The maybe-bandit seemed surprised to see him. Cursing himself for not doing it immediately, Valerian used [Appraisal].

  He quickly examined the [Archer]’s talent.

  This would be difficult. Valerian would need to get close, and fast, or he’d be a pincushion before he could use a single one of his skills. Maybe he should surrender? It was a risk, but so was fighting someone 13 levels higher.

  Valerian started to bring up his hands to diffuse the situation.

  “Look, there’s no—” he began.

  “Damn it!” Jeremy said, grabbing his bow and starting to pull it over his shoulder.

  Valerian didn’t hesitate and charged the man, holding his saber ready to draw. Adrenaline pumped and he could hear his own heartbeat. How is he so far away?

  He had to go down his side of the berm and up the other to reach the [Archer]. He wasn’t sure if he could get there before the man nocked an arrow and put it through his chest.

  As Valerian was halfway up the berm, the man got his bow out and drew an arrow. He had fumbled getting it over his head and had taken a long time to get prepared. He was probably used to being the one attacking first, not drawing while someone charged at you. Still, the distance was too far, and Valerian wasn’t going to make it.

  Everything came into focus. Nothing existed except his target, the bow, and the arrow being brought to bear directly at him. Valerian watched the arrow tip. He saw the shaky movements as the man tried to draw the arrow back smoothly and failed. He saw the man’s muscles strain under the tunic. He saw the man’s eyes narrow in concentration. He felt the slight building of anima in the man’s spirit as he prepared a skill. And he knew when the shot was coming.

  Valerian dived, throwing himself to the ground and to the left. He heard the whizz of the arrow shooting through the air.

  “Shit!” The [Archer] exclaimed. Valerian pushed himself to his feet, almost stumbling as he started to rush forward. Training and [Footwork] kept him upright and moving quickly.

  The [Archer] made a mistake. He’d panicked, making his aim worse. Valerian smiled as the man tried to create distance and draw another arrow. He had been counting on that reaction; the man had significantly higher physical stats and Valerian would have struggled in a direct melee fight. If the [Archer] had drawn his scimitar, with his level advantage, Valerian would have been in serious trouble.

  “When stress is high, people tend to follow their training,” Thomas had said when Valerian had complained about difficult exercises. “Train hard, as if your life depends on it, and when your life actually does, it will not fail you.”

  The [Archer]’s skills painted a clear picture; he was probably a hunter at some point that became a bandit scout for whatever reason. His skills were all focused purely on archery and living in the wild. When pressured, Valerian had been sure that he would try to rely on his bow.

  Valerian caught up quickly, [Footwork] making each step go a bit farther. The [Archer], distracted by trying to run while drawing a new arrow, wasn’t able to stay ahead, even with his higher Body. Valerian drew his sword as he came close, activating [Slash] and swinging at the man’s hand.

  The [Archer] reacted quickly, pulling back his fingers, but Valerian’s saber touched them just enough to draw blood. And bare fingers have low defense.

  The shallow cut suddenly burst, cracking the front of the blow and cutting through the man’s fingers. Even his palm started bleeding from the bonus damage caused by [Exploit Weakness]. The man screamed and cursed, trying to fling the bow at Valerian with his ruined hand.

  Valerian parried with practiced ease, flicking his sword and tossing the bow to the side. He feinted to the man’s chest, and the [Archer] dived to the side, coming up in a roll.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Valerian had expected this. [Archer] was a common class and he knew exactly what [Diving Dodge] did. He’d even sparred with one of the [Archer] knights to get a sense of the level 10 unique skill.

  He used [Footwork] to catch up almost instantly. Unlike the knight, the bandit telegraphed his skill by leaning into the activation. Valerian was moving before the man touched the ground.

  The [Archer] had clearly decided to run. After reaching his feet, the man sprinted directly away from Valerian, not looking back. Maybe he had realized Valerian had lower Body or assumed as much from the level difference. Even without [Appraise], the man would know Valerian’s class and level using [Identify]. A more skilled opponent probably would have realized that Valerian had a movement skill of some sort but he wasn’t sure if the [Archer] could tell.

  It may have worked if Valerian hadn’t been moving after him before the skill activation, even with [Footwork]. The skill was still at a low rank and the [Archer] had 15 extra Body compared to Valerian. Assuming he was in good shape, that should have been enough to escape.

  These thoughts went through Valerian’s mind in a flash as his saber pierced the back of the man’s right knee. The [Archer] collapsed, grabbing his knee. It seemed the vulnerability had shattered the kneecap as well as causing the piercing injury.

