--
Days passed with TJ and Lily remaining unaware that they barely dodged a bullet.
They continued training, with Sieg of course, increasing their mastery over their current skills and not wasting the time of their youth.
Today, TJ woke up especially energized and active since he's excited.
While TJ's physical body was in deep slumber, his consciousness was working hard on the Dream Echo Battlefield.
He had been breaking his limits bit by bit whenever he fights here. His victories rewarded him with benefits which was stacking higher and higher with each victory he claimed.
In terms of physical strength alone, he was already catching up to Seig's progress, and that's saying a lot because Sieg had a blessed physique.
However, that wasn't really the reason why TJ was excited to wake up today.
The real reason was the breakthrough of his basic skills to the intermediate level.
**
[Profile]
Name: Tristan James Whitlock
Age: 16
Race: Human
Bloodline: Human
Allegiance: East Victory
Profession Archetype: Combat
Class Archetype: Warrior
Rank: Novice (70/100)
[Skills]
• Intermediate Breathing Technique (Entry 1/250)
: Upgraded form of the Basic Breathing Technique, specifically created for Combat Pros.
Perks: [Healthy I], [Resistance I]
[Healthy I]: Slightly improves the user's bodily functions.
[Resistance I]: Improves the body's resistance to harmful elements by 10%
• Intermediate Fighting Technique (Entry 5/250)
: The fundamental fighting method for Novive Warriors.
Perks: [Fighter I], [Combat Instinct I]
[Fighter I]: +10% Damage Modfier when in combat
[Combat Instinct I]: Slightly improves the user's combat IQ
• Intermediate Footwork Technique (Entry 3/250)
: The fundamental movement technique for Novice Warriors.
Perks: [Lightfooted I], [Speedburst I]
[Lightfooted I]: +10٪ to movement speed and agility while in combat.
[Speedburst I]: Triggers a speedburst for the first 3 seconds of the user's usage of this skill. CD: 15 minutes
• Fencing Lv.1 (Entry 10/250)
: Sword Art created for needle-type swords. Emphasizes speed and precision.
Perks: [Sword Art I], [Sharpness I]
[Sword Art I]: +10٪ Damage when using a (needle) sword.
[Sharpness I]: Increases the sharpness of the user's sword by 10%
• Shooting (Perfect 150/1000)
: Knowledge and expertise when using firearms or ranged weapons
Perk: [Steady Aim]
[Steady Aim]: Improves the user's aim by 5%
**
If TJ only knew how to smile, he'd really be smiling widely as he looked at his profile. He might even laugh while he's at it.
In just a few days since he began earning exp, his skills have transformed greatly. He could feel strength coursing through him, making him feel like a changed man overnight.
Nevermind the Shooting skill falling behind since that's normal. As for the rest of his skills, all of them seen some drastic improvements after the upgrade.
From the Basic Tier or Base Level, they moved up a notch to Intermediate, and level one.
His combat basics; such as the breathing, fighting, and footwork skills, have reached the Intermediate Stage, while his Fencing skill went from the base level to Lv.1, and this little upgrade brought him good things in the name of new perks for each skill.
[Resistance I], [Combat Instinct I], [Speedburst I], and [Sharpness I]. All of this greatly increased TJ's strength while in combat. Hell, even the old perks have been upgraded as well!
The [I] numeral denomination with the perk represents its current 'Tier' it goes from base, as in tierless, to [I] up to [V] with [V] being the highest 'Tier'.
As it comes with Tiers, one could expect that these perks can get pretty crazy later down the line, and that's exactly the reason why pros upgrade their skills with exp as much as they can.
Of course, the higher the skill's level is, the more exp they'd need to upgrade it to the next level. One could even say that skills are just as exp hungry as upgrading one's professional rank was.
However, this doesn't really apply to TJ now, does it? Thanks to his Boon: [Limit Breaking Hard Work], he can skip unloading gross amounts of exp and excessive time sink for his skills, replacing with slow, steady, and pure effort grind, chipping away at the increasingly expensive level up costs one training session at a time.
The exp needed to upgrade any basic skill to intermediate grade was 100. The training room that they've been allowed to use only gives out 10 exp per day with the condition that they must spent hours using it each day.
This means that it would take ten days of accumulation for someone to have enough exp to upgrade their basic skills. And what a dillema that would be, since exp is also needed to upgrade one's star ranking.
It would take 20 days of nonstop and constant use of this training room for novice like them to upgrade their star ranking and skill grade/level.
For novices like TJ, that is a really long time. And that's not even considering that it will only get worse in the future.
Of course, this time can be shortened by getting more exp. Alas, nobody really allows Novices to the places where exp are abundant such as dungeons, for example. A rank of 1★ Apprentice was the bare minimum requirement for man-made dungeons, and even then, it'd be pretty hard to join a party because they're just too weak.
This is why most Novices dumps all of the exp they can get to their rank first, not caring about their skills until later when they can stably gain enough exp to get by.
TJ's boon might be slow at the start but once he starts, it gradually picks up speed until most were left behind.
Moreover, TJ wasn't conscripted to the other requirements for skill upgrades. His skills will continue to gain mastery so long as he uses them, even when his professional rank was falling behind.
The only real problem he could see about this is that if professional rank falls too far behind compared to the grade/level of his skills, it might get to a point when he couldn't even use them. He's hoping that there is some kind of a measure for this within the boon. Otherwise, he's going to have to experiment things on his own.
Still, none of this could ruin this day for him.
Nobody could stop him from marvelling at his first achievement as a novice pro.
TJ's mood was too good that even the voices in his head couldn't keep him down.
**
In contrast to TJ's good mood, William was not having a good day.
Forget about a day. He hasn't had a decent past few days, to be exact. And it all started when his father decided to give him his version of 'TLC'.
Not a day passed since that he wasn't bruised, wounded, or hurt. He needed to wake up even before the break of dawn because if he didn't, his breakfast would be a punch to the gut. His rests are not rests at all, just more training.
He's ordered to stab his spear until he feels his arms were nearly falling off, and that wasn't the end. After that, he's expected to put up a good fight against his dear father, enduring he pain, exaustion, and the hurtful words coming out of his mouth.
And Ferdinand was good...both in combat and trash talking. He knows just what to say to get his son responding to him. He gaslit his own son by making him think that none of this would've happened if he had defeated that commoner, therefore, it's that commoner's fault.
This was effective, very much so since William truly blamed TJ for all the suffering he had to endure. In fact, his head wad filled with nothing but hatred at this point. So much so that even his older brother was avoiding him now out of fear.
William didn't suffer for nothing, though. Because as torturous Ferdinand's methods where, they were effective. William mastered his skills at a swift pace. In fact, he's also earning exp now too, courtesy of his father.
Bestowing him small increments of exp for surviving the day was but a negligible price Ferdinand could spare if it means his son regains his reputation.
What Ferdinand didn't expect was that his son's mental state was worse than he anticipated. He was no psychologist or anywhere close, so he couldn't have known. But he also didn't know that his son had been afflicted with something.
A substance that was so subtle that even a pro like him couldn't sense. A substance that acts like a slow poison, one that targets the mind. It amplifies negative thoughts just a smidge, pushing one's mental state to further extremes one step at time.
William's hatred towards TJ had risen to an unreasonable level, so much so that he's convinced that he's his mortal enemy, and that he can't continue living unless TJ dies.
This hatred was longer under William's or Ferdinand's control. It has completely eroded William's reason. The only reason why he hasn't gone crazy yet was because of the same poison that pushed him to this state.
Because it's not yet the time. TJ's death needs to be grand and impactful, only that will alleviate William's hatred.