alone for a minute?"

While Tom vaguely started to remember the strange voice inside his head, he wasn't about to go into details of that with someone he really didn't trust.

For now, Tom needed to confirm his current [status], then talk with Lizzy to figure out what had happened.

"... Okay, just please don't push yourself too hard, that healer worked really hard to patch you up. I'll be just outside if you need anything."

With a somewhat conflicted look on her face, Elizabeth got up and left, leaving Tom alone in the infirmary ward.

"... [Status]."

Tom Laplace

Title: [Saint]

Race: Human

Age: 19

Vitality: 31/192

Strength: 21/66

Dexterity: 53/129

Agility: 33/55

Intelligence: 165/165

Luck: 18

Mana: 25/25.921 (UP)

Skills:

[Cooking 4/10] [Housework 4/10] [Memorization 2/10] [Pain resistance 4/10] [Etiquette 1/10] [Mana control 3/10] [Fine motor control 3/10] [Strengthening 5/10] (UP) [Combat awareness 3/10] [Sense potential 10/10] (New) [Saint 1/3] (New)

Conditions:

[Mana sickness -/-]

Magic affinity: [ ]

(What the fuck is all this?...)

Putting what seemed to be the primary issue aside for the moment, Tom noticed that his mana pool had grown again, but it didn't seem to be recovering like normal. This was most likely due to whatever [mana sickness] was, but as Tom focused on that part of his status something strange happened.

[MANA SICKNESS, CAPS TARGETS MANA REGENERATION AT 25: THE RESULT OF OVERWORKING ONE'S MANA CIRCUIT, CAN ONLY BE CURED BY REST.]

"... What the fuck?"

As knowledge of [mana sickness] flowed into Tom's head, he realized something fundamental had changed.

(Let's see, what about [saint] then?)

[SAINT, PROOF OF RECOGNITION BY THE GODDESS OF FATE. BESTOWS ADDITIONAL SKILLS ON HOLDER AND ALLOWS HOLDER TO EXAMINE STATUS OF HOLDER AND OTHER PEOPLE.]

As the information on what it meant to be a [saint] flowed into Tom's head he suddenly started to feel dizzy, this would drastically change Tom's life from this point.

(... Wait I can look at others at the [status] of other fucking people too?)

Once more examining his new [skill], Tom confirmed that it did indeed say that he could examine the [status] of other people too.

(Then what about [sense potential]? And why the hell is that skill maxed out the moment I get it?)

[SENSE POTENTIAL, DETECTS A TARGET'S POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH AND POWER. BESTOWED BY THE GODDESS OF WAR.]

(The goddess of war? So I have the attention of at least two gods. Is that supposed to be a good or a bad thing?...)

Although Tom had initially planned to use his new skill on his magic affinity, the information he had just obtained proved to be too much for Tom to handle already.

At some point after that, Tom fell asleep again, the next thing he knew it was in the middle of the night.

"Good morning kiddo."

Breathing out a large huff of smoke from her window seat, Lizzy seemed relieved that Tom had finally woken up.

Not that she would ever admit that, of course.

"Want some food kiddo? I got some stuff from the cafeteria before they closed down for the night."

"Sure."

Getting out of bed, Tom found his body wrapped in bandages while he was barely able to use his left arm.

"It seems I've become a saint."

After getting as much food down as he could, Tom told Lizzy what had happened. Although Tom had expected this to be a surprise to Lizzy, she was hardly even surprised by those words.

"As I figured. That dragon you killed was a trail, passing that made you a saint. For what reason I have no idea though, it's almost impossible to predict what the gods want with us mortals."

Lighting a fresh cigarette, Lizzy took a large huff from it before continuing.

"Life is going to get even more difficult for you from now on kiddo."

"I can imagine, but let's focus on that later. Did the corpse of that dragon stick around after I killed it or did it disappear?"

"It stuck around, why?"

Sensing Tom was about to say something outrageous, Lizzy leaned back slightly in her seat as she took another puff of her cigarette, breathing out a large puff of smoke filled with ice crystals.

"Because I killed it, and we made an agreement that I get to keep the things I kill."

"... You can't be serious."

