Jack was stunned. Not because he was learning that Mills was mute (the man hadn't spoken once during the experiments), but because Jack felt like an idiot! Of course there would be people he couldn't speak. Why hadn't he thought about that? In fact, now that he was thinking about it, what about blind people, or people without arms? How would they be able to interact with the status screen? It would be practically useless to them.

Using [Status Granting] made a person's status appear in front of them, but once they closed it the spell would need to be cast again to open it. Jack turned to Reph, "Does all magic require the ability to speak? Are there ways for non-speakers to use magic?"

Reph hesitated before shaking his head, "Unfortunately no. People who are born mute or cannot speak are incapable of magic. An incredibly powerful healer can restore the ability to speak from someone who lost it, but there are only about ten people in the world who could actually do it."

Jack turned to Mills, sorrow on his face and an apology on his lips, only to find the man shaking his head. Mills put a hand on Jack's shoulder, looked him directly in the eyes, then shrugged. The man didn't seem particularly broken up about the whole thing, as if this were a normal occurrence for him. He signed something to Jeler, who nodded and translated. "He says that he'd like to keep helping if he can. He can't do magic, but he's having fun."

Jack felt emotions warring inside of him. On the one hand, he was angry at himself for being so stupid. The system was meant for everyone and he should have talked with Deis about this ages ago. On the other hand, he felt relieved that Mills was okay with it. He wanted to respect the man's feelings, even if he intended to do something about it.

Even with Mills saying it was fine, Jack still felt the need to apologize to the other man. "I'm very sorry Mills, there's no way to reopen your status screen right now. I'll have to speak with Deis about making a way to accommodate people who cannot speak."

Mills looked a bit bashful at the accommodation as if he weren't used to people going out of their way for him. But he bowed in thanks and shook Jack's hand appreciatively.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it right now, he would have to talk to Deis again. He could ask Reph about how to safely leave his body in the future. Jack had no desire to have part of his body explode every time he had to talk to Deis. For now, Jack decided to work on the part of the system that he had ignored up until now. It was time to look at the stats section. There were no numbers listed on any of the screens he had granted, and he was interested to see what he could find out. Unlike the skill lists, this was something Deis had left blank, so Jack was interested to see what would happen if he messed with it.

For now, he called everyone together. "Who is the strongest person here?" he asked. Instantly, almost every single person there froze, only moving to glance at the two bigguns who had stayed for the testing. The two giants raised their hands in unison, each apparently asserting themselves as the strongest. Jack felt an odd sense of foreboding but continued his questions. "Okay, which of you can lift more than the other?"

Both the bigguns raised their hands again. Tension started to build in the air as the two of them began glancing at each other.

"Okay...can you each tell me how much weight you can lift?" Jack failed to notice that the other mercenaries began backing away slowly. Jeler grabbed Reph and began backing away with the bore-bot, trying to signal Jack to do the same, to no avail.

The two bigguns turned to glare at each other. "...500 pounds." Said the first, a biggun named Rock.

"...550 pounds." Said the second, a biggun named Stone.

"...600." said Rock.

"...700." said Stone.

With each new sentence, the two took steps closer and closer to each other. They kept increasing the number to absurd weights that would surely crush anyone trying to lift them, but they didn't seem to realize. They pushed into each other's chests, shoving against the other whenever they spoke. Jack realized that he might have allowed this to go too far, but didn't think he had a way to stop it. He called out to them, but they ignored him. Then suddenly they both seemed to fall to the ground and begin wrestling. Jeler was there in an instant, grabbing Jack and pulling him back.

Jack looked in shock at the sudden violence that occurred. "Yeah, that was always gonna happen," Jeler said, trying to comfort Jack a bit. "Those two are pretty competitive, they'll tire themselves out soon enough."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Jack watched a scene that looked like two boulders beating each other up before shaking his head. "Well, the rest of us can keep going. Who's the strongest out of everyone left?"

The dog animalus and one of the humans both claimed to be able to lift and carry the same amount. They both had the largest muscles of everyone left so Jack would take their word for it. Addressing them, Jack began his questions. "Okay, let's start with a one-to-ten system. One is the weakest and ten is the strongest. If those two, "Jack gestured to the bigguns fighting nearby, "are a ten on the scale, where are you guys?"

The two looked for a long moment at the giants, then at each other. They decided to go with an eight.

