As I woke up it took me a few seconds to remind myself where I was, why my bed was different than my usual one but not made of wood as it had been for the last couple of weeks. I got up feeling restless, the long hours of comfortable sleep refreshed me from my journey and now all the excitement of knowing tomorrow I will finally unlock my stats was giving me a rush.

I quickly slipped into the bathroom before heading downstairs where I found Tom and Kate eating breakfast. He was dressed in hunting gear whereas she was fully outfitted in her guard-healer uniform.

“The trip must have done quite a number on you, a nap yesterday and still slept in so late today” Tom started needling at me in between bites of food.

“Leave him alone, he still hasn’t gotten to put any points in his endurace” Kate came to my defence.

“It’s all good, today should be the last day before I get to not be considered a child” I took a seat and also started eating the eggs and bacon.

“Well unlike Tom I don’t have the day off, so you two be careful out there, the forest is plenty dangerous” She warned them as she headed for the door after giving Tom a kiss and me a hug.

“It’s not like I’m taking him outside of the protected zone, we won’t find anything stronger than a level 4 out there.” Tom answered.

The two of us finished breakfast a few minutes later and in 10 minutes he cleaned up while I got myself into my own hunting outfit and we were out the door. On the way to the gate Tom stopped by one of the shops.

“Let me check if Vinny is running low on anything we should keep our eye out for while we are out there, now he is a real alchemist that regularly deals with potions and poisons not like what we had back in the village only making an antidote or two” he said stepping inside the funky smelling shop.

I wanted to correct him that our own alchemist did in fact know how to make things beyond antidotes, but even in the few months I spent with him all we did make was antidotes and a sleeping remedy, so I can tell where he would have gotten that idea from.

As I stood there waiting for him to come out I felt someone bump into me from behind and almost knocked me over. Getting my balance again I turned around and found a rather short man with the biggest head I have ever seen glaring right at me.

“Watch where the hell you are going!” he growled out at me.

As I was about to tell him he would do well to do so himself since I was standing still, I felt a hand press the back of my head forward slightly and my brother's voice came from behind me.

“Please excuse my little brother Sir. He hasn’t yet unlocked his stats so his perception is still low.” Was all he said as he started to drag me away from the seeming placated man.

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“What was that all about?” I asked him after we put a bit of distance between us and the man.

“That was Sir Lenford, third son of the baron” my brother whispered back after a quick look around.

“That was the baron's son?” I asked incredulously but lowered my voice quickly at my brother's quick sign. ”What is wrong with him?”

“Lenford was, for lack of a better way of saying mediocre, he had no real potential but he was born two years younger than the Viscounts eldest son. In an attempt to foster a better connection, they removed his child trait three years before it would have expired, in an attempt to foster a friendship between the two.” Tom explained as we passed through the gate with nobody looking at us twice.

“You can remove the child trait early?” I wondered why wasn’t that the norm if it was possible.

“Yes and no” he answered back “Yes there are ways to remove a child trait early, but they only know to the nobility by royal decree to stop child labor. The downsides of doing it are almost never worth it, not only does it shorten the amount of time your apprentice trait has, it also removes the protection offered and stats affect your body sooner messing with your growth. You saw him back there, short with a head twice the size it should be, and his was only removed three years before it should have been” This made me quickly agree with the fact that removing it early might not be the best idea.

“But wouldn’t the gifted nobles also benefit from having it removed early? Maybe not three years but I almost didn’t grow at all in my last year”

“No, the gifted ones always try to upgrade it.”

“Upgrade it?”

“Yeah, if you manage to get a skill to level 50 before the child trait expires the trait changes to Child - genius and whatever skill you worked on, this then improves the apprentice trait to give increases to that skill and others derived from it” his words brought me to a complete stop.

“How come this is the first I am hearing about it?” I asked indignantly, had I known about that I might have been able to reach it with one of my mana skills but it was too late now.

“I only learnt of it last month, news finally got out here that 7 months ago the prince managed to unlock the trait, he is the only known to have done so in the last two decades.” he said confused as to why the information had ruined my mood. “Anyway here we are, you can start hunting now.”

“What do you mean aren’t we hunting together?” this new information bewildered me.

“Oh no, anything in this place is way too weak if I was to hunt it, add to that I am a guard. You go do your job hunting and I’ll do mine, to make sure nothing kills you” he grinned at me.

Well, sadly for whatever inhabited this forest, it was about to become the focus of my frustrations over missing an upgrade to my trait as I started looking for tracks of game. I was only slightly distracted and had to stop to fire two arrows to get myself to calm down so that I wouldn’t miss my opening shot on anything that would run away should I miss.

The first few hours went decently well, I had bagged 3 rabbits, nothing too impressive. Sadly, this wasn’t enough to work out my frustrations, so I got pushing faster and harder trying to find any marks of some big game.

I got my wish as I spotted marks from a deer and took off after them with my brother leisurely keeping pace with me not helping me keep my cool. We had followed the tracks for 10 minutes before they overlapped multiple times in front of a tree, clearly it had run around the same trail a few times, probably chased by something so I hurried up to inspect it hoping to be the first predator to catch it.

“Hey wait a bit, I want to grab some of these leaves” my brother called out from behind me as I stepped close to the marks and knelt down to inspect them.

As I was running my fingers over the tracks trying to find the last direction it went, in my danger sense sprang to life, so I instantly turned around wondering what had triggered it but found nothing. A split-second later my brother crashed into me and shoved me out of the way as I saw a large feline drop down on him right where I had just been.

The cat drove its fangs right for his neck as he quickly went for the dagger at his belt. He wasn’t fast enough as the cat bit down just before he drove the knife right through its skull. I saw the lifeless feline detached from his neck and blood started to run. I instantly jumped to my feet hoping I would make it in time, reached him and started casting. “Alzinoth”.

A massive look of surprise crossed both our faces as we stared at each other both on the forest floor.

“It barely broke through your skin?” I was flabbergasted, I saw it bite down.

“You can use magic?” his words slipped out mechanically.