Basic Training

Kiro was handed a wooden sword. A quick use of the Identification skill revealed the following information:

Name: Wooden Stick

Durability: Indestructible

Damage: 0 – 0

Description: A simple wooden stick. It is indestructible but it will not deal any damage no matter how hard you swing it. A perfect weapon to practice with.

Looking at Master Roderick he asked if there were any wooden daggers as well. Master Roderick replied that they did.

He went to get two for him. Kiro started to whack the mannequin with the sword. The rhythm and the pattern he used was one that was taught to him by his instructor at his dojo. Temple, temple, collarbone, collarbone, stomach, stomach, thigh, thigh, striking each member from the left and the right before starting over again.

He had disabled all game messages with the exception of those about stats because he wanted to see at what rate he would gain them.

After about an hour and a half, he got a first notice that his strength stat had increased. A few minutes later, dexterity and vitality stats had also increased. Then agility. He continued hitting the mannequin. Twack, twack, twack…

After another 3 hours of hitting it with the sword, his stats increased again. Hum. Master Roderick came with a loaf of bread and told him to eat. Noting that his satiety was low, he did.

He returned to hitting the mannequin, this time with his left hand. After only another hour had passed, his strength stat increased again. He realized that it was because he was hitting the target slightly harder with this hand.

He continued to hit the mannequin. Once more after three hours the only stat that had only increased once was vitality.

Frowning, he once more took the sword in his right hand. This time he attacked the mannequin at a much faster pace at hit it much harder. His agility and strength stat, as well as his vitality stat rose in about an hour and a half.

He took a step back. With this he roughly understood how his stats increased.

It was really obvious once you thought about it.

The harder he swung, the more he increased his strength.

The faster he swung, the more he increased his agility.

And a quick look at his stamina confirmed that it was nearly depleted. Vitality probably increased faster the more stamina his actions cost him.

Just then, Master Roderick brought him another piece of bread and a cup of water. Kiro ate and drank. He then returned to the mannequin. The reason his stats took longer to raise the more he repeated the same actions was easy to figure out too;

in real life, doing the same training over and over again would eventually yield lesser results. You had to increase the difficulty to continue to improve. It was apparently the same in New World, except for the fact that the improvement was far too quick to be realistic.

It also explained why switching hands made the stats raise faster: it was considered a new action, different from what he had been doing before. As the strength stat wasn't tied to any single body part, training any of them would yield more stat points.

Kiro smiled. If he was right, then if he strikes at the mannequin with both hands, his stats should increase at twice the rate!

He let go of the sword for the first time and took up the two wooden daggers. He started to strike the target with them.

After a few more hours, he got results that differed from his expectations.

His strength stat only increased by one, while his agility and vitality stat increased by two. And dexterity increased by three!

After thinking a little more, he understood why: although he was striking with 2 weapons, they were both lighter than the sword. That was why his strength didn't improve much.

On the other hand, using two weapons took more coordination, which explained why dexterity had increased so much.

Kiro continued to experiment like this until Master Roderick told him it was time to sleep. He had lain a simple mat on the floor for him.

Even so, Kiro felt so physically and mentally drained that it felt like a feather bed. Not only his arms; his legs were also dead, despite the game-given recovery rate. Striking the mannequin wasn't just about moving his arms. His whole body went into the strike. It was especially important to move his feet at the same time, to give power to his strikes. Footwork was the basics!

After spending the entire day trying different ways to hit the mannequin, he had come up with a rudimentary training program.

He had discovered that using the sword was the best way to increase strength.

Hitting with two daggers increased dexterity the most.

Hitting with his hands and feet was great to increase agility.

Therefore, his training program was simple: start with the sword, with both hands, switch to the daggers, then unarmed and then repeat from the beginning.

And that's just what he did. The next day, and every day after that, he continuous hit the mannequin as hard and as fast as he could. Every time his stamina and satiety went down, Master Roderick would bring him bread and water and Kiro would switch his weapon. The only change was when he got an unusual notice the second day after the start of his training:

Game Message

FROM CONTINOUS ACTIONS, YOU HAVE OBTAINED A SPECIAL STAT: FLEXIBILITY.

Flexibility

Flexibility reduces the risk of injury. With high flexibility the damage from striking an opponent unarmed will be reduced. There will be less chances of sprains, broken bones and torn ligaments.

The possibility of avoiding an attack will increase.

Movement speed will increase.

Current Flexibility: 5

After receiving that message, he started doing stretches during every break he had.

Another thing he did whenever he could was glance at the map on the wall. On further inspection, he saw that it had several dots on it. There were also some with different sizes. There was plenty of small ones spread all over the place.

