Anyone can pretend to be brave until they stand at the precipice. Only then do they prove it.

  Hunter's heart pounded like a drum as he watched the enchanting colors swirl. He reminded himself to breathe. The colors vanished, revealing a Porolf staring him down.

  Steadying himself, Hunter took slow breaths and calmed his mind.

  The beast growled and started pacing to his left.

  He paced in step with the monster.

  The Porolf slowed to a stop and faced him, its yellowish teeth bared.

  Hunter could feel his heartbeat in his ears now and yelled. "Come on then!"

  The beast dashed to his left, going to his side without a weapon.

  Hunter turned, knuckles white, and swung his mace.

  The monster lunged out of the way, the mace still catching the side of the beast.

  The Porolf snarled and howled, head tilted skyward.

  His feet were stuck.

  The monster ran out of his reach towards his back.

  Hunter counted down the time till he could move.

  The monster made it behind him.

  Three seconds.

  The monster ran at him from behind.

  He twisted his body, swinging his mace behind him.

  The Porolf jumped back.

  Two seconds.

  The beast wasn't done; it ran again to Hunter's left side.

  One second.

  The monster opened its maw, ready to bite down.

  Zero.

  Hunter spun to face the monster, bringing his mace down in a brutal arc.

  The mace connected with its head, a splintering-cracking sound echoing in his ears.

  The mace crushed through skull and bone. The Porolf shattered into dark smoke, wisps trailing from Hunter’s weapon.

  Falling to his knees, Hunter dropped the mace. His arm felt like it was on fire, and the rest of his body felt like he had run a marathon. "No experience for defeating fake monsters, huh?" he thought.

  Looking down at his inflamed arm, he noticed a light red glow pulsing from the strength bracelet Derek had given him.

  Hunter, breathing heavily, noticed Jerry was talking. "That was your fault. We never said you couldn't bring one.

  A young man with dark hair and sharp features argued with Jerry, yelling back, "But you said it's not about having the strongest gear but how we fight."

  "Exactly," Jerry said, "The bracelet that Hunter has on is designed to output to forty strength; after that, it becomes useless. Do you really think any of you will be fighting a monster below that point?" The man deflated somewhat.

  The man looked at Hunter. Realizing he was still on the ground, Hunter got up and started returning to his spot. The man mumbled, "If I knew we could use that, my battle would have been easier."

  Hunter couldn't see the instructor's face, but he sounded tired as he talked to the student. "Vell, Hunter probably didn't need that bracelet to defeat that Porolf. It is a mace, which is a lot heavier than the sword you missed with, so even without the bracelet, there is a good chance the monster would have died or become moribund."

  Hunter watched Vell, in response, pull out a bracelet from his inventory and put it on, not saying anything else.

  The silence extended briefly until Jerry said, "Nice fight, Hunter. As you all could see, even though he was able to defeat the Porolf with the bracelet, it left him drained. So, this is something to think about: if you are trying to defeat an enemy and you already have the power to defeat it, is any kind of enhancer worth it?"

  Hunter felt that firsthand. How long would he have lasted if he had been in a real battle and used the strength bracelet? If the monster waited for him to tire like he waited for its skill, would he die?

  "Skill…" Hunter thought, "I forgot to use my skill!" Hunter mentally slapped himself for not using this chance to utilize his amplify skill in combat.

  A man walking in broke Hunter from his revelation.

  It was George who walked up, standing next to Jerry.

  Jerry raised his eyebrows, looking up at the taller man. "Is it already that time?"

  George nodded and then turned to talk to them, speaking calmly, almost quietly. "I'm George, another instructor."

  Hunter heard some people sigh around him.

  George continued, "I mostly focus on repetition and building healthy and necessary skills. We will start off easy with something simple, building muscle."

  Jerry cringed, but Hunter thought, "That doesn't sound that bad." He had gotten the opportunity to build a lot of muscle, so he felt like he was already in a good spot.

  Looking down at his arms, he was surprised to see weak, frail arms attached to his torso. "Oh yeah," he thought, feeling alien in his body once again, "different body."

  George instructed everyone to follow him, saying they would go upstairs.

  Once up there, George had them put back on their gear, saying. "If they want to battle with it, they need to build stamina with it."

  Then George turned to them, saying. "We will be running."

