《Fetters of Mortality》 Chapter 1 - The Tutorial When Aiden Moore went to sleep, he already knew what to expect in the morning. The loud, yet pleasant ringing of his phone''s alarm, waking him up. Then, he would dress up, have a small breakfast, and set off to work. As such, when he was rudely woken up by the sensation of his spine impacting a stone floor, he was understandably confused. "Ow! What the fuck?!" he couldn''t help but shout as he opened his eyes to take in his surroundings. First off, he was definitely not in his bedroom - the room he was in was bereft of any furniture, and the walls were built out of stone bricks. The floor was certainly stone, judging by the painful bruises along his spine, especially bad at the base. Wincing at the sharp, stabbing pain in his tailbone, Aiden stood up. He was still in his pajamas, so the cold air didn''t bother him too much, but as he usually went to bed without socks, he could easily tell the temperature of the floor - it was cold, and rather unpleasant as a result. Further awoken by the chilly environment, Aiden once again took in the room. Unfortunately, he didn''t sleep in his glasses, so he couldn''t make out certain details. Still, even his sight was enough to paint the broad strokes. The room wasn''t very big, but it was quite tall. He wasn''t sure of the exact size, but it looked to be a cube, with all edges being roughly five metres. The room was illuminated by a few bright LED lights, set into the ceiling. However, Aiden''s attention was quickly drawn to the fact that there weren''t any exits to the room. The bricks on the walls had cracks in them, but they were staggered, without a single vertical straight line present that would indicate a door. Perhaps the door was camouflaged? It could be, but that notion brought into question the strange situation Aiden found himself in. Where was he? And how did he get here? Fortunately, he wasn''t left to ponder on these questions for long, as a few seconds after he stood up, a voice suddenly echoed throughout the room. "Welcome, challenger, to the tutorial. Although you certainly have many questions, please refrain from asking them until the end of the introduction." Aiden certainly had many questions, but sure, he''d let the disembodied voice talk for now. "As your universe is undergoing integration into the system, you have been given the valuable opportunity to enter the tutorial. Here, you will have a chance to acquire valuable skills that will serve you throughout the rest of your journey through life, offered in courses. On top of that, you will also be able to go through various trials, ranging from easy ones, to practically impossible. Upon completion of the trials, you will be rewarded appropriately." "Take note though, that you have limited opportunities to attempt courses, and some courses require completion of trials to enter." There was a lot of information to process here, and Aiden had several pressing questions, the most crucial of these was... "What is the system?" Unfortunately, his question was met with silence. With a small frown, Aiden asked another question. "How can I return... to earth?" "To return, complete the basic combat course and the first trial. However, please note that you can return only after seven days have passed. If you choose to stay longer, you can stay up to a month, but no more." He would have to stay here for a week? How was he supposed to survive without food or water? And why was such an arbitrary limit in place? Without waiting, Aiden asked these questions out loud. "Your physical needs will be taken care of by the system. In the tutorial, you will not require food or water, and any injuries can be healed. Please note, however, that death can not be cured." Death can not be cured? With an entity capable of doing... well, this - like the system, Aiden guessed that it was merely not worth the energy to resurrect a challenger in the tutorial if they died. After the message had ended, there was a small pause, before another message started playing. "The time limit is in place due to the integration of the system. After the integration is over, you can leave." So, the integration was in some way dangerous? That was potentially concerning. Also, it seemed that the voice didn''t want to answer his question about the nature of the system, but just to be sure, Aiden asked again. As he expected, he was ignored. Still, he had other questions. "What about sleep?" "Physical exhaustion can be removed, but mental exhaustion cannot." Alright, so the system had some limits - it wasn''t omnipotent, at least. Or, it could be the question of cost, again. "Is the integration dangerous or destructive?" "The integration makes changes to the very nature of your universe. It is not destructive to the environment, but it is dangerous for living creatures. As such, all creatures with a prerequisite intelligence are taken to the tutorial for the duration of the integration." More concerning information. Great. ''Any more pressing questions? No, I think that''s it. Now I should ask about the courses.'' "So, how do I enter these courses?" "To proceed to the tutorial hub, please open your status by saying or thinking ''status''." ''Huh, so there''s such a function to the system. ''Tutorial'' and ''status'', it really seems like a game. Status.'' Even though he thought ''status'', nothing happened. Aiden furrowed his brow, and thought again. ''Status.'' Still, nothing. Since the AI said that it was possible to invoke the ''status'' with his mind, Aiden didn''t give up, and tried once again. This time, he focused as hard as he could voicing the word mentally. ''Status'' <<<>>> Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.Name: [none] Level: 0 Status: Vitality - (74 / 80) (+2.6/h) Stamina - (67 / 85) (+15/h) Mana - (0 / 0) (0/h) Attributes: Body: Strength - 8 Dexterity - 11 Agility - 10 Mind: Intelligence - 12 Wisdom - 11 Willpower - 9 Spirit: Control - 10 Perception - 15 Qi - 0 Skills: [none] <<<>>> The status showed itself as a translucent blue box, floating in front of him, roughly at an arms'' reach. The characters were sharp, and he could read them perfectly - which was rather strange, considering his bad eyesight. After opening the status, Aiden felt a strange presence within his mind - he was pretty sure it was the status. With it, he could easily dismiss it with a thought, and easily call it back. The content of the status was also interesting. First of all, the lack of a name. With a bit of mental gymnastics, Aiden managed to push his name, or rather the thought of his name - he didn''t know how to describe it - to the status, and managed to change the status to show his full name: Aiden Moore. The rest of the status was quite interesting too. The attributes in the ''Body'' category summed up his physique pretty well. His strength was slightly below the average, which he assumed was ten, his agility was average, and his dexterity was just above average. The mind and the spirit categories were a bit strange to him, as these qualities are not easily quantifiable. Intelligence was easy enough to understand, but it wasn''t one tenth of his IQ, so the scales differed slightly. Wisdom was strange, too - how can one''s wisdom be quantified? Wisdom wasn''t something innate to an individual - it was the sum total of one''s experience, knowledge, and judgement. On top of those questions about the nature of the statistic, Aiden didn''t consider himself a very wise person - he was barely out of university! Willpower posed a similar conundrum - willpower as he understood it wasn''t something quantifiable. Since these attributes couldn''t be what he had assumed they meant, what did they mean? The spirit category was even more esoteric. Until now, he could explain the system as incredibly advanced technology - both his sudden appearance in this strange room and the presence he could feel within his mind could be explained somehow with technology, but spirit? That was firmly in the realm of fantasy. Sure, with everything happening right now he could somewhat believe it, but he couldn''t understand it. He didn''t even have an idea where to start with ''Qi'', control was also too strange to begin to understand. And perception? It simply didn''t match what he knew about himself physically. After all, Aiden had rather severe short sightedness, and his hearing wasn''t great, either. As such, his perception attribute shouldn''t have been high - however, the perception attribute being in the spirit category would indicate that it quantified something different, and not his physical senses. And after all of the attributes, there was the question of the values on top of his status. Mana he could ignore for now, since it was zero - he would be surprised if it wasn''t. Stamina, he could also understand - well, it was stamina. The energy required to move around and perform physically demanding tasks. It was a bit strange that the system was able to quantify the sum total chemical energy stored in his body, but with all the strange