The system of this world was maddeningly vague.
I couldn't "see" job classes. I couldn't ask some crystal orb to tell me which tasks had XP attached. I couldn't read my level progression like it was a video game HUD. All I had was intuition, the occasional level-up "pulse", and the slow, creeping weight of mastery.
So I experimented.
For three full years, I worked like a possessed soul. Every day, after farming and cleaning were done, I offered free labor to everyone. Old, young, poor, crippled it didn't matter.
I helped:
-Haul lumber
-Stitch leather
-Track wild animals
-Clean gardens
-Paint fences
-Braid rope
-Mend shoes
-Trap rats
-Fix wagons
-Gather herbs
-Prune trees
-Fold wool
-Smoke meat
-Bake pies
Not everything gave levels.
But some did.
I spent weeks following game trails, learning how to walk silently, breathe slowly, and observe. An old man named Pelrick showed me how to notch a bow and stalk birds from the treetops. The first rabbit I snared triggered a pulse of clarity. A job class.
"Hunter… Level 1, that's good to know."
Weeks later, after tracking and trapping deer and foxes:
"Hunter… Level 2."
Hunter was real. Functional. It even felt smooth in my body.
When I helped the seamstress spin wool and fix torn tunics, nothing happened… for days. But once I crafted a full set of winter clothes on my own patterned, measured, and stitched it clicked as i felt it.
"Tailor… Level 1, noted."
I was genuinely proud of that one.
Near the end of the third year, I had exhausted nearly everything. Then, almost as an afterthought, I offered to trim, weed, and replant a full noble-style flower bed for the retired herbalist Matra, who was losing her sight.
The next morning, the garden was reborn. Flowers arranged by color, herbs grouped by scent, soil balanced, and pest repellent mixed from ash and basil.
And then I felt it.
"Gardener… really....that's a JOB-CLASS...@#$% me."
I froze in rage in the yard, staring down at the earth like it had insulted me.
"Gardener is different from Farmer?"
I had ignored gardening for three years, thinking it was the same job. I thought: plants are plants. How naive. Gardening was about aesthetics, arrangement, and care. Farmer was about crops, weather, and yield.
"I could have leveled this up years ago."
I clenched my fists. Then exhaled.I added the lesson to my internal records:
"Just because two jobs look alike doesn't mean they share the same class tree."
I turned fifteen one week before spring planting. The night was quiet. I was sitting on the porch, oiling my travel bag. My tools were packed: a solid walking stick, three preserved meals, herbs, soap, extra socks, water, flint, and my toy wooden horse. That was when my mother walked out, holding a steaming cup of tea. She sat beside me, placing it in my hands without a word. I took a sip. It tasted like home mint and barley. She looked at me for a while, then quietly said:
"You're really leaving."
I nodded. "It's time."
She swallowed hard.
"I always hoped you'd stay. Settle. Maybe open a smithy. Find a nice girl. Raise a family."
"Maybe one day, when i get older," I said. "But not yet."
She looked out over the dark hills.
"Will you be safe?"
"I've been training for this since I could walk. I'll be safe."
She smiled softly. "No one trained you, Ren. You trained yourself."
"Then I must've been a good teacher."
She laughed through her nose, then leaned over and kissed my temple.
"Just come back to us, someday. That's all I ask".
Later that night, my father came in from the fields silent as always. He pulled off his boots, looked at me, then reached into a wooden box near the hearth.
He pulled out something wrapped in old leather.
A knife.
The handle was simple pine, the blade sharp and clean.
"Belonged to my father," he said, placing it in my hand. "And his before him. We've used it to farm, hunt, and carve since long before this village was built."
"Thank you," I whispered.
He nodded and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
"You're not just strong, Ren. You've got patience. Discipline. That's rarer than any sword. The city won't know what hit it."
We stood in silence for a moment. Then he said:
"If anyone calls you strange… remind them with a good beating, lad."
I lay awake that night in my straw bed, staring at the roof I had helped build, in the house I had cleaned thousands of times. I had tried every job this village could offer. Now it was time for new ones.
In Erantel, I would leave the village as level 30, than i stopped thinking and sat up.
"Wait i already pasted into the realm of heroes, that starts at level 30, what am i worrying about i am stornger than like 90% of everyone in the new world"
[REN INFO CARD]
vermin killer: 8/15
Farmer:4/15
Carpentry:1/15
Blacksmith:1/10
Cleaner:10/15
Cook:1/10
Herbalist:1/10
Hunter:2/10
Tailor:1/10
Gardener:1/10
Total Level: 30