Author's Note: HEY!!! I'm back. Exams were a bitch. I've spent the last couple of days with my family and just got around to finishing this little gem last night at like 3 am. Enjoy!!!

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“Okay, so now that we can see each other’s stats because of the party, can we please figure out what to do with these points? I’m literally dying to use them!” I could almost feel Milik shaking from the excitement and everyone just laughed at his impatience. But even I was itching to get around to it.

I jokingly rolled my eyes at him and said, “Okay, yeah we can, but Milik don’t you think we need to be careful with this?” He confusedly looked at me before his eyes widened in realization.

“You’re talking about the level up barrier?” I nodded in confirmation to his words. Everyone else in the room, however, were perplexed by what he’d said.

“What do you mean level up barrier?” Clara was the first to ask and I was more than happy to explain for everyone. They were my team after all.

“Okay, so in most games, your characters level up fairly quickly in the beginning since the amount of experience needed to do so is fairly low. But as you get up to the higher levels, the experience you need to level up grows to be some monstrous amount making it harder and harder to level up. So the points that we get so easily in the beginning should be used smartly since they won’t come around as easily in the future. This also means where we spend our first points is what we should focus on as we level.” It seemed like everyone had a fairly good understanding of what I’d said and then Kyra spoke.

“But what about the element that we wield? Shouldn’t we account for that and just have everyone go for the stats which would boost how we use those powers?” It was a fair question and one that I’d expected, so I already had an answer.

“For some of us, that may be the case. Take Clara for example; If she’s not going to fight physically, then what she’ll be able to do with her light element skills is crucial to everyone, so she’ll definitely have to only increase the stats that do that for her. I’d suggest the same for you as well Kyra since you’re our mind element and I’m fairly sure that some awesome stuff could come from that end if you continue to develop it and gain new skills.” She was nodding as I gave my explanation.

“But what stats would those be?” Kyra asked me again.

“Oh, right. Most definitely the intelligence and wisdom stats.” Her eyebrow rose in question and Milik took the explanation from there.

“They’re the ‘int’ and ‘wis’ looking words that you see in your status. In most role playing games, both of those stats are related to a bunch of different things. So increasing intelligence would make you smarter, increase the effects of your mana dependent skills, etc. The wisdom stat would help you in thinking things out and increase the rate at which you regenerate your mana. Those are the only two uses that I know for it anyways…” Milik’s voice trailed off as he looked at me to see if I had more to say about wisdom, but I could only shrug in response.

Looking at Kyra I say, “Well that’s pretty much the gist of it. So Kyra you should invest your points into those two areas like Clara will when she gets points and if any major deficiencies show up later, then we’ll account for those at that time.”

Clara looked at me with red cheeks and seemed to be internally struggling with something before asking, “But what do the other abbreviations stand for? I don’t really have a big background in games…” Izzy was gratefully nodding towards Clara and I let a light smile play on my lips.

“Oh! Right! I suppose Milik and I have seen them so much that we just kind of assumed everyone had known what they meant. Well, Milik already explained the ‘int’ and ‘wis’ abbreviations as intelligence and wisdom. So, starting from the top, ‘str’ should stand for strength. We can all pretty much infer just from the name that it applies to bodily power.”

“Well, hold on. I know that we’re dealing with game elements here, but in the real world, couldn’t the term strength be broadly defined?” Clara asked me with a wondering look in her eyes.

This certainly stopped me for a moment, but with only a moment of thinking I had an answer. “You’re right in assuming that there are different types of strengths that don’t really mess with the body. Like mental toughness for one, but in this case it would fall under intelligence or wisdom. So if the Infinity Complex is showing stats for intelligence and wisdom, then those would be the ones associated mental fortitude. I believe other forms of strength are compensated in other stats, but I highly doubt these stats are anything other than what they would be in a video game. There are too many similarities for the stats to be anything else.” She seemed satisfied with my answer so I decided to carry on with the explanation.

