Doyle and the Dwarf called Mud both stand there for a few moments. Then Mud slaps Doyle on the shoulder and laughs. “Congratulations! You didn’t die a single time there. I was expecting her to do you in at least once to get the point across. Anyway, she left basically everything for me to explain. However to start we might as well familiarize yourself with your status. Just say the word status with the intent to view your status or you can try to say it in your head. That works too, but when you say it aloud, the System adds some reverb to it so people can tell you’re using a System command. Like this, [status].”

The dwarf then swipes his hand in front of his face. “Unless you share System screens or they mention being shared only the person who calls them up can see them. To move or get rid of them, you can use any sort of voiced or motion based command. It all works if you put some intent into it, like how I just swiped away my status. Now you try.”

Doyle tried saying the command in his head. It didn’t work and from Mud’s smirk Doyle got the impression he wasn’t the first to do so. He however is somewhat past caring about minor things like that and vocalized the command, “status.” Tried to vocalize it, that is. After a couple more attempts, he feels he has it pinned down. With one last attempt he gets it right, “[status]”.

{Name: Doyle Huxley

Race: Human

Paths: 0

Level: 0

S[6] A[7] C[9] I[10] W[9] P[5] D[12] K[0] L[16]

Skills: }

Mud laughs at the look on Doyle’s face, “just filled with info isn’t it? Don’t worry, give it some time and you will be willing to pay the System to move stuff off the main page. Now the most confusing part for people seeing their status the first time is the stats. There are nine of them and every language or sometimes even subgroups of that language will have them called distinct things. The reason for that is all mortal languages suck.”

“You can’t expect a mortal to remember trillions of words. Instead, in a mortal language, words can mean many things and encompass different meanings from person to person. That guy who popped into this universe was an immortal and used a language which had been in use for longer than most universes currently around have existed. Each stat was a single word that describes what it did perfectly. Some of those words would rend your mind apart just to hear them so they dumbed them down for us mortals.”

He turns and picks up a rock. Doyle decides to just ignore the fact it wasn’t there just a moment ago and listens. “Everyone in the current tutorial has strength as their first stat. In a previous group though half of them it was called might. The thing is, these words bring to mind specific aspects of being able to lift heavy things.” Mud tosses the rock away. “It is of course all nonsense to limit it like that. After I explain a little bit more, you should read through the description of each stat.”

“Before that, there are a couple other things on your status. Name would seem self explanatory. It is, the only catch being you get one name change for free after your race’s age of majority as determined by the System. This brings us to your race. Should say human, but don’t tell me if it doesn’t. In fact, don’t tell any of your status screen to others. Some people like to say that you can tell it to someone if you trust them with your life. Bet you they would like you to trust them that much, you get me? Skip the next and move right on to your level. Yours is zero and you don’t get to leave the tutorial until it is otherwise. Levels do not provide any innate bonus for that we need the previous entry.”

“Paths are now the most important thing in this universe. Tell no one what your paths are and how far along you are in them. Even the idiots that say you can tell your status to those you trust will single out paths as being something you keep secret from everyone. During the tutorial you get to choose a single path to start with. The paths on offer come from what you have gone through. What these paths do is increase your stats, give abilities, and just generally provide you with power. They do this in two ways. First by breakpoints in a path and second is stat ups every level.”

“Now what are those breakpoints I mentioned? Simple enough every path takes a certain number of points to complete and at specific intervals you get stuff. An example of this is the Path of the Tutorial. That’s all of you will get if you can’t manage anything better. Gives a single point in one of the physical stats for every point you put in it based on whichever is the lowest.”

“What’s that look for? Oh, right! I forgot to mention the categories to your stats. There are three types and three styles of stats. Body, Mind, and Soul are the types. Strength is a body type. The styles are Power, Finesse, and Specialty. Strength, using it as an example again, is a Power style stat. You can get a better explanation of this when you read the descriptions of your stats.”

“Anyway, where was I? Ah, the points. No you don’t get points every level up. You get a point for every skill level you get, which brings us to the last thing on your status. It is currently empty because the System will only give you them when you perform the skill under its influence. Nice thing about skills is that they provide some info when you level them. Because the universe didn’t have any magic or such the guy who set up the System, provided some starter info to get us off our feet. What this means is that after a certain point that handy info dries up as there are no level caps on skills and there is only basic info in the System.”

