However, I am currently waiting alone on the bed that I woke up in on the first day. So far I have not been allowed to leave this room and my only attempt to explore saw me getting no further than just outside the door. At least the researchers let me change out of the hospital gown I was in before. The white one-piece sun dress they put me in is much more comfortable though my tail did end up ruining the first one. As it turns out the spines lining my tail are incredibly sharp and when they tried to pass my tail through the hole for tails in the dress it sliced up through the back. When it happened it greatly disappointed me because I thought they would shove me back in that hospital gown. To my relief, they saw it as another piece of interesting data and got me a new dress.
Getting used to wearing a dress is little strange considering I have never worn anything of the like in my previous life. However, it is rather nice to be able to wear things like this now.
My biggest problem so far with my first five days in this new life is my lack of a name. The closest thing I have to a name is my specimen number. Basically, my caretaker refers to me as 56. Otherwise, all the other researchers use words experiment, creature or thing and on the odd occasion monster.
Another truly bothersome fact is that being stuck in this room I have no sense of time. The only things I can base myself on are when I sleep, wake up and when my assigned caretaker shows up. Over the past four days, I feel she seems to always come by at roughly the same time after I wake up.
My last big problem with my few days of life here is the food. The researchers do not bring solid food instead my caretaker brings a liquid nutrient blend that lasts me until she shows up the next day. My assumption is that this blend is meant to have only what my body needs to properly develop and nothing more. I mean they do not want their precious test subject getting sick because I ate something my stomach could not handle.
Suddenly I hear the sound of the door opening and I look up to see my caretaker walk in with a larger following than normal. Looking at her hand I see that she is holding a stone like the one used to check my status on the day I first woke up.
After following my line of sight down to the stone my caretaker smiles and says, “Since I said you would be learning how magic works today I figured I should explain what all the stats mean.”
As my caretaker finished talking she pressed the stone to my forehead and sat down beside me on the bed so we could both see the status page.
Name:Race:ChimeraAge:2Sex:FemaleLevel:1Job:N/AHealth:1325Mana:2250Str:235Int:300Dex:310Wis:225End:265Charm:150Titles:Skills:Chimeric BeingInformational SpongePhotographic Memory
Huh, my stats have gone up since the last time I saw them haven’t they? Could stats be really easy to raise? I mean over the last five days the I mostly on learned a bit about the history of the world and while my physical therapy has been kinda intense these numbers have gone up a lot. Looking up at the woman sitting beside me I notice her brow is deeply furrowed and she is staring intently at my status.
Since staring at my status myself is not going to get me anywhere I ask, “Status … explanation?”
This seems to snap the woman out of her stupor and she looks at me while saying, “Ah sorry I was just taken aback for a moment at how much your stats went up over such a short time. Right, I should explain these to you shouldn’t I.
Well starting from the top health and mana are fairly simple. Consider it giving a number to how much your body can take before you die in the case of health. As for mana it is the amount energy the body can absorb and store to use magic with. Moving along str is in simple terms a numerical representation of your physical strength. Int is slightly more complex because it does not only represent one's overall intelligence. It also represents the amount of power your spells can exhibit though no one really understands the correlation between the two.”
The woman stops talking for a moment to see if I understood everything she has said so far. So I nod to show confirmation and she continues, “Dex is yet again a fairly simple stat to explain as it is the numerical value given to your flexibility and speed. Wis is the counterpart to int because it represents how well you process information you receive. Having high int would not necessarily mean someone is smart because if their wis is low their capability to make smart decisions is hampered. Wis also lets the body store more mana. Though no one really knows why but for every point of wis the body can store 10 more mana.
However, mana is not completely tied to wis and can be raised independently a small amount every time you empty your mana, though it’s not a very popular method. A word of caution about this method is that if your mana gets extremely low you will faint. Once you do learn magic we will be expecting you to empty your mana until you faint when you are ready to sleep every day understood?”
The woman once again stops to look at me and waits for me to nod before continuing, “End is the numerical value given as a representation of your body's physical stamina and overall toughness. For every point of end it is also worth noting that you gain 5 health, yet again the correlation is unknown. Charm I am not personally familiar with because I am of the beastman race. As it's a stat owned by succubi and to my understanding, they gain the stat thanks to a passive exclusive to their race.”
The woman stops and looks like she is thinking quite deeply about something for a short time before she continues talking, “Speaking honestly your status is quite incredible. A normal child at the age of two would have around 10 health and mana along with 1-5 in all the others. However you...your status is on par with an average adult or more importantly a newborn dragon. Not to mention that the speed at which your stats are rising confirms the draconic part of you has taken root deeper than we could have ever hoped for.
