Max Hastings

Waking up the next morning, was a roller coaster of emotions. The initial calm as your brain transitions between unconsciousness and wakefulness. Followed by a sudden burst of adrenaline as I recalled exactly what had happened last night. The accusation, my forced revelation, and the revelation I had forced in return.

Everything came flooding back, the awakening to the ominous words of you’re lying, the forced compelling of truth, the tumultuous retelling of both my past as well as my Grandfathers. I supposed that I shouldn’t call him that. Hmm. What was his actual name? I don’t think that anyone had ever used it. I guess that was a question for later.

Once I had processed the reality of my new situation, my first action was to check my status to see if my stamina was full again. It was. I reckoned I had a good 2 to 3 hours of real-time wakefulness before I fell asleep again. I hadn’t realised it at the time but the dexterity elixir while boosting my dexterity enough to allow my mind to interact with my body had also drained my stamina at a considerably quicker rate.

The elixir! I used my senses to search the house but it appeared that everyone else was still asleep and without access to another draft I wouldn’t be moving anywhere anytime soon. Regretful I retired to my mind to spend the time seeing if I couldn’t figure some other stuff out. There was nothing I could do while still crippled and unable to control my body.

Hmm, bored I began to tinker.

I was aware that I did not really want to be adding to my mind, magic, clarity. A question for later, I was assuming Vitality was included with my brawn stats of Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity, but where did senses lie? Was it part of my mind utilising my body better or was it part of my body becoming upgraded? The same with Charisma really, would I become more handsome? My body adapting to the attribute externally, or was it going to be part of my personality, my mind able to persuade, charm, and command others easier? Or was it part of something altogether different? Mind, body, and soul perhaps?

Either way, I had to try not to increase my mental stats while attempting to increase my physical. The irony of trying to do this while literally being trapped in my mind was not lost on me. Then there was always my luck to play with.

1,000 coin tosses later, I had the horrible thought that maybe this didn’t count because it wasn’t really real. But I stuck with it in the hope that it would count like so much else had counted in here. To be honest I thought that my Luck stat was incredibly low considering all that had happened to me.

1. I had been reincarnated.

2. I remembered my past life

3. I was reborn on a new world

4. I had survived an assassination attempt

5. I had survived repeated base jumps.

6. I had survived my counterfeit Grandfather's attempts to 'make us strong'

Perhaps the luck stat didn’t gain any points or experience towards it until my stat had been unlocked. If so I had missed out on a lot of points, which was a shame. Nevertheless, regardless of the outcome, I continued with my practice.

2000 tosses.

I was hopefully building up a statistically respectable set of results. But if luck only improved my chances by 2% or even worse 0.2% it was going to be hard to tell the difference.

3000 flips

4000 flips

5000 flips

While this was taking a significantly long time in my mind. The problem was my mind ran at a considerably quicker pace so my family was still asleep. I like to think that I was as determined and persistent as the next man but after a while, it got very boring.

Finally, 10,000 flips.

Tallying the charts did not leave me convinced either way. 4980 tails to 5020 heads. There might have been a 0.2 % increase in my luck. But there could equally be absolutely no difference what so ever and this was just a statistical probability that it was hardly going to be 5000 each anyway. I wouldn’t be betting large sums on it anytime soon.

Eventually, my family woke up.

The first thing they did was to come and check on me. Watching everything happen so slowly had been amusing at first. Now though it just added to my frustration. Would they hurry up and get a move on.

I was going to continue calling Grandfather, Grandfather for the moment. But he needed to hurry up and give me an elixir or tell them about the dexterity elixir. If he wanted me to keep his secret.

I had a mini panic attack. What if he never told them about them, or told them I had made all of this up? And I was trapped like this forever. Quickly I calmed down. I had seen them, they existed. We held one another’s secrets in a cold war of mutual self-destruction. Although I hoped that we were significantly more amicable than that now.

How many did he have though? Would it allow me enough time to learn enough dexterity-based skills and level them up significantly enough to relieve me of my crippled status? I winced, I would have to be really careful about leveling anything else for a while. Dexterity from here on out.

Who knew exactly how it all worked? It seemed that even Grandfather had been unsure about the ratios to create an imbalance. Finally, my senses found my grandfather returning to the family with the little bottle from last night.

My family turned to question him as he walked in holding the bottle high, “What’s that?” Aleera asked the question my parents were clearly keen to ask, but content to let her ask for them, as Grandfather strode into the main room.

“A dexterity elixir.” He calmly answered, he seemed to have shed some of the fear, anger, and anxiety that he had appeared to carry before. “And a temporary cure to Kai’s condition.” He lightly responded to my mother’s relief and sister’s hope.

“Aren’t those expensive and rather rare?” Kaius asked concerned with the cost and the temporary nature of this particular cure. It would be hard to source further elixirs if they were rare and expensive too.

“Yes, very expensive and certainly unobtainable on this island.” He answered sadly. “Either way I have a few that Kai can use to temporarily interact with his body. Although he will quickly run out of stamina if he is not careful.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Aleera asked. Not having thought through the ramifications of his calm answer.

Mother replied having already worked out where the issue lay, “If it is a temporary solution, it is hardly a solution at all. Unless that is, we can use it to leverage it to create a permanent one. Can we?” she asked.

“Exactly!” Grandfather happily responded, “This is only half of the solution. This however is the other half, to creating a more permanent solution to Kai’s problem of being crippled.” He answered holding up a brown leather-bound book with a silver tree stamped or engraved onto the front cover. It did not take me being a genius to realise that it had something to do with our former family the noble house of Silverwood.

“What’s that?” Aleera asked frowning, clearly never having seen it before. I was not surprised considering Grandfather’s former reticence with the truth of our history.