  “Fuck!” the [Archer] yelled. “I’ll fucking kill you!” Valerian moved around in front of him, his stance ready, his feet light. As he did, the man finally pulled out his scimitar, pointing it at Valerian.

  He still had his dominant hand.

  Still a threat.

  Valerian stepped forward, stabbing with the saber. The [Archer] tried to deflect, but he was seated and didn’t have the balance or the technique. Valerian slid the blade around the man’s scimitar, maneuvering it to the side, then stepped out and slashed forward, opening the man’s throat. [Exploit Weakness] activated again and took the bandit’s head off. The body stiffened, then fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “No,” said Valerian coldly. “You won’t.”

  * * * * *

  Valerian had won.

  He’d beaten someone 13 levels higher in a real fight.

  He was elated and his body didn’t want to stop shaking. He quickly cleaned his blade and returned it to the sheath.

  He briefly debated looting the body. For some reason, looking at it made the bile rise in the back of his throat and his heart race. The man was a bandit. He’d attacked Valerian immediately. He deserved to die. But Valerian still felt sick at the idea of spending more time around the corpse.

  This must be the “first kill” shakes Thomas talked about, he thought. It will pass. He did grab the man’s waterskin. He checked the boots—too small. More uncomfortable than his own. Somehow, that both disappointed and relieved him.

  After he way away from the body, Valerian checked his notifications.

  He stared at the notifications for a while. It was one thing to know you had essentially a double experience bonus from your talent. It was another to gain six whole levels from a single fight.

  Logically, he knew that his leveling rate would slow dramatically once he was over level 10. Every 10 levels represented an exponential jump in required XP for the next levels. And most people wouldn’t risk a fight against someone over 10 levels higher than themselves.

  In fact, if the [Archer] hadn’t already been a criminal, attacking Valerian at all would have been a capital offense on its own. It was dishonorable to attack someone 10 or more levels below you, both socially and legally, and the penalty for doing so outside of self defense was generally execution. Society would fall to absolute chaos if every higher level person could simply push those at a lower level around through threat of force. Frankly, his kill would have been justified even if the man wasn’t a bandit. He was in the right.

  He decided to look through his skills first. He had two new general skill slots from going over 25 Mind. One of the benefits of his high Mind scaling was that he would always have roughly the same level of skills or more compared to his opponents. He’d still need to rank up all those skills but it gave him more options.

  Most of the effects were obvious. [Dodge] would help him avoid attacks and [Parry] would help him block attacks with his sword. Of the two, [Dodge] was more useful to him in the long run. After a few minutes of thought, he slotted [Dodge] into his new combat general slot.

  He only had one new civilian skill, [Sprint], so it went into his other new slot. More speed was never a bad thing and would have really helped him in that last fight.

  [Stab] was redundant with [Slash]. There wasn’t any point in swapping them out since [Stab] was still at rank 1. He would be dropping [Slash] soon anyway.

  It was his last two skills, [Energy Bolt] and [Energy Shield], that excited him the most. [Energy Bolt] was always unlocked after 25 Mind and [Energy Shield] after 30. They were basic magic skills and most mages would quickly move on to better ones if they used them at all. But if they didn’t unlock at fairly low levels, commoner mages may be stuck without useful skills for their class if the class didn’t grant a magic skill. And unlike a sword, it wasn’t like you could a magic skill without the skill.

  He went ahead and swapped [Energy Bolt] in place of [Footwork] and [Energy Shield] in for [Slash]. While he really like [Footwork], it just didn’t fit well with his stats. With both [Energy Shield] and [Dodge] he’d have both active and passive defenses in his general combat slots and [Energy Bolt] was better than [Slash] for him in every way.

  The skill was ranged, moved quickly, and had a low cooldown and anima cost. Its low damage meant most mages replaced it quickly. But that wasn’t a big deal for Valerian; [Exploit Weakness] didn’t specify the type of attack. He just had to deal damage to a vulnerable area. So as long as he could break through an enemy’s lowest defense, [Energy Bolt] would do it’s own damage combined with the additional damage from [Exploit Weakness].

  He’d have to wait a day for the skills to be available due to the slot cooldowns, and in that time he’d be vulnerable. But he could still fight with his sword and now had higher stats overall. More importantly, [Sprint] had gone into an empty slot, which means he had it available already to run away if needed. He looked at his profile and smiled.