After another ten minutes or so of fighting through way more than six gremlins, Leuen is beginning to wonder if Cole's usage of an explosive in the middle of a dungeon was a bad plan. Sure, Leuen saw the aftermath of that room, killing nine enemies with a single weapon is a tremendous deal when done that fast. On the other hand, everything in the dungeon knows they’re here, and exactly where they are.

 

With how tired Leuen is starting to feel, plus the fact that it is incredibly easy for him to measure the fact that he has one stamina left, he’s genuinely concerned that they won’t be able to clear the dungeon. Or, barring that, have the energy to walk all the way back to town. He didn’t bring food, only a waterskin he bought from the guild.

 

“Yeah. That’s as far as we’re going today.” Lucius declares as he himself props himself up against a wall while the rest of the group rests on the floor of the recently cleared ‘bedchamber’.

 

Leuen wonders why the dungeon’s designer included a place for the gremlins to sleep when Lucius said that dungeon monsters don’t need to. Similarly, a previous room they cleared was a kitchen, there was also a makeshift hospital-like thing, and so on. Why would the dungeon make these? Realism? That seems a bit of a laughable notion when everything else is so blatantly artificial.

 

Not hearing any objections to Lucius’s declaration, Leuen tries to go over all the knowledge he’s gained from the fighting. Firstly, he figured out how to control when the enemy information pop-ups happen. Essentially, as long as he’s using his hands or feet, he can look at whatever his Analyze level lets him see of a creature’s stats when he hits them. At first, it happened three or four times without him wanting it to happen, but after the fifth time he needed to kick a gremlin away from him or Essandir, he realized he could choose not to view the information if he actively thought about not seeing it while he was attacking.

 

He’s also pretty sure he’s figured out some of the way damage calculation works. His Hard and Tough are the same, so he doesn’t know which one it is, but his unarmed damage seems to be tied to it. Kicking gremlins in the chest did two damage, whereas stomping on their heads did four. Whether that’s just what crits are, or something else, he doesn’t know.

 

His sword’s damage doesn’t follow this principle. If it did, his sword would deal either five or fifteen damage, but it doesn’t seem to. Well, it might be using the sword’s Hard, since the damage he observed most consistently was seven, which would be the sword’s Hard plus his Hard, but he somehow doubts that’s the intended reading of the interaction. Indeed, Hard sounds like it’s more of a durability related stat, not a damage one, so he’s not sure.

 

Granted, it could also be his Grit contributing to damage, plus his sword’s Hard. That could also make sense, one of his physical stats plus the strength of the material his weapon is made out of, but Leuen has his doubts.

 

For starters, that would mean that nothing about a weapon matters other than what it is made out of, which makes no sense to him. An iron brick would be identical to a greatsword in terms of offensive damage, which is patently absurd. He finds it more likely that the sword has its own internal damage value; he simply doesn’t have a high enough Analyze to see.

 

His unarmed combat damage is definitely tied to either Hard, Tough, or Grit though. He’s absolutely sure of that. Checking his level up pop-up again…

 

Level Up

Most recent action: Combat

Level: 2 -> 3

Dura: 12 -> 13

Stamina: 12 -> 13

Grit: 1 -> 2

Optional Rewards(Choose one):

--

+1 Hard, Tough, Grit, and Absorption

+0.01 TA

+1 Cogni

+1 Hive

 

Without knowing for certain what any of the stats actually do, Leuen is beginning to come around to the idea of having more numbers being better, until he remembers that he has something he’d like to check. Focusing as intently as he can on his character sheet, he tries to ignore the actual numbers and instead focus on the stats themselves, then use Analyze.

 

Stat: Phys_Hard

Effect: Reduce slash/pierce damage by X.

Sub-Effect: Unknown

 

It takes everything Leuen is to keep his excitement contained from the rest of the tired group’s attempts at reinvigorating themselves. With a firm answer on what stats at least partially do, he decides to check every single one that will give him information.

 

Stat: Phys_Tough

Effect: Reduce blunt damage by X.

Sub-Effect: Unknown

 

Stat: Phys_Grit

Effect: Stamina usage reduced by X.

Sub-Effect: Unknown

 

Stat: Phys_Absoption

Effect: Damage absorbed per stamina.

Sub-Effect: Unknown

 

Stat: Phys_Dura

Effect: Maximum physical integrity.

Sub-Effect: Unknown

 

Stat: Phys_Stamina

Effect: Fuels strenuous physical actions.

Sub-Effect: Absorbs damage that would otherwise be dealt to Dura.

 

Stat: Phys.CC

Effect: Amount of weight (lbs.) before stamina exertion.

