I followed Aileen to a large room. I assumed it was the training room because I saw lots of weapons, dummies and other training equipment.

“First we’re going to see what you can do. Grab any weapon you want and come at me.” Aileen said.

I went over to the rack of weapons and was kind of intimidated by the variety. There were all sorts: broad swords, claymores, daggers, throwing axes, twin bladed axes, knives, scimitars, spears, javelin and others that I couldn’t identify.

I tried picking up a claymore and swung it sloppily. It was too big and heavy for me so I moved on to something smaller. I grabbed a dagger and swung it a few times to get a feel for it. It was still a bit heavy but I like the way it felt in my hands so I went back to Aileen, my new teacher with it.

“A dagger eh? Okay, now come at me.” She said.

“Aren’t you going to use a weapon?” I replied.

I blinked and suddenly she was in front of me.

“Don’t question your teacher.” With that said she slapped me. Hard. In the face.

I fell to the ground. “Oomf!”

“Get up! You think training is a joke?” Aileen’s demeanor did a complete 180 and I was speechless of the change that just occurred.

She was a sweet petite woman but now she seemed like a madman raging at me to come fight her.

I gritted my teeth, got up and thrust my dagger at her.

Her arms turned into a blur. I couldn’t even see them when she knocked the dagger out of my hands and I was back on the ground again spitting out the dust.

“Again!”

“Oomf!”

“Again!”

“Ugh!”

“Again!”

“Ahh!”

“Get up!”

I gradually lost track of time and by the time we were done I was covered with bruises all over my body. I noticed notifications coming up saying that I gained an extra stat in stamina occasionally but I ignored it because I was too busy trying not to get beat up.

“Whew, we’ll call it a day. Be here early tomorrow! Someone will come take you to your room.” Aileen told me and then she left.

I laid on the floor, unmoving. And as she said, someone did come. It hurt just to move.

The person laid me on a bed and I went to sleep.

“Ack!” I woke up in pain. Something hard hit my head.

“Rise and shine buttercup. First lesson of being a rogue: Never let your guard down!” Aileen was yelling in my room as she began hitting me with a stick to get up.

“Uuh… What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s 2 AM now get up! You never know when you could get killed you have to always be one guard even in your sleep!”

“What! That’s crazy!”

I hastily got up in order for her to stop smacking me with the stick.

Then we went to the training hall where she beat me again.

“What’s the point of all this? You’re just beating me! Are you a sadist?” I cried out in pain.

“I’m teaching you the flaws in your stance and the openings that you are showing. If this was a real life and death battle, your opponent would have used those openings to kill you.” She replied with no emotion.

“But… it hurts!” I complained.

“Quit being such a pussy… sigh… my first student is so useless… fine, we’ll move on to something else. Grab those knives over

there.”

I went over to the table and carefully grabbed about a dozen similar looking knives and walked back to Aileen.

“We’re going to practice your throwing skills. You see that dummy over there? Throw the knives at it.”

I picked up a knife and aimed carefully at the wooden dummy.

*Throw*

*Throw*

*Throw*

I made roughly 8 out of the 13 knives that I threw.

“Well, at least you’re not completely useless. You have the [Throw] skill right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Then for the rest of the day throw the knives into that dummy over there. You aren’t allowed to stop until you have 100% accuracy.” With that said Aileen went off and left me alone in the room.

‘Sigh… what in the world did I get myself into? Well, might as well get started…’

After an hour or so my right arm was starting to get sore so I switched to my left. I found out that my left arm was slightly less accurate than my right but I kept on throwing.

I don’t know how much time has passed but I could barely lift up my arms. Notification panels popped up occasionally but I ignored them and kept on throwing.

Finally, Aileen came back and told me to get some dinner and rest. Unfortunately, I never reached 100% accuracy and was quite disappointed in myself.

Tired, I ate my small dinner of cold soup and hard bread but I didn’t complain because I was famished and I went to bed exhausted.

“Oomf!”

“Rise and shine buttercup!”

I was rudely woken up by Aileen with a splash of water to my face at around 4 AM this time and we went straight back into sparring.

I was extremely discouraged because Aileen kept on knocking away my dagger and I was getting beat up like the day before.

After hours of torture she finally said to move onto my throwing but today the distance between me and the dummy was

increased and so I had to throw harder and be more accurate.

And so my days passed uneventfully and slowly by training with Aileen. Until finally a month has gone by.

***********

“Rise and shine buttercup!”

I quickly rolled off my bed before Aileen could bring harm to me. I saw that my pillow had a knife sticking out of it and another knife was thrown at me and I blocked it with my dagger.

*Whistle*

“Not bad kiddo. You’re finally getting the hang of things.”

I must say that I’m quite proud of myself for coming this far. I’m actually surprised that I’m still alive.

The past month was torturous and gruesome. Aileen beat my ass every day and I threw knives till my arms felt like they were

gonna fall off and the food was terrible.

She also had me do training circuits to increase my agility and had me learn lock picking and how to be a pickpocket to increase

my dexterity.

She had me go pickpocket in the streets for real and there were a number of times I picked the wrong dude to steal from and I almost got killed.

Sigh.. another two more months of this hell.

But like they say, “No pain, no gain.” And I’ll say that I gained a lot. This is what my stats look like now.

Name: Rane Coult

Title: Snake Slayer

Level: 7

HP: 24/24 MP: 26/26

Strength: 14 Agility: 20 +1

Dexterity: 17 Stamina: 24

Intelligence: 6+1 Luck: 3

Wisdom: 7

Skills: [Throw ☆☆]

[Blink ☆☆☆☆]

Because I trained [Throw] so much it upgraded to two stars. Aileen told me that skills can be upgraded the more proficient I become in them. She said that there is no limit to how much a skill can be upgraded but she told me that the highest recorded skill with the greatest proficiency was 11 stars in spear arts or something.

As I was admiring my stats, suddenly the door to the training hall opened and came in Jack with a girl behind him.