Lepta stared—no glowered—at her opponent.
[Forest Slime level 1]
The stupid thing was practically surrounded by her arrows, but not one single of the cowardly pieces of wood was even touching the slime. Her ‘teacher,’ an 6’ 4’’ Elf woman named Luphinore, was stifling laughter. Lepta shot her a glare, “are we really gonna do this till I can hit that slime?” She pointed at the slime slightly over 30 meters away.
Luphinore straightened her face and explained “you gain a trait for doing it. A very useful trait. But it requires you to struggle. Having a beginner with minor assistance attack something over 30 meters away is the best-”
Lepta interrupted “yeah, yeah, I know. But am I, a literal newbie to archery, gonna be able to do this? Well at least anytime soon?”
Luphinore snickered “if you don’t want the explanation then stop asking why. Also yeah this shouldn’t take longer than three days.”
Lepta stared at her and let her bow she’d been using for three hours already droop in her hand. “...days!?”
Luphinore looked very innocent “at this rate it’ll be weeks.” Her mask of innocence broke and she laughed.
Lepta sighed “oh you’re just joking, so how long will this take.”
Luphinore paused, then laughed more. After several moments she finally got a breath and responded. “I was serious about it taking a day or two. So get to shooting, your break is in…around an hour.” She shot a healing and invigorating bolt into Lepta. “You got this; go! go! Go!”
Lepta sighed and got back to shooting, mostly to do something with all the energy she just got injected into her veins. She fell into the stupor of grabbing one of the magically regenerating arrows, stringing it, aiming and firing. She didn’t even realize Luphinore, distracted by a book, forgot about the break.
*
[You’ve slain foe: Forest Slime level 1. Experience earned.]
[You’ve pushed your limits in archery; Trait earned, class offered]
[[Eagle Eyed]: you have dramatically increased vision abilities and can more effectively understand and use them.]
Lepta paused at the tirade of notifications, it was like flipping through a sketchbook but each page was etched into her mind when flipped past. After she got through it all she finally let the bow slip, and fell down onto her but.
Luphinore looked up at the sound then got up in a flash. “Did you get it?”
Lepta, still emptily looking forward, said “yes. I also got a class offered.”
Luphinore looked concerned “Hero? Are you okay?”
Lepta was silent as a new notification appeared.
[Trait [Artist’s Disassociation] deactivating. Prepare yourself.]
Lepta fell over asleep before she had the time to register the pain from her bleeding fingertips.
Luphinore caught her before she could even hit 45°. “Oh crap I forgot the breaks.” She winced as she looked at her charge’s fingers. “And healing bolts. Sorry,” she apologized to the still body while casting a healing spell.
*
Lepta came too to the sound of birdsong. Before she could open her eyes she heard her teacher’s voice. “Oh great, you're fine. Sorry I kinda forgot humans lived so fast.”
Lepta opened her eyes and stared into the canopy above. “What happened?”
Luphinore popped into Lepta’s peripheral vision, shrugged, then left to do whatever she was doing before. Somehow, Lepta could now see her move. “I don’t know; you would know better than me.”
Lepta checked her logs and noticed something. [Artist’s disassociation]! She sighed and said out loud “I figured it out. It was one of my traits. It causes me to enter a haze ignoring outside factors till I finish my goal.”
Luphinore popped her head over Lepta’s to show an understanding face then went back to whatever she was up to. “That would make sense. Anyway, did you get [Eagle Eyed]? You said something about a class, send me the details.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Lepta mentally shared the Class’s information panel with Luphinore, one of the first things she taught Lepta how to do, while answering. “Yeah I got it, here.” She also shared [Eagle Eyed] with Luphinore.
Luphinore read the Class’s information and thought. She said “it’s a good enough class, if you’re interested in archery I highly recommend it. Especially now that you consider that I can actually train you now.”
Lepta remembered. oh right she wasn’t really training me before, I needed to struggle and proper training would’ve made that too easy. “Can you, like train me for like a day or so I can know whether I actually want it?”
Luphinore was silent for a bit “Sorry no, for several reasons. One the army needs your help as quickly as possible; they will take you back if we aren’t making much progress. We are slightly ahead of schedule because of the haze thingy that you have, but only slightly. And finally, training someone with [Bow Mastery] is completely different than someone without it.”
Lepta thought back to when she was offered masters to train under. She chose Luphinore because she was told she knew how to get a skill that was universally useful. She hadn’t really wanted to learn the bow. But now that she thought about it, the other options were like swords and hammers and stuff. She didn’t want to use those.
Choice made, she said “Yeah I’ll choose [Archer].”
[You trained for hours on end. Experience gained.]
[Threshold met: leveling up. Level 10 -> 11. Free stat points available. Class stats distributed.]
Lepta smiled and looked at her status.
