Status.

A thought occurred to Daniel as he sat in the corner. It was that stats could be trained. In some way that was what he had been doing already. Trying to increase his flexibility and coordination could be why agility was his highest stat. He would need to keep at it and watch for a while to see if it would go up. He was also spending increasing amounts of time indulging in random flights of fancy. Would that be wisdom training? Maybe more like silliness training? Perhaps his wisdom would go down instead.

Reaching out to press the screen on the Skills tab, he intuitively stopped himself. This was a mind tablet correct? His mum couldn't see it or be touched by it. Turning around he waved across the room with the hand holding the tablet. Agnes waved back smiling. Some sort of mental spell construct. He mentally envisioned the tab being pressed, and the screen switched to a skills display. I'm a genius! That's why they call me Mr 72 intelligence!

Racial: Human(Child)   Profession General Extra Aberration Blessing of the Pristine Mind Immature(4/15) Individualist Common Language

"Huh." He flicked through the other tabs with his mind. Domain was an empty screen. Log seemed to list him gaining the entries from the Skills tab. But there was one part right at the start which stood out.

> Blessing of the Pristine Mind gained.

> Innocence resisted. Aberration gained.

> Immature gained.

Aberration was the only skill on the same line as another, implying to Daniel that he got it as a consolation prize after resisting Innocence. Moving on, he checked the Notes tab and found a blank screen with a blinking cursor. Just what he needed, a chance to start a diary. Trying it out, he found it fairly intuitive to transcribe his thoughts, and wrote 'Stop reading this it's private!'. Going back to the Skills tab, he started mentally clicking on the underlined sections, assuming that let him see more. Profession and General both took him to another empty screen. Maybe he needed to find a job so he could get profession skills? Was there no young layabout profession? Idiot dreamer? Disciple of Mightbeard? Alien Magic Jesus sure was stingy. He went back to the Log tab and started checking skills from the list. Clicking on each one brought up a little popup window on the screen with a brief description.

> Blessing of the Pristine Mind: Immunity to mental manipulation.

Daniel was happy to accept such a blessing. If people had access to mind control magic or something similar then he was very pleased to not have to experience it personally. He had a pretty severe aversion to manipulation in his past life. He felt he was pretty good at spotting when he was dealing with a manipulative type of person also. One of the benefits of his previous upbringing. Was that why he had gotten the blessing or was it just a coincidence? It was first on the log, so if he was reading this correctly he got it before the other skills which were all under Racial. Which implied he got the blessing before he was a human somehow.

> Innocence: Protected Status. When killed by a sapient creature, causes them a large amount of experience loss.

This was the skill he had 'resisted' and the first racial skill he had got. Two things came to mind. Maybe Innocence counted as mental manipulation so his blessing let him resist it. Which would make the skill sketchy as hell since it didn't mention anything like that. Since obviously 'a large amount' was missing some detail, what else might be left out? The other option was he didn't get it because he still had memories of his past life. He wouldn't describe himself as an innocent when he was born here after all. But then he wouldn't call that 'resisting' innocence either, it was more like he had run out of the stuff. It made him question the terminology being used. A lot of RPG terms like resist have different very specific and technical meanings for different games.

> Aberration: Protected Status. When killed by a creature, grants a large amount of bonus experience.

Uh-oh. That was the replacement for Innocence Even more sketchy. Alert! Does not compute! Designation: Aberration! Somebody, please kill this horrible thing! It was interesting that sapient was missing here. Did that exempt animals? He wasn't sure about the definition maybe it referred to boulders or trees falling on people. The innocent must be protected, except from animals who must be protected from Innocence. How charming, we have a real bunch of animal lovers here. Unfortunately, Daniel had somehow got the wrong skill as a baby and they were offering a reward for getting rid of him. Which was slightly less charming.

To Daniel, granting bonus experience on death was really leaning into the whole game-like aspect. He wondered if there were alternative options from games that existed in the magic system here. Perhaps a golden shower of money smacking you on the top of the head when you got done with your daily child-murdering. Or maybe he could explode into a puff of rainbow smoke and a bunch of useful items. What sort of loot would Daniel drop he wondered? A bunch of blood and organs would be the most straightforward answer. Free transplants for everyone how generous of me!

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> Immature: Level tied to age. Reduced statistics while developing.

This had (4/15) next to it on the skills page, but not in the log. A quick bit of mental math told him that his theory of his stats being at four-fifteenths checked out. And since he was four years old now, there was the implication that he would 'level up' each year on his birthday until he was fifteen. So his stats were reduced to the number in brackets next to them? But intelligence and wit were unaffected, presumably due to his blessing. That would mark dumber and slower as mental manipulation but low wisdom as not. The problem with this theory was that would mean his wisdom had started at nothing and was working its way back up. He could somewhat picture how that could result in him starting as a wreck and slowly improving as he got older. But what about his increasingly frequent turns as a childlike moron with an overactive imagination? Instead of something to blame on low wisdom, was he simply enjoying being childish? No, it couldn't be. If that was true he would have to start taking personal responsibility for his actions again. There must be hidden stats that Alien Magic Jesus was using to mess with him.

