A mysterious calling

"Nova, you done with the chopping?" A middle-aged man with smooth brown hair and a fabulous brown beard, wiped the sweat accumulated on his forehead as he cast his gaze towards a young man a few metres away from him.

The lad named Nova chopped up wooden logs into fine pieces with the help of an axe. Upon hearing the question, a small smile appeared on his face.

"Yes uncle Zeref, I am done." He put down the axe and used his forearm to wipe his sweat covered face.

"Good, rest up and we leave in five minutes." Zeref took in a deep breath of fresh air and sat down on the grassy ground.

Nova nodded his head Indiscernibly as he walked up to a nearby tree and sat down with his back resting on the trunk.

He closed his eyes and calmed down his ragged breathing. He had been working for 4 hours straight, it was not unnatural for a 19 year old guy like him to be pushed to his limits.

'Finally over. My body aches so much...' Nova complained inwardly. He gently massaged his calves with his rough hands, trying to ease the muscle tention.

After a minute or two, he ceased all these actions and stared into afternoon sky.

The sun was still shining but the intensity had diminished. The sky had a slight orange hue, signalling the coming of dusk.

Looking at the sky with his deep black eyes, Nova suddenly smiled as if a beautiful thought had surfaced in his mind.

He looked down and as if recalling something, he intently looked blanky at the space before him.

Soon, like a spell had been cast, a few runes materialised in the air infront of Nova's very eyes.

The blue runes, in just a second unfolded like a flower and transformed into a wide sheet of information.

Not surprised one bit, as if expecting such an outcome, Nova carefully inspected the sheet of information.

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-Name: Nova

-Race: Human

-Calling: [Attendent of stars]

-Grade: 1st stage

-Fragments: 98/100

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Blessings:

-None-

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This screen was no stranger to the residents of the Dimm world. All were familiar with the concept of "Callings" and "Revelations".

Some chosen people after they reached a certain age would receive "Revelations". The strangely scribbled runic information sheets —that reveal the information about the "Calling" of each person— were given the name of "Revelations".

The people who received "Revelations" came to be known as the "Blessed". The primary reasoning behind this was because people believed that these revelations were from a higher power, more suitably known as "God".

All blessed had "Callings" or more specifically jobs. Like all people who did jobs and earned money, in a similar way, the more one adhered to their "Calling", they would receive rewards. Growing stronger and gaining "Blessings" as they receive a raise in their grade.

Nova had unexpectedly received a "Revelation" a month ago. He was flabbergasted at first and incredibly happy later.

However, as he observed the information on the "Revelation" more and more, a seed of confusion slowly sprouted in his heart.

Even though receiving a "Calling" was an incredibly rare scenario and anyone who became a blessed was considered extremely lucky, Nova remained a little apprehensive of his "Calling".

The reason for this was because, Nova found this "Calling" extremely strange.

Firstly, whenever someone received a "Revelation" and with it a "Calling", information about how to perform in accordance to the said "Calling" would be present.

The problem with Nova's "Calling" was that, it did not have any information with it. So, Nova had no idea how to act according to his "Calling".

His only option was to infer the corresponding knowledge from his "Blessings" as they were based on the type of "Calling" one received. For example, a "Calling" of "Farming" would have "Blessings" related to farming.

However, this was another problem for Nova, as he had not received any "Blessings" with the "Calling".

He could only wait till his grade increased to gain a "Blessing". But for that, he had to progress and to do that, he had to know the principle of his "Calling".

This posed a very big problem, it was a loop of complications which resulted in Nova being stuck at the same grade.

Just thinking of the past, Nova couldn't help but sigh.

It was because of this issue that he had hidden that fact that he had received a "Revelation".

After-all, only the "Blessed" could see their own "Revelations".

Apart from the "Revelation" sheet, Nova had no other speciality to push his new status as a "Blessed" into light. All he could do was to wait patiently and experiment, hoping to slowly make some progress.

'Hehe, after that experiment, I finally figured out some part of how to make progress with my strange Calling.' Nova didn't look disheartened as he had already figured out a little way to increase his grade.

He had already managed to increase his progress towards the "2nd stage" significantly by this secret method.

After he got his first "Blessing", he would then quickly figure out the rest and this goal of his was only 2 fragments away.

As for what the method to progress was, it was a little strange and scary.

This past week, in his experimentation, Nova had killed off a few bugs— like ants and beetles— however, no change had occurred in his progression.

Only when he had killed a slightly old looking beetle did Nova gain 5 fragments, signalling that he had acted according to his "Calling".

This gain in fragments left Nova a little speechless. He re-created the experiment many times, however the progress only increased when he killed older insects.

But, even this was not fixed. After killing older insects, the fragment numbers did not always show an increase. Only 4 out of 10 times of killing old insects did the progression show change. Reset of the times, the numbers were static.

This had given Nova the idea that killing was the path to progress. This made him a little worried, because he was not sure if he would have to kill elderly humans in the future just to see some progress.

But, Nova quickly disbanded the idea, after-all, if killing was his "Calling" it would have just been that, not "Attendent of Stars".

This irregular increase in progress gave him an impression that his "Calling" was something entirely different, killing might be an aspect to it, but not its main principle.

Only when he received his first "Blessing" would he finally understand what this "Calling" actually was.