Dix was still a bit numb. The subconscious part of his brain had gone into overdrive attempting to make sense of how multiple statistical systems could work on one world, while also trying to choose the most advantageous option from the wall that he could see. Luckily, the active portion of his mind was extremely adept at tracking down additional information. “What’s the difference between the gold and silver ones?”

Beauty was stroking Dix’s hand now, and purring against his shoulder. He was fine with her actions, but slightly bewildered. Wasn’t he supposed to do the petting to make her purr? He contemplated that question quietly, while he awaited her answer. Before she answered, or he found an answer, his brain reported back about the options from the golden plaques. The vast majority of those available were actually quite balanced, leaving no real answer over which was best. There were, however, a few odd standouts.

Two of the options were exact opposites in their direction, but identical in their approach. Both seemed to have been made with a huge number of stats for one type of combat, but only a single stat in the opposite style. The one he assumed had been made for a warrior had nine different magical stats, and one labeled just Body. The other set had used exactly the same idea, but its single stat was instead Mental. If he wanted to be just a warrior, rogue, or mage, one of these two would probably be perfect.

Eventually, Beauty stopped purring and got around to answering. “Oh. The silver ones are extinct. Crossroads says you can use them.” With a wave of her hand they were suddenly all covered in text, just like the gold ones. She immediately went back to purring, not realizing that Dix had once again frozen in shock. Considering the mystery and excitement he had gotten from choosing Runeborn, Dix was drooling at the chance to search through all of these options for another such jewel. The only problem he had at the moment was that there was a beautiful goddess so attached to his arm he was worried she’d remove it if he stood.

Leaning down he whispered into her ear, causing Beauty to shiver, “As much as I need to get up and go look closely at all those plaques, I really don’t want to leave you here all alone on the couch.”

Looking up at him with big doe eyes, a light blush, and a joyous smile, Beauty waved her hand at the wall again. All of the plaques popped off the wall, transmuted into balls of light and flew into the palm of her hand. Still smiling and staring at Dix, she clenched her hand, crushing the light, then reopened it to reveal what looked like a cell phone. Dix, who had watched all of this out of the corner of his eye, leaned down to kiss Beauty on the cheek and plucked the device from her hand. Realizing there was no way he was getting his other hand back any time soon, Dix turned the device in his hand until he could work with it.

Much like Crossroads’ Tablet of Racial Mischaracterization, Beauty’s Cell Phone of Statistical Anomalies had a number of options available to help sort through all of the different possibilities. Before he got dug into what he really wanted to do, Dix decided to check the fine print on the options he had already seen. When he tracked them down, he was less shocked than he probably should have been to find out that the statistical systems to make perfect fighters and mages had both been meant to do the exact opposite. They were named Great Mage and Warrior Supreme, sounding like they'd been named by boring children or politicians. The Warrior Supreme system would make an incredibly strong mage, while Great Mage could produce the epitome of a warrior. The irony of the entire thing made him chuckle.

Apparently, the people that had each designed these two systems had the same thought, that more stats applied to one field would make people better at them. Dix had been making a different assumption, that people would earn a number of stat points at each level up, provided there was such a thing, and being able to focus all of those points onto a single stat to boost everything for one type of combat would be a huge boon. These people, according to the descriptions that they had written to describe their systems, had somehow actually assumed the exact opposite. This didn’t leave him a lot of hope for the extinct statistical options he had. If the idiots who had designed these two systems were responsible for the others, there could be some real garbage for him to dig through in search of something useful.

Dix sighed to himself, and started changing the parameters of his search. While he was getting it set up, he asked Beauty a question, knowing it would take her some time to answer. “How many stat points do people get at level up?” The search parameters were dead simple this time. He wanted everything that was extinct. The optional choices to leave certain things out didn’t interest him. For one he didn’t understand what they were actually asking about, and, secondly, he didn’t trust the magic machine, it had terrible logic. To help narrow his search for the two systems he had wanted to look at earlier he had tried searching for mage systems only, and had found the system he thought was perfect for a melee fighter. It had responded the same way with the other options, so it must use the actual description of the person who designed each system, rather than actually sorting them by how they should be used.

