Training montage

The days passed quietly as I continued to work at the General Store. As the locals were familiar with Owner, I didn't need to get involved and nobody suspected that I was doing more than physical labor.

When it came to traveling adventurers and merchants and my knowledge was used, they didn't ask questions. The reason was simple. If the information wasn't offered freely, then they'll need to put in effort to get it, and even if it was somewhat interesting how a young child in the countryside was able to read and count, the worth of such information seemed rather low.

When business was slow, I taught Owner, focusing on arithmetic. I was curious about the skill and how it represents knowledge. My earth knowledge would encompass several fields of mathematics, and I didn't really know how such a thing would be represented by the skills system. Would having several different mathematical skills end up combining, or would having some mastery of a base skill open up the other fields naturally?

Arithmetics level 2, that was what Peddler wanted me to teach Owner. I was somewhat confused by the skill, as I believed it should be Arithmetic, but I couldn't really google it with the interface I was given, so I had to leave it at that. Regardless, that level seemed to encompass the basic arithmetical operations, so I'll be done once Owner is able to multiply and divide.

Brighthilt Language level 2 on the other hand… I wasn't too sure how well teaching that would work, as everything was translated into English for me. But it turned out okay after a while. After some time, it seemed that the system was synchronizing with Child's knowledge, and Brighthilt Language level 1 appeared in my skills list.

That was enough to understand the language even without the translation function, so when I combined the two, I was able to teach Owner reading and writing. Though the system didn't accept my own abilities and the language skill didn't rise to 2, nor did I gain arithmetics skill at all, I wasn't too worried about it.

I worked from 8 to 6, which felt somewhat long to my modern self, especially considering there was no concept of weekend or time off, but I was in no position to complain. Regardless, after I was free to leave, I used the time to experiment.

That's how I discovered that I'm a monster. Not that I was classified as a monster and adventurers might get a quest to eliminate me, but that I was not only beyond what one could consider a human, but also a game character as I initially thought. I was some sort of hybrid.

I suspected that I wouldn't need to eat, drink or sleep, and I was correct about that. Though I had to eat breakfast with Mother, Owner offered meals which I could eat in private, so I simply stored that food in my inventory. The flavor was bland and I didn't require it for survival, so I didn't really care for it and would eat only to heal or gain bonuses. I could probably improve the flavor with the tiny bit of modern knowledge I have, but I shuddered at the thought of my Isekai adventure turning into a food focused one, so I avoided that.

I also found out that I wouldn't feel pain unless I received an attack that was capable of dealing at least one point of damage. If my HP wasn't reduced, it didn't matter. I still haven't suffered a single point of damage, so I have yet to feel any pain. But what was most important, was that stubbing my toe didn't hurt at all! I have achieved the dream! I bet I could walk on Legos and I would be fine! That is the height of being OP! That feeling was almost intoxicating.

Sleep wasn't required, and I also didn't get tired, no matter what I did. I hoped that it wouldn't change once I unlocked stamina, but there was nothing I could do about that if it happened, so I wasn't worried.

In games, a character usually had two or three speeds at which they can travel, which were walk, run and sometimes sprint. A character could run indefinitely, but for sprinting there was usually a limited duration, or it consumed stamina. I could control my body freely, so there weren't specific speeds I was limited to. Furthermore, I could sprint at full speed, which was separate from the Dash skill, and I wouldn't get tired at all. Running was how one would train their Constitution, so I tried doing that. After a few days of running, my Constitution raised to 2, and my HP rose to 11. I tried moving at different speeds, with and without Dash, but it was hard to find out if it has an effect on my growth rate. There were no visible numbers related to raising stats, and after it improved, it was probably harder to improve further. Since I was doing many other things besides running, I couldn't determine which actions influenced my growth and which didn't.

I also trained my other physical stats, since I had plenty of time due to not needing sleep. I couldn't really run inside, but there were plenty of exercises I could do indoors, especially since I could store heavy things in my inventory.

I was lazy in my previous life, and couldn't entirely banish that quality in this life either. I wouldn't have been able to train, especially not to such a degree, if I couldn't save the training actions as macros and set them to repeat. While my body was moving and training without further input from me, I was playing around with the menus.

Mental stats were harder to train, especially in my environment. Books were the main method to train Intelligence, besides having a tutor. Thankfully, due to copying magic being fairly simple, books weren't that expensive. They weren't that common in my village, but traveling adventurers and merchants sometimes brought them to the store. Simply opening the books was enough for the system to store the entire book within the Lore section, so I was free to read the books without the physical copy, and did that while training. Even without the physical copy, reading the content seemed to train my Intelligence stat, though I didn't believe simply storing them in the system did much good.

