It was my first day working as Mr. Darius’s apprentice, and I was ecstatic. Mama and Papa reminded me to be careful, and once all my chores and housework were done, I went running off to the smithy.

  “Slow down there Amara, the shop’s not going anywhere.” I heard Darius’s gruff voice as I came into the smithy a bit faster than I probably should have. “I understand you’re excited, but you need to be more careful around here, especially once you start working metals.”

  “Yes sir [Forgemaster]!” I replied. “What are you gonna have me doing today?”

  “Since this is day one, we’re gonna be having you do a lot of heavy lifting. Before we can get into the real work, we need to get your strength up to at least 10.” Darius started explaining. “That’s the average strength for a young adult, but it’s also what’s required to work with the metals we’ve got here, due to the forge being non-magical. The reason you’re not getting paid for the first month or so is because that’s how long I estimate you’ll need to get there with the training I’ll be putting you through.”

  “Just a month for it to rise by 3?” I was amazed. “It sounds like this training is gonna be pretty intense. So, what is it? I can’t wait to get started! But what are the average numbers for the other stats, if it’s not a problem asking?”

  “Well, to answer your second question, the averages for the others are usually all around 10 for someone who doesn’t have a class that builds those stats. For [Blacksmith]s, your strength is going to constantly be used to beat your works into shape, so that stat will continue to grow as long as you’re doing the job. Most [Blacksmith]s usually have around 25 strength by the time they finish their apprenticeships and evolve their classes. The criteria to do that is something we’ll cover as you get closer to it. Though I should warn you, most people only evolve their class and graduate from apprenticeship in their mid 20s, or possibly a little later, depending on luck and talent.”

  “An adult who has evolved their class and is making a decent living with it will usually have their main stat up around 40 to 50 on average, and their other stats will usually be between 20 and 30 due to most people attempting to stay balanced in their abilities.”

  “Now, for your first question, your training is gonna be harsh so that we can get you where you need to be quickly. I know you want to start working the forge as fast as you can, and honestly, I can’t wait to teach you all that stuff. This is why we’re doing something a little rougher for you than we do for the rest of the apprentices we take in. Starting off, once you get here, we’ll be having you lifting and sorting all the ingots we refined during the day. Now, these ingots are real heavy, so you’ll be needing everything you’ve currently got in order to do the job properly.”

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  “Once they’re all sorted, we’ll have you sit next to the forge while we’re doing some basic shaping so you can gain some heat resistance and learn how to use the hammer a bit better. After that, you learn how to quench. Because this step doesn’t require much from you, we’re gonna have you perfect it before even working on the other stuff. You'll be quenching all the works we make, which also frees us up to do more works in the same time. We shape, you quench and then store the works, leaving us free to start the next piece faster.”

  “Around that time, you should be heading off to dinner with your family, so there’s not much time left in the day. Once you return, we do our last exercise, weighted running. The forge winds down for the night around then, due to the lack of orders, so to keep you entertained and also add some more training, we’ll both be jogging around the outskirts of town until near sundown. We'll go once to see how well you do without the weights, then decide how heavy they should be from there. We’re gonna increase the weight every other day to make sure you’re not adapting to it too.”

  “All in all, this training regimen should be enough to get you to 10 strength in a month, if I understand how stat gain works at all.” Darius finished his long-winded explanation of what I'd be doing with a statement that made me even more curious.

  “Mr. Darius, how does stat gain work anyways? I know doing stuff related to the stat will cause it to go up, but how much work does it take normally?”

  “Well, that’s a complicated question that’d most likely be better left to an official [Teacher], but I do know the basics at least. You see, stats, for the most part, are just a numerical representation of our actual abilities. Training your body will increase the number shown in your Status, which means that you become stronger. Of course, the stat points you can gain by levelling up will increase your abilities, but the point will improve your body using the {System}. In the past, people thought that the {System} was the only way to improve certain stats, like Wisdom or Focus, but that’s not the case. Those ones take specific types of meditation or thinking in order to increase naturally, but it does happen. Another strange thing is the interaction between Karma and stat gain. If your Karma happens to be decent, you'll gain natural stats a bit faster than others.”

  Darius explained it all fairly thoroughly, even though he said he only knew the basics. I wondered how much there was to explain to go in depth, if that was the case. But safe to say, my curiosity was sated for the time being.

  And with that, my intensive training began.