Elora used the key to open the door and another strange room was exposed to them. The walls, floor and ceiling were covered in runes. They were not carved into the stone like the ones on the metal door but drawn in white chalk-like substance. It somewhat reminded him of a cell in an asylum with the same sentence written over and over again on every surface of the cell.

The runes were repeating however they were arranged in a peculiar fashion connecting them all into a single enchantment. Veric noticed it even if he didn’t understand it.

“Are these runes also inactive?” Veric asked.

“Yes, most of the mother’s runes and artefacts have deteriorated over time because no one knows how to properly take good care of them, or how they function. ”

There were many shiny chunks of metal and various crystals on the shelves. There were also a few wardrobes with locks on them and in the middle of the room there was a large cube made out of dark metal. It was half a metre wide, tall and long. The surface of the metal cube was also covered in runes. These ones were black and shiny as if the ink was still wet.

‘I wonder, whether different materials are necessary to form different runes?’

“Is that the artefact you mentioned before?” Veric asked, somewhat surprised by how large it was. ‘A block this large has to weigh at least 900 kilograms. Assuming this is steel and steel has the same density as on earth.’ He thought, wondering how she will be able to lift that thing and carry it all the way to the training grounds.

“Yes, these types of artefacts are used to display other people’s status. Most cities have one of those at the gate and some people are required to get scanned before they can enter, people that have documents or status are not required to be tested. Usually repeated evil acts like theft and murder will create a class, title or a trait related to the crime. This one on the other hand only displays the attributes of the person being tested by the artefact.”

“Why is that?” Veric aked.

“Because it is a prototype mom was working on. Yorel is a Town, not a city even if some call it the city of hammers, the real one costs a lot of gold. The only place in our country that produces these is The Mage’s Academy in Merino, mom was trying to save a lot of money by making one herself.”

“So why is it not at the gate?”

“It’s fragile and unfinished. Asking people to show their stats is often considered invasive. Especially when it serves no purpose.. These artefacts can be also found inside of larger branches of adventurer and mercenary guilds. They use them to verify the strength of their members.”

“And how do you use it?”

“You just have to place your hand on top of the cube.” She said and walked over to the cube. Veric followed her and saw that on top of the cube there was a large handprint. The handprint was a few millimetres deep and all of the crevices and papillary lines of the hand were clearly visible in the imprint.

“I am guessing that you want me to place my hand there?” he asked while pointing at the handprint.

“Yes.” She said with clear anticipation in her eyes. She didn’t believe that her brother was a liar but being in the third tier before the age of fifteen was unimaginable to her.

Veric placed his hand on top of the large cold metal handprint. Instantly the handprint started to shrink and the metal became soft. His hand started to involuntarily sink a few millimetres into the metal, he could tell that he would not be able to remove his hand even if he tried.

Veric closed his eyes because he wanted to be able to sense the movement of mana inside of the artefact better and then thin tendrils of mana penetrated his palm and travelled throughout his body. The tendrils were extremely thin and fast as if unimpeded by his body which was extremely surprising to him. It took the tendrils 2 seconds to penetrate and scan his entire body, not giving him enough time to react to them. Afterwards, the tendrils retracted and Veric was able to remove his hand from the artefact.

The runes surrounding the handprint started to glow with golden light which coalesced to produce a golden paper-thin hologram displaying Veric’s attributes.

Vitality

9

Constitution

8

Strength

2

Agility

3

Dexterity

3

Intelligence

409

Wisdom

406

Willpower

36

‘Prometheus. Did you manage to collect any data about these mana tendrils?’ Veric asked in his head.

Kinslayer

No. The mana didn’t enter your core.

‘I can somewhat imagine how this artefact would scan my body but how did it figure out wisdom, Intelligence and especially willpower? I wonder whether I could recreate that spell. It would let me determine the stats of other people?’

Kinslayer

Insufficient Data.

‘You are a lot of help. Thank you.’

Kinslayer

You are welcome!

(•‿•)

Veric smiled at the sarcastic message from Prometheus and looked up at his sister. Her eyes were wide open and so was her mouth. Her blonde eyebrows have created curved arches.

“You will catch a fly.” Veric said somewhat satisfied with her reaction.

Elora closed her eyes and mouth and rubbed her eyelids for a few seconds after which she looked at her brother with exasperation. She pinched his nose and said. “Don’t be smart with me.”

Veric pointed at the hologram and replied. “I can’t help it.”

Elora shook her head and then smiled.

“Could you show me your stats?” Veric asked.