Then there were a little less slightly bigger ones. Then only a few that were midsized. There were three that had the second biggest size and then a solitary biggest one, lording over the other ones.

After hours of looking at the map, he had it completely memorised, until he had confidence he could have drawn it in his sleep.

The most difficult part of doing hitting practice for two hundred hours non-stop was, simply put, boredom.

It was just so incredibly boring to do nothing but hit and hit and hit the mannequin all day long, at the exact same places every time.

The only thing sustaining him were the notifications he received telling him that he had increased his stats.

He gained immense satisfaction from knowing he had gotten stronger, and that satisfaction allowed him to overcome the boredom.

Despite knowing that this was just a game, he felt a childish pleasure at seeing his stats rise. In real life, it wasn't as simple to see your own growth.

Eventually, of course, the rate at which his stats increased slowed, no matter what he did. There was a limit to how much one could improve by sticking to the same training without changing it.

Still, he got a decent amount of stats. Even his balance stat increased, especially when he started doing jumps and spins while kicking.

It took 12 days for him to do 200 hours of hitting practice. As soon as Master Roderick told him to stop, he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. After he had somewhat recovered, Master Roderick told him to watch him as he had something to show him.

"As a reward for completing the Basic Training, I will teach you a new skill. Watch closely."

Kiro stood at attention. At the same time he reactivated the Game Messages on his menu. Master Roderick pulled out a wooden stick and started to hit a mannequin. His strikes were far more clean and powerful than Kiro's has been. He started hitting even harder and faster, until his strikes weren't even visible and the only thing that Kiro could perceive was the sound of the stick hitting the target.

"When you're fighting with someone that's stronger, better or more experienced than you, sometimes your only chance is to overpower him with sheer intensity. It doesn't matter where you hit him, as long as you hit him. Force him to stay defensive, make him panic and pounce on every mistake he makes."

He stopped hitting the mannequin. Turning to Kiro he said: "Here, you try it."

Kiro took his sword and walked to the mannequin. He started hitting it just like Master Roderick had, progressively increasing his pace, until he wasn't even aiming anymore, just blindly swinging his sword.

Ding!!!

Game Message

YOU HAVE LEARNED A NEW SKILL:

INTENSE PACE

Intense Pace

Sometimes, the only way to triumph over your enemy is too abandon all defence to dish out an overwhelming offence.

-Reduces defence by 50%

-Attack speed increases by 15%

-Damage increases by 10%

-Consumes 5 stamina per second while active

Current level: Beginner lvl 1 - 9.55%

"Good, I see you have already learned it, lad. Well done! With this, I, Roderick, Master of the Basic Training Center of Astelam, declare that the stranger Kiro has completed the Basic Training."

Ding!

Game Message

FOR COMPLETING THE BASIC TRAINING PROGRAM, YOU RECEIVE 100 FAME.

FOR BEING THE FIRST PLAYER TO COMPLETE THE BASIC TRAINING PROGRAM, YOU RECEIVE AN ADDITIONAL 200 FAME.

"Here", he said, pulling out a sword and handing it to Kiro. "I want you to have it."

"Thank you, sir. I will treasure it." Kiro said, putting the sword in his inventory.

It was time for him to leave. He had some more training to do, carps to kill and proficiencies to grind. But before that:

"Master Roderick, if you don't mind, I have one last question to ask."

"Ask away, lad."

"What do the dots represent on the map?" Kiro asked, pointing.

Master Roderick looked at the map, then at Kiro, then back at the map. He started swearing profusely. He looked once more at Kiro, this time with an embarrassed expression, before replying: "That… wasn't something a stranger was supposed to see. To be honest I had received instructions to hide it but… as there had been no strangers that came here,

I must admit I forgot to do so. I would appreciate it if you didn't mention it to anybody else."

"Ok, I won't."

"Thank you. Anyways, since you already saw it, I might as well tell you about it. Just take it as an additional reward for being the first stranger to complete the Basic Training."

He started walking towards the map. Kiro followed. Pointing towards one of the smallest points, he said: "This is here, the Astelam Basic Training Center. Every other point is also the location of another training center. There are five ranks of training centers. Basic, Beginner, Intermediate, Advance and, finally, Master." He explained, pointing at the largest dot. "In each you have the opportunity to follow a different training, and the chance to learn other valuable skills.

However, to challenge a training center requires incredible skill and having cleared the previous training center."

Kiro was excited. He decided that after the game officially started, one of the first thing he'd do would be to go and visit all of them. He was looking forward to seeing what kind of skills he'd obtain.

After that, he left the Basic Training Center.