“I sneer at calling it basic as some of the topics we haven’t even found the end of the info yet despite eons of time. There is some more stuff left, but I will leave that to the actual tutorial. Now go and check through the stats. A single letter doesn’t tell you anything. Oh, and while silent commands are hard. Physical ones like poking an interface are easy so try that or something.” Finished with this nonsense Mud walks off to watch the rest of the people in the tutorial. Doyle can only shrug and start poking each of the stats.

{Strength: The power of one’s body. This does represent how much weight you can lift, but it goes much further than that. On a very basic level, your body will become stronger. You become harder to bludgeon or damage in general. Muscles will also shift around to optimize themselves for the things you most often do. The body of someone who chops trees all day will look much different from one who spends the time running messages. Beyond these aspects, strength affects a number of small miscellaneous things in your body.

Agility: The finesse of one’s body. Your basic ability to bend and move around. Besides the obvious damage reduction of just not being where the attack is, agility also provides protection against cuts. Enough points in agility will alter your body’s joints to allow a greater range of motion as well as provide flexibility to bones as to prevent breakage. A common misconception is that agility directly increases your movement speed. It does not.

Constitution: A body’s specialty is maintaining itself. While this can represent greater regeneration from damage, there are many paths this can take. Each person can have something different affected by constitution. Some heal faster and others become impossible to poison. While the other two body stats can change the body when high enough your constitution will change you with the first added point.

Intelligence: The power of one’s mind. Your race does not understand the mind enough to explain fully what this stat does. However, on a basic level this increases the speed at which you can think through things and remember stuff. It will also allow you to remember more details of what you purposefully memorize, providing a major boon to certain schools of magic and other power usages.

Wisdom: The finesse of one’s mind. Your race does not understand the mind enough to explain fully what this stat does. Most important though is this increases the flexibility of your thoughts. This stat will increase your ability to connect disparate facts that others might not as well as form a mental defense. What it does not do is make your judgement any better. One side benefit of wisdom is it increases your ability to spot things.

Presence: A minds specialty is projecting. Your race does not understand the mind in most things but have excelled in this aspect of it. This represents a person’s ability to affect others on a mental level. On a personal level this is how well you can project yourself to or hide from others. It is very important to those in a position of command as it increases the chance that subordinates understand your orders in not just the word but the spirit. A side benefit is that when high enough it will fix various speech impediments that are not from physical maladies.

Destiny: The power of one’s soul. The System restricts info on this stat for those with a soul stat total less than 1000. Those with a greater destiny have an easier time advancing.

Karma: The finesse of one’s soul. The System restricts info on this stat for those with a soul stat total less than 1000. This represents the power of your connections to others, both good and bad.

Luck: A souls specialty is connections. The System restricts info on this stat for those with a soul stat total less than 1000. Even reality itself will bend for those connected to it.}

Doyle dismisses the screens and then takes a glance around. Mud is out of sight at this point, so he was without a guide. Frustrated, he almost yelled but then thought better of it and whispered, “what do these numbers even mean? What is the starting number supposed to be? What does it mean that I have no karma?” For once complaining to the world works. Though this has more to do with it being a tutorial than anything else as right after he asks those questions a series of system messages pops up.

{Starting stats for those integrated into the system later in life are based on their natural body, mind, and soul.}

{Humans have an average starting value of around ten in body and mind stat at maturity. No uniform starting value found for soul based stats. Common range for soul stats of humans vary from 3 to 18}

{Your soul’s natural ability to connect to anything outside of yourself has been judged as negligible.}

Doyle slowly blinks, “Okay, so what do I do next?”

{Tutorial guides should provide information on the next goal.}

{ERROR: Guides appear to have abandoned tutorial participant. Contacting nearest tutorial guide with a viable connection to the participant.}

{ERROR: No present guides have any connection to participant. Search for a matching guide in progress.}

{QUERY: Individual in current tutorial instance has volunteered to work as your guide. Do you ACCEPT or DENY this offer? WARNING: Individual offering assistance is a non-standard sentient.}

Doyle complains, “really? I already knew I wasn’t good at making friends, but this is ridiculous! My soul is unable to connect, and that is why? I bet that orc lady didn’t kill me because of this as well. Why bother to kill something so unconnected to you after all? You know what? Sure, I accept whoever offered assistance.” He presses the button and at first, not much happens. That is until the very land beneath him opens up and swallows him into the depths.