(Day 114) Februarius 20th,12th year of the Dragon, Age of Enlightenment

Over the next 8 days, I rose early in the morning and worked with members of the village on various tasks. I watched as parties headed off to the north to deal with the spider infestation and had even offered to go help. Raz had told me everything was going well and not to worry about it. So, I tried to forget everything I learned back home and relearn each skill from scratch. Abi was of course right, which she rubbed in. Eventually, it was Archery that allowed me the breakthrough I needed to recognize the difference between skills from the two Universes.

I had been banging my head trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Raz had picked up on my frustration, “Adam, it’s not that you’re doing anything wrong. It seems more like you’re not allowing yourself to feel the process. Tell you what. I have an idea for tomorrow. I need to get some things together then you and I will go off and we’ll see what we will see.” Raz had said as they stopped my training for the day.

“At this point Raz, I’m willing to try anything,” I replied.

I woke the next morning and we walked off to a clearing not far from the Village. Raz turned to me and held out a Longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows. I took them with a questioning look on my face and asked, “You know I know how to shoot a bow right?”

“Ye do. But do you know how to do it when you turn off all of your skill and attribute bonuses?” Raz asked.

“What, you mean I can modify that?” I asked

“Absolutely, just activate your interface. Then you need to go into your attribute settings and look for a category under each attribute that’s titled ‘adjusted’ Then you just set the value in that field to whatever you want. Some of us skilled fighters will reduce our strength when training so that we don’t accidentally kill one of our trainees, no matter how much we want to.” Raz said with a grin. “You can also do the same for skill level. Though in this case. Go find whatever archery skill you're defaulting to and set that zero, so you’ll be as if you had no skill. And set your base attributes to 10. You don’t lose the attributes, that just becomes their effective level for attack and damage adjustments. Before you ask, I’m having you set your base attributes to 10 because 10 is considered the normal average attribute. If you have a 10 your normal. 9 you’re a little weaker. 11 you’re a little stronger, got it?”

“Yeah Raz, I got it” I responded. Then I’d gone into my interface and set my “adjusted” attributes to 10. As I thought about it I must have done this somehow back in my Universe when I couldn’t open my Personal Interface. I should have thought of this sooner. Was I becoming too distracted? Another Distraction? I corralled my thoughts and opened up my skill window, I set each archery and ranged weapon skill I had from back home to 0, just in case. I didn’t want something like a skill synergy effect messing up my ability to learn a skill.”

“All set?” Raz asked.

“I think so,” I said, picking up the bow and notching an arrow. The next half hour was a testament to how humble I was willing to be. I shot 20 arrows, missing most of the time. Retrieved them. Apologized when I broke a couple of arrows and kept on trying to hit the targets Raz designated. Finally, I was rewarded with a ‘Ding!” and a blue prompt

Congratulations, you have learned the skill Archery. For 25 stamina you may use a bow to attack a target. This skill provides a +1 bonus to hit per skill level and Critical Strikes do double damage.

To achieve a critical hit against a target a combined attack value 100 higher than required to hit the target is necessary. Critical hits automatically do maximum damage before the damage multiple is added.

Strength multiplier, if applicable, is added after all other calculations. The Strength Multiplier is limited by the strength of the material of the bow to channel that strength. Utilizing Strength greater than the durability of the bow will severely damage it. If the durability reaches zero the bow is destroyed.

I read over the prompt and then thought about how Archery was worded in the description of my original skill. There really wasn’t any description in my original version. Nor did magic in any way limit or help with the skill. It was something like “Archery, You can shoot a bow, practice to get better.” Almost as if whatever was populating the information for the skills knew no one would be reading the info. Here I was looking at a skill that explained exactly how it interacted and exactly what I could do with it. Level 1 though. I was going to fix that right now. I willed my XP and directed it to level the Archery skill to level 500.

Congratulations you have increased your Archery skill to 500. Few achieve such heights. In addition to the normal benefits based on skill level, specifically the +500% to hit on any attack you also receive the following benefits:

At skill level 100 you learned a new Technique: Follow Up. For 50 stamina you can fire a second arrow once per combat round (second) as part of any attack you make. Your chance to hit is reduced by half. This does not count as an action and takes place between attacks. If you make multiple attacks with a bow in a single combat round you may still only use the Technique one time per combat round.

