“What do I know about mana? I know how much I have and that I have to use it to cast a spell. I know I can only drink two or three potions a day and most people don’t reset their mana until after they sleep, although I don’t know why,” Orrin said. He stretched out in his chair.

Tony noticed the stretch. “I’d say let’s go for a walk, but this conversation should be as private as possible. A lot of what I’m going to tell you isn’t exactly common knowledge. Sorry.”

Orrin shrugged.

“Mana is your life force or Will. It’s the mental energy of your body. When you cast a spell, you are exerting your Will upon the world and changing it. To do so, you use a part of yourself. If you choose to increase your Will, you expand your life force and are able to use more as a result. On the other hand, your Intelligence is how well you can utilize that life force and tap into the neutral mana all around, which is why the price of spells is cheaper with a higher Intelligence. When a person sleeps, they are recharging their own mana pool. There are a few ways to refill your pool but that is different than recharging. Mana potions and [Blood Mana], for instance.”

“That makes sense. I guess [Meditate] just allows a slow recharge though?”

“[Meditate] is an outlier. It recharges your mana pool like sleep, so any recovered life force, or mana, won’t count as refilled mana. Refilling your mana pool with potions is different. You are using somebody else’s mana and that creates some instability in your life force. Drink too many and your body rejects your life force from recovering. This manifests in different ways for people. Some lose the ability to ever do magic again, some go insane, and some just die.”

“The same with health potions right?” Orrin stopped himself from picking at a loose splinter in the table.

“Not at all. Health and skill activations are separate topics. Well, maybe not completely. What you are doing with [Blood Mana] is converting your own health into mana so I guess I should step back and explain that before going any further.”

Tony stood and walked around the small kitchen, windmilling his arms. “I’m going to start at the basics, so bear with it. Strength is, in general, how strong you are. Dexterity is how fast you can move or react. But neither is completely just physical.”

“But I-“

“Don’t interrupt or I’ll lose my train of thought,” Tony said, pointing a finger in Orrin’s direction. “A person with high dexterity moves faster, yes. But it also lets them process and think a bit faster. A lot of people miss that. It’s why keeping your stats level is so important, but every generation thinks they can find a way around it. If you dump straight into one stat, it always backfires. You create your own weakness. But that’s only half of it. You also have to deal with Constitution.”

Tony continued talking as he walked in circles around the table. Orrin stood and leaned back on the wall, creating more space around the small room for Tony to pace. “Constitution dictates how much health you have, but it also is so much more. It’s how well you can take a hit or survive a spell. It reduces the damage you take and lets you survive longer without food. Constitution is the most overlooked stat we have and people never give it the credit it’s due. Your health is just a construct. A person with one health and a hundred can be one hit from death. I’m sure you know about critical hits?”

Orrin nodded.

“Your health is just a representation of how much damage your body can take before you go down. Even at zero health, a person might be able to survive if somebody is around to keep them stable. It’s slipping into the negatives that kills you.”

Tony turned to Orrin. “Do you know why your mana, your life force, will reset when you sleep but your health can take days or weeks to fully recover without a healing spell or potion?”

Orrin shook his head. “But I’m guessing you’ll tell me.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Tony said as he stuck the stump of his tongue out at Orrin. “Your Strength and Dexterity are your life energy. The physical part of you that makes you...you. The meat sack that walks around and does what your mind tells it to do. Your Will and Intelligence are your life force, the intangible pieces, your thoughts, your dreams, your mind.”

“So the physical stats are my body and the magic stats are my mind?”

“In general, yes. But also no. Because remember I said Dexterity has some mental aspects? Well so do Will and Intelligence. Even Strength to an extent. I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole, but suffice it to say, the two sets have a small piece of the other in each other. Does that make sense?”

“Like yin and yang?”

“What’s that?” Tony stopped and looked at Orrin.

Orrin walked over to the table and drew a circle. He separated it into two sides with a curvy “s” and doodled a yin and yang symbol, complete with shading and two smaller inversed circles inside.

“It represents dark and light, I think. How the two need each other and are actually part of each other,” Orrin explained.

Tony stood over the paper for a long silent minute. “This is the best explanation for stats I have ever seen. Do you know what the circle is? The two halves connected into one?”

“Yeah, I told you. It’s a yin and yang symb-“

Tony slapped Orrin upside the head. “This side here, the darker one. It’s your Strength and Dexterity. The other is your Intelligence and Will. What is missing?”

“Constitution?”

“Constitution. Your life energy and life force working together. Constitution is your health but it’s also your life energy and life force. Without Constitution, you have neither Strength nor Will. Without the others, you don’t have Constitution. It’s more than just your HP. It builds a buffer for all your other stats.” Tony drew his finger in the circle around Orrin’s drawing. “It encapsulates and protects everything.”

Orrin stared at his sketch. “Huh?”

Tony looked down at the ground and took a deep breath. “When a fighter uses a skill, what do you think he’s doing?”

“Huh?” Orrin was feeling more and more stupid.

