After a small lunch and a short nap Sam was ready to head back outside into the afternoon sun. On his new belt he had the dagger his father had given him yesterday and his work knife. He almost left the dagger in his room as he thought that it may be a bit too big for killing rats but decided to bring it anyway. He left the house and walked down the hill to the back of the fields where the barn was located.
Sam walked into the barn and stopped to listen for any movement from within the barn. Other than birds chirping outside he couldn’t hear a sound. Since he had found the rat the other day upstairs by the fertilizer, he decided to head back up to the storage area as it’s the spot most likely to have rats that he could actually corner and have a good chance of catching. He slowly and quietly climbed the ladder and stepped up into the storage area. Once again, he stood still and listened out for any signs of movement, his eyesight began adjusting to the lower light and he scanned the room from left to right. Just as he was about to walk closer to the bags of fertilizer, he spotted the slight movement of a shadow at the back of the room.
Slowly he crept closer to where he had seen the shadow move, being careful to avoid the floorboards that he knew would squeak under his weight. As he drew closer, he saw the shadow move again. This time it was towards the back left corner of the room. Good, corner yourself and make this easy for me he thought as he continued to close in on his target. He was just about in striking range when he slowly drew the work knife. He chose the work knife as he was now sure the dagger would be too big. Just as he was about to pounce, he stood on a squeaky floorboard and the moving shadow which he now knew for sure was a rat, jumped out of a pile of stored items and darted through his legs back towards the front of the storage area. He quickly turned and ran after the rat stumbling slightly when his foot caught on a raised floorboard. Sam dived towards the rat plunging the knife down at it. ‘Thrack’ His knife lodged into the floorboards completely missing the rat as it ran out of sight. This was much easier last time, Sam thought as he pulled the knife out of the floor and stood back up.
Sam hadn’t seen where the rat had gone so he quietly stood and waited patiently for any more signs of movement. Just as he was about to give up and move closer to the fertilizer bags the rat ran out in front of him. Sam once again dived at the rat knife first putting all his body weight into his downwards stab. The knife pierced the back of the rat’s neck as his body thudded to the ground. Sam waited for a few seconds hoping to hear a system notification that said his skill had activated but he heard nothing. He opened up his status to see if his strength had increased but no, it was still at 36.
Wondering what the strength of the rat had been, he used his creature identification skill on the rat’s corpse. “That explains it” he muttered to himself; the rat only had a strength stat of one. No wonder he didn’t get anything. That was a one percent chance of getting the stat point. Sam got up to his knees and pulled the knife from the dead rat and tossed it over the edge of the banister. Just as he was about to give up on hunting rats in hopes of trying to find something stronger with more stat points, he heard a noise come from behind him.
Sam slowly turned around to see a rat digging into an old bag of grain. He once again snuck up behind the rat as it was distracted eating the grain. Once he had gotten into striking position he lunged down with his knife striking the rat dead centre cutting the rat in half in a single stroke of the blade. Once again nothing, no new stat point. Undeterred Sam continued to hunt for rats in the storage area.
Sam spent another hour and a half up in the storage area and managed to kill 3 more rats but none of them had given him a skill point as all of them had a single stat in strength. Having had enough of being in the hot smelly storage space he climbed back down the ladder and into the main area of the barn. He went outside to a small well and pulled up a bucket and took a few handfuls of water to drink.
Once he had quenched his thirst slightly, he went back into the barn and proceeded to spend another hour down on the ground floor of the barn searching for more rats to slay. He found and killed 2 more rats in that time before he eventually gave up due to being too hot, thirsty and frustrated to keep going. While he had killed 6 rats this afternoon, he got nothing out of it and had lost the will to continue for today. Sam thought about what to do next and ultimately concluded that he would have to find some stronger prey to give himself a better chance. This meant he would need to learn how to use a bow and how to hunt. It looked like instead of heading home to cool down he would have to go into town and see if he could find James.
Just as he was about to walk out of the barn another rat walked into view from a hole by the door. Deciding he would give it just one more try he positioned himself behind the rat and lunged at it. ‘Ping’ he heard the notification alert sound in his head. Excited to see if it was his skill he opened up his system notifications ~ Level up. Your general level is now level 13~ the notification read. Well, it wasn’t his skill activating but he will take a level up Sam thought to himself, he hadn’t wasted his time this afternoon after all.
