---

  [[LEVEL-01]]

  //Name: Liore Perro

  //Age: 12

  //Class: [Farmer]

  //Status: Healthy

  [[STATS]]

  //Strength: 2

  //Dexterity: 2

  //Intelligence: 2

  //Perception: 2

  //Stamina: 2

  //Resilience: 3

  [[PASSIVE]]

  [???]

  [Slayers Aspect]

  [Favored]

  [Battle Theory]

  [[SKILLS]]

  [???-???]

  [Leap Stride]

  [[CLASS QUESTS]]

  [Plant A Seed]

  ---

  I skim over my stats again while walking, a smile still plastered on my face. I was finally able to break into Strength 2 after training for, ironically, two years. And my stamina stat went up along with it, which Mr. Thorpe says is pretty common. But the pride I feel for being able to actually make progress is a bit overwhelming.

  It’s a pretty bright silver lining in the stressful air surrounding the village. This last year has been particularly hard. The bad soil in the fields suddenly became far worse. The sickly white soil is bleeding into all of the fields. Mama and the other farmers have been working almost constantly to salvage what they can, but it has not gone well.

  Everyone is pretty strained, and morale is getting low. So, of course, a lot more scrutiny followed as well. I mean, it was always going to happen. It was already strange for people to see one of the local farm girls walk through town with a sword on her back and leave with the head guard every evening.

  At first, people just whispered things but kept to themselves. But as tensions began to rise, more questions were asked about me. Particularly, the fact that I never spent any days in the field despite being a [Farmer]. That certainly was making the other workers agitated, and Mama was taking the brunt of it for me.

  Needless to say, that worried me more. It didn’t take long for me to cave and suggest we should just explain things to them before it gets worse. Which Mr. Thorpe agreed but took charge of explaining the situation.

  We had a village meeting a few months ago where Mr. Thorpe gave an explanation. It was super vague, but the village was at least told that I am not a [Farmer] anymore. Old Guard explained it away as a rare case of class swap. New Awakening, he called it. The village was still skeptical, but that at least got them off of Mama’s back for a while.

  I asked Mr. Thorpe about the class swap thing later, and he said it’s basically just a rumor he heard one time. Which I wasn’t too happy with lying to them, but it works for now. Besides, the real reason is definitely more complicated to understand.

  I just wish-SNAP!

  The ground on my left side suddenly drops as my left leg falls into a newly opened hole in the forest floor. I yell out while falling onto my butt. The patch of brittle roots beneath me cracks more, while my left leg feels no ground beneath it.

  “Liore! You alright?” Mr. Thorpe calls out as he jogs over and slows down when he notices my predicament. One leg is lost in a hole while the other is buckled awkwardly underneath me. My face is likely a few shades paler out of shock.

  Old Guard grimaces and carefully approaches, feeling out the floor of roots so he doesn’t collapse more beneath us. But he’s able to manage and reach down to pluck me out of the ground by my armpits. Pulling me back away and setting me down. “You gotta be careful out here. The deeper we go into the Meld, the more the trees have taken over with their roots. So there are spots where it’s a sheer drop beneath us.”

  I nod my head slowly while trying to slow my heart down. “I…I know…I’ve experienced that first hand already.” Recalling when I fell into that ruin almost 3 years ago.

  The old man smirks and pats my shoulder. “Well, it’s only going to get worse from here. So pay attention to where you step. We still got a few hours before we get to the next spot.” Picking up his pack that he had dropped when I fell and slings it back over his shoulders. He gives a wave of his hand and starts walking again.

  I take another deep breath, readjusting my own pack, and then follow up behind him.

  We’ve been hiking through the forest for a couple of days now. Already camped 2 nights in spots Thorpe says he uses for training new guards. Although he hasn’t had to do that in a while. But now I get to use them for mine.

  Mr. Thorpe wants to give me some practical field experience now that I’ve gotten my necessary stats up. So he decided to take me on a trip out into the forest for a few weeks to learn how to survive and hunt monsters out in their own territory.

  Mama was obviously VERY against this. Pointedly, because Leone never did this during his training. But Old Guard said he didn’t do that for him because he was only supposed to help Leone with the basics until he got picked up by the Paladins, who would handle his practical experience much better.

  But since I don’t have anything like the church to worry about pissing off, then Thorpe wanted to do it himself. Which I really wanted to go as well. The village was really starting to depress me. So mama did eventually agree.

  Albeit…very begrudgingly.

  Our destination is the outer Ardenne. The forest our village resides in is the largest on the Grand Continent and is multi-layered. A lot of large hills and near a more mountainous region to the west that lines the coast, which is where we are heading. The Ardennes is also referred to as the ‘Voracious Wood’. Mr. Thorpe says it’s because the deeper you go, the closer the trees get together. So close together infact that they completely block out the sun, and it becomes like a natural maze.

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  Even worse when you get to the deepest part that is shadowed by the mountains. Pitch black. Swallowing up anything that goes inside.

  But Old Guard says we are just going to the very outer edge of all that because the monsters there will be a good challenge for me. Which makes me really nervous, but in a good way. I think?

  Currently, we are still in the ‘Meld’, which is the particular forests surrounding our village. We are just a lot further in it than I was last time. Which, of course, is when I chased after Leone. It’s called the ‘Meld’ due to the roots of the trees having webbed and melded together. They make up the majority of the ground, and hiking through them is very annoying due to how uneven the roots are.

  But unfortunately, the roots also cover over the actual dirt ground beneath, which is marred with deep fissures, crags, and caves. And I guess ruins, too, from my own experience. Which makes traveling through them pretty harrowing when the ground can collapse underneath you at any moment.

