Arn woke up instantly for a change, his excitement surging. Unlike the other adolescents in the village that had trained for years, Arn’s heart condition had prevented all physical training. He had put tremendous effort into raising his intelligence, but that was irrelevant now. Arn had also worked hard on his dexterity, but it turned out that with giant fingers activities like sewing and leather working never did much for him. As such, Arn was starting from four constitution, now eight, four strength and five dexterity. Woeful.

The prospect of catching up in just a few weeks was tremendously exciting to Arn. I know Elder Dannis promised it would be incredibly hard, but I’m ready! Arn quickly dressed and hurried to the entrance to the training fields where Elder Dannis was already waiting … with Joshua???

Dread rising, Arn tried to act normally. “Elder Dannis, Joshua, good morning.” Joshua grinned evilly, “Good morning Arn! I am very much looking forward to my role in your training!”

Dannis signed. “Enough. Arn, there is normally no substitute for hard work in raising your attributes. You know this. You struggled for months, years even, with those puzzle books I gave you, fighting for every point of intelligence you could get. We don’t have years. Fortunately, we know that training with real stakes dramatically speeds attribute gains, and you have something called ‘Complete Regeneration’ which means, well . . . it means that we don’t need to worry about hurting you. I’m not sure if you have any idea what a huge advantage that is. Even the super rich with healers and healing potions to spare can’t risk losing an eye or having a hand chopped off. That might cost them weeks or months of training. You don’t have to worry about that!”

Arn gasped, “Um…small problem? I sort of like having my eyes and hands where they are?” Dannis chuckled. “Ha, well don’t worry, you won’t lose eyes or hands. Well, probably not. Not on purpose anyway. It is just that you can train with a degree of danger that even those pampered nobles can’t. We can rocket up your stats! There is a price for that of course. It is going to hurt. A lot. Anytime you can’t take it and want to quit, you can of course. The army will take you. But if you quit you quit. No second chances. Now, what is it going to be?”

Arn closed his eyes, realizing that the nightmare that started with falling off the cliff wasn’t over. I got through dying twice, I can do this! I **will** do this. The legendary class is my chance to be someone; I’m not going to be some low level grunt in the army. “I’ll do it! I won’t quit!”

Dannis sighed again, and Joshua’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “Great. Just great. Well, I’ve got a plan, but it has been a while since I’ve seen your stats; show me now.” Arn said, “show Elder Dannis attributes.”

Attributes:

Constitution: 12

Dexterity 5

Strength: 4

Intelligence: 9

Will: 8

Charisma: 4

“All right. It is too bad you didn’t get a legendary magic-based class, the academies would have taken you for free. Well, your physical stats are awful, but that means you can make quick progress. With your ridiculous size, we should be able to get your strength up sharply. Dexterity will be trickier of course. And speed will naturally be hard for you – remember, the hidden attributes like speed are not just linked to a primary stat. Speed will improve some from gains in dexterity alone yes, but to get more you’ll have to sprint. Preferably while chased by a bear, although I’m not sure we’ll be able to find one for you … well don’t worry, we’ll do our best to ah . . . properly incentivize you. You’ll have to change your body shape as well. There will be a lot of running today. A lot of lifting weights. The obstacle course. But if I’m going to spend the time, and ask others like Joshua here to spend their time, we are going to start with the hard part and test your commitment. Show him Joshua.”

Joshua laughed. “Gladly! Arn, you may not have noticed, but this down here is a bucket of rocks. Sharp, heavy rocks. My task today, very sadly, I will oh so reluctantly throw them at you, while you futilely try to dodge. Believe you me, Elder Dannis had to twist my arm…” Dannis interrupted, “enough! Arn, you get the idea. Joshua is going to throw rocks at you starting from 25 feet, we’ll see how that goes. You’ll have this small shield. You are going to get hit. A lot. If you get good at dodging, Joshua will get closer. Whatever your injuries, you don’t stop, you don’t rest, until I say. Or we are done. Now use that intelligence - imagine what is ahead; compare it to life as a private in the army. Quit now so you don’t waste our time.”

“I WILL. NOT. QUIT.” Er, I think. This will be as bad as the warg. But I have a choice. Can I really…Stop! I have too. I won’t be the useless cast off. I have a legendary class!

“Terrific. You’ve made Joshua very happy. I think he secretly wants to qualify for the Torturer class. Bright future that. Well, Joshua knows the training fields. He is going to throw all these rocks one at a time, and refill the bucket. 10 times. Unless you die. If you die, come see me, we’ll come back to the rocks another time. If you don’t die, but you stop moving, that is quitting. The army. If you get through 10 buckets, head over to Liara. Liara will leave for a bit after she puts the youngsters through their paces, but she will come back for you. If she isn’t here, run around the training fields. You don’t stop unless you are vomiting. If you fall, you get up. If Liara finds you stationary, it’s the army. Have fun.”

With that, Elder Dannis left, and Joshua smiled. “Don’t quit too quickly Arn. I haven’t pulled the wings off bugs in ages, this is really going to bring back the memories.” Joshua threw his head back and laughed at his supposed wit. Arn steeled himself, and said, “I’m ready, do your worst.” Joshua looked at Arn and broke out in a new round of giggling. When he finally stopped laughing, he led Arn to the spot the Elder had picked out and showed Arn where to stand. When Arn stepped behind the line, a rock hit him in the back. He roared, turned around to yell at Joshua, only to find a blur headed for his head. By the time the idea occurred to him to move, his head rocked back, blood spraying. A second later, the pain hit and his cheek felt like it was on fire. Joshua waved and asked, “We haven’t had fun together in a long time, have we? Do you remember that time at the swimming hole when I took your bathing suit?”

Arn roared, “THROW IT!” Joshua waved the anger away, “sheesh, so impatient. Plenty more rocks. Must be 30 in here! Good times, good times.” Joshua reached into the bucket and came up holding 2 in his left and one in his right, which he started to juggle while humming a tune. After a moment, Joshua smiled evilly and said, “sorry keep you waiting Arn, I’ll focus I promise,” and quickly threw the rocks in his hands in rapid succession. Arn managed to tip the first with the shield, but it still smashed into his chest. The next was head height, but thankfully off. The third was again thrown at his mid-section. Arn raised the shield and tried to move to side, but the rock smashed into his left elbow, and Arn saw stars. When his vision cleared, waves of pain swept through him, making the cheek seem like a scratch. Distantly, Arn heard Joshua saying something but he couldn’t focus through the agony.

I want to die.