Fin had lost track of time when it happened. The thought that he wouldn’t be sleeping in his own bