7 Chapter 7- Damn State Points

Yale's current level was 1. All of his stats were also at the bottom of the heap, too.

If he thought about the current reality of what he was like, the one where he was ranked as the weakest among Pirate's, then there was nothing to be surprised about there.

What he paid attention to was the 'Skills' column.

A passive skill called 'Tenacity' and an active one called 'Dash'.

For some reason, he felt rather familiar with them.

"Ah. I remember now. Yesterday...."

Yesterday, or to be more precise, back in the early dawn of this morning, he remembered hearing those words while being chased around by the centipedes in the penalty zone.

It happened probably after three hours of him constantly running for his dear life. He was suddenly greeted by a couple of new messages.

['Skill: Dash Lv. 1' has been learned.]

['Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1' has been learned.]

Back then, he was far too busy running to think about what they could mean, but it was a different story now. Yale confirmed the explanations available for the skills.

[Skill: Dash Lv. 1]

Active skill.

Haki required to activate: 5

The constant running fortified your legs. When this skill is activated, your movement speed will increase by 30%. During its activation, 1 Haki will be spent every minute.

[Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1]

Passive skill.

Haki required to activate: None.

You possess untiring tenacity. When your stamina drops below 30%, this skill will automatically activate and reduce all damage received by 50%.

'Did I learn 'Dash' and 'Tenacity' because I stubbornly ran around like there's no tomorrow?'

That seemed to be about right.

In other words, if he kept on repeating a certain action over and over again, and happen to meet the requirement conditions, he would be able to learn new skills.

"Holy cow!"

Wasn't this an incredible advantage?

Yale's heart began beating faster.

A skill that increased his movement speed, as well as another that decreased the amount of damage received.

"By the way... what could this 'unknown' thing be?"

[Skills]

Passive skills:

- (Unknown) Lv. Max

The 'Unknown' that occupied one whole slot of the passive skills column.

Since it was located in the passive column, that meant it activated automatically, but there was not one explanation or any information on it.

'Not even a single clue, huh.'

The amount of information he could learn was just too limited. Even if he burst his brain trying to figure it out, he knew there wouldn't be any answers. So, Yale shifted his gaze to elsewhere.

'Stat points, is it....?'

Three additional Stat points he got as a reward remained there, still to be distributed.

[Stat]

Strength: 10

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 40

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 3)

There were five categories in the list of Stats. Maybe because he was a mere level 1, the values of each stat were 'simple', to say the least. 

If his abilities changed for with a moment's decision, then who in this world would be able to casually make such choices?

Yale's expression became serious.

'Strength is no doubt talking about my physical power....'

He could more or less figure out what 'Strength', 'Stamina' and 'Agility' could mean. After all, those were the kind of 'Stats' one would often encounter in video games.

The question was with the last two Stats, 'Intelligence' and 'Perception', then. And just like before, the unfriendly System didn't provide any answers whatsoever.

If he increased 'Intelligence' would he get actually smarter, for instance? And, if he increased 'Perception', then would he become more sensitive?

Whatever the case may have been, he felt that those two Stats didn't really seem all that useful to him right now.

What he needed was power, speed, or even stamina.

'If you were to ask me to choose between the three, I'd inevitably go with Strength.'

If he got physically stronger, many things would become that much easier for him.

Also, he wanted to find out what kind of change would take place with his body once the Stat values had been increased. Since he thought that this change would be much more prominent with the increase in the Strength stat, he ended up investing all three points on it.

"All three points to the Strength stat."

Tti-ring.

[Stat]

Strength: 13

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 40

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 0)

'Is that.... all?'

Indeed, it looked like it.

The only change he could tell was the Strength stat value floating in front of his eyes like hologram projection changing from 10 to 13. Unlike how it was in cartoons or movies, his body didn't feel like it was overflowing with uncontrollable power or anything like that.

He decided to use his muscles to find out. Yale stood next to the bed and lifted it. He felt a bit of weight, but he was able to pick it up easier than he thought. However, he found it impossible to tell whether this was because of the bed being light, or his Strength having been improved.

'I should've lifted the bed first before spending the d*mn points....'

Since he had already spent all the points before confirming, it was hard to tell the difference between 'before' and 'after'.

'Only if I had some more points to spend....'

Yale licked his lips in regret only for a certain memory to jump out at him.

"The rewards from the Penalty Quest!"

Today wasn't the only time he got to 'complete' the Daily Quests. He might have nearly died, but he sure as hell did complete the Penalty Quest, and he remembered seeing the message about the rewards being available as well.

Yale hurriedly opened the mailbox.

[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]

[Would you like to confirm the rewards?] (Y/N)

"I knew it!"

Yale clenched his fists tightly.

Of course, it's a resounding "Yes!"

[The following rewards are available.]

Reward 1. Three additional Stat points

Reward 2. Ice-Fire revolving technique

[Would you like to collect them all?]

Unlike the Daily Quest rewards, the option of the full status recovery was absent, but well, what he needed right now was the additional Stat points anyways.

He was momentarily worried about there being a huge difference in rewards since they were from a Penalty Quest and all, but he was relieved to find three points waiting for him.

Yale hummed joyously to himself.

"Add all three points to the Strength stat."