There are 8 Stats, but all Stats are defined by 2 things: power and control.

Power is the number you see on your Screen 3, 4, 57. It represents the amount of Stat you can access. The reserves. The battery. How many fireballs can you shoot?

Control is a percentage. You won’t find it on a Screen. To what degree do you have control of your Stat? Can you make a fireball into a prancing fire pony?

-Stats 101 (read the full version for 79.99 cr.)

They took a different entrance this time and travelled in a more demanding pace because of the lesser number of recruits. Regardless, Corn couldn’t make out any differences. It was the same plain, the same monsters and the same green blue trees. Until the mage burned an entire grove of trees.

Instead of the grove burning in bright flames and eventually smoldering, the trees ate the fire.

Wherever the fire burned, new branches burst forth. Wherever the flames were weaker, creepers and leaves spread over the trees. Even the thin Life shards of the goblins weren’t left alone. It continued until every evidence of their attack vanished.

A centaur with brown skin walked out of the grove. He trotted forward, wearing loose linen garments and holding a wooden staff with a chalice on the tip.

He looked at the group, raised his staff and said, “Mage.”

In answer the mage looked at him, waved her wand (which Corn hoped she would drop) and said, “Gardener.”

Seemingly out of now where a herd of centaurs galloped behind their leader and came to a stop in front of the company. The herd had a variety of different skin colours and despite their large presence, the herd had the same number of people as the company.

The mage and the centaur leader moved to the side to talk, while the two groups stared at each other.

“Ugh, centaurs: the only species for whom it is socially acceptable to not wear pants,” moaned a rock nymph next to Corn.

“You’re just jealous. Enjoy the view,” rebutted a female jaguar kin, elbowing him in his cuirass.

“What view, as a guy, I’d have to squat and angle myself to get a view. Why can’t they segregate themselves by gender?” asked the rock nymph.

The centaurs themselves were in no way ignorant of the company’s gaze. While some of them ignored the company, most of them grinned and laughed seductively. Others resorted to even cruder gestures. A red skinned centaur specifically had her eyes on Corn.

Normally Corn would be ecstatic but today all he had eyes for were their staffs (no that is not a pun, Corn is insulted that you’d think that). All of them had a base wooden design followed by a variety of different ornamentations. Could they use Magic?

Wondering about that, he walked forward and approached the red skinned centaur. Immediately she waved her staff and a wall of thick roots rose up and blocked his path.

“You might be a human, but do not approach,” she threatened.

That wasn’t Magic. At least, he felt no sensation through his spine and hands. Most likely it was another Stat. Which one could it have been? Probably not the lower three but everything else was a question mark.

He stepped back into the group. The two groups ignored that moment of aggression and continued eyeing each other until their leaders came back.

The meeting was over and the two groups quickly split up.

The next discovery Corn made was purely a coincidence. As he walked by, he noticed a Life shard lying on the ground, so he turned and bent down to pick it up. The mage choose to cast her spell at that exact same moment, but this time he only felt the sensation run through his right hand.

He stood up and walked to the Mage and felt mana run through all his circuits (the name for mana channels according to the novel, Infinite Harem). There’s a range on the wand he realised. Once he realised that it didn’t take long to figure that the range of the wand was 15 feet.

For some reason whenever the mage cast a spell, mana was released/ leaked from the wand throughout a range of 15 feet and he could feel this mana through his circuits and even use it. He couldn’t tell if there was a difference in the quality of mana except for the fact that it was some kind of fire like mana.

Time to ramp up the experiments. When the mage cast her spell, he stopped it as it passed through his left hand circuit. The mana torched his circuit and he sunk to his knees, unable to bear this weird pain. He rubbed his right forearm with his left hand and, using the mana, extended the circuits in his right hand.

He stood up and followed the mage. His right arm burned but surprisingly in minutes the pain disappeared from 100 to 0.

“That was weird!” he couldn’t help exclaim.

“What’s weirder is that Wilt hates her classmate that much,” commented the rock nymph.

Corn ignored that bit of gossip and planned. The next step was get the mana outside his circuits. How would he do that?

As the mage waved her wand, he felt the mana pass through his circuits. He tried to push it out through his hands, but it was like trying to shift into an impossible pose. It just wouldn’t work. After a few more failures he gave up on this method.

The next time mana passed through his circuits he held back the mana in his right hand. He then pushed the mana all the way to the elbow till where the circuit extended. It scorched his circuits, causing his eyes to tear up. He pushed the mana from his elbow back to his hand and pushed it back and forth.

Staring at the ground, he was surprised when he found the mage moving on after bringing down an entire horde of bats. He was holding the mana long after the mage cast her spell. In his bewilderment he let go of the mana and a tiny flame burst forth from his palm and just as quickly disappeared.

Finally! He felt like a shadow of a mage. But Mage Ware had already reached her destination. Standing in front of them were rolling plains devoid of any sort of vegetation. It was just naked earth covered up with a thin see through layer of grass.

“Mage Ware,” shouted their captain, as realisation dawned on her face.

Three bat hyenas attacked them. They were huge creatures, at least six metres tall with mottled black fur and leathery wings. The mage let loose a stream of flames, while Corn took the opportunity to store fire mana in his right arm circuit. The company changed formations, the harvesters drawing closer to the mage with a crew of warriors. While the rest of the warriors were divided into preventing the bat hyenas from landing and focusing their attacks on one bat.