  Gasps erupted from all around Hunter, but he still had the mindset of wanting to rebuild his old muscle.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  George started jogging slowly enough for them to follow. They ran out of the training area toward one of the massive walls.

  Surprisingly, running in his boots wasn’t that bad for Hunter. It was definitely worse than running shoes but better than any other boots he had tried to run in.

  All too quickly, Hunter's breath became labored. He was running behind Indy, who hadn't even broken a sweat. Now that he thought about it, she was in great shape. Toned muscles covered her body; unlike the bulking muscles he had built in the past, her muscles looked built for fighting.

  Hunter pushed on sweat, poring down his forehead and burning in his eyes. He hadn't realized how out of shape his body was, but this felt like a wake-up call.

  They finally made it to where one of the walls turned ninety degrees. Hunter realized how large this city really was. They had been running for at least half an hour, starting at the training grounds, which were halfway between the wall.

  Hunter finally found his rhythm, and even though each step felt worse than the last, he pushed on, desperate to improve himself.

  Another wall passed, and Hunter was ready to give up. Every breath was a stab at his chest, and every step was on a bed of nails. His legs felt like they would break from the strain.

  Hunter looked up. He was starting to flag from the back of the pack. Everyone was in better shape than he was. They all were keeping up with George, and he was the only one falling back.

  He could no longer see the pack. He had hit another corner, so he turned another ninety degrees, but he had to slow to a walk. Every step felt like he was stepping in a fire pit, and each breath now felt like needles piercing his lungs.

  Hunter knew that if he stopped, he would not be able to go again, so he pushed. He took every step, forcing himself not to quit.

  He didn't know how long he had been walking, but he could see he was about halfway on the third wall; Hunter could see the shadow the large wall was casting as night approached.

  Hunter's legs finally gave out, and he fell onto the hard ground; he lay like that for a long time, feeling his legs throb in time with his heart.

  Pushing up, he pressed his back against the large wall, looking upwards. The bright pink sky of the day had been replaced with a dark pink hue, with dancing green and blue lights like shooting stars.

  He watched the beautiful sky, feeling a sense of lostness he hadn't felt in a long time. Leaning against a wall of a new city, in a new world, in a new body, he felt farther away from his old life than he had ever felt before.

  He stayed like that until his legs only felt numb. At that point, Jerry's friendly, if short, face found him.

  Jerry said, "You really made it this far?"

  Hunter felt horrible and was only able to mutter, "Yah."

  "Impressive!" Jerry said, "Derrek told me you would be new to this, and your family didn't do any physical or skill training for you, so I'm very impressed you made it this far."

  Jerry held out a hand to Hunter; he grabbed it, and Jerry pulled him up.

  Jerry put Hunter's arm on his shoulder, which was slightly awkward because Jerry was four feet tall, but the man was strong and did not waver at Hunter's weight as he started going.

  Jerry didn't flag while carrying Hunter but asked, "So tell me, Hunter, why do you want to become an adventurer? Most people here do it because they have to, their family doesn't have their own program, or adventuring is the only way they feel like they can make a name for themselves."

  Hunter, exhausted, said. "Right now, I just need to grow stronger."

  Unwrapping Hunter's arm from around himself, Jerry said, "I can respect that. Don't feel too distressed about being unable to keep up; keep pushing."

  Hunter looked around, seeing they were back in the first training area, and sighed. "I'll see you tomorrow."

  Walking into the kitchen the next day, Hunter felt sore. His legs, his chest, and even his arm, which he had only swung once while fighting, were sore.

  Instead of good morning, he was greeted with, "Well, don't you look horrible? Did a monster get to you?"

  Hunter sat down at the table and said. "I didn't expect training to be so intense."

  Derek finished, bringing over a plate of eggs and large bacon again. "Difficult, you say? Which part?"

  Hunter looked at the food and then at his sore arm, which he would have to raise to eat. Instead, he chose to eat with his left hand. "The fight wasn't that bad, but running around the city walls was a lot."

  Derek almost choked on his food. Coughing a few times before he was able to sputter. "They made you do that on your first day? I asked Jerry to go easy on you."

  Sighing, Hunter said, "It was George."

  Derek, finally done with his choking, erupted in laughter. " They let that guy train? No wonder!"

