Tutorial Level P-2
After I left the library, I went home and started sorting through the skill books I'd taken. A number were of…questionable utility, but several actually seemed pretty useful, if odd. I'd gotten a Craft skill, for instance…from an art book, but it seemed to apply to making stuff in general, since I'd been able to add blueprints using several cookbooks, art books, and a number of other things. When I had a chance—and the money and the materials—I'd try leveling it up. There were a few others in the small section of the library I'd cleared, but they were mainly stuff like how to drive specific vehicles—leading to my Drive skill—and stuff. It'd take a long time to clear the entire library, I knew, but I was also excited to see what I'd find in doing so.
My ability is so cheap…
Once I was done with supper and my training in the woods, I went to my room, put my textbook on the floor, and did pushups until I thought I would die. I did my best to read as I did, though only covered about a fifth of what I normally would have in that time and then I rolled over onto my back gasping for air. When I caught my breath enough, I picked up my book and read for a while. After thirty minutes passed, I was completely recovered, as always.
I proceeded to do squats until I thought I was gonna die, placing my book on the table in front of me. Afterwards, I read until I recovered and did crunches until I thought I was gonna die, read some more, and did lunges until I thought I was gonna die. Then I went to sleep and woke up six hours later, completely refreshed.
Repeated effort caused your STR to increase by 1!
Repeated struggles caused your VIT to increase by 1!
I smiled brightly. That was about a week of effort to get a level in STR, VIT, and INT, without focused effort? If I stuck to my schedule, I should be able to do it in half that time or less. Though it should get harder to level up as my stats improved…but the stronger I got, the more I could train and the smart I got, the more complex the things I could study. At least for now, I could probably aim for half a week to a week of heavy effort, per point—maybe faster for INT, given that I spent most of my time at school studying. I'd need to think of something for DEX, however. Acrobatics? Running? I could do the latter as I moved through the city, but I'd need to think of something to attempt the former. I might want to look into weights, too, though I could probably borrow my dad's.
I looked at my clock and nodded to myself in satisfaction. I still had an hour before I needed to get going. Should I work out here some more? Study? Train my skills?
It was both exhilarating and intimidating. Not just my power but even simply knowing that I had stats and skills, that they were numerical values I could watch increase. With a word, I could bring up proof that my every action, every choice, was defining my life. Choosing to spend my time one way was taking away from my time to train something else, but at the same time I could literally see any improvements. But what should I use this free hour in the morning for?
I could try working on my DEX, but it would take a while to bear fruit, even assuming I picked the right way to train it—and any time I wasted doing that was time I wasn't spending improving known qualities. The question, then, was if I valued DEX enough to bother, instead of one of the alternatives. And, if not, what did I value and what was most efficient? I spent about three hours working out and studying in the evening, though most of that was breaks to recover. Call it one hour of hard work to two hours of studying, though that was free time I could use for either. I spent seven hours at school and I spent all the time I could studying, so call it five to six hours accounting for various interruptions, but that was time I could only spent studying, because most of my teachers would probably object to me doing backflips in class. I had this one hour in the morning that I could also spend either way, studying or working out.
Except it wouldn't really be the same, would it? If I worked out, I would get at most half an hour in before I needed to rest, whereas I could spend the whole time studying. When my body was stronger, I'd probably be able to train for the whole hour—and I'd get that strong eventually, I knew that for sure—but right now…
I had the weekends off, I thought. I can literally train my body from dusk 'til dawn, then. And once I'd raised my Intelligence and Wisdom to fifty, I could decide how to handle everything else.
So I studied at home and I studied at school and by the time it let out I'd literally finished reading one of my textbooks and it was every bit as awful as it sounds. Maybe, hopefully, it would get easier once I'd gotten smarter—but I doubted it. It wasn't really the contents that were hard, since that had gotten easier to understand and I'd spent two days studying what felt like constantly. It was the fact that what I read was a text book and as dry as the paper it had been written on.
But once school let out, I finally had a break from studying, at least until tonight. I thought about heading back to the Library and searching for treasure; using Observe on even just one bookshelf took forever so I'd only gone through a small section of it. However…there was something I wanted to check out first. The library had been, would be, a treasure trove, but there were limits to what I could find there. I wanted to know I had options, other places to get skill books if needed—and, perhaps, books I couldn't get in a public library. I wasn't in a rush or anything, since I still had all the time in the world to get stronger, but it didn't hurt to look and I might even get lucky.
Which was how I found myself straying off my usual route home, towards a store I'd walked past a hundred times but never gone into.
I started thinking maybe it wasn't the greatest idea I'd ever had the moment I walked into the store and saw the shopkeeper. Or rather, saw what was floating above his head.
White Fang Member
LV11
Tukson
XxXXxX
Name: Jaune Arc
Class: The Gamer
Level: LV2
HP: 100/100
MP: 50/50
STR: 11+3.3(30%)=14.3
VIT: 11+3.3(30%)=14.3
DEX: 10+3(30%)=13
INT: 11+3.3(30%)=14.3
WIS: 15+4.5(30%)=19.5
LUK: 10
POINTS: 0
MONEY: 100 Lien