I had three days off from school, so now was the best time to get used to my skills. I walked to an abandoned storage unit that no one has visited in years, it used to be my “hangout” spot…when I had friends.

When I reached the spot, I was met with a building full of cracks and a bare concrete floor. There was no door so I just entered…no one was going to check it anyway. In the middle of the building there was a punching bag I had set up here quite a while ago, so I decided to test out my beginner martial arts passive first. I brought out the two gloves and tightened them to my hands. I started with simple jabs that I had practised before and then moved on to kicks and hooks. After a few minutes of repetition, I started getting used to how my body moved. I took a step on the ball of my right foot while opening my hip outwards. My right fist came out naturally without any strain, yet with even more power!

After 3 hours of the same routine….the punching bag was quite destroyed, with holes having formed at three different spots and sand starting to leak out. So I decided it was time to move on to the next part of the training, and that was theoretical studies…

I opened up the first book, titled “Spears For Dummies,” and started reading how best to use the spear I bought. After roughly 30 minutes of reading, I got very bored and so it was time to test out what I read. The key to using the spear properly was measuring out the distance between me and the opponent….that bag was going to face even more abuse.

I held the spear with my two hands evenly spaced out, feeling the smooth texture of the polished wood, and started taking slow steps around the bag and measuring how far I could push the spear without leaning in and breaking my balance. After getting a good idea of how far I could go, I rapidly switched stances and launched a strike with open hips and steady hands. The spear smoothly entered and exited the bag without much resistance, granted leather wouldn’t offer that much anyway. After another 3 hours of the same thing, I decided to move onto the book called “Stupid’s Sword Techniques,” which didn’t bode very well with me…

The sharpened replica I bought was in the shape of a regular double edged sword, with enough space for both my hands to fit on it. The book had said that a proper sword strike used the entire body, not just the arms, and so I tried to test that theory out. I held the sword above my head, and stepped in again, while moving in tandem. The motion was very awkward at first, causing me lots of pain in my tendons, thighs, and biceps, but after a couple more strikes, I got into the “swing” of things. I only did 2 hours of this because I had to save 1 more hour for pure aim practice. I had used a bow before in the archery unit at school, but my aim needed a lot of work to improve.

After an hour had passed, it was finally time to go home, only to come back here tomorrow and do the same thing for another 2 days…

✶✶✶

3 days have passed, and finally, I was fully prepared. I had my allocatable skills points saved for emergencies and also the skill token. System, how do I use the dungeon key?

[Answer: say “reveal” to the dungeon key and the location will be broadcasted into you mind]

Alright then, “REVEAL”

The key started glowing, and then the light dimmed. Just as quickly as that happened, I had an idea sneak into my mind of where to go. I followed the coordinates in my head until I finally saw what I thought was the location. It looked like an abandoned building, the walls didn’t look stable but somehow the building was still standing till now while looking this old. As soon as I reached the “door” of the building a prompt showed up.

[Enter Dungeon? Y/N]

This was the moment I prepared for.

I chose “yes” and in an instant, the key became super bright as if lighting up the entire world, and then it disappeared, just like that. However, the old building somehow looked sturdier now, as if it had been used as a fortress in the past. I entered the building through the door and the first thing I spotted was….monsters. Not just zombies now, there were what looked like living skeletons walking and holding weapons such as swords and shields.

{ Skeleton Lv 5:

Strength: 6

Stamina: 10

Agility: 7

Endurance: 6

A form of undead found uncommonly in areas/subspaces with high amounts of negative emotions, skeletons are very nimble and aren’t easily scratched.

Weaknesses: Fire, Holy Element, Blunt Weapons}

{ Zombie Lv 5:

Strength: 7

Stamina: 12

Agility: 9

Endurance: 7

The most basic form of undead found commonly in areas/subspaces with high amounts of negative emotions

Weakness: Fire, Holy Element, Damaging the Head}

These monsters should be as strong as the ghoul I fought, but unlike last time, I was ready for this battle. I charged into the darkness using my {Stealth} skill and waited for one of the monsters to get close.

I could sense 6 enemies in this area but I didn’t know what type of enemies they were. 1 skeleton got near the shadow I was hiding in, that was the moment to strike! I pulled out my bat from the inventory and used all my strength to hit the skeleton’s skull, it disintegrated into dust particles...

[1 Skeleton Eliminated]

[Experience Gained]

The 5 other monsters were alerted and went to where the other skeleton died. Now that I could see them clearly, I was able to identify two more skeletons and 3 zombies. I got ready to fight them by pulling out one bat in my right hand and the replica sword in my left. The zombies charged first, I was already used to their attack pattern so I dodged and hit one of them on the head. I expected to hear the elimination message then, but the bat broke instead….

“So regular items can only make it this far…”

No problem, I also had the martial arts passive, and now seemed like the best time to train it. The three zombies charged at me again, but instead of dodging, I took a low stance to ground myself. I took one of the zombie’s charges head-on and used my fist to smash its skull. All one could hear was the loud BOOM noise from the impact. These zombies might be brainless, but they did have instincts. They started to hesitate for a second and I took that chance to strike again. I stepped in between both of the zombies while the skeletons approached, which allowed me to blow the zombies’ skulls as well.

[3 Zombies Eliminated]

[Experience Gained]

I still hadn’t levelled up yet, looks like the first 5 levels were the easiest, I was going to need to fight with opponents stronger than me to increase my level at a steady pace. The two skeletons appeared to be much smarter than the zombies, they stayed just outside of my range of attack. The stalemate remained until I moved out first. I stepped backwards into another shadow and activated stealth again to disappear right in front of their eyes. Even without skin and muscle, you could tell that they became very flustered because their opponent vanished into thin air. While the skeletons were confused, I used my speed to get between them and smash their skulls.

[2 Skeletons Eliminated]

[Experience Gained]

[LEVEL UP]

Finally…

[Status Open]

{ James,

Health 220 Mana 50

Job: Player Lv 6 Exp 3%

Base Status

Strength: 13

Stamina: 11

Agility: 13

Endurance: 11

Allocatable Stat Points: 16

Active Skills: Stealth Lv3, Navigation Lv3, Analysis Lv3

Passive Skills: Beginner Blunt Weapon Mastery 100% , Beginner Martial Arts 19%, Status Resistance Lv 1 }

I really needed some form of attack skill…

I took a look at the skill token in my inventory, it looked like one of those golden chocolate coins and it was also about the same size. Can this little object really make me grow stronger?

System, how do I use the skill token?

[Opening Skill List]

[Choose Skill Type]

[ Offensive

Defensive

Support ]

Offence

[Choose Rarity]

[Common

Uncommon

Rare

Epic

Legend ]

The skill list doesn’t let the user pick the skill they wanted, only the type and rarity. I could put 1-9 tokens for common skills, 10-99 tokens for the uncommon, 100-999 tokens for rare, 1000 to 9999 tokens for the epic skills, and finally 9999 tokens and up for legend skills. Seeing as I only had 1 token, I used it as a roll for a common offensive skill. The token disappeared and the system started speaking again.

[Rolling For Skill]

….

….

….

[Congratulations, Skill Unlocked]