“When your friend uses a skill, not a spell or something that uses Mana, what do you think is generating that energy?” Tony pushed.

“I...hadn’t really thought about it to be honest,” Orrin replied.

“Some skills like weapon fighting skills are innate. They just become part of a person. Others use mana but most fighting skills don’t have a cost to them. They can just be activated...but only so many times close together” Tony looked Orrin in the eye. “This is a secret that a lot of organizations keep very close and dear. Constitution is the important stat. Strength lets a person hit harder and Dexterity lets them swing faster, but Constitution is how strong their body is. It’s how quickly the skill can recharge and how many times a person’s body can take the damage of using a skill. Have you ever seen a fighter-type overuse a skill? They can’t. They get tired and run out of energy. That’s Constitution protecting them. It’s the same when you use too much mana, your body shuts you down.”

“But why does it only take sleeping to regain your...life force? But life energy takes so much longer?” Orrin finally felt like the wheel was turning in his head again.

“Good question.” Tony’s eyes glimmered. “What do you think?”

“Please don’t play teacher like that. Just tell me.”

Tony frowned. “You really are no fun. Remember what I said about Will and Intelligence earlier? You are using your own life force to exert change on the world around you? There is life everywhere. When you sleep, your body simply absorbs it. It’s like how plants absorb sunlight for nutrients. You do the same when you sleep. Some part of the brain shuts down and you can convert that neutral life force into your own. But health is more than just life force right?”

“It’s life force and life energy,” Orrin said, peering down at his circle.

“Mostly, yes. There’s a lot more technical stuff but that’s the main idea. You can’t create life energy without healing spells, which is really just a fancy conversion of life force into life energy. Otherwise, you have to let your body’s natural processes work and restore whatever you lost.”

Orrin stood silent and then began to scribble notes under the yin and yang doodle. Then he had a thought.

“When we were all in the dungeon, I used a spell to boost everybody’s stats by a lot. But not Constitution. Everybody but me and Daniel got sick. Like passed out on the floor sick. They had all these status effects like fatigue and dizzy and...” He tried to remember the others.

“Brain Fog and Nauseous?”

“Yes. Wait, how do you know?”

“Just because you are unique in being able to boost another person’s stats, doesn’t mean people can’t do it to themselves. There are a few classes, the one that comes to mind is [Berserker]. The person can use a Strength increase skill for a time at the cost of being able to tell friend from foe. They destroy nearly everything in their path. But if their Constitution is too low, they pay the price on the other side of the skill use.”

“So the entire reason they got sick was a low Constitution score?”

Tony shrugged. “That’s my theory. I have no idea why you or the [Hero] didn’t also have the same backlash. Maybe he has a skill that stops the effects. Maybe [Mind Bastion] protected you. We have no way of knowing.”

Orrin sat back down. Tony joined him.

“So if they just increased their Constitution, I could buff them again without worrying about them getting sick? Wait. Dragoon team didn’t get sick either from one of my buffs. Maybe they didn’t get sick.”

“Finding out would be a good idea. The more information we have, the better we can plan. But there’s another thing you haven’t thought of or asked. What do you think cycling, as you call it, does?”

Orrin thought. [Blood Mana] lets me turn health or life energy into life force. [Heal Small Wounds] lets me turn life force or mana, into life energy.

“I’m just turning life energy into life force and back again,” Orrin said aloud. “But the cost isn’t the same. I’m doing an even exchange from health to mana, but it’s cheaper to heal up again.”

“And because you are using less life force...” Tony trailed off.

Orrin imagined the dark and white sections of his drawing moving back and forth. “The extra has to come from somewhere. Even exchange and all that.”

Tony looked surprised. “I didn’t realize you knew that.”

“I barely remember it. Something about a law of physics.”

“What’s physics?” Tony’s eyes shone with his natural curiosity. His hair seemed to stick out even more.

“Later. So when I’m healing, I’m actually using some of my mana but also some of that neutral mana in the air you mentioned?”

“Got it in one.” Tony beamed. “Top marks for you.”

“So that’s why I get sick if I cycle too much.”

“Half right. You also use [Mind Bastion] to ignore what your body is saying. You could probably get away with cycling a bit more if your Constitution was higher as well. Or...”

“Or what?”

“You can buy [Analyze] and we can try to create a subskill that lets you know exactly how much cycling you can do without long term effects. Then you’ll know when to stop and I won’t have to clean vomit out of my hair again.”

Orrin pulled up his store.

[Analyze]- Monitor target. 5 AP.

Would you like to purchase for 5 AP?

Yes or No

“Monitor target? That’s it?”

“It’s one of those skills that grows. It doesn’t cost more ability points and I’ve heard of some very impressive things it can do.”

“You don’t even have it?”

“I haven’t leveled in years. You think I have ability points left over?”

Orrin considered. Five ability points is a lot for a gamble. It might not even work.

He sighed.

Yes. Purchase.

[Analyze] was added to his list of skills.

“What’s next?”