“So the next stat, ‘vit’, would be vitality. I’m fairly sure that this is directly related to our HP measurements.” Looking over at Clara, I saw her with a helpless look on her face and couldn’t help but have to stifle a laugh. “So ‘HP’ stands for health points. Never let that hit zero.” Saying ‘party’ in my mind, the golden screen pops up with our respective names, health bars, and mana bars.

“So out of all of us, Akito has the highest amount of HP at 215. Akito, what’s your vitality stat at?” I saw him reach his finger out and tap at thin air before he responded to me.

“It’s at 18.”

“And so I’m fairly sure no one in here has a vitality stat that’s greater than 18, right?” All the others in the room agreed with me, but I decided to raise one more point.

“Alright, so I’m fairly sure now that the vitality stat does affect the amount of HP we all have. But, in most games, your character’s HP and MP will also automatically go up as they increase in level, not only when you apply points to vitality and intelligence. I think this may have happened for me since I’m a level 6 with a 12 in vitality, but my HP is at 160. The amount of MP that I have also seems to be higher than everyone else’s, but I’m unsure of whether my level or high intelligence stat accounts for that…” Shrugging, I decide to carry on and leave these kinds of questions for whenever I’d have time for them, which quite honestly was looking like it’d be a long time from now.

“Anyways, next is the ‘dex’ stat. I’m certain that this could only be dexterity. Increasing the dexterity stat will pretty much affect the speed and finesse with which we move. I’d assume that increasing motor functions would also increase our reaction times. Other than that, ‘luk’, is just luck. In most games this stat will deal with monster drops which is actually a very real possibility for us since we don’t know what’s above us in the tower. I can’t imagine that any of us would want to invest in this stat though since we should cater towards skills that increase our survivability…” I stood there conflicted for a moment before continuing. “There is, however, a chance that even if one of us invested in the luck stat, it would affect how certain situations could turn out in the future for all of us but, personally, I’m just not willing to invest in luck...”

“I could do it,” Clara’s sweet voice reverberated throughout the room and I could only look at her in astonishment.

‘Seems as if she really doesn’t want to fight, so she is instead deciding to support the team in any other way.’ Nodding to her to express my thanks, I say, “Just remember that it’s more important to first increase your intelligence and wisdom stats, alright?” She nodded back to me in understanding and I couldn’t help but admire her smooth and flawless features once more.

I thought back to that intense, passionate feeling I’d had when I first saw her and felt a jolt run through my body at the mere memory of it. Knowing that there were more important things at hand, I pushed those thoughts to the side and concentrated my attention on everyone else in the room.

“Well, aside from Clara, Izzy, and Pixie…are you all ready to put in some points? I’ll go first if you want to see what happens and I’ve kind of got a fair idea of what I want to do with these points…” Akito, Kualin, Kyra, and Milik all gave me the go ahead and the golden screen popped up with a quick “status.”

My status pulled up and I looked over it once again.

Title: Lord Sky’s Heir

Name: Alexander Taylor

Class: Sky Walker

Level: 6

HP: 160/160

MP: 100/100

STR: 13

VIT: 12

DEX: 15

INT: 20

WIS: 17

LUK: 11

POINTS: 25

MONEY: 47 USD

‘Alright, so…,’looking to the side of the numbers that were already there, I see a plus and minus sign sitting side by side.

‘Fairly self-explanatory,’ I think to myself. Hovering my finger over the dexterity stat’s plus sign, I pushed it down once. At the bottom of my status screen, the amount of points I had to spend changed to 24 and a black ‘Apply Changes?’ flashed at the bottom of the screen.

‘Uh-huhhhh…not yet.’ Pushing the plus sign next to dexterity nine more times, I then pushed down on the flashing black button. Almost instantly, I could feel my perception on the world noticeably slow down and my body felt even lighter than before.

“Okay, so I just increased my dexterity and applied the changes to myself…”

“Applied the changes?” Kualin asked me.

