Brin left the general store, promising himself he’d follow Perris’ advice. At least, the advice about keeping his pet alive. As for the rest? He’d try Chamylla’s way first and see where that got him.

Despite his best efforts to ignore it, Perris’ advice kept ringing around in his head. Particularly the phrase fat and lazy and small. A worm. It was like an annoying pop song. One that comes over the radio or something before you can change the channel, and even though you didn’t want to hear it the first time it keeps tumbling around in your brain.

It was bad advice. He was sure of it. He’d gone through all the things Perris had talked about in Travin’s Bog. Terror, the feeling of worthlessness, and then the anger. Deep, slow anger that led him to building those traps, even though it didn’t really benefit him very much, and even though it may have given him away.

He’d come through all of that, but did that make him better than the children who hadn’t gone through trauma like that? Myra, Zilly, and Davi all outshined him. The only thing that made him special was the lifetime of memories inside his head.

Fat and lazy and small. A worm. That was how he’d died in his past life. This life would be different.

Fat and lazy and small. A worm. Arg! Would you stop that, brain?

Was he being lazy? He knew he wasn’t. He’d worked his butt off the first two months after he came to town. After that, well, he worked as hard as he was expected to. He’d also done a lot of playing around. But that’s what he was supposed to be doing. He was a child; Solia had said so. He had the body of a child and that made him a child.

He was more than just a child. He could be doing more.

When he got back to Hogg’s house, he’d made up his mind.

He swung the door open and said, “I want to start training my Strength.”

Hogg was standing over a big wooden box set up on the table. It was an ordinary wooden box, rectangular in shape, and completely at odds with the rest of the finely furnished living room.

“What?” asked Hogg.

“Oh, wait, first tell me how’s Marksi doing? Is that his tank?” asked Brin.

“It is. Hurry, come see. And hush,” said Hogg.

Brin tiptoed over and looked inside. He didn’t know why, but when Hogg said he was making a habitat for Marksi, he’d expected a glass tank like he’d use to keep a pet snake in his old world. Of course, glass wasn’t something you could get on short notice around here. Hogg had fashioned it out of wood.

It looked comfortable. There was a little pool, some plants for variety, and a lot of sandy loam, everything that Chamylla had told him to provide. Marksi had buried himself except for his head and the tip of his tail. The sand vibrated with the little snake’s purrs.

“He thinks he’s hiding,” said Hogg. “He thinks we can’t see him.”

Brin chuckled. It was pretty cute. “I got the stuff.”

He showed Hogg the lightly enchanted items he’d gotten from Perris and Chamylla, and they decided to start with the marbles.

Putting all three of the marbles in the middle caused it to heat up too quickly, so they kept the cooling one towards the center and the heating one on the edge, across from the pool of water. That cooled it too much, but with some more trial and error they found places for the marbles to make it just right, so that the temperature-telling marble turned a nice light blue.

Marksi was supremely interested in what they were doing. He followed the marbles around every time they moved one of them, and always rubbed his head against their fingers when they were nearby.

Once they’d finally gotten the placement just right, Marksi ruined it by scattering some sand over the cooling marble, which made the temperature marble turn a little green. They brushed it off, but Marksi did it again.

“It’s fine. He knows what temperature he likes better than us. I can’t believe he already figured out what the marbles do. You’re such a smart little guy, Marksi,” said Hogg.

“So, we’re just going to totally abandon the world-weary tough guy personality then,” said Brin.

Hogg’s scarred face turned to Brin with a withering glare, proving that he still had it in him. “Marksi is cute, ok? He’s damn cute. I’m man enough to admit that. Now, I could sit here and pretend my eyes don’t see what they see, but no. I refuse. Not in my own house. And if you tell anyone…”

“Please. I’m already keeping your secrets. I can add one more to the list,” said Brin.

“Good,” said Hogg. He leaned over the tank and made clicking noises while wagging his finger back and forth, grinning in delight as Marksi slithered back and forth to follow him.

“Oh, right, I had something I wanted to ask you,” said Brin.

“About building up your Strength?” said Hogg. “It’s not a bad idea.”

“Well, I was thinking. When I was in Perris’ shop, he thought I was there to buy a sword to try to grab some Achievements before my System Day. Now, I know there are Achievements that you can only earn if you fulfill their requirements before you get your System unlocked. Warbound is an example.”

“Stop right there. What you’re asking for is illegal. And it’s wrong. I’ve already told you why. It’s one of the first things I ever taught you,” said Hogg.

“I’m not asking for the requirements for some weird torture Class. I just want to know the kind of things that any kid would know. Stuff they’d get by osmosis from growing up here,” said Brin.

“Sorry kid. There’s rules you break, and rules you don’t,” said Hogg.

“And there’s rules you bend. Can you at least tell me if I’m wasting my time with the Strength training?”

“It’s not a waste of time,” Hogg admitted.

“If I’m going to do the Strength training anyway, I should set myself a goal, don’t you think? I should pick a number. At random.”

“You’re killing me. Alright. If I were to pick a random number, I’d say go for 26,” said Hogg.

