Sword Proficiency (Minor)

You’ve picked up a sword, and you’re getting good at keeping the sharp bit pointed where you want it to go. This Trait helps you better leverage your strength and dexterity when fighting with a sword, and progress faster towards a better mastery your weapon.

This Trait has enhanced your body, this effects remains even if the trait is lost. Currently: 1 Str, 1 Dex

This Trait resonates with your Adaptable and Vindicator Traits, it will grow faster.

As you can guess, the spear didn’t stick.

Well, Pheyis assured me that I’m better off with a sharp sword than with a spear. Then again, she also said that daggers are even better so I’m not sure if I really want to trust her on that statement.

Ten days passed since I first picked up a sword in the smith’s (his name is Skarix by the way) workshop. Almost a full third of the month in the gilfeith calendar. And yesterday I went to the evening weapon training session for the first time.

It was surprisingly tame, I only fought twice, against opponents vastly more experienced than myself. Which is a good thing because pitting me against one of the other beginners, teenagers that can’t be older than fourteen, is a sure way of seeing blood. Their technique is rough, and a slip up would see my blood on the ground.

Getting the hang of not placing myself in mutual kill situations is difficult. Thankfully, beginners are expected to spend most of their time watching and listening to the comments of their betters. That means that contrary to what I feared, I didn’t walk back to my home with bruises everywhere.

Only two. Both from spar ending blows after my partner let me try a few attacking sequences. They didn't even abuse their superior speed or strenght, simply showing what technique can do, while I tried not to flail too uncoherently.

A bit humiliating of course. But it's a cheap price for a training session that brought a whooping four points of progress.

It’s quite an outlier in my log.

Yeah, I’ve got a progress log now, I didn’t realize it was there at first, but it came along the changes from level two. It’s pretty nice since it picks up all those minor progress notifications by itself and I don’t have them distracting me at random moments like before. I DO have the idea of hosting a growing computer in my head distracting me but hey, I can deal with that.

Just another guest in the party.

I’ve even managed to have things getting grouped by day!

{Skip below for the short version}

[ Day 12 : 1 Mana Manipulation, 1 Mana Sense

Day 13 : 1 Athlete , 1 Bodybuilder , 2 Mana M., 2 Mana S., 1 Sword Proficiency , 1 Vindicator

Day 14 : 1 Forest Mountain & Wildlands Dweller, 2 Vindicator, 1 Hiker, 1 Flexible Body, 1 Mana M., 1 Mana S. , 1 Sword Proficiency, 1 Star-longer, +1 Unbound Str

Day 15 : 1 F. M. & W. Dweller, 2 Vindicator , 1 Hiker, 1Athlete, 2 Mana M., 3 Mana S., 1 Sword Proficiency, +1 Unbound Dex, +1 Unbound End

Day 16 : 2 Vindicator, 2 Hiker, 1 Flexible Body, 1 Bodybuilder, 1 Mana M. , 2 Mana S., 1 Sword Proficiency

Day 17 : 1 F. M. & W. Dweller, 1 Hiker, 1 Vindicator, 1 Mana M., 3 Mana S., 1 Sword Proficiency, 1 Star-longer

Day 18 : 1 F. M. & W. Dweller, 1 Athlete, 2 Vindicator, 2 mana M., 3 Mana S., 1 Flexible Body

Day 19 : 1 Hiker, 1 Bodybuilder, 2 Mana M., 3 Mana S., 1 Sword Proficiency, 1 Vindicator

Day 20 : 1 F. M. & W. Dweller, 2 Vindicator, 1 Hiker , 1 Flexible Body , 1 Athlete, 1 mana M., 2 Mana S., 1 Sword Proficiency

Day 21 : 1 F. M. & W. Dweller, 2 Hiker, 2 Vindicator, 1 Sword Proficiency, 1 Mana M., 2 Mana S. 1 Star-longer

Day 22 : 1 Vindicator , 1 Bodybuilder , 1 Athlete, 2 Mana M. , 2 Mana S., 4 Sword Proficiency , 1 Star-longer

Day 23 : 1 F. M. & W. Dweller, 1 Mana S.]

Well, it’s quickly growing out of control, I might have to reset it regularly… Anyway.

Ten days of progress boil down to 16 Mana manipulation, 25 mana sense, 7 to all dwellers, 17 vindicator, 9 hiker, 14 sword proficiency, 4 bodybuilder, 4 athlete, 3 star-longer, 4 flexible body, which is a mouthful. All that stuff is bringing in more than half a level. And more importantly, enough stats that I actually feel the difference!

You liar, I’m sure we’d notice if we were actually growing any saner.

Whatever you might mean, denial of hard evidence and pipe dreams are very healthy habits to keep, just ask anyone.