“Yeah, so once you start inputting the points you’ll have this…um flashing ‘apply changes’ show up at the bottom of the screen. So it seems like you don’t have to use all your points and the changes don’t automatically happen in case you make a mistake when inputting points, which is a thoughtful preventative measure.” While answering Kualin, I flexed my body’s muscles and I could tell that they were more flexible and my body moved quicker to my thoughts. The difference made it feel like I’d been moving around in water before the stat change and not thin air, but I’d have to wait until the fight later to really see the effects of the changes.

Looking back at my status screen, I ask aloud, “Hey, Akito, what’s your strength stat at right now?”

He looked into thin air before saying, “It’s at 19.” Nodding to myself, I press the plus sign next to my strength stat seven times, bringing it up to 20. This left me with only 8 unallocated points left. I allow the changes to be applied and feel a surge of energy completely fill my body. I could feel my muscles tighten under the strain of the energy and then relax as they worked to absorb the foreign energy. My body, however, didn’t change size and I was just as leanly muscled as ever. After only a moment, the energy absorption was done and I felt at least two or three times stronger than I had before, but there was only one way to find out.

Turning my attention to Akito, I say, “Arm wrestle me. I want to see if these stats are for real. I just changed my strength to 20 and yours is at 19, so I want to see if I can win. Logically speaking, I should win this since my stat is higher than yours and this is purely a contest of strength. It’s also to kind of test whether or not the infinity complex corrects for differences in muscle mass.” He mulled over my words for a moment, and finding nothing to disagree with, laid himself down on the carpet between the couches with his arm in a starting position.

Looking at the intimidating size of his hand and bulging muscles, I say, “You know, even if I don’t win, it’ll be enough evidence that the strength stat increase worked even if I just don’t get my arm broken…” This brought a round of laughter from my friends who were watching Akito and I.

With a sigh, I laid down opposite of Akito and firmly grip his hand in mine. He responds in kind with a tightening that I could see, but otherwise wouldn’t have noticed due to the strength I could feel coursing through my hand. “Alright, so just go all out will you? Otherwise there’s no point.” He nodded to me and I could see a light in his eyes.

‘Looks like I’ve awoken his competitive nature. Only makes sense that someone as built as him has pride in his muscles…’

“3…2…1…go!” Instantly I felt Akito’s arm attempting to rotate so that he could slam my hand into the ground, but I surprisingly held a stalemate with some effort. Feeling that I had even more energy to put into it, I slightly smiled and pushed harder against Akito’s hand.

His eyes instantly changed as he saw the minute shift in advantage and I continued steadily pressing down on his arm until with a groan, he lost power and the back of his hand hit the floor. I let go of his hand and said, “That was incredible. And this was damn near your base strength? No wonder you weren’t scared of provoking Matt in front of his crowd of followers earlier.”

He shrugged in response and said, “That one point you had over me made a hell of a lot of difference. There was no way I could have won. Struggled, sure. But definitely not win.”

“Such a ridiculous difference from one point…Okay everyone, let’s distribute our points. Just go with whatever you think is best for you long-term. We’ll get through this first floor.” With that said, I called out “status” and turned my attention to the golden screen. Those that had points to spend—Akito, Kualin, Kyra, and Milik—all did the same while the other three girls just conversed with one another about their skills or stat points.

‘Hmmmmm…’ Glancing over my status, I pushed five points into my intelligence and three into wisdom. Taking a deep breath, I allowed the changes to take hold and felt a refreshing stream of energy flow into my head and fill up the entire space there. It seemed as if it was…refining it…making it clearer and cleaning out forgotten spaces within my mind. It only took one second for all of my body to change from the recent increase I stats.

Quite honestly, I felt stronger, quicker, and smarter than I ever had before. My mind wasn’t drifting off to random thoughts and I could tell it was running at a quicker pace, allowing my brain to take up and process more information on my surroundings than I’d previously been able to. And all this was only from a five and three point increase in intelligence and wisdom respectively. Not to mention that I was now at least twice as strong as I used to be and my speed had increased phenomenally. I could tell that if my strength had grown that much from a seven point increase, then my speed increase from dexterity had to be even higher since I’d put ten points into it.

