Chapter 9

...

Floor 1 – Day 35

[Status]

Name: John

Attributes

Class: None – Skills: 2/6

Titles: None

Perks:

Strength:

14

-

[Domicile] – 1st floor

Dexterity:

11

Archery 3

Constitution:

13

Resist Poison 5

Intelligence:

10

-

Wisdom:

10

-

Charisma:

10

-

I had a sudden breakthrough that came when I least expected it.

Which, was a very good thing, because I was becoming demoralized by the fact my Strength increases felt like they were slowing down. My efforts at coming up with new work-outs was dwindling, too.

After going through my entire house for anything that might be useful or sentimental, I found my old recurve bow and decided to set a target up in the field. I intended it as a bit of a break from the mindless lifting, pushups, squats, and whatever else I could think of. Plus, I had wondered what the increase in Strength would do for my draw.

The bow was only 45 lbs in draw-weight, which I felt was hardly anything to brag about, but even that can wear down a shoulder given enough time.

Or, at least, that's how I remembered it being.

Several years out of practice, I missed terribly a few times, before I finally fell into an easy groove. Nock, draw, release.

Nock, draw, release.

Nock, draw, release.

Before I knew it, I’d been shooting all afternoon. And I could have easily kept going.

My shoulder barely felt it.

My fingers, in fact, barely felt it. The worn out glove I wore was hardly decent protection from the string, but they all felt fine.

Nothing hurt, nothing was sore.

Strength, it seemed, was a hell of a drug.

Adding to that, it was almost as if I’d fallen into a trance while I was shooting. As I stood there, lobbing arrows away, I felt like I was shooting all my problems into the distance, each landing with a nice "thwack" on the far off into the target. Each satisfying impact on that mess of rolled up cloth and rags which took the arrows in, soothed my soul a bit.

Every hit was one more victory.

Every arrow down-range was one more problem solved.

And the menu had quite a bit to say about it.

[Archery 3]

Increases proficiency in the bow and arrow.

The skill had dropped into my status menu without me noticing, just as Resist Poison had. All at once, with no say on my part.

A pattern seemed to be forming.

The Skill seemed to be closely associated to the Attribute, and the menu now showed that I had 2/6 of them.

Which seemed to indicate there was a limit. One per Attribute, with four more remaining.

I wondered then, if I had made a mistake practicing as I had.

In fact, I was almost certain that I had.

Archery was fun, but if I'd just missed out on something more useful because of this... I was a little worried that was exactly what had happened.

Maybe, instead of Archery I could have gotten something different for Dexterity? If I’d tried something else, something more useful…

Could I have tried martial arts instead? I found an old book on it, but I hadn't tried to learn much. Just practiced a few punches and pulled my leg muscle trying to do a proper kick.

While a bow was handy in certain circumstances, Archery was hardly the best thing I could think of. It was so limited, and Dexterity could have meant all kinds of useful things. What if I was missing out on some sort of fighting skill, or some other crazy ability?

I had no idea what was possible, but if super-human abilities were out there, I felt that using a bow and arrow seemed downright lame.

And at the same time… I wasn’t entirely unhappy with [Archery] being there.

While I’d been carrying around a pistol and shotgun all this time, I hadn’t once shot them. In fact, I was probably pretty rusty with them, but I’d held off practicing with them because I hadn’t wanted to waste ammo. There was only so much of that, and once I was out of ammo, the guns were going to be useless.

Because of all that, I hadn’t thought of taking them out for target practice.

Meanwhile, as long as I didn’t miss terribly, all my practice arrows were retrievable for reuse. There was still no argument, of course. In no way was my bow comparable to a gun, but it wasn’t without its advantages.

No real noise when shooting, reusable ammunition, lightweight…

I supposed I could potentially make a crude bow, as long as I had some time to prepare. It wouldn't be very good, but a bendy stick and some paracord or string. Technically, I could make something that could launch an arrow. Something halfway decent, if I had some tools...

Plus, now that I had the Skill, I had to admit I was probably never this good. I was hitting within a few inches of the bullseye a very good percentage of the time. Even when I pushed the target back a decent-ways for a longer shot.

In fact, even the really far shots I could never make when I was younger: I was hitting those. So, I was already as good as I’d ever been, perhaps better than when I’d practiced every week.

It was certainly something to think about.

During my now-daily trip to restock on water from the forest stream, I took the bow instead of one of the guns, considering what it might be like to carry a different type of weapon instead.

It wasn't all that heavy.

I felt the thought drift in, and settle down.

Maybe...

If I practiced more...

Maybe, I thought, I could pack one more thing.