POV Cornelius
For the next few years, our little group of heroes underwent a rigorous training program. We went to the Imperial Academy like other noble children. Here we had both theoretical and practical lessons. We also have additional courses according to our class. On the day of our class ceremony, we all chose the class we liked best. Since we all have birthdays within a month of each other in this world, our class ceremonies were scheduled on the same day. I chose Warrior with a focus on defense and leadership. Ansgar had designed his warrior for attack and damage. Javier was a magician with a focus on attack magic and could use all elemental magic. And Eli? Good question. She was a priestess specializing in healing. She was very strong in that, but everything else was very weak. But she would keep us alive and that was very important for our group. Plus, she was cute and I wanted to protect her.
We received our training sessions in a variety of areas. Everyone had their own distribution of how much time he or she invested in the individual parts. Ansgar spent almost all of his free time in combat training and physical exercise. For the rest he was very reluctant to bring any motivation with him. Javier learned everything about magic. The main thing was that it fit his idea of a magician. I didn't know exactly what Eli did. Much of her training took place in the cathedral, away from us. During the theory lessons she preferred to cling to me and during the physical exercises she just complained. The physical exercises, like the combat exercises, took place in a large courtyard. Members of the Imperial Guard took turns training us in a variety of disciplines. Every day started the same. First we ran several laps around the square. We then picked up the weapon of our choice and conducted dry swinging practice. For me it was a sword, for Ansgar it was a large ax, for Javier and Eleonore it was a large staff. Then we conducted practice matches against the guards. At this point, the two spellcasters were mostly no longer there and focused on other things.
After about a year, Ansgar and I were ready to develop our main weapon into the next rank. This gives us the first advanced rank in a skill. I chose a defensive specialization and Ansgar an offensive one. This made it easier for me to parry and Ansgar did more damage with his attacks. Now we had the choice of whether we continued to focus on training our main weapon or diverted our attention to other things. We learned in a lecture that we got XP through training, which was then automatically invested in the trained skill. Ansgar chose fighting with the mace as his new focus and also practiced in wearing leather armor. I chose the plate armor and also the fight with the shield. Javier continued to learn as many spells as he could and Eli began learning mundane healing in addition to magical healing. While Javier learned many skills, Eli limited himself to a few. We'll see how both of them perform in a real fight.
POV Ansgar
Every day that I was able to spend longer here, the happier I was that I was reborn into this world. I did exactly what I enjoyed most. Practicing fighting, hanging out with my best friends, eating and sleeping. A real dream had come true for me. What was still missing were real fights with real thrills. We had been training for two years now and were still practicing. Things were slowly changing. Especially after our teacher explained the level up system to us.
“You have already gotten to know the basic values and skills. As some of you have probably noticed, some skills improve with practice and some don't. But even those with whom you can practice will quickly reach a value beyond which it is hardly possible to improve further without investing a lot of time. But there is a workaround, skill points. You will receive XP for tasks you have completed. Most of the time these are battles that have been overcome, but it can also be the completion of special tasks. Your level increases based on the XP you receive. The higher you level up, the more XP you need for the next level. In addition, fights for which you received a lot of XP in the lower levels give less and less XP as the level increases. This is because you get better as you level up. So either the opponents you defeat must become stronger, or the number must become significantly larger.”
We all nodded.
“For every level you level up, you will receive several improvements. Above all, your base values increase. Your class is assigned a combination of basic HP, SP and MP values as well as two characteristics. Your new maximum values are calculated from level x base values plus bonuses from certain properties. Some of your Unique Abilities change these calculations. Noble hero Ansgar, you have the basic values for strength and endurance, which is also expressed in higher LE and SP. For you, noble heroine Eleonore, your basic charisma value increases, which results in significantly higher MP with each level increase. The level is always relevant, and only the skill points that you have spent count.”
An important clue. It was possible to save up XP, but I prefer to spent my XP straight away. Then I immediately had better skills.
“If you reach level 10 in a skill, which corresponds to 10,000 XP for major skills and 1,000 XP for minor skills, you can advance to the advanced rank with an instructor. At level 20 there is the Expert rank and at 30 there is the Master rank. The legendary grandmaster rank would then probably be 40 or 50, but since no one known has ever achieved it, we don't know the necessary level. Whoever reached him kept or keeps this knowledge secret. One more note: without the update to the next rank, you cannot further improve the skill, no matter how much you train. You also can't spend XP.
