Sam finished packing his lunch and set off from home. He intended to be out all day, so he had to pack some supplies to keep him going in the hot summer sun. He had around 3 litres of water, a small lunch, his work knife and dagger, his fishing rod and a small bucket of bait. He was going to head to the stream to fish this morning as he would prefer to spend the morning outside in the sun rather than the afternoon as it was much hotter in the afternoon and he didn’t feel like sitting under the afternoon sun.

  When Sam got down to his small plot of land, he sat himself down in a sunny spot on the opposite side of the stream as he had yesterday beside a single small tree. Unlike the forest which was full of grand pines this tree has a lighter coloured bark and flatter leaves, he wasn’t sure what type of tree it was though. After getting comfortable Sam baited the hook of his fishing rod and cast it into the steam sitting on the bank waiting for a bite.

  After just a couple of minutes of waiting he felt a tug on the line. He jerked the rod up to secure the hook into the fish’s mouth before he began reeling it in. When he pulled it out of the water he saw that it was one of the small fish that he had also caught yesterday. He cut into the fish killing it before he tied it to a stick and hung it over one of the limbs of the small tree to allow the blood to drain from it. Once he had done that, he rebaited his hook and cast his rod out into the stream again. ‘Ping’ A system notification sounded in his head. Wondering what it was he opened up the notifications and read what it said he realised he had gotten a new skill. ~Natural Skill Gained. ‘Casting LV 1’~ He had gained the casting skill; not bad, he thought. The casting skill was one of the skills required to get the Fishing Pseudo skill. It made sense that it was the first one that he had gotten as you tended to cast the most when fishing in comparison to everything else.

  He pulled up four more of the same little fish before he decided to change his spot. He hadn’t managed to get his skill to trigger when killing any of the small fish and was starting to wonder if it ever will. Sam sat back down in the shaded spot he had yesterday and cast his rod back out into the water. This time there was an immediate bite, and he tugged up as hard as he could to ensure the hook caught onto the fish’s mouth. He reeled in his catch and saw that it was a new kind of fish. This one was much bigger with sharp pointed teeth unlike the small ones that didn’t have any teeth at all. He used his creature identification skill on the fish. Finally, he had caught a fish with more than 1 strength he thought as the identification window showed the fish had a strength of 3.

  Sam sunk his knife into the back of the fish’s head and waited to see if he would get a system notification but alas, he didn’t but still, if he was able to catch more of these larger fish, he would get a better chance of his skill activating, a three percent change was much better than a 1 percent chance after all. Another hour passed and he had caught 3 more of the smaller fish before he had reeled in another of the larger fish but yet again, his skill didn’t activate.

  Sam caught three more small fish over the next hour before he decided to take a break from fishing to have a walk through the forest. He wasn’t going to go far but wanted to see if there were any more spots that might be better for fishing. He spent 10 minutes walking down the stream and back before he sat back down and cast his line into the water once more in the same spot. ‘Ping’ Another system notification sounded in his head. ~Natural Skill ‘Casting’ level gained. 'Casting' is now Level 2~ Well, he might not have been getting his blood skill to activate but he sure was getting better at fishing Sam thought as he dismissed the notification.

  Sam reeled in the final fish of the day, which was another one of the large fish and cut into it. He walked back over to the small tree and hung it up with the other fish he had caught so far today before he began to pack up his things. To allow a bit of time for the last fish to drain he decided to practice his long jump skill. He activated the skill a few times before becoming tired draining a lot of his stamina, he hadn’t managed to level it but was now confident about activating it and landing without losing his balance, which he thought was a solid bit of progress.

  Sam took the fish he had caught home and decided to drop the fishing rod off as well. Since he didn’t originally plan to come back beforehand not expecting to catch quite as many fish as he did, he now was able to lighten his load and refill his water. Once Sam was restocked he headed back down the hill to the barn and decided to sit under a tree and eat his lunch before starting his next hunt. After he finished eating his lunch, he accidentally let the exhaustion and heat get to him and he closed his eyes and took a nap. He didn’t think he was tired but clearly that wasn’t the case as when he woke up the sun had begun to set. “Damn” Sam muttered to himself, as he stood up. He pretty much wasted his afternoon having a nap. A very good nap but a nap nevertheless which took away his rat hunting time. Eventually he decided to head home for the day as hunting rats in the barn in complete darkness would be a waste of time and he was more likely to fall and break his neck than he was to find and kill and rats.

