As Allan admired his progress, he couldn't help but remember how much he had to endure to get to this point.
For eight months Allan has been going to guards training without missing a day.
For some strange reason that he doesn´t understand that sadistic instructor has been focusing the training on him.
At the moment in which Allan made a mistake, the instructor Barris began to hit him with a stick that inexplicably appear in his hand and began to humiliate him in front of the guards.
How much did Allan want to put the sword into his $%&, and then $&%$% and $%$$&.
One of the things that Allan discovered in these months is that skills have degrees of difficulty depending on the speed at which they are learned. That is why, although the time he spent on the skinning skill is less than swordsmanship, the skinning skill is at much higher level.
The fact that he didn't even reach the intermediate level in the skill after what happened shows how difficult it really is to learn to use a weapon.
Forget those wuxia novels where you master ten weapons at once and become the most powerful person in the world, in the real world for when you have a certain mastery in a weapon high enough to be called a master, the protagonist he will have grown old.
After Allan calmed down a bit, he started thinking about the other things he was doing during this period.
Although most of the time he was spent training with the sword, just training alone would not let him improve, so he would occasionally head into the forest to hunt wild beasts.
On several of his trips he encountered hunters from the town who regularly came to the forest to earn money. Allan managed to befriend them and they taught him various useful tricks such as tracking prey and identifying herbs.
Unfortunately, the useful herbs in the Tutorial Island forests are limited to a few species which Allan quickly memorized, so his level in the herb identification skill did not go up much.
Without a doubt, the skill that increased the most was skinning skill, after a while without leveling it up, Allan began to skin boars to the point that he already knows all the tricks for these species. It's a shame the goblins don't have fur or the skill could have gone up even higher.
The other skills in his menu were not taught from the hunters, they were learned from the people in the town.
One day when Allan came back with his clothes torn from the attacks of the wolves Sara was furious seeing him walking half naked, so she taught him how to sew small parts from the clothes so that he could come back in a less suspicious apparency.
Of course, Sara only taught her how to make small adjustments until he got to a tailor to fix it.
The cooking skill however, was taught by Sam. A week after starting training, when Allan had just arrived at the inn and wanted to eat something he found that the inn was full of customers. The moment Sam saw him walk through the door he dragged him into the kitchen without even letting him sit down and started giving him orders.
Over time Allan gradually learned something of what Sam cooked. Even now, from time to time, Allan goes to the kitchen to help out when he is free.
Cooking is not as simple as it may sound and Sam didn't explicitly teach him anything so the skill only reached beginner level 4 after eight months.
However, this increase has made his lunches and dinners in the real world much better so he doesn't mind helping out at the inn.
The Fishing sikill on the other hand was something Allan learned for himself.
Although the progress in the game was enormous, it is inevitable that stress accumulates itself after being so many hours active, one of the residents of the town recommended him to try fishing as a form of relaxation, and to Allan's surprise it worked.
No one taught Allan to fish or learned anywhere, all that Allan has achieved in this field is due to the hours on the shore of a small river frequented by fishermen.
While helping him to relax from day to day, it also made him notice how difficult it is to learn a skill on his own without the help of a teacher or mentor, which made Allan strengthen his determination to endure the harsh training.
However, when he saw the other two skills in his status Allan couldn't help but put on a grim face.
One night he had gone too far into the woods to return before the city gates closed, so Allan had to camp outside of town. If it had only been that there would have been no problems, but Allan did not bring food for the night and had not hunted anything that day, so he could only look for something to eat.
The next morning some fishermen found him unconscious in the middle of the field and took him to the town´s doctor.
It turns out that among the herbs he had collected to eat there were some poisonous species that left him K.O. Nothing deadly but he couldn't get out of bed for three days in the game, though thanks to that he got the poison resistance skill.
That incident became the talk of the town.
Allan was forced to stay in bed listening how irresponsible his behavior was from the doctor for three whole days!!!
Allan swore to himself that he would never eat herbs that he do not know again.
After recovering Allan thought that he would finally be free and that he would never listen to that man again, what he did not know is that his problems had just begun.
The next day the doctor showed up at the guards training wanting Allan to go with him.
Seeing the discussion between the town doctor and instructor Berris the guards could only retreat to a corner while trembling.
In the end Captain Smith had to stop the fight.
After some arduous negotiations it was agreed that Allan would go after training to the doctor's clinic to learn, in his words: not to be a complete idiot.
It was only when his First Aids skill reached the intermediate level that the doctor allowed Allan not to return.
Allan told himself that he would never again submit to such torture.
Actually, Allan was exaggerating, the First Aids skill is one of the easiest skills to learn, after all they were only first aid, it's not like he was studying medicine.
Also, regardless of whether he learned it now or not, the First Aids skill is a must-learn skill for a player, unless you know healing magic. Reaching the intermediate level only means internalizing its content and being able to use it in any circumstance.
Allan was exaggerating a little bit.
This was the progress in eight months, and while it is progress that shows the effort that has been made, Allan was incredibly frustrated for a reason. He couldn't get his swordsmanship up to intermediate level.
One could call Allan greedy, but the time spent leveling up the skill is undeniable, it is inevitable to be nervous about not seeing progress.
As a difficult skill to learn, the requirements to reach the intermediate nevel are far harder than any other skill Allan has learned to date.
While Allan was concerned about it, he did not realize that Sara had already served him her meal, when he noticed he picked up the fork and began to eat.
Ñom Ñom
Good as always.