Allen yawned and leaned back on one of the benches out front of the inn. It was starting to get late and there still wasn’t any sign of Ty and Camila. On the other hand, Jack and the others had already been waiting in front of the building when he returned with Nora and Phantom. Apparently they had gone to Hillford to ask the local officials if they knew anything, but that didn’t really get anywhere.

At the moment, they were all just waiting underneath the awning near the entrance to the inn since the room was too cramped for all of them. Jack had put off any discussions until the whole group was present, not wanting to repeat himself. Thus, Allen had decide to focus on his status. He had a lot of stat points to spend, but he was still saving up his other points for the level two-hundred threshold. The problem was how he was going to spend them.

“So, I either balance out my build until I have the skills to support min-maxing like I am, or I double down and become an even greater danger to myself…” Allen narrowed his eyes at his highest stat, strength. Along with his chaotic mana, his unbalanced strength stat was responsible for most of the damage he took during fights. Every hit with Chaotic Destruction demolished his arms almost as badly as it damaged high-leveled enemies. “…I’ll probably be fine with Amelia around, so double down?” He thought about it for a moment, but after a few moments, he decided to ask Christopher for his wisdom.

“I mostly know how the stats work, and I know my maximum safe strength to resistance ratio is probably somewhere less than five-to-one, but he can probably help me get my thoughts straight,” Allen told himself. He sat upright again and cleared his throat. “Christopher, can you help me with balancing my stats? I want to make sure I don’t kill myself with my own skills.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jack mumbled, half asleep.

The professor hummed from his spot on another bench nearby. “Indeed, we should focus on your physical stats then. Strength is your highest primary physical stat, I assume?”

“Yeah.”

“Right, strength is obviously just your physical power, simple by itself. Vitality is your body’s internal constitution and robustness; among other things, it gets you a healthier body, stronger heart, longer lifespan, and a better immune system. Then, endurance is your body’s ability to go without rest, sleep, food, water and other resources.” Christopher gave Allen a look to make sure he was still listening. Allen nodded; he already knew all of what had just been said.

Satisfied, the professor continued. “They’re simple by themselves, but I think you might be overlooking the fact that the way your body is actually affected by these stats is more complicated. For example, high strength, high vitality, and low endurance results in incredibly bulky fast-twitch muscle, while high strength, high endurance, and low vitality results in thin and light slow-twitch muscle.”

“So, a power lifter versus a marathon runner?” Allen asked. “What do you get with just high strength then?”

“Exactly,” Christopher confirmed. “With only strength though, your resistance is probably very low. You have the strength, but not the body to support it. Resistance is a secondary stat, and like all secondary stats, it exists to force a balance onto your build. I’m sure you know not to let it drop below one fifth of your strength stat, or you’ll tear yourself apart from any intense movements… You should probably keep it above one quarter of your strength, actually.”

Allen nodded. “I already know this too.”

“Resistance is strange though, it’s equal to the product of endurance and intelligence, divided by strength. It prevents the high-powered hulk warrior from becoming unbeatable by just maxing strength and vitality.”

“That’s the reason why Glaedyr is so fragile before his berserker job takes effect... Wait, he knows the equation?”

“Raising the intelligence stat won’t stop your body from being hurt from your physical skills though, only your soul from your magical skills. Your problem, I believe, is that you can’t decide between vitality and endurance. You need vitality to support your strength, but endurance for your resistance stat. You know increasing vitality will decrease your dexterity and increasing your endurance will decrease your speed. So, which one is more important?”

“Dexterity,” Allen replied. “I need dexterity for accurate attacks and… oh that’s right, I have no range. I used illusions, and force magic before, not entirely melee attacks.”

Jack snorted. “Did you forget your old build? You loved to turn invisible and shake bookcases like you were a ghost or something.”

“Shut up,” Allen snapped. He turned back to Christopher with a questioning look. “So maybe speed is more important, and I should actually focus on vitality to build fast-twitch muscle instead of relying entirely on resistance?”

The professor nodded. “Yes, that’s my guess. So long as you always have around twice as much strength as vitality, you won’t gain so much bulk. So, maximize your strength, minimize your endurance, set your vitality somewhere in the middle to balance things out, and of course, don’t let your resistance drop too low.”

Allen nodded again. “Alright, thanks a lot,” he said, quickly turning his attention back to his status.

“Of course,” the professor replied.

Amelia took her turn to ask Christopher about the mental stats instead. Allen already knew exactly what he needed there for his mentalist job later on, so he drowned them out and pulled up his status.

Then Nora leaned in and whispered into Allen’s ear. “How does he know so much?” she asked, clearly referring to Christopher.

Allen just shrugged and studied his numbers again. After a few minutes of thought he put twenty of his fifty available points into vitality, another twenty into strength, and the remaining ten into intelligence. His resistance didn’t drop at all thanks to the ten points in intelligence; that would definitely help bring out his increased vitality even more. His mana pool was still low however, even if his regen was alright. Chaotic Destruction ate tons of mana, but thankfully Assassinate could help him lower the need for the full cost.