  Sam woke up late the next morning as had taken him a fair while to fall asleep. He blamed this on the unexpected nap that had thrown his sleep schedule out of whack. After a light breakfast Sam went down to the barn and found his father tidying up. “Sam, good morning. Come to help your old father tidy up the barn” his father called out to him. “I was going to try and kills some rats”. He replied to him. “I see well that’s also helping I suppose. There have been a lot more rats around recently and it’s starting to cause problems.” Interesting, I hope there isn’t something causing it Sam thought as he passed his father and headed into the barn.

  Sam spent an hour in the barn and had so far killed 2 rats. He was taking a small break when a slightly larger rat appeared from behind some old tools sat in the corner. Instead of the dark brown fur the rats normally had this one’s fur was a dark grey. He used his creature identification on it to confirm what the difference was from the normal rats he encountered.

  ~ Superior Rat Worker

  Level: N/A

  Strength: 3

  Agility: 25

  Perception: 6

  Endurance: 5 ~

  A superior Rat Worker, that was weird Sam thought. He had expected it to just be a different type of rat, but this one was more like a monster than an animal. The only reason he knew it wasn’t a monster was because it didn’t have a level. The rat closed in on Sam until it was only 2 metres away. From his sitting position he didn’t think he could reach it. The rat looked around and sniffed the air as it walked around the barn. As he tried to formulate a plan to take it by surprise, he realized he could use his long jump skill to rapidly close in on it and take it by surprise. Sam slowly positioned himself and once he was ready he began activating the skill as he pushed up off the ground. He flew into the air in the direction of the rat. Sam fell out of the air right above the rat thrusting his knife down into the rats’ back falling on top of it. ‘Ping’ ‘Ping’ two system notification sounds alerted in his head. Sam sat up and quickly opened them up. ~Natural Skill ‘Long Jump’ level gained. ‘Long Jump’ is now level 2~ The first notification was a level up for his long jump skill, but it was the second notification that made him jump up into the air with a fist held high “Yes, it finally activated” he shouted. ~A Blood Skill ‘God of the Reapers’ has activated. You have gained +1 Strength~ Sam jumped for joy and did a weird celebration dance before he finally regained his composure and pulled the knife out of the back of the rat wiping the blood off onto its fur before resheathing it.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Just then his father walked into the barn and asked, “What’s with all the racket?”. “My blood skill activated for the first time” he replied. “Congratulations Son. I guess we should have a big dinner to celebrate” he said to him. “Come on, I’m done for the day. Let’s head home early” his father offered. “Okay, let’s go”. Sam decided that finishing on a high would be a good way to end the day he follow his father out of the barn and headed back up the hill towards the house.

  Lying in bed that night Sam finally took the opportunity to look at his current status.

  ~Samuel Holdridge

  Age: 13

  Level: 13

  Status:

  Strength: 40

  Agility: 13

  Intelligence: 26

  Wisdom: 26

  Perception: 13

  Endurance: 13

  Luck: 13

  Resources:

  Health: 20/20

  Mana: 5/5

  Stamina: 5/10

  Blood Skills: God of the Reapers

  Skill Fragments 1/10 - Reaper of Strength Lv 1.

  Natural Skills: Advanced Farming Lv 25, Advanced First Aid Lv 25, Moderate Cleaning Lv 25, Simple Cooking Lv 25, General Identification Lv 25, Item Identification Lv 25, Creature Identification Lv 25, Skill Identification Lv 25, Long Jump LV 2, Casting LV 2

  Titles: Rodent Killer (Plus 10% Damage done to Rodents) 110/1000 ~

  The extra stat point in strength he got from the ‘Superior Rat Worker’ had evened his strength out to 40. He spent some time just looking at his status smiling to himself before deciding that he should probably get to sleep. He had to be up early to attend his archery lessons after all he thought as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep with a smile plastered on his face.