I also inspected everything that went through the shop, but I couldn't be confident in revealing that ability so it didn't end up helping Owner and was purely for my own curiosity and finding more pieces of lore. Inspecting items revealed their properties, but the lore that was shown in the items' menu was lore that was already collected through books or from the seller. I also discovered that if what the seller tells is a lie, the lore won't appear in the inspection, which may come in handy in the future.

After half a year, Owner seemed to grasp addition and subtraction well enough for the Arithmetics skill to appear on his character stats, and around the same time I gained the skill. Was it the due to me not being Awaken, that even though I had the knowledge, I had to practice it for a long time before the system acknowledged my skill? I hoped that it would become easier once I undergo the ritual.

I obtained my first gold coin, and started teaching Owner multiplication and division.

By that time, my stats were rising nicely. Strength rose to 13, being the easiest stat to train, while Dexterity was lagging behind at 7. Constitution rose to 11, and I was most excited by that. It was hard for me to know how the increase in other stats influenced me, since I wasn't fighting, but Constitution rising had an easily measurable effect, as it directly influenced my HP. Up to level 10, every increase gave me an additional HP, but after reaching level 10, the next increase gave me 2 HP. I wondered if reaching 20 would increase the gain to 3 or 4, and obviously hoped for the latter.

Due to a low exposure to books, my Intelligence was only at a 5, but it was hard to tell how it affected me at this point. From interacting with customers my Charisma rose to 3, and Wisdom was at 2. I suspected that Inspecting the items helped Wisdom rise, but the increase was so small that it was hard to say.

I didn't get the trading skill, but since my charisma was now as high as Peddler's, I believed that I had an advantage when it came to stat growth, when compared to other NPCs that didn't Awaken.

Another interesting aspect of the inventory system was that I could freely convert between the coins, so I could withdraw my gold coin as 100 silver coins. It was a small feature, but could be very convenient in the future. It meant that I wouldn't mind being paid with a lot of copper coins, nor getting a platinum coin be troublesome, even though it was never used within such a small village, and even in the big cities it only came up rarely.

With how Owner progressed, I suspected that he'll conquer Arithmetics level 2 within a year, and since he was learning language simultaneously, he would probably be able to read and write within half a year after that. For me, that would mean that I'll be done with this work and obtain 9 gold coins within two years, an amount that would be impossible to imagine for Child and his Villager mother and Villager father.

If Child's family had no expenses at all, they would be able to save about 4 silver a month, similar to his own earnings. It would take them two and a half years to earn a gold coin, so after 22 and a half years, they'll earn as much as he did in two years. But they did have expenses, and those expenses ate away and left almost nothing. They had so little saved up, that a tough month would leave our family practically starving. It was thanks to my game abilities that I really would have no life expenses, perhaps besides a place to stay to maintain appearances, but they didn't have such privileges.

It's been another half a year before I encountered my first magic related book. "Mana: It's there, you just need to reach out!" With such a name, it was obviously aimed not just towards beginners, but rather young ones at that. Owner knew that such an item would be difficult to sell here, as magic related books were rarer and buying it would be expensive, but the interest in the item would be low in our area. Fortunately, he knew that I liked touching books and didn't question my odd habit, so I was able to get my hands on it for a short while before having to give it back.

That was enough for me and I was grateful to store the book in the lore section. Perhaps if it was an actual magic book, the magic itself would be skipped and I wouldn't benefit as much, but this book wasn't magical, so it was fine.

I just recently hit Intelligence 7, but reading this book alone was enough to raise it to 8!

At the time, my character ended up looking like this:

Name: Store Assistant

Available Names: Child, Teacher

HP: 29/29, MP: 0/0, SP:0/0

Stats:

Strength 18, Dexterity 10, Constitution 15, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 3, Charisma 4

Luck 1, Speed 6, Stealth 2, Magic 0, Martial Prowess 0

XP 0/0

General Skills:

Awakening Potential

Dash Lv1

Rest Lv1

Brighthilt Language Lv1

Arithmetics Lv1

I didn't do anything strange to raise my stealth, honest! It rose naturally by hiding from my parents while training my body in my room, during the night! Though it still sounds suspicious…

The book discussed the basics of mana and how it exists within us all. It didn't go into much detail, as that would be tough for children just getting into the world of magic, so such information would probably be in books containing more advanced knowledge regarding magical theories.

