In the first morning, Teddy sat down with both Miu and Ray. They discussed potential levelling paths and his abilities. Ray was getting used to handling a dagger and thought about potentially adding throwing weapons to his arsenal, becoming something of a rogue like character. Ray checked his inventory for anything he could potentially use and found the following items of potential value.

Equipment - Weapons

Item

Quality

Description

Dagger

Novice (F)

Basic Weapon

Physical Damage +2

Serrated Dagger

Novice (F)

Basic Weapon

Physical Damage +3

Cotton Vest

Trash (F)

Almost no better then a regular shirt

Physical Damage Reduction -0.5

Leather Sandals of Wind

Uncommon (F)

Trash Enchantment (Wind)

Enchanted Sandals that increase movement speed

Physical Damage Reduction -0.5

Movement Speed +1%

“Nice, I got an enchanted item” Ray said out loud.

“What’s an enchanted item?” Miu Said.

“I got some boots that give me a movement speed increase” Ray said. He had taken to speaking out loud responses to Miu when Teddy was around so that he would be able to grasp at least some of the conversation going on.

Teddy looked at Ray as he equipped the sandals. “Not too bad for a first enchantment mate. Movement speed will help with the style you’ve chosen”.

Ray equipped all the items and kept his now spare dagger in reserve as a throwing weapon.

On a different scale, Miu felt that her abilities best lay in the realm of scouting and baiting enemies. She had decided to take on the task of being a tracker. She would still learn how to be effective in combat, but this was more about distracting the enemy then finishing them off directly.

Teddy had surprised Ray with his insight into stats. Based on Ray’s build, he would want a high level of Agility but also some survivability. Ray quickly learned this wasn’t like a game where you could simply dump all of your points into a single stat. This was life. Even with the highest Agility in the world, you could still get caught off guard. Even with the strongest Body stat, a strong enough weapon could slit your throat and bleed you out.

Teddy taught ray that every single stat mattered but not every single stat needed to be levelled using points allocation. While slightly slower in the beginning, sparring, training and regular day to day activities would also level your stat points. Ray had already experienced this a few times. He’d levelled some random stats while doing specific things.

Even with this insight, Ray didn’t understand why they were spending the first 3 of 10 days doing basic exercises and sparring. He thought he should be running off and immediately fighting monsters. As the first day progressed and he was spending the time basically running a marathon, he was getting more and more agitated. That was until he opened his character sheet.

[For completing a 10km workout, you receive +1 Agility, +1 Dexterity]

Ray had no less then 5 of these messages. In total he gained +1 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +3 Agility, +1 Body, +2 Vitality and for some reason +1 Luck. Ray was disappointed that he didn’t gain any Intelligence or Mind but upon thinking about the situation, he realised they must level by doing things that worked the particular stat such as using skills for Mind.

It wasn’t long before both Ray and Miu had thrown themselves into training. Knowing you could gain points while not actually directly levelling was a great revelation. It gave them something to strive for other then fighting beasts or people.

When the second day arrived, Teddy made Ray focus solely on sparring. It didn’t take Ray long to understand why. Teddy was superior to Ray in every aspect. Ray barely even knew how to use his daggers. He had gotten lucky in previous fights and almost died every time.

It quickly became apparent that fighting experience played a huge impact in battles. One thing Ray learned was to use identify as much as possible when in combat. It turned out you could identify not just people but also the equipment they are wearing and, well, really anything. Using it on different things yielded vastly different experience. As an example, you couldn’t just spam it on trees and gain levels in the skill. You could however identify useful herbs and gain a little bit of experience the first time you gather information on them.

Towards the end of the second day, Ray had begun to think that Teddy was just using him as a punching bag. Every muscle in Ray’s body was aching, yet he was still being told to press on. It wasn’t until mid-way through day 3 when Ray felt some progress in combat experience.