things happening right now, it was merely a side note. The fact that his stamina wasn''t full also wasn''t that surprising - Aiden was rather rudely awoken in the middle of the night, so he was quite tired. But oh well, he couldn''t hold it against the system that it decided to integrate their universe as he was sleeping. After all, no matter when it did so, people would be sleeping somewhere on earth. He was simply unlucky. What was concerning in his status was that his vitality wasn''t full. Aiden wasn''t sure, but he guessed that vitality was basically like HP, similar to some games he had played, and represented the structural integrity of his body. Since it wasn''t full, it meant that his health wasn''t perfect. After some thinking, Aiden calmed himself down. Although he lived a normal life, he had never been that careful with his body. He certainly wasn''t abusing drugs or alcohol, but his irregular sleep schedule, having junk food instead of proper meals, and the overall hectic life he had led in his years at university didn''t do him any favours. "Okay, I opened my status, what now?" Aiden spoke to the disembodied voice. "Please share your status by saying or thinking ''show status'' to continue." The fact that the AI (he had assumed it was an AI, and was pretty sure now) didn''t have access to his status was interesting. Still, Aiden didn''t have time to ponder on what it meant right now, so he tried to show his status to the AI. With a bit of mental gymnastics, the status screen before him seemed to become a bit more corporeal, while also losing some of its'' readability to him - Aiden could only interpret this as the status actually appearing in front of him, and not being projected directly into his brain somehow. "Verification complete. Please proceed to the tutorial hub." As the disembodied voice spoke once again, Aiden suddenly noticed that a door had appeared in the wall in front of him. The wall didn''t slide away or open in some strange way - a section of a wall just simply disappeared, as though it was never there, and in its'' place was a wooden door. It was set into the wall, roughly ten centimetres deep. The door was mostly wooden - a very unassuming grain, an average wooden colour, though he couldn''t identify the species. Not that he was very good at it. The hinges were metal, with no sign of rusting. The handle was also very unassuming, merely a simple lever to apply torque to the mechanism, with no decorations. After a few seconds of consideration, Aiden walked up to the door, and opened it. He wasn''t exactly sure what he expected on the other side, but it wasn''t... this. It was just... too simple. Too similar to the room he woke up in. This new room, the tutorial hub as the AI called it, was practically identical in design to the previous room - stone walls, floor and ceiling, illuminated by lights similar to LEDs set into the ceiling in a regular pattern. The only difference was the size and the content. The tutorial hub was similar in height to the starting room, at about five metres high, but the walls of this room were lined with doors, all of them practically identical, save for a plaque at eye height. In the middle of the room was a single table with a single chair, and a simple bed. With conflicting emotions, Aiden walked over to the middle of the room to check out the furniture. "So this is where I''m going to live for the next week, huh..." The bland room, lack of any decorations and sparse furniture instilled in him the idea that it was a prison. And, in some ways, it was. Fortunately, the isolation would only last a week. ''Only'' a week... Aiden himself wasn''t a very social person, but spending a whole week in complete isolation sounded terrible to him. To be fair, the lack of any entertainment was what bothered him the most, but isolation didn''t help. If the entire human species were all put into a similar isolation... Suffice to say, most of them wouldn''t fare well. When he sat on the bed and to test its'' softness, he couldn''t help but think of his parents. They lived on the other side of the continent - he had moved all the way to Boston from Vancouver, to attend a top university - Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had finished his studies there and managed to secure work at a medium sized tech upstart, slowly climbing up the ranks and increasing his salary over the past... nearly two years. Time had passed by fast, but he couldn''t say he felt very satisfied with his current life. Despite his achievements, it all felt... hollow. Even programming, which he had used to love, and was why he went to MIT, became a chore to him. After work, he simply didn''t have the energy to work on his own projects. His social life wasn''t that great either - he had had several short term relationships with various girlfriends, but one way or another, they left in months. At some point in his thinking, he had laid down on the bed. It was softer than his own, and laying in it felt as though he was floating, but Aiden didn''t pay the sensation much attention, too absorbed in his thoughts, staring at the ceiling. After this tutorial was over, he would visit his parents. Perhaps the integration wasn''t such a bad thing, after all. He wasn''t exactly certain what it entailed, but it couldn''t be that bad, right? Still, just to be safe, he asked the AI. "What will earth look like after the integration ends? Will it be dangerous?" "The geography, buildings, and any physical features will remain unchanged. However, the creatures that didn''t meet the intelligence requirement to enter the tutorial will mutate, becoming much stronger, at the cost of their mental faculties." The first part of the AI''s speech was fine - earth would remain unchanged, along with the infrastructure and technology. However, the next part scared him. All of the animals would become stronger? "How much stronger are we talking about?" "On average, the main stats of the creatures will be increased by 40 on average, and the rest will be increased by 20. Even the weaknesses of a creature will be increased by at least 10." Hearing this, Aiden felt his stomach drop. Chapter 2 - Choosing a Weapon "On average, the main stats of the creatures will be increased by 40 on average, and the rest will be increased by 20. Even the weaknesses of a creature will be increased by at least 10." "And what do these numbers mean exactly?" "To learn about attributes, please take the course ''Attributes Explained''." As the disembodied voice told him the name of the course, one of the doors in the walls started glowing slightly. It was a warm, muted glow that seemed to emanate from the entirety of the door, without a visible source. At any other time, Aiden would''ve stopped to closely inspect such an interesting effect, but with his nerves strung tight, he simply pushed the door open. Or, at least he tried to - the door didn''t budge, despite Aiden trying to force it open using his shoulder. Faced with the obstacle, Aiden turned to the AI for help. Despite trying to sound calm, hints of his anger leaked into his speech. "Why... is the door closed then?" "To access an advanced course, complete a stage of the trial. With each stage of the trial completed, the challenger will gain a single opportunity to access an advanced course." Despite the calm, collected tone of the AI''s voice, Aiden couldn''t stop the anger from rising within him. "Why did you tell me to take this course if I can''t enter it then?!" "Challenger hasn''t specified that the course has to be available." The calm voice only riled him up, but Aiden knew, logically, that he couldn''t do anything. What was he supposed to do? Get angry at the robot? Punch the wall? Stomp on the stone ground? Nothing would change if he did so - he might even hurt himself. After a minute of deep breathing, Aiden regained some semblance of control over his emotions. He wasn''t usually this volatile emotionally, but this situation and his complete lack of control upset him. He was, in short, scared. However, before the emotions could get the better of him, Aiden shoved them deep into the recesses of his mind. This was not the time to break down. The question was, what could he do? To know the answer to that, he first needed more information. So, more talking to the infuriating AI. Aiden sighed, then spoke once again. "How strong is someone with twenty strength compared to someone with ten?" Hopefully, the AI would answer a simpler question. "A person with twenty strength is two times stronger than one with ten." "Alright then, how strong is someone with thirty strength compared to someone with ten?" "A person with thirty strength is four times stronger than one with ten." At the AI''s answer, Aiden couldn''t help but freeze. 