Corn finally realised the purpose of the bags the warriors had lugged around. Some of them revealed heavy machine guns of various sorts which the warriors fired at the bat hyenas. Not a single one of them so much as scratched the hyenas’ flesh. But the warriors used the guns pretty effectively to corral the monsters to where warriors were waiting with Mauled weapons. Some of the bags contained huge foldable metal shields. Given the way that the bat hyenas scratches and punches barely dented the shields, Corn assumed they were mana made, possibly even Mauled.

The mage’s shout had shifted Corn’s attention. While he was watching the skirmish she had somehow gotten a new gold and blue bracer as well as a fancy purple belt and several shiny rings on her fingers. She instructed them to throw grenades (from their rucksacks) at the one circling far above. The resulting blasts barely affected it, but the mage used the distraction to shoot ice spears at it.

One of the spears froze its’ wings and send it plummeting to the ground. A dome of stone and earth fell on the bat hyena trapping it alive. The mage used the same strategy along with the help of the warriors to trap the other two monsters.

Corn was enthralled. He felt ice mana, stone mana and earth mana through his circuits (at least he called them that based on how they felt). In his excitement he had let go of the fire mana in his right arm and took the opportunity to store some stone mana.

The harvesters walked up to the dome to process the monsters and Corn followed eager to inspect the dome. Was it a spell? Was it mana made? What was the difference? He had barely touched its cool, grizzled surface when he heard a puckering sound.

He titled his head and saw the elf do the same. What was that?

He heard the sound again followed by the roar of thunder.

The thunder didn’t stop.

Instead the rumbling just went on in one continuous sound, deafening everyone present.

All of them turned around. On the horizon was a black smudge. It glowed dark red and arcs of lightning danced around it.

“Is that?” someone shrieked.

“A mana storm,” shouted their captain. “This is exactly what the Gardener told you. I’m sure,” she screamed, looking at the mage.

“I need those ingredients. Now. I will pay grandly,” announced the mage at the harvesters, amplifying her voice.

Seeing an opportunity Corn immediately quipped, “I’ll do it for one of those Magic rings!”

Both their captain and the mage look affronted, but Corn still thought it was worth a try.

Even though the panda kin was shorter than Corn she dragged him off with ease and raised her furry finger at the mage.

Screaming at Corn and the rest of the company members, she relayed an order to dig a hole using the shovels and pickaxes in their rucksacks.

When the captain had seen their hole of ten feet she grunted and screamed, “Who’s first? Open your safety box.”

Wilt volunteered. She opened her rucksack and brought out the grey plastic box. For a second Corn saw a glimmer of hesitation in her eyes but she unscrewed the red button and touched the metal surface.

Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to scream. But before she could, she dropped to the ground, dead.

Her body fizzled into ash, leaving only her material belongings on the ground.

“You,” cried the captain at the cat person, “hand me the Life counter and you collect the clothes.” And on she went creating a chain of people responsible for dumping personal effects into the hole and collecting the Life counters into a large wooden chest.

One by one most of the people left, leaving behind Corn and the captain. The mana storm had shifted close enough for Corn to see the black smudge was lava and feel its blistering heat through his armour and clothes.

Corn felt regret looking at the mage trying to process the bat hyenas. So he looked at the mana storm one last time, enthralled by its majestic power. It would rip him into pieces but it would do so beautifully.

“It will obliterate your limbs,” cried the captain.

So he touched the safety box. For a second he felt a familiar pain rip through his nerves.

And then the world went black.

He woke up naked on a cold stone slab.

The room he was in had no light source but was dimly lit. The grey walls and ceilings were covered with layers of runes and spell circles, some overlapping and some stretching beyond the room he was in. He was inside a resurrection altar.

As he moved he could feel his bones groan and touching his saggy skin he knew he had aged once more. But he didn’t let that interfere with his study of the runes. Who knew how he could improve? After about twenty minutes, he spotted a rune that was in the explosion spell circle that he memorised.

A chiming bell woke him from his study. Without a choice in the matter he stared at the white monstrosity in the door way. It had long cat like legs and was made up of bones. To make it even eerier it wore tight white robes.

The bell it was ringing seemed to say, ‘your time was up’. And with great reluctance, he choose an appropriately sized black robe from the pile of black robes on the peg and left the room. Going down the grey, inscribed stairs, he met many others of different sizes and shapes all wearing the same shapeless robes with long hoods masking their faces.

By the time he reached the exit he was lost in a throng of black hooded people. He headed to the Border Reserves office and after joining his company members it was decided that they would recuperate today and leave tomorrow.

The next day, Corn found himself in a thick forest. Gone were the rolling plains, in their place stood blue green trees and shrubbery. After selecting a thick 27 foot tree the rest of the company used Mauled axes ( apparently such a thing existed) to bring it down and dig a hole.

Inside were their belongings. Unlike the others who were relieved to find their stuff, Corn’s loaned clothes were of better quality than his original ones. The only thing he pocketed was the jagged Screen shard the dwarf gave him and the purple badge.

But when it came to the Life counters further complications ensued. A trip back to their headquarters revealed that he couldn’t regain the life he had lost. Despite it looking like a full counter, the woman had declared he had already spent about 2 months and therefore it wasn’t whole. He needed to earn back enough Life shards to get back his life. The same was true of his compatriots, except they had hit middle age, while he looked ancient.

Still, there was one good thing that came out of all of this.

Time Remaining: 1 month 4 days

Stats: 7/20

Two whole stat points. He was on a roll.