Sam headed around the fields and back towards the village. It was fairly quiet in the village as it was late afternoon and most of the villagers would be home resting from a long day of work. Sam hoped to find James in the village, he could go out to see him at his house but that would make him late getting home, and he didn’t want his mother to lecture him about that again.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
He decided to head for the general store as if James had come back from a hunt, he would likely be taking his kill to the general store to sell around this time and as he expected when he arrived he found James exiting the store as he rounded the street corner. “Hi James” Sam called out to him. James turned around and replied “Sam how are today?”, “Good, I was just looking for you” Sam replied. “Were you? Well then, I guess this is good timing. What can I do for you?” James asked him. “I was wondering if I could arrange a time for those archery lessons you offered me” Sam replied. “Already, aren’t you keen” the hunter said. “Well, I’m busy for the next two days but after that if you want to come by my place sometime just after sunup three days from now then I can teach you for a few hours. We can schedule the next one after that depending on how well you do” James offered. “That works for me” Sam confirmed. “Great, I have to head off. See you in three days” James said as he waved goodbye. Sam waved back at him, 2 days until his first archery lesson he thought. That will give him some time to try and kill some more rats or maybe go fishing in the stream on his new land. He expected he would need the extra strength to help him draw back the bow.
Sam walked back home and was greeted by his father outside the front door. “Sammy, how’s your day been?”. “Pretty good, been working on figuring out my skill” he replied. “Have you read your new skill book yet?” his father asked. “Yes, I have been practicing the long jump skill. I feel like I’m close to getting it” he replied to him. “Going to do some more practice before mum has dinner ready”. “Well, you’ve probably got an hour as we ran out of potatoes and your mother went out to buy some. I will call you in when it’s ready” his father said as he walked inside. Sam had completely forgotten that he was going to work on his long jump skill today and decided to take the opportunity afforded to him to try and get the skill over the line.
After about 40 minutes of practicing his long jump in the back yard, he finally got the notification he had been waiting for. ‘Ping’ the sound of the system notification played in Sams head as he quickly opened up his notifications. ~ Natural Skill Gained. ‘Long Jump’ LV 1~ YYEESSSS he shouted as he read the notification. He had gotten the ‘Long Jump’ skill after only a few hours’ worth of practice. Skill books are strong, no wonder they’re so expensive he thought to himself. Now that he had the long jump skill he wanted to use it a few times to hopefully push it to a level up.
He stood at the end of the yard and took a few steps to run up before he mentally activated the skill. He was taken by surprise as he flew forward 5 metres flailing his arms like a bird before landing off balance and faceplanting into the grass. “Urg” he groaned as he stood back up. He would have to practice the landing bit again. It felt very different doing a long jump manually and using a skill to do one.
Sam activated the skill a couple more times before he was pretty much spent on Stamina and collapsed to the ground to catch his breath. He lay on the ground panting, he would need to build himself some sort of course that he could use to practice using the skill while running, walking and standing still he thought. Just as he was about to get up to do one last jump, he heard a call from the house. “Sam, dinners ready” his father called out from the dining room window.
Sam got up off the ground and brushed himself off before heading back inside to eat. Sitting down at the table he told his parents and sister about what he had been doing all day. He told them about the nice plot of land he had been given and about the archery lessons he was going to do. He excitedly told them about how he had unlocked the first skill from the Jumping Jack skill book and his plans to go fishing. “Fishing will have to wait tomorrow as I need your help in the fields again” his father told him. You should still have some time in the afternoon though”. Back to normal he thought. He was given a couple days off from chores, but he supposed all good things had to come to an end.
Sam woke up early the next morning and worked from 5am to 1pm in the fields with his father. They were preparing one of the fields for autumn crops that would be planted once the temperature began to drop again. It would be a few more weeks until then though and he knew that there would be no need to tend the fields with his father again until then. His father normally liked doing the general maintenance of the fields on his own so only call on him when the extra pair of hands were truly needed. He said it was therapeutic or something, he didn’t quite get it but each to their own he guessed.
Once he was finished working on the fields, he headed home to grab a quick bite to eat and then took his fishing rod down to the stream. He found a nice, shaded spot under the trees to cast his line and sit down. It wasn’t long before he got his first bite. He knew it wasn’t a big fish as he reeled it in with little effort. Once he pulled the fish onto the bank he used identify on it, only one strength he thought. Oh well, every attempt counted he thought as he pulled out his work knife and finished off the fish. He gave a quick second to listen for a system notification before casting his line back into the water.
Sam spent the rest of his afternoon fishing and caught another 4 of the same fish before deciding to call it a day and headed home. He thought about selling the fish to the general store but decided to just take them home instead. Once he got home, he cleaned out the fish like he had been taught and prepared the fish to be cooked. Once his mum got home and upon seeing the fish she changed her dinner plans and cooked up the fish for them. Despite them being fairly small they still tasted pretty good.
He didn’t have work again the next day and decided he would hunt rats in the morning and fish again in the afternoon. He made his preparations before going to bed where he read about the next skill in the skill book ‘High Jump’.
