“Good morning!” Tyr greets me as I enter the dining hall. “For breakfast, we have bacon, we have eggs, we have sausage links, we have fruit, we have pancakes, and we have milk. Take your pick, then eat it all!”

I sit down and start eating. My body is so, so sore. He only had me hit the target thirty times yesterday, for a grand total of two Experience. My STR and END went up, the END during the training, and the STR sometime during the night.

“How do you feel?” Tyr asks after we eat.

“Sore,” I answer. “And stiff.”

Quest: Sword Training III

Train with a sword

Requirement: Strike a training dummy seventy times

Reward: 2 EXP

Accept: Y/N?

“Your Experience boosts aren’t that high,” I say. “They scale badly.”

“Ah,” he smiles at me. “But the reward is so much greater.”

Quest: STR Training II

Improve your physical strength

Requirement: Gain 2 points of STR

Reward: 1 EXP

Accept: Y/N?

“It’s the same experience reward as the first one.”

“Indeed,” he nods. “Even though, for every point you have, it grows more difficult to gain another point. However, there are benefits to it. Recommendation: do Sword Training III, and ignore STR Training II, for now.”

“How come?”

“The answer will become apparent,” he answers. “This is more than double the swings you did yesterday. Today, the dummies have red circles on them. One on each side, two in the torso, one in the head, and one in each leg. Hit each one once, but don’t hit the same one twice in a row.”

I nod, and we make our way outside, and I follow his instructions. I try to do it quickly, like I see on T.V., but can’t, and have to slow down. It takes me a long time to finish the seventy strikes in the dummy, and once I do, I collapse onto the ground, exhausted.

“That,” I say. “Was exhausting.”

“Indeed,” Tyr walks over to me. “Your arms probably feel like lead, too, don’t they?”

My arms feel really, really heavy. I almost didn’t complete that. I look at him and nod.

Quest: Sword Training IV

Train with a sword

Requirement: Strike a training dummy with a sword one hundred times in four minutes

Reward: 3 EXP

Accept: Y/N?

“In four minutes?”

“That gives you less than two seconds between strikes,” he nods. “You’ll need to increase your agility to reach that.”

Quest: AGI Training II

Improve your speed and agility

Requirement: Gain 2 points of AGI

Reward: 1 EXP

Accept: Y/N?

“Any recommendation?” I ask. “Other than running around?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “Sword training, knife training, and martial arts training will all help you boost your agility. The more you do, the faster you can go, and the more you’ll train your agility as you increase your speed doing them.”

“Knife training and martial arts?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he nods. “See, if you want to be knight, you’ll have to go for the Squire Class, so you’ll need to learn all three of those, not just Sword Mastery. That, alone, will give you the Warrior Class.”

“How do I get Sword Mastery?” I ask.

“Training,” he answers. “It typically takes around six months for a trainee to gain it.”

“Six months?”

“Yeah,” he grins at me. “But that’s boring! Six months of whacking away with a sword and nothing else? Blech! So I’m changing up the training routine a bit! By the way – these are standard training Quests, not ones I designed specifically for you.”

“And if I complete them,” I say. “I’ll gain a Level?”

“You’re a five right now,” he says. “And you’ll gain five from these, so yup! You’ll gain three Stat Points you can use to increase any of your stats as you wish. Once allocated, they cannot be undone. You’ll get a confirmation message, first.”

A wooden knife appears in his hands, and he tosses it to me.

Quest: Knife Training I

Train with a knife

Requirement: Stab a training dummy with a knife twenty times

Reward: 1 EXP

Accept: Y/N?

“By the way,” he says. “Stats you gained from Levels will not affect Quests for gaining them.”

“Got it,” I walk up to a target, then stab it in the circle over its heart twenty times, then look at Tyr. “That was a lot easier than using a sword.”

“Of course,” he smiles. “It’s smaller and lighter, and easier to use!”

Quest: Knife Training II

Train with a knife

Requirement: Stab a training dummy with a knife fifty times

Reward: 1 EXP

Accept: Y/N?

“For this one,” he says. “Try doing it in different spots. Move around the target as you do – there are more circles on the back.”

“Okay,” I nod.

“And once you complete this,” he says. “We’re going to take a break, unless you want to keep training. I’ll treat you to cheesecake after this, then we can play chess!”

I’m not sure I want to play chess against a god of games.

I circle around the target, striking at some of the circles, but not all of them, spending around twenty minutes to do the fifty strikes. I switch hands halfway through, because my left arm was getting tired, and Tyr giggled when I did that.

“Why’d you giggle?” I ask when I finish, sending the knife into my inventory.

“I forgot you were ambidextrous,” he answers. “Let’s go eat cheesecake!”

I roll my eyes, then follow him into a carpeted room filled with bookshelves. A full cheesecake sits on the table, along with two glasses, two plates, two forks, and a pitcher of orange juice. On the center of the table is a glass chess set.

“Let’s eat!” He exclaims, plopping down on the couch on one side of the table. The other side also has a couch, and when I sit down on it, I almost sink into it, it’s so soft and plush. “The cake’s already divided up, just take however many slices you want, and I’ll eat the rest!”

I serve myself a single slice and fill a glass with juice, and he asks me if I know how to play chess as he pulls the rest of the cheesecake to him.

