I yawn loudly as I wake up. Man, my neck and back are stiff. The ground does not give good lumbar support.

“Morning sleepy head.” Mary greets me. “I’ve gathered some berries for breakfast. Figured you’d be hungry after all that hunting you did yesterday.”

The berries taste pretty good. “Thanks Mary. So, what’s on the agenda for today? Anything else you’re teaching me or new quests?”

“I’m just here to answer your questions and help you learn the basics. I’m not your nursemaid.”

Ok. “Guess I’ll work on raising my skills. Any tips on what skills I should work on?”

“Hmmm. Honestly I’m more worried about your stats than your skills. By the time most people are your age in this world, they’re already about level 5 and have a job or class. Their stats are much higher if they're adventurers. If you’re a regular person you're ok with average stats but if you plan to keep fighting monsters you’ll need to increase them.”

Average stats? Who wants to be average? “How do I increase my stats?”

“Well, one way is from leveling. You gain free stat points when you level that you use to increase any attribute you have.  Another way is by training your body. Naturally if you lift heavy things you’ll increase strength. Run or sprint and you’ll increase constitution. There are a lot of ways to train.“

Let’s see what some exercise gets me. I start with some push ups. After about about 3 minutes my arms are burning but I continue on. After another 2 minutes I stop. My arms feel like jelly. No stat changes yet. Ok. Work out the legs now. After another 5 minutes of squats and lunges my legs are quivering. I then lay on the ground and do situps for 6 minutes. I’m feeling really tired but push for one more situp.  Suddenly I collapse and can barely move. As I lay there I hear a giggle above me.

“What’s wrong there strong man? Can’t move? Hehe.”

“What the heck Mary? I was moving fine a minute ago. Sure I was straining but I had energy. Now I can’t move.”

“You forgot about your stamina silly. Remember, I told you when you use some skills it takes part of your stamina. The same applies to any strenuous activity. Run out of stamina and your body collapses because it’s out of energy.”

Collapsing because I ran out out stamina? Note to self. Do not run out of stamina in a fight. I can only imagine what that horned rabbit would have done to me if I’d collapsed in front of it.

After a few minutes I feel some energy flowing through my body and I can move again. I call up my [Status] screen and see I only have 1 stamina point left.

“You can move now? Good. Here are some more berries to eat. They’ll help recover your stamina.” Mary tells me while handing me the fruit.

I eat the berries while looking at my status screen and see that my stamina is recovering faster. I sit and rest until my stamina has recovered. I get up and notice my muscles aren’t stiff at all. I guess resting does more in this world.

Ok. I don’t want to collapse again. After about 15 minutes of hard exercise I feel that same sense of extreme tiredness and stop immediately. I check my status screen and see that I have 2 points of stamina. I sit down and rest while eating. It takes about 15 minutes to fully recover my stamina. So, 15 minutes exercise and 15 minutes rest. Seems like a good balance.

I continue this cycle for another hour. I finally get a notification that I’ve gained new stats.

Strength +1

Constitution +1

I feel a slight increase of the strength in my limbs and feel a little less tired. Finally, the exercise paid off. Over an hour of hard work for a couple of stats. I can handle that. What about the other stats? “Mary, what can I do to train dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, or luck?”

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“You raise dexterity if you practice things that require it. Climbing, dodging, throwing or shooting things accurately all require good dexterity. Wisdom is raised when you apply knowledge you already have or make connections from incomplete information. It’s often gained when training in puzzles or creating new things.“

That makes sense.

“The other stats might be harder for you to train here in the forest. Luck is only raised when you get lucky or when you beat some long odds. Professional gamblers have naturally high luck.  Intelligence raises when you learn new information. So you usually get gains when you read books or raise spell levels. It’ll be easier to raise your intelligence when you get to a large city where there is a library or a mages guild. Charisma is raised when your...well charismatic. Get new people to like you or admire you. Again, hard to raise when you’re in the forest with just me.”

“Ok, I get that I can’t do much about the intelligence or luck stat till I can get to a city. However, can’t I just seduce a certain fairy guide to raise my charisma?”

Mary blushes slightly, puts two fingers up and comments “One, I’m way out of your league ‘level one’. Two, that kind of stupid tactic only works if your target doesn’t know they’re being used. Once they know you’re just using them your reputation with that person will go way down. It may also lower your reputation with the town. No good buddy.”

“My reputation?”

“I was going to save this part till you met some other people but it looks like I’ll have to explain reputation now or you’ll start planning to be a fake Don Juan to raise your charisma. Reputation is the opinion any person or group has towards you. If you have a high reputation you might get discounts at stores or access to special quests because they trust you. If you have a low reputation you’ll get the opposite. You’ll get higher prices. You’re less likely to get information. You might even be thrown in jail by the city guards if your reputation is low enough.”

Oh. There goes my plan to seduce all the eligible ladies in town. “Why don’t I just work on strength, constitution, and dexterity for now then?”

“Good idea Rico Suave.”

That’s how my first week in Terra goes. I’d do push ups, sit ups, squats and lunges to train strength and constitution. I climb trees and rocks to train dexterity. I try to train [Sneak] and [Observe] while hunting. I have to cook a couple time a day so [Cooking] goes up some. After dinner I sprint around camp to raise my constitution some more and then off to bed.

Unfortunately my plan doesn’t go quite as well as I hoped it would. The first day’s gains are pretty good. I gain +1 to strength and dexterity, +2 to constitution. I also raise all my skills, except for [Sneak] and [Craftsman], by one level.

After that, there are diminishing returns. Turns out the higher the stat the more training it takes to raise it again. The next day I exercise twice as much but only gain an increase to constitution. The third day I decide to focus only on increasing strength and add lifting weights to the routine. I gain an increase to strength but it takes all day. Day four is dedicated to climbing and chasing squirrels. I gain another point to dexterity but I’m exhausted by the end of the day. By the end of the week I’ve completely stagnated. I’ve stopped gaining strength, dexterity, or constitution. I had to follow small woodland creatures for more than half the day for [Sneak] rise a level. Thankfully, all that sneaking lets me raise [Observe] a couple more times. However, I don’t think I’ll be fighting boss squirrels, lizards, or grass snakes any time soon so the bonus damage from the skill is kind of wasted. There aren’t very many tough creatures to fight either so [Spear Mastery] only goes up two levels from the entire week’s hunting.

Thankfully something happens that takes my journey to the next level and lets me get on track.