Without any power left I sat down at the table on a big old oak wood chair. It was beautifully designed. A dragon head shaped it’s back and the fiery breath were the arm-rests.

The house wasn’t any different. Did I say house? The mansion! High Class decoration, pompous statues, magnificent artworks. Everything an art loving freak would love.

You saw “The wonders of Navenheil”

Art +1

You witnessed “The five Royal Knights”

Art +1

My art stat grew and even grew further. I think it upgraded 10 times just by looking at breath-stealing artworks.

We waited on the food which his wife, a big barbarian, was making. He bragged about her food the entire time. How amazing it tastes, how unbelievably good it looks and so on.

I asked for permission to go to the kitchen. He waved with his hand and let me go. A lingering look in his eyes and saliva running down his mouth.

At first I didn’t find the way but after going around in circles for sometime I found the kitchen.

It was just as big as every other room in this house. Beautifully designed with modern equipment. His wife just hacked a fish in two and sliced small portions off.

“Do you need anything?” She looked at me.

“Or are you an open man for help just like the other guests nowadays?”

I didn’t know what she meant but I obviously offered her my help. Even in my condition I could prepare some food. And if I learnt cooking here I could cook for myself at home. With my mother gone it was really pragmatic.

“If it doesn’t bother you, then I gratefully offer my help.”

“Take that knife over there and make a salat. Fast.”

I did as she wanted. I took the knife, looked at it and thought about what it could do. Exactly at that moment I got an alert.

You learned the skill “Identify”

By speculating about specific properties of the knife you entered the world of characteristics

Awesome. Really awesome. I used the skill on the knife and got a message.

Identified: Handmade kitchen knife

Damage: 7 Durability 40/40

Description: A well made knife. It’s usage for the kitchen but could be used for different things as well.

I snapped the bad salad leaves from the head and began to prepare the salad.

I followed her instructions and slowly understood the basics. I cut cucumbers in small pieces and threw them into the salad. Tomatoes, cheese, and other vegetables which I didn’t know at first but I get to knew after analyzing them followed one by one.

Identify leveled up. Beginner level 2 0%

A great bowl of different vegetables was the final product.

You learned the skill “cooking”

By helping the cook in this house and following her instructions you learnt everything about the basics of cooking

She thanked me. And I was happy to obtain this skill. Slowly I got into this stuff of virtual reality. To learn things you have to do them first.To do them you either have to them yourself by thinking about what you have to do or ask another person if he could teach you.

By doing them you hone them afterwards. There were different levels and categories. The levels varied from 1 to 10 and fit into following categories Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Master and Grandmaster. If you leveled your skill up to level 10 it evolved to the next stage.

“No problem. This was nothing.”

She gave me a potion.

“Drink that potion if you feel down. I know how my man can be sometimes. You will need it.”

I analyzed it. But I got no result. Maybe too complicated for my skill level.

I thanked her again and brought the dishes to the eating room where I put them on the table. There was much and more on the table for just 3 persons.

I gulped. The smell was... was.. was. I don’t know what it was but it was captivating.

“Let the fight begin!”

He roared and pieced a big piece of pig with his mighty fork. I didn’t know what was going on. Small pieces of meat and drops of grease shot around my head. The scene was vicious. 2 big humans screamed at another and fought for each slice of meat vigorously. After some time a third person entered the battlefield. A small elf with nothing left but hunger! A new power awoke inside him.

You participated in “The monster’s feast”

Basic stats + 1

Fame + 10

You acquired the stat “Endurance”

It allows you to maintain a specific action for a longer time

The meal was great. Everything tasted abnormally good and we didn’t let one piece of meat on the table. Even the salad got ripped apart by us. The wife was cleaning up right now and we were departing for his training room to continue the training. We went into the cellar.

It was huge. And if I say huge then I mean huge. Compared to the house the cellar was at least 5 times bigger. And that was what I thought after seeing the first floor.

“I bet you didn’t think this cellar would be this big.” He laughed as he saw my confused state.

“You really know nothing about this world. This is just the first floor of my own private training cellar. 3 visitors had the floor in all this years and you are the first one this year and the first elf on top of that.”

I didn’t know what to say. This was just... just phenomenal.

