Chapter 2 – Stats, skill and even more stats.

Roland kept looking at the status window, he was someone versed in computers so he knew what those meant.

‘Am I stuck in some kind of game world? Did someone put me into virtual reality?’

He pinched himself to see if he was feeling any pain and to no surprise he did.

‘Did I really die… is this the afterlife…’

He was shocked, not too long ago he was tinkering in the computer repair shop and now he woke up in a young boy’s body. He even knew who this child was as he regained all of his memories and what the child knew about this world. The place he was in was called the Kingdom of Caldris and he was the 4th son from the house of Arden. His new father was a Baron and he was the youngest son, besides that he even had three sisters one being younger than him.

‘This kid… his family doesn’t really think much of him, does it?’

He looked at the shabby room he was in. He knew from his memories that he wasn’t really in contention for the noble title of this house. This ‘honor’ belonged to the firstborn, maybe the second-born still had a shot at it if he was especially talented. But he was only the 4th in line, unless all of his brothers died he had no chance.

He wasn’t sure what this boy’s fate would be in the eyes of his family. He was too young to know how the political structure in this world worked. He only knew that he was the son of a noble, so it was probably still better than being a commoner.

‘I should be safe here for the time… not sure what the age of adulthood in this world is, but the bigger question is…’

He looked to the hovering window in front of his face, it looked like some kind of status screen of an RPG character. It had things like strength and endurance, just like in games that he used to play. Most of his stats were low, but some of them stood out.

‘My intelligence is quite high, so is my willpower and dexterity. Aren’t the first two mage stats?’

He needed more information first, he needed to figure this status screen out. This was something that the people leaving in this world saw as natural, the boy’s memories reflected that as he could recall him using it.

‘Okay, I need to think status and it should show up…’

He strained his thoughts, the game-like screen appearing in front of him again. He could see all of his main stats, if he guided his gaze to the desired option he could even get some flavor text to give him an explanation.

Name:	Explanation
Strength:	Indicates the physical power of an individual, increases attack damage, and stamina slightly.
Agility:	Indicates how agile and nimble a person is, increases speed, quickness, and stamina slightly.
Dexterity:	Indicates skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands, increases attack damage with finesse weapons and attack speed.
Vitality:	Increases health points, defense, physical resistances, and the life span of an individual.
Endurance:	Increases an individual’s stamina, stamina regeneration, and health points slightly.
Intelligence:	Increases an individual’s mana points, magic attack, and learning speed.
Willpower:	Increases an individual’s resistance to elemental attacks, status effects, and mana points slightly.
Charisma:	Indicates an individual’s charm. A measure of personality, persuasiveness, leadership.
Luck:	Increases the chance or critical attacks and other various skills related to chance.

He started reading the short explanations for the attributes and looked at his own to see what he was good and bad at. Most of his stats were quite low but some were uncharacteristically high compared to the others. For one, his intelligence stat was really high at a whopping 35. Followed by willpower at 18 and then dexterity at 15.

‘Intelligence increases my mana and magic attack… am I a mage or something? I’m resistant to status effect and good with my hands?’

Besides those three everything else was below ten, he had no idea how the stats of an average person’s in this world looked like. He tried recalling something from the memories that he got from this child, but there was nothing concerning this.

The boy left a boring life without anyone really telling him anything. This was due to how low his social standing was in this family, he was the lowly 4th son and he wasn’t even the child of the main wife but came from a mistress that wasn’t even allowed to live together with him at this estate. He tried recalling how the boy’s mothered looked, a face or even the shape but he couldn’t.

‘Don’t think he ever saw his mother…’

He tried thinking about what kind of world he was in now. There was a window in his room, but he was still feeling sickly. By the looks of the doctor and the maid, he was somewhere where the technological advancement wasn’t that great.

‘Great… how am I supposed to live without the internet now?’

He became dejected, all those shows and movies that he was eagerly waiting to devour in his free time were all gone now. What was he even supposed to do here, go to school like a normal kid and then become some kind of court official?

‘Is that even an option? My status is fairly low… won’t they just toss me out, or tell me to go join the army or something?’

He wasn’t sure how things worked, from his internet knowledge he knew that noble sons sometimes became servants of higher nobles. Some were even forced to join the clergy to become a monk.

‘Ugh, I don’t want to shave my head… or be forced to take some vows…’

He moved his attention back to his status, did it always look like this. He tried recalling the memories of the boy that had previously looked at his own attributes.

‘I’m sure those three stats were lower… though his intelligence was above 10 from the start…’

He had somehow influenced these stats but what was the reason? He decided to investigate and looked at his status screen again.

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‘What is that… there is a skill menu…’

He willed the skill menu to open, with some mental gymnastics he managed to bring out the window, this one showed him all the skills and traits that he had.

Name	Type	Description
Debugger L 5	Passive Skill	Allows the user to find and resolve defects. Bonus to Intelligence +5.
Logical Thinker	Trait	A person with this trait thinks calmly, can analyze the problem and come to a rational conclusion. Receives a bonus to Intelligence +5 and willpower +5.
Circuitry L 6	Passive Skill	Bonus to repair and creation of circuits or circuit equivalents. Bonus to Dexterity +6 and +6 intelligence.
Fast Learning	Trait	People with this trait absorb knowledge at an increased rate. Bonus to Intelligence +5.
Knowledge Retention	Trait	A person with this trait is able to retain more information and at a faster rate. Bonus to Intelligence +3 and willpower +5.
Sleep Resistance L 4	Passive Skill	You require less sleep and feel less tired.
Tinkerer L 5	Passive Skill	Increased proficiency in the creation and repair of various components.Bonus to Dexterity 5.
Identify L 1	Passive Skill	Used for identifying and analyzing the world.
Mana Sense L 1	Passive Skill	Allows you to sense mana.

Roland’s eyes went wide, he didn’t expect to find so many various skills in there. He knew that most of those weren’t in here before, this also explained why he had an increase in stats.

‘Most of those passive skills and traits increase my intelligence, willpower, and dexterity…’

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