In order to improve a skill, you need a minimum value in a certain characteristic in addition to level 10 so that you can increase it. You can ask us which characteristic you need for a particular skill. It is the same characteristic that you get a bonus on from this skill. The required value is 100 for advanced, 400 for expert and 1000 for master. You can almost only achieve these values in the characteristics that are assigned to your class. Therefore, warriors have particularly high skills that have either strength or endurance assigned to them. This allows a warrior to achieve master rank in most weapon skills. Sometimes there are two requirements. This is usually a second skill. All magic types require the same rank in magic control. There are still a few examples like this.
An important note at the end. Each class has several opportunities to develop further. A warrior can develop into a knight or into an order warrior. The first option focuses on improving combat talents while unlocking the church career for the order warrior. A wizard can either specialize in individual areas of magic or in areas that are part of magic such as artifacts or alchemy. The usual path for a priestess is to rise through the ranks of the church. That would be the high priestess. All of these advancements require a corresponding meditation phase, at the end of which you will receive the update in the class as a reward. An updated class also has significantly better basic values and properties and is therefore very valuable. That's it for today. I say farewell, dear heroes.”
Very nice. Thanks to my advantage of high strength, I should be able to get my ax to expert rank particularly quickly. Now all I needed was the necessary XP.
POV Cornelius
This morning at breakfast we learned that we would be entering our first real battles. Finally, the first challenge for us. I wasn't worried about Ansgar, he was immediately fully motivated. Javier wasn't a problem either. He had practiced for a long time to be able to deal enough damage to enemies from a distance quickly enough that he couldn't be wounded in the first place. I was worried about Eli. She had been very reluctant to take part in combat training and preferred other activities whenever possible. But today she had to show what she had learned. Of course I will protect her with everything I had. No question about it, she was safe with me around.
“Eli, always stay close to me. Then nothing will happen to you. I will protect you.”
I patted my chest victoriously and smiled at her. She smiled back, a good sign. So nothing could happen.
POV 3rd person
Today was the day for the heroes to show what they have learned over the last years. Today they were supposed to fight some wild animals that we had caught especially for them. They were supposed to meet them in the city's small battle arena. Everything was prepared. This should make it easy for them to earn their first XP and thus their first levels. They stood at the edge of the arena and took the first formation they had learned. First they practiced attacking from the front. The two warriors stood at the front, behind them the sorcerer and the priestess last. An effective formation when the enemy came from the front. Behold, the first wolf has been released. Since he hadn't eaten anything for days, he was starving and weak. This should be a piece of cake for the heroes. The noble hero Javier was the first to fire a fire arrow at the wolf, the basic attack spell of fire magic. It hit the side and left a smoldering burn. The noble hero Cornelius intercepted the wolf's attack with his shield and the noble hero Ansgar struck him to the ground with a powerful blow with his great axe. Then the noble hero Cornelius completed the fight with a blow to the head. Very effective and without causing any injury. I was impressed. So it went on. The next attack involved two wolves, but they were also defeated by the noble heroes without any problems. More than two at a time were not released today and in the end the noble heroes had defeated 11 wolves. There were two minor injuries to the noble hero Ansgar, who only wore leather armor. The others had suffered nothing except scratches in the armor of the noble hero Cornelius.
POV Eleanor
We had been given the task again today to go to the arena for the fight. Over the past few months, we've had to fight wild animals repeatedly to gain XP and combat experience. I didn't like these fights, but Corni was excited about them. He was always as happy as a little child about leveling up and being able to award the next skill points. The other two were just as happy about it, but I couldn't understand their enthusiasm. The status was just numbers, even if they reflected our development. I noticed how my body improved over time, be it in strength, endurance or agility. At least everything had the advantage that my healing skills got better and better and I was able to help more and more people. I was happy about that because it meant I could support Corni better and better. I had made good progress in light magic and was finally able to learn healing magic. Now I could heal everyone in battle even more effectively. But was it what I always wanted? Back then I was happy on earth and had everything I wanted. But here I wasn't so sure anymore. Was fighting really all that mattered?