Knowing it would be some time before Beauty gave him an answer, he started digging. Quite a few of the systems that he went through had skills disguised as stats. For instance there was one that had a stat called poison control, which would be useful for some sort of anthropomorphic venomous snake sentient, but was completely useless for the normal, non venomous humanoids which had actually designed it. The description did mention that it would be great for helping with the traditional magical style of the ruling death cult of their culture. All four of them.

Others would be useful for certain types of sentients, but not humanoids. Stats like Tentacular Reflex didn’t really work on arms, despite the description once again mentioning it was designed by a humanoid. The name of the other seven Tentacular stats on that particular statistical system left Dix very thankful that the person who designed this disgusting system was dead, and even more disturbed that that person had done this in the first place. Shuddering, he moved on down the list.

The most impressive types of statistical systems he saw were those with multipliers. While the numbers started very low, putting lower level users of those systems at the bottom of the power scale by level, at higher levels they would be nigh unstoppable. None of the surviving systems had multipliers, and given the massive increase in power they provided, there had to be a reason for their extinction. The best idea Dix could come up with for why this had happened was fear. If there was a man who could gain enough power to control the world, the fearful option for the rest of the people was to kill him, and all of his family, before they could become a problem. Despite there being no listed reason as to why the users of these systems had gone extinct, Dix was sure he had the correct answer already.

As he continued to work through the list, Dix realized that most of them were geared towards certain styles of combat, with a few exceptions. This imbalance was the likely reason for their extinction. If your whole clan or family were great archers, and then were attacked by heavy plate warriors with tower shields, their chances of survival were slim. Certain types of monsters were also possible causes for extinction. As for the more balanced styles, their failure to survive was less likely to be based on statistical disparity, and more on luck, politics, or sheer stupidity, amongst other reasons. With a balanced approach to stats, all users can select what works best for them, and keep the group as a whole able to handle a myriad of threats.

Dix realized he had a huge problem only part way through the list. Despite there being systems specifically designed for nearly every style of combat, Dix himself had no idea how he was planning to fight. He had enjoyed the combat style of all three tests, with no clear favorites. Magic had a lot of extra utility that he had loved, but a large part of that had been Conjure Weapon, which, to be truly useful, needed a focus on both physical and mental stats. As for being a pure spellslinger, that was completely out. Dix was determined to live through more than a dirty look, and he would need more than just magical shields to do it. Physical ranged combat wasn’t greatly different, usually leaving few options for survival if forced into melee. And while he would keep his melee combat and weapon skills up regardless of which combat style he chose, without the stats to back them up he would be at a deadly disadvantage. He’d already died once, and wasn’t looking to do it again any time soon. As for going the melee only route, he honestly just thought it was boring compared to the options of the other choices. The fact that it also had so few utility abilities definitely didn’t make a difference.

There were only two ways in which a person who was completely one dimensional would actually work during combat in the sort of world he was expecting Mantra to be. The first, and also the most unreliable and stupid, was to only fight monsters that catered to how someone had developed their combat skills. For ranged classes this means things they can kill with a single attack, or are easily kited. Heavy melee types have it tougher in this situation, and need to focus on things that they can comfortably tank and have no ability to disable them through skills. Rogues and other light melee classes need to kill their targets in a single attack, or know precisely how to dodge everything their enemies can throw out.

The second option, and also the wisest, was to work in groups. In a group, you can cover each other's weaknesses. You have tanks to take the damage, while ranged attackers shoot over their shoulder or from the side. Light melee to flank or sneak attack while the target is distracted. Mages to blow everything up when necessary, and healers to fix everyone up when it all goes horribly wrong. Safe and secure, where specialization in a single style of combat makes each person more effective.

Dix didn’t know if there was a party system in Mantra, nor did he care. If there was, he was sure he would make use of it eventually, but he was always more of a loner. Despite the illusion of social interest that his penchant for one night stands gave, Dix had always been more of an introvert than otherwise. All of his social skills were learned for the express purpose of convincing a woman to sleep with him. There was a fair amount of roll over on those skills into dealing with people in general, but other than convincing people to do what he wanted them to, normally leaving him alone, Dix didn't really care. Groups, parties, and guilds, whatever their realities on Mantra, weren’t something he was looking forward to. Unless required by necessity, he would prefer to avoid all of them.

