Tedrick stared at the screen in front of him before sighing. Advanced appraise, huh? Levels and shit… god, this was ridiculous. He almost DIED, and now… what? He leveled because of it?

Glancing around, he found somewhere nearby that would be safe, reasonably far away from where he had his encounter with the snake… which was a good mile or three away and all the way up a tree, the very tippy top, where the branches were too thin to support such a creature. With a stone orb around him.

One tended to be a bit more cautious right after a near… shit, actual death experience.

He may not have been too familiar with games, but he was familiar with books. And books frequently had a particular trouble.

It was time for an info dump, and he was determined to look up as much as he could in one session.

Well… he could have guessed that much. Time to work down the list. Tentatively, he said, “Status,” and all the information he had just gotten from his level up popped back up in front of him, making him jump… again. God, he was so jumpy right now. He rubbed his face and sighed. He’d even appraise the obvious, just to make sure he knew all the nuances. He didn’t want a nasty surprise later on because he didn’t do enough research.

Alright. Makes sense. It was what he expected it to be, though he wondered why a world had something like that in the first place.

Interesting… he wondered if he had more or less special stats than normal. He hoped for more, though, knowing the luck he had thus far in this world… he wasn’t expecting much. This was going to take a while… Tedrick sighed. At least he was lucky enough to have such a good memory, since he had nothing to write notes down on.

What the hell were aspects? He sighed again, which turned into an irritated groan. Another thing to look up.

So… elements, but more complicated? More general? Were there an unlimited amount of aspects or was there a finite number to them? If items could be made to have these aspects built into them, that could be quite strong. He hmm’d as he thought of the applications, finger curled against his lips. If he intended to interact with society at some point, then that might be good to look into as part of a business venture. He’d need a way to make money, if he wanted to sleep in a bed again or have a hot shower someday. Not that he couldn't stand to wait a bit to interact with others.

Spending points to directly increase one’s abilities… that was something that would take a lot of thinking. How people here avoided analysis paralysis on matters such as this, he didn’t know. On top of that, the sound of loot was interesting. He’d hold off for now, as he didn’t have anywhere to put such a thing. If whatever popped out was normal human size, he wouldn’t even be able to carry it around.

Now he had the bulk of things to look through, after covering the categories. This… was going to take a while.

Well… he had no idea what was a “good” score for these things, but he had the feeling that his eight in strength wasn’t great. Toughness was 76, which felt much better, though was clearly not nearly enough given the… horrible feeling of getting speared with thorns. Though he suspected that most of that damage came from the blood loss he got from getting banged around after losing chunks of himself, on top of the poison. A touch to his thigh revealed that there was a slight dip in the flesh there. That’d be fun to think about later. Whatever, he didn’t like free time anyway.

Speed and dexterity though? Those were at 306 and 256. He moved fast, that much he knew. For dextrous activities, he hadn’t had much opportunity to go and futz around, but he imagined he was quite good at that as well if the numbers made sense.

Knowledge 136. He felt like he was smarter than the average joe, so that probably wasn’t a shabby number. The staminas though; that made less sense to him. 61, 61, 151, and 151, going down the list. All of these meant diddly squat without a concrete representation.

56, 13, 131, and 126. He had the same problem with these “power” stats. What they meant could be anything.

Shit. Willpower went up by 221 points in total to reach 301! What the hell? All his other stats only raised like at most ten points or so. Was that because he died? Tedrick scrunched his nose at the thought, giving a soft huff of disapproval. Stress Resistance went up by 21 to reach 76 points, too. Yeah. Yeah, that made sense.

Special stats were next.

Well, considering it was a special skill, 12 points in charm wasn’t high but any bonus was welcome. Curiosity at 20 still didn’t mean much to him, but… again, anything was nice? It was just odd, and it was kind of frustrating how little understanding it actually imparted, but he supposed that the skill grew for a reason. Having passive luck felt like the best opportunity of the three in the long run, and at 40, it was better than the other two.

Last two. The highest was his telekinetic strength, which made sense. 81 made up for his eight regular strength. A passive stealth was a weird idea to wrap his head around, and at only 11 he doubted it was great, but… maybe it’d come in handy?

The next section was daunting: Skills. It was long, and had a lot of stuff happening. He looked over every one of them and committed them to memory. A few stood out. For one, his flight was maxed out with a bunch of sub-skills; glide, improved flight, rapid flight, and soar. He had the distinct feeling that was due to his race. After all, a dragonfly wasn’t much without the flying part. He also had photographic memory, which explained why he couldn’t forget things even if he wanted to, and universal tongue, which explained why he could talk to trees. He was glad to know that he'd have an easier time with communication and learning as long as his patience held out, but he was sure there was more nuance that he wasn't getting. Such as if he understood what was said word for word, or if he understood intention. It seemed a subtle difference, but it could change everything. Especially since he'd be interacting witha group as tricky as the fae for a time, more than likely.

Huh. Useful. He’d have to think about what sort of specialties he’d like to go into eventually. Once he knew more about life here, that was. The last skill he looked at, though… It brought him pause.

Not only could he not read this one, this… error... it hurt like a bitch to even try. It felt like he was trying to read small font text hidden in bright tv static, but the pain was directly in his mind instead of eyes. “Bullshit,” he grumbled, whispering aloud at no one in particular and he waved away the screen and rubbed his eyes angrily with the backs of his thumbs. Whatever. It was a big glaring question mark in his mind now, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He had to worry about what was in his control, he didn’t have the luxury of debate.

Well… fuck. Some of these looked particularly useful…

Kix of crystal? What, were they dealing drugs now? Tedrick grumbled under his breath at the rabbit hole. He had no concept of how much a frostsmoke crystal was worth, or even what it was.

Right… Great, just great. Whenever he wanted to interact with society, there’d be a whole new system to adjust himself to. Luckily, thanks to his he could tell that a “kix” was about a gram, and a “mote” was both a cubic centimeter, and ten grams. As for a “hiss”, that was 100 cm^3. Universal Translation plus his memory made it easier, but that didn’t stop confusion while he processed it mentally. He’d have to take good notes when he was actually working with this on something… Whatever. Last two, both at ten:

Well… what he went through was definitely some bullshit, but that was no different than life on Earth. At least here he got some kind of compensation for it, it seemed like. He’d be unpacking that for a long time. Though a few of those titles could certainly use some revision… he wasn’t so sure about “luck”.

Salt aside, it felt better to have this all laid out to him in a controlled fashion. It meant there was room to grow, and a clearly visible path to it, though he was going to put in his points later. Moreover, it seemed like he had an arrangement of key skills that played well into his existing skillset. Business law from Earth wouldn't do him much good, but knowing how to play greed or make someone fold like a lawn chair without the need for violence was useful anywhere people were.

Best he figured out how to engage in violence just in case though. He'd clearly need it.