Glancing at my MP, I saw that it too had benefited from the increase in Intelligence and had risen from a 100 to 180. At that moment, a ringing sound broke through the room and a holographic timer set itself up on the floor space between the couches. It showed ‘20:00’ on it and began counting down from there. Glancing around the room, I saw that everyone else had been surprised as well but quickly returned to what they were doing.

‘Twenty minutes left? Okay, let’s see what else we can get done before then. Skills.’ The golden screen with my skills popped into existence in front of me and I looked over my mana affinity and air manipulation skills and I was left with one question. ‘So, how does one tap into an energy source that they had no prior knowledge of nearly an hour ago…?’

Sinking back into the couch, I close my eyes to think and remember that earlier, right after the awakening, I could feel a pure and strong energy flowing around my body. Was it mana? Concentrating, I could feel it even more clearly than earlier. It revolved closely around my body as if it was waiting to come inside and it pulsed strongly like it was alive.

‘Hmmmm?’ Sinking more comfortably into the couch, I relaxed a little and was surprised by a smaller pulsating current that flowed within me. Focusing hard on not losing that feeling, I attempted to internally reach out to it and it easily came within my grasp. More like it hopped into my internal hands and wrapped itself around multiple times. Once I could feel the connection, a pleasant energy coursed through my veins and I could just tell that this energy was indeed mana.

‘Okay. Step 1…finding mana is complete. Now for step 2…errrrr mold the mana…right?’ Opening my eyes, I kept a grip on the mana coursing through my body and led a portion of it to the palm of my right hand. Instantly, a golden glow covered my hand and I could tell it was the mana from inside of me taking an external form. Everyone around me stopped what they were doing and stared at my hand in awe and surprise. I held up my other hand so no one could break my concentration and focused solely on the bright golden glow in my hand.

Thinking to the air manipulation skill that I have, I decided to try and use my mana as a median between my will and the air in the room. Using the energy in my hand, I pulled at some of the air in the room, directing it to an area above my hand. What was odd was that the air, usually invisible to the naked eye, was tinged with the golden particles of my mana.

Thinking about what I could do with the air, I started working on the first thing that came to mind. Using the mana, I shaped the wind into a crescent and, running my other hand along the edge of it, I sharpened the outer edge of the crescent air until a ding and the sight of a golden screen popped up in front of my eyes.

‘Congratulations! You’ve created an original skill. Please name your new skill.’

Deciding to keep it simple, I say, “Air Blade.”

In response, a new screen comes up and it read ‘You’ve decided on Air Blade. Is this Correct?’

“Yes.” The golden screens flashed out of existence and I turned my attention to the newly named ‘Air Blade.’ Stopping the flow of mana in my hand, I observed the golden blade of trapped air that hovered about half a foot away from the palm of my right hand. It was easily two feet long and constantly flowed in swirling patterns of gold. The patterns moved slowly, but seemed fast. Or was it the other way around? I couldn’t really tell. The swirling golden pattern was loose and in constant motion, but formed a perfectly condensed, dangerously sharp edge on the outer rim of the crescent.

My eyes were gleaming with excitement and pride at what I’d created. ‘Step 2 is a big check mark of success. Now step 3…dispel and recreate? Or are those two separate steps? Oh, screw it…’ Thinking of the air blade in my hand, I clenched my hand and imagined drawing the mana that had condensed the air back into myself but it stubbornly stayed floating above my hand. Sighing in frustration, another thought struck me. I opened my hand and imagined the golden mana expelling itself back into the near transparent flow of mana which I could feel flowing around outside of my body. The construct in my hand begin to unravel and in less than a second, it was gone.

I let out a breath of relief and was instantly pushed by Milik who’d been sitting next to me the whole time. He basically yelled at me in his excitement. “Was that mana!? You made a skill? Dude, I’ve gotta try that. How’d you do it? Tips please!”