Sub-Effect: Unknown

 

Having sufficiently clicked every button that reacted to him, Leuen tries to piece together the information he already has with these new descriptions. Since he doesn’t have the Sub-Effects of Hard, Tough, or Grit, them being responsible for unarmed damage is still on the table, but-

 

“Leuen? What did you just do?” Essandir’s eyes are gazing at him with a bit of fear behind them, and she flinches back when Leuen meets her stare.

 

“What?” What? Did she just sense that I did something?

 

“You… You just… I felt like…” Essandir shakes her head side to side, seemingly to escape Leuen’s gaze, and so he chooses not to look at her, instead placing his eyes on the door behind her. “Are you a mage?”

 

“N-not that I know of?” Leuen answers while his mind races for a way to not come off as extremely suspicious.

 

“I felt it too. Leuen, I think you might be, even if you don’t seem to know it. Essandir would know more about what exactly it means, though.” Lucius supplies, before offering a hand to Cole and Ird to help them stand. “Come on. We should get out of here before any more show up to kill us while we’re tired.”

 

-X-X-X-

 

So faith magic users can tell when you ‘defy a virtue’, regular mages can feel when I fuck around with my system, what else is going to make me seem suspicious? Oh, right, the fact that I have so much money and no personal history. Leuen thinks to himself. Fuck it. I don’t care. Option one, just give me the raw stats. Clearly I’m in no state to take risks right now. Speaking of, it’s odd that there’s no direct strength or speed correlative stat. It’s all durability and endurance stuff. Why no dexterity?

 

--

Leuen (no surname)

Bio Age (Chrono Age): 19 (19)

Health: 26/26

--

Level: 3

Exp: 215/400

--

Phys.Stat

Hard: 3

Tough: 3

Dura: 13

Regen: 1/Day

Grit: 3

Absorption: 2

Stamina: 13

Regen: 1/Hour

CC: 55

M.Conductivity: 1.00

--

Mental.Stat

TA: 0.00

Cogni: 1

Hive: 0

H.Limit: 10

Cooling: 1

Analyze: 2

M.Fission: 0

M.Fusion: 0

--

Meta.Stat

N/A

 

Are his current stats. It’s strange, he’s got a level up banked, with the automatic rewards of Dura and Stamina already applied, but he hasn’t yet chosen the option for the remainder. Not that he thinks he has much of a choice.

 

The little adventure out to the dungeon had gone reasonably well, and the group had been paid for the information they acquired and the number of kills they approximated. Leuen hadn’t been the one to give the report, but the pay was split evenly with him anyways. The group’s integrity stocks are at an all time high for Leuen. The money was silver, not gold, like the coins he got from the treasure chest in the abandoned dungeon, so Leuen is worried he might have a bit of a reputation with the guild and tavern for being flush with cash. Not something he could do anything about, but it’s probably a net neutral in any case.

 

Being known as the ‘rich newbie’ might get him targeted by unsavory types looking to exploit his weak personal power, but it just as likely might keep unsavory types away, fearing retribution from someone with real monetary power.  Not a double edged sword, just a candle burning at both ends. He needs to get enough connections for the second part to be true or have enough personal power for the first part to be true.

 

In that sense the options his level up are offering aren’t really options.

 

+1 Hard, Tough, Grit, and Absorption

+0.01 TA

+1 Cogni

+1 Hive

 

He doesn’t know what TA, Cogni, or Hive do yet, and he suspects he’d need at least a third Analyze point to find out. Meanwhile, he knows exactly what Hard, Tough, Grit, and Absorption do, even if he’s not sure how efficiently they do what they do. He’s not sure if the ‘X’ in the description of Tough means ‘per point’ or some ratio determined by his points. It could be 1 flat damage reduction or 1% damage reduction. Regardless, he knows what it does, so being offered four total stats whose effect he knows versus one of three stats he has no clue about, the choice is obvious.

 

He doesn’t feel any changes in his body just laying in his rented bed, but surely there was some sort of difference. Grit and Absorption in particular he’s got high hopes for. Less stamina usage means operating for longer at the same level of physical activity, at least in theory. In practice, his stamina also increases with level, meaning he’ll be compounding interest in his stamina’s ability to do work. Absorption seems to Leuen like a better defensive stat than any other, since so far he hasn’t taken any non-stamina damage.

 

In theory, if the numbers are used raw, 1 absorption means each stamina needs 1 point of damage to destroy, but if he pumped his absorption up to 50… He’d still need to know more about how damage works to say anything definitive, but he’s certain it’d be pretty broken.

 

And oh boy does Leuen thinks he’ll need to get strong fast. No way in the name of all that is holy does he want to be caught by a massive monster or powerful adventurer with only his meager current stats. That simply isn’t acceptable. So, he’s going to need a plan.

 

(A/N: Currently unedited. Anyone willing to point out spelling mistakes or just grammatical mistakes will get a cookie.)