20 strength being effectively two times stronger than 10 was understandable, but 30 being four times stronger was bad. That implied that the increase in strength wasn''t linear, but rather exponential. "So, every increase of ten means the effective strength is doubled?!" Despite himself, Aiden felt a bit of despair creep into his question. "Yes." Even before he felt the oncoming panic, Aiden already started breathing deeply. This was bad - much worse than what he had thought. To be fair, even if the growth wasn''t exponential, an animal with 50 in a certain attribute would still be five times stronger than normal. However, with exponential growth, it would be sixteen times stronger. Lost in thoughts and his emotions, Aiden didn''t even notice that he started to pace around the tutorial hub. He couldn''t help but blame himself. For what? He wasn''t sure. He couldn''t do anything to change his current situation. However, he knew one thing. His parents, the people closest to him in this world, would be in danger once the tutorial ended, and he would do his best to protect them. ''If they manage to survive the tutorial...'' Shaking his head vigorously, Aiden banished the thought from his mind. It would do him no good to think about things he couldn''t change. To protect his parents, he needed to become stronger. And here, in the tutorial, he could do just that. After thinking the situation through, he had calmed down a bit. Just at that moment, a sudden spike of pain in his spine reminded him of something. The system had offered healing for anyone within the tutorial - could it heal the injuries he sustained in the fall? "What should I do to get healed?" The AI spoke once again. "Upon completing a combat course or trial, the challenger will be automatically healed. Every four hours, the challenger''s physical needs of food and water will be automatically resolved. The challenger has a total of ten opportunities for a full healing on call for the entirety of the tutorial. Upon exiting the tutorial, all remaining opportunities will be removed." So, he had ten opportunities to fully heal himself during the tutorial. Those opportunities could be lifesavers in one of the combat trials the AI mentioned, and shouldn''t be easily squandered. Despite that, Aiden decided to use one of them now to heal his back. "Heal me." It seemed that using the healing opportunity was simple - Aiden had only said two words, and the instant he finished them, he felt a strange energy appear within his body. This energy didn''t just heal the bruises on his back, it also healed all of the various ailments he had accumulated over the years. All of a sudden, Aiden felt extremely light. His back straightened unconsciously, and he performed various stretching exercises to test the extent of the healing. Unfortunately, he still needed glasses - he could notice and extremely minor improvement to his eyesight, but it was nowhere near close to the clarity he got when wearing glasses. But oh well, it was a bit too much to expect from an opportunity everyone on earth received. Now that he was fully healed, he felt read to take on the tutorial. Previously, he had subconsciously held his back still as he walked. He did so to avoid irritating the injury. In such a state, he definitely wouldn''t be able to give his 100% to passing the various trials in the tutorial. He had avoided thinking about it, but he was practically certain there was going to be danger in the tutorial. Since challengers were offered free healing at the end of a combat course and the trial, it was safe to assume that they usually needed it - thus, there was danger present in the trials, and even the courses. Although the prospect of danger scared him a bit, his resolve didn''t waver.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Finishing some stretches, Aiden spoke to the AI. "What courses need to be completed in order to leave?" He received no verbal response, but a single door started glowing. Not yet ready to jump into possible danger head first, Aiden first read the course name, located on a small plaque on the door. The course was titled ''Basic Combat Course''. ''So, the combat course is a requirement to leave... Still, is there nothing else I can do before trying it? Better ask.'' Not certain he was ready, Aiden asked the AI. "What courses can I take?" A few doors lit up, while the one before him stayed lit. A bit tired of walking to read the course names, Aiden asked the AI once again. "Is there a list of all available courses?" Once again, the AI didn''t respond, but a blue screen appeared in front of Aiden. On it, he could see the list of all courses, organised by categories. <<<>>> - Combat courses - Basic, Intermediate, Advanced - Magic courses - Basic, Intermediate, Advanced - Lectures: - Attributes Explained - Levels Explained - Skills Explained - Weapons Explained ... - Survival course - Crafting: ... <<<>>> Aiden first skimmed over all of the courses, then focused on the ones he wanted. Which, admittedly, were all of them. Of course, he knew which were more important - the most important were the various lectures, but the most important were the three explaining attributes, levels and skills. After these three, the combat and magic courses. To make the journey across the American continent, Aiden needed to be strong. This strength could come from two sources - physical combat or magic combat. He dismissed social power - it wouldn''t help him against rabid beasts. Well, it could, but he wouldn''t be able to convince people to make the journey to the West Coast with him. So, he needed to go alone. Magic seemed promising, but even if he did learn magic, Aiden would still learn to wield a melee weapon, at least. After all, if an enemy got close to him, or he ran out of mana, he would need a way to defend himself. Last of all, but still important, the survival course. Going by its'' name, it would most likely teach Aiden how to survive in the wild - start a fire, avoid making too much noise, maybe how to skin an animal if he was lucky. The crafting classes were interesting - Aiden opened the tab to take a look, and many of the topics within interested him - enchanting, alchemy, blacksmithing, etc. - but his priorities lay elsewhere. Playing a bit with the window listing the courses, Aiden found how to look at a course''s requirements, and learned some rather discouraging facts. Firstly, practically all of the courses required him to have ''an opportunity from clearing the stage of the trial''. Aiden didn''t know why this opportunity wasn''t named better, but as far as he understood it, every stage of the trial he cleared would give him the opportunity to enter one course. If he entered it, that opportunity would be used, and he would have to clear another stage of the trial if he wanted to enter another trial requiring the opportunity. To enter all of the explanatory trials, he would need to clear at least three stages of the trial, plus the fourth for the survival course. Only the basic combat course and basic magic course were free of the courses he deemed important - the rest of the lit up courses were basic crafting ones, and as much as Aiden wanted to try them, he didn''t have the time. ''I think it''s time to take on the combat trial.'' Aiden winced as he started walking towards one of the glowing doors. It would be the first time in his life he was faced with a genuine threat to his life - previously, he had led a very normal life as an university student. The most dangerous situation he had ever faced was when he barely spotted a car just before crossing a street. He was nowhere in its'' path, having noticed it in the nick of time, and yet at the time, his heart nearly popped out of his chest, given how fast it had been beating. All of this led up to a simple fact - he was scared. Scared of what a combat course might entail, let alone the trial. He didn''t trust that the magic course would be safe either - if anything, the unknown scared him more than simple fighting, even though he felt immense curiosity towards it. "Sigh..." ''... I really don''t want to do this.'' While walking, Aiden thought. ''But I don''t have a choice in the matter, do I?'' Now standing before the door to the combat trial, he swallowed nervously. ''No, I don''t.'' Aiden opened the door to the combat trial, and after a second, entered. Within, he found a room very similar in appearance to the others, except in size. In the middle of the room stood a straw dummy, while on the walls was a veritable arsenal of weapons. Every weapon one could imagine was here - from bladed weapons such as knives, daggers and swords, through blunt weapons - clubs, sticks, nunchucks and knuckledusters, spears, halberds, various types of ranged weapons such as bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons, all the way to the truly unconventional ones - a weight on a long rope, a glove with claws on it, and others that Aiden didn''t understand the purpose of. "Welcome to the basic combat course. To begin, please choose a weapon." He had to choose a weapon. Aiden had to admit to himself that the sight of all the weapons on the walls excited him quite a bit, diminishing his fear slightly. Still, as this was an extremely important decision, he calmed down and began to ponder. ''What weapon