4 04 - One more skill

The boar was stronger than Shawn imagined. Mainly, the monster's Strength stat. While Shawn's stat was 13, because of the Capitan transformation, the boar's stat was probably somewhere around 9 points, which made Shawn very surprised.

For this monster to live in this area of ​​the forest, it just meant he was one of the weakest monsters around here, maybe the strongest monster among the weakest, but still, if the strongest monster among the weakest had such a high stat, Shawn was startled to think of the truly powerful monsters.

Luckily he had become the Captain, if not, his chance of winning it would be less than 20%.

*Grumble grumble*

The boar screamed as it ran to attack Shawn once more.

Meanwhile, Shawn was using the sword to fend off the monster's large fangs, which were sharper than he realized, and was trying to redirect the monster's attacks at the opportunities he had.

The attacks Shawn learned with Silver Dust Town's [Military Sword-play] ability were very useful. If it was before learning the skill, even with higher stats, Shawn would have died long ago, but now, it was as if he had studied the art of the sword for years.

Even though his mastery rank with the skill was just Amateur, Shawn still controlled the sword pretty well.

The boar lunged at Shawn using the tusks as weapons, his target being Shawn's left leg as the monster was much shorter than the Captain's form Shawn had assumed.

Shawn's original height was 1.7 meters, but upon assuming the form of the Captain, his height increased to 1.8 meters (6 feet).

When the boar's tusks were inches from him, Shawn saw an opportunity.

Using the sword to push the boar's tusks to the left, Shawn took a big step to the right as he slashed the sword past the boar's side, making a large cut into the monster that let blood spurt in great amounts.

*Gruuuumble*

The boar screamed in pain and agony as he felt the entire side of his body being cut with ease.

The meerkat that was drinking water beside the wild boar had already fled for his life, which made Shawn laugh when he realized that he only saw a reference and that these monsters were not 'friends' as he imagined.

Taking advantage of the boar's distraction with the pain, Shawn used the sword again and slammed it into the back of the monster's head, making an even deeper cut into the monster, which resulted in even more screams of pain and suffering.

With the great loss of blood, the monster fell and finally died.

[+1 Point in Dexterity.]

The system notification was the icing on the cake for Shawn, who felt satisfied that he had managed to kill the first monster in his life.

---

'So that means I really can't turn into monsters... at least for now...' Shawn thought as he chewed on the boar meat.

His body was happy to finally have protein back in its diet as it finally stopped screaming in hunger and concentrated on absorbing the nutrients from the monster's flesh.

But it made Shawn think of something. So far, he could only change into beings of his own race, meaning humans. But he wondered how the transformation worked.

'Currently I'm transformed into Capitain Nolasco and I can only fully transform into it, but is that limited to transforming myself into someone completely, or can I change my appearance freely without having to save the appearance of others?' Shawn wondered, but unfortunately he couldn't get the answer to that question right now, as he would have to make good use of this last day left before the monsters invaded.

'Okay, as 24 hours have passed, I think I can learn another skill now, right?' Shawn wondered as he looked at his current transformation statistics.

[Shawn Berowne (Captain Nolasco)

Level: 5 (11)

Strength: 7 (13)

Dexterity: 7 (11)

Agility: 5 (8)

Endurance: 6 (12)

(50% of the target's stats have been copied to the user while the transformation is active.)

Skills:

Military Sword-play of Silver Dust Town (Rank: Bronze Peak) (Master: Master): Military Sword-play taught to all soldiers of Silver Dust Town, this sword-play has been refined for over 100 years, becoming a Bronze Peak skill, only on a threshold to reach Silver level.

Silver Dust Town Military Footwork (Rank: Bronze) (Mastery: Specialist): Military footwork taught to all Silver Dust Town soldiers, this footwork was invented to be compatible with Silver Dust Town's Military Sword-play, amplifying it even more the attack power of sword-play.

Double Slash (Rank: Low Silver) (Mastery: Expert): Sword skill that allows the user to attack so fast that the sword will go forward while attacking and backward after the attack, making two cuts to the target very quickly.]

This wasn't Shawn's stats screen, but the transformation one, which showed the potential of skills and the level the Captain had in each skill.

As Shawn had not reached the Expert Rank in Silver Dust Town's [Military Sword-play] skill, he didn't even try to learn [Double Slash], but there was still another skill he could learn before transforming again.

[Would you like to learn (Silver Dust Town Military Footwork)?]

'Yes.' Shawn replied mentally.

Immediately, Shawn, who was sitting eating, felt a wave of information go through his head, as if he were explaining how to use this skill, and at the same time, his body automatically adjusted its posture to a more upright position and prepared to stand up at any time. moment, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

'This must be 10% muscle memory!' Shawn was excited as he felt the transformations taking place in his body.

