My morning started the same as it always did. I woke up, got dressed, picked up my weapons and headed outside to start my training before the rest of the house woke up. Though I did start with the bow this time and increased the time I put into it, after all if there was a precise cut and precise blow there had to be a precise shot, right?

I was just about done with my training and getting ready to head to the smithy to straighten up my arrows and do some maintenance work on my sword and spear when Hatchet just popped up next to me from what seemed like thin air.

“You kid got nothing better to do at this hour in the morning?” He sounded pissed off, like I was wasting something precious but little did he know I had already spent one childhood playing around and that led to me to deficits I couldn’t make up for regardless of the hard work I put in, I wasn’t going to make that mistake a second time.

“I want to be ready for anything” I answer back with a bit of indignation in my voice at being rebuked for trying to improve myself.

“Hpmh, listen to him wants to get better, for the next few cycles you’re going to be dead weight in any kind of situation, do you get that kid you’ll only be slowing me down, you’ll be better off learning to climb that fucking tree than shooting arrows at it” He scoffed at me and took off back towards the village.

I’ll admit I was a bit flabbergasted at his attitude and it took me longer than I would admit to but I realized (after a bit of cursing his whole ancestry) that the old man was actually trying in his own way to teach me that I should learn to climb a tree, just in case something did happen while we were out in the forest.

“Why can’t he go about teaching me like a normal teacher?” I mumbled as I spent the next 2 hours climbing every tree in sight, the small reward for my hard work being the climbing skill I got after a particular tall tree where I had to jump just to grab onto the first branch and swing myself up the rest of the way.

The realization that I was dead weight even after all these years of training took its toll on me, I didn’t even think fondly at going to Mr Finean’s house to sell my berries and instead put all my frustration in swinging the hammer in the forge working on my straightening up my arrows.

As I was done I realized I was way too close to the forge, the shirt on my back was soaked with sweat and the heat resistance skill I got from a happy accident, years of working in here and one pissed off morning I just got it without even trying. I wasn’t yet to the level of sticking my hand in the fire just because of that but I did think about raising it so in the future I could do just that, even if in this world it wouldn’t be something unheard off it would be something that kept me tied back to my old world that seemed to have been just a dream at this point.

Walking out of the blacksmith shirt and weapons in my hand I pass by Alana who seems to have woken up. She looks at me with a strange look on her face, I don’t think I’ve seen her make that face before so I rearrange my list of things to do to wash and then breakfast.

While I was grabbing my late breakfast mom was teaching Judy how to salt meat so that it would last using the deer I brought it. They both seemed happy to have an excuse to do something together telling me that while my sister was close to finishing her apprentice trait she was not quite ready to leave home like my brother did.

After eating more than I thought I would need, clearly the climbing had taken a bigger toll on me than I thought it would, I pulled my sister off to the side while my mother went to store the meat. What Hatchet said about me only getting in his way still ate at me a little bit despite me thinking it was just his way of telling me to learn climbing and not a dig at me.

“Hey Judy can you tell what the Apprentice trait says?” I ask her after we are alone sitting around the table.

“Why, you’ll just learn it yourself in a few cycles anyway?” she responds, not knowing that no I wouldn’t actually and this was also a good time to get a baseline for the trait and see how much my improved version meant.

“It’s something that Hatchet said to me today when I was training, he said I would be dead weight for the next few cycles and that I would be better off learning to climb trees than swing a sword. What happens when the child trait runs out.”

“That bitter old man, can’t he think of a better way to teach someone?” She mumbles under her breath clearly picking up on his objective much faster than I did. “Well usually we all learn exactly what the Apprentice trait does when we earn it but just to put your mind at ease I’ll tell you now, but you have to promise not to tell mom or dad I told you early, dad takes pride in preparing us for what we are about to go through.”

A silly little slime appeared on her face as she thought back to her big night and probably to Tom’s as she might have stayed till the end back then.

“Alright deal, I won't breathe a word of it” I say, placing my hand over my heart as is custom for making a vow.

“You don’t have to take it that seriously,” she laughs, slapping me lightly on the shoulder. “Anyway the Apprentice trait goes like this:”

“Apprentice - Temporary trait

Status points allocated increased by 10%

Ageing stopped for the duration.

Ease of forcibly increasing stat points increased.

Experience earned for doing skill related activities slightly increased.

Ease of adapting to increase in stat points greatly increased.

Fertility slightly increased.

Status becomes harder to reveal or approximate making appraisal and scan abilities harder to use..

Time remaining : 75 cycles. “

This was quite the reveal, one that I looked forward to comparing to my own upgraded version in a little while, but one thing did stick out to me like a sore thumb.

“Slightly increased fertility?” slips out of my mouth as I wonder what use does that have?

My sister goes a bit red in the face “Haven’t you noticed, as you stopped growing these last few months, haven’t you started to feel a bit funny?” she questioned though was clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

I realized that she was right, it seems that in this world with the help of this system humans and I suspect other humanoid races evolved to fully undergo their growth period before looking to reproduction leading to a lesser sex drive in the early prepubescent years and increased growth with a faster end to growth and a higher sex drive(presumably, I hadn’t reached that part yet but I was close and if it was a bigger sex drive than adolescence I might have a few issues).

“Ah” I awkwardly said, clearly not a topic for discussing with your sister, “Thanks for sharing that with me, the Apprenticeship not the other thing” I made a mess of the conversation and my sister seems to be looking for a different topic to move on to as I am.

“Hey , you want to go with me and see how much we can get off Mr. Finean for these berries, they are supposed to put you to sleep and as long as you don’t eat too many they aren’t dangerous according to Hatchet.” I offer her an out.” I’ll split the profit with you 80-20.”

“Why are we still sitting here then?” she exclaims while her red face regains her color, a calculating look taking over, with a smirk playing on her lips. “ And the split will be 75-25, and be happy I let you keep that much for using my services.”

I don’t say anything, despite likely having merchant skills equal if not higher than her own, after all this seems like it will be an enjoyable way to spend time with my sister and I haven’t seen her in over 30 days. Plus with her handling the negotiation I won’t have to lowball the offer to hide my merchant skills, she’ll easily be able to charge twice as much as I would without raising suspicions.

“How many of these berries you got, and how many does it take to put someone to sleep?” she asks me as we make our way over towards Mr Finean, who is about to become a lot poorer by the look on my sister's face.