Another three years passed.

  Eri continued his usual routine. Day in and day out, he improved his body and mind through rigorous training. There was nary a single waking hour that was not spent in pursuit of strengthening himself in some way or another.

  Part of it was thanks to the System, which provided a clear numerical breakdown on how each activity provided him with tangible gains.

  The other part was that Eri was simply insane — he trained himself to death not because he was self-motivated to, but because the System told him to.

  There was not a lick of self-preservation instinct to moderate his activity. The boy treated bodily pains and wounds as inconveniences to be resolved at best, addressed only when they affected his training efficiency, and no more.

  Dawn saw him running the rough valley tracks around Footfall, barefoot and strapped with training weights to better grind his Athletics Skill. Noon was spent doing sidequests, performing any random chore he could get his hands on with blistering speed and machine-like movement. And evenings…

  Evenings were his favourite. It was the only time he got to train with Matron Elen.

  “You have gotten a lot better with those daggers,” the woman offered as she casually parried a blinding slash from Eri, before narrowly dodging an axe kick from a feint. “Lots of new moves, too.”

  “Thank you,” the boy humbly said. “My dagger proficiency reached ‘Expert’ recently. The System flooded my mind with a whole host of dagger techniques. I am eager to try them.”

  “Alright. Go ahead, then. Hit me,” she offered.

  The boy nodded gratefully. He hopped back, putting considerable distance between them before he activated his Art.

  [Dagger Arts, Hollowfang’s Third Form: Two-Step Kill]

  Eri leapt. With his first step, he appeared before Elen. The woman reacted immediately, instincts forcing her to strike and overextend herself.

  Eri leapt again. With his second step, he had suddenly teleported behind the Matron, who was left in a bad position from her early reactive strike.

  Left completely exposed, the boy plunged his dagger towards the Matron’s skull—

  — Only for her to tilt her head back and viciously catch the blade between her teeth before it connected.

  Elen winked at Eri’s flabbergasted expression — a rare sight for the normally stoic boy.

  “Cute,” she snorted between clenched teeth, before using her neck muscles alone to twist and throw Eri’s entire body into the air, his hand still firmly grasping the dagger.

  Later, after the fight — with Eri lying on the ground, sorely bruised and panting with exhaustion — the Matron handed the boy a flask of water and asked: “That’s a rare and nasty Art you used. Your System taught you the Hollowfang technique?”

  “Only the first and second form. But achieving ‘Expert’ proficiency with my Dagger Skill unlocked more Art options within the System Shop, so I bought the Third Form with my Heroism Points,” Eri explained between breaths, greedily drinking the water.

  “That’s quite something,” Elen murmured. “The Hollowfang’s Arts are closely guarded secrets of the Beastsmen Jungle Clans to the South. Few human Chosens ever learn them.”

  “But you've seen them before?” Eri asked curiously.

  “I travelled around a lot in my youth. Perks of my old job, I suppose,” Elen answered offhandedly. “In the future, I would recommend using it only when you are certain the other party won’t live to tell the tale. The last thing you need is the Beastsmen’s mercenaries hunting you down for perceived theft of their Clan Arts.”

  Elen was always a great source of knowledge. Eri would consider himself intelligent for his ‘age’, but he was not worldly. Books and snippets from the System only informed him so much of the wider continent. The Matron, meanwhile, freely offered tidbits of knowledge each night that Eri suspected most people would never learn.

  He tried asking the Matron several times before what her ‘old job’ was, but he never got a clear answer. Eventually, once he understood that the topic made her uncomfortable, he chose to never bring it up again unless she offered.

  At the end of each day, Eri would look at his progress through the System Interface.

  “Skills,” he requested. The Interface responded.

  /-/

  Key Skill (Max 6)

  Daggers: Expert Proficiency (1% Progress)

  Unarmed: Adept Proficiency (74% Progress)

  Sneaking: Adept Proficiency (19% Progress)

  Observation: Adept Proficiency (63% Progress)

  Athletics: Adept Proficiency (82% Progress)

  Demolition: Adept Proficiency (13% Progress)

  General Skills (Unlimited)

  Novice Proficiency: Lockpicking, Medicine, Crafting, Willpower

  Student Proficiency: Cooking, Cleaning, Reading, Intimidation, Light Armour

  Unique Skills

  Legend Proficiency: Bloodflame Demonic Arts

  /-/

  Eri quickly looked through the results and sighed when he saw that not a single skill had progressed by even a single percentage point.

