Chapter 3: Definitions

Mila

Name: Li Mila

Level: 0

Race: Human Soulform (G-Common)

Bloodline: NA

Class: Citizen (G-Common)

Laws: NA

Stats

Strength: 3

Agility: 3

Endurance: 3

Toughness: 3

Vitality: 3

Perception: 3

Magic: 3

Spirit: 3

Soul: 3

Aura: 3

Attunement: 3

Luck: 3

Free Stats: 72

Soulstructures:

Lower Dantian: 1 Huge Core Container 

Middle Dantian: 3 Medium + 1 Large Mana Wells

Upper Dantian: 1 Large Mental Forge

Uniqueness:

Shadow Princess

Mila sat there in silence for a good five minutes as the wooden puppet waited for her to assign her free stat points. First, the fact there was a System, gods, and stats was insane. It was like something in the web novels she'd read while on assignment in the United States. She briefly considered if she'd somehow been captured by American agents and then put in some sort of virtual reality created by Aalam, but the technology necessary to create something on the level of the Matrix was beyond even what Aalam had been capable of, at least within the three months since she'd left.

That said, if this was all somehow real, it didn't speak very highly for the human race as a whole. The puppet had just said she was the second highest contributor toward fixing two of Earth's three apocalypses, granting her 36 extra free stat points, yet all she'd ever done was keep Aalam focused.

Thinking about him, though, she realized what she had to do.

First, she checked and found it was easy to summon and unsummon the black text of her status. Then she sought the definitions of every term she had access to, the black text of status fading and new black text appearing in front of her eyes each time.

Name was just as she would have suspected, and the definition of level provided pretty much no information, but the next three terms, race bloodline, and class, were all quite interesting.

Race: The species of the individual. Each race provides a number of racial abilities, gives bonus stats on each level up, and affects the maximum allowed values for all stats.

Bloodline: Inherited power which modifies the individual's race. A bloodline will usually cause modifications to one or more of the individual's racial abilities and/or change the bonus stats provided on level up. Almost never affects the maximum values for stats determined by race.

Class: The manifestation of an individual's path to power. Affects the cultivation pathways in an individual's soul, the attributes gained per level up, and limits the number and types of skills which can be learned.

The definition of laws was incredibly vague, only saying it represented an individual's understanding of the universe, but the definitions of G and Common were a lot more interesting.

G: The weakest rank for individuals, representing those not yet on any path to power, i.e. level 0.

Common: The second weakest grade for classes, races, bloodlines, skills, and the like. One grade higher than Inferior. One grade lower than Uncommon.

Then the definitions of Human Soulform and Citizen provided even more information.

Human Soulform (G-Common): A race representing the soulform of a human, one of the most common races in the Prime Material. As a G rank race, this race allows for only two racial abilities and provides no stats on level up. Upgrading to an F rank race is required to make advancement possible.

Citizen (G-Common): The entry class for those not yet on a path to power for all human and humanoid races. Allows for 3 skills of any type with no other benefits.

Judging from her gaming experience, Citizen appeared to be a basic starting class. Future classes would likely be at least partially determined by the three skills she learned and her stat distribution, which made the next section quite important.

Strength: A value representing the physical power an individual can exert.

Agility: A value representing an individual's speed.

Endurance: A value representing the potency and quality of an individual's qi.

Toughness: A value representing the defensive capabilities of an individual's body.

Vitality: A value representing the power of an individual's self healing capabilities.

Perception: A value representing the power of an individual's senses.

Magic: A value representing the potency and quality of an individual's mana.

Spirit: A value representing the potency and quality of an individual's psyforce.

Soul: A value representing the power of an individual's intrinsic foundation.

Aura: A value representing the power of an individual's presence.

Attunement: A value representing an individual's connection to Laws.

Luck: A value representing an individual's favorability in the eyes of fate.

