It was obvious that trying to use any skills around his family was out of the question. There was no way in hell he was going to be able get away with that without bringing to light he had already awakened, and that roused too many questions for his comfort. Maybe he was a fatalist, but none of the outcomes he could imagine appealed to him. Studied. Dissected. Killed. He didn’t now much of this world but taking the middle ages from earth as point of reference the later was the most likely. No matter how great of an actor he was. Better not to tempt fate.

  He would have to try at night, but in order to do that he would have to be able to get out of the house in the first place. That was a problem with his current body and the constant “surveillance” from his mother. He would have to gather the strength to get out of his crib without making any noise, open the windows (the door was out of the question as he couldn’t reach the handle and the window has a convenient sill which he could reach) and haul his weight using a makeup rope using his crib sheets to get out the window and back again before everybody woke up. This was going to be a problem.

  He had hated so much working out in his past life, but it was either that or play with some silly toy.

  Maybe it was not as bad as he remembered, or maybe it was because he was a baby and the growing made recovery easier, maybe it was just how this world worked, or maybe his stats were helping him, but exercising didn’t seem so bad. But he didn’t seem to be getting stronger. In fact, his stats had not gotten any higher. Was there any merit to training? His mother had seen him exercising but hadn’t said anything.

  Two weeks later it suddenly happened.

  DING

  Five weeks of training had gotten him just +1 [STR] there had to be a better way to do this. A smarter way. He had been doing all sorts of training exercise combinations. Did the type of exercise matter? The number of repetitions? Or was some other factor? At last! Something he could find out by himself.

  With not much else to do Ryle had at first dived into what looked like a training frenzy. His mother had started to look worried, if not for the fact that he had noticed on time because of [SIGHT], he most likely would have had stood out by now. And that was something he had to avoid at all costs. He had to appear as regular little kid. So, he had started methodically trying combinations.

  At last, after several months of research he had found out not only that you only needed to exercise three times in a seven-day period in order to get +1 [STR], but that you wouldn’t get the SP if you exercised more that, or if you exercised more than 2 consecutive days. Rest was important too. Also, not any exercise would do. You had to do a minimum of 3 exercise of which had to be one for the core, one for the upper body and one for the lower body. You could do more of course, but it didn’t affect the outcome and it seemed that upon gaining an SP the strength obtained spread throughout the body. So, you could increase your bicep strength without having to do any bicep exercise. Nice! He had discovered that if you exhausted between 50% and 75% of your [STA] you would also get a +1 [STA] upon completing that same 7-day period.

  What had been instrumental in his research had been his Status Screen. He couldn’t even fathom the cost of paying to use the Status Stone every time just to check if any stats have changed. Fortunately, he had no such problems.

  If there was a way to increase your [STR] and [STA], why not your [DEX] and [SPD] as well? And what about [INT] and [IMA] for that matter.

  This needed more research.

  He had lost all sight of his original purpose for getting stronger and had been so obsessed with finding out how to increase each stat that he about to turn 3 years old when figured out the last of them.

  [INT] was straight forward. You just needed to learn something useful. My mother had just finished teaching me the numbering system used throughout the kingdom when the notification popped up.

  DING. DING. DING.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  For [DEX] to increase you have to do two upper body exercises each day, but as fast as you could, but then you would either not get a [STR] because your stamina drained too fast, or loose the [STA] point by going over 80% of your stamina.

  For [SPD] was a similar exchange but you had to do two lower body exercises as fast as you could.

  Based on this I would increase my exercise routine to a total of five exercises and taking advantages of the bare minimum I had kept increasing the number of reps by just one every couple of weeks. For after doing the same number of reps for two weeks in a row, you had to increase the number by 1 at least or you would not get the SP. But there was a way of getting around this. For the number of reps only applied to the same upper body exercises, so if you kept changing you could start a new routine from 1 rep. He had used every recollection of every exercise he had ever seen (even if he had barely tried a few in his past life).

  He had discovered the conditions [IMA] last and entirely by accident. On one of his morning walks around the house (the perfect cool down for his morning exercises now that he was allowed to go out to the yard during the day) he had found a sharp stone that he though looked like the ones he had seen in pictures of ancient axes. He had looked around and with [SIGHT] he had found a vine a branch that looked about right and he had tried jokingly to make an axe. Just as he had finished it had happened.

  DING. DING. DING. DING. DING.

  He had earned 3 SP, got one new skill which had also evolved, earned a title and [SIGHT] had fused with this skill? This was just too much to take in at once.

  He opened his Status Screen and looked around.

  He realized then that he hadn’t looked at his Status Screen in a long time just taking notice of what made a notification pop up. He hadn’t realized how much his stats have changed. He remembers his brother’s status a few years ago when he had awakened were much lower than this. He would need to figure out what to do when his father took him to get his first status reading. There was nothing he could do about that right now anyways.

  He looked back to check on his skills and title.

  So [SIGHT] is now rare?

  I look at the “weapon” in my hand.

  I look at my brother’s sword as he trains. No info shows up. So, things also have stats, but I’ve never been able to see them before, and now just for the weapons I craft. So [SIGHT] will display more information as it levels up.

  There were no more excuses, he had concluded his research and by his stats he concluded that he could have been testing his skill in secret for quite some time right now. He had found a way to become stronger without relying on levelling his class or skills. He would start testing his skills that very night.