Skill System and Awakening

In the world of Gloria, every person undergoes the temple's Awakening ceremony at age ten, where their skill is revealed. The skill largely determines the whole of one's later life: there are combat lines (swordsmen — from Sword Master to Holy Sword), skills of analysis and appraisal, scouting, healing, dark and elemental magic. A person has aptitude for only some skills, and one with none is deemed 'useless.'

There is also a special class of rare skills that are 'impossible to read or use' — the Church publicly declares their holders worthless. In reality, as the kings secretly know, such a skill can awaken and become extremely powerful. That is why the court kept the third princess Selena around just in case, and Alan with his Reversal is the extreme example of hidden potential.

Adventurers' strength is measured on a separate rank scale: Copper, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Mithril, Orichalcon. Rank affects available rewards, duties (from Silver up, forced mobilization), and social standing. Skills can be taken and appropriated (as Alan does with 'Skill Theft'), and through Reversal one can invert one's own aptitudes — which is the central 'mechanic' of the work.

The system's central secret is that an 'unreadable' skill is not a sentence but a dormant power. This secret is passed down only among kings, which explains why holders of such skills are both despised and secretly preserved. The story's main conflict rests on this contradiction.