Interrupting his thoughts about joining the Everheart Family, Maelis was going down the stairs that were right in front of Aiden, welcoming him.
"Aiden, you're here!" Maelis exclaimed, happy that he was finally here after she had prepared all night for his arrival.
She took care of everything, and it was all part of her plan; the two maids in front of the manor were her plan to show him that he could have one of those maids just by joining her family. She also asked for the highest-ranked members to come to the lobby at around 10 in the morning to impress him and to show him their equipment and wealth.
"Hey, now that I'm here what should are we doing? What did you want to show me?" Aiden asked, wanting to know more about what she had prepared for him.
"Well, what do you say that we start with a tour of this place? I'll show you our training grounds, storage room, sparring grounds, and many other things."
"Alright then, I'll follow you," Aiden said, as he indicated to her that he was going to follow right behind her.
The maids from the entrance also followed right behind them, making sure that Aiden had everything he needed.
As they were walking, Maelis started talking about the history of her family and how it formed.
"Well, I don't know if you have noticed, but most of the people that live here are actually elves. That's because the person who founded the family at the start was an elf, and he only recruited elves into the family, which caused a large number of elves to be part of this family."
"Are you a descendant of the one who created this family?" Aiden asked, curious about what she would say.
"Yes, I am. That's why I'm currently the matriarch of the family. But that's not the only reason. I'm also the strongest if we take into account all the members of the family," Maelis said, making sure that he knew she was the best in her family.
"Then, does your family have any type of specialty for techniques like the founding families?"
"Well, the technique we use is one for archers and long-ranges classes, which probably doesn't correspond to you since you bought a dagger for assassins yesterday. But don't worry about the technique we use, as it is not even a high-tier one and won't have much impact if you decide to join this family."
This was actually a lie. Practicing even the lowest-tier technique given to you is important and helps you develop yourself and get stronger faster.
Because a technique is stronger than a skill since it doesn't require any mana points to activate. Also, a technique has a wide range of abilities, so it is basically a combination of many skills which is why it makes it so strong, it also doesn't count in the limited skill slots.
"Are techniques not important? Because when you were talking about medium-level families and higher ranked ones, the main point you pointed out was the techniques they possessed and the difference in strength they had," Aiden said, doubting the information Maelis had just told him.
Hearing this question, Maelis knew she couldn't lie, but she still tried to hide some elements from him.
"I mean, they are important, but you would still be able to be strong even without one."
"Hmm... Sure, I guess." He responded.
He knew that she answered his question to make it seem like he didn't need a technique, but what she just said meant that not having one would decelerate his growth. Basically, having good techniques was better than having good skills.
After walking for some time, they finally arrived at the training grounds.
"Alright, here we are. This is the training ground. As you can see, members of the guild practice here every day to improve their skills," Maelis said as she showed the training ground to Aiden.
The training ground was quite big, and it wasn't anything like Aiden had expected. There seemed to be small challenges that focused on certain stats like agility, strength, dexterity, and other stats all around the training ground with a ranking written right beside it, which indicated who was the best at those challenges.
Seeing those challenges, Aiden decided to ask Maelis if he could try one.
"Can I try one of the challenges?"
"Of course, you can even try them all," Maelis answered, pleased that she was finally going to see the strength of Aiden, she was starting to get excited.
As he obtained the right to do the challenges, Aiden decided to do the trial that seemed to be a little parkour which interested him. The parkour seemed to be composed of five platforms that were each different from one another separated from each other which would force Aiden to jump from one another, also the ground under the platforms was riddled with little spikes that would surely hurt if he did fall.
Before doing it, he checked the rankings right beside it, and some names and times were written on it.
[Rankings - Parkour]
[1st: Emma Everheart (1:32)]
[2nd: Benjamin Everheart (1:43)]
[3rd: Matthew Walker (2:01)]
Looking at it, he noticed that the person who was first had quite the advantage over the second, and the second had an even bigger gap with the third.
He found it weird that Maelis wasn't on the rankings.
"Why are you not on here?"
"Well, the rankings for the challenges in the training grounds are reserved for awakeners that have not completed their fifth trial yet, which means I can't put my name up there," Maelis explained to Aiden.
"Oh, and I almost forgot, but when doing the challenges, all of your stats are limited to one; it was decided like this because we train our basics in those challenges."
Learning that his stats would be limited to one didn't affect much Aiden since he knew that his movement techniques were already much better than what others would use.
He was sure that would absolutely destroy the rankings placing first. If he didn't, it would be disappointing for Aiden since he takes pride in his movement.
[You are entering a zone with a stat restriction.]
[All of your stats are being limited to one.]