  Disappointing, but hardly unexpected. Progress had always been slow, regardless of how hard he trained. It often took weeks of relentless practice to see even a single percent of growth.

  Perhaps there was something he was missing?

  “System, run me through how Skills work again.”

  [Skills encompass your Character’s proficiency in many different fields, such as martial expertise, survival education, or even the mastery of criminal talents.]

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  [Skills can be improved through experience and training. Progress is tracked in percentages, and when 100% Progress is reached for a skill, it automatically advances to the next Tier.]

  [Skills progress in 8 advancing Tiers: Student, Novice, Adept, Expert, Master, Mythic, Ascendent, Legend. Higher tiers are locked behind specific requirements, though all Skills can be freely progressed to Novice Proficiency.]

  [Higher Tiers require exponentially more training to advance, but they also provide substantially better bonuses. New schools of magic are automatically unlocked as one progresses.]

  Nothing new. The System occasionally updated its explanation with fresh details, so there was no harm in refreshing the tooltips periodically.

  “Tell me about Key Skills.”

  [There are many Skills available within the System to learn, but transforming a Skill into a ‘Key Skill’ increases the rate of Proficiency growth significantly, and allows one to advance a Skill beyond the Novice Tiers and up to the Master Tier.]

  [You begin with 5 Key Skill slots. You gain one slot each time you increase the rank of your Core. You may also earn extra slots from Perks.]

  [In addition, for Skills that utilise Core magic, the tier of Proficiency will determine the Form of Artes you can access/unlock, either via the System Shop or the free knowledge granted upon Skill Progression]

  [For example, at Expert Dagger Proficiency, you will unlock access up to the Fourth Form of any style of Dagger Arts, as ‘Expert’ is the fourth tier of Skill Proficiency.]

  In other words, while Eri could amass an endless number of Skills given sufficient time and effort, any Skills that were not chosen as Key Skills would never advance past the Novice Tier.

  The System had not been exaggerating when it mentioned that a higher tier of proficiency carried substantially better bonuses. If anything, it undersold the benefits. The tier of expertise did not simply encompass his talent with the skill; the System seemed to directly inject new information into his brain whenever he advanced the skill to the next stage.

  Before that week, when his ‘Dagger’ proficiency was still within the ‘Adept’ Tier, Eri had not known the school of Hollowfang Dagger Arts had even existed.

  I wonder if I should feel worried about the System being able to so easily tamper with my brain and memories…

  ~~~

  The days passed with surprising speed. Though Eri was never idle, a strange weariness of his daily routine was beginning to settle. To stave off his boredom, he began taking on ever more diverse personal projects.

  For example… Explosives.

  He had gained an appreciation for bombs after the incident with his Trial. The Copper Core had given him an extra slot for Key Skills, so Eri had opted to make Demolition his sixth Key Skill.

  On a fair and sunny afternoon, Eri wiped the sweat off his face as he stepped back and smiled at his latest creation.

  It had taken considerable resources — Eri even had to splurge on his Heroism Points to obtain certain alchemical substances within the System Shop — but the results were worth it. Probably.

  “Eri’s patented Hellbomb, Version 5,” the boy announced to himself as he admired his work. “Now with improved arcane sigils.”

  The device was a jumbled mess. Shaped somewhat like a crate with hissing cylinders and foreboding runes, the knee-height box ticked ominously as it slowly counted down towards self-destruction.

  Eri had constructed it in a spot far from Footfall. Hilly valleys and forests surrounded the town like a shield, so it was unlikely his little experiment would affect the settlement. Hopefully.

  The last few prototypes still caused a fair bit of disturbance, but Eri had taken the precaution to plant the explosive further away this time. Granted, the bomb’s yield was now even larger thanks to the demonic runes he added on a whim, and he mixed in more volatile compounds into the composition this round…

  Might have gone overboard, he admitted to himself.

  It wasn’t as if he wanted to build a bigger bomb. He just needed to power-level his Demolition Skill. That was all.

  … And maybe just a teensy tiny part of him liked big explosions as well.

  Well, in any case, the bomb was already built, and the timer was ticking down. He should probably retreat to a safe distance before it goes off.

  … How long did he set the timer to again—

