Chapter 8: Stats and Growth

Trint couldn’t find a way to track his generation and accumulation of exp.After getting Pneuma and accepting his adoption he had dropped below the level one threshold but after his first instance, he had enough exp that he hit level one.Since his stats were different than almost everyone else in the Eternities, he knew he should probably follow the advice he was given and balance his stat distribution but he was itching to optimize.He also knew he needed more time to know how things worked.

Questions kept popping in his head when considering his long-term goals. Did he want to be a mage type and focus on his Mind for Mana use? Or focus on the sword and other Body stats. Knowing his starting skills were going to be overpowered eventually or replaced, he was leaning toward sticking with a balanced distribution till he was sure of where he wanted to specialize.

From his estimations, not many would die in i11. The system didn’t seem to be killing people off so early. If most people teamed up then these monsters, even the bosses would be extremely easy. He wondered if the Instances scaled in difficulty based on the group size that entered.

Trint also was thinking about people like the thugs who were okay robbing and killing others. When already bad people gained dominating power and with post-apocalyptic scenarios, the powerful exploit the weak. There might be a lot of abuse of power and unnecessary killing. Trint wondered if his sense of justice and protecting the innocent when possible would get him into trouble.

Trint was not looking forward to seeing that sort of evil. He always had a strong sense of justice and the very idea of things like slavery or abuse of the weak made his skin crawl and his blood boil. If he had the power and ability, he knew he would not be able to walk away in the face of such clear abuse and evil. But he had to also focus on getting to his family.

He had no doubt things were going to get ugly, but he would not be able to turn a blind eye. So, he was preparing to get powerful enough to have the power to stop the ugly side of the Eternities when he could but also had no delusions of grandeur. He knew he was a small fish in a big ocean. Or a frog in a well, as his books used to say. For now, at least he needed to be ready for the fights to come.

He wanted to be strong and holding onto unassigned stat points could backfire forcing him to assign points in a moment of emergency if someone tried to attack him. Instances might be easy, but others were leveling too and the dark side of the new world was likely to show itself sooner rather than later.

Before assigning the available points he pulled up the system view.

Trinten Atlas Henderson

Stats

Level 3: 25%

Stat Pools

Health: HP - 300/300 (Regen 30/min)

Stamina: SP- 300/300 (Regen 90/min)

Mana: MP- 300/300 (Regen 30/min)

Spirit: SpP- 100/100 (Regen 25/min)

Soul: SoP- 100/100 ( Regen 1/min)

Unassigned Points: Body (0.9), Mind (0.9), Spirit (???), Soul (???)

Body

-Strength: 1.0

-Agility: 1.0

-Vitality: 1.0

-

Mind

-Memory: 1.0

-Wisdom: 1.0

-Adaptability: 1.0

Spirit

-Unknown

Soul

-Unknown

Class

None

Profession

None

Trint was still curious about things Pneuma referenced before, like magic affinities and order but knew it was best to focus on the present. He barely even knew what the basics were. He should not be thinking about anything like that.

So he reluctantly but excitedly added his available stat points evenly across the board.

But after evenly assigning his stats he felt himself changing. Not painful changes, but he felt better in unexplainable ways. With 6 individual stats and earning .3 per level for Mind and Body, that gave him 0.9 to assign in each of his available stats categories. He also noticed that his Health, Stamina, and Mana had previously automatically gone up. Probably when he hit a new level. He hadn’t noticed and wanted to pay closer attention if he could each level.

With the new stats assigned, Trint spent some more time stretching and doing some exercises. Then he reviewed his notes.

Unassigned Points: Body (0.0), Mind (0.0), Spirit (???), Soul (???)

Body

-Strength: 1.3

-Agility: 1.3

-Vitality: 1.3

Mind

-Memory: 1.3

-Wisdom: 1.3

-Adaptability: 1.3

With all the skills he had, the increase in his total pools would allow him to run more of his skills for longer periods and fuel them with more Mana or Stamina for more powerful attacks and movement. Although he had the skills, he was still not great at using them and even more clumsy when using multiple ones. He was superhuman compared to pre-system, but he knew he would struggle against others with more coordination and synergy with their skills.

‘Pneuma, don’t you think you started me off with the right skills?’ Trint questioned.