I’d ask you but I’ve heard talking to yourself is considered a bad sign.

Only when you have the bad habit of trying to get the last word in everytime.

Five strength, five dexterity, three endurance, two intelligence and two sanity, a decent step forward on the road of being awesome. And Athlete is also helping somewhat.

Athlete (Minor)

You’re pushing your body on the right path to grow into a remarkable athlete, a balanced mix of strength, agility and endurance. This Trait helps you better pace yourself and better leverage your growing strength and dexterity, making more with less.

This Trait has enhanced your body, this effects remains even if the trait is lost. Currently: 1 Str, 1 Dex

This Trait overlaps slightly with your Bodybuilder Trait, making them more likely to merge.

Not much yet since it’s only the start, but there are so many effects working together to make me more. Each day a bit better than the last as I grow more competent and the system grows more competent in pushing me ever so slightly further and faster. I’ve been moving better in so many ways. I feel noticeably stronger and more agile, and I don’t tire quite as much, and somehow my feet find reliable footing even when I’m distracted, and my balance has improved…

Of course it doesn’t come free of charge. All the training is hard. Thankfully, I have the slowly burning pillar of icy revenge in my mind to keep me on track when ideas of giving up come up. A familiar needle now, that has been steadily fueling my Vindicator trait growth.

It also keeps my mind busy while I work. It's physical work so it's a bit like training, but it gets me food and is relatively less demanding. I must have brought back a few tons of lumber to the village at this point.

It’s good enough to keep me fed but I think I’m given some leeway. The economics of Wathamber are still pretty fuzzy to me. I’ve gathered that people get first dibs on whatever they produce, but they are also expected to “trade” with the storehouses of the village. Zaimeia and Guemeros are there to ensure things stay relatively fair. Well, Zaimeia is in charge of keeping the inventory with her helpers and Guemeros deals with conflicts or problems she doesn’t manage to solve. There’s no currency to speak of, but since the village is small, there’s enough trust going around for people like Skarix accepting to hand over the result of long hours of hard work against words of “I owe you one”. The whole thing is rather benevolent, it’s expected the village will provide to people who can’t do much, or like me, who spend a lot of time at a rather inefficient, but needed, job.

Basically they’ve got something going on that kinda looks like communism and it seems to be reliably working. But I’m not sure how trade with distant places work. Surely there must be the occasional peddler coming all the way out here?

Well to be fair, there’s not much of note around. I’ve seen a couple of gilfeiths with mining gear so perhaps there is some trade-worthy ore in the bowels of the mountains, but it doesn’t seem to be a local priority, curiously. In fact I’d bet a peddler would come all the way out here for the pelts and the stores of the local spicy leaves before being concerned by the mining activity.

I’ve considered going to check those mines out for the sake of variety, but the truth is, I’m doing enough physical stuff already. The sword practice slotted in nicely as a change of pace, and when I want a real break from all the exercise, my only real options of entertainment are working on mana sense and watching the local scenery.

Spoiler : it isn’t really entertaining. I guess I grew a bit used to the awe of untouched mountains.

On the other hand, I still very much enjoy watching the stars, even though I can’t do it anymore straight from my bed now that I’ve fixed my roof. Yep, I’ve got a roof now, did you really think I’d wait for a big storm to decide to really deal with that little issue? That sure doesn’t sound like me, or anything that might have happened at any point.

On the magic field, well, magic is cool but mostly when you aren’t desperately stumped. Bob has made it to the point where he can sense mana inside other people and manipulate mana outside of our body, which is awesome, I can actually notice when he does that. Otherwise, I’m still stuck being only able to feel the mana that runs inside of me like an agitated cloud of dust. Never mind manipulation.

I considered experimenting with the useless identify skill, but I only naturally recover about two mana points per day at the moment. No wonder nobody wanted to pay for system translations. Of course, I can cheat a little thanks to Bob. Manipulating external mana to push it inside of me is both an effective training method for him and useful to get some extra regeneration. Not a lot, but it works. We quietly celebrated when he managed to get one point back in one hour for the first time.

Mana is really quite a mystery. Bob noticed that people have a large node of mana in their head, and we’re pretty sure that’s either the system interface or the “physical” presence of the sixth sense that allows for mana interaction. Most likely the latter since we can’t see that in ourselves. Just like eyes can’t see themselves, we sense mana from there and so it’s our blind spot.

Either way, I’m currently going to meet Datari again and get some tutoring. Her daughter Velwal is healed now, so she probably won’t be there.

Oh no! We’re going to be all alone with a beautiful woman showing us her magic!

My cheeks feel a bit warm all of a sudden.

She’s not even your crush Bob, why are you puhing random fantasies in my head like this!