Mia stared at her status screen, still amazed at how close she was to death. She understood she got lucky but chose not to dwell on that for too long, instead she decided to focus on what she believed she did right but the pain from her broken shoulder kept reminding her of her close call.

“Here, drink tis.”

Mia away from her status screen and up at Rowan, her view lowered to his outstretched hand and in it a red glass jar she was unfamiliar with “What is…?”

“Drink it.” Rowan ordered, uncorking the bottle and shoving the opened bottle into her mouth.

“Mmph?!” Mia drank the potion and after the bottle was emptied, she spat out the bottle and began gasping for air. The bottle shattered once it hit the ground and Mia watched as the broken glass glittered, then evaporated. “W-what was that?” She said, catching her breath. She then sat up, noticing the pain in her shoulder was gone. She raised both her hands up, then looked towards her status. Her health had changed, to what extent she didn’t know but it was no longer at 3.

“An HP potion, it heals you.” Rowan said, “You did… fine, during that match.”

Mia looked up at him, confused, he seemed different, somehow, she didn’t know how to put it.

Rowan looked down to her “You leveled up right? I tought you couldn’t read but you have been staring at someting for awhile now.”

“uh…” Mia looked back to her status, still as illegible as ever “Can’t read but, can understand…somewhat. Level is different.”

Rowan raised his brow, then took out the parchment from earlier “You should have gotten at least one level from that goblin… “ He shook his head “I’ll explain, when you level up you get points that you can assign, do you see tat on your status?”

Mia looked back at her status, she could tell between what she had previously recognized as her level and hp/mp values was something new, something she didn’t recognize “yes? Thinks so.”

“How many do you have?”

Mia stared at the new group of scribbles, not knowing where the numbers began or even where the word points ended “Don’t know…”

“Annoying… I have never encountered someone who couldn’t read teir own status.” Rowan squinted “We will work wit te average… “ he sighed “You can at least tell when tey changed yeah? To assign points just tink or wish it while focusing on the stat you want to increase and by what number.” His gaze then fell onto the goblin corpse on the ground “what will help you the most right now would be more speed and a bit of stregnt, focus on tose two stats… lets put 3 in dex and 2 in strengt.”

Mia nodded, focusing on her status page she wished for the increase. She wished for her dex to increase by 3 points, and her strength to increase by 2. Her status glimmered for a bit and then the numbers changed. If it worked then she now had 5 strength and her dex was at 8.

“Did it work?” Rowan asked, and continued once Mia nodded “Good, if you didn’t have enough points then it wouldn’t of worked at all, so you at least get 5 points on level up.”

Mia stood up, nothing seemed too different from before. She gave the dagger a few experimental swings but felt nothing out of the ordinary, the increase in stats didn’t share anything like how she felt with the dagger skill. She figured it might be because the stat increase was small.

“hmm…” Rowan thought for a moment “Did te point section go away?”

Bringing her attention back to the status screen she saw that no, what she believed to be the point section was still there. She shook her head.

“Meaning you have more points… I’ll be nice, assign 5 more points to what ever stat you wish.”

Mia nodded then plopped back down onto the ground and began thinking on what she should point. She first thought about strength, if more strength could lead to her dishing out blows like that goblin it would help immensely, she could end fights before they even start with just a single hit! But then she remembered how she was able to dodge them and imagined how other enemies would dodge her own powered attacks…

She then focused on constitution, which was her health. It got low, dangerously low. Remembering just how low it got still sent shivers down her spine. She wanted more health so it wouldn’t get that low ever again but decided to at least consider the others before she hastily put all her points into it.

Dexterity was next, this probably saved her life in the last fight. It allowed her to dodge the goblin’s hits, she just made a mistake and got caught, if she had even more of it then perhaps she could have dodged that last attack… if she could just dodge everything, do the attacks even matter?

She shook her head, focusing on the next two. Intelligence and mind, there wasn’t much to say about either. They were currently useless to her so she skipped them and went on to the final stat, luck. Her luck was at one, while annoying she didn’t know what it did or how it affected her so she shoved it into the ignore pile to hang out with intelligence and mind.

