Chapter 3: Training and other things

“What skills are you talking about? Do you want to be a hunter?” Old Silan ask

“No, I don’t want to be hunter, I want to learn how survive on my own.” I immediately said

“Is that so? I thought for once that you want to be a Hunter. I guess it’s alright since I quite like you how you help me around the house.”

“No, no, no,” I immediately refuted old Silan. “I help around the house because I want to repay your kindness to me, that’s why I’m asking this for a favor, I’ll be in your debt again.” I said while bowing my head.

“Ho, Ho, Ho! What a nice kid, if Garret is like that, then I would surely help him, okay, since you asked nicely, I’ll teach what I know, but remember, I’m a strict teacher.” Old Silan said while being happy.

“OKAY! Thank you Mr. Silan” I enthusiastically said

“Now, before I teach you something, why do you want to learn?” old Silan asked me

“I want to learn how survive out there, I need to learn how to hunt, so I can have food.” I answered

“Your right about that, if you want to survive in this world, you must eat. Okay from now on follow my orders with no question ask, if I said jump you jump, I don't even care if you jump out of the cliff, just do what I order you to do, now, wait for me outside after cleaning up.” Old Silan told me.

After cleaning up the dishes, old Silan went up somewhere inside the house, I went outside and waited for him to come, half an hour he still doesn’t comes out, he doesn’t know why he’s taking that long for him to come out. Its cold outside, even if the snow has started to melt, it’s still winter, and the breeze brings chills down thru his bones. But he keeps waiting, he paced back and forth, after an hour he decided to enter the house and to look if there’s something up. When he remembered what the old man told him earlier, “Okay from now on follow my orders with no question ask, if I said jump you jump I don't even care if you jump out of the cliff, just do what I order you to do, now, wait for me outside after cleaning up.” Why did he said it to me that way? He said to follow he’s order form now own even if it’s to jump out of a cliff, no question ask, if he order me to jump I jump, ahh he ordered me to wait. He must testing me. Now that he analyzed by the way old Silan said his words. He revoked his decision to go inside the house, instead, he just sit outside the door and lean his back on to the door. he waited for old Silan to come out, he waited for an hour more and still Old Silan doesn’t come out, he watched the surroundings around the house, now that he noticed it, this house is surrounded with trees, even though they were covered with snow at the moment, you can still see how majestic they are. You can also tell that the snow added an innocent look about them. After about an hour of looking around, I ran out of things to do, I can’t do my regular training outside the house, it will only get me seat then be a lot much colder afterwards, so I just sit there doing nothing. But then, I noticed my hand, it really is different than my previous body. It’s still skinny, but now it’s starting to shape up. My training has started to paying, it will take much time, but I have all the time I need, before it can be like my previous body, my previous body that’s like a character from dragon ball, I’m a fan of that anime, whose not? But this body is not like a character form dragon ball, it like out from the character of Noblesse, especially the face. This is quite an ugly face, it’s not even had the ounce of being a manlier type of face, much more like girlier type of face, with a black color hair and length over my shoulders, I want to cut it, but old man Silan was against it, I don’t know why, he may had his own reason that he doesn’t want to tell me. My previous face that is so handsome. That every crook and cranny has a sign that says this is a man’s face. Sigh~, I let out a deep breath just thinking of this, oh well nothing that I can do about this, maybe I’ll put it some scars later so at least it can have a bit of a man’s face. As I was mulling about my body and face, I didn’t noticed that I waited again for another hour, but then I was surprised, because that soft tune that always warns me in my head if I learn something new or if I had gain another stat has sounded.

You learned a skill “Patience”

Patience (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00% to the next grade)You have the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset

Doubles up the effect of your action or when you strike at the right time

The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better

“Wow!” I was so shocked that I learned another useful skill and its passive, now im starting to like passive skill so much. With my Soulbound stat it became 6 times more effective. I don’t know where I can use this skill but my gamer instinct told me that this one useful skill. Then at the time, old Silan decided to show up. He open the door where I was leaning my back making me fall backward.

“Really? You already learned that skill?” he asked me

“You know that I learned something new?” I asked back

“No, im just guessing with your reaction, so tell me, what did you learned, if my guess is correct, then finally we can start the training.” Old Silan told me.

“I learned Patience skill. Is this it?” I asked

“Yes that’s it, I thought that I need to wait for another or two before you learned that skill, I guess I was wrong.” Old Silan said

“Huh? Youre planning for me to wait for that long?!” I asked shocked from what I heard

“That’s not long for you Soulbounder, you guys learn fast, I ‘am the one that was shocked, because you already learn that skill it takes about a week for normal guys to learn that skill and days for Soulbounder, but you, you only take hours to learn that skill, maybe you have a really long patience or something.” Old Silan explained.