Hesitantly she placed her hand on the artefact and her stats became displayed on the screen.

Vitality

76

Constitution

70

Strength

58

Agility

60

Dexterity

30

Intelligence

18

Wisdom

17

Willpower

34

“Wow, those are quite high. Especially your vitality and constitution. How high is your health and stamina?”

Elora rolled her eyes at his assessment. “You know that you have more points in intelligence alone than I have in all of my stats combined right?”

“So? I can’t do anything with them yet, but apparently, you can lift this heavy artefact. If I had a choice between fighting one hundred of me and one of you then I would rather choose 100 of me. You are clearly stronger than a tier 3 person.” He said hoping to make her feel better while also being honest.

“And so is everyone else in the castle.” She said with a smile

“So how high are your health and stamina?”

“Both are around 3500 each.”

“Wow, that is quite high. As I imagined health, mana and stamina scale with your level?”

“Yes, the higher your level becomes the more health, stamina and mana one will have.”

“Do other stats also become more powerful at higher levels?”

“No they are fixed but they don’t scale linearly after they break through their tier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me give you an example. If you are a pure-blooded human and you have 2 points of strength then your maximum lifting capacity is somewhere between 10 to 20 kilograms when your strength is 50 your limit should be somewhere around 400 up to 500 kilograms. That is the limit of the 0th tier human. But once your strength reaches 51 your limit jumps up to 550 an equivalent of around 4 or 5 points in the previous tier. When your strength reaches 58 you can lift around 900 kilograms. “

“So with 100 points in the strength stat you should be able to lift 3000 kg?”

“Yes. That is how it works.”

“What about after level 100?”

“I don’t know. Tell me once you reach that point.”

“Oh come on, tell me. It’s not like that is going to happen anyway. I would have to invest 200 free attribute points for that to happen.”

“I really don't know. There are very few people in the castle that have exceeded 100 points in strength and they usually don’t brag about how much they can lift.”

‘That’s completely different than on earth then.’ Veric thought.

“So how will you carry that artefact? By my estimation, the weight of that object should be at your maximum limit. Unless… You said that it applied to pure-blooded humans, are you saying that it’s different for you?”

“You are so smart, Veric.” Elora said and patted his head, still salty about his stats.

“Due to our giant heritage, I have inherited the special trait called: [Lesser Might Of The Giants] my maximum lifting capacity is increased by 25%.”

“Do you have any drawbacks like me?”

“Yeah. My mana capacity is lowered by 10% but I don’t use mana in my swordsmanship so it doesn't affect me.”

“That’s so unfair.”

“Says the twelve year old boy with stats corresponding to the third tier.”

“Is the third tier that impressive?”

“I am pretty sure that there are less than 10 people in the whole barony with stats corresponding to that tier.”

“Why? Does levelling up becomes a lot harder further down the line?”

“Harder is an understatement. How many experience points in total do you need to reach the next level?”

“7.”

“Do you wanna guess how many I need to reach the next level?”

“Maybe 800?” He said with hope in his eyes.

“Good guess, but wrong. I need 22750 XP. In the beginning, levelling up is easy, later on, it becomes extremely difficult which is why the majority of the population is stuck in the 0th tier. Now imagine how many experience points you need to go from level 200 to level 201 in order to reach the third tier?”

“266000.” Veric replied after calculating the number based on more data.

“It was a rhetorical question but you are right. It took me a while to calculate that myself but apparently your high intelligence is not just a number.”

“If being in a third tier is so special do you think we should keep it a secret?”

“I don’t know but I think we should tell father.”

“Do you really think this is a good idea?”

Elora’s face became slightly saddened, she was aware that their father was not as favourable to Veric as he was towards his other children and neither were his brothers. But to her, they were a family and she didn’t want to believe that their father would do anything to Veric. She thought the same about Rigon, so her outlook has been put into question.

After a few moments of thought, Elora replied. “Let’s keep it a secret for now. Luckily for you, our father is not in the castle right now and will return in two days. I am also in charge of attribute tests, so I will put down your intelligence as 25 and wisdom as 23. Once he returns you will make your decision whether to tell him or not, it is your secret after all. Anyway, Let’s get this thing to the courtyard and then we will go to the dining hall. I already told Dara to take a day off. So you will spend the rest of the day with me.”

“Ok.” He replied. He was happy that he could trust her with this secret while also being worried about Dara. ‘I hope Dara didn’t become too affected by my state last night.’

“It is quite heavy so you will be on door duty. Open and close them behind me.” she said and handed him the key to the door.