  ~~~

  Matron Elen felt her table shake. The woman sighed as she stared out the window of her study, watching soil and debris rain down on the panicking town of Footfall below as a distant hilltop erupted with smoke and fire.

  ~~~

  “We talked about this.”

  Eri coughed in response, his usual dull demeanour turning slightly sheepish. He was currently being held by the back of his collar, body covered in dirt and soot, after Matron Elen had fished him out of the aftermath.

  The woman grimaced, shaking the boy hanging loosely in her grip like an unruly cat. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I’m sorry?” Eri tried.

  “Nope, not going to work. You said that last time already.”

  “I won’t do it again?”

  “That one’s used up, too.” Elen looked upset. “Eri, what did I tell you before about making unsanctioned explosives?”

  Eri pondered. “That it is illegal, and that I should ask your permission first?”

  “More along the lines of employing common sense. But I believe I shortened it down to one word for you: Don't,” Elen snapped. “Brat, are you trying to get us in trouble with the Church?”

  “I needed to power-level my Skills. I thought a bigger bomb would speed up the process,” Eri pointed out. “And it worked. My Demolition just increased by 1%. A few more dozen prototypes, and I should get its proficiency to Expert status.”

  “... Eri.”

  “Y-yes, Ma’am?”

  “No more bombs.”

  “... okay.”

  The Matron finally let the boy down. “You are going to help the town clean up the mess for the rest of the week. Also, make sure you apologise to everyone you inconvenienced. Again. Honestly, with how many bomb-related incidents you caused thus far, it’s a miracle anyone in town still likes you.”

  “It’s fine,” Eri murmured. “My Reputation is maxed out with Footfall, anyway.”

  Matron Elen studied the boy. The unsettling purple gaze and dour expression might unnerve a few people, but the woman had been around the boy long enough to recognise what the sullenness in his posture was: a pout.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked gently. “You were always such a well-behaved child, but lately, you have been acting more recklessly.”

  Eri didn’t answer for a while. Elen waited patiently, knowing not to rush him.

  Eventually, he sighed. “Bored.”

  Elen raised an eyebrow. “Bored?”

  “Bored.” Eri nodded, his frustration leaking through. “Progress is slow. The XP gains from the side quests here are too low; my Levelling is crawling at a snail’s pace. Even after three years, I haven’t hit the Level Cap of 40. My Reputation with Footfall has maxed out; there’s not much gain from helping others anymore.”

  Elen hummed. “So you’re saying you’ll only help people for your own benefit?”

  “I— N-no, that’s not what I—”

  The Matron chuckled. “Relax. I know exactly what you mean. It’s not selfish to do things for yourself, brat. Everyone does it.”

  Eri looked uncomfortable. “A Hero should help others without greed.”

  “Maybe. But there’s nothing wrong with a helping act being good twice over — once for others, and once for yourself,” Elen chided. “But we are not debating moral philosophy right now. What is it that you feel you need most?”

  The boy looked down, his voice hesitant. “I… I want better quests. I want a new place to build Reputation. I want to see more people and make new contacts. This place is… Footfall is too small. Too little. I thought I could handle it before, but now… It’s frustrating.”

  Elen considered his words. “You are not wrong. Footfall is small. But it is also peaceful. Safe. Do you not like that?”

  “‘Peace’ and ‘safe’ don’t get me XP,” he protested quietly.

  “I suppose it doesn’t,” Elen murmured. After frowning for a moment, she sighed. “Alright. It won’t do you harm to have a change of scenery. Get ready your things. We are leaving in a week.”

  Eri perked up. “So suddenly?”

  “It’s not really sudden. I was planning to tell you this tonight, but I have some errands to run at Kaldreach. Last-minute stuff,” the woman said vaguely. “I was going to leave you here, but, well… I can make arrangements for your stay as well.”

  “We are going to the Northern Capital?” Eri said excitedly.

  Elen smiled. “Time for you to see the wider world. But do me a favour and try not to blow anything up while you are there.”