“A house’s training guide.” He succinctly answered. Neither adding nor elaborating on its history any further.

“Where did you get that?” she asked raising her eyebrows in surprise, “and why haven’t you shown it to us before?” she sounded a little suspicious of its sudden appearance. My parents were probably equally surprised but happy to let her lead with the questioning.

“To answer your first question, I took it when the house fell.” He replied, and I noticed that he was still evading telling them the complete truth. Just as he had avoided telling them that it was their house that had fallen. “To answer your second question, I have used the majority of the information in here to help you gain certain skills. But . . .” he paused holding his hand up to stop Aleera interjecting, “If you had all the skills listed in this book it would quickly become obvious that you have had access to a noble house’s skill training manual, which was never something we wanted before. Furthermore, if the skills are completely unique not only would it indicate a noble house’s skill legacy, or training manual, but they could identify the house in question, as certain skills will often be a heritage of the house itself. Something that they once built themselves up by using them prodigiously. Something we, who were hiding, were hoping to keep anyone from guessing.” He no longer sounded angry when having to explain his reasoning which was a pleasant change of pace. It also seemed like he was changing his mind on the issue or rather all of the circumstances were forcing him to think about how he could elevate not just me but the rest of my family to noble levels and stats.

Mother looked questioningly at him, “Why are you bringing it out now?” I was not sure if she was questioning his change in tone and attitude or the actual appearance of the book. Maybe she had seen it before.

“Because, if we are to leverage the dexterity elixirs into a permanent solution for Kai, we will need to consider carefully what activities he is undertaking when using it.” Grandfather continued to calmly explain his rationale behind continuing to withhold my elixir.

“Why is that important?” Father asked confused by what he was implying or the future consequences of essentially using up a finite resource. Once it was gone it would be gone, I could see that clearly enough as much as the delay was frustrating.

“Every time Kai uses it he will have to focus on maximising improving his Vitality, Endurance, Strength and Dexterity stats won’t he? I am assuming the book, the extinguished house’s skill legacy includes exercises for increasing them or information on gaining skills that would help to improve them. Right?” Mother explained to father and asked Grandfather to confirm her reasoning at the same time.

“Yes, exactly.” He confirmed before continuing to lay out his ideas. “So, if we are to make the most of the elixirs before they run out we need to make a set of exercises from our own knowledge, and this that will make the most of his limited time.” He explained in more detail.

“Sailing, fishing, knot tying, balancing, running are the few skills that I could teach him that are focused on dexterity,” Father added his input to building me a training scheme not wanting to be left behind in helping his child to gain some semblance of normalcy.

“Weaving, Pleating, Embroidery, Dyeing, Printing, Weaving, Knitting, Crochet are all dexterity high skills, that he can learn with me.” Mother added her input to what I should be doing when physically present. It looked like I would be creating a lot of scarfs, clothing, and tapestry in my moments awake.

Aleera didn’t join in suggesting anything for me to practice although judging by the looks she was giving Grandfather she was thinking about the ridiculous training we had undergone already. I wondered if our formerly hard ass grandfather had any other dexterity-based skills hidden up his sleeves.

Seemingly wanting to change the subject even though it hadn’t been spoken out loud, Grandfather waved the book once more, distracting Aleera with words, “If you look through this skill legacy the key to Nobles high levels is the number of skills they are taught. With their childhood training consisting of learning how to read, write and use maths. Now Kai already unbelievably has these skills but their training legacy also includes cartography, mental puzzles, blacksmith puzzles, dancing singing, playing instruments, needlework, elocution, manners, etiquette, weaving, sewing, embroidering, the Code of Chivalry, and Courtly love, running a household, herbal remedies, basic alchemy, teaching, horsemanship and caring for the horse. The list goes on with various weapon skills such as the sword, axe, mace, dagger, lance, bow, and hunting with a hawk. Before moving onto exercises for strength training, endurance training, dexterity training, vitality training. Now while he is currently far too young for the majority of the highly physical activities there is one area of training that he would not have to move so much to practice and hopefully achieve.”

“What’s that then?” Kaius asked the question he had been lead to ask.

“Resistance training.” His answer although calm and careful was clearly expected to cause a problem.

“No.” Mother replied swiftly and firmly.

“What is resistance training?” Aleera, asked. It was as much for her benefit as mine seeing as I was listening in to everything but I had a pretty good idea of what was going to be said next.

“Resistance training builds up tolerances to a variety of things. Kai already has a pain tolerance but there are, according to this book, a variety of tolerances one can develop for example tolerances to poison.” He clearly was not pushing his position on the rest of the family this time simply making people aware of the option.

Mother though was having none of it, “No, no no! He does not need that now. What age does this book even have them start their training from?”

“Five.” He shrugged in response.

“Then and only then! And only if he is still suffering from being crippled will we even consider taking that route.” She was adamant that this was not happening now and possibly not ever.

Aleera though was not giving up on digging deeper, “How would that even help Kai?”

“A lot of the resistance training, should he gain the skill can help him level up either his endurance or his vitality which would add to his brawn and hopefully rebalance him.” He explained his reasoning.

“We are focusing on his dexterity.” Mother reiterated her position on the matter.

“Yes, of course.” He agreed. But it was clear that if I was unable to leverage enough dexterity stats and skills. This ‘resistance’ training is what we would have to fall back on when we ran out of the dexterity elixir that was bound to happen sooner or later. Something fun to look forward too or an incentive to improve my dexterity as quickly as possible.

My family set about gathering items to help me practice dexterity based skills while Aleera read out loud from the Skill Legacy the Silverwood family had left us as an inheritance.

Life was going to take a little longer and be a little stranger moving forward from now on but I was optimistic that with the resources Grandfather had unearthed I had a shot at undoing my crippled status.