Suddenly, Estaria was back in her room. She didn’t feel the last blow land, but she was sure it did. And yet, she did not die. That was such a relief, she couldn’t handle dying twice in the same lifetime. And then, she was giving a simple box in front of her.

Duty Unto Death.

Was it, praising her for dying or was there a tone of judgemental disdain behind it, that death ends your duty and should not be rushed into? Shaking her head, she knew she was thrown off because she was questioning the philosophical meaning of a floating box only she could see. Screw that, there was training to be done. And interestingly, new training as well.

Physical Training:

0/4 Mook enemies killed (Melee)

0/2 Elite enemies killed (melee)

0/1 Boss enemy killed (melee)

0/20 Sword Drill

0/10km Run

Agility training

0/2 Mook enemies killed (ranged)

0/1 Elite enemies killed (Ranged)

0/1 Beam Walk

0/1 Handstand for 5 seconds

While her melee training was just average, kill more things, run more stuff, swing more sword, her not-Melee training had the addition of “Handstand for 5 seconds”. She wondered how that would go down. As a child, she had never really done a handstand, or any other of the childish play, come to think of it. Plus….Giant Rats. Did they exist? Were they created for the quest? Estaria was unsure, and that was the worst part. And then snapping back again, she wondered if her Agility was more varied because she was an agility character. It was certainly an interesting idea.

While she was heading to the training ground, she scanned the shop for anything interesting, and eventually came across a 10,000gp “Potion Of Greater Experience”. She grinned broadly and, lacking any self-control due to having possibly died at the hands of giant rats a few minutes ago, bought 6. Withdrawing the first one and taking off the top, it went down the hatch and froze Estaria in her steps. The taste of the potion was sublime. Never before in her life had she had such a tantalizing taste. Smooth, and rich, it’s texture was perfect and the taste itself didn’t overwhelm her. Even the level up boxes was in the way of the taste, and she had run through them before she even realized it. There was a lot of exp in each one, and she was now level 20, but that wasn’t the point. She struggled with herself, trying not to buy more and simply stormed off to the training ground, here Celerity making good time, and giving her something to throw herself into. Sword Drills and running, a good way to work off strain. She got out of the danger zone and didn’t quite feel so harrowed mentally, and so took a quick break before the dummies, to go over the stuff from her level ups.

First Job Unlocked: Captain. Traits reduced to once every three levels.

Ohh, that sucked. Getting fewer traits was always bad, but she did have plenty of them, to begin with, so it wasn’t a massive issue. Keeping up the once every two levels would lead her to be inundated with Traits. She shut that down, and the second one popped up.

Job Traits unlocked. These traits are special traits related to your Job.

Who made this? Was there really a need to be so obvious? Shaking her head softly she shut that one down and there was a third. Seems she had ignored quite a bit.

50 Precision: Advanced Sub-Targetting unlocked. Groin, Eye, Hands, Feet (arrow/knife/bolt only)

Estaria felt herself cringe upon seeing “Groin” but kept reading anyway.

Groin: Deals high damage and stuns the enemy when hit. Destroying the Groin causes stun bypassing Resistance.

Ulric, could she cringe harder? The idea of putting a bullet through a person’s testicle just made her clamp up, despite not having anything down there to be shot.

Eye: Very difficult shot, but deals immense damage. Destroying the Eye causes instant death or Critical Wound

That, one made sense. There wasn’t much to the eyeball, and sticking a bullet through it was going to go right to the brainpan.

Hands: Hitting the Hands will immediately disarm the foe. Destroying the Hands will cause the destroyed hand to be unable to be used.

Feet(Arrow/Knife/Bolt only): Hitting the Foot immediately stops a person’s movement. Destroying the foot cuts movement speed by one quarter.

Well, there was a nice bit to counter the cringe of the groin. It was like the old tales where the hero archer pinned a man to the ground with an arrow. Wasn’t something she was going to do though, she used black powder, rather than arrows, bolts, or knives.

50 Agility: Weight-Spread unlocked.

Weight-Spread: Your weight counts ¼ of its actual number for the sake of unstable footholds.

That looked to be the last box. Letting out a soft sigh from the immense information thrown at her through this one, she was back into work. With the work she did from the basic training, she had more bullets than she knew what to do with. A few hundred standard ones and a hundred Nuln-Forged. They had been used extensively in the siege, to great effect. And the normal ones would allow her to train for weeks on end, even if she didn’t get more as a reward for doing it.

The Dummies were so below her level at this point that the fight was a joke. She split them in half with one swing. Which wasn’t a surprise for the Mooks, or the Elites, but taking out the boss with a single swing was emboldening and enticing. She was getting strong. Of course, the Ulric’s Boon and the sword would help a lot for that but still. She was going to have her ego moment and like it!

Physical Training:

4/4 Mook enemies killed (Melee)

4/2 Elite enemies killed (melee)

4/1 Boss enemy killed (melee)

20/20 Sword Drill

10/10km Run

Advanced Physical Training Complete: 2 skill points to spend on Strength, Stamina, Constitution

The training couldn’t be over-completed, which was sad. But she wasn’t going to complain, she was getting free points for this. Stamina was way ahead of Strength and Constitution due to panic buying when she had just started this, so those pointed needed to go into the others. Ulric’s boon was keeping them nice and high, but it seemed artificial values didn’t give the stat traits. So one point in each. And then another box. One that, while she should have expected but was caught by surprise anyway.

Hidden Quest Complete

Kill Mook Dummy with one Swing: 2/1

Kill Elite Dummy with one Swing: 2/1

Kill Boss Dummy with one Swing: 2/1

Accept Rewards? (Vigor Token, Random Box)

Vigour token. Not so important for her because of her Main Stats being different. But she’d probably stockpile them anyway and see if there was anything cool when they built up. The random box was also interesting, and so she opened that, but it only rolled some different swords and they weren’t all that helpful for her with Ulric’s Fang. She’d make Borrago a gift if there was anything that caught her eye. Giving herself a few moments before going off to the Agility training, she rolled through the Vigor shop. She hadn’t really looked properly last time.

It was here, she got a red-backed thing with a very angry LOCKED text across it. That….was a new thing. She tapped it and got a bigger red box.

This is Locked. Complete special requirements to unlock it

She could almost feel the snappy bite in the first sentence. And what those special requirements were, wasn’t even hinted at.

“Bloody thing. All right, then keep your secrets” she shook her head, closed it down and headed off to the firing range. This was easy. That Hidden Quest was so easy to complete these days. One, two, three. Tokens and box. Box gave her more bullets. And it was all good. Heading to the Agility training, the handstand and beam walk was done. The Handstand was strange, but she couldn’t say she didn’t like it. The two points went into dexterity because she was really enjoying how easily her sword was to wield. It flowed like silk across the skin, and that was a boon beyond most in the battlefield. And then finally, with her training done, she headed back to her room, pulled open the status screen, and looked over the two traits she got.

Two were orange-edged and certainly had an interesting name. Clearly, a Job Trait.

So she tapped it to read up on it.

For The Empire!: A steely shout to light a fire in the hearts of your men! +10 to all stats (Excluding yourself) to anyone who can hear your shout.

Captain’s Shadow: Snap of a Captain’s finger, and the target falls. Designate a target to be hit with a Hotchland Long Rifle bullet. Usable every 10 minutes.

Fair traits they were. And so Estaria caught some sleep, for what tomorrow would bring.