There's a screen in front of me.
Floating in the air, like I'm in some sort of hyperrealistic VR game.
The thing is, those stats are not like your average MMORPG.
No, this is chaos. It really reminds me of that game about dwarves I was very fond of in my past life.
To begin with, there are two columns with attributes—one for body attributes and another for soul attributes.
I'm getting a new headache just by looking at that jumble of stats.
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Aurea Annes
Race: human / Age: 7
Level: 119 / Job: none
HP: 17,076/17,076
MP: 70,329/70,329
FP: 0/0
BODY
Strength: 160
Agility: 183
Toughness: 155
Endurance: 132
Recuperation (consolidated): 175
Resistance (consolidated): 221
SOUL
Analytical ability: 350
Focus: 223
Willpower: 259
Creativity: 198
Intuition: 233
Patience: 331
Memory: 401
Linguistic ability: 307
Spatial sense: 188
Musicality: 97
Kinesthetic sense: 111
Empathy: 214
Social awareness: 161
Mana sense: 457
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What the hell is going on with those absurd stats? I remember Mother telling me that the average base value for humans was in the 80-120 range and that it would improve as I leveled up, but I had no idea it could improve that much.
That would explain the effect of the strengthening aria early in the mock fight. My base power was scaled up by leveling.
The system really is a huge cheat mode. Imagine trying to reach those values just by training, the Earth-y way.
According to those numbers, my strength and agility already surpass average adult humans by a fair margin. At least those who hadn't leveled up.
In hindsight, it makes me question how easily I was able to escape from those guys. I'm sure they all had several levels under their belt already. So, why was it so easy?
Let's continue looking at the rest of the stat screen.
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SKILLS
[There are skills with enough XP to be unlocked without spending skill points.]
Skill Points available: 146,648
TITLES
Daughter of Thunder
Wesgoth Royal Bloodline
Runaway Slave of Duke Addlington [CRIME]
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Whoa, whoa, whoa... Stop right there.
Before anything else, what's with that royal bloodline thingy???
I reach my finger and tap on it, as if the floating screen were a normal touchscreen.
It indeed opens a popup.
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TITLE: Wesgoth Royal Bloodline
The bearer is a descendant of the kings of Wesgoth and is a candidate to inherit the throne. The bearer of this lineage receives extra information when appraising objects related to the goddess.
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I read and reread that popup a couple of times.
Am I really a candidate for the throne? How...?
Is it because I'm the daughter of the Duke? Is he related to the royal family?
Or...
Some pieces in the puzzle inside my head.
My mother... That bloodline trait would explain all those secret pieces of information she knows...
Is that why you got enslaved, Mother? Because you learned too much?
Are these titles visible to other people? Like in some card from the guild, or something?
Or people who can use Appraisal, through skills or some items?
If the wrong people learn about that bloodline, it can become seriously dangerous to me. Not to mention the runaway slave title, which brands me as a criminal.
If any guard sees this, I'm done for. Inside any human city, that is.
I close the popup and look again at the stats screen.
Hm, let me see what this Daughter of Thunder title is about.
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TITLE: Daughter of Thunder
The bearer is a champion of [XXXX]. The title gives complete control over the lightning element. It also gives double the amount of XP for progress in magic-related skills and doubles the available MP for the bearer. It also doubles the base value of attributes for level-up increase calculations. Unique. Divine.
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Oh, this must be a gift from Oya. I wonder what "complete control over the element" means.
Also, the MP doubling is pretty juicy. That must be the reason my MP is so much higher than the HP.
Okay, now I'll look at those skills that I can unlock automatically. If the attribute mechanic is so detailed, I can expect another headache from the skills.
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SKILLS
The following skills are available for unlocking without cost:
Mana manipulation
Elemental magic (Lightning)
Elemental magic (Water)
Elemental magic (Wind)
Elemental magic (Fire)
Elemental magic (Smoke)
Illusion magic
Body magic
Cooking
Hiding
Dodging
Butchering
Do you want to unlock all available skills?
[YES] [NO]
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I immediately click [YES], of course. I don't see any drawback to this.
Then the Skills section of my stats screen looks like this:
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SKILLS
Mana manipulation: lvl 15
Elemental magic (Lightning): lvl 100
Elemental magic (Water): lvl 7
Elemental magic (Wind): lvl 5
Elemental magic (Fire): lvl 3
Elemental magic (Smoke): lvl 1
Illusion magic: lvl 23
Body magic: lvl 27
Cooking: lvl 2
Hiding: lvl 12
Dodging: lvl 22
Butchering: lvl 9
Skill Points available: 146,648
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So, the skills have levels, huh? And is my lightning magic maxed out already? That's probably what the Daughter of Thunder title means.
It looks like skills are harder to level up than character levels. Probably because you level up by killing, while skills you level up by doing the thing repeatedly.
It's no wonder the humans have that edge over the other races in the wars. With a cheat system like this helping them and only them.
I wonder how much humanity has become reliant on the system for everything.
What would a person that always had a leveled-up cooking skill do when they have no access to the system and need to cook?
It might be a blessing that becomes a curse in the long term.
Just imagine those hardened warriors of the beastkin, who killed countless monsters all their lives. How much XP would they have accumulated by now?
If I shot up to level 119 in less than one week, those guys would be in the thousands.
In the meanwhile, most human soldiers think of this place as uninhabitable. I chuckle, as this situation makes me think of that old sci-fi book about the desert planet.
Unlocking the system for them could produce an army that can turn around the tides of the war in this world.
It's a system. It has to have some sort of code behind it.
In other words...
I can hack it.
Oya made it sound so easy yesterday. She just switched something, and it was on. But maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm a human, thus already with a connection to the system.
I can't discard the possibility that non-human souls are born without an out-of-the-box connection. It might be like trying to run Windows on an Apple computer.
It isn't impossible; there are several tools for it today. But doing it from scratch, without those tools, would require serious engineering.
:::
As I was about to tap on the screen again to see what to do with those accumulated skill points, I heard someone approaching the tent and closed the screen.
"Are you there, Aurea?"
"Yes, I was resting a bit."
It was Yaci's voice.