I let out a laugh from his constant stream of questions, but could completely understand how he was feeling and was more than happy to share my findings with him. “Well, I was checking out the whole mana thing and found it within myself. I don’t know about you guys, but I can feel it and kind of see mana in our surroundings and using that as a kind of ‘measure,’ I realized that it was also inside of me. So I kind of…reached out to the mana inside of me and used it as a way to control the air around me to do what I wanted. Air is my element after all. I’m not sure if it’ll work with other elements, but my guess is that even if it does, it won’t be at the same level as someone who’s marked to wield that element.” Looking down at the timer on the floor, I realize that we only have about ten minutes left until we’re to gather back outside of the shelter.

“Why don’t you all try and work to get in touch with your mana to try and create a skill? None of us should really have any problems with that…It actually feels like my imagination is the only limit I have on creating skills. I’m gonna try one more thing before we have to go…”

Looking over at Clara to see what she was doing, I realized her eyes were already on me before she quickly diverted them and appeared to engross herself in some deep thought process. Shrugging, I reached into myself once more for my mana and felt it come into my grasp instantaneously. Its warmth once more spread through me and filled my entire being. This time, I led it out of my body and layered it on top of my skin. I then willed it to pull a good bit of air in the room into a revolving sphere around my body.

‘This is pretty easy if you’ve got the brainpower and focus to do this…or is it just easy because I’m Lord Sky’s Heir?’ Shaking my head clear of the questions I didn’t have answers to, I turned my attention back to the task at hand.

I swirled my finger in the air to help me concentrate on winding the air around me into a tighter, interlocking system of ever-fluctuating, golden-specked wind. As I rotated the wind at higher speeds, Milik was forced off of the couch and had to stand a few feet away from me. I couldn’t spare him an apology however since I was in the middle of bringing my new skill to fruition.

Once I’d rotated the wind to the speed of a highly concentrated hurricane, my friends were forced to stand near the doorway of the room and the couches that had been so neatly arranged were strewn about the room on their backs and sides. The wind I was controlling was letting off a high-pitched scream due to its unruliness. Noticing the mini-disaster I’d caused, I used my mana to further compress the wind until it reached an area about a millimeter off my clothing and exposed skin, creating a layer of vibrating, tightly compacted air which snugly fit around my figure. The sound it was emitting toned down into a low humming noise and the golden specks that I could see earlier weren’t as noticeable as before. In fact, it was rare that a golden flash would show itself in the highly compressed, rotating wind.

Ding!

With a broad smile, I let the mana circulating around me disperse into my surroundings and the air which had swirled around me gracefully unraveled itself from the compact layering I’d put it through and also expelled itself throughout the room. Looking over at my friends, I saw that they had faces of pure astonishment like before, but also a hint of apprehension at the power I’d just released.

“I’m really sorry. I hadn’t expected it would get so out of hand like that…”

“Dude! Don’t even sweat it. We need to collaborate on creating skills once we move up to the next floor since we’re almost out of time here!” Milik bounded next to me and clapped me on the back in a way that showed he had no bad thoughts about what had just happened. Looking back over to the others, they were already loosened up and I realized that they knew I wouldn’t intentionally hurt any of them, it was just that a mini hurricane would probably spook anyone, especially in such a confined space.

Nodding to them, I turned my attention to the screen which had been brought up at the creation of my new skill.

‘Congratulations! You’ve created an original skill. Please name your new skill.’

“Air Cloak,” I stated aloud for the Infinity Complex.

‘You’ve decided on Air Cloak. Is this Correct?’

“Yes,” I finished.

“So, before Alex decided to have his little moment, I had just connected with the mana inside of me. Anyone else get around to it?” Milik asked the others, causing me to look away in embarrassment from the minor admonition.

“I was in the process of messing around with it before Alex got too excited,” Kualin said with a smirk on his face.

“Same,” Akito stated followed by agreements from Clara and Kyra who were both pretty much at the same stage. Only Izzy and Pixie were still trying to find their mana before I’d interrupted them. By this point, I wasn’t too worried about having interrupted everyone. I was more so thinking of why Izzy and Pixie had yet to access their mana and then I was struck with a possible solution.

