Effects

Aaron carried me up to the office and ruthlessly threw me down onto the couch and told me to take off my clothes. It was embarrassing but, I knew it was to treat my Injuries so I didn't complain. He brought over the Med Kit and opened ready to begin treating me.

I clenched my teeth as he dabbed the wound on my back with rubbing alcohol to sanitize it.

After silently watching me squirm in pain for a moment he spoke "Radroach bites normally only inflict shallow wounds that feel more severe than they are. What you really need to worry about with injuries caused by them is the infection. If the wounds are properly sterilized you can get sick and die. Luckily this isn't a problem as long is the wound is regularly cleaned and sanitized."

Listening to his words I couldn't help but, agree my wounds made me think I was about to die.

"The wound on your back is relatively small and only needs to be bandaged but, the wound on your leg will need to be stitched shut" Aaron told me as he put the Med Kit in front of me.

I sat there for a moment looking at it before I turned to Aaron.

"What are you looking at me for? I only treated your back because you can't reach back there I want you to fix your leg by yourself."

I knew he was trying to help me learn how to take care of myself but, as I looked at my mutilated leg I felt an urge to vomit. Taking a deep breath I tried to imagine that it wasn't my leg in front of me.

Steeling my nerves I grabbed a clean rag and the bottle Vodka Aaron used to clean my back and poured it on the rag. Not giving myself a chance to think about it I wiped my wound off as quickly and thoroughly as I could.

Because I knew it was coming and was expecting the pain it stung far more than my back did. I clenched my teeth as hard as I could to stop myself from screaming. After the wound was clean I grabbed the sutures out of the Med Kit and brought it to my leg.

I poked my skin with the needle several times to try and get a feel for how much it would hurt. Surprisingly it was much less painful than I had imagined probably because of how much the Vodka hurt and the I was still in partially in shock. Pushing the needle through my skin I carefully sewed my wound shut.

My Mom had taught me the correct way to suture wounds while I was still living with here. I started to reminisce about everything that had happened completely zoning out and before I knew it my wound was completely sewed up. I grabbed the Vodka rag to clean it a little more and to wipe the blood off.

After I finished wrapping it up in a bandage I slumped down on the couch completely exhausted. Even though it had been less than 20 minutes since I got up it felt like hours to me.

Aaron came over to check my work and for the first time actually looked a little satisfied.

"Good job with the wound you didn't do half bad" he said with a slight smile. His smile soon disappeared though as he looked me right in the eye" However the rest of your performance today was complete garbage."

"Was it really that bad" I whispered feeling more than a little insulted.

"Was it that bad" he spat?" I can barely even count how many mistakes you made. First you actually stepped on a piece of glass like an idiot and alerted your opponents to your location. Second after killing the Radroaches who saw you, you didn't go back to sneaking and even started stomping around with a bright light even though you didn't know if the rest of your enemies had actually discovered you. Finally third after killing the five Radroaches you actually let your guard down and got ambushed.

"Sorry" I meekly replied.

"Don't say sorry" Aaron snapped "If you really want to make up for this then you need to remember how you feel right now and never make such amateur mistakes again."

I nodded in acknowledgement understanding what he wanted. I don't think he wanted me to pass he wanted me to fail so that I could experience how dangerous the world can really be. After all if it had been anything other than a bunch of weak Radroaches I would have long died.

I laid back ready to fall asleep.

"What are you doing" Aaron asked.

"Going to sleep" I replied confused about why he was asking?

"No you're not" he said pointing to the nearby window.

To my depression I could see the first streaks of sunlight shining through the window. I had hoped that Aaron would let me sleep a little because of my injury but, I guess that was too much to ask.

"What are we going to do today then I'm too injured to do my normal routine" I wondered?

"We'll skip your exercise for the next week or so instead of that I will have you focus completely on your sneaking from now on."

"But I can barely walk" I protested.

"No you only think you can't walk. You were bitten on your upper shin where there is less than a centimeter of flesh and muscle. Your injury doesn't stop you from moving at all, the only thing stopping you is your fear of pain. Which is exactly what I want you to learn to ignore."

What followed was the worst day of my entire life. Aaron had me do all my normal sneaking exercises and even added a couple new ones to torture me even more. By the end of the day my leg was in so much pain I was starting to think it would have been better to just cut the whole thing off.

