32. The Nth Stats and Rotations

Jin and I walked into the mess hall side by side. Every table in the hall had turned into a scene of bickering. Datapads passing between recruits, replays of paired matches cycling on screens, a kid on his feet demonstrating a guard position to two people who clearly thought he was wrong. Three tables down, someone was loudly insisting that Osei’s paired coordination should be disqualified for the first phase fights. His opponent in the debate kept stabbing the air with a spoon.

Jin split toward the food line. “Save me a spot at the table, I’ll grab our food.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue and nodded, heading off to the table.

Park had his datapad propped against a water canteen, cycling through match footage. Tomás was three pages deep in his notebook. Ren and Sato sat across from each other, Sato talking and Ren listening. Hsu was flexing her guard hand, working out the stiffness. Andrew was eating paste with a grim look on his face.

Me too, buddy, me too…

“Your left side keeps dragging,” Tomás said the moment I sat down.

“Yeah, I took a nasty hit to my ribs. Jin had to wrap them up for me.”

Sato’s head came up. “She what? Jin? Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

Jin appeared like a ghost, knocking the back of Sato’s head with a gentle elbow.

“What was that for?” Sato cried out in protest.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sato,” Jin said, placing a tray in front of me.

Sato looked at the tray, looked at Jin, looked at me, and wisely decided to examine his paste very closely.

“Say it,” Jin said, sitting down across from Tomás.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to say that’s very considerate of—.”

“No, you weren’t.” Jin interjected.

“No…” Sato agreed. “I wasn’t. But now I’m terrified, so let’s move on.”

Ren made a sound that might have been a laugh.

“Alright,” I said. “How’d everyone do today? Give me the full picture.”

“You want my spreadsheet?” Park asked.

“Park made a spreadsheet,” Hsu said to no one in particular.

“Park always makes a spreadsheet,” Andrew said.

“Spreadsheets are useful!” Park protested, pulling it up on a datapad. “I’ve been tracking approximate levels based on output metrics and the system’s performance weighting. Tomás has been helping me big time with it. However, it’s just estimations and is not Enlightened truth.”

He turned the datapad toward the table. A chart filled the screen: names, estimated levels, stat distributions, deviation classifications.

“Let’s start with us. Jin, you’re our heaviest hitter. Level 31, D-Grade. Your Agility base sits around 50, which is already in the top bracket for the exhibition. When your burst fires, you jump past 70-ish for three seconds. That’s why you can trade with Level 35-plus opponents during your windows and actually come away with something.” He glanced at her. “Your Strength sits lower — around 28. You hit fast, and the speed of your attacks adds bite to them, but against someone with high Vitality, you need to stack hits rather than land haymakers.”

“I’m aware of how my own body works, Park.”

“I’m telling the table, not you.”

“Sato, Level 28, D-Grade. Strength is your spike — about 33. That power of yours is real, and the combat skill multiplier on precision strikes pushes your effective output above what 33 Strength should manage. When your angles connect, you hit like someone five levels above you.”

“Until some arsehole bends gravity and my punches go into the floor,” Sato said.

“Which brings us to the point — at our level range, say Level 22 to Level 32, the stat gaps between fighters are real but manageable. Five to ten points of Agility gives you a fraction of a second. Ten points of Strength means your hits land about a third heavier. At this point in the exhibition, we’ll be fighting the heaviest hitters.”

“Which means the stats are going to be overwhelming, especially when Miller and the other elites are pushing level forty now.” Tomás chimed in.

Park nodded before continuing. “Before we could get by with technique and planning around the rotations, but that will matter less when your perception stat is far outclassed by someone like Jin.”

“Why do you keep saying what we already know?” Jin huffed.

“Because refreshing it means you’re more likely to take it into account in a fight. It’s simple!” Park retorted.

“Don’t forget the difference in skill level,” Tomás cut in, reorienting the conversation back to the topic at hand.

“Right, yes, of course.” Park adjusted his glasses. “The difference in stats is more than just the numbers on your attribute page. As you all know, but seemingly forget, combat skill level plays a huge part in who wins in fights.”

“Only if you’re fighting with a rotation versus rotation,” I chimed in.

“No, not only if you’re fighting with a rotation. You might be used to it, Marcus, but the rest of us struggle to keep up with rotations that are higher level than our own.”

“Yeah, not all of us got to have the special privilege of a Prep-academy, Tiernan,” Jin poked.

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I rolled my eyes as Park continued, “A well-executed combination carries more force than the raw Strength stat would suggest — the system recognises the skill and boosts the output. But this also means that they are locked into their rotation, like an attack animation in a video game.”

“Is that why Marcus keeps beating people he shouldn’t be able to beat?” Andrew asked, jerking his thumb at me.

“Partly,” Park said. “Marcus is the interesting case.”

“By far the lowest at the table,” Tomás added helpfully.

“Dicks…” I grumbled.

“His physical stats are below everyone here. By the numbers, he should be losing to anyone above Level 22 consistently. But his mental stats are seemingly abnormal. Those are higher than most people at Level 30, since lower grades tend to emphasise physical stats.”

“So he’s got the brain of a Level 30 fighter stuck in a Level 17 body,” Sato said.