Veric nodded and walked over to the door while Elora squatted and grabbed the large metal cube by the diagonal corners. Her form was similar to Olympic weightlifters. She lifted the cube over her head, rested it on her right shoulder and stood up from a squat in one smooth motion.

“Let’s go.” She said and they started walking towards the courtyard.

^^^^^

Veric was sitting on the ground panting with sweat on his forehead. After walking for such a long time his legs felt like jelly.

You have exceeded your strength and stamina through repeated exercise.

Strength +1

Constitution +1

Even though his legs were in pain he was still satisfied. ‘From the knowledge in my world, I assumed that an increase in strength would occur during the rest period. My muscles are still sore from doing push-ups yesterday so maybe it also helped.’

“My strength and endurance have increased by one.” he said while panting.

“That’s great.” Elora said while setting down the nearly 900kg block of steel on a designated pedestal with relative ease.

“Not really due to my Nessari bloodline my physical attributes are halved and the system rounds them down. So my actual strength is exactly the same as it was before.”

“Hmm, so in reality, you most likely have normal stats for a child your age but you are greatly limited by being a Nessari.”

“I think so.”

“You really will need to train twice as hard as everyone else then.”

Veric sighed knowing that she was right. He wanted to become stronger. Being out of breath after 15 minutes of walking was mentally exhausting and limiting.

“Are there any shortcuts to becoming stronger?” Veric said, hoping that the system can be exploited. ‘If the system behaves like a video game then maybe it also has bugs and exploits like one? But considering even members of the nobility have a problem with becoming stronger, maybe the system adapts to exploits. It definitely seems to be observing my every action, so even if I find an exploit the system will most likely patch itself.’

“Many, but each has a catch. The universe loves balance. Nothing beats hard work and effort.” She said with a radiant smile.

Veric nodded in agreement. ‘I wonder if there are spells which can make me stronger? This way I could completely focus on int and wis while maximising my magical powers. Or whether that lab has more potions like Tears of Nessari? I didn’t see any glass bottles with a purple liquid in there so maybe the one I drank was the last one. The system told me to save my tears but I don’t know if they are just an ingredient or a potion itself. Additionally, I don’t know whether it would the same effect on me after completing the trial. ’

“Are you ready, or do you need a few more seconds to catch your breath.“

Just as he was about to ask for a bit more rest. A loud feminine voice resounded through the courtyard.

“Good morning, Elora!” Veric turned his head and saw a group of three young women dressed in clothing similar to what Elora was wearing walking towards them. White shirts, brown trousers. Thick leather boots which reached halfway up their calves and wide leather belts around their waists. Each of them had a sword hanging from their belt.

The middle one who was walking at the front of the group had green eyes, wavy, red, braided hair in a bun, revealing her long neck, collar bone and olive skin. The first thought that came to Veric’s mind was. ‘A ginger with a tan. I truly am in a fantasy world.’ She was waving at them and seemed to be the oldest and the most energetic out of the group.

The one to the left was also ginger and looked quite similar to the leader of the group however she looked slightly younger and had hazel eyes instead of green. ‘She is probably her younger sister.’ Veric thought and turned his attention to the girl on the right.

She had short black hair and a faint duelling scar on her left cheek. Her eyes were brown and the most exhausted out of the group. Her posture wasn’t as straight as the other two. Veric quickly recognised the symptoms of sore muscles in her gait, symptoms he became personally acquainted with since this morning. ‘A fellow weakening I presume. Hopefully, not everyone around me will be able to lift a small car while I die from a leisurely stroll. ’

“Good morning girls! How did your morning training go?” Elora replied enthusiastically while waving back.

It didn’t take long for the girls to arrive before the siblings. “Good. Nadine is getting used to our routine now. Who is that?” The tanned ginger asked while pointing at Veric with her chin.

“This is my brother Veric. Verick this is Abby, Alessandra and Nadine.” She said while pointing from left to right.

“Nice to meet you Veric. Your sister told us a lot about you.” Alessandra, the older ginger said.

“Has she-” before Abby could finish Alessandra elbowed her in the stomach.

“Yes, you must have not listened to her properly. Anyway, Is that the artefact?” She said trying to change the subject.

Veric acted like he didn’t mind, he somewhat understood it. ‘Talking about your presumably disabled brother is probably not at the top of her list of subjects during social events. It’s not like she mentioned them very often to me either, talking about how much fun she is having outside while her brother is basically chained to the bed is not the most empathetic thing someone can do.’

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s a lot bigger than I expected… We are going to the dining hall now. Are you coming?” Alessandra asked.