Lucas awoke the next morning to the sight of system messages.

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill Swordsmanship [Un]

Through intense study and training you have gained an understanding of fighting with a sword. Swordsmanship is a multi-tier skill. Swordsmanship [Un] will increase your ability to learn sword related skills, increase your technical skill with a sword, and increase the potency of your skills and base statistics when wielding a sword in combat.

Swordsmanship [Un] Level 1: Progress 20%

(Experience rewards for all levels gained in skill deferred until full System Access is acquired)

Congratulations!

Dodge has leveled up.

Dodge Level 1> Level 3

Dodge Level 3: Progress 85%%

(Experience rewards for all levels gained in skill deferred until full System Access is acquired)

He looked closely at the messages before dismissing them. The swordsmanship skill was similar to the dagger skill he had gained last year when his father had started training him, with the only exception being that he somehow started on the uncommon tier with swordsmanship. He wasn’t sure about the specifics of what skill did since he couldn’t access his skill list until he got full system access, but if it was anything like dagger skill, he would be able to hit targets a little better and learning would be even faster than his already impressive speed for his skills level growth.

Lucas let out a sad sigh, now he was getting skills from his dreams, his father wasn’t going to be happy with this. Lucas hoped that he wasn’t going to get punished. As far as he knew, there wasn’t any way for him to control his dreams, but he’d try if his father asked him to. The events of the dream remained fresh in his mind, the stark terror on the face of the poor priest, the smell of the man’s pee as it was pooled on the floor. Honestly, it made him feel a little better about the bandit he had killed yesterday. At least his opponent had died quickly and painlessly, just like his father had taught him. He swore to himself that if he ever had his own pirate crew, he would just take all his victim’s stuff and let the captured ships go. It was like his father and the beelings. If you take the whole hive, you don’t get any honey next season, and a swarm of angry beelings will follow you home and try to kill you.

Lucas got out of bed as quietly as possible. He knew that there was no true sneaking when his father was paying attention, but as long as he wasn’t too loud his father would pretend to keep sleeping. He quickly washed his face in the bowl across the room and got dressed. Today was going to be a good day. He only got to come to the village once or twice a year, and he was going to make the most of it.

The sun was up, but the dew was still wet on the grass when he made it out to the village well. It was Freeday in the village and the children his age would be out and about with no constraints on their time. Lucas thought to himself that the village kids really had it made. Here in the village, the kids who didn’t work were free to roam and play on the last day of the week. Out on the fringes of the beast range, there was never a true Freeday like in the village. His mum let him sleep late on Freeday but that was it, he still had to do chores. In the village, Freeday was the market day. Merchants of all types worked Freeday and generally took a separate day of the week off, if at all. From the way his pa talked about the merchants, they would stay open all night and every day of the year if they thought they could make a profit from it.

Lucas saw the big village well, with several large spigots and a big trough for excess water to spill into. During the summer, the village kids said that they were allowed to play in the well on especially hot days. Lucas thought that they were just pulling his leg, but he held out hope that he would be able to come to the village on one of the hot days of summer and see for himself. He thought it would be a great deal of fun to spray Mr. Snugglepuss with one of the spigots.

Lucas wasn’t the first kid to arrive at the well. Sitting on the edge of the big stone trough were two boys a couple of years older than Lucas. Lucas knew who they were from a distance and let out his second dejected sigh of the morning. Lucas’ hopes for the day weren’t looking good if the sun wasn’t up and it was already a two sigh morning. Maybe this time things would go better. The two boys were Bert and Arnie. They were two of the bullies among the younglings in town and took orders from Alex, a nine year old who was already big enough to win in a fight against some grown men. The last two times that Lucas had been to town, those three had eventually joined in on the play and basically just started picking on one of the smaller kids. Lucas had tried to get the other kids to just leave the bigger bullies behind and go play somewhere else, but they wouldn’t listen. Even the kid that was getting picked on chose to stay rather than leave the group. Lucas didn’t understand it but had let them do what they wanted and went to play by himself.

“Look, Arnie, it’s the hunter’s brat. Say, I thought I smelled something funny,” said Bert.

Lucas didn’t respond to the two bullies. Instead, he moved to the other side of the fountain and began picking up some interesting looking stones from nearby. He didn’t have to wait long before other children began to show up. They quickly picked a game of guards and rogues and began to scatter, the two unfortunate children picked as guards were stuck at the fountain counting to one hundred. The rogues would attempt to hide in the village from the guards, and if they were found and touched by the guards, they were sent to “jail” at the fountain.