Setting aside the list for a bit, Dix started stroking Beauty’s silky hair as he tried to work through to a decision. This wasn’t a game, it was his life. Having said that though, there were a lot of game like mechanics involved. Eventually he had a bit of a revelation. Mantra might not be a game, but there were games with options similar to the idea of a life on Mantra.

Hardcore mode for a lot of different games presents the player with only a single life. The people who enjoy this sort of mental masochism usually judge each other's success through how long their character lives, or the level of power they reach before they die. While Dix had never really spent much time playing in this mode of any game, he had given it enough of a shot to know the basic necessities, and how to apply them to his current situation. Sadly he hadn’t truly thought of these issues until now, and his expected skill list was missing some very important things: defense and escape skills. Failing that, the next safest option was a slightly higher health than you would use for a normal game, which for Dix meant he needed a stat set that would give him control of his health and defenses. The rest of it was mostly situational awareness, and always having a good plan to run like a bitch.

As he pondered over the things he would need to keep himself alive on Mantra, he was startled as Beauty suddenly spoke up. “Half your number of stats. If it's an odd number, like seven, you’d get three on one level and four on the next.” Finished with her short speech she pulled the arm she’d been hugging around her shoulders and went back to purring. Dix actually had to think for a bit before he remembered he’d asked about the number of stats on level up. That still didn’t quite answer which route he should go for combat though. Realizing he could spend days sitting here contemplating the “correct” choice, Dix decided to abandon it completely. At this moment he didn’t have enough knowledge to decide on a route, so his best option on stats would be to find something that was well balanced and could go any direction. Hopefully one with a large enough stat point assignment to help make a difference when he finally did make a choice.

Knowing that his stats were still a necessary life changing decision, and armed with the answer to his questions, he eventually got back to the search. Having a lot of experience with scanning through them by then, it went a bit quicker. Despite his earlier interest in the statistical systems with multipliers, he decided to forgo using one. Dix was unsure if he could survive fighting with the initial handicaps long enough to get to the point the multipliers would start stacking up to massive strength. He was also a bit worried about getting gang slaughtered by everyone on the planet before he was strong enough to survive it.

Beauty’s design of the instrument he was using to search for a statistical system he liked had an added feature over what Crossroads had put into his racial degradation device; it could store a number of choices to another list. Dix took ten minutes to flip everything that looked even remotely balanced into the new list, including the non extinct ones, and then started scanning through it again. This time he was flipping things out of the list. It took him quite a while to whittle the list down to something functional.

With only a few choices left, he was actually amused by what he had remaining. One was a clone of the classic Dungeons and Dragons stats, but with a couple different names. Dexterity was Agility, and Constitution was Endurance. Charisma was just called Pretty, and, according to the description, applied only to physical beauty, meaning the only way someone was gonna sell a tomato based fruit salad was by displaying it between their tits, bard or not. The actual Dungeons and Dragons stats were also one of the options he could have chosen, but considering that it was listed as still having living adherents Dix felt it more interesting to grab the similar but extinct set. Despite all of that, Dix kept it more from familiarity than actual usefulness. Mostly though, he kept it as a reminder to search for a dump stat. Which led to the other two he had.

Both had what looked to be dump stats attached to a selection of well balanced basic attributes. Their descriptions of how each attribute was applied was also easily understood. The major differences came in how they could be applied. Both were great for basically any combat style, but only one seemed to have stats separated to allow for specific focusing on combat styles based around attributes. There was one aspect of this idea that had always pissed him off entirely in games. How was the damage of a bow or crossbow based on Dexterity? Dexterity was supposed to control how well you moved your body, not how much strength you can apply. He could understand it being the attribute that ruled chance to hit, but the damage output of a bow or crossbow should always be based on strength. Both the strength of the weapon itself, and the person using it. Shrugging off his irritation Dix tried to study each set of attributes separately.

Strength

Constitution

Dexterity

Agility

Willpower

Intelligence

Passion

Rage

Skin Tuning

Attunement

Dix had no idea what Skin Tuning or Attunement were until he read the descriptions, but as he didn’t have micro crystals in his skin that changed color, or magical frequency they would make great dump stats. Passion, which worked with Rage in some complex way, basically encouraging someone to be a berserker, would also make good dump stats. He really hated the idea of losing control of his faculties.

The second set was more complicated.