With the massive smile covering Lizzy's face betrayed her words, she was now convinced.

Her favourite disciple was a monster, in the best meaning of that word too.

(My initial hunch was correct, this kid is going places… And I will push him all the distance he needs.)

"I am, shouldn't the entire corpse of a ground dragon and its core cover the expenses of admission to this academy and the detachment from my family?"

"It should make a decent-sized dent in it, yeah, but I wouldn't be worried about your family at the moment, I would be more worried about the church."

"Why? Because I can read people's [status] now?"

Having figured it was a normal part of being a [saint], Tom's casual attempt at a rebuttal made Lizzy visibly flinch.

"Excuse me?"

Realizing that it was far from normally judging by Lizzy's reaction, Tom was suddenly very happy he had told her first, since telling someone like the principal might just get him kicked out of the academy.

Or even straight-up arrested.

"... Do me a favour and keep that between just the two of us, I don't want to be thrown into jail."

"Sure, but how does it work? Can you just look at people to read their [status] or?"

Being asked how it all worked made Tom wonder the same, but the moment he did, information about how to read other people's [status] flowed into his head.

"... It seems I need to touch them to read their [status], but otherwise it should just be like reading my own."

"Why does it sound like you just found that out?"

Proving to be needlessly sharp at the worst moments, Lizzy started getting slightly suspicious of Tom. Not that Lizzy needed to suspicious of Tom of course, he was far too stupid to ever pose a threat.

"Because I just learned about it, I can also examine [skill]'s to learn about them."

(That's not something you should just tell me…)

Breathing a deep sigh at her disciple's cluelessness, Lizzy took another huff from her cigarette before reprimanding said clueless disciple of her's.

"You know it isn't a good idea to just tell people stuff like this, right? [Skill]'s are personal and revealing your own abilities and weaknesses is not a good idea."

"Sure, but it is not like I would have ever made it this far without your support. Even if I don't know your intentions I thrust you, Lizzy."

Aware that he was surprisingly naive, Tom nevertheless spoke honestly. If Lizzy hadn't taken an interest in training him, Tom wouldn't have made it this far.

"Seems like you got your energy back alright, but injured kids should still sleep."

With a surprisingly tired look on her face, Lizzy got up and left all of a sudden.

(Seems that was a bit too much honest praise for Lizzy to handle… I should get some rest.)

Finishing up his meal, Tom got back into bed as drowsiness slowly overtook him, but not before curiosity won him over.

(Lizzy said that all people are born with a magic affinity, and if that affinity isn't visible it is because there exists no word or concept to describe it in the person's language… But that shouldn't be the case now that I am a saint.)

Tom's apparent lack of a magic affinity had been detrimental to his whole life, first forcing him to give up on following in his mother's footsteps and being a major source of ostrication once he arrived at the mage academy. Now that Tom had become a [saint], there was a chance he could finally read his own magic aptitude.

In short, there was no way he was going to sleep before he tried to examine his aptitude. With a slight amount of hopeful optimism, Tom sat up halfway in the infirmary bed as he spoke out.

"[Status]."

Tom Laplace

Title: [Saint]

Race: Human

Age: 19

Vitality: 33/192

Strength: 21/66

Dexterity: 66/129

Agility: 35/55

Intelligence: 165/165

Luck: 18

Mana: 25/25.921 (UP)

Skills:

[Cooking 4/10] [Housework 4/10] [Memorization 2/10] [Pain resistance 4/10] [Etiquette 1/10] [Mana control 3/10] [Fine motor control 3/10] [Strengthening 5/10] (UP) [Combat awareness 3/10] [Sense potential 10/10] (New) [Saint 1/3] (New)

Conditions:

[Mana sickness -/-]

Magic affinity: [ ]

"It really has changed… What is my magic affinity?"

Asking the question which had been bothering him for most of his life out loud, Tom didn't expect to get a response.

"... Of course that didn't-"

Suddenly a wealth of information started flowing into his head, but this was unlike anything he had experienced before, there was simply too much information for him to process.

"Arg!-"

Immediately suffering a migraine unlike anything he had ever experienced in his entire life, Tom clutched his head for a few moments before he passed out.