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As for titles and skills, well those are slightly harder to explain. While this entire system was granted by the gods, but we have never been blessed with knowledge on how or why they are received. Most of the time they are given to represent an outstanding talent or when one does something significant and though some titles grant special benefits to the holder they seem to be few and far between.
Finally, skills are a representation of your abilities. Skills labeled passive are always active and usually grant some kind of beneficial effect to the user. While they are not viewed as such in the status some passives have come to be known as racial passive because they are passives only observed in specific races. While it is possible to gain more passives with effort and training it is exceedingly rare for someone gain more racial passives after birth.
There are also skills you have to activate to utilise their effects and they are labeled as actives. It is also important to note that most actives also use your body's mana to activate. A good example of an active would be magic. There are racial actives and the most common one would be the succubus races ‘Charm’. Other racial actives, however, are exceedingly rare. It’s also worth noting that when they are used enough it is possible skills to change or evolve, but there still isn’t anyone that has found a method of figuring out how much is enough.”
After she is finished the woman gets up and walks over to the other researchers presumably to show them my stat growths. Which gives me time to reflect on everything I just learned. Though I guess reflection is slightly unnecessary because this whole status system closely resembles role-playing games I played in my previous life. I can only guess that the gods who created this status system are RPG fans. An odd thought but a passable one.
The woman seemed to have skipped over talking about what level and job represented so I ask, “Level … job?”
The woman turns around after hearing me and after looking thoughtful for a moment says, “Ah I did skip over those didn’t I. They are not really relevant at the moment so we should instead be getting on to teaching you how magic works.”
The woman then proceeds to walk back over to me before continuing, “Right then, most children have to wait until their older to try using magic because at a young age the body simply does not have enough mana. This shouldn't be a problem for you and theoretically, with some explaining you should be able to use magic.”
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After listening to the woman's explanation about this world's magic I begin to grasp the basic premise on how it works. The four humanoid races call the magic they use “Physics magic”. Simply put it is magic that uses the laws of physics and a person's mana to achieve results.
Honestly, this entire magic system is really complicated and very difficult to use. For example, you can make a fire using your mana as a fuel and oxygen in the air as an oxidizer. However, it would simply be a static fire floating above your hand and to launch this fire you would need to study and understand motion. Not even mentioning everything you would need to know to even make this fire take the form of a simple ball. She did say that it is possible to use a concept with a lesser understanding, but apparently doing so consumes more mana based on how much information is omitted.
The one saving grace this system has is there is no such thing as elemental affinities. So long as you understand something deeply enough and have enough mana to achieve the result nearly anything is possible, but that means concepts that cannot be completely explained like time and space manipulation are impossible to achieve. Moreover, even though affinities are not a thing most people limit themselves to one concept since the deeper you understand an element the stronger and more efficient it is when you use it.
Since the woman is still waiting for my reaction to her explanation I guess a good start would be trying to feel my mana. Closing my eyes I start to concentrate on the blood flowing through my body because she said that for vampires mana is intimately linked to the blood.
Concentrating I can feel something else flowing in the same way as my blood and so I open my eyes and say, “Feel … flowing … mana … probably.”
The woman then proceeds with her instructions, “Good you found your mana quickly the next step is simple. Imagine directing the flow of the mana in your body and pooling it in your hand. Once you do that simply imagine the process for a fire as I explained it using your mana as the fuel and you should get a flame.”
Closing my eyes again once more, I concentrate on the other feeling flowing in my body and try to direct it my hand. Surprisingly enough it complies immediately. Okay, now she said I just have to use my understanding of fire to imagine getting a flame. I open my eyes and in my outstretched palm is a small flame about the size of one from a lighter.
I am actually using real magic. It might just be a tiny lighter flame, but it really is magic. Looking up at the woman she also seems pleased enough with the result. Ah, the flame suddenly went out, but that should not happen unless I stop feeding it mana. Eh? Why is everything suddenly tilting sideways? Why is it getting dark all of a sudden?
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A/N: First chapter for today and the next one I will post later today. Table hasn't been fiddle with in this chapter because story wise a table remodelling fits in much better next chapter thanks to story reasons. The next chapter may drop slightly later in the day as I figure out how to table by myself, but I will do my best to get it out in a timely fashion while not sacrificing possible quality.