As he stood up, Shawn saw that the way he walked had changed. Previously he still walked with his spine slightly retracted, but as he stood up now, Shawn's spine was completely straight, every step he took exuded a hint of confidence that anyone looking at him would know he was no ordinary person.

When trying to run with the sword in attack position, the skill automatically showed Shawn the most efficient way to move he knew of, and made the move much more solid and with fewer openings.

'So that's the strength of learning a skill!' Shawn was thrilled.

He had wondered if having a System skill would just prove his strength, but he was wrong. Having the skill in the system was like having a 24-hour guide on how to use the skill. Unfortunately, the skill being in the Rookie Rank only gave small hints of what to do to use it correctly, but the method of practice for the skills and how to improve it depended on both the user and the teacher who taught it to the technique user.

Fortunately for Shawn, in addition to the technique, he also received a part of the muscle memory of the former owner of the skill. That is, he also had a slight indication of the correct way to do it, which greatly increased his improvement speed when using that ability.

The biggest proof of this was that, while the average person needed weeks or months to move from the Novice Rank to the Amateur Rank, because of the muscle memory Shawn received, he had a much more precise direction on what to do to improve the skill and he did it, crossing that rank in just one day.

Unfortunately, when Shawn trained Silver Dust Town's [Military Sword-play skill], he felt that the improvement that had previously been too quick, has now been greatly reduced. To the point that Shawn estimated that he would need another 10 days to move from Rank Amateur to Rank Expert.

For him, who urgently needed skills to survive the wave of monsters in two days' time, that wasn't enough time, so instead of training the skill that wouldn't progress, Shawn decided to train the new skill he got to reach the Amateur level. also.

Having two Amateur-level abilities would already greatly increase Shawn's chance of survival.

So he decided to train the [Military Footwork of Silver Dust Town].

This was a much more complicated skill to train. While swordplay Shawn was supposed to attack the air with the sword in the right way to improve at that, in Footwork he had to imagine fighting an imaginary enemy and having to move around the enemy while attacking and defending.

Shawn sometimes used trees as training objects, but as doing that further damaged the faulty sword, Shawn gave up on the idea and focused on just training against an imaginary enemy.

Unfortunately this slowed him down to learning the skill, causing Shawn to reach the Amateur level of it only at 4 pm the next day.

[+1 point in Agility.]

[Silver Dust Town's [Military Footwork skill] has reached Amateur Rank. As a bonus, the user will receive 5% more muscle memory from the skill's original owner (Captain Nolasco). Total Muscle Memory: 15% for this skill.]

With Shawn's mastery level of skill rising and 5% more muscle memory, Shawn felt his control over skill had risen even further.

It was as if before leveling up to skill mastery Shawn's control was 9 points, and after reaching Amateur level, his control reached 15 points instead of the 10 points he imagined it would be. That's without considering Shawn's muscle memory, which probably made the skill go up to 17 points.

'If all humans also have a system that can increase their control over abilities in such an extraordinary way based on mastery, then there will be many powerful enemies in the future...' Shawn thought as he looked up at the starry sky.

Today would be Shawn's last day as an unknown person. He believed that tomorrow his name would spread into small Silver Dust Town, but that was enough for him.

'I don't want to be world famous, especially now that I know there are many monsters in the world, and especially humans who can be as strong as mythological monsters. But in order not to fear these monsters, I'll need strength, and in my condition, joining the city's guard knights is enough, at least for now…' Shawn mused as he looked up at the sky.

As much as in Shawn's previous life he always wanted people to recognize him, or become known for something he did. In that lifetime Shawn's purpose shifted slightly.

Since he was given a system that allows him to seamlessly transform into other people, Shawn decided to transform into other people and be famous through that while being weak.

Maybe in the future Shawn is considering the possibility of showing himself to the world and making them fear him, but for now, getting stronger while receiving a fame that only he knows is his is enough.

Shawn once heard a story about a group of trees arguing over who was taller, and after several arguments, they had decided that they would leave that decision to the next human who entered the forest.

So when the human entered the forest, all the trees stretched and tried to show how tall and strong they were, to receive the human's admiration and be considered the tallest.

And exactly that happened, one of the trees stood out very much among the others, leaving the human in awe.

That really inflated that tree's ego, making the other trees very jealous.

But in the next moment, the human pulled an ax and knocked that tree down, leaving the other trees in horror.

The human was a lumberjack.

And Shawn, who was growing up fast, didn't want to attract attention for growing up so fast, so his idea was to grow up while disguising himself as other people.

Following the tree analogy, Shawn wanted to grow fast, but while raising another tree to outgrow him and attract the lumberjacks' attention to that tree, letting it grow long enough that no one could cut it.

'For now, I'm content to stay in the shade and keep myself safe... but the only shadow I'll hide in will be my own shadow.' Shawn thought with a smile before falling asleep.