The rhythmic sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoed in the night air. Two taut and toned bodies moved in a blur of motion. Rapturous smiles spoke volumes about the enjoyment of their movements. Harder, faster, each becoming more aggressive, they were like two synchronized well-oiled machines.

“Are you ready for me, Scarlet?” Scott panted heavily. Steam radiated from his naked torso as a gift to the cool night air. His body ached from the hard pounding that he had unleashed. Every muscle in his body had reached exhaustion after feverishly going at it with the dragon girl for over an hour.

Scarlet’s body gleamed as the light of the nearby campfire illuminated her nearly imperceptible scales. She looked like a star that had stepped down from the heavens. “Give me all you’ve got, Master.”

He immediately launched another open palm strike toward his pet dragon. The winged girl slid to the side and completely avoided the attack. Their level difference was too great for him to have any chance of hitting her unless she allowed him to do so.

Scott leapt to the right and struck out sideways with his elbow in an attempt to tag her chest. Once again he missed completely. Every day since arriving in the town of Ervice they had completed random work tasks and minor quests in order to gain a little EXP and earn enough money to live on. At night they trained.

Raising his level was much more difficult in Alterra proper. He’d lost all of the progress that he had gained during the tutorial and was forced to start from level one once more. The blessing that he had received from the goddess Seductia had allowed him to regain some of his stats, but the loss of skills and experience levels was problematic.

The feeble human launched a series of rapid strikes that each missed his target by a tiny amount. Scott would have been frustrated if they were in a real fight, but this was the type of training that he needed to undertake in order to raise his stats.

Scott pushed it up a notched by releasing a series of rapid kicks, but Scarlet took the opportunity to drop down and sweep his leg during one of his less skillful attacks. He was knocked to the ground, hard, and remained there stunned for a moment.

“Remember, defense is important too. You are leaving yourself wide open when you kick.”

When the stun effect ended he stood up and brushed himself off. “Right, low-kicks only right now.”

She smiled at him and they continued his training. He had to retrain his unarmed combat skills from the ground up due to the skill loss he had suffered. Training with Scarlet increased his skills much faster than hitting the bag would have allowed. Unlike the tutorial he could not just hit a bag a few thousand times and become an unarmed novice.

He lashed out with a series of low-kicks followed by intermittent punches. His attack pattern was tighter and more efficient this time, but he still had no hope of hitting the girl unless she allowed it.

After another hour passed they stopped training and sat down to eat dinner. Scott had brought along ham sandwiches and some fruit. It was not a fancy meal, but simple food was best during a training session.

“You’re improving.” Scarlet lifted a bottle of water and drank deeply. She was not tired in the least, but it had been a while since she’d had something to drink.

Scott smiled at her then sighed gently. “Thank you, but we both know that I am not getting much stronger.”

“It takes time. You’re also mastering unarmed combat instead of a weapon. The takes even longer since you need to have a much more powerful body condition to be the equal of someone who wields a sword or a gun.”

“Yeah, I should have learned sword skills or something during the tutorial. Now I can’t learn anything else effectively unless I find an appropriate weapon master or a training manual.”

The dragon girl waved his complaint away then said, “Unarmed combat is fine. I use it myself, you know.”

“Yeah, but you’re a dragon. You have a durability modifier that has made your body as tough as steel from the day you were born.”

She lifted her chin then acquired a superior expression, “Worship me, peasant!”

Scott laughed for the first time that evening. Scarlet joined him in his laugh. The mood had lifted considerably.

Monsters were fundamentally different than humans. They had natural ability modifiers that allowed them to be as strong and durable as a human wearing armor or wielding a weapon. Of course, the humanoid monsters like Scarlet could even wear modified equipment to have both natural and man-made defenses.

Humans started out relatively weak. Over time they gained passive abilities that modified their stats and had specialized weapons and armor. In this way humans and monsters tended to be on even footing when roughly the same level. The only work around for this was to exploit the weakness of your opponent, something humans could do easily by changing equipment. Most monsters were stuck with their natural abilities unless they were wealthy or had a human master to help procure equipment.

“Have you given thought to what you want to do, Master?”

Scott rubbed his chin for a moment then nodded. “I should be able to go home soon. It’s been nearly two weeks and my corrupted transfer protocol file should be repaired in a few days. I need to go back for a little while and get things in order.”

“Oh, yeah. You do need to go home I suppose.” Scarlet looked down at her ham sandwich.

“I’ll only be gone for 24 hours or so. I need to talk to the company that brought me into this, and check in with a few people.”

“Right, what about when you come back?”

“I don’t know, yet. Even after two weeks of doing quests all day and training for several hours at night, I still haven’t gained a new level. I’m close, but at this rate I just don’t know what to do.”

Scarlet took a bite of her sandwich then ran her tongue along her lips to retrieve an errant piece of cheese. After chewing and swallowing she said, “You’re gaining experience a lot faster than a normal human. Outlanders are lucky like that.”

Scott nodded but did not say anything. It was obvious that he felt his progress was still too slow.

“You’ve also increased your physical stats by several points each through work and training. It’s almost like you’ve gained two or three levels from those increases alone. We could try hunting soon.”

He lifted his head then asked, “True, but do you think I’m ready? The weakest monsters in the area are horned rabbits and they are all over level six at least.”

“If I’m with you, you probably won’t die. Though, you know what will happen after I get directly involved in a fight.”

Scott looked at her then sighed. He’d regained his knowledge of monster training and summoning after his skill corruption had been fixed. “Yeah, I can summon you to my side indefinitely as long as we aren’t in combat. If we get into a fight and you participate, I lose one mana point, multiplied by your level, every four seconds till the battle ends.”