Status:

Jeremiah Allen Durand

Human – Rogue – Level 156

XP: 20023/48387 (3,565,853)

Stat Points: 0, Skill Points: 40, Job Points: 1

Jobs:

Silent Lurker

Basic – Tier 9

Chaotic Destroyer

Basic – Tier 10

Mentalist

Basic – Tier 3

Stats:

HP: 3250/3250

Regen: 98/min

SP: 4900/4900

Regen: 65/min

MP: 1925/1925

Regen: 70/min

Primary:

STR: 98

INT: 55

VIT: 58 (65)

WIS: 38 (35)

END: 40 (50)

FCS: 70

Secondary:

DEX: 126 (105)

PER: 41

RES: 28

STB: 78

SPD: 150 (137)

LCK: 32

---

Allen could feel the results almost immediately. The loss of dexterity was small compared to how much quicker and snappier his body felt. He also felt more energetic from the sharp increase in vitality, like he hadn’t been fully awake until just then. His perception, stability, and luck had also gone up as well. Stability was the most important of the three for later on, but perception was also important. Luck was just there for things like critical hits, system related RNG, and to make the status screen symmetrical of course.

“Still not enough mana for two consecutive fully charged Chaotic Destructions, not that I think that would be wise. Still, this is much better than I was expecting. I would have just dumped my points into strength and focus, with a little extra in endurance, this is much better.” He briefly considered spending a few of his skill points but discarded the idea. They were much better spent when the two-hundred threshold unlocked tier fifteen.

Allen was in the middle of planning how he would spend his skill points when Camila and Ty finally showed up, only they weren’t alone. There was a whole entourage of six men with them, and all of them were around level three-hundred and in various states of drunk. Camila was even wearing the equivalent of a baggy t-shirt that had the words “Number One Wingman” written on the front.

“Who the fuck are they?” Allen queried, raising an eyebrow as Camila nearly tripped into a bench with a hiccup. Her new friends just plopped down onto the ground nearby and laughed drunkenly.

“Uh, um… they’re mercenaries,” Ty began. He was still swaying around a bit, but with his vitality it would take more than a few drinks to actually get him drunk. “They have information… and also… Cam ate a shitload of uh… spicy chicken wings.”

“That’s… good to know,” Allen thought. On closer inspection, the Berserker still had some sauce smeared across her face.

“Mercenaries?” Jack asked after a moment. He and Allen gave each other a look before silently coming to the same conclusion. “I think we should wait until tomorrow, we’ll need more rooms,” Jack finished with a smirk.

Allen watched everyone make their way inside the building. The innkeeper rolled his eyes upon being greeted by the crowd, but a few rooms were booked, and everyone got themselves sorted out eventually.

Allen roomed with Jack, Christopher, and Ty, the latter of which had drunken a minor detoxification potion to sober himself up. Out of the four of them, only Christopher was tired, so he decided to go straight to sleep since there wasn’t anything he had learned that Jack didn’t. The remaining three shared their report of the day.

“The Hillford Guard didn’t really have much to say about the Lanthinus Company, but they did get a notification about them from the ESF capital recently,” Jack began, sitting down on one of the two chair in the room.

There were two beds, but even if jack wasn’t sleeping, somebody would have to roll out a mat on the floor. Probably Allen.

“What did they say?” Ty asked.

Jack pulled a few pieces of paper out of his inventory and placed them on the table beside him. One was a notice about the company, and another was a warning about monster related disappearances. “Only that they were known smugglers, but the local authorities hadn’t really cracked down on them. They apparently didn’t know Lanthinus was also selling slaves, so I’m not certain we’ll have enough information to track down all of the villagers.”

Ty grunted. “We should just go after the Lanthinus convoy then. Those mercenaries have been tracking them for weeks on suspicion of human trafficking. There’s a bounty on whoever’s been trading slaves throughout the ESF, and it’s probably that convoy.” Ty took a breath and continued. “The problem is, since those mercenaries took a job working to guard the camp, they have information on the people inside, and we’re not strong enough.”

Jack hummed thoughtfully. “Go on,” he said.

“There are four or five dozen crafters, laborers and fighters who are employed by the company, but they might just be slaves. Then there are another dozen or so unmarked fighters and crafters between level three and five hundred, one of them I’m sure is that guy with the telekinesis. Then there are four noble-types at level eight hundred at least. The mercenaries gave us a short description of all of the skills and magic they had seen for each one of them.”

“Good, that’s helpful. What makes you say they’re nobles though?” Jack questioned. His expression had darkened somewhat. Nobles being involved tended to make everything worse.

Ty only shrugged. “That was the description the mercenaries gave us. They only saw a little bit, and not which country they were from. Only vague descriptions of their magic and classes.”

Jack sighed. “What about you?” he asked Allen.

Allen ordered his thoughts for a moment. “Well, I heard almost all of the workers who were at the Lanthinus company encampment were hired locally. I met one of them and I think he gave me your missing link to Hillford,” Allen began with a grin. “If he can be believed, I believe we should pay the governor a visit. If this is all connected to nobles, then we might get even better information out of him.”

“Figures. It’s always the—”Jack started with a huff, but a buzzing noise cut him off. It sounded just like a cellphone ringing on silent. Jack reached into his leather jacket and pulled out the glowing and vibrating communication totem. “Oh, it’s probably Shoam,” he said, and activated the item.

“Measured steps,” came the elf’s voice.

“Silent voices,” Jack replied.

“I have nothing to report here,” Shoam continued. “There’s nobody here, no signs of a struggle, and nothing but forest until the next village. The monsters here are only low leveled horned wolves and wood trolls. Whoever went through here is gone now.”

“It’s starting to look like they might be involved,” Allen murmured.

Jack only gave Allen a narrow eyed look before speaking back into the totem. “Okay, meet us at the Village of Silt Valley, North of Hillford in the ESF. We’re going after the slavers, and it seems like there’s some high level nobles among them, so bring backup.”

“Understood,” Shoam replied, and the call ended.