At skill level 200 you learned a Technique: Multi-shot. For 75 stamina you can fire three arrows at a single or multiple targets. If fired at one target the first arrow has a +10% Chance to hit. The 2nd and 3rd Arrows each have a normal chance to hit. If fired at more than one target, One arrow at one target, 2 arrows at another, or 1 arrow at three separate targets all Arrows have their chance to hit reduced by 66%. Multi-Shot can be utilized during extra attacks in a single round. Triple all stamina costs. 1st attack: 75 stamina (25x3). 2nd attack: 375 stamina (25x3 + 100x3), 3rd Attack: 675 stamina, (25x3 + 200x3), 4th attack: 1,275 Stamina (25x3 + 400x3), etc…

At skill level 300 you learned a Technique: Extended Range. For 100 stamina arrows you fire can travel twice as far. No other penalties incurred. No additional costs for utilizing this technique multiple times in a single round. 100 stamina per use.

At skill level 400 you learned a Technique: Piercing Shot. For 200 Stamina and 100 Mana arrows you fire ignore a percentage of the target's armor per skill level above 400. At skill level 401, Arrows fired using Piercing shot ignore 1% + .1% (rounded down) of the target's armor per skill level above 400. At skill level 500, 51% of the armor is ignored. Magical armor and Barriers are unaffected by this technique

At skill level 500 you learned the Technique: Artillery Shot. For 300 Stamina arrows you fire have triple range as they are shot in an arc and will find their target. Cover negated.

Immediately I drew an arrow and shot a “Double Shot” at one of the targets Raz had previously used. Because my adjusted stamina was just 10 I could only use 100 stamina without my adjusted attribute being ignored and my normal stamina flooding in. I spent 75 stamina and let both arrows fly. My first arrow hit exactly where I’d been aiming as the 2nd came right up the shaft of the first disintegrating it. I was so excited that it had worked I yelled “Yeah!”

Raz, who had been watching me looked on in shocked awe as I in mere moments went from missing almost every shot to performing a special attack that he knew most archers worked long and hard to learn. Turning to me he asked, “So I take it you learned the skill Archery?”

Smiling I answered, “Yes my friend. You were right. To learn here, I needed to let go of all my previous knowledge and work from the ground up. As if I were a newborn child. I think I may finally start to make some progress.”

“I am glad that it worked but I am confused,” Raz said. “I have seen the attack you just used and know that to do that the archer must be very proficient in their Archery skill.” Waving his hands in a back-and-forth gesture “You just learned the skill?” he asked questioningly

Thinking about how to answer, I finally said, “Simply, I have an ability that allows me to focus any unused experience into skills to help me level them faster. I can save up any amount of experience, as far as I can tell, and use it to rapidly level the skills I have. When I just learned Archery I used some of that experience to level my new Archery skill. I read the prompt and used one of my new attacks.”

“One of your new attacks?” Raz asked. “What skill level did you raise your skill to?” he asked.

“500,” I responded truthfully

“500, as in skill level 500 in Archery?” he asked excitedly.

“Sure, though because I’ve limited my normal attributes I can’t utilize all the new features of the skill yet but, yeah, Archery skill is at level 500.”

Raz looked at me with a bit of awe in his eyes. “That’s amazing,” he said. Then he shook his head and continued. “I think we’re done for today. We have succeeded in what I was trying to do for you. I’m tired and I need an Ale. I think you could use one too. Besides, we can get back to training tomorrow.”

“Sounds Good to me Raz. I’m just happy that your idea worked out. I was getting so frustrated.”

Raz looked at me and said “I know you were. The elders did let slip to me that you might not know the ways of our world or exactly how things work. As me Da always said, ‘When there is confusion about something, go back to the basics.’ For you, I took that to mean treating you as if you were a wee lad and starting your training as if you’d never held a bow in your life. As the idea worked I believe as we move forward you need to make sure you set any skill from where you come from to zero and adjust your stats to 10 so that nothing can hamper what you’re trying to learn.

“I had the same thought, Raz. Enough talk! Let’s go get that ale, or maybe two, and celebrate!” I said happily. We walked back towards the village. Laughing the whole way. We had an ale, then another, and another.