> Individualist: Unique Status interface. Reduced benefits and restrictions from Domains.

So individualist had individualised his status interface? Look Mr. Tablet they are talking about you! And then afterward something about stuff he had no context for. The real problem he had with this was the name of the thing, It was back to his problem with an Intelligence score. Is this supposed to be a description of who I am as a person? He had a vague understanding that the term Individualist came with a broader political concept that had its own connotations. Connotations he'd rather avoid being involved with. Oh, you are an Individualist? That means you support genocide and hate puppies. He could see where the term applied to him but if it came with some wider theory or membership in a movement then no thank you. In that case, he'd rather just be left alone and do his own thing.

> Common Language: Assistance with common communication.

And last but not least is the special reward for the grand achievement of reaching level two. How was that not mental manipulation though? Both mechanically and the fact that you were filtering everyone's speech through your translation software. Oh, it's not manipulation when my system does it, because the system is fair and unbiased. Shut up Magic Alien Jesus you are full of it.

But what does all this mean? Daniel wondered, trying to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Switching to the Notes tab, he wrote 'What does all this mean?' Very useful. He added several more question marks, and then an exclamation point in order to reach peak usefulness.

Status. The tablet went away. Status. It came back.

He started to write a list of questions.

'What is a Domain?' 'What racial skills do other people have?' 'What is the range of human stat values?' 'How do I get more skills?' 'Can I train my stats?' 'What's the deal with Blessings?'

Dunno, dunno, dunno, dunno, dunno, and dunno. Aberration left him slightly worried about asking questions that implied knowledge he had gotten from his status. He was going to have to wait and see for a lot of this. Watch if his hobbies were doing anything, observe what changed on his fifth birthday, and then hopefully get some answers when school started.

"Urk!"

"Is she alright?"

"Yes, she does that sometimes. It's best not to notice."

That blessing might be a problem. The word 'blessing' implied it came from someone or somewhere. Might not be too smart to ask about it in a place where schooling was done by 'The Church' He did not want to get whisked off as a blessed child to a holy mountain where he could spend the rest of his life communing with Alien Magic Jesus. And even that was putting aside the possibility of revealing he had a blessing from Lord Mightbeard while in the church of Dark Lord Beardmight. He'd need to upgrade from slightly to mildly worried.

Status.

Finished with his musings, Daniel was instantly exasperated that his mother wasn't done yet. He stomped his way back across the room and sat down between Agnes and his Mum.

"Your mum has been telling me that you decided on your own to help look after your sister," Agnes said, pushing a new slice of tart Daniel's way. He nodded, focusing on the food.

"That's nice of you. I can't imagine my boys helping with this new one without having to ask them."

"Are you looking forward to that one?" Daniel asked between mouthfuls since she had brought it up.

"Oh yes of course I am, I may complain but at the end of the day I love my sons," she replied with a smile. "Just don't get too far from your mother while you are here or I might just snatch you up for myself."

"You shouldn't be. Looking forward I mean," Daniel said, swallowing.

"Anne! That's not a very nice thing to say," Mum chided. Daniel leaned closer to Agnes and confided to her in a whisper.

"Babies are lumps. Useless!"

Then he went back to eating. With three kids already, Agnes should have known better. But that's the problem with spending all your stat points on big ears and extra knees. Nothing to spare for agility or smarts.

Eventually, it was time to go. As they were on their way out, a probable Agnes husband holding a cloth-wrapped bundle appeared.

"Laura," he said "Since you are here would you mind taking this? It's wine again from my uncle for your father-in-law. With his thanks, he says."

"...I don't know," Mum hesitated, and then turned to glance at Daniel with a worried expression.

"Please? You'd be saving me the bother," he wheedled. "There's no point in me walking there alongside you just to deliver this"

"Alright then give it here."

As they walked away from the house, Daniel was contemplating the right timing to speak up about Agnes's ears, when Mum turned around to face him.

"I'll give this to your grandfather later. So could you please not mention it in front of your father?"

Daniel froze, both his movement and the blood in his veins. What was this? Even in this wierdoland, would people explain to a four-year-old the context behind asking them to help hide things from their father? They would not. If Daniel had to choose between his parents he would pick his mother. In his whole new life, he had spent the majority of his time with her. They had even been together for a year before he had really been aware of other people. But that didn't mean he wanted to choose. And this? The look on mum's face, the tone of her voice. One lie would snowball into many. This was the start of disaster childhood, take two. His impression of the question crystallised into ice down his spine. He was being asked to choose sides. He knew his choice, and he didn't want to make it. He looked down at his feet, his hands balling into fists at his side, unable to answer. He felt tears welling up, as they held a long moment of silence out there on the street.

Then a memory came to him, a day in a garden, and he looked up to meet his mother's gaze.

"I don't want to betray him."

For another long moment, his mother looked at him with wide eyes. Daniel started to feel even worse. He had the scary thought that sometimes, not choosing a side is the same as choosing one. Then she came to herself with a start and whisked around, hurriedly leading him home.