From your first steps in Valheim, you will start to unlock and level skills related to your actions. You'll find a list of the skills that are currently available, but there might be more in the future — there are currently none for building, farming or navigation, for example.
How to level your skills
All weapon skills progress simply by attacking something with the associated weapon: a monster, a tree, a rock, another player by activating the PvP mode, and you can also block with a shield while your friends attack you.
It's very easy to train if that's what you want, but it's not really necessary given the current balancing of the game. It's easier and less tedious to level your useful skills just by playing normally.
Running, jumping and swimming also increase their corresponding skills, so remember to burn off your stamina whenever you're not in combat. The power given by the first boss while be a big help regarding stamina.
Stamina-boosting food and the comfort bonus obtained from your house are crucial. Try to avoid training (or even going out) at night or when it's raining, since it inflicts heavy penalties in terms of stamina regeneration.
Death and experience loss
When dying, your character loses 5% of the total experience obtained on all his skills. The distribution depends on the level of the skills. Unfortunately this means that high level skills will lose much more experience than low level skills.
Note that if you die, you get a bonus that prevents further experience loss for 10 minutes. If you return to your body in less than 10 minutes and die again, you lose nothing, and the bonus is reset to 10 minutes.