should I choose? That depends on what I want. So, what do I want from a weapon?'' As he pondered, Aiden started to slowly walk around the room, examining the various weapons in detail. ''There is the option to fight barehanded, but I don''t want to go down that route. I''m not the biggest fan of close range combat as a whole... But then again, I won''t be able to learn to shoot a bow so quickly.'' He thought as he passed a section of the wall covered in various types of bows. ''On top of that, I don''t know if I would be able to get back arrows I shot if I did pick a bow... Wait, that reminds me.'' "Will I be able to take the weapon I pick back to earth?" "Weapons present in the room can be used throughout the tutorial, but cannot be taken out. Only weapons offered as rewards can be taken out of the tutorial." ''So that means that the more unconventional weapons are out of the question - I can''t rely on the possibility of a reward, and I wouldn''t be able to easily acquire such strange weapons on earth.'' Instantly, over half of the weapons were eliminated. ''I should also pick a weapon that magnifies my strengths... So I should probably focus on my dexterity and agility. Weapons that rely too much on strength are simply not for me, so big weapons and blunt weapons are out of the question...'' A third of the remaining weapons was thus eliminated. ''But on the other hand, if I focus on agility and dexterity, such a fighting style has a rather high requirement on the user''s abilities. Using brute strength would require much less finesse, and would be rather easy to learn. Also, the difference in stats shouldn''t be that hard to overcome - after all, there exist levels in the status. In practically all of the games that I''ve played, it was possible to increase your attributes with levels, and more importantly, the system wouldn''t just train the challengers only to have them die at the hands of mutated beasts... Right?'' He once again turned to regard the blunt weapons, but ultimately turned back. ''No, even if such a way would be easier, I just don''t feel like it matches me very well. A sharp weapon is preferable. Also, smaller weapons would be easier to carry.'' As Aiden turned to regard the section where sharp weapons were placed, he found his gaze drifting towards a specific weapon - a sword. It wasn''t pretty or flashy - in fact, none of the weapons in the room were. Its'' design focused on a single thing - utility. There wasn''t even a sign of any superfluous decoration on the sword, be it on the blade or the hilt. Aiden wasn''t certain why he was attracted to the blade. Having no experience with forging or weapons, he couldn''t discern the quality of the blade, though he could guess that all weapons in this room were comparable in quality. The sword was straight, the same width at the base as it was at the top, with a short, but nonetheless sharp tip. The blade looked to be around three times the length of the hilt, and as the entire sword itself was roughly a metre long, he could guess the blade was around 75 to 80 centimetres. ''Should I pick this one? I don''t know why I like it so much... Should I reconsider the choice? Still, none of the other weapons I narrowed my choice to appeal to me... Ah, screw it, I''m going to take it.'' With that thought in mind, he reached out, took the hilt of the sword and picked it up. Instantly, he was surprised by the weight - this was most likely a one handed weapon based on its'' weight, so why was it so heavy? He was barely able to pick it up, let alone wield it proficiently. Before long, however, he remembered where he was - this was the tutorial. Outside of the tutorial, animals mutated to become 16 times stronger than previously - it was understandable that humans would experience the same level of growth in their abilities. The weapons in here were most likely made with stronger humans in mind, and with some training he should be able to wield it. Unfortunately, until then, he was going to have quite a hard time. After a few seconds, Aiden realised something - the AI, which had so far been extremely attentive towards everything he had been doing, hadn''t reacted to him picking out his weapon. After a few seconds, he realised why - he hadn''t picked up the scabbard. As expected, once he picked the scabbard up, the AI spoke once again. "Attack the dummy with your chosen weapon as hard as you can for as long as you can." Aiden took a deep breath. The course was only now beginning. Chapter 3 - First Skill "Attack the dummy with your chosen weapon as hard as you can for as long as you can." Despite his apprehension, Aiden walked towards the dummy. He had to grip the sword with two hands due to its'' weight - he wouldn''t be able to use it with one hand for quite a bit. Fortunately, once he set his mind to it, he quickly found himself thinking about the best way to achieve the task. In this case, he decided to proactively decide on his approach to combat - this was a course, after all. He would take whatever he could learn from it. ''I avoided the blunt and big weapons because I didn''t want to simply smash things, but also somewhat out of fear. If I had to choose a style of combat, I''d like to stay back and simply kill my opponent before they get to me, but in all the games I''ve played, mages were really squishy - I don''t want to have no options if the enemy gets close to me.'' ''I ended up picking a weapon with a medium range, so I could stay out of my opponent''s reach, avoid direct confrontation, and deal damage as I dodge. Perhaps daggers would be better for such a style, but to use them, I''d have to get in too close for comfort.'' ''In short, I picked a weapon that would allow me to dance around an opponent, killing them before I received as much as a scratch. I don''t think I will be able to achieve such a level any time soon, but despite that, it''s the fighting style I want to eventually achieve.'' With all of his focus on the task that lay ahead, Aiden advanced, in his best imitation of a combat pose, and struck at the dummy with the sword in his hands, trying to remain as far as he could while still being in range to strike. Despite the apparent sharpness of the blade, after the strike, not even a mark remained on the dummy that looked as though it was made out of cloth. However, Aiden had other concerns - up until now, he had an irrational fear that the dummy would attack him for some reason. To his relief, it didn''t react, and with no more fear, he started swinging. At first, his strikes were clumsy and inexperienced, but with every swing, they became a little bit more refined, and he put just a bit more strength behind it. The act of hitting a dummy proved to be rather cathartic, and before long, Aiden let all of his worries go for just this moment, and focused on hitting the dummy. Thump. Thump. Thump, thump. Thwack. Without him realising, Aiden''s swings were becoming faster and stronger with each and every swing. In part, it was because he was releasing all of his fear, anger and frustration at the dummy, thus using as much strength as he could muster, but even then, he was improving faster than he ordinarily would have any right to. 10 minutes. Despite the emotions fuelling his strikes, Aiden was starting to feel the strain in his muscles, especially his arms. His breaths were getting deeper and heavier, and he had begun breathing through his mouth. 20 minutes. By now, his muscles were starting to burn and his arms were seemingly on the verge of giving out. He was also breathing heavily, almost panting. Despite this, all of these sensations simply annoyed Aiden more. First, he was dropped on his ass when he was supposed to be sleeping, was woken up in what was basically a prison, had several world-shattering revelations dropped on his head and told he had to fight to survive, and then, his own body was refusing to obey him?! Aiden was absolutely incensed. ''Fuck this system, fuck the tutorial, fuck the courses, fuck this trial, -'' With each hit, he mentally swore at something that annoyed him. With each strike, his emotions grew, and he tried to hit harder. Even though his body should''ve given out a few minutes ago and was trying desperately to communicate that to him, he somehow stood and kept hitting the dummy, now nearly in a fit of rage. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. THWACK. THWACK. At the beginning, the dummy would barely react as he hit it. And now, with every hit, the dummy would violently rock, as though it would tip over any moment now, even though it never did. By now, Aiden was definitely on his last legs - even that strange energy supporting him was about to be exhausted. Despite his exhaustion, he somehow managed to strike the dummy one last time, directly in the head, all while screaming mentally. ''And fuck this motherfucking bastard of... fucking... fucking system!'' THWACK! After the strike, Aiden fell back on his ass, completely spent, his sword clattering on the stone floor off to the side. He barely had the energy to catch himself with his hands, avoiding having his ass bruised a second time this day. The dummy teetered for a while, seemingly on the verge of falling, but after a few seconds, it tipped over, falling back onto its'' base. At the sight, Aiden released a breath he didn''t realise he''d been holding. With the adrenaline wearing off, he realised he had been striking the dummy relentlessly for the past 20 minutes, if not more.