“Really, so why do I need to learn this skill?” I asked

“Tsk, I thought you already learned the skill Patience, but here you are not waiting for me to tell you.” Old Silan refuted me

“Sorry” I said bowing my head

“Oh well, youngsters this day, anyway, this skill is really valuable in a hunter, my mater didn’t teach me anything before I learn this skill. Every hunter needs its patience when stalking a deer, which sometimes takes days before you can track one, and you need a lot of patience to know when the right time to strike is. Miss that time and you miss the prey. That’s how important that skill is.” Old Silan told me

“Thanks Mr. Silan” I said with sincerity

“Thanks for what?” Old Silan asked me

“Thanks for spending your time teaching me, I really appreciate it.” I said

“Hehehe, youre making me blush, anyway the real training start from now, here, come inside first I ave something to show you.” Old silan said. We enter the house, inside near the living room was an array of bows lined up about 15 of them, its looks the same yet not the same, they come in different shape and size, some are recurve bow and some are straight limb bow, how do I know this? Because I’m quite a weapon maniac. The bows are made of wood in different kind of shades, some are light brown and some are with darker shade.

“I got all of this from my storage, they were my old bows, I made some of them some are given and some are bought. Choose one, you need an appropriate bow to use.” Old Silan told me and instructed me to choose one

“But try this first, maybe this is the one” Old Silan said as I was amazed and drooling while looking at different kinds of bow, he handed me the smallest size of straight limb bow. I took it from his hand.

“Try drawing it first.” Old Silan instructed me. I did whate asked me to do. I hold the bow to my left hand then hold it in position and as I was about to pull up the string, old Silan stopped me and fixed my position, instructing me how to use the bow, when he was done instructing me, I pulled the string, I pulled it easily making the bow bend much more, old Silan immediately stopped me.

“I guess I was wrong again, you almost break the bow.” He said

“I’m sorry” I said

“No, it’s not your fault that I chose wrongly. Here try this one.” He handed me another bow, I tried it like earlier, but this time it was not as easier as the other one, it’s much heavier.

“Good, that’s a 45 pound bow, the earlier one was 35 pound bow. I want to try it first so I can know your draw strength, but my guess was wrong, I forgot that you’re not Garret anymore with a weak body and also I forgot that you are training yourself every day with that weird thing you do.” Old Silan explained. Does he say weird? So this guys doesn’t know what kind of exercise I was doing? Anyway, I don’t want to explain what kind of things I was doing, it will just make me weirder for him.

“Here, try this one, this is the heavier bow I had here other than the one I’m using right now, it’s a 100 pound bow, try drawing it.” He handed me another bow. So I tried it like the other two, but this time, it is a lot harder than the first two, I barely pull the string thru my cheeks.

“So you already had the strength to pull this kind of bow. Good, this will be much easier, now, you can already choose what kind of bow you want to use. Go on pick” he said.

I looked at the different kind of bow that was lined up, and I choose the bow that he handed me last. It’s a recurve bow with a black shade of wood.

“This one, I liked this one.” I said to the old man.

“So you chose a recurve bow other than the straight limb bow, okay, here carry this.” As he said that, old Silan started picking up different kinds of recurve bow, he got about 5 recurve bow and handed it to me.

“Come, follow me outside, we’re going to start your training.” He instructed.

I followed him outside, he was headed at the side of the house were there was shack. He asked me to put the bows in the side wall of the house away from the snow. Then he asked me help him to get some things inside the shack. What we got inside the shack was dozens of dozens of arrows in a quiver and some pole covered with straws, it’s like a training dummy. He asked me to line up the training dummy in a straight line, after we are finished lining up the straw dummy, he walked away for about 15 meters from it and draw a line in the ground. He asked me to follow him where the bows is.

“Identify this bows.” He told me, I did what he asked me to do.

“Identify”

Simple Recurve BowA 55 pound recurve bow that was handmade by a skilled hunter.Damage10-15Durability20/20+5 to Dexterity

Recurve BowA 65 pound recurve bow that was handmade by a skilled hunter.Damage15-20Durability25/25+7 to Dexterity

Hunter’s Recurve BowA 75 pound recurve bow that was handmade by a skilled hunter.Damage25-30Durability30/30+10 to Dexterity

+7 to Agility

Artisan’s Recurve BowA 85 pound recurve bow that was made by a skilled Artisan from a Yew WoodDamage35-45Durability40/40+15 to Dexterity