There were a variety of complex rules on where one had to be touched and how to “prison break” an opponent, but Lucas didn’t have to worry about that. With his [Dodge] skill, his training from his father, and his natural agility nobody could touch him. On his one time as a guard, he found five of the ten rogues within a few minutes of playing.

Rather than just evade the slower children and race around them all morning, Lucas decided to practice his sneaking. At some point during the morning, Lucas had resolved that the pirate had proven quite a point. If Lucas wanted a peaceful life, he would have to ensure he had the skills and strength necessary to ensure it. Otherwise what happened to the captain of that smaller ship might happen to him and his family. Each time the guard changed he would hide a little more openly. At first, he hid deep in the shadow under a porch. One of the village children quickly glanced under the porch and away without seeing him. As the morning progressed to afternoon, Lucas moved closer and closer to the open square where the fountain was. Finally, during the last match before lunch, Lucas hid next to a rain barrel on the corner of the square. He didn’t cover himself with anything, there was no shadow to hide in, just a rain barrel on the corner of a building and Lucas crouched next to it.

He waited for the two guards to finish their count and start looking for hidden rogues. This time it was Arnie and a smaller kid whose real name Lucas didn’t know, but everybody called him Booger. Booger went the opposite direction, which made Lucas happy. There wasn’t much chance of him getting “nabbed” by Booger, but he really didn’t want Booger wiping whatever was on his hands onto Lucas. As Arnie approached the corner of the rain barrel, Lucas focused on his [Stealth] skill. He couldn’t access it but he could sense his mana working to try and assist him when he was focused on being, well, sneaky. Over the past several hours he had tried several different techniques, but the one that worked the best was to focus on the image of his surroundings and attempt to wipe himself from the image. He held it tightly in his head as Arnie approached the corner of the building. Arnie passed him by and Lucas almost lost his image from excitement when it worked. This was wonderful. He started imagining all the great things he and Mr. Snugglepuss could do with this skill, and all of the places he could visit. Suddenly, one of the villages real guards came around the corner three buildings down. He barely glanced over Lucas before getting a strange look on his face. Lucas could tell that the guard had gotten a notification, but he didn’t know what for. The guard then proceeded to stare intently at Lucas and Lucas knew that he’d been found. A notification a few seconds later confirmed Lucas’ fears.

Stealth Failed!

Your attempt at stealth was seen through.

Due to your stealth being broken, no further bonus will be applied until you become hidden again. No further experience can be gained in the Stealth skill until you become hidden again.

Congratulations!

Stealth has leveled up.

Stealth Level 4 > Level 5

Stealth Level 5: Progress 18%

Stealth has gained additional options.

(Experience rewards for all levels gained in skill deferred until full System Access is acquired)

That’s not fair, thought Lucas. He barely even looked at me. How am I supposed to sneak past my dad if this guard didn’t even have to try hard. Lucas quickly acknowledged his notifications without paying too much attention to them and ran to the fountain where he broke one of the captured rogues out of jail before dashing back into another alley. The confused guard just stared at him before moving on with his day.

Lunch time quickly approached, and the growling stomachs of the children drew many of them home for a quick snack. Lucas quickly made his way back to the inn where Blake served him a heaping bowl of stew. He saw Helga walking briskly from the kitchen to the tables serving lunch to the many patrons of the inn. Now that he was watching for it, he could see the effect she had on the men and even women as she interacted with them. Their gazes seemed to lock on to her, the men tended to poke out their chests, the women smiled as if they were greeting their best friend. Lucas watched as she adroitly fended off the occasional wandering hand and kept passing out ale and stew to the hungry people in the village for the Freeday market or just passing through.

As Lucas ate, he thought about his skills and his dreams. Throughout the morning he had made significant progress on his [Stealth] skill and had learned some interesting things about it. It leveled quicker when he was actively trying to engage the skill, rather than just be sneaky. In order for it to gain progress, he had to fool someone. If he was just sneaking, but nobody was tricked by the skill into overlooking him, he wouldn’t gain any progress. He thought that it was easier to trick the kids in the village because they had no training and lower stats, since they didn’t have system access.

Lucas was working up the nerve to ask Helga for a bit of bread to take with him so he could stay out a little bit later when his dad sat down next to him at the table.

“So,” he said. “what level is your [Stealth] up to?”