Miu had decided to take a lunch break and watched Teddy and Ray spar for around the 15th time that day. Up until this point, Ray had not managed to land a single blow on Teddy and Miu was certain this time would be no different.

Ray took a fighting stance he was comfortable with. A dagger in each hand, he charged straight at Teddy. As he closed in, he noticed Teddy slightly bend his knees and knew it was the trigger to his movement skill. Ray had been observing and learnt that Teddy’s skill could only go about 5 metres each time, had a short cooldown and if used towards a foe could only place Teddy in one of the four cardinal directions relative to that foe.

Ray immediately stopped and crouched. He wasn’t fast enough to counter if he anticipated the direction, so he took a guess and immediately turned fully around and stabbed. He was rewarded with a soft grunt. While not deep, Ray had managed to stab Teddy in the arm as he materialised. Teddy did a quick back step and slapped Ray across the face, which sent Ray flying backwards about 5 metres. Before Ray hit the ground, he managed to throw his spare dagger at Teddy.

“Good… You’re learning. Don’t hesitate. Even if you’re going to go down, try and find a solution to buy time. A fight can change in an instant, you must be ready to take advantage of anything” Teddy said.

Ray simply grunted, got back to his feet and charged again. Ray’s mind pictured Teddy swinging his fist at him again right before he closed the full distance, so Ray ducked under what he thought was a blow coming. Unfortunately, Ray was paying attention to his own fantasy and not what was actually happening. He ducked straight into a low kick meant for the body. It hit Ray square in the face, with a shattering crunch, Rays nose broke. Without pausing, Teddy teleported behind Miu and kicked her into the air as well.

“Did I say you could rest, cat? If you have time to rest, you have time to train”

Miu barely managed to orient herself and land on her feet. She felt that kick. It clearly wasn’t meant to be hard, but it had done almost 50% of her health in a single blow.

“The lesson of that was….. Never fully let your guard down. Ray, just because a foe has done something in the past, doesn’t mean they’ll follow the same pattern again. Miu, even if you’re resting, don’t let your guard lapse. If I was a real enemy, I could have snuck up behind you and slit your throat.”

Ray tried to get back to his feet but the pain was just unbearable. He couldn’t orient himself. In a single blow, he had been taken down to 15% of his health. Fuck, he knew Teddy was strong, but the fact that a kick that wasn’t even meant to seriously hurt him was able to do so much damage, what level was Teddy anyway?

“Now, I’m going to cook lunch. By the time I’m done, I expect each of you will have run 100 laps around the camp. No food until finished, especially you Ray. How the fuck do you still have a gut when you have over 20 Body stat now…. It’s embarrassing” Teddy said.

Ray yet again attempted to get back on his feet but just fell flat on his face. Teddy sighed and walked over to him. He pulled out a health potion and gave it to Ray. Before Ray drank the blasted thing, he identified it.

Identify Used

Minor Health Potion

Health +25

Slightly heals the user. If the user has missing limbs or broken bones, will speed the recovery process.

“Wait…. Missing limbs recover in this world?” Ray asked before swallowing the potion in a single gulp.

“I mean, yeah? I’ve never really needed to try that, but I just assume we’re in a magical world. Magical worlds ain’t got time for no cripples” Teddy responded. He had pulled his barbeque out and was getting ready to fry something that looked suspiciously like chicken.

Ray had immediately begun to feel the effects of the health potion. His grogginess had disappeared, and he managed to stand on his feet. His nose hadn’t healed. It was still broken but it felt like it was slowly fixing itself.

Ray and Miu ran their laps while Teddy cooked. Teddy was feeling so relaxed. He enjoyed Rays company, even if he knew it wouldn’t last. He may see Ray again in the future after these 10 days but it probably wouldn’t be for a long time. Someone had to keep the System from destroying everything, why not Ray, who no longer had anything else to work towards.