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. With his attention returning to his body, Aiden came to realise how much pain his arms were in. Fortunately, it wasn''t a sharp pain - it was more like they were extremely sore... Which to be honest, they were. And straining the, by letting his upper body''s weight rest on them was only worsening the ache. Thus, he tried to lay down on the floor, as gently as he could - which was not very gently, considering how exhausted he was right now. On the floor, while remembering the insults he had spewed mentally, he couldn''t help but cringe. ''I really should expand my curse vocabulary... ''motherfucking bastard fucking fucking system''? I can''t even... Whatever. At least I didn''t shout it out loud. If I did, it''d be embarrassing as hell, and I don''t know whether the system would react to me insulting it. Or the AI, for that matter. I don''t think they would, but it''s better not to tempt fate.'' As he was right now, he barely had the energy to move a finger, let alone get up from the floor, so he had some time to think, and maybe plan. Trying to recall the process of striking the dummy, he realised something strange. ''That''s weird, I shouldn''t have been able to pummel the dummy so long. With my strength and stamina, I should''ve collapsed from exhaustion not even halfway through...'' Curious, Aiden opened his status. <<<>>> Name: Aiden Moore Level: 1 (2 AP) Status: Vitality - (108 / 110) (+3/h) Stamina - (9 / 117) (+92/h) Mana - (0 / 0) (0/h) Attributes: Body: Strength - 11 Dexterity - 13 Agility - 12 Mind: Intelligence - 12 Wisdom - 11 Willpower - 10 Spirit: Control - 10 Perception - 15 Qi - 0 Skills: Basic sword fighting: Rank 1, Level 1 <<<>>> After opening it, he found a big surprise waiting for him. His attributes had risen! Previously, his agility and dexterity were at 10 and 11, respectively. Now, they had both increased by two. His strength had risen all the way from 8 to 11. And, his willpower had increased... If the attribute was as it was named, the increase was most likely the result of his persistence in pushing himself. Other notable changes included the updated values on his status, the vitality and stamina. Vitality seemed straightforward enough, with the max value being simply his strength times 10. Stamina seemed weirder, and at the moment, Aiden couldn''t bring himself to try and derive the function behind his max stamina from merely two points of reference. The other strange part was the regeneration of both vitality and stamina - if his memory served right, his vitality regeneration had been 8 per hour after getting healed by the system, and now it was only 3? Stamina regeneration had also not increased linearly with his maximum stamina. As it was now, he simply didn''t have an idea of how they worked. Mana was, as expected, zero. The strangest thing was, though, the fact that he had gained both a level and a skill. This game had functioned so much like a game, so the lack of a notification surprised him. A bit of mental communication with the system led to him opening a new tab, off to the right of the status window. <<<>>> Notifications: Congratulations! You have levelled up. +2 AP points. Congratulations! You have received a skill, Basic sword fighting. <<<>>> Based on the name, and the vague feeling he got from the system, Aiden could tell that it was a log of all his notifications. Unfortunately, it didn''t come with a timestamp; Still, knowing that he wouldn''t get distracted by notifications during combat and could review them later was useful. Also, the skill he had received seemed useful too, though he couldn''t ascertain its'' effect from the name. Was it merely an indication of competence? He received a skill for being able to fight with a sword on a basic level? No, that couldn''t be right. Aiden was sure that even though his strikes had decent strength behind them, he simply used the sword as a glorified club. There were even times when he had struck the dummy with the flat side of the sword because it had slipped in his hand... In short, it was definitely not an acknowledgement from the system. So, it must''ve been some kind of reward. "Why did I receive the basic sword fighting skill?" Aiden asked the AI. "For completing the first part of the basic combat course with a good score, you have been awarded with additional Experience. For completing the first part of the basic combat course, you have been awarded the basic sword fighting skill." Aiden had learned a few things from this. First, he had finished the first part of the basic combat course with a good score, which was good. Second, the sword skill was a normal reward for completing the first part of the basic combat course - he could only assume that people who chose other weapons would receive different versions of this skill, like basic bow fighting or something like that. Third, he had merely finished the first part of the course. Straining his neck, which was far more exhausted than it should''ve been, Aiden scanned the room. As he had expected, a second door had appeared in the wall, on the opposite side of the door he had entered through. After a few seconds of trying to comprehend just how this door had appeared there, Aiden gave up. None of the weapons he managed to recall as being where the door now was were missing, and were merely hung on the walls around the door. It was as though the door had always been there. Without even trying to comprehend the weird design decisions of the system (why did they waste their time and energy on concealing the door instead of simply locking the door? If the challenger was strong enough to break through the door, they would''ve easily passed this test, which involved pummelling a dummy as hard as one could...), Aiden turned his mind to more pressing matters. On the other side of that door would be another test - or course - that he knew nothing about, and the uncertainty was killing him. So, he tried to ask the AI. "What''s the next part of the course?" Unfortunately, the reply he had received didn''t shine any light on the situation. "To proceed with the course, please enter the next room." ''As robotic as ever.'' Aiden thought sourly. So, what else could he do? Right now, he was basically powerless - attempting to complete the course like this would result in bad results at best, and his death at worst. Right now, he could only wait until this strange state of weakness passed. ''Oh right, I haven''t checked out the description of the skill I got.'' With that thought, Aiden quickly opened his status, navigated to the skill section, and read the skill description. <<<>>> Name: Basic sword fighting Level: 1 Rank: 1 Category: Martial Arts, Teaching passive Attribute category: Body Effect: Based on the level, slightly increases the power behind sword attacks. If activated, teaches basic fighting stances. Is a requirement for many sword skills. <<<>>> As he read the effect description, Aiden''s eyes lit up. This skill could teach him how to fight! It was just what he needed! ''So, slight change of plans. Instead of immediately going to challenge the next part of the course, I should grind... no, train a bit.'' Aiden was definitely not doing this because he was scared of the next part of the course - definitely not. It was cold hard logic! He had a reliable way of getting stronger here, in the form of a skill that could teach him. Charging forward without getting as strong as he could would just be stupid! He was definitely not scared. Definitely not. Chapter 4 - First Sword Training After an hour or so, as his Stamina recovered to above 100, Aiden finally stood up. As he was laying down, he kept staring at his status while daydreaming, and had noticed something interesting - his vitality regeneration had increased with time, while his stamina regeneration slowly decreased. His vitality regeneration went from 3 per hour to 10, while on the other hand, his stamina regeneration went from 92/h to 88/h. He could somewhat guess that his vitality regeneration was tied to his stamina somehow, but he wasn''t sure why his stamina regeneration decreased. Perhaps it was because he was slowly getting hungry again? When he first arrived, he had been somewhat hungry, and after healing, he felt full. Coincidentally, when he first opened his status, his stamina regeneration was rather low. After getting healed, when he checked, it was higher. He was basically guessing about the reason back then, but now, he was pretty sure that was the case. After some stretches, Aiden came to realise that he was feeling much better than he should''ve