According to the book, through meditation and directing one's mind to sense the energies within the body, one would be able to gain a sixth sense and feel the magic flowing through their body. The book also specified a breathing technique that would help unlock the body's "gates". Those gates related to Stamina, unlocking the physical energies. While mages didn't unlock many physical techniques, it seemed that without it, the path of the mage would be limited, so it was important to unlock both MP and SP early.

The book also mentioned circulating the body through the body and controlling the flow to focus it in specific parts of the body, but it was only a precursor for spells, meant to improve control and sensitivity. With the techniques written in this book, it would be possible for me to not only unlock Magic and Martial Prowess, but also train my Magic further even before gaining my first spell, but without actual spells and skills, it would still be useless.

Not being in a rush, I decided to practice. After a month of no results it was hard to concentrate with the rising frustration, but it all vanished as a warm sensation spread through me. To say that I saw the world differently, that colors seemed brighter, my senses sharper, my body stronger… Would be a lie. If I concentrated really hard, I could feel something different within me. If I had to describe it in words, the difficulty changed from trying to feel blood flowing through your body to feeling your heartbeat while staying still.

And that was for my mana. The book didn't specify much regarding stamina, so I couldn't grasp the feel to it at all. But even without understanding, both Magic and Martial Prowess rose to 1, and my MP and SP bars unlocked with nice blue and green bars, indicating I have 10/10 in each. Nothing I did would consume either bar.

I trained with the techniques within the book, which ended up not only raising my Magic, but also Intelligence and Wisdom. My MP rose along with the Magic stat just like how HP rose with Constitution. Though Constitution could be raised with Attribute Points while Magic, nor Martial Prowess, could only be trained, so the gap in growth will only widen. Well, I did end up neglecting all other forms of training to focus on magic, so it won't happen for a while.

As my mana control improved, I was able to sense the magic in my body and direct it. When concentrating it in a single area, it felt uncomfortable, reminding me of the times I sat on the toilet too long reading on my phone, having my legs fall asleep. It meant that these areas weren't used to the concentration of magic, so I had to endure until the feeling went away and was replaced with more comfortable warmth.

The training was especially difficult for several parts of the body. Feeling my internal organs, especially the heart and the brain, tingling with magic was quite distressing, since I wasn't used to being aware of them at all. Then there were the eyes, and the magic interfered with my vision, making it very hard to remain calm and focused. Of course, it wasn't easy to stay calm when the magic was concentrated in my privates, but I was sure it would benefit me one day, so it had to be done. It was quite fortunate that my body didn't need to go to the bathroom, even when I did eat, otherwise I might have leaked several times during the training.

From what I knew, among the combat-oriented occupations, those that used physical techniques were more common than those that used magical techniques, yet even after working for a year and a half, I have seen no book regarding the topic. Asking Owner about it, I found out that if any were written, they are likely to be very rare. Mages tend to be scholarly, and even those that intuitively use magic have deep understanding of the field. Those that use physical techniques learn them with their bodies, so they all study under a master or learn techniques through experience. It made sense, but left me unhappy.

I was correct in my estimation regarding Owner's ability to reach Arithmetics Lv2, but it took him longer to obtain Brighthilt Language Lv2. While I ended up obtaining it at the end of the second year, Owner took another half a year until he was able to reach an acceptable level.

With this, I obtained the rest of my pay, the remaining gold for two and a half years of work and four more for the language class, and was released from work. Quest Complete, another skill point and more currently useless crystals!

New Quest: Awaken! 2 Skill Points, 50 Crystals.

With the sudden increase in the reward, I couldn't help but worry. The previous quests weren't difficult, though obtaining the gold was quite time consuming. I hoped that the quest rewards didn't indicate the difficulty, and were just related to how important the quest itself is… Otherwise, I could expect something unexpected that try and stop me from Awakening. Telling myself that expecting the unexpected isn't really going to help me, as my resources were rather limited, actually helped calm my nerves.

I learned another thing, though it was so unimportant that I seemed to instantly banish the thought. The currency in the Brighthilt Kingdom was called Ursa, and 1 Ursa equaled 1 Copper Coin. I didn't understand why it wasn't fully translated to English, nor why it was related to bears at all. But most importantly, I didn't care. In poor areas like my village, they would still use copper and silver to refer to the currency, while Ursa would mainly be used in bigger cities.

