Statshifting is good

Kai stared blankly at the small seed that was floating in the centre of his soul. It was a fair bit smaller than even his Dexterity spark, meaning if it did give some sort of stat it would be less than ten.

But Kai could inwardly tell that the seed did nothing of the sort, the knowledge his bloodline offered him was actually pretty useful if Kai could identify small things like that.

But even if he knew that the seed didn't give stats, he had no idea what it actually done. What was its use?

But more importantly, where did it come from? How did a random seed end up inside his soul?

Suddenly, the thought he had about if him sleeping on the cherry blossom could be considered as him sleeping with Failure didn't seem so far fetched anymore...

Kai shook his head and focused his attention back to the seed. It had obviously been left in his soul after he passed out, because Kai was absolutely certain that all that was on his soul before he lost consciousness was the seven vibrant sparks and an abundance of cracks that had wisps of his soul spilling out of them.

He was near certain that it had been left by Failure, considering he was technically a tree and all, but that didn't explain why he had left it in the first place.

Or even what would happen when the seed started bloom?

Hesitantly, Kai reached out and poked the seed. Just before his fingertip connected with it, Kai felt a shiver run up his body as the seed vibrated slightly.

A cold sweat started to form on Kai's forehead.

Whatever the seed was able to do was not something that Kai should take lightly. He knew that something unknowable would happen when he touched the seed, and it was something he didn't want to risk right now.

Still, it's not like Kai would be able to figure out what the seed done without any experimentation, so he quickly got to work on his main project.

One massive boost about all the upgrades and bonuses he had received was that he didn't need to fuse with Umbra to Statshift. Previously, he had to partially fuse and use the claws he gained to split tiny amounts of the spark from whatever stat he was borrowing from, but now, now Kai was able to do it with his normal body.

Taking a deep breath, Kai closed his eyes and focused on his soul. Unlike last time where he would reach out his hand and cut at the spark, Kai tenderly willed a small section of his Strentgh to split off and merge with his Constitution.

Following his command, a tiny red spark split off from the much larger one and travelled the small distance between Kai's Strength and Constitution spark before promptly merging with it, the red swiftly being turned into the same shade of green as the rest of the stat.

Strength: 201

...

Constitution: 15

One thing that Kai instantly noticed was that his Statshfiting wasn't as precise as when he done it physically himself. Instead of having to move each stat one by one, he had managed to successfully move three in one go, and it only took him about ten minutes!

Previously, the act of moving three stats would take around an hour, now he could get it done it one sixth of that amount of time.

Of course, this all came down to Kai's awakened bloodline, his new class, his upgraded Soul Core, his upgraded Soul Flame and all the practice he had done during his time in the Dome.

Kai had certainly not even slacking off when it came to his Statshifting practice in the past. The level of concentration he had to use just to shift a single stat was more than anything Kai had ever attempted in his life, and he had to do it multiple times at that.

By the end of moving all his stats into Strength, Kai was ready to sleep for a week. However, the war had happened too soon for that dream to come to fruition.

But now... Now it all just felt so easy.

Of course, it could be argued that the fact it was less precise was more of a downside than a boon, but Kai didn't see it that way. For starters, if he wanted it to be exact, he could just partially fuse with Umbra like he had done in the past, but that would just make it unnecessarily more complicated and slower.

And there was also the argument that Kai could just tap into his abundance of unasigned stat points, but why would he want to do that?

When would he ever get the more perfect oppurtunity to practice his Statshifting while it also giving him immense value?

Unlike unasigned stat points, Kai would not be able to suddenly increase one or multiple of his stats in the middle of an intense fight or dangerous situation by Statshifting, so it was a much smarter idea to spend his efforts Statshifing now than to potentially handicap himself later on.

Maybe in the future Kai would be able to move his stats near instantly, but his current proficiency was nowhere near enough to do so.

Still, Kai had a few things to go over in this interlude in the white room, so he may as well get the Statshifting done as quickly as possible so he could focus on some the other pressing matters.

So Kai got to work on creating the perfect stat ratio.

*******

It was complete.

After a couple hours of Statshifting, which could have potentially been finished earlier if Kai hadn't spent so much time second guessing his choices and taking a dew breaks, all of his stats had a number that Kai was proud of.

Smiling tiredly, Kai looked down at his status once more and admired his work.

Stats:

Strength: 117

Dexterity: 40

Constitution: 50

Stamina: 50

Mana: 109 (Including +6%)

Will: 20

Luck: 30

Could he have done better? Possibly, but Kai was happy with his work.

He had lowered his Strength by nearly half, increased his Dexterity by forty, his Constitution by thirty-five, his Stamina by fifteen, his Will by one and his Luck by thirteen.

His Mana remained the same as he saw no immediate reason to change it, it was perfectly fine as it was.

Of course, these weren't Kai's final stats, considering that these were them without adding Soul Flame or his fusion with Umbra into the mix.

If he were to add those factors in, including his Indomitable skill, Kai's stats would look a little something like this.

Strength: 377

Dexterity: 60

Constitution: 130

Stamina: 110

Mana: 139 (Including +6%)

Will: 50

Luck: 60

Kai softly gasped as he done the maths. What an incredible number all of those were. That amount of stats was absolutely mind-boggling to Kai, especially when considering in the beginning his highest stat was just fourteen.

And the most impressive part was that those stats only applied if he wanted to be versatile. If Kai wanted to, he could manipulate Soul Flame and put all of the bonus stats into Strength, then activate Indomitable. If he done that, then his Strength stat would look like this.

Strength: 754

...

Kai fell silent as he blankly looked at the screen. If he wanted to, he could just add the remaining stat points needed to reach a thousand and Kai would be able to have one thousand Strength when he was fused with Umbra and had Soul Flame giving all of its two-hundred and ten stats into Strength.

Actually, if Kai were to add in Life Eater, then he would get another fourteen if he were to equip it before activating Indomitable.

Still, Kai couldn't help but be proud of how much he had grown in the last two months. He wasn't really that crybaby who followed Noelle like a lost puppy anymore.

Still, it's not like those times were that bad.

However, even though Kai's stats in the right scenario were absolutely monstrous, his technique was absolutely horrible.

Unlike Noelle, who seemed to have some innate knowledge on how to use her scimitar, Kai only got by with his claws by using his much higher Strength stat.

But that approach could easily be countered if Kai met someone who knew how to dodge efficiently.

So one thing Kai had to learn was a proper fighting technique or fighting style or something along those lines.

If he were lucky, then maybe there would be something like that for sale in the shop at the end of the tutorial.

Not to be egotistical, but Kai was sure that he had more points than ninety-nine percent of the people in his own and other tutorials. He had been credidited for killing the Demon, the Eradication blade and Failure after all.

That last one still stung, so Kai made a solemn promise that whatever points he got for 'killing' Failure would be spent on something the man would have liked.

He wasn't going to say the same for anything else he had killed though. Anything that caught his eye, was a fair price and something he deemed worthwhile would be bought.

Kai sighed as he once more fell down onto the mattress beside his sleeping familiar. That would really did like to sleep, something Kai was partially jealous of. It would be so nice if he had the sleeping ability of Umbra...

Sadly, rest was something Kai would not be able to get right now as he still had one more job to do before he was willing to snuggle up beside Umbra and use her soft fur as an expensive pillow.

After sighing, Kai sat up and summoned the horrendous looking Life Eater into his hands, admiring how downright disgusting his trusty blade looked.