“No words? Well, take your time... well actually not because we have to train but one thing I still have to say. Some mages enhanced this training floor. Your training speed will process 20% faster on the first floor and every next floor the rate will grow by 20%. But it consumes more energy, the energy which you would use for the amount the percents give. This way you can train much faster if you have the power to endure it.”

“That sounds great.”

After eating such a monstrous meal I had enough power to do anything, that’s what I thought at least.

“So... What did you plan for my training?”

The room had enough space to do anything down here. In every corner were machines for training or stuff to build a up a hindrance run with obstacles. So much things were just lying around that I didn’t know where to start.

“Well, you see all this equipment here. I planned that we make up a cycle which we do again and again. Therefore we build up an obstacle course from corner to corner.”

“Okay.”

After some time we finished preparations. The room seemed half as big as it was before. There were 4 different courses but everyone hard on it’s own.

“Okay, time to start!

The week of horror began.

“Faster! Run faster!”

I did the cycle for felt 3 hours already but I only were at the second point. It was really hardcore especially with this kind of trainer.

I still wore my vest and he packed 5 pound more to it and said that still wasn’t enough.

“I want to see 20 repeats for that machine! Do it faster!”

“You have to jump over the hindrances!”

“Another 10 repeats! Come on you aren’t a small child anymore”

“Go, go, go!”

“Do you want to mock me? My grandmother can do this faster than you!”

Something was strange. My stats didn’t raise at all. At first I didn’t notice it but after sometime it was definitely weird.

“What are you standing around for? You still have to run around 2 times to make a break! Come on this time I run with you.”

The second round was just as horrible as the first. If it was not for him then I would have collapsed. Or stopped halfway. Sometimes trainers can be cruel but they do it to get you to your limits.

About the third round I didn’t even want to talk anymore. It was hell. Real hell. Flames spread through my muscles, streams of sweat ran down my skin. The warm up from before was nothing compared to this.

“Okay, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow I want to see more from you. Didn’t you say that you want to do it with ease and stand out in every category?”

I nodded with my head. I couldn’t say any word, powerless as I was. I logged out. I had to eat something after all this time.

--------

I opened my eyes. I wasn’t hungry was my first thought. But then came the pain. I never felt so much pain before. If I could I would have screamed out so loud that glass would explode.

I logged in again and didn’t think about what could happen to me. I just wanted this pain to vanish and inside the game it was easier to endure it.

I materialized right in front of the instructor.

“You here again?”

“I need to get some rest here.”

“It’s fine. You can take a rest upstairs.”

“Okay.”

I held my stomach and slendered upstairs. I threw myself down on the bed and cursed right after it. Pain spread out all over again. Then the potion came to my mind. I thought of drinking it but I didn’t. I wanted to endure this on my own. All on my own.

I couldn’t sleep at all. The pain was too much. I stood up and walked over to the bookshelf.

Only then did I look at the room I was in. It was a small room compared to the rest of the house. One door, the one I came in, was on the one side of the room, the spartanic bed was in the middle of the room, some pictures decorated the walls, a mirror hang on the third wall and the fourth wall was an entire bookshelf. I couldn’t even read most of the titles. Not because I was goddamn tired but because they were in another language. Weird thing about that was that normally the game would translate them for you. I thought it was strange.

I found three books which were in my language. They weren’t that big but I thought better than nothing at all. After reading the titles I knew why I couldn’t read the books from before. They were in another game language, made so that you have to learn the language here. The first book I could read was “Language of the Ancients”. The other ones weren’t that interesting at the moment. The book had approximately 200 pages.

You learned the ancient language

From now on you can read and understand it

Texts will be translated to your language but will be marked as ancient

Ancient marked writing will be italic

Wisdom + 3

Intelligence + 3

I decided to read the other two books first I picked up. The first of them read “Soundless Hunting” by an unknown author. Maybe it has interesting content.The first few pages weren’t really interesting but I read on and found a cool quote:

“Prey on the weak and you will survive, prey on the strong and you will live.”

I will definitely remember that one. I decided to read the book till the end, it wasn’t that long and I had already begun to read it.

In the middle of the book stood something about a sneaking technique to approach enemies silently. I wrote it down into my notebook the system offered. The rest of the book was rather boring. Different kinds of animals were explained, hunting methods and so on.

I laid down and went to sleep. The pain I had left could be tolerated.