That brought her back to her two top choices, constitution and dexterity. She pondered it, rocking her head from side to side before her thoughts fell back into what she thought about earlier. If the attack doesn’t hit, then it doesn’t matter. Her eyes opened and she knew what she had to do. She focused on her dexterity stat and wished for it to increase by 5 points. After a brief shimmer it was done, her dex was now assumed to be 13.

“Done?” Rowan asked.

Mia nodded “Put it in dexterity.”

“Tat’s a good choice, dex is a rouges bread and butter. It should be your main stat, just don’t neglect your other stats too much.” He then walked over to the goblin corpse rotting in it’s own blood “still have points left?” he asked over his shoulder.

Mia looked “Yes.” She answered.

Rowan looked back “Well… Tey need to figure out how many points you get on level up… Just wish for all your remaining points to go into another stat, shouldn’t cause any issues. At most, should have 10 points left.”

Mia nodded then brought her attention back to her status. Not wanting to over think it she decided to go all in and wished for all her remaining points to go into dexterity. After a brief shimmer her status changed, her dexterity was now a number she didn’t recognize, and the points section was gone.

“You done?” Rowan asked, he had knelt beside the goblin’s corpse and had taken out a knife “Get over here, I am going to explain one of your jobs when accompanying the hero.”

“Kay.” Mia nodded then took a single step forward and almost immediately fell as her body lurched forward before she caught herself, slamming her foot on the ground. She blinked, “What?” she wrote it off as a fluke and tried again. Again, her body lurched forward, going faster than what she had intended but she caught herself again.

Everything felt different, she even found it odd how she managed to avoid falling. She brought both hands to her face and waved them Infront of her eyes. Everything just felt… sharper… her eyes catching details she would have missed previously, her movements more precise, just how many stat points had she just dumped into dexterity? She stood up, took a deep breath and took a step forward. The sensation was akin to learning how to walk, but not as extreme.

She got a handle on it after a few steps, and everything was back to normal. It made her feel a bit silly, as if the sensations from earlier were a hallucination. She walked up to Rowan, who appeared to not have noticed her earlier stumbling. He only acknowledged her once she got next to him.

“I am going to show you how to harvest a monster’s core, watch closely.” He proceeded to take out his dagger, turning the monster over he placed the daggers edge on the monster’s chest “Te core is valuable, it’s a chunk of pure magical power tat monsters use instead of a heart. It is almost always located where te heart would be.” He then began cutting into the chest cavity, blood spewing everywhere as he cut.

Mia watched the process, trying her best to learn it but surprisingly found it easy to keep up with his movements.

The entire process took only a few minutes, Rowan raised up a small, perfectly round transparent blue gem that was no bigger than an eyeball “Tis is it, always remember to harvest tem. Te princess wont do it, and I doubt te hero will do it cleanly…I will get more monsters to practice on tomorrow, we still have to raise your level.”

Mia nodded, she had second thoughts on fighting more monsters but somehow, deep inside her mind, she remembered the sensation from earlier and felt like she would not have the same issues. If anything, the more she thought about it the harder she found it was to sit still, she was looking forward to it. She wondered why.

Just then Mia heard a commotion. “Let me in!” a yelling voice that sounded familiar. Rowan apparently heard it too, and they both brought their attention towards the source, the main door to the training grounds. “I must see her! I don’t know what kind of training you are putting her through and I won’t stand for it till I know it is safe for her!”

Mia recognized the voice, it was the hero, John, as they got closer a second voice was heard.

“H-hero! You mustn’t! the princess has assured everything is-“

“I don’t care! I will approve it myself! She has to train with me out in the field!”

The second voice was female, one Mia didn’t recognize. But more importantly she wondered why the hero, after all this time, wanted her to train with him. She glanced up into the sky, the sun was already past it’s high point, surely he could of brought this up a lot earlier…

The hero burst in, quickly followed by a maid, and rushed to Mia’s side. Rowan had taken his distance, going to the nearest wall. “Mia! Thank God you are alright! I just remembered a story I read and… Is that a goblin?! Was I too late!” He then gripped Mia’s shoulders, the girl wincing in pain as her shoulder, while it was healed, still stung. “Are you alright Mia?! Did you get hurt?”

Mia had to keep herself from glaring at him, finding this sudden entrance annoying.