been. After such an intense exercise session, he would''ve expected a few cramps at least, and could be certain that he''d have sore muscles for at least half a week. But now, the last few twinges of soreness went away with his stretches, and he felt better than he''d ever been. ''So this is the benefit of raised attributes... Amazing.'' Aiden experimentally tried out a few movements that were somewhere halfway between stretches and dance moves, while marvelling at the ease with which they came to him. His body was completely unused to the movements, but he was able to control it easily, and quickly correct any mistakes and slip ups. After a few minutes , he finally built up enough courage to attempt to do a flip, and with a quick breath, went for it. The flight through the air was rather quick and disorienting, but somehow, Aiden managed to land perfectly. Well, *nearly* perfectly - he had stumbled a bit, but managed to correct it in an instant. He had just managed to execute a perfect front flip on his first try, and didn''t even fall. Emboldened by the success, Aiden tried it a few more times, each time with increasing confidence. After a few minutes, he was running around the room, both on the floor and the walls, leaping over metres of ground at a time. Periodically, he executed flips, both front and back - either while running, or by kicking off a segment of the wall not covered in weapons. During all of this, he was whooping and shouting with joy. Before he completely tired himself out, Aiden stopped. He couldn''t recall the last time he had so much fun when running around... It must''ve been when he was a child, maybe even before middle school. Some days, he missed that childhood innocence - today was one of those days. Thinking of his childhood inevitably brought up memories of his parents, which reminded him of his current situation, and the fact that they were most likely in the same situation right now. After a few seconds of contemplation, Aiden shook his head and tried his best to stop thinking about it, and shoved his emotions somewhere deep inside of him. There was no use pondering about things he couldn''t change, after all. These thoughts didn''t manage to spoil his happiness at his newfound abilities, even though his overall mood had soured slightly. Checking his status quickly, Aiden noted his stamina. It had fallen to 81 after his impromptu athletics show. ''I should try out the sword skill and see what it can teach me.'' With that thought in mind, he walked over to the sword laying on the ground and picked it up. With satisfaction, he noted that it didn''t feel as heavy as he remembered - his increased strength was already showing its'' uses. It was still to heavy for him to use it with one hand, unfortunately. Still, the skill didn''t specify how one should use a sword, so it should be fine. Ready for some practice, Aiden made his way to the door through which he entered the room. As his hand was nearing the door handle, however, a window popped up before him. Except, this time it wasn''t a notification, but a warning. <<<>>> Warning! Upon leaving the course, it will be treated as a forfeit. After surrendering, it will be possible to enter the course, but rewards for clearing it will be decreased. <<<>>> After reading the warning, Aiden reluctantly took his hand away from the handle. His entire reason for attempting the course was to grow stronger. The rewards for completing a course were a major part in increasing his strength so far - giving up on a course would mean decreased rewards, which meant lower overall strength. After giving it a bit of thought, Aiden''s mood recovered somewhat. After all, what was the big difference between this course room and the tutorial hub? The tutorial hub had a chair, a table and a bed. That''s it. As he was thinking about it now, he wasn''t exactly sure why he even attempted to leave the course room - here, he could use the dummy that still stood in the middle of the room to train, while in the tutorial hub, there was nothing of use. ''Alright then, I''ll train here.'' Walking to stand a few metres before the dummy in his best approximation of a combat pose, Aiden was ready to begin - the problem was, how does one activate skills? ''It should be at least a bit similar to how I interact with the system... I think?'' With such a thought, he set out to search his mind, whether he would be able to... *feel* something he could interact with.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Despite growing somewhat used to the sensation of interacting with the system, Aiden still had no idea how to describe it. It felt... It felt as though he was moving a part of himself he didn''t know was there. No, that didn''t sound right. He was always aware of that part of himself, and was able to control it, but it never amounted to anything, so eventually he started to ignore it. The best comparison he could make was trying to move in an empty void - with no sensations whatsoever, eventually a sense will become forgotten. The system resided somewhere in that void, and by calling his status screen for the first time, he had gained awareness of it - it felt as though he knew where it was located in that void, and he could ever so slightly feel and interact with it. Now, searching that strange part of himself and exploring the void, roughly in the direction of the status, Aiden found another entity there. ''No, wait... it''s not another entity, it''s still connected to the status somehow.'' Geometry and shapes weren''t concepts that could be applied to that strange void, but the best way Aiden could describe the feeling these two entities gave him was that of two partially merged spheres. The status sphere was... bigger? More pronounced? Easier to feel? None of these words perfectly described the sensation Aiden felt, but he couldn''t find any better ones. Also, when he interacted with the spheres, the status sphere felt a lot more multifaceted - he could tell it had multiple functions, not just one like the other one. ''That smaller... thing should be the basic sword fighting skill. Alright, and... it''s activated.'' As he mentally *pushed*, Aiden suddenly felt the compulsion to move his body in a certain way. It was subtle, but if he relaxed his body and didn''t try to move, his body would move by itself. The sensation was incredibly strange, and Aiden, both out of surprise and fear, tried to fight the sensation and move his body on his own. Fortunately, after he strained against this compulsion for an instant, it completely disappeared, and his body was completely under his control once again. ''Alright, so the control can be broken... Dear god, that was a nasty surprise.'' Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, Aiden tried to recall the sensation. ''That compulsion... It wasn''t violent - after I tried to strain against it even a little bit, it immediately disappeared. Also, those movements it made me do seemed to be correcting my stance... So that''s how the teaching part of the skill feels.'' Aiden released a deep breath he had been unconsciously holding. "Huh..." ''I can''t waste time - I should activate the skill once again.'' With a bit of trepidation, Aiden activated the skill once again, this time expecting the sensation. As the compulsion once again took control of his limbs, he tried to sense what it really was, and had some discoveries. First, his body wasn''t really being controlled - it was just that instructions on how he should move appeared in his mind, along with a gentle push to execute them. Now, as he was studying these strange thoughts, he could sense that it would take him a mere thought to overpower and banish them, giving him a sense of security. Content with studying the mechanism of the skill for now, Aiden turned to study the movements themselves. In the process, he found that even though he could theoretically take the backseat and relax his control over his body, let the skill control it through his thoughts, the movements produced this way were... imperfect. In the thoughts implanted into his mind, Aiden could tell how these movements should be executed, and although the gentle compulsion that came along with them tried to correct his moves, it couldn''t replicate them perfectly. By now, Aiden, or at least his body, moved into a rather shaky fighting stance, and started an overhead swing at the dummy standing before him. In the middle of the movement, Aiden took control of his body, but instead of fighting the compulsion, let it guide his movements. The instant he took control, his strike increased in speed, and fell sharply on the dummy''s head. Yet, despite the power behind the swing, its'' positioning was imperfect - the sword was slightly tilted to one side, and upon contact, the blade slipped in Aiden''s hands, eventually striking the dummy with its'' flat side. At this movement, Aiden felt a sense of... disapproval from the skill. Yes, it was most definitely disapproval - in the communication, Aiden got the sense that his strike