  Initially, I thought I would have issues with stepping into a place filled with a lot of trauma for me, but nothing really happened. I still thought about it, of course, but it didn’t have as much of an effect as it did 2 years ago. I am glad that I can finally put it behind me. I’m growing stronger, and that’s what matters more.

  We’ve been hiking for about 6 hours now since we left our last campsite. My legs are a bit sore, but nothing really that bad. And I still have quite a bit of energy. Mr. Thorpe spent a good few months also teaching me better breathing techniques for long workout sessions.

  “I’m honestly shocked how much difference it makes just having 2 in stamina.” I muse, hopping down into a grassy section of real dirt that makes up a slight clearing in the canopy above.

  Mr. Thorpe lets out a light sigh as he stops in the clearing and sets his pack down. The old man stretches while using the shaft of his spear as a support. Pops and cracks erupt from his joints quite loudly. Enough to make my skin crawl a bit. But I set my pack down as well to start doing my own stretching routine.

  Old Guard clears his throat while he stretches. “Well, you are doubling your output. Like I’ve said before, 2 in a stat means you are 2 times as strong in it. With stamina, it means you have twice the reserve of energy. It’s pretty straightforward.”

  I nod along while stretching out my legs. “And stamina is easy cause it increases naturally along with my strength and dexterity?”

  Mr. Thorpe gives a little grunt in response while sipping from his canteen. “For the most part, yes, but it can trail behind sometimes.” He then points over at me. “Which yours very likely will.”

  My brows furrow up at him. “What do you mean? Why?”

  The old man takes another drink of his canteen and smooths a hand over his greying brown hair. “Because of your resilience stat.” He answers calmly, resting his spear over his shoulders and hanging his arms from either side of the shaft. “Your Resilience stat is not just for resisting disease and poisons. Far from it.”

  My brows stay furrowed, ending my stretches as I take a seat on the forest floor. Focusing my attention on my teacher. The old man approaches to drop down into a sitting position in front of me.

  “Resilience is the hardest stat to increase because it pulls a lot of weight. Having just 2 in that stat is strong enough, but you have 3. That means you are getting triple the output.” He chuckles lightly. “Breaking it down to brass tacks, the Resilience stat represents your body's efficiency.”

  My eyes widen as I immeditely understands what he’s getting at. “Oooooooooh…so it’s also increasing the efficiency of all my other stats.”

  Mr. Thorpe snaps his fingers. “Bingo. Which is why your threshold is so much higher than someone else’s at your same level of stats.” The old man pulls over his pack and starts breaking out the metal container of jerky he had brought along. “Its maximizing what reserves you already have and causes less waste of energy to do it. Paladins have specific training for it for a reason because it’s just that god damn good.”

  Looking down at myself, moving my arms, and flexing my fingers. I certainly have gotten a lot more toned in the last 2 years. I guess this is another positive thing I have to thank my accident for. But then my brows furrow again, considering the implications of what Old Guard said so far. Then my eyes widen. “oooooooooooohhhh….”

  The old man smirks as he tears off a piece of jerky with his teeth. “There ya go! Now you get it…”

  I let out a sigh, my shoulders slumping. “Because my body is 3 times more efficient at what I can already do. It’ll be that much harder to push those stats to the limit…which is what I need to do to increase them…”

  Mr. Thorpe nods slowly as he chews. “Yup…tough luck, kid. It’s definitely a good thing to have, but getting it that early can really stunt you.” He swallows and takes a sip of his canteen. “I was really afraid you wouldn’t be able to get them up at all, so I had you working out three times as hard. And hey, you pushed through.” The old man laughs.

  My eyes narrow, leaning forward to glare at him. “Wait! Are you telling me you had me working out way harder than Leo did?”

  The cheeky old man looks away from me, eating more jerky. “Well…I mean…just a little bit harder…”

  My eyes widen. “You said three times as hard!” I yell, agitation very apparent in my voice. “You told me before I started that you’d train me the same way you did Leo. Was that a lie?”

  Thorpe whips his head back towards me and awkwardly barks back. “Hey, hey! I did NOT lie about that. You did the same routines I put him through, I swear!” He straightens up, looking a bit insulted, before he turns his head back towards the forests. “…I just…made you do a lot more sets than him…”

  The corners of my mouth are so low that they nearly touch my jaw. Mr. Thorpe's neck is straining to keep me from staring at him as he nervously chews on jerky.

  Finally, I let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Whatever. I guess it got results and I didn’t really ever complain about it…. at least not enough for it to change anything.” Pulling over my pack and getting out my own hiking snacks. Things that mama packed for me that won’t go bad for the few weeks we’ll be gone. Dried biscuits, sugared oats, jerky, and even a tin of shortbread cookies.

  Mr. Thorpe finally turns towards me and clears his throat. “You handled it like a champion. I was going to adjust it down after judging what you can handle, but you kept up. Fought through tooth and nail.” He says more seriously, putting his snacks back into his pack. “Honestly…I should have made Leo train harder. Maybe he wouldn’t have been energetic enough to run out into the forest at night. But I was too much of a coward to teach him anything that might get immediately contradicted by the Church.”

  I shake my head while nibbling on one of the biscuits from my pack. “There’s no use dwelling on it. Besides, I’m not complaining about it anymore. I feel much more fulfilled than if I were stuck in the fields shucking corn all day.”

  Old Guard smiles and chuckles. “You have been quite the natural at this for a farm girl.”

  I smile back. “I have a good teacher.”

  The old man snorts. “Stop. Gonna make me blush.” He jests as he rises to his feet and throws his pack back over his shoulders. Using his foot to kick his spear up into his hand. “Alright. Let’s get legging. We got a few more hours before we hit the next campsite, and I wanna be there before nightfall.”

  I repack my things, giving one last stretch of my legs before rising up and following with a stride.