The next morning I reluctantly woke up and stood up to go to the bathroom. A moment later I remembered that I was severely injured and how much it hurt to walk but, to my surprise when I put my leg down it barely hurt even half as much as it did yesterday. Curious I sat back down and undid my bandage.

Looking at my wound I could see that it had already healed considerably. I was shocked by how quick I was healing and thought that it might be like in the game where sleeping would help heal injuries. I reached and touched back to see if that had healed too and instantly regretted it.

My back hurt just as much as before heck it might even have hurt a little more today. Holding my chin I tried to think of a reason for this. That's when I remembered I had the first level of the Medic Perk which made any treatments I gave 40% more effective. It was the only explanation for why my leg was healing faster than my back.

40% doesn't sound like a lot but, it is enough to make a wound that would normally take two weeks to recover, heal in only a little more than eight days and that was only the first rank of the Perk. Medic was one of the Perks that had 4 Tiers and increased it effect by 20% for each upgrade. Wouldn't that mean when it is maxed out he could instantly heal most wounds as long as the person wasn't dead?

It finally dawned on me just how much of a cheat my abilities are. As long as I keep leveling up it wouldn't be long before I turn into a one man army.

Filled with determination I jumped out of bed and went to start my training for the day. Even though I was still hurt Aaron was right none of my injuries were more than a flesh wound. None of my muscles or bones were hurt so I could train as normal as long as I endured the pain.

I decided to try exercising again with reduced difficulty. At first when Aaron had me start exercising I thought it was pointless because my Strength and Endurance were fixed at 4. When I told Aaron about this he completely ignored what I said and forced me to keep going. However after a couple of weeks I noticed that I actually was getting stronger, I ended up spending a lot of time think about why this was possible.

What I thought the most likely explanation was that even though I can get stronger instantly by changing my Stats I could also get stronger from pure training. Just like how I unlocked the Medic and Nuclear Physicist Perks. So if I keep training I should eventually get an extra Special Point for free.

This was good news for me it meant that I didn't ever have to waste points on my Special ever again unless it was absolutely necessary. Even though I haven't confirmed this yet I had a gut feeling that I was right which was why I wanted to keep training even though I was injured. I avoided doing laps because of my leg but, I forced myself to do the Pushups and Situps.

While I was training Aaron spotted me and came over to stop me saying it was too soon but, when I showed him my leg he let me continue. He didn't even ask about how I was healing so fast and to be honest I was a little disappointed. I was hoping to get a reaction out of him. I guess that was too much to ask for.

I completely healed after a week and it was back to business as usual. After another half a month I finally got validation for all my efforts.

______________________________

Congratulations

For your hard work and hours of commitment Vault Tec has decided to award you a perk

You have received the perk (Sneak: Rank 1)

Sneak

Become whisper, become shadow. You are 20% harder to detect while sneaking.

________________________________

Once I unlocked the Perk Aaron told me I had mastered his sneaking skills to an acceptable level and that we could now move to combat and survival training.

He increased my exercise even more and started teaching me hand to hand and weapon based combat. When I asked him about guns his only response was to tell me that I wasn't ready and ignore me anytime I tried to bring it up again.

A couple days in my new training I finally got the message I had been hoping for, for months

______________________________

Congratulations

For your hard work and hours of commitment Vault Tec has decided to award you a Special Point into your Endurance.

Strength: -(4)+

Perception: -(5)+

Endurance: -(5)+

Charisma: -(5)+

Intelligence: -(10)+

Agility: -(4)+

Luck: -(4)+

Points Available

0

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I was ecstatic now I had proof that I could upgrade my Stats without leveling up. I was confused about why my Endurance changed instead of my strength. I would need to do more testing before I figured out how it worked.

The day after my upgrade a paid special attention to my training and counted how many of each activity I did and the results were exactly what I expected. I could run 20% more laps and do 20% more pushup and so on. This was good news it meant that I could train longer which would make it easier to increase my Strength.

Another even more amazing thing that I noticed was that I started waking up earlier every morning and could stay awake longer without getting tired. When I did the math on how much less I was sleeping it added up 20%. This made me think because the Endurance Stat didn't have this kind of effect in the game and if Endurance could have more than one effect what about the rest of my Special Stats?