"Mom, what's going to happen now?" Rosa decided to ask. Both women paused drinking tea when they registered the question.
"What do you mean Sweetheart? Eleanor asked with a slight frown.
"What are we going to do if the monster raid breaks in?" The reality of current events were clear; it was a dangerous situation they were in.
"Baby-" Eleanor began to speak but was cut off by Abigail.
"Not much of a baby anymore, Ellie." She said with a huff. "Or haven't you seen the look in your daughter's eyes?" Eleanor looked away from her friend to really see her daughter.
Those weren't the eyes of an innocent child anymore.
"My poor baby." Eleanor wailed as she crumpled emotionally. It was a harsh reality that they had been born into. She swore to protect her child's innocence as long as she could. New tears streamed down her face as she ugly cried.
Rosa went wide eyed and looked to Abby for help.
Abby sighed and moved around the table to comfort her mother.
'Go.' Abigail mouthed over Eleanor's shoulder to Rosa. She nodded and went to the attic door and the stairway leading down.
Rosa's mother hadn't let her leave her sight ever since she got home, even making her sleep in the big bed. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate her care, she just had other things to do.
Like check out her new rewards.
Rosa couldn't collect it at home, her mother would have thought that she'd gone crazy from the trauma. She needed to go to a deserted place, where no one would bother her for a bit.
She knew just where to go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The building in front of her had five rooms and a small hall. It was wooden, old and set on a stone foundation.
It was her school.
No one would think to look for her here. School was canceled during monster raids. It was the perfect place for Rosa to go and be alone.
The other reason was that the back door's lock was always broken.
Rosa leisurely wandered around the wooden building to the back where the playground was. The door was closed, but a quick jiggle of the handle gave her access.
'It's a little lonely in here.' Rosa walked to her table out of habit.
The Empire had a mandatory five year schooling for all citizens. People were taught how to read, write and count. Three years in, there was a test. The test determined the last two years of schooling, which was more like an internship to a guild.
Rosa pulled out a chair, sat down and opened her quests.
"You have completed SS ranked quest: Get to safety. Please claim rewards." Rosa went to her quest page and clicked on it.
"+1 to focus, +1 to stamina, +1 to endurance and +1 to luck."
"What?" Rosa was baffled at the attribute distribution. It was common knowledge that there were nine attributes on the skill page.
'Why is there a plus to luck? Is luck an attribute I can level up?' Ignoring Inventory for now, Rosa opened her Skills page.
"It looks the same." Rosa muttered as she studied her attributes.
'Strength 3, Stamina 2, Endurance 2, Dexterity 3, Speed 2, Agility 2, Intelligence 1, Wisdom 2 and Focus 2.'
Otherworld gaming knowledge hinted at an Easter egg.
'I see something suspicious.' If Rosa hadn't been looking for it, she would have missed a little * icon in the corner of the attribute box. Clicking it revealed a window.
"User has achieved, through their actions, a permanent bonus to luck. Hidden attribute status window found. Only the user can see the information on the hidden status page."
Rosa exited out of the window to see a ^ icon where the * had been. There, the Luck attribute showed it was +1. Hovering over Luck showed this information.
"Luck: affects the % drop rate of treasure. Increases chance of higher level star items in loot table."
The system note had Rosa pause in her tracks.
"Luck can be either good or bad. Luck can be influenced by certain items to go in either direction. Identify items before equipping them."
'Good luck will be beneficial. This sounds like a main characters advantage. When the luck is good, it's a cheat. When the luck is bad, it's apocalyptic. Better find some equipment to stack the odds towards good.'
Rosa went to her Inventory page. The rest of her rewards sat in pixelated sacks. Opening them revealed: a pair of two star leather gloves, a ???, and a pack of blank cards.
The ??? was obviously the artifact reward. Not many artifacts were ever found and were usually items with unique affects. Normally, appraisers cost a fair chunk of change to hire and the item was automatically entered into the merchant guild index they worked for. It takes people years to achieve the Identify skill or appraisal magic.