Their intimacy level had risen in the last few weeks. Due to their improved intimacy Scott’s capacity to keep Scarlet summoned during combat had increased. Originally, he would have had to spend twenty-two mana per second. Now he would expend twenty-two mana every four seconds. It was still an incredibly small window of time, but it was better than the five seconds total that he could have managed during the tutorial.

“Yep, so I can be there to rush in and help if you get into trouble but you’ll lose some mana. The rabbits aren’t a problem for me. So, we’ll see how you do.”

“I suppose that could work. Plus, if the rabbits are too much for me, I can train my monster training and summoning skills by having you fight them. We can sell their pelts, horns, and meat. It might not be a lot of money, but once we get enough coin up to buy reasonable gear hunting will be easier.”

“That’s a good idea! We had to wait till your data file, as you call it, was repaired anyway. So, this training time wasn’t a waste.”

Scott grinned then called for his menu screen. He looked at his stat window.

Name: Scott Hunter Race: Human Class: Monster Trainer Level: 1 EXP: 236/400 (59%) Hit Points: 213 Mana: 180 Attributes Strength: 18 (F) Agility: 19 (F) Vitality: 18 (F) Durability: 16 (F) Intelligence: 11 (F) Charisma: 11 (F) Faith: 11 (F) Luck: 11 (F)

Scott considered the results of nearly two weeks work of hardcore training. The average stats for a normal human would range between eight to twelve points when they reached adulthood. Typically they would reach level four after roughly two years. Only humans who actively trained or went adventuring would rise beyond around level ten or twelve throughout their lives. Day to day living did not increase experience point totals quickly.

After receiving the blessing of the goddess Seductia he had regained ten points in each stat and acquired the same basic capacity of an average level one human. The quantum interference that had corrupted his data file had dropped him to one point in all stats, the same base that he’d had during the beginning of the tutorial.

Through training he had increased his stats by twenty-seven total points. Scarlet had been right in her estimate. That was roughly two or three levels worth of increase. However, that was the result of training six, sometimes eight, hours a night for two weeks. The increases had come quickly in the first few days, but he had already seen a remarkable drop-off in overall stat increases recently. It had taken three days to increase his strength by one more point. He knew that he was close to reaching the limit of what he could do at this level of training.

Sadly, none of his non-physical stats had increased in the slightest. He would need to address that issue soon, but right now he needed to be physically more capable. If he could not find a way to increase his other stats through training, he could use the points that he acquired from leveling to raise those attributes.

He specifically needed to train intelligence. It was the main component for increasing his mana supply. It coupled with charisma in order to determine the number of mana points he could use. Further, he needed to have twenty points in it before he could use first circle spells! That was different from the tutorial. He knew two spells, torchlight and healing prayer. The latter spell would be especially useful for training purposes as it would actively train all three of his primary mental and spiritual stats. Torchlight only trained intelligence, but it would be good practice anyway. He would need it for dungeon exploration.

Twenty-two mana spent every four seconds to keep Scarlet manifested in battle was ridiculous. The length of time would increase when intimacy level, charisma, and summoning skill increased. At some point he would have no limit on summoning time in battle, but that was a far off day as far as he could tell.

He also needed to train faith so that he could be able to use healing prayer with real potency. Faith was a stat that modified the power of celestial and infernal magic. High faith would make divine and infernal powers much more potent. Honestly, he was surprised that he was able to buy the spell for only two thousand dollars.

Once he could use it, he would be able to train three stats simultaneously! Further, magic worked based on pre-requisites. If he had a high-enough skill level for healing prayer, there would be a chance that increasing his stats and gaining a level would awaken knowledge of a new spell related to it.

“You know, I hate the idea of dumping all of my points into one stat, but I really should train my intelligence when I reach level two. It would make things a lot easier.”

Scarlet stopped eating her sandwich long enough to smirk. “So, you don’t want to be a big, strong, idiot?”

He laughed softly then shook his head. His demeanor shifted and with grave sincerity he said, “Every stat is important, but if I can get my intelligence to twenty, I can train it using my two spells. I will need a lot of mana for my plans to raise an army of big breasted monster women to conquer the world.”

Scarlet nearly choked on a piece of ham. Scott leapt to her side and patted her on the back. Tears streamed from her eyes and she drank a bit of water. The crises passed and she turned to him. “Give a girl a little warning before you say things like that!”

Scott gave her a hug instead, and she calmed down immediately. “It’s ok Scarlet. You’ll always be my favorite big-knockered dragon queen.”

She tapped him on the nose playfully. “Bad dog, no biscuit.”

He pouted at her and she relented. “Fine, maybe one biscuit.”

Her master drew her in close and kisses her sweetly on the nose then on the lips. The monster girl slid closer to him and they tenderly embraced each other for a few minutes. However, the moment passed and Scott slid one hand down to gently massage her soft, pink, slit. “Now, about that biscuit you promised.”

She smirked at him then leaned back then spread her thighs in a sensual manner. “Master, didn’t you know that white gravy goes best with biscuits?”

Scott grinned at her for a moment then a disturbing image flittered through his mind. His nose crinkled and his eyebrows drew together. After making that disgusted face he pulled away a little.

Scarlet pouted up at him, her eyes wide and innocent. It was an adorable sight to the man. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, really. I know that was supposed to be sexy talk or whatever, but I suddenly had an image of a biscuit covered with a very disturbing kind of gravy pop into my head.”

She looked up at him quietly for a moment then started to giggle. Her giggle turned into a full on laugh. Her laughter was infectious and soon Scott started laughing as well. The braying morons grew louder and their mirthful moment turned into quite the event. Life was not nearly so terrible when you weren’t alone. A little laughter, and not-quite-sexy biscuits, went a long way.