17 (17) Attributes

"Kraton of Florid Boulevard!"

Kraton stepped forward from the crowd as he was called forth to the altar. Hato stayed sitting as Kraton stood in front of him, sipping a blueish-clear liquid from his opaque cup.

*Sluuuurp*

Kraton patiently waited for Hato to finish drinking, his feet were nervously shuffling on the ground as he felt Hato's gaze never leave him.

Hato silently gestured with his hand towards one side of the altar, where there was an embolished rectangular frame carved into it, beside the bowl of blood.

Kraton understood immediately what Hato was asking, he quickly pressed his palm onto the rectangular area, the stone felt strange, it was cold and smooth, however the cold seemed to eat the energy from its surroundings, letting off a mystical aura. Some rare high-quality minerals and plants exuded a similar aura, but the raw materials never had such a refined aura like this, even when forged into equipment by itself. For an object to have such overwhelming ambience, several pieces of such quality needed to be perfectly merged together, forcing it would make the materials shatter or implode, rendering them useless afterwards.

"This is an S-rank tablet foundation, it will show us more information than what any regular rock foundation can show, as well as this, it makes it impossible to hide any pieces of your data, not that you're strong enough to do that yet anyway." As if reading his thoughts, Hato had put his cup down and explained the specifics of the rock.

Information started appearing in the rectangular area, there was so much that it was split into two pages, it cleary demonstrated the difference between an S-rank item and a normal boulder.

"Level 9, not bad, but far from the best.. however, dungeon level: Level 4, rank 0-star and external battle level: level 4. What happened here?"

Kraton's face flushed red with embarressment and sweat started to soak his hairy palms as he felt Hato's questioning gaze.

"I.. I only recently began to get the hang of being a boss, therefore when my power shot up, I limited it down so I could umm.. grind the lower levelled humans with ease, I will eventually start party-wiping when I have enough strength so I can get a few extra experience and knowledge gains."

Hato sat silently, watching Kraton with a doubtful gaze. After Kraton finished his explanation, Hato quickly skimmed through the battle records and history of Kraton before looking back up.

Kraton was fidgeting non-stop, his drenched hands were fumbling against each other and he dared not look up at Hato for more than a few seconds.

*tap tap tap*

Kraton tensed up when he heard the slow drumming of Hato's fingers on the stone altar. Nervously looking up, Kraton prepared to be ridiculed and scorned at.

"HAHAHA, jeez, even I never thought of something like that, it would be way to embarressing to have a record like this. 38 years, and only just a novice Boss, what happened before half a year ago? It was only just recently when you began to actually gain from your dungeon. Where you hit by a stalactite or something!" Hato couldn't stop laughing and mocking Kraton, however no scorn could be seen on his face, just humour.

"So, when are you gonna start showing your strength then?" Seriousness returned to Hato's voice, once again sounding like a proper mentor.

"Umm.. after I reach level 10."

"That may be sooner than you expect, but what will you become? You listened to my glorious speech right?"

"Y-Yes! of course I did Lord Hato."

"Then what will you assign your attributes on? And please don't say looks or communication like the other mindless fools."

"Probably reflex, speed or power... Lord, what do you think?"

"You're a brute, why not just go with strength, or health? Reflex and speed helps the small to evade, and power is normally for restraining and chucking boulders, you're not a rock golem so why do you need this?"

"Because, Lord, I feel that even with strength, I won't be able to hit them, they move around like fleas and I don't have the reflex nor agility to change direction to attack. And with power I have learnt that I can cause tremors with my punches, it also feels like I already have enough stength.. I don't know how, but it's just a feeling I have." The 'flea' that Kraton was talking about was Celeste Furore, her annoying movement had bothered him for a long time and he didn't want that to happen again.

Hato smiled after hearing this, he then moved his hand to the bottom right corner of the data stone and pointed to a few lines of text.

"You noticed half of this, it's suprising that you can feel it, not many can feel their own talent."

The place where Hato pointed read:

Innate talent: Multiplier of strength, health and luck at every level, chance to increase multiplier at each level is around 50%. Limit unknown.

"Every monster has an innate talent, though the lesser monsters such as the goblins, slimes and all the other common beings have a much weaker talent, often only increasing an attribute by 0.01% and not being able to increase it. However, you, Kraton, seem rather lucky, from what I can tell you have increased the multiplier around 7 times, so your strength and health is now 107%. If you assign your attributes to strength after level 10, the multiplier will be much more prominent."

Kraton looked blank, he had hardly understood any of what Hato had said, except that he was stronger than others. Seeing this look, Hato went forth to explain it in similar terms, after getting Kraton to understand the concept, he gave more advice on what to do after level 10.

"In a way, you are correct, you don't need to assign your attributes to strength, as every level you will gain points for each category anyway, but will allow you to assign more points into other attributes. Therefore even though it would be good to add more strength to make your multiplier more prominent, you do have a point in not being able to hit the humans. Feel free to assign your attributes however you like, though I suggest speed, then reflex and then power."

Kraton bowed his head down and expressed his thanks to Hato for helping him learn about his innate talent, as well as giving him fundamental advice.

Just before Kraton was about to turn and leave, Hato slid a small vial towards him.

"I've given everyone one of these, I suggest you take it now, lest you get robbed."

Then Hato quickly shooed Kraton away and called up the next boss.