My 9 gold coins, along with the 4 silver and 20 copper coins I earned in my first day in the world, were equal 90420 Ursa. I considered throwing away a copper coin just so that I didn't think "420 LOL!" every time I looked at my inventory, but ended up not doing that. Totaling the years of both my lives, I was 27 dammit, I can be mature! No, I will always be a child…

Well, regarding the point of me not caring about the lore of the Ursa currency, it wasn't like the currency was getting a special, though sad, treatment. I didn't care about the lore of the world at all. I didn't even bother opening the map once it was updated with Child's information. If reading the books didn't increase my Intelligence, I wouldn't have bothered with that either. It was very similar to how I used to play games in the modern world, only caring for the plot in front of me, the one that's directly influencing my actions, and giving little thought to whatever is behind that.

If I cared, I could get more invested in the games and enjoy them more, but I never bothered. I wanted to experience everything the game had to offer, except the lore. I would give collectibles more time than the lore, even though writing interesting and cohesive lore took way more effort than scattering hidden collectibles throughout the world. As I used to want to make my own game, I could appreciate the effort that went into building the world, but I could not bring myself to care. And it was another negative trait that I couldn't extinguish from this new life of mine, which depressed me for a whole of five minutes. The Rest skill sure is great, and the mind of a game character is quite sturdy! Where were those traits in my previous life?!

I knew that once I'll leave to explore the world, I'll need to get over it and go over the lore, at least the things that will be directly relevant to me. I could ignore it in video games since the plot always followed the railroad and ignorance didn't lead to worse results. Such a thing wouldn't be possible here, so I'll have to be mature about it and take in the lore. Just… Not yet.

No longer working, my name was supposed to return to Child, but I decided to keep it as Shop Assistant in front of my parents. It allowed me to disappear for most of the day without raising questions, and the time was used to train. I could try and find other work, but I believed my earnings would rise explosively once I awaken, so I decided not to bother and focus on training further.

Training Magic required concentration, and I couldn't delegate it to a macro, but once my ability reached a certain point, having my body move did not break my concentration at all, so I was able to train my body through the training routine macros I've set up, while focusing inwards to train my Magic.

I also decided to try and improve my physical offense. If others were able to learn and improve their Martial Prowess by themselves, I should be able to do so as well! Though I wanted to focus on magical fighting, for several reasons, leaving SP alone felt like a waste, especially if I could train both at the same time. Becoming a Magical Warrior or Magical Swordsman that is not half magic, half warrior, but instead full magic and full warrior… That would be so OP! I was getting excited just thinking about it… TRANSFORM! No, wait, I won't become a Magical Girl, right? Those are unrelated… Though would it be bad if I did become a magical girl?

Shoving the wicked thoughts to the side, I focused on my desire to wield magic, and why magic based protagonists seemed more popular than physical based ones in the novels I've read. Wielding magic felt much closer to FANTASY than being a warrior, even when it was obvious that warriors in this world had techniques that were far from mundane. It was also the main drive of the protagonists in the novels I've read. In those, the protagonists usually wielded magic with ease and skills superior to those that were born in the world, and there were usually two reasons for that.

The first was that they got a cheat ability from god when they were thrown into a new world. In a way, I probably got a cheat ability as well, with this game system, though I'll probably need to Awaken before being able to fully cheat my way into UNLIMITED POWER! Though I hoped to avoid going to the dark side in order to accomplish that.

The other reason was knowledge. Using the modern knowledge, they could have a stronger image behind the spell, so their intent and will were stronger and better focused, which lead to better results. These protagonists usually had quite extensive knowledge in various fields, such as chemistry, physics or biology, and sometimes to a degree that made no sense. While I was exposed to and shallowly studied many of these fields, my knowledge was still rather superficial, so I did not know how helpful it would be.

Besides, if my abilities were limited by the skills of my character, knowledge will turn up irrelevant. If I was considered a Human/Game Character hybrid, then you could say I gained the powers of the Game Character while having the freedom of a Human. My Human part gave me freedom in terms of what I can do, but how well I could do it was limited by my Game Character aspect. That's why I could control the speeds in which I move, but my top speed was limited by my stats, and had little to do with my human self. My speed improved because my stats grew, not because of some sort of personal growth (even though stats may be considered personal).

Back to the previous topic, I suspected there was another reason why magical protagonists seemed popular. They were easier to write. They gave more freedom and it was easier to explain "because magic", and it was easier for the reader to accept magic and not call bullshit when the author uses it to get themselves out of the corner they wrote themselves into. Magic didn't really exist, so it was easier to accept. A physical based protagonist had to be rooted in reality, so even when their abilities were beyond what is humanly possible, there were certain expectations.