“Yeah,” I answer. “We played it at school a few times.”

“Good!” He says, then moves a piece. “Your turn!”

“I don’t feel comfortable playing a god of games in a game.”

“I won’t cheat,” he says. “But I won’t lose. Only in a game of luck is it possible for me to lose against my will, because I’m just that good.”

“So why do you want to play me, then?”

“Because,” he smiles at me. “Chess is an excellent game to learn strategy with, and thus, is an excellent way to learn to look several steps ahead. I will challenge your body with the Quests and training, and your mind with games. Do you accept my challenge?”

I stare at him, thinking about this. Tyr is pushing me kind of hard, but at the same time, I’m enjoying it, especially with him cheering me on and encouraging me. It feels good.

I look at the board, and the pieces, and move one. We play a dozen games before lunch, and I lose every single one of them. No matter what strategy I come up with, he crushes me. But at the end of each game, he compliments me, and tells me what some of my errors were. I can’t tell if I’m improving or not, though.

+1 STR!

“Huh?” I look at the message. “We’re just sitting here, and I got another point of strength.”

“Your body is constantly recovering,” he says. “And as it recovers, it builds muscles. That, in effect, means you can gain strength while sleeping.”

Like me gaining the agility last night, while I was asleep.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

“Alright!” He grins at me. “Let’s go eat lunch!”

“You just ate an entire cheesecake by yourself.”

“Are you kidding me?” He asks. “That was two hours ago, and I’m hungry again.”

I roll my eyes as we get off the couches and make our way to the dining hall, where a feast of sandwiches await us.

“Where does all the food come from?” I ask Tyr as we sit down. “There’s no one around that I’ve seen, other than us.”

“Magic,” he grins at me. “It cooks and prepares itself!”

I raise an eyebrow, not quite believing that, and he giggles.

“I have spirits doing it for us,” he answers. “They fix our beds and stuff, too! They’re so nice!”

“There are spirits here?” I ask, and the pitcher of juice lifts itself up and refills my glass.

I shoot back in my chair, falling out of it as I shout in surprise, staring at the pitcher as it sets itself back down.

“That got a reaction out of you,” Tyr giggles. “Finding yourself in an entirely different world had an almost bland reaction, and you’re basically taking things as they come. That was sooooooooo funny!”

“It moved!”

“Of course it did, silly!” He laughs. “There’s a spirit there!”

“I can’t see it at all.”

“Of course not,” he grins at me. “You don’t have the Skill needed to sense spirits.”

“How do I gain that?” I ask.

“You’ll need at least 20 INT, WIL, and PER, each,” he answers. “Then, a lot of meditation and focus on sensing the spirits around you.”

“How do you increase those?” I ask. “I don’t like the idea of spirits hanging around me, and me not knowing.”

“Easy,” he grins at me. “Your intellect can go up by you getting smarter and making logical decisions, planning and executing strategies, and other such related things. Your willpower goes up as the strength of your will goes up – this is mental fortitude. Persisting through pain is a good way to increase it. You’re actually probably due for a point of it, soon. Resisting the effects of magic also helps increase it. For perception, that’s actually both easy and difficult. See, with perception, you need to focus on what you take in through your five senses, and notice them.

“For perception,” he says. “People often say that you can simply focus on one sense, and try to improve how much you notice. That does work, especially if you switch out which sense you’re working on, but there are other ways, too.”

“Like what?” I ask.

Tyr waves his hand, and a pad of paper with a pencil appears in front of me. In front of him, a shallow bowl around a foot in diameter forms, covered in in a black cloth.

“Like this,” he answers. “Underneath this cloth are a variety of objects. This helps improve both your intellect and your perception. I’ll remove the cloth for sixty seconds, then cover it back up. You will then write down each object you saw, as well as details of each. The objects won’t always be the same items, or they might be slightly different. That’s if you want to do it.

“Also,” he continues. “A high perception is needed for the rogue-type Classes, but is also good for any Class.”

“Okay,” I pick up the pencil. “Let’s do it.”

He lifts the cloth, and I look at the items inside. I see a paperclip, a die, three small beads, a leaf, a piece of macaroni, a small marshmallow, and an eraser. After he covers it back up, I start writing down everything I remember from the items.

When I finish, he lifts the cloth up, and asks me to compare my notes. I got everything right.

“Maybe,” he holds his hand out. “But you probably didn’t get everything. Let’s see. Paperclip – you just commented paperclip. It’s a white paperclip. The die… you just put a die. It’s white, with the three facing up. What color are the beads? The eraser? Is the eraser used, or unused? The macaroni cooked or uncooked? You have sixty seconds to notice as much as you possibly can.

“This,” Tyr waves the notepad. “Is how we know just how little you ordinarily notice – or perceive, how much you take in. Doing this every day, with different items, can help you to improve your perception, or how much you notice. So too, of course, will paying more attention to your senses, and distinguishing different things.”

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

“Anyway,” he sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I’m stuffed, and want to take a nap. You’re free to do whatever, but seriously – don’t leave the town, yet. Monsters don’t enter them, and you probably couldn’t kill the horned rabbits, right now.”

Tyr vanishes, and I walk around the castle for a bit, finding myself back at the training courtyard. I think my food’s settled enough, so I pull out the sword, then start hitting the target.