+10 to Agility

Recurve Bow of ElkA 100 pound recurve bow that was made by a skilled bow maker from an Elk horn and a Black Yew WoodDamage55-70Durability55/55+25 to Dexterity

+17 to Agility

+1 grade to Bow Proficiency Skill

Wow, this is all a good bow, and I guess that some of it was made by old man Silan himself, I better asked him later to teach me how to make one. As I was finished inspecting all the bow, old man Silan started to instruct what im going to do. He first pick the weakest bow out of the five he already picked, and gave it to me, he told me to stand behind the line that he draw on the ground and face the straw dummy, he asked me to wear the quiver with arrow on it behind my back. He thought me how to draw an arrow in the quiver, frist the bow was facing downward as I draw an arrow with my right hand, then put it in the bow while it was facing downward, nock it to the string, then as I pulled the string, I move the bow upward till it was in the right shooting position and the string that I pulled touched my cheeks. He asked me to aim at the last straw dummy in the line and wait 3 second before I released the arrow. I did what he said and I missed big time. I was using just the 55 pound bow with a distance of more than 15 meters from the target, since I’m standing in front of the straw dummy that was in the middle of the line. The one that I show was angled from my position since it was the farthest from my left side. My shot went wide and the arrow went off 10 meters behind the straw dummy impaling itself into the snow.

“Now good, repeat that till you shot 10 arrows in that straw dummy even if it misses, then move on the next and to the same till the last straw dummy.” Old man Silan said as if he didn’t see how I embarrassed myself by missing it big time.

“How was that good? I didn’t even graze it.” I said feeling down and embarrass.

“That was okay because it was your first time. If it hit the first time, I’m the one who will be shocked and maybe kill of myself. Now don’t be so down, and just practice till you hit it. Remember that everyone has come the same way as you, even me, I missed my first shot. Now do it again, and remember what I said. Wait 3 seconds before you release the arrow and 10 arrow per straw dummy. If you emptied the quiver just get some here then put it in the quiver, if you shot all the arrow, picked them up before continuing, you better picked them all up, not one bit missing even if it’s broken or I’ll kill you, remember that.” Old man Silan said

“Okay” I responded

“If you want to take a rest just rest, but remember to take care of the bow and arrows first so they won’t lose durability in this weather. If you shot all the target without missing even one arrow, call me. I’ll take this other bow first inside.” Old man Silan said, then he went inside the house with the other bows.

I continued shooting the target, doing what old man Silan instructed me to do. Draw an arrow, nocked the arrow, pull and aim at the target, wait 3 second then released. I do it over and over again till it became a monotonous action for me, draw, nocked, aim, wait, and shot. After I depleted my arrows on both my quiver and the stock, I went out to get the arrows, not even one arrow hit the target but some graze it, it’s still considered a miss. Finding arrows was much harder than shooting it there was about a hundred arrows lying there waiting to found and be picked up. After doing it sometimes, there was a message saying that I earned some stat.

You gained 6 stat to Dexterity

After some time again I gained another stat

You gained 6 stat to Endurance

From time to time I gained some stat in agility and endurance, rarely in strength and constitution, and much more frequently in dexterity. As I continued doing this monotonous action I gained a new skill.

You learned a skill “Bow Proficiency”

Bow Proficiency (Passive)Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00 to the next grade)You are more familiarize handling a bow

+5% in bow damage

You tire much slower when using a bow

The higher the grade of this skill enhances your proficiency when using a bow

I did this 3 more times before lunch, I didn’t even noticed that it was lunch time till old man Silan called for me. I cleaned up and headed inside. I was a little bit down when we were eating lunch and old man Silan didn’t say anything, he must felt what I ‘am feeling right now, I said sorry to him for not helping him making lunch, but he said it was okay and doing lunch is easy. So I just help me cleaning up the dishes, after cleaning up I rested a bit because my drawing shoulder started to get muscle pains, I massage it before continuing the practice, as I rest, I replay in my mind what I did, so I can do better later. After resting up, I went back outside to practice. This time I did much better than earlier, some of my arrows hit the target and mostly of them graze it and few are misses. I did it over and over again till the afternoon. I decided to clean up and continue my practice tomorrow. When I was finished, I help old man Silan to prepare some dinner, after dinner and cleaning dishes, I went to bed, I reviewed what I did all day then went to sleep. When I woke up the next day, I did my morning routine which is running, breakfast, and exercise, after that, I went to set up the straw dummies and started practicing again the whole day, then reviewed what I learned before going to sleep. I did this 3 more days till I got frustrated about losing arrow in my quiver and picking up to replenish it from time to time. So I decided to make a new quiver which hangs behind my waist with my tailoring skills. I remodeled one quiver so instead of having a belt that hang in my shoulder, it became a belt that hang in my waist and the arrows end was peeking out my right side. I did some adjustment so the arrows won’t fall off even if I move. Now that I have two quivers, one behind my shoulder and the other one behind my waist. I can draw arrows now in two ways, one drawing behind my shoulder and the other one drawing at my side, but it was not easy drawing at my side and nocking it, so I practice a bit till I became proficient as drawing behind my back. As a way to escape boredom in this monotonous action, I tried interchanging which quiver I draw with and sometimes just drawing at one quiver at a time.