Moving down the line of mercenaries, Jack asked every person to place themselves on the scale he was forming. It was subjective, but Jack wanted to get a feel for the overall feel of each of the people here. Most people placed themselves around a five or a six, strong but not specifically focused on raw power. Many of the mercenaries were leaner and likely had better stamina than the physically stronger members.

Jack asked a harder question. "Okay, on a scale from one to twenty this time. Imagine a newborn child being a one, and the strongest person in the world being a twenty. How would you rate yourself on that scale?"

This one provoked a lot of thought in the group, and Jack was content to let them discuss it amongst themselves. They even drew a line in the dirt and talked about placing people on it at different levels. A few minutes in, Stone came stumbling over bruised and bloody. "...I'm stronger," was all he said.

Jeler ran over to check on Rock, and Jack congratulated Stone before asking him to join the discussion. Stone placed himself at eighteen, claiming to have met the strongest person in the world and been no match. Others in the group followed suit, placing themselves on the line until someone asked Jack a question he had been dreading. "So Jeler can't lift as much as me, but he always beats me at arm wrestling. Does that mean he's above or below me?"

This was the sort of thing he had been hoping to avoid for now, but he supposed it was inevitable. Stats were a complicated thing, much too generic to truly capture every part of a person's abilities, but necessary as a part of the system and how it induced growth. "Well, arm wrestling is...well it's more like a skill. Or rather, it's more like it using the [Skill] stat." Jack made a mental note to change the name of the [Skill] stat, that would get really confusing otherwise.

"No," said one of the humans, "arm wrestling is about strength. You need to be strong to win."

"Well yes, but also there's more to it. There's overlap, like...like a martial art. You need to be strong to wield a weapon, but if you don't have any skill with the weapon you'll probably lose to someone who does know how to use it even if they're weaker. Arm wrestling is kinda like that, it's more about the application of your body than it is about strength."

Some people frowned at this, but Jack told them to just focus on things like weight and carrying capacity. After some debate and arguing over the exact numbers of everyone, the group finally settled on placements that they were happy with. None of them were below a thirteen. When asked about the baseline they told Jack that Riniox made them all train enough to be stronger than the average person. They were all strong, much stronger than the majority of people. They collectively agreed that the average laborer would probably end up at a ten or eleven. Most city dwellers who didn't work in labor would probably be around seven or eight. That meant that some of them were at least twice as strong as the average person.

Jack wondered at that, most office workers back on Earth didn't get much exercise. But were they a seven out of twenty? Was a seven high compared to Earth standards? It was hard to say, and without some kind of world census, there was no way he would get an accurate measurement. He supposed that a lot of the lower numbers could wait. For now, he called everyone over and put the numbers they had assigned themselves onto their sheets. None of the assembled mercenaries swelled with power or felt much of a change, so it was hard to tell if it was working.

The point of having stats in a system was that they would grow over time, providing extra bonuses on top of existing stats. When Jack thought about how that would be represented, he imagined that the stat and its value would be listed, then would have a positive or negative modifier next to it to show change. He opened his own screen and looked at the [Power] stat. It was empty of course.

Jack turned to Reph, "Where do I go on this scale?" He pointed at the line in the dirt that represented the mercenaries' [Power] ranking.

Reph thought about it for a moment. "I'd say you're around a ten. We didn't build you with lifting things in mind, but your body has plenty of natural strength due to its mechanical nature."

Well, that was good enough for Jack. He filled in his [Power] stat at ten. He didn't feel any big change. So he decided to start picking things up, and the only things close by were the mercenaries. One by one, he picked them up, lifting them in ascending order by weight until he couldn't lift someone at all. He stopped at Jeler, unable to get the cat off the ground no matter how much he tried. Backing up, he opened his screen again and added a '+1' to his [Power] stat. Then, he tried to lift Jeler again. He was able to get Jeler off the ground now. The increase in strength was noticeable, and Jeler complained that Jack was squeezing him rather tightly.

Jack continued, still unwilling to have anyone else test this until he had tried it out some more. The process continued down the line, with Jack periodically increasing his strength to be able to lift heavier people. His body wasn't tiring physically, apparently a side effect of his robotic body. When Jack reached '+5' he went to lift the dog animalus. He was one of the heaviest mercenaries there, and Jack's body creaked ominously upon lifting the man.

Reph immediately looked concerned. "Alright, I think that's enough. Put him down."

Jack was also concerned and moved to put the animalus back on the ground.

Then his arms snapped off and he dropped the man.