Freelance Saga: Learning Curves Read Free

observed trees or the occasional
insect until his skill reached level ten.
    Once again, nothing special happened. Scott
shrugged then went back to the pedestal.
    A new message popped up. “Now that you have a
basic idea of how to use your new skills it is time to move
on.”
    This was becoming quite interesting to Scott.
He was not sure how much time had passed, but this game world was
incredibly detailed. Was it really a virtual simulation, or did
they find a way to add an augmented reality system to the real
world in a remote location? That would have been interesting as
well. The thought that this was a legitimate fantasy world based on
role playing principles was still not something he was willing to
accept.
    Scott followed the arrows and learned many
things. He gained three more levels and was required to add five
points to each of his other main stats. This put everything at six,
except for intelligence, which was at eight.
    “I wonder how many levels there are in this
game? I’ve been here for only a few hours and I’m already level
five.”
    He reached an outdoor training area with a
punching bag, bales of hay with targets painted on them, and wooden
dummies. The message that popped up informed him that he would be
allowed to gain a single combat skill here.
    Scott looked around but saw no weapons to
choose. While he walked through the area he happened to punch the
heavy bag on a whim.
    “You have gained the unarmed combat
skill!”
    He snorted then could not help but laugh.
“Well, that takes care of that, I guess.”
    New messages began to pop up one after the
other. He was instructed to reach level ten in unarmed combat by
attacking the heavy bag ten thousand times. A counter appeared
above the teaching instrument.
    “Well, I admit the hand-holding in this game
is certainly blatant.” Scott waited to see if anyone answered him,
but no new messages appeared.
    He turned to strike the bag. He casually
smacked it with his fist, but the counter did not change. Curious,
he struck again. There was still no change. Finally, he squared his
shoulders and struck out with a serious intent. The counter
decreased by one.
    “I see, so that’s what you people want.”
Scott proceeded to strike the target repeatedly. However, he had no
real knowledge of proper punching techniques. While he had briefly
studied a few different martial arts and had wrestled a little in
high-school, it had been years since he had seriously punched
anything. He hunted and fished, but that wasn’t even remotely the
same thing.
    Several minutes passed as he struck the bag.
The counter decreased rapidly during that time. He began to sweat
heavily, and his body began to ache. After a half hour he realized
that he’d only reached thirty-percent of his goal. After the hour
point he had reached his limit. He was not used to this level of
dedicated activity. He was half way to his required goal but he was
having trouble continuing.
    A new screen popped up and he chose to read
it aloud. “When you are tired you should rest. If you sit in a safe
location your stamina, mana, and hit points will regenerate.”
    “I have hit points? Well, yeah I did see them
on my status menu I guess.”
    He called up his status screen and noticed
that his hit points had dropped by thirty. That was not a good
sign. “I can lose hit points just punching a bag?”
    Scott took a seat on a nearby bench and
closed his eyes. After roughly one minute he felt a slight electric
tingle skitter through his body. “What the hell?”
    Suspicious, he checked his status again. He
had regained a single hit point. “I see. Interesting.”
    He waited a few minutes and discovered that
every time the tingle occurred he regained one hit point. He
decided that this meant that either he would always regain one hit
point, or he regenerated one percent per minute. He would have to
wait until he had more than one hundred hit points to find out.
    Scott felt completely refreshed after