Though that reason wasn't really influencing my desire to be magic focused, I couldn't help but smile bitterly at the thought of my Isekai adventure taking the cheap and easy route. If I have both cheat abilities and knowledge, then my novel could have been described as the wish-fulfilment sort… But it was about me, and my wishes, so why wouldn't I want them fulfilled? I didn't know if my personality will allow me to take the harem route, or if I'll be able to romance even a single woman, but becoming OP sounded very nice.

I carved it into my heart, the desire to become so OP that if this was a novel anyone reading it would groan. I still didn't know what I'll do with my OPness, but I assumed it would be some heroic path that will reveal itself eventually, so I wasn't worried. Determined to succeed, I decided to give some focus to the Warrior part of Magical Warrior. Warrior, not Girl.

I ended up buying a few things and crafted myself a shabby scarecrow. It was just an old pillow tied to some wood, so it didn't cost much, only 20 coppers. I didn't get a craft skill, either.

With that, I took out my Stick for the first time in forever and, while trying to not think about how love is an open door, I started swinging at the scarecrow. While doing that, I tried implementing the breathing technique which originally unlocked my Martial Prowess, and focusing on my body and how it moves. I tried doing it while running, but it didn't seem to achieve any result, so I hoped it will be different while I attack.

Doing this for a week proved that I was on the right path, as my Martial Prowess rose to 2! I was very excited, but quickly calmed myself, as the next phase was more important. During that week, I was concentrating on my body, so I was unable to train my Magic while training Martial Prowess. This wasn't what I aimed for, as the point wasn't to split focus.

What I wanted was for my body to hone itself, while I hone the mind. I didn't have experience with fighting, so I knew I'll mostly be relying on Skills. It probably would have been better if I was an experienced martial artist, but that was not the life a lazy asshole such as myself has lived, and it was too late to change that. So I stopped concentrating on my body, set up a macro that combined the swinging with the breathing, and let it do its thing while I was concentrating on training Magic.

The result was… Incredible! It took me slightly longer for Martial Prowess to reach level 3, but that was expected, and my Magic continued to improve alongside it. With my new training regime, the only stats that didn't grow were Charisma, Luck and Stealth. To train Charisma I would need to interact with people, and the stat would rise very slowly, so it was too troublesome. I didn't think that flipping coins or rolling dice will raise my Luck, and didn't have much time to spare from my training to test it at the moment. As for Stealth, I was afraid that if I train that, I'll become a Stealth Archer accidently, so I mostly stayed away from it, and bows.

Four years after coming to this world, my stats were starting to look quite nice. Moreover, my Dash and Basic Attack skills rose to 2. It increased damage by 10%. Without knowing how much Strength would influence my damage, it might not be useful when wielding Stick, but I hoped that I wouldn't need to find out too soon. I also trained by punching and throwing rocks, which unlocked Basic Attack skill again, though at level 1. The attack skill for different weapons needed to be trained separately, it seemed, though perhaps the stick basic attack will be shared with other weapons… Perhaps clubs? I could now inspect my fists separately from myself, meaning that they become a weapon! That had 1 attack, like the stick. That would rarely come in… Handy. The stones also had 1 attack, by the way, but I stored plenty in my inventory anyway.

Dash now increased my speed by 350%! It rose by 50%! Unlike the lame Basic Attack skill that hardly put any effort into growing strong… With my Speed and Dash growing, I might achieve liftoff just by running with my hands spread apart! I would look like the kids pretending they were planes, but I would actually be a plane! Without being able to measure my speed, nor having any aerodynamics knowledge, my dream could live on! Well, getting a Fly spell will probably be more efficient, but I'm not going to think about it for now.

Examining my current status was now less shameful than it was a few years ago, and I even obtained a new name. Though I hoped for a different one, I probably didn't get it due to not having any practical abilities in the field.

Name: Store Assistant

Available Names: Child, Teacher, Novice Fighter

HP: 37/37, MP: 16/16, SP:13/13

Stats:

Strength 22, Dexterity 14, Constitution 19, Intelligence 15, Wisdom 9, Charisma 4

Luck 1, Speed 7, Stealth 2, Magic 7, Martial Prowess 4

XP 0/0

Physical Skills:

Basic Attack Lv2

General Skills:

Awakening Potential

Dash Lv2

Rest Lv1

Arithmetics Lv2

Brighthilt Language Lv2

Weapon: Stick – 1 Attack

90400 Ursa