wasn''t a good one, though he didn''t need the skill to tell him that. As he was pulling the sword back, the skill provided him with directions on what movements to execute so that he would be able to react to an enemy''s attack, even in the middle of retracting. After he returned to what he thought was the proper stance, the skill very subtly corrected his movements - Aiden obliged, changing his stance accordingly, and when he managed to perfectly replicate the stance the skill communicated to him, he received a sense of approval, along with the command to execute another hit. Aiden obliged, and tried his best to follow the directions he received from the skill. This time, he managed a little better, the sword staying stable upon contact, though his aim was still a bit off. The next time, he did better, and the time after that, he did even better. As time passed, Aiden immersed himself in repeating this one movement - every time he repeated it, he made some sort of mistake, and in turn felt the skill''s disapproval. Yet, with every strike, that sense of disapproval decreased in intensity - if at first, the sense of disapproval felt like someone shouting furiously at him, listing his every failure, now it felt as though a teacher was standing beside him and calmly telling him what he did wrong, and instructing him on how to fix his mistakes. As time passed, and Aiden lost himself in the exercise, he felt himself improving. This sense of improvement was different from the increase to his attributes like before. The increase to his attributes was incredible, true, but this... ability; the sense of learning how to do something? It felt a thousand times better to Aiden. Constantly attempting to execute a single strike, correcting any mistake he might''ve made with another try; it was a slow, but sure improvement, and Aiden loved it. Unfortunately, his relaxed training was interrupted, when Aiden tried to execute another strike, ready to fix any mistakes the skill might point out with its'' sense of disapproval, only to feel a sense of approval this time; along with a window popping up in front of him. Surprised, Aiden stayed his strike, and had the idea to return to some sort of neutral pose while still holding his sword, only to realise he knew none. Feeling as though he was caught in a lie, he stood awkwardly for a moment, before he let his right hand fall to the side, sword in hand, while he took a look at the notification. <<<>>> Congratulations! Your skill, Basic Sword Fighting has levelled up. <<<>>> The notification was welcome, sure, but the budding swordsman still felt a bit miffed about being interrupted. He still didn''t feel ready to take on any combat, and training his swordsmanship was surprisingly enjoyable. However, a second notification that arrived mere seconds after the first, changed his plans. <<<>>> Warning! If you do not progress to the next part of the course within ten minutes, you will automatically forfeit the course! <<<>>> Reading the notification, Aiden couldn''t help but clench his teeth, as his grip on the sword''s hilt tightened. A single thought crossed his mind, and he couldn''t help but curse. ''This system really hates me, doesn''t it.'' "Fuck." Chapter 5 - To Knock Down the Dummy ''This system really hates me, doesn''t it.'' With the thought in mind, Aiden approached the next stage''s entrance. He couldn''t forfeit the choice - the known punishment, decreased rewards, was already bad enough, but he couldn''t be certain there weren''t any other hidden consequences for forfeiting a course. Ten minutes seemed to be enough to train a bit more, but Aiden knew that he wouldn''t be able to achieve anything meaningful within these ten minutes - so, he decided to proceed. After approaching the door to the next stage, and gingerly started to open it. As always, he knew nothing about what was behind the door - he doubted he would be ambushed immediately behind the door, but he knew better than to trust the system. Fortunately, the next room proved to lack an ambush, but the lack of any apparent danger only put Aiden more on edge. Still, the dummy in the middle of the room, practically identical to the one he had just stopped abusing, relieved him a bit - why put a dummy there if the task was supposed to involve fighting, after all. Upon entering the room, the AI spoke once again. "Attack the dummy and knock it down to pass." Alright, so actual fighting was even further back. Aiden''s tensed nerves relaxed. Still, achieving this task might prove quite difficult - despite all of his training, he had never managed to knock the dummy down. Though he wasn''t putting all of his strength behind every strike, his technique had improved throughout his training, to the point that the actual force he exerted was actually higher than when he used the sword as a club with all of his strength. ''Well, there''s no better time than now to test if I can knock this thing down.'' Walking to stand before the dummy in a combat pose, Aiden recalled his training. It wasn''t that hard - he had done it just minutes before, though his emotions made him forget about that. While breathing in, the budding swordsman raised his blade above his head, and with an exhale, the blade fell. Despite the build up, the blade didn''t achieve much - the aim was a tiny bit off, and the angle of the blade made it more of a slash than a chop. Aiden pulled his blade back, already anticipating the skill''s inputs, just to remember that he hadn''t activated it. Feeling a bit silly, he quickly activated it, and struck the dummy again. And again. And again. Despite having managed to gain the skill''s approval once, which seemed to lead to a level up, Aiden felt as though he returned to the beginning - the skill''s disapproval was much more severe than just a few minutes ago. He was sure that he hadn''t forgotten how to strike, so only one possibility remained - the skill''s requirements had become higher. The thought of his achievements and skills being invalidated should''ve put Aiden down, but strangely, the thought that he had new heights of skill to reach only reinvigorated him. With newfound strength, he resumed the training that had been rudely interrupted by a level up just minutes ago. With each strike, Aiden saw tangible improvements in his skill with handling the sword, and tiny improvements in the overall power of his strikes. However, after a while, he realised that despite that, he was nowhere close to toppling the dummy. Before, he simply relied on the skill to plan his strikes for him, but now, looking at his actions critically, he saw what the problem was. In short, the sword was meant to create wounds by cutting through flesh, and a good way to improve the sword''s cutting power was to slice. The combat skill focused on this aspect of combat, and much of the force behind his strikes didn''t go directly into the dummy - the sword impacted the dummy at an angle, not directly, and dragged the sharp edge along the dummy''s surface, aiming so slice through flesh. This would be a rather effective way to kill someone, but the goal here was to knock the dummy over, not kill it - the approach he was using was wrong for the task before him. ''It seems like I can''t rely on the skill for everything... Now that I think about it, it''s obvious though.'' Looking at the dummy, Aiden decided to use a different approach. The skill directed him to use his sword as a sharp weapon, and focused on maximising the use of the sword''s sharp edge, but the best way to knock a dummy over was to use the sword as a makeshift club. Also, hitting the dummy over the head wasn''t the most efficient place to deliver force - most of the force would be driven towards the ground. The best way to knock it over would be horizontal swipes, aiming at the dummy''s head or chest. Aiming for the head also wasn''t the most reliable way of doing it - despite seemingly being made of cloth, the dummy was quite springy - hitting the head would transfer most of the force to the material, making the dummy''s entire body wobble. The chest was the perfect place to strike - it was high enough that most of the force would be used to topple the dummy, it was close enough to the dummy''s centre of mass so it wouldn''t wobble hopelessly. With those thoughts in mind, Aiden stepped to the dummy''s left, and reactivated the teaching skill, this time focusing on swiping at the dummy from his right. The skill initially tugged at him to perform an overhead chop, but when he didn''t follow its'' instructions, it didn''t deactivate, and started providing instructions on how best to perform such a swipe. When Aiden''s sword made contact with the dummy''s chest, although the skill instructed him on how best to utilize the force to slice the dummy, he tightened his grip and powered on, trying his best to topple the dummy. The skill proved its'' malleability once again, giving up on the parts of its'' instructions that dealt with slashing, and instead gave tips on how to maximise the pure force behind the strike, while still keeping the blade stable. As Aiden pulled his sword back, he felt quite satisfied with the skill - it seemed that it didn''t contain only a single strike, but rather the instructions on swordplay as a whole.