Miu finished her laps well before Ray did but was wary to sit down and eat. She had been absolutely floored by the kick and worried that this could be another of that cunning humans’ traps. She therefore waited on the side line for another 10 minutes before Ray finished, keeping an eye on Teddy the entire time. Teddy just smirked at her.

While Miu appreciated the help from Teddy, she hated that it was so violent. She didn’t want to see Ray hurt but was powerless to stop it from happening, so, when Ray was done, she said nothing and moved eat with them. Miu’s levelling and experience worked differently to the humans. Since she was a familiar, she didn’t have a direct stat system like the others, but her level was tied to her stats.

Aside from her starting stats, which were very different then a standard 5 across the board, she still got a total of 40 points, but they were more distributed in Agility and Dexterity then they were in other stats. She gained a level for every 10 stat points gained. When gaining experience, she would instead gain it in specific traits based on how the fights went and would gain direct stat points, instead of levelling for unallocated stats.

External training for Miu resulted in both direct stats and potentially efficiency bonuses. As an example, if her Strength was 10 and she did things to train her strength, she may gain a 0.01% multiplier to her Strength stat. meaning her inherent strength was actually slightly higher than 10.

In the initial stages, she would be much weaker than Ray or Teddy, even at the same levels but over time, she would gain advantages that they didn’t have, possibly even becoming far stronger in the future. She also gained the benefit that every 5 levels, she could allocate 0.25% efficiency to any stat she chose. Whilst this didn’t seem like much, it could be a huge boon in the long run.

She also didn’t have a direct System link like the humans had. She didn’t see numbers but rather was able to understand her body and its growth simply by instinct. Whilst it still translated in a similar way, so she was able to explain it to Ray in the exact same character sheet style, she didn’t need to open these up every 5 seconds to see her potential.

She decided now would be a good time to give Ray an update however, as they hadn’t done that all that often.

Name:

Miu

More Info +

Race:

Panther Cat (F)

Alignment:

Ray Atton – Bonded Familiar

Level:

8 (F)

Stats

Value

Efficiency

True Value (2 Dec)

Strength

3

+0.00%

3

Dexterity

22

+0.50%

22.11

Agility

25

+1.50%

25.38

Body

7

+0.00%

7

Vitality

21

+0.25%

21.05

Intelligence

17

+0.10%

17.02

Mind

12

+0.05%

12.01

Luck

5

+0.00%

5

Unallocated Efficiency

0.00%

Even though she knew her stats were much lower than even Rays at this point, she felt that she would catch up relatively quickly in combat and that satisfied her immensely. The majority of points that she had gained had been from sparring, so real combat would probably lift her even further.

After eating, Teddy surprised both Ray and Miu. “Sparring’s over, we fight beasts now”.

“Are you sure? I’m not even close to fully healed” Ray said.

“How else do you expect to level your Lifeline skill? If I accidentally hit you too hard, you’ll die. At least if we find some monsters on your level, we can take advantage of it in a controlled environment”.

“Well, I guess today's as good as any to die” Ray said.

“Bring it on!” Miu responded.

They got up and left camp. Teddy led them to a large cave system about 20 minutes away.

Rays Character Sheet at the end of chapter 12.

Name:

Ray Atton

More Info +

Race:

Human-Error (F)

Level:

7 (F)

Stats

Strength

17

Dexterity

25

Agility

27

Body

21

Vitality

26

Intelligence

15

Mind

10

Luck

20

Unallocated Points

0

Titles

Outcast (Unique 1/1), Panther Cat Tamer (Unique 1/1)

Coins

Arkus System

297

Rays Skill Sheet at the end of chapter 12.

Skills

Level

Cooldown

Mana Cost

Description

Dark Elf Communication (Common / Passive)

Max

N/A

N/A

Speak and read the Dark Elf language.

Identify (Common)

9

None

1

Activate to gather basic information about the target.

Lifeline (Common / Passive)

1

24 Hours

None

When 10% health is reached, double your current health.