  Hunter looked nonplussed at the short bald man who was tearing up. "I am wondering, though: Why do we have to train our stamina? If we instead focused on killing monsters, wouldn't we get the skill points to upgrade our stats anyway?"

  Derek whipped his eyes with his sleeve. "Not quite; send me a copy of your stats."

  Hunter looked at them himself.

  —————————————————————————————————————————————————————

  Stats:

  Strength:

  19+1=(Hard-worker)

  Durability:

  16+1=(Hard-worker +2 from achievements)

  Agility:

  21+0=(-1 Sloth +1 Hard-worker)

  Intelligence:

  10+4=(+1 Hard-worker +1 Good Liar +1 Daydreamer +1 Prey)

  Wisdom:

  11+3=(+1 Hard-worker +1 Daydreamer +1 Prey)

  Level 13

  XP 235

  —————————————————————————————————————————————————————

  Derek took a bite of his food, swallowed, and said, "Take your strength, for example. You have twenty strength, but this doesn't correlate to how much strength you have built up just by living."

  Hunter didn't understand, so he asked. "So the number on my stats doesn't tell the full story?"

  Chewing this time, Derek nodded, saying, "Precisely, for example, if an adventurer who has only fought monsters their whole life fought someone who did physical labor like farming as a job, it is quite possible that the adventurer would lose out."

  Nodding, Hunter turned his full attention to attacking his food.

  After the meal, Hunter made his way to the training grounds a little earlier than the course was supposed to start. The roads were crowded, but the people thinned the closer he got to this part of the city.

  George was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the open structure, facing away from him. Hunter walked in, placed his boots off to the side, and approached him.

  Even while being quiet, George noticed him and said. "I'm honestly surprised you decided to show up after yesterday."

  Hunter immediately felt bad thinking he was talking about his inability to run around the city, but that shame turned into anger at the impossible task he was left with.

  About to talk, Hunter was cut off by George, who said, "You will get there eventually, sit."

  Taken by surprise, Hunter did so, sitting next to the tan man.

  "I wanted to ask," Hunter said. "Is running the only way we will train?"

  "No," came the quick and blunt reply.

  Hunter looked over to see what George was working on, but he seemed to be just sitting there. "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Training" came yet another quick response.

  Feeling like he was getting nowhere, Hunter spent some time thinking about his weapon choice yesterday. He had chosen the mace, which, even though he used the strength bracelet, felt really powerful to him. Even though he didn't like the idea of getting in close with enemies, he had to do that for almost every fight so far.

  Almost as if he were reading his mind, George asked. "So, a mace?"

  "A mace?" Hunter thought, then said. "As my weapon? In general? What do you mean?"

  George waited a few moments before saying, "A mace is an interesting weapon; it can be both complex and simple."

  Waiting for him to continue, Hunter watched him but, after a few more seconds, asked. "Is it a bad choice?"

  "No," came the expected response

  Then George did something amazing: He elaborated, "The mace you were using was a one-handed short mace. It is still slower than most one-handed weapons, but as you saw yesterday, it packs a punch."

  Hunter felt like he was sitting next to Mr. Obvious. "I already know this. If the mace is something I want to use, what should I do better?"

  George shrugged. "I don't know."

  Hunter almost stood up to leave, but George continued. "I don't know what you could improve since I haven't seen you fight enough. What I will give you are some pointers."

  George got up, pulled a short mace like the one he had used the other night out of his inventory, and got into a ready stance. He said, "Stand with your legs farther apart. The mace is top-heavy, so you want to make sure it doesn't throw you off balance."

  He touched his right elbow with his left hand. "Keep your elbow bent so that you don't hurt your wrist. You can't pierce with a weapon like this, so try to strike downwards or diagonally."

  He then handed the mace to Hunter. "Swing it a few times for me."

  Hunter did so, swinging the mace in slashing-like motions.

  "How do you feel?" George asked.

  Hunter sighed. "Not strong enough."

  George took the mace back and swung it a few times. Instead of swinging it back and forth like a sword, he continued the swing, circling around into another strike.

  "It's not that you're not strong enough." George said, "With a weapon like this, you need to use the weight to follow through on the next strike."

  Hunter tried it a few times. Even while still feeling his exhaustion from yesterday, he felt the large difference that technique made.

  Turning back to George, he smiled and said, "Thanks," but George was already sitting down again.