The next morning Kai arrived at the obstacle course and looked for Alana. A man walked over and introduced himself as Alric and said he would handle Kai’s new training regimen. He waved his hand and two things appeared from thin air. A ring and what drew Kai’s eye a sword. The man started to speak but Kai didn’t listen to a single word as he took the sword and stared at it and wondered what badass powers it would have.

Congratulations! You have learned the active skill Equip Lvl. 1.

Equip: Allows you to inspect and equip weapons and armor. Skill level must be greater than or equal to weapon level to utilize the bonuses seen with equip. Utilizing a Weapon of higher level will raise skill level.

Average Sword Lvl 5: A basic sword made by a novice blacksmith. Reaction +1

“This sword is awesome! It gives me an increase in my Reaction speed when I reach level 5?” Kai asked the man who was in the middle of a sentence.

The man face palmed and shook his head no. “As I was saying if you don’t examine the item and allow me to tell you about it you will gain some benefits but if you instead examine the item and gain the Equip skill then you will now have to level the Equip skill to take advantage of the bonuses.”

Kai’s smile stalked off in frustration to be replaced by a grimace. “So I need to get Equip to level 5 to use this sword? How do I increase that skill level? And why would you give me a sword I can’t even use?”

“You didn’t hear a damn word I said after you saw the sword did you?” The man asked and Kai shook his head no. “First, my name is Alric. Second, since you inspected the sword and got the Equip skill you will now have to level it to take full advantage of equipment, this now applies to all Equipment. To increase the level of the Equip skill one simply uses items above the level of their Equip skill. You won’t get the bonuses from the equipment until your skill reaches that level but you can still use the equipment. Understand?”

“Yes Alric I understand. Thanks for the sword. You can keep the ring I’m not a big jewelry guy.” Kai held up both hands to show he didn’t wear rings or a watch even.

Kai laughed a rich deep sound. “I’m sure you’ll grow to love jewelry now. This particular ring is an interspatial ring. It can hold a shit ton of stuff. It currently has a few basic health and mana potions that our potion makers created when they first started so they are fairly basic now and not really useful.” Kai accepted the ring and made a potion appear by focusing his will, then a second one appeared.

Apprentice’s Health Potion: A potion made by an inexperienced but serious apprentice. Will restore 48 health over 3 seconds.

Stolen novel; please report.

Apprentice’s ManaPotion: A potion made by an inexperienced but serious apprentice. Will restore 42 mana over 3 seconds.

Damn, Kai thought. This health potion could bring me back from near death and the mana potion could refill me twice over. Actually. “Alric, if I only drink half the mana potion will it only restore 21 health over the 3 seconds? Or even one and a half seconds?”

“Yes. I’m glad you asked rather than just assuming. Now the first rule of today’s training session. Don’t look at your notifications until Daniel or I tell you to. Just continue to push yourself to your fullest. Don’t even look at them tonight or anytime until we tell you to.”

Kai nodded. It was a strange request but he’d go along with it, there must be a reason for it anyways. “I don’t have a problem with that. I’m just curious, is there a reason you don’t want me to check them?”

“We have found that the notifications cause people to fall into a grinding mindset, especially people who played MMO’s before the change. By ignoring the notifications you focus more on actually how you are using the skill as you would have before the change. Keeping the notifications just makes you do things without thinking as long as they raise skill levels. It kind of ties into why we think skills improve so much when fighting an opponent that pushes you. You’re not thinking about using a specific skill you’re simply trying to keep up and using whatever you can to push yourself and not get killed.” Alric smiled at the last words.

Kai thought he understood. “Well, you guys are the experts right? Question. Since you guys gave me a sword and this ring. Is there any way I can get bullets for my gun? I know guns aren’t common here but it’d be cool to use a gun and sword wouldn’t it?” He smiled with his last question.

Alric chuckled at the young man’s enthusiasm for coolness. “Sorry to disappoint we just don’t do guns here. Not sure anyone in Zone 32 still uses them. I’d say keep it because you never know it may be useful one day. If you want to use a sword but still have a few distance attacks try a few spells. If you like magic better we can always refocus you in that direction.”

Kai’s face lit up. “That’s right I can use magic now. I can be like a spellsword, wielding my sword with one hand and magic with the other. Fuck yeah man. Great idea!” Kai started to jump up and down in place getting himself pumped up. “Let’s get the day started man.” Alric laughed and led Kai toward the obstacle course. As they arrived at the obstacle course and Kai started to run it Alric’s laugh only got deeper and Kai’s smile left after the first minute.

That night Kai dropped into his bed in the near empty barracks. If he hadn’t felt himself improving during the day then he would have quit after the first hour, but he couldn’t deny that by the end of the day he was doing things he wouldn’t have thought possible that morning. Alric took him back and forth between the obstacle course and beating the shit out of him with a sword. Kai had always thought he knew how to use the sword fairly well, he was a San Dan in Kendo, that’s a 3rd Dan to the uninitiated. Alric had beat him around the ring like a child that had picked up a blade for the first time. He wanted so badly to check the blinking notification light in his vision but he had given his word to Alric that he wouldn’t do that so he left it alone and focused his thoughts on sleep. A short time later he drifted off to his dreams.