[Initialising...
Success!
Scanning for suitable Talent...
Talent found... Possible threat to the system: Continue?
Confirmed! Penalty applied, Talent delayed.
Finding Suitable talent substitute...
Talent found! Begin porting.
Warping begins in 3... 2... 1...]
For a terrifying moment, his vision had gone black. But thankfully, that passed quickly, and now he was standing, not on the bridge, but in what looked like a massive hotel lobby. Soft red carpets covered a marble floor, and ornate glass windows allowed colourful light streams to pour into the massive hall.
Lan felt hands holding his and quickly let go, stepping back and away from the massive line of students still coming, disoriented by the sudden jump in space.
Almost immediately, he noticed something disconcerting. The hall was quickly divided into two types of people. One of the groups was striding confidently through a wide wooden door at the far end of the hall, and the other was standing dazed and confused, still recovering from the warping.
"Lan, you okay, buddy?" Morgan's voice came from his left.
Lan nodded, finding his bearings pretty quickly, "I think we should follow them," was the first thing he said.
Morgan scowled but agreed, "Yeah, those lot are second-generation pathfinders..."
Seeing Lan's look of confusion, Morgan elaborated, "Basically, they are the children of pathfinders. They had training before joining the academy and already have pretty good equipment. As well as advice from their parents who've already gone through all this,"
"So even in the academy, normal people are at a disadvantage..." Lan muttered, running to catch up with Morgan as they followed the second-generation pathfinders out of the hall.
They stepped out onto a cobbled road that stretched towards a giant bulletin board before splitting into two separate paths and continuing into the distance. One road sloped down the side of a cliff and disappeared, and the other climbed up the side of a steep mountain blanketed in a forest.
Hundreds of students had already gathered around the bulletin board, reading it with intense concentration.
As they walked along the road, Lan noticed that a lot of the people near them were staring into space, their eyes intensely focused on empty air.
"What's up with them?" He asked, nudging Morgan.
Morgan took notice of the vacant stares and facepalmed, "Oh my god, I am such an idiot. How could I forget about the most important thing?"
"View profile," After saying that, their eyes grew similarly distracted, staring at things that weren't there.
"Morgan," Lan got no response.
"Morgan!" Lan grabbed the kid and started to shake.
"Huh? what is it? what's happening?" Morgan grunted, snapping back to reality.
"What are you doing?" Lan asked, cautious not to make it obvious to passersby that he was confused since everyone from the academies seemed to already know what was happening.
Morgan facepalmed again, and Lan was beginning to wonder if they would get brain damage from doing that all the time, "Sorry, I forgot you didn't know already. To view your stats in the system, you just have to say: View Profile. After that, take a look at your Talent so that you can decide your next move,"
Lan nodded, a little embarrassed about saying it aloud, but since everyone was doing it, it wasn't a big deal, "What am I looking for?"
"There are two types of talents usually, those that help with combat, and those that help with crafting or academic stuff. Depending on your Talent, you can decide which path to take up there by the bulletin board. One of those paths will be for non-combat pathfinders, and the other will be for combat-type people," Morgan explained before opening their profile again and reading it absentmindedly.
Steeling himself, Lan spoke, "View Profile,"
A holographic box displaying a list of his stats and attributes appeared in front of him, glowing softly. Looking around, he made sure that no one else could see his information before delving into it himself.
[Name: Unknown
Title(s): None
Age: 18
Race: Human - G
Class: None
Talent: Weapons are my Weapons - G
Health: 35/35
Mana: 30/30
Level: 0
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 8
Endurance: 7
Vitality: 5
Mind: 11
Intelligence: 3
Luck: 11
Free Points: 10
Skills: None]
'What the hell sort of talent is that?' Was Lan's first thought after he had read through his profile. It was easy enough to figure out he would be going down the combat-oriented path with a talent like that. Now he just needed to figure out what exactly it did.
For now, he looked at his stat distribution and winced. If these stats were meant to reflect an average person, ten out of ten being average for a grown man, then he was lacking in every physical stat.
In fact, his only impressive stat was luck, which he had to admit, had gotten him out of many a tight spot over the years. Even today, it had only been through sheer luck that he bumped into
Morgan or those workers that warned him not to go to the Fifteenth floor.
Since he needed to learn the best way to distribute his stat points, he decided to wait until he figured out his Talent before allocating anything. On initial inspection, it seemed that Intelligence correlated to mana, with him having three and thirty in each one, respectively. So he assumed that adding one point to Intelligence would add ten to mana. He suspected his Vitality was related to health since it made sense that it would be, but he couldn't understand how.
"Hey," Morgan elbowed Lan, who jumped back, startled out of his revelry. "What does your talent do?"
Lan shrugged helplessly, "I have no idea. How do I find out?"
"Oh, that's easy, just say Talent: Identify,"
"How did people even figure this stuff out to begin with?" Lan muttered as he viewed his Talent in more detail.
[Weapons are my Weapons: Someone truly mighty does not have a favourite sword. They do not need a powerful tool to be strong, as they themselves embody strength. In the hands of an expert, even sticks and stones can be weapons of mass destruction.
Effects:
Adaptable: In your hands, even a feather can become sharp. Anything you touch becomes a weapon you can use to the best of your abilities.
Penalty:
Heretic: You despise enchantments. Any weapon crafted with a skill attached or special effects is unusable.]
"Shit!" Lan spat.
Morgan placed a hand on Lan's shoulder comfortingly, but Lan flinched away again, not liking anything to go near his neck. "Is your penalty bad?"
"Is the penalty the part of the talent that restricts you?"
"Yeah, some can get really brutal. For example, I've heard of people who have armour talents that can never remove their armour. They can't bathe or sleep without it on! Although I think talents become more flexible at higher ranks," Morgan explained.
"Mine's pretty bad then. It says I can't use any weapons that have been enchanted," Just to test it, Lan brought out his rope. The long black coil had a weak enchantment that allowed him to call it back to him. He tried to activate the enchantment, but it was futile. His mana refused to enter the array. Although he could still physically hold the rope, his Talent restricted him from using the skills attached to weapons rather than the weapons themselves.
Lan sighed and stashed the rope back in his rucksack. "So, can you explain to me how stats work? I'm sorry if I'm being an inconvenience, but I'm really in the dark about all this," Lan was genuinely grateful for Morgan's help and even more thankful that they hadn't asked him any questions about why he was here.
Morgan shook their head and laughed amiably, "Nah, don't worry about it. I'll just explain it as we walk to the board,"
As the pair set off, they noticed that the crowd gathered around the leaderboard had grown to over a thousand students, all of them excitedly discussing its contents with passionate gestures and shouts.
"Okay... so stats aren't an absolute science, but for your purposes right now, this is what's most important: There are 6 stats that you can change with free points, Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Endurance, Mind and Intelligence. Luck is the exception, as it can only be upgraded through titles and lucky encounters. It's also the least understood stat, so I'll ignore it for now. Strength relates to your physical strength... which sounds kinda obvious now I'm saying it out loud, but it's mostly your explosive power. Dexterity affects your agility and balance. It's a vital stat for balancing strength. Too much of one without the other makes you useless.
Vitality and Endurance are linked stats, with Vitality dictating your health pool and regeneration and Endurance deciding how strong your body is. For that reason, the combination of those two stats determines your health. Think of it like this, Vitality increases the quantity of health, and Endurance improves the quality.
Mind is all about your thinking speed and how quick you are at learning skills.