  Sam woke up and after checking the time on his pocket watch realized he had slept in again. He quickly grabbed his bow and quiver which he had left learning beside his bedroom door and ran out of the room. With no time for breakfast and without house already empty Sam left the house and quickly locked the door. He then ran all the way to James’ house as he didn’t dare be late for his first archery lesson and risk the James deciding he wasn’t worth teaching. Luckily it appeared that James himself was running late as Sam knocked on his door and received no response. He peered in through the windows but didn’t see any sign of James being inside. He took a seat on the small bench on the front porch and patiently waited for him to show up. Sam spent an hour waiting before James finally arrived home. “Sorry Sam” he called out to him. “That damned wolf showed up again last night and killed a couple of sheep over at Barry’s and all the village hunters were called on to try and hunt it down. Sadly, we lost its trail once it entered Kait forest”. “That’s okay, I expected it must have been something important” Sam replied as he got up from the bench. “Well, I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer, follow me out back” James said as he walked around the side of the house. Sam quickly picked up his bow and quiver that was leaning against the side of the bench and followed James into the backyard.

  As Sam walked into James’ backyard, he spotted some targets set up at varying distanced as well as one that was strung up on a rope that went across two trees either side of the archery range. “Wait here a moment, I will go and grab some target arrows for you to use; don’t want to waste the hunting arrows I gave you on target practice” he said before he walked over to a small building to the right of the archery range and disappeared inside. A minute or so later he walked out with two quivers full of arrows. “Here, take these Sam” he said as he passed the two quivers to Sam. “These should cover us for today’s session. Come on, follow me” he said as he walked into the fenced off area that was the archery range.

  Sam spent the next hour with James practicing the basics of archery and shooting the bow at the closest of the targets. “Good One Sam, you almost hit the target this time” said James. Sam glared at him as the frustration at failing to hit a single target the entire time finally boiled over. “It’s your first time Sam; you’re not going to pick it up with a single lesson and besides maybe you just need to take a break. You will come back tomorrow fresh and ready to go again and next time you will hit the target”. “Okay, hopefully because it feels like I might just not be cut out for archery” Sam replied. “Nonsense, everyone can do archery if they’re willing to practice enough” James said. Not quite convinced, Sam backed up from the range. He collected his things along as well as another quiver of training arrows James had given him for practicing by himself and headed home for the day.

  He spent the afternoon practicing the ‘High Jump’ skill. He felt like this was the easiest one to learn as power was the main thing when it came to jumping high. He didn’t get the skill by the time he finished up his practice but felt like he was close to getting it. He had dinner with his family before retiring for the night spending an hour or so reading.

  The next day Sam was back at the archery range with James and this time he actually managed to hit the target on his first shot. The moral boost from his success spurred on his improvement and he managed to graduate to the next target distance. “Here take these with you” James said as he handed Sam another quiver full of target arrows as well as a target. “I’m busy for the next two days but take these with you and keep practicing. You should be able to gain the basic archery skill soon if you keep improving as fast as you are” he said. The encouragement filled Sam with hope and expectation as he once again packed up and headed home.

  The next day Sam was out on his small patch of land practicing his archery. He had hung the target James had given him up on a tree and was shooting at it from a few metres back. He had brought 3 different lengths of rope with him so that he could practice high shots, mid shots and low shots. This was to simulate birds, larger animals and smaller animals respectively. Sam mixed up his practice taking breaks from his archery to practice the ‘High Jump Skill’. He had expected to gain it by now, but it felt like he was missing something. He decided he would need to reread the skill book to see what he was missing.

  After another hour or two Sam finally decided he had had enough practice for the day and headed home. As he was walking through the village he overheard some of the village ladies talking about the wolf that had been seen in the forests recently. Apparently, it had once again struck out at a farm and killed a couple of pigs this time. He hoped the hunters could catch it soon as he worried it would make its way into the village proper and if that happened it could attack one of the villagers coming home late from work one night.

  Sam returned home to find his mother and father also taking about the wolf. Sam lay in bed thinking about what his parents had told him. The Mayor Paul said that everyone needed to be indoors just before sundown just to be on the safe side in case the wolf ventured into the village. Sam was starting to get worried that none of the hunters had managed to catch it yet. It must have been quite the cunning wolf to avoid all the village hunters. With that final thought he drifted off to sleep.