“Izzy and Pixie, you two have more volatile elements than the rest of us. Fire and lightning. Maybe you just need to be more spontaneous when reaching out to it. Just expect it to be there I guess is what I’m saying.” Messing with Pixie’s hair, I smiled down at her. “Sorry for interrupting you, Pixie. Well, all of you really.”

“It’s fine,” Pixie huffed and then said, “I just want to get stronger so I can help fight!” I didn’t really want Pixie in the thick of the fighting any time soon. She just seemed too innocent and over the last week that I’d known her, she’d grown to be like another little sister to me. But this conversation would have to wait for another day.

“All in due time Pixie. Just let me and the other guys deal with the fighting for now, alright?” She smiled up at me and nodded her assent. I looked over at the rest of my friends and noticed Kualin’s eyes burning with jealousy and realized it was because I still had my hand on Pixie’s head. I removed it because I’d noticed he may want to make a pass at her and I didn’t particularly mind since he seemed like a cool and funny guy in the time that I’d known him and I definitely didn’t want him thinking anything extra about Pixie and I. That could only cause problems.

Looking over at Clara, I was taken aback by how fiercely those beautiful blue-green eyes were staring back into mine. Before I could even ask her if I’d done something wrong, she turned her attention elsewhere. No one else in the group seemed to notice anything was amiss and I was just sorely confused.

“Seems like we’ve got a couple minutes left before we’re out of time. Just want to wait it out?” Kyra asked the group. Thinking it was a good idea, everyone moved to flip their couches right-side up and I walked over to the couch I’d been seated on and plopped back down on it, marveling at how it had remained virtually untouched by the hurricane I’d created.

‘Let’s check out these new skills shall we? Skills.’ The golden screen popped into existence and the new skills I’d created were sitting at the top of the column. I read the info for my other skills and noticed some changes. My ‘Guidance of the Wind’ skill had risen to level 3, the ‘Mana Affinity’ skill had rose to level 6, and my ‘Air Manipulation’ skill had gone directly to level 5. The rise in my ‘Mana Affinity’ skill was accompanied by a slight increase in the boosts that it gave me, but only by a couple percent.

‘Technicalities, technicalities…’

I quickly scanned my new skills and was satisfied with what I had read.

Air Blade (Active) LV 1 EXP: 0.00% MP: 20

Through your own efforts of fusing mana and your elemental affinity, you have created an original skill. The cutting force of your attack is not to be underestimated. Power will increase with INT and skill level.

No charge time due to Lord Sky’s Heir title

Air Cloak (Active) LV 1 EXP: 0.00% MP: 75

Through your own efforts of fusing mana and your elemental affinity, you have created an original skill. The highly compressed layers and rotating speed of air infused with your mana grants a defensive cloak to the user which will in turn reflect partial damage back onto an attacker. All physical attacks will be partially deflected when skill is active. Power will increase with INT and skill level.

30% decrease from all types of damage

15% damage of attack is returned to attacker

No charge time due to Lord Sky’s Heir title

Additional 75 MP used per minute

‘I’ll have to assume that those costs have already been affected by the decreasing effects of the title I have…Can’t say I like them though. Damn, 75 MP per minute? I don’t even know my MP regeneration rate yet…’ Turning my attention to the timer, I realize that we have a minute and fourteen seconds left and there’s something I still haven’t gotten around to doing. Something I’d been looking forward to doing since I learned about what the Infinity Complex could do.

“Inventory!” A golden screen flashed into existence in front of me and the rest of my friends looked at me in surprise at my sudden outburst. The screen had a 10 by 10 table in it and picking up my pack, I shoved it into the small window. My whole pack disappeared in a quick flash of light and looking at the table, I smiled when I saw the pack only took up one spot of the one hundred slots available to me.

“Quick Milik!” I looked at my friend with eyes filled with a plea. A cry for help. “We need to raid that fridge, dude!”

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Author's Note: Hope y'all are ready for this to take off because I sure as hell am. These 5000 word chapters take a little time to write though so I hope you'll be patient with me! Please enjoy :)