Finally, on my fifth day, I shot all the target without missing one. I called for old man SIlan to show it to him. He was a bit impressed that I did it in only five days, then he adjust the distance of the line where I shoot at, he added 5 more meters so now the distance between me and the target is 20 meters. He told me to take a shot again and call for him when I hit all the target. It take me half the day before I can get all the target, I called old man Silan again to show that I can shot the target without missing, now he was impressed, not just with how I can hit the target, but also with my innovation with the quivers, he just didn’t told me earlier so I won’t have a big head, then he told me to help him move some of the targets. He put some of the targets a little farther than the other and some are like hiding behind the other target. After that he told me to practice again at the same distance as the last one. It took me 2 days to hit all the target without hitting the target that the other target was hiding behind. I showed it again to the old man Silan and this time he praised me. I felt proud to myself that day. Old man Silan took the bow that I’m using and gave me the other bow, this time it was the 65 pound bow. He asked me to repeat the process I did as the first one. So I lined up the straw dummy again and take a shot from 15 meters, it was discomforting at first, my first shot just graze the target, old man Silan told me that was because I’m using a more powerful bow than the first one I was accustomed with, I need to adjust myself so I can utilize the new bow like how I utilize the first one, it took me a few tries before I can hit the target dead-on.

“Mr. Silan can I ask why am I doing this? I can just use the strongest one to practice right?” I asked the old man

“Yes, you can use the strongest one right away I guess, but you won’t get any stronger that way. Not physically but mentally. Imagine if you use the stronger bow right away and become accustomed to it for a long time, then one day it broke and you need to use a weaker one, what will happen?” He asked me

“Ahh, I guess I will miss a lot like earlier and it will take me a long time to adjust.” I said

“No, it will impossible for you to adjust, because you are already accustomed to a much powerful bow for a long time. Remember, there is no shortcut in getting powerful it will only lead to death. Now enough talking and more practicing.” Old man Silan finished our talk and went inside the house.

I started practicing again, it took me 4 days to do what I can do on the previous bow, when I was able to do what I can do on the first bow, old man Silan change my bow again. It took me 3 weeks practicing with all the bow and learned another useful skill.

You learned a skill “Focus”

Focus (Passive) Apprentice Grade 1 (0.00% to the next grade)You had the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition

Doubles up the effect of your action on the things you pursue

The higher the grade of this skill enhances the effect of this skill much better

With that done, old man Silan gave me the Recurve Bow of Elk and the two quivers that I’m using as a gift. I was happy and very thankful to old man Silan, I hug him to show my appreciation, and it felt like I had a father again. He gave me pat and told me some things.

“Now that you are proficient to the bow, I can start teaching you how to survive now. Here take this, it’s my old hunting knife.” He handed me a small hunting knife, I receive it gratefully.

“Starting tomorrow, I will teach how to hunt and survive in the forest. Since it doesn’t snow that much anymore and there’s only a few more snow that has not yet melt, it’s basically spring in a week’s time. It’s safe to say we can venture off just a little bit inside the forest, we can stay there for a week to hunt. So take a rest now and I will prepare what we will need tomorrow.” After old man Silan said that, he let me off.

I went to my room with my gifts. I reviewed all the things I did this past few weeks and check my growth. I noticed that the training skills has its limits as well, I won’t just gain some stats if I do the same amount of training or practice as I did, I must doubles up the amount of training or practice to gain some stat again or do a different kind of training to gain some stats. Some of the skills won’t get much percent in gaining grade when they reach Journeyman stage, in all the weeks I did my running every morning, my running skill stay at the same Grade 1 with only half of its percent to reach the next grade. I need to ask this to old man Silan next time.

“Show Status Window”

Status WindowNameNeed to be registeredTitleErrand BoyStandingsCommoner Grade 1StatusSoulboundStrength114 (+57)Agility 140 (+70)Dexterity155 (+77)Constitution 105 (+52)Intelligence16 (+8)Wisdom 10 (+5)Luck10 (+5)Leadership 0 (+0)Endurance181 (+90)Fighting Spirit 0 (+0)