“Twenty-six? Not twenty-five? Seems like it should be twenty-five,” said Brin.

“I don’t make the rules,” said Hogg.

Twenty-six was extremely doable. He’d already gained six Strength in the last four months, although four of those were from the first two months when Hogg had been working him like a dog.

He just needed seven more points of Strength and his Warbound achievement would give him the last two he needed to bring him up to twenty-six. One thing he’d learned is that Warbound rounded up to the nearest whole number; when he got to fifteen it had pushed him up to sixteen.

“That’s good to hear,” said Brin. “Thinking about it, I’m already likely to have that before my System day.”

“You don’t say,” said Hogg. “It’s almost like we know what we’re doing.”

“Ok, then, if you’re so smart, help me make a workout routine. Let’s say I want to hit that threshold as soon as possible, and maybe put my eyes on the next one above it. At fifty-two, probably? I have some ideas on how to build Strength from my old world, but first I wanted to ask what you think,” said Brin.

In his past life, Brin had spent an hour at the gym maybe two or three times a week. He’d never really bulked up, but he’d been around guys that did enough to get the general idea. Work out a lot. Eat a lot. Sleep a lot. Don’t skip leg day.

Hogg said, “There’s two ways for you to get your Strength up, as far as I can tell. First, the System will recognize differences in your natural body. Boys your age will increase their Strength just from being alive and growing up. Second, the System will reward you for training and completing feats of Strength. The important thing to keep in mind here is that the System wants big, exceptional effort, and it’s better if it’s all one task that actually has a use, rather than, say, picking up a boulder and putting it down again a thousand times.”

“I see. Then is there any way you can adjust things so that for my morning chores I get jobs that have clear beginning and endings?”

“Everyone wants those chores,” said Hogg. “We do a rotating schedule. You get what you get. But you can still make it work for you if you put a little oomph into it.”

“Wait… is that what Davi’s doing? He’s already past twenty-six, isn’t he?” said Brin.

“It’s not like I can see other people’s status screens,” said Hogg. “But I’d say he’s well past it.”

“Well, then I’ll do it like this…”

The next day, Brin woke up early. The town would ring a bell for the start of work at what would be eight in the morning in his world, which was an hour past dawn since they were in early autumn, so Brin woke up two hours before that and started a weight training routine. He didn’t have weights, but Hogg had some old weapons he could use. There were two big spiked maces he used as kettlebells. He used filled water jugs for dumbbells and a couple of heavy chains worked for battle ropes.

When Marksi saw what he was doing, the little snake immediately wanted to be a part of it, though it was clear he didn’t know what was going on. Marksi imitated Brin’s movements as best he could. When Brin did push-ups, Marksi sort of lifted himself up and down. When Brin did curls, Marksi picked up a stick with his mouth and bounced up and down.

Brin couldn’t help but smile at the antics, and found himself more motivated to keep going while coaching Marksi at the same time. “Five, six, seven, eight. Good! We have two more reps; let’s do this!”

By the end, the poor little snake was panting on the ground, all drawn out like a discarded shoelace. Brin put him back in his tank with an extra berry and the enchanted copper coin as a reward.

“You did great, Marksi! We’ll do this again tomorrow,” said Brin.

Maybe he wouldn’t need to do Perris’ torture routine. Maybe Marksi would be motivated by Brin’s example and they could get stronger together.

Next he made his own breakfast. He ate six eggs, and half of a chicken they’d cooked the night before, and then finished it off with an entire mato, a leafy vegetable the size of a grapefruit that had a sort of sour taste, like cabbage soaked in vinegar. The locals loved it, and he was starting to get used to it, meaning he could get it down without gagging.

Breakfast was as much as he’d eaten in an entire day before, and by the end he was full to bursting, but that was one of the keys to bulking up. You had to eat way more than you thought you should, especially since he didn’t have access to things like creatine and protein shakes. The one bonus was that it wouldn’t be hard to eat clean. No added sugar, no processed food here. Well, lots of the meat was heavily preserved, but it wouldn’t be hard to get fresh meat. In a town this size, someone always had a chicken or goat for sale, not to mention the [Hunters] who would occasionally bring back seven hundred pounds of edible monster.

After breakfast he was close to the morning bell. How he knew that, he wasn’t sure, but in the world without clocks he’d sort of grown a sixth sense for when that bell was about to ring. The bottom line was that he was late.

As he stepped out the door, he heard Marksi make a whining sound. He went back to the cage and looked in. Marksi moved flat against the wall nearest him, trying to climb out.

“Not now, Marksi! I’m going to be late!” said Brin.

Marksi whined louder.

“Ok, but if you come with me, you’ll have to stay with me the entire day!” said Brin. “There’s no going home if you get bored.”

Marksi flopped down and turned around in a circle.

“Fine!”

Brin put Marksi on his shoulders, and the snake quickly curled around his neck like a short little scarf, and promptly went to sleep.

Brin was nearly late, so he ran the entire way through the forest, and into town.

As soon as he crossed through the gates he got a notification.

Through training you have increased the following attributes.

Vitality +1