I underestimated Meralda apparently as the very next day she set about making changes to the orphanage. With what money you ask? Why the fat nest egg Grelod had been stashing in her room of course. Turns out the shoddy conditions of the orphanage weren't from a lack of money but because the crone had been taking most of it for herself and leaving the bare minimum for the rest of us. It was a hefty five thousand and change gold. More than enough to give the place a serious upgrade.-
Better beds, blankets, pillows(gods bless pillows), small personal chests for everyone, new clothes, the drafty doors were replaced and the food saw an immediate improvement. Small things maybe but all together the orphanage was like a whole new place for us living here. The biggest change was that adoption was now actually on the table, for everyone but me that is. For two reasons in particular. The first was my age, the minimum age for adoption was set to five by Meralda. The second was that I refused it. I had JUST gotten rid of the biggest issue staying at the orphanage had so it was all positives now for me.-
Unless a Jarl or someone important from the game showed up to try and adopt me I firmly believed the orphanage was the best place for me to be. The level of freedom I had here was VASTLY superior to what I would likely have if I got adopted. Only if the benefits of trading my freedom away were better than staying would I change my mind. So far that simply hadn't been the case so I didn't even entertain the idea when people came a calling again.-
I was fairly certain Vex had told the guild about what I did as when I was in the market more than one thief had given me quiet looks of acknowledgement. It was probably quite a popular tale if I had to guess. Not quite legendary or anything but strange enough to leave an impression. After all the very idea that a three year old planned out an assassination was insane. It happened though and that stuck to people. Add on my well known in Riften and spreading through word of mouth elsewhere prodigy title and I was a curiosity to say the least.-
I spent the next two years after that quietly for the most part. I woke up, ate a bread breakfast, left the orphanage, went to the book shop and helped organize the books before reading freely. I'd then come back to the orphanage and go to sleep after eating dinner. It was boring I know but by no means a wasted effort as I'd gotten a few levels in a few skills from my studies. My status now looked like this.-
{Name: Alexan
Age: 5 years, 1 months, 21 days
Race: Nord/Altmer
Strength:5(average adult is 10)
Dexterity:4(average adult is 10)
Constitution:7(average adult is 10)
Inteligence:14(average adult is 10)
Spirit:23(average adult is 10)
Magicka: 240/240
Skills: English(mastered), Tamrielic(mastered), Dovahzul(27/100), Alchemy(23/100), Sneak(15/100), Speechcraft(45/100), Smithing(2/100), Enchantment(24/100) Mysticism(7/100)}
As it turned out understanding the written form of the dragon language was just barely worth about a quarter of the whole topic. The rest was likely the part involving it's magical side, shouting. I am confident in this because I could read and write the language out fluently but that skill doesn't budge an inch regardless of me writing whole essays in the language or not.-
My alchemy skill looked impressive but it really wasn't in reality as once again all it was was knowledge of ingredients and their uses as about a quarter of what makes up the skill. I had naturally picked up a tiny bit about being stealthy because of where I lived. Riften was home to the thieves guild and if you watch enough of those folks at work you pick up a thing or two. Never put it into practice though so the skill stayed low. -
Speechcraft was flat out acting. Something I had been doing since the day I got to this world. Acting went beyond merely deception however so only after learning how to manipulate others with talking and expressions had the skill crossed the quarter mark and I was pushing the halfway mark soon, it was my highest skill. Smithing was admittedly a new one as I had been watching Balimund who was one of the best smiths in the city at work. The other smiths had indoor forges so I couldn't watch them but his forge was outdoors due to it's special nature.-
It ran WAY hotter than normal apparently because, as you find out in the game, it consumes fire salts. These were the crystalline minerals that formed when an atronach, specifically the fire sort, was killed. They were alchemical ingredients used in ironically fire resistance, frost weakness, restore magicka and regenerate magicka potions. The last two sound the same but have key differences. Restore magicka flat out returns a set amount to you and that's it. Regenerate magicka however makes the rate you refill your pool naturally faster temporarily. Nifty stuff to say the least but pricey at one fifty to two hundred gold a portion.-
Then we have my more mystical pursuits. As it turns out enchantments weren't even REMOTELY as simple as the game made them out to be. Don't get me wrong the whole disenchant something to learn the enchantment style totally was a thing. It WASN'T however the be all end all of the skill though. For obvious reasons that style was limited heavily and lacked uniqueness. It was for beginners to put it bluntly. True enchantment started and ended with runes of power. These runes were chained together not in a dissimilar to coding manner to create different effects.-
I naturally had the free time to learn the entire encyclopedia of runes and what they did which got me that quarter mastery of the skill since it was just that important. In hindsight I had realized I was kinda specing into languages a lot at this stage, not that that was a bad thing mind you. Finally we had my only real magical skill that I had been poking tentatively for all of about a month. The skill was called Mysticism but really all I had been doing was messing about with my magicka in various ways. -
Pure magical energy manipulation, mana control, whatever you wanted to call it. I was trying to see what made it move, how it moved and what else it did earning me a seven level mastery in the skill. I hadn't actually tried learning any spells or anything yet so I barely counted this as actual magic. The status screen disagreed though so it was what it was.