Achievements

It has now been a few days since I first started training in Yoona's training room. Besides from eating and sleeping, I have been training every opportunity I got, making use of every minute as efficiently as possible.

For now, the training was simple because I only had one goal in mind, which is completing the requirement for evolving the dagger of evolution.

The only thing that I was doing, was swinging the dagger as best as I could trying to become better at handling the dagger.

The progress has been going a lot faster than I expected.

When I first started swinging the dagger with intent behind it, I made rough cuts in the training dummy and only around 30% of my swings counted towards the progression count. Because of that, the progress was slow at the start.

But now, after a few days of improving my form and mental state, every single time I swing my dagger, it feels like I am slicing the air itself, cleanly cutting the training dummy, and every single swing is counted as valid for the progression count.

And finally after five days of hard work, I only had a few swings left until I reached my first goal and complete the progression count.

~Progress: 9.998/10.000~

~Progress: 9.999/10.000~

'Only one swing left.'

Yasuo took a deep breath in, and firmly tightened his grip before he swung his dagger. With a perfect horizontal slash, Yasuo aimed at the neck of the dummy and without much resistance on the dagger, the training dummy was cleanly decapitated.

The training dummy was an F-rank item made by an non-combat awakened and had the same toughness of an ordinary F-rank monster, which meant that Yasuo had now become strong enough to defeat F-rank monsters.

Yasuo was very excited about this, but he kept calm as the much anticipated hologram popped up.

~Progress 10.000/10.000~

Achievement [10.000 training swings]

Requirement: Having perfectly swung a weapon of any category for 10.000 times without hitting a monster.

Rewards: +5 strength points

~Evolution dagger evolving~

Yasuo hadn't thought he would be getting an achievement, but that was not the thing that took his attention.

The dagger that Yasuo had in his hand started glowing and slowly began changing its form. The dagger could actually be seen evolving in front of his eyes, exuding a bright golden aura.

The small, worn out, dagger that was used by the goblin starter changing shape and it even looked like the material itself was changing.

After a few second, the dagger stopped glowing and could now clearly be seen in its full glory.

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Item: [Dagger of Evolution]

Rank: unique

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Requirement: Defeat 5.000 goblins

Progress: 0 / 5.000

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Strength: 6 Sharpness: 6

Hardness: 9 Durability: 70/70

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An unrecognizable transformation from the old looking dagger to a pure black, pristine looking combat knife. With not only the outer appearance having changed, but also the stats having improved. Although it was nothing extraordinary, it was a huge step-up from the previous dagger.

After having admired the dagger for a few minutes, Yasuo regained his focus and looked more carefully at what had happened. Not only did he fulfil the requirements for evolving the dagger, but he also gained an achievement for swinging his dagger 10.000 times before hitting a monster and was rewarded with 5 strength points.

*An achievement is gained when certain conditions are met. Achievements are the only way for awakeners to increase their stats.*

That is why Yasuo was so shocked at gaining an achievement, because it is one of the most important things for awakeners. But the thing that shocked him even more was the fact that he got an achievement that could only be obtained by combat awakeners.

The achievements that every class can get are very different and the stats that they can gain from them are also vastly different. For example, a combat user will be able to get more achievements that will reward strength and a non-combat user will be able to get more achievements that reward mana.

Yasuo was overwhelmed by what just happened, leaving him speechless and lost in thought.

After a few minutes, Yasuo managed to calm down and organize his thoughts. 'If I can gain achievements for combat awakeners and for non-combat achievements, I could theoretically get double the overall stats of a normal awakener… I don't think I have ever heard of an awakener that could do this.'

Yasuo couldn't believe it, but decides to take it all in anyway and went from being flustered to feeling pure joy. This meant that he could possibly become much stronger than he had ever even hoped for.

With this information, Yasuo had set a new goal, which was to obtain as many achievements as he could and become stronger in that way.

Unfortunately, this goal was easier said than done. Achievements are the only way to increase an awakener's stats, and is also one of the most precious things to awakeners. Because of this, awakeners and guilds keep their achievements a secret and only the basic achievements could be found in a public library or on the internet.

Not letting this stop him, Yasuo quickly returns home, grabbing his notebook and heads to the nearest library.

Once there, Yasuo starts finding all the books where achievements could be written down and searches the internet for achievements that were made public.

It was pretty difficult finding many achievements, but every time he found one, he quickly wrote it down in his notebook. Before he even knew it, the sun had gone down and a lady taps him on his shoulder.

"I like how enthusiastic you are about reading, but unfortunately the library is closing now." Said the old woman managing the library, with a smile on her face.

Looking at the time, it was already eight in the evening, which meant five hours had passed.

Returning home, Yasuo looks at the list of achievements he made in his notebook. There weren't that many achievements for rune crafters or dagger wielders that he could find, but he had made a pretty good list for general achievements which every awakener could obtain.

Still full of energy once he returned home, Yasuo starts categorizing them according to type and difficulty. Now that the achievements were organized neatly, he actually started thinking about them.

Some achievements seemed really simple, like doing 100 push-ups in a row or running 10 kilometres within an hour.

Of course the rewards for these achievements weren't much either, but eventually they would add up. Looking at the list of achievements, there were a few achievements overlapping each other like doing 50 push-ups every for a whole month.

From there, Yasuo made a schedule for how he would be able to obtain as many achievements as efficiently as possible. Having a clear picture in mind, he had set up a training schedule that lasted exactly one month in which every single achievement could be reached.

Some achievements were physically much harder, so the goal of the training schedule wasn't only to obtain achievements, but also to strengthen the body as much as possible in that one month timeframe.

Training to strengthen the body might seem unnecessary, because the achievements would increase stats and thus making a person stronger. But there is a reason that training the body is very important, which was found out by researchers very quickly, but is overlooked by many awakeners.

*Someone's stats are not an indirect indicator of a person's capabilities. For example a muscular guy with a strength stat of 5 can lift more than a skinny person with a strength stat of 5. This is because stats are not a display of ones capabilities, but they rather enhance a person's capabilities. If a person could normally lift 100 kilos, he would be able to lift 110 kilos with a strength stat of 10, which increases the person's strength by 10%*

Knowing this, and factoring this into the training schedule, Yasuo was set out to become stronger as fast as possible with the resources he had at his disposal.

Having finished making the training schedule, Yasuo closes his notebook. Looking at his clock on the wall, it had already become night-time.

Yasuo stood up immediately and walked to his bathroom and took a quick shower before finally going to bed.

Lying on the bed, Yasuo thinks back at how much had changed in this week alone and how improbable it all was.

'If it wasn't for the fact that I had run out of paper or if I had enough money and I could waste mana ink, I would never have drawn on my arm and I would probably not have awakened, ever.' He thought, chuckling about the randomness of that.

'Especially today a lot happened and it felt like the day passed in the blink of an eye.'

There was so much to think about, but knowing that the coming month would be one of the most challenging months that were to come, Yasuo quickly emptied his mind as this night might be the last time that he could get a good amount of sleep in.

And he was right, as the next month was so filled and made his body ache so much that there wasn't even one night where he had a full night of sleep.