‘Yes, you are still in a relatively safe environment. This is an ideal time to get used to them. It is like when you learned to ride a bicycle and had training wheels, I feel that was a good representation of what you are doing. I am the good father helping you learn to ride. I helped you get the bike and you wanted to learn to ride it. I have been here the whole time, and you are learning fairly well. I’m trying not to interfere as you ride around on your new bike. But I want you to learn before we put you in busy traffic. The next danger we will try to take off the training wheels.’ Pneuma explained as if to a child.

‘Ok, I get it. You, sound a little condescending. How do you know about bicycles anyway?’ Trint hadn’t seen any in the system yet.

‘I am fully aware of your world’s pre-system state. I was there before system integration. I was the one who rescued your family at the moment of the car accident. Their bodies were left in your world as you saw in the car before passing out. But I was the one who transferred their minds, spirits, and souls to their new bodies here with your new family.’ Pneuma explained.

‘Oh, well, I guess I should thank you. But….’ Trint felt a wash of emotions again.

‘I understand through our connection what you are feeling.I apologize for stirring those emotions again.Your family would have died and you have suffered painful emotional loss and guilt.They were spared that pain and yet eagerly await you. All made possible by the will of your new family. For now, why don’t you try another instance or two? Now that you assigned your stats and are level 3.You should venture further out and find a level 3 instance.’ Pneuma explained.

‘How do I know what level they are?’ Trint asked

‘Well, I can tell you, or I can also enable your ability to see your level in your System display. You are also able to identify others’ levels. Through me, your ability to identify others is, better than average.For now, I will enable you to view basic world info to not let you get distracted.I was hoping you’d figure it out on your own but here is my recommended layout for your view.

Trint’s Health, Stamina, and Mana appeared as bars in his top left view. They were transparent so he could see behind them and they were each a different color.

HP: 100%

SP: 100%

MP: 100%

Each was followed by a bar.Health points were Red and shortened to HP, Stamina points were yellow and said SP, and Mana was blue and displayed as MP.There was also a mini-map in his top-right view where he could see his location and distance from the town, which was also transparent.

‘There are more things to add to your view later. For now, head further west and in a few miles, you will find a level 3 instance.’ Pneuma instructed. ‘Look at your map. Or I can provide an arrow in your vision like your GPS from your car.’ Pneuma said.

‘It is still really weird you have all this access and know stuff about Earth.’ Trint continued to be surprised.

‘Your world was unique and yet similar to the Iterations. I did not enjoy most content, but I am aware of Earth’s people, from books and your internet. I observed human interaction on Earth. Some people were good and many were selfish. Evil occurred there just like here. Humanity and system sapient beings are prone to selfishness. Centering their thoughts towards oneself and not others is a quick way to isolate and foster pride and arrogance, leading to struggle for power and desire to control…’ Pneuma lectured but was interrupted.

‘Ok I get it; you know a lot and you are not pleased with humanity…wait you said sapient beings. Are there other intelligent species in the system? I’ve only seen humans so far.’ Trint’s interruption started with a bit of annoyance but his curiosity was ignited again.

‘Yes, many other species exist. You have only been exposed to others from your world besides me and Jack. The world you are in is incredibly large as it encompasses about 100 worlds with intelligent life. You are placed near your world’s inhabitants, to begin with. The distance between i11 tutorial zones is too far to warrant exploring them. You will learn about other sapient beings once you ascend.'

'Recruiters will be here soon,' Pneuma continued, 'and shops will open, and tournaments and other opportunities will become available. You need to grow and I would like you to learn to control your Spirit and Soul a bit but need to wait for higher Iterations due to Mana being so sparse here. You currently don’t seem to be able to sense your Spirit without me, let alone access it and keep it from radiating outside yourself like a little child. But for now, around other people, I will block that. Eventually, you need to learn control for your protection and growth.’

‘Remember your family and your secrets need to be protected. Please avoid any sects or groups. They would bind you with contracts if you let them and require you to share your stat screens. One look at your stats and you would be captured and every secret you have extracted. Everyone would know you are different. Different will mean bad things for you. Even with those who won’t know why you are different, they will know you are valuable.’ Pneuma’s explanations left Trint paranoid. Imagine being imprisoned, tortured, beaten, and enslaved.

Trint took Pneuma’s advice to heart. He turned his focus back to the present and the arrow appeared on his map and his view. He found the level 3 instance and went to test out his increased pool of mana and stamina, hopefully not the extra health he thought, and see what his skills could do now.