9 Sword Innate Talent

[Sub-quest finished. Reward obtained: Sword Innate Talent: Perfect Grade.]

Yale was stunned as he obtained the highest reward. The system determined that Swordmad was the best master for Yale, which seemed a big coincidence since both were in the same clan, so Yale doubted again if it was really a coincidence or the system knew about Swordmad beforehand.

Yale opened the Innate Talent Menu to check his new Innate Talent.

[Sword Innate Talent: Perfect grade. The best affinity for Swordsmanship. Grants the user the Passive Skill: Sword Mastery.]

As far as Yale knew, there were three types of skills: Battle Skills, Magic Skills, also known as Spells, and Passive Skills. To train the first two, it was indispensable to start practicing a Path, while for the third, it didn't matter, but obtaining a Passive Skill was more about luck than any other thing.

Passive Skills didn't need to be activated, and training them could be done with the passing of time. The books said that sometimes people with a high grade or a perfect grade also had a Passive Skill related to the talent. However, in Nacesai City, there was no means to measure Passive Skills, Yale's knowledge came only from books.

"System, create an auxiliary function for the Skills."

As Yale ordered in his mind, the system gave him a quick reply.

[New auxiliary function created. Skill Menu added.]

While Yale was quickly interacting with the system, he bowed to Swordmad thanking him for becoming his master, and Swordmad told him to pick a wooden sword. Fortunately, Yale was good at using the system while doing other things, so everything seemed normal.

In the newly created Skill Menu, there were only two Passive Skills.

[Illusion Immunity: As the system's user, no illusion can affect you unless you allow it to affect you voluntarily.]

Yale didn't expect to own such Passive Skill. Illusions are scary for everyone because falling into an illusion could make you an easy target in battle.

[Sword Mastery: Apprentice Level 1. While wielding a sword, all stats increase by 0'1% ignoring all the restrictions. This Passive Skill can be leveled up practicing Swordsmanship.]

Yale saw the description while picking the wooden sword and felt that his stats had increased a little while wielding the weapon.

"Sadly, my stats are so low that the 0'1% of them is almost an inexistent increase, but if I increase the level, I'm sure the effect would become better."

The best feature of that passive Skill was that it could surpass the restrictions, Yale stats couldn't surpass ten points in a normal state, but while wielding a sword, the stats could break that limit. Of course, the effects only existed while wielding the sword, once he stopped, his stats would return to normal.

With Yale's strength at that moment and the lowest level of the Skill, it couldn't be said to be very useful, but it had incredible potential for the future.

"Use that wooden sword to attack me; it's impossible that you can harm me so attack with all your power."

After hearing Swordmad words, Yale started to attack.

Yale had never wielded a sword before, but he had the help of the perfect grade Innate Talent and the knowledge obtained from books.

After a minute, Swordmad finally said something.

"You can stop now. I didn't expect that you had some talent with the sword, that's unexpected. Moreover, you're using a lot of techniques that you obviously learned from books but have never seen before."

Yale stopped and paid attention to his master. Any advice from such a powerful master was invaluable.

"If you are serious about improving with the sword, then you need to practice more and start from the basics. Those techniques from the books are good, but you need more foundations before being able to use them well. You have talent, but the talent should be polished."

Yale nodded. The evaluation was quite good to him, given his null experience.

"From tomorrow onwards, you will train with the sword here for two hours every day, and you need to continue training your body. Your strength is not bad for your age, but you have a great lack of agility."

Yale went back to his room and checked the Main Chain Quest. He didn't dare to divide his attention while training with the sword, so he had to stop checking the system.

The first sub-quest appeared as completed, and a second one showed up.

[Sub-quest: All stats should reach at least 7 points. Reward: Elemental Affinity (the grade is variable, completing it before turning seven years old is perfect-grade, after that it will be lowered a grade for every six months).]

Yale become excited with this new sub-quest, he still had nine months before turning seven years old, and only his physical stats still without reaching the required mark. Yale knew it wouldn't be easy, but it was something possible to do with hard work.

The next day almost the entire Roanmad clan knew about Yale becoming a disciple of Swordmad. The unexpected news shocked all of them. Of all the kids in the clan, how could the eccentric expert of the sword choose a mere bookworm? That was the main train of thought of almost all the members of the clan.

However, the actions of Swordmad always were something that no one could understand, so in the end, all looked at Yale with envy as they thought that he only had some great luck. Of course, after becoming Swordmad's disciple, no one would dare to touch him nor harbor any bad intentions towards Yale. Swordmad exterminated a whole clan when his last disciple was killed.

Swordmad usually never interfered with his disciple's affairs unless it was something that he couldn't tolerate because the hardships were also good for polishing the disciple's mind.

However, with Swordmad being an eccentric, no one knew what kind of thing could be intolerable for him, and everyone chose to be prudent.

That day, Yale also went to the Archery lessons and completed another Dynamic Quest.

[Dynamic Quest completed: Shoot a consecutive one hundred arrows that hit the target. Reward: Archery Innate Talent: High grade.]

With his Innate Talent upgraded to high-grade, Yale's Archery improved even more, but completing the fourth Dynamic Quest was still quite difficult.

At the moment, all of Yale's objectives were quite far away. There was no way to complete anything within a short amount of time.

However, Yale was satisfied, his foundation improved a lot since the awakening of the system, and he still had three years and nine months until reaching the age to start practicing the Origin Path.

Yale continued training his body, practicing Archery at the lessons, and improving his Swordsmanship with Swordmad.

His physical stats begun to increase as well as his Sword Mastery Passive Skill, but his dexterity remained at eight points the difficulty from eight to ten was much harder than training one stat from one to eight.

Converting the stats into average or above average was quite easy as long as one worked hard, but nearing or reaching the limit of a mortal was no easy task.

Yale needed six full months until he completed the fourth Dynamic Quest. In those months, Yale's life became quite simple. He was always training, and at some point, he started to read books while training his body.

Yale also grew a bit in that half a year. Before his training, he was a bit shorter than the other boys of his generation, but after his training, he was a bit taller than them, and his body didn't look weak either. By his looks at that moment, if one didn't know him from before, one would never think that half a year ago Yale was a bookworm.

[Dynamic Quest completed: Shoot a consecutive one hundred arrows that hit in the middle of the target. Reward: Archery Innate Talent: Perfect grade.]

"I finally completed it. I failed after the ninety-ninth arrow a lot of times, but now I can relax a bit."

Yale checked the Skill Menu hoping to see something new, and indeed, under his Sword Mastery, which was already level five and increased his stats by 0'5%, there was a new Passive Skill.

[Archer's Senses: Level 1. All senses increase while practicing Archery. This Passive Skill can be leveled up practicing Archery.]

An increase in the senses, especially in the vision, was very good for practicing Archery, so Yale liked this new Skill.

Yale finished the Archery lesson and started his way to his master's room.

"I only need a bit more."

Yale said while looking at the Stats Menu.

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