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Still, the end of the task was nowhere within sight - the dummy seemed both heavier and more stable than the previous one, and toppling it would be a hard task indeed. Despite that, Aiden didn''t feel discouraged at all - the time limit had only come into play after he finished that room''s task. Now, he could train as much as he wanted. If he came close to finishing the task and toppling the dummy, he could even use a bit less strength, to maximise the amount of time he could train. Of course, when he felt ready he would move on. Without time to waste, Aiden set out to pummel this dummy as much as he did the previous one, while perfecting his strikes. With each strike, he saw improvement in his own skill - he learned how to maximise the amount of force carried with each strike by relaxing his own grip a bit, the way to strike hard while avoiding causing himself too much pain, how to keep the sword''s blade on track despite relaxing his grip - in short, he absorbed all of the knowledge the skill gave him like a sponge. Of course, this improvement didn''t come without a cost - at first, he felt light and full of energy, but with time, that energy waned, and muscles started aching. Even the muscles he was sure he didn''t use seemed strained - his face, neck, back - every muscle in his body started to protest. Eventually, those protests started getting to Aiden, as involved in training as he was. After all, he was no superman - his stamina was limited. When all of the various aches and sores finally managed to get through to Aiden, he could barely hold the sword still while he struck the dummy, and the force behind his strikes was merely half what it was when he started. Despite being so exhausted, this time Aiden didn''t drop his blade, and took care to put it into the scabbard, which hung at his side. Still, he couldn''t resist laying down on the floor afterwards. While laying down, Aiden slowly regained his breath, still ruminating on the perfect form of a sword strike. After a while, though, he remembered to open his status to quickly check the changes. <<<>>> Name: Aiden Moore Level: 1 (2 AP) Status: Vitality - (126 / 130) (+4/h) Stamina - (15 / 131) (+76/h) Mana - (0 / 0) (+0.0/h) Cultivation: [none] Attributes: Body: Strength - 13 Dexterity - 15 Agility - 13 Mind: Intelligence - 12 Wisdom - 11 Willpower - 11 Spirit: Control - 10 Perception - 16 Qi - 0 Skills: Basic sword fighting: Rank 1, Level 3 <<<>>> Looking over the changes was rather enjoyable. His strength and dexterity had both risen by two, and his agility rose by one. His willpower had also increased, as did his perception? ''Willpower rose once when I did the previous task, so another increase is understandable, but why did my perception rise? It''s been my highest attribute, and now it rose even higher? Why?'' After exhausting all of the options he could think of, Aiden still had no idea as to what might''ve caused this, so he ignored it. The rest of the status was easier to understand. Vitality really seemed to just be strength times ten, but vitality regeneration still eluded him. Stamina and its'' regeneration were similarly impregnable. Aiden was ready to close his status, and only a last glance at the top reminded him of something he had ignored thus far - the level. Or rather, the content in round brackets behind his level, which stated ''2 AP''. ''AP... What could that mean... AP, AP, AP... Wait... AP, Attribute Points?'' When he thought of this, Aiden felt incredibly stupid for a second. For some reason, he was ignoring levels - the biggest similarity between the system and RPG games. Granted, he wasn''t that familiar with games as a whole, but that was no excuse in this situation. He should''ve thought about this ages ago! ''There''s no use dwelling on it... Also, I didn''t even lose that much time after all.'' Throwing his stupidity behind him, Aiden tried to find a way to apply these points. After some time of trying to interact with the status window, he turned to that strange mental space where he could mentally poke at the system itself. And, it worked! After flipping a strange... ''switch''? He didn''t know a better way to describe it. Anyways, after mentally flipping a strange switch in the system, his status changed, and after each attribute, he could see a small ''+''. Now that he had a way to allocate his attributes, Aiden needed to think of how he should distribute them. So far, he had two. He wasn''t sure whether he would receive two with each level, but it was safe to assume he would receive at least some. With that in mind, this decision couldn''t be an extremely important one, so he shouldn''t worry too much about it. So, Aiden turned to think of his current circumstances, and the obstacle before him. He needed to knock over the dummy, but with his current strength, success seemed quite far. ''Increasing my strength wouldn''t be a bad idea... But I''m not sure if increasing my attributes would slow down the rate they increase with training... Also, having mana would be great. Though it wouldn''t help at all with the current problem.'' Aiden cast a glance over the room, searching for the door to the next room. ''After all, this stage of the course is definitely not the last one. There''s a reason challengers are fully healed upon completing a course - the risk of injury is present within all courses, but so far the only way to hurt yourself was to fumble with a weapon...'' That reminded Aiden of something. Even now, he still hadn''t checked the sharpness of his sword. This was a weapon he would be using throughout the tutorial, after all - it should be able to damage enemies, but despite his best efforts, it didn''t leave as much as a scratch on the dummies. It couldn''t be that sharp, right? After laying on the ground and thinking, he could now move somewhat, so Aiden reached for his scabbard and detached it, bringing it above his eyes, his neck too sore to hold his head for long. Partially unsheathing his sword, Aiden lightly touched the edge with a finger, before quickly raising it and bringing it up close to his eyes. He wasn''t certain of it, but he thought he could see a tiny wound where the sword touched the skin, but it might as well have been a crease in the skin. ''Injuring my hands would be quite problematic for handling the sword... I should use another method to test.'' A bit concerned about injuring his hands, Aiden instead decided to test the sharpness of the blade on hair. His hair was rather short, so using it to test the sword would be cumbersome at best, but there was a better way - try to use the sword as a razor and cut his arm hair. Gingerly, he unsheathed a bit more of the blade, and brought his right hand near the edge. Then, he carefully used it to shave off a bit of the hair on his right forearm. His wariness paid off - the sword proved to be practically razor sharp, and his hairs couldn''t even resist being cut. As the blade passed above his skin, it left clean shaven skin in its'' wake. Aiden couldn''t help but bring his arm closer to his eyes, to get a better look. His eyes hadn''t lied to him - the patch of skin was perfectly shaven. Seeing this, Aiden felt newfound respect towards the sword, carefully sheathed it, and hung the scabbard to his side once again. ''I need to be really careful using it... It would slice through me like a hot knife through butter.'' After resting for a bit, Aiden stood up once again. A quick glance at his status showed him that his stamina was full... And that he forgot to assign his AP. Seeing this, Aiden didn''t know how to feel. He forgot what he was doing in the middle of thinking about it. ''Am I really that easily sidetracked? Good god...'' He couldn''t help but shake his head. ''No matter, I should return to assigning my attributes. Final decision, now.'' Quickly running through his logic in his head, Aiden came to a conclusion. ''Two points in strength - I need to get through this task. It will also let me hit harder.'' With the conclusion made, Aiden immediately flipped the mental switch and assigned both points into strength. At first, he didn''t feel anything, but after some time, it seemed as though a strange energy was making its'' way through his body... Improving it somehow. With that energy, it seemed as though his energy was further replenished, though his status showed no sign of it. However, despite the lack of changes, Aiden felt much better - the sword at his hip had previously weighed down on him quite a bit, but now, it seemed a bit lighter. It felt much easier than he would''ve expected to rise up from the floor. The challenges before him also seemed just a bit more doable. So, with newfound confidence, Aiden walked up to the dummy, and prepared to introduce its'' head to the ground.