Chapter 6: Stats and Growth

Questions kept popping up in Trint’s 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 replaced, he supposed it didn’t matter for now.

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 thought about people who were fine with robbing and killing. When already bad people gained dominating power and with post-apocalyptic scenarios, the powerful wouldn’t hesitate to exploit the weak. There would likely be a lot of abuse of power and unnecessary killing. Trint wondered if his sense of justice and desire to protecting the innocent would get him into trouble at some point.

Trint was not looking forward to seeing that sort of evil. He always possessed 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 evil and abuse of power. But he had to also focus on getting to his family.

No doubt things were going to get ugly, but he would not be able to turn a blind eye. So, he began preparing himself to get strong enough to have the power to stop the ugly side of the Iterations when he could. However, he had no delusions of grandeur. He knew he was a small fish in a big ocean. Or a frog in a well, unaware how big the world really is. For now, he needed to be ready for the fighting to come.

After leveling up a few times, Pneuma explained that holding on to 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.

Pneuma pulled up the System view before assigning the available points:

Trinten Atlas Henderson

Class: None

Profession: None

Stats

Level: 3

XP: 25%

Unassigned Stat Points: 0.9 (Body) 0.9 (Mind)

Body Stats

Strength

Agility

Vitality

1.0

1.0

1.0

Mind Stats

Memory

Wisdom

Adaptability

1.0

1.0

1.0

Status

Health - HP

300/300

Regen

30 / min

Stamina - SP

300/300

Regen

90 / min

Mana - MP

300/300

Regen

30 / min

Reluctantly, Trint directed Pneuma to assign his available stat points evenly across the board.

He felt himself changing immediately after assigning his stats. Not painful changes, but he felt better in unexplainable ways. With six categories to throw in stats, earning 0.3/level for Mind and 0.3/level for Body, that raised him to 1.3 across the board. He also noticed that his Health, Stamina, and Mana had previously 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 to test his new physical abilities. Then he reviewed his updated stats:

Unassigned Stat Points: 0.0 (Body) 0.0 (Mind)

Body Stats

Strength

Agility

Vitality

1.3

1.3

1.3

Mind Stats

Memory

Wisdom

Adaptability

1.3

1.3

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, do you think you started me off with the right skills? What if I run into a person with Legendary skills? Trint questioned.

Yes, you need to trust me. You are still in a relatively safe environment. This is an ideal time to get used to them. It’s like when you learned to ride a bicycle and had training wheels, Pneuma explained. 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 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. Soon we will try to take off the training wheels.

Okay, I get it. But do you have to sound so condescending? How do you know about bicycles anyway? Trint had noticed Pneuma knew a lot of sayings and ideas that only someone from Earth or even America would know.

I am fully aware of your world’s pre-System state. I was there before System integration, Pneuma explained. In fact, it was I 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.

...Oh. Well, I guess I should thank you. But… Trint felt a wave of emotions wash over him again.

I understand through our connection what you are feeling, and I apologize for stirring those emotions within you again. Your family would have died and you have suffered great emotional loss and guilt. They were spared that pain and eagerly await you. All of this was made possible by the will of your new family. Trint's was left with one other thought, Why can’t you take me to my family like you wisked them away?

That is not something I don’t know the reason behind. For now, why don’t you try another Instance or two? Now that you’ve assigned your stats and are level 3, you should venture further out and find a level 3 Instance, Pneuma offered, changing the topic. How do I know what level they are? Trint asked.

Well, I can tell you, or I can enable your ability to see the level just as you are able to identify others’ level. Through me, your ability to identify others is better than what most have access to but I will limit what you see. 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 for yourself, but here is my recommended layout for your view for now.

Trint’s Health, Stamina, and Mana shifted to a much cleaner layout with bars in his top left view. They were transparent so he could see behind them without having his vision obstructed.

HP: 100%

SP: 100%

MP: 100%

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

There are more things to add to your view later, but we’ll start with these so you can get properly acclimated. For now, head further west and in a few miles, you will find a level 3 Instance, Pneuma instructed. Use your map, or I can provide an arrow in your vision like your old car’s GPS.

“It is still really weird you have all this access and know stuff about Earth,” Trint muttered to himself. Pneuma was constantly surprising him.

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 personal observation, books, and your internet. Some people were good and many more were self-serving. Evil occurred there just like here. Humanity and System sapient beings are prone to selfishness. Centering thoughts toward 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’s lecture was interrupted by yet another question.

Okay I get it; you know a lot and you are not pleased with humanity from Earth.

As Trint pondered all that Pneuma had told him he dressed for the day with some basic clothes from his ring. He was certain there was better gear in the ring that Pneuma was blocking from him but for now he needed to be patient. After dressing he left the house and decided before he went to fight again he would explore the town his house was in.

Pneuma provided Trint a view of the map and Trint played around zooming in and out and finding areas marked on the town map.

What is a Town Center? Trint asked.

That would be where most of the vendors and the recruiters will be later. The System opens access for them to visit and sell to or recruit newly integrated people. Most will join a group, faction, sect or some other larger power. For now steer clear of that area. We will go there soon enough and you might realize just how big your new home is.

The world you are in is incredibly large as it encompasses about 100 worlds with intelligent life. You are initially placed near your world’s inhabitants. The distance between i11 Tutorial zones is too far to waste time trying to reach another starting location.

Recruiters will be here soon, 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 a bit. However, you’ll need to wait for higher Iterations due to Spirit being so sparse here. You don’t seem to be able to sense your Spirit, let alone access it and keep it from radiating outside yourself like an i4 child. For now, around other people, I will block that. Eventually, you need to learn control for your protection and growth.

Oh look, there’s a level 6 Warrior, Trint’s excitement was amusing to Pneuma.

Ha ha ha, Pneuma’s booming laughter made Trint’s smile even broader. Trint it is both refreshing and baffling that you get excited seeing someone three levels higher than yourself. Before you go talk to them or they come over here, consider this.

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. Every secret you have would be extracted in a most painful way. Everyone would know you are different. Different will mean bad things for you. Even those who won’t know why you are different; will know you are valuable.Pneuma’s explanation left Trint paranoid. He shuddered at the thought of being imprisoned, tortured, beaten, and possibly even enslaved.

Trint took Pneuma’s advice to heart. He turned his focus back to the present and followed the arrow on his map in System Heads Up View (HUV) out of the town and into the wilderness. He found the level 3 Instance with little difficulty 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.