oh I thought you were saying that it is random chance that the skill they gain actually goes towards their XP... I gain skill EVERY SINGLE time I try to build on the ruins(from adept onn)... or so it says... but it still took TOOOOOOO LOOONNGG...

If only I saw the meter moving, it would give me more hope and incentive... at least then I would know that what I am doing is actually working.

OK... I have interupted him every time it says "gained XP" - 100 times in a row, now... he had just gotten 4/5ths of the way to the end of the bar (the last stage of "adept"... I know this because I used his placement in research as a marker). That is a CRAZY amount of times! - STILL not a master...

The amount of skill they gain (the amount the bar moves) gets less each time. So to move from Untrained to Trainee only takes a few successes but as they move higher up the bar, the rate the bar moves gets smaller and smaller. It is moving, honest. Just doesn't always look like it.