Mila took a little time to analyze what these 12 attributes represented. The first six were pretty basic, as long as Mila simplified qi to mean stamina, though she suspected that was a bad idea. Magic and Spirit seemed to be the equivalent of Endurance, but for mages and psychics instead of warriors, though again that was probably an oversimplification. And Soul and Aura she didn't really understand, though she suspected they were more important than any of the stats proceeding them. Finally, the effects of Attunement and Luck were both pretty obvious, the former likely the most important of all the stats if Laws were as important as she expected and the latter filled with scary implications.

She then looked at the definitions of qi, mana, and psyforce and they were all pretty bare bones.

Qi: The power of lifeforce.

Mana: The power of the Universe.

Psyforce: The power of the mind.

When she looked into the definitions of soulstructures, however, things started to make a whole lot more sense.

Soulstructures: The fundamental structures in an individual's soul.

Lower Dantian: The central hub of all qi distribution cultivation techniques, located just below the navel in humanoid creatures.

Middle Dantian: The central hub of all mana distribution cultivation techniques, located in the center of the chest next to the heart in humanoid creatures.

Upper Dantian: The central hub of all psyforce distribution cultivation techniques, located above the eyes, just behind the center of the forehead, in humanoid creatures.

Core Container: Container for an individual's accumulated qi.

Mana Well: Container for an individual's accumulated mana.

Mental Forge: Container for an individual's accumulated psyforce.

Medium: A representation of capacity for a soulstructure, representing four times more capacity than Small and four times less than Large.

Large: A representation of capacity for a soulstructure, representing four times more capacity than Medium and four times less than Huge.

Huge: A representation of capacity for a soulstructure, representing four times more capacity than Large and four times less than Colossal.

The definitions didn't give her all the answers, for example she had no idea what having multiple mana wells meant, but it was pretty obvious the main resources for combatants in however the game-like system of the universe worked were qi, mana, and psyforce and that having larger soulstructures representing each meant having a larger maximum of that resource.

If her suspicions were true, as her Core Container was Huge while her Mental Forge was only Large, for the same value of Endurance and Spirit, she would have four times as much qi as psyforce, and that likely had major effects.

Finally, she checked the last two definitions she had access to.

Uniqueness: The unique talents of an individual's soul.

Shadow Princess: ???

Either the System didn't have access to her uniqueness, even though it could show her what it was called, or there was some sort of permission level and she didn't have the authority to know about her own self. She was rather hoping for the former.

Mila took a deep breath, deciding it was probably best to just consider everything as fact for the time being. Then she began to try and figure out how to use her free stat points. She had no idea how classes in the universe worked, but she guessed there were specialized classes based around using just qi, mana, or psyforce. Sadly, she had no idea whether these types of specialized classes were better or worse than classes which used all three and she had no way to find out.

She did, however, have a way to experiment with what stat increases were allowed as adding free stats required a confirmation step, so she quickly came to understand a few rules.

First, neither Strength nor Agility could be greater than two times the other, and neither could be greater than two times Vitality, nor could Endurance and Toughness. Vitality could be no more than 50% greater than Endurance and no more than three times Toughness, Strength, or Agility. And, for the final physical stat rule, Perception could be no more than four times Agility and Agility could be no more than three times Perception.

Neither Magic nor Spirit could be more than three times Soul, though there didn't seem to be any limit on the Soul stat, and Luck didn't seem to have any limits whatsoever.

The most interesting two stats when it came to limits, however, were Aura and Attunement. Aura appeared to have its limit set at the average value of all stats other than itself, Attunement, and Luck, while Attunement's limit appeared to be the minimum value of all stats other than Luck, including Aura.

It was entirely possible these limits were only for the first allocation of free stat points, but Mila guessed even if there was nothing to stop her from raising her stats past these limits in the future, it would be a good idea not to.

It didn't really matter all that much though as, not sure about how she'd want her stats in the future, Mila decided to go with a strategy she'd argued against more than once, going with what Aalam would do in such a situation instead of following her own instincts.

Are you sure you want to add all 72 free stat points to Luck?

Yes/No

Confirmation. Luck increased to 75.