"Too bad for them, I have a cheat." Rosa cheered out loud. Clicking the ??? had the identity skill being automatically used.
"You have Identified: starter ribbon (green), 3 star artifact. Equipping in accessory slot yields +10% experience rate up."
"Note: Experience gains are only to already learned skills, magic and recipes."
Rosa nearly screamed in excitement. Anything that helps experience was widely known to be invaluable.
'Wait a minute.' Double checking the description, Rosa confirmed that it was a percentage type, not a flat rate. There was also no level limit.
"Eeeeee. I'm never going to take this off!" Rosa squealed to an empty room.
'At high levels, this means I will gain an exorbitant amount of experience. What takes other people years to level up, I can do in months!'
Equipping the ribbon was as easy as swiping it from her inventory to her head avatar. A forest green ribbon appeared in her hair, forming a ponytail with a bow.
"Alright what's next?" Clicking on the gloves, the two star rating had her expectant of a good trait. What she got was a plus one to armour and dexterity while equipped.
'Well that's disappointing.' Rosa sat back and crossed her arms with a small frown. Armor usually had traits that added attributes or skills to them. They were usually higher than one star. These stats didn't add up to a two star piece of gear.
"What if-" Rosa muttered as she recalled the hint the system gave on the luck description. She selected the gloves. "Identify!"
"Identifying- hidden state found. Would you like to activate it?"
"Note: This will cost 1 AP."
'Well that's different.' Rosa thought blankly after she clicked yes. 'Not only is there hidden attributes, there's hidden skills in seemingly ordinary items.' The drain on her energy was the same as ever.
"Ding! You have activated skill on: leather gloves. Skill activated: Flicker."
"Flicker: Once activated, the user can do +1 action in combat."
Rosa was shocked. The glove's attributes didn't change, but the ability to do one more action in combat was essentially a cheat in games. Activating the skill also leveled up the star quality as well as Identify.
Identify was level two without any power ups to be seen.
'Not all skills get uber powerful when they level up.' Rosa mused as she put the gloves on. They looked like simple, unassuming leather work gloves. She took them off as she didn't have any use for them at the moment.
"OK. Now what do I do with you?" Rosa took out the set of blank cards from her inventory. They were the size of playing cards, completely white and supposedly a magical foci. "Identify."
No system prompt, no window, nothing happened.
Rosa knew that magical foci were needed to cast spells. They could range from a magic wand, to a staff or to obscure artifacts like teddy bears.
It was a magical world and only imagination limited what you could make.
Rosa was ready to pull on her hair, she couldn't even tell if this foci was a level one foci or not. Some foci needed special circumstances to activate.
"Magic system." The magic system appeared. Quickly changing the tab to her magical core, Rosa wanted to double check the requirements to enlarge it.
'The cards need something to activate it as a foci....Great.' The part where she had to have two intelligence and a level one foci were greyed out, indicating that they weren't available.
Rosa could do nothing about that for now.
There were two other things she could do right now. Specifically, identifying two other weapons she'd brought home from the lower city.
'Perhaps you will surprise me.'
"Identify." The wooden mallet and the throwing knife didn't yield anything spectacular in the way of increasing stats.
The wooden mallet had an added title of Slime Slayer. It added a plus five true damage to slimes.
The throwing knife had an added debuff of bleed and its damage was based on the skill of throwing.
Using gaming instincts, the throwing knife could be made into a cheese weapon. Rosa just had to find the right combination of skills to make it happen, she had the time now.
Trying Identify on the gathering tools she collected at the shrine, a window prompted.
"Tool: Shovel, has already been examined."
Rosa stretched as she had been sitting for a while sorting out her gear. Her gaze caught on to the corner that held a pitiful amount of books on the only bookshelf in the class. She contemplated picking one up but rejected the thought.
'Now is not the time to try and read. I better get back home before my mother sends a search party.' Exiting the building and remembering to 'fake' lock back up, Rosa spotted a pile of stones.
"But first-" A mischievous grin brightened the little girl's face. "-a new skill wouldn't hurt."