After dinner my mother picked me up and after clearing the table and we at my dad's request we all sat down around the empty table.

“Now son I know you made your decision about what you want to do and I respect that however there is one thing that I feel that I must do before you become an Apprentice.”

He says that because in this culture a person becomes an adult only when they no longer have either the Child or the Apprentice trait. This happens at 15 years old or around 22 to 23 years on Earth. That might seem a bit old for a medieval structure that their technology shows but considering that the message on my child trait suggests that after it is over my stats will also affect my ageing it doesn’t seem that bad.

“What I am about to do now is something you must never do unless you trust the people around you with your life. I am about to show you my status and try to explain to you my choices.”

That is all my father said before the block of text became visible about 4 inches in front of his face.

Name : Sam
Level :35
Experience : 4500/64000
Traits:

Health: 2500/2500
Mana: 250/250
Stamina : 500/1200
Vitality : 250
Strength : 250
Endurance : 120
Dexterity : 180
Intellect : 25
Wisdom : 25
Mind : 25
Perception : 45
Stat Points : 0
Skills :[Hammers Lvl 60][Blacksmithing Lvl 49][Precise Blow Lvl 32][Axes Lvl 30] [Mining Lvl 25][Running Lvl 20][Reading Lvl 10][Heat Resistance Lvl 10][Writing Lvl 5]

“Now I will advise you as my father advised me, despite the fact that you have no mana and that you will most likely never have mana regardless of how much above 11 you Intellect Wisdom and Mind stats are you should probably push them up to 25, as that is where it is believed that the bonus to things like memory enhancement and quick thinking and other such limits are. It probably seems like a big investment now and I am not saying that these are your first points to put in just that these are something you are looking to have by the time your Apprentice trait ends or a year after.”

“Everything else I chose has been for the purpose of making me a better blacksmith, the Strength and Dexterity to work the metal as I wanted as well as enough Endurance to last in the forge.”

That is when my mother took over. “My stat points look a bit different”

Name :Silvia
Level :30
Experience : 13200/48000
Traits: Merchant

Health: 3000/3000
Mana: 250/250
Stamina : 500/1200
Vitality : 300
Strength : 110
Endurance : 110
Dexterity : 110
Intellect : 25
Wisdom : 25
Mind : 25
Perception : 110
Stat Points : 0
Skills : [Haggling Lvl 40][Mathematics Lvl 30][Cleaning Lvl 28][Cooking Lvl 27] [Sewing Lvl 20][Reading Lvl 20][Writing Lvl 19][Lower Price Lvl 17][Raise Price Lvl 16] [Good Deal Lvl 10][Running Lvl 10][Drawing Lvl 5][Contracts Lvl 3]

“As you can see without all the need for that much strength and dexterity, I mostly focused on my vitality and raised my perception a bit more. As a merchant and someone who grew up in the city, not to mention the work around the house, I picked up a few more skills than your father, however mine are not as connected nor are they as high level.”

“Mother, what does the Merchant trait do?” My sister asked, seeming very confused that an adult would have a trait.

“The merchant trait is one that increases my skill level up speed slightly in all merchant skills and also increases the Lvl cap on the skills from 100 to 120.”

“If you have a trait then how come we don’t?” My brother asked, himself seeming surprised at my mother having a trait.

“That’s because for the most part traits are not hereditary” My dad told him.

“Most part?” I asked, forgetting for a second that this was all supposed to go over my head. They seemed to think I didn’t understand the expression instead of questioning his statement.

“Yes there are traits that are not hereditary, and while traits in and of themselves are rather uncommon there are some traits that can be guaranteed or even earned. For example the Knight trait can be earned by anyone who is knighted and increases the limit of all combat weapons skills by 10, where as the Noble Baron Duke Archduke and Royal all increase the limit of all skills by 10 , 20 ,30 ,40 and 50 they are however titles that can be lost with the position they represent.” My father said, smiling kindly at me.

“That's not to say they are exclusive, while a person can only have one permanent at a time traits can evolve and evolve to accommodate this. For example should I become a baroness tomorrow my trait will evolve to Baron Merchant and it will give me a slight increase levelling up merchant skills as well as a 20 increase to the limit of all merchant skills and 10 to the others.”

“So the limit of skills is really 160?” My sister said, having lifted her hand up counting on her fingers.

“No apparently regardless of the Trait nothing increases skill limit past 150, and that is known from a few rebellions where the new king had previously had a trait, the limit is still 150 but they do keep their slight increase to levelling ease.”

“The limit of non-nobility traits is also an increase of 50, the difference is that they don’t come with an increase to the speed of getting skill levels, and that the higher the increase is the more specific it is.”

“For example a hammer expert would get 10 to all hammer related skills, a blacksmith would gain 20 to blacksmithing, an military-smith would gain 30 to all weapons and armor smithing skills, while an armor or weaponsmith would gain 40.”

“What about the natural 50?”

“Those are extremely rare and too specialized to be as useful, it would be something like a swordsmith, the downside is that while a swordsmith may get blacksmithing to 150 with enough hard work the skill would also get warped by how he levelled it all the way up and be capped at 100 for anything other than swordsmithing .”My mother said.

“That however is only true when it comes to working as a crafter, and even those can find success, it just takes a long time for their specialty to beat out older established crafters, most such people get picked up by a noble family willing to invest in them so that they can get access to 150 skill crafter items. Most of the other specialists often find success but they are always pulled into nobility either by marriage or a work contract, and it's not like there are many of them anyway, in our kingdom last I heard there are only 4 openly known about and maybe 3 times again that many hidden away so around 15 in a kingdoms worth of people." My dad patiently explained to my curious sister. It was times like this that I was glad for her inquisitive nature that mirrored my own.

So of course I then made the crucial mistake of yawning rather loudly. Mother got up to go and put me to sleep. Signaling that this was all the conversation I was going to be listening in on tonight, a rather upsetting juncture since I plan on working on skills as soon as possible, not in 8 years.