Going into a rather small room behind the counters, we sat around a small round table as the man began:

“While you two have quite the talent as future mages, at the moment you two are too weak to take on any of the more advanced jobs that are posted. However, if you’d like an opportunity to develop your skills, I can offer you two some jobs that will help you do so while not putting you in any danger. Are you interested?”

Nodding my head in agreement, I told the man to go on as he explained.

“Then here are the jobs available for you. For the first job, you could help out at the library and use the time in which you’re not occupied with anything to read books and study magic. The second job is to help here in this guild branch with paperwork and in return, aside from the monetary payment you’d receive, we’d also have one of our mages teach you magic. The last job I can offer you is to help out healing the ill at the church. I can’t promise that you’d receive much in the way of payment as they operate through donations and have limited funds, but it’d provide Miss Alice over there an environment where she could develop the light based skills she has.”

Thinking about the three options, an interesting idea that we could use to level up quickly came to my mind. However, since I wasn’t sure if I’d be possible to pull off, I decided to ask:

“Do we have to take the same jobs together?”

“No, you could each take a different one.”

“Can we change our jobs if we don’t like them?”

“Sure, but I’d recommend you don’t do so if you decide to work for the library, I wouldn’t try to anger the head librarian by leaving after the first day if I were you.”

“G-got it. Then, when can we start?”

“Tomorrow for the position at the library, and today for the other two.”

“Then, I'd like for us to help out at the church today. And for me to work at the library starting tomorrow.”

“Alright then, I’ll contact the library to inform them that you’ll be joining them from tomorrow onwards. And I’ll write a letter of introduction for the church informing them that the two of you will be joining them for the day.”

With that, the two of us made our way out of the DMV/Guild branch with the letter of introduction in hand, as we made our way over to one of the larger churches were people who were ill were able to ask for assistance from the church for free.

As we made the rather long journey to the church, I looked over the stat sheet in my hand one more time as a certain thought came over my mind. Considering that I couldn’t previously see a person’s stats when I was using [Veritas], not even mine for that matter, I wondered if I would now be able to also see this information if I used [Veritas]. Deciding to test this hypothesis, I waited until the two of us were at an empty alley before using [Veritas] on AIlya. Seeing the result, a smile rose on my face as I saw:

Level

14

Soul Tier

10

Strength

12

Agility

13

Reactions

15

Dexterity

20

Endurance

9

Physical Resistance

6

Magic Resistance

14

Speed

14

Mana Control

51

Mana Capacity

78

Physical Skills

[Fencing I] [Prayer I] [Conviction I] [Augury I]

Magic Skills

[Illumination I] [Flash I] [Heal I]

Soul Skills

[Doppelganger X]

Abilities

N/A

Soul Abilities

[Soul Devourer III]

Seeing the stat sheet produced by [Veritas] which contained even soul information, I felt that the tribulation and scare I had gone through just earlier was worth it for having access to this information. Now that I could glean into the truth of stats, I was now aware of a few important things about the nature of stats and levels in this world.

It seemed that the average stats for a regular person was 15 across the board. And that a person's stats would cap out at 25. The only reason people were able to go over that limit in this world, was as a result of the presence of mana and it’s ability in enhancing the bodies of people past their natural limits. Although how far they would be able to exceed these natural limits was tied directly to their potential.

It seemed that the man was correct in saying that the maximum level one could reach would be their potential multiplied by 100, which put the maximum level someone could theoretically reach at 1000. As for him saying that the expected level would be half of that, I expected it to be a result of how it got progressively more difficult to level up as you went along.

That didn’t seem to be the only limits a person would face, as it appeared that after a stat reached 100, you would begin to see diminishing returns for each stat point you gained. Meaning, that for a stat like strength, your strength would increase by a uniform value of ‘1’ until you hit 100. However, from 101-200, your strength would only gain a value of ‘.9’ for every stat point. For 201-300, you would gain ‘.8’ for every point, and so on and so on until you finally hit the max value of 550 strength at 1000 stat points.

This meant that around 300 stat points, you would already be at basically halfway your maximum stat value, and that leveling a stat over 500 stat points was for the most part a waste of time.

The only exception to this rule, appeared to be a persons mana capacity and mana control, as they both would always increase by a value of ‘1’ and did not have cap limit. It was due to mana and the way it was used by the body that people were able to attain these incredibly high stats, and a persons mana value be at least the same as their level. This meant that it was without a question far more profitable to focus on increasing your mana stat than spending points on other stats that gave diminishing returns.

Another thing that I discovered was how levels were calculated, which was a rather simple thing. A person's level started at 1 and would also increase by 1 for every 10 stat points gained after 100, which explained how I was level 12 and Ailya 14. Looking at Ailya’s stats, she had a combined total of 232 stat points, which if we subtracted 100 and divided it by 10, we would get 13 extra levels that she has gained plus her initial 1st.

Satisfied with the new information I had gained, I cancelled [Veritas] and resumed our journey to the church. Along the way, I thought about the information I had just learned about stats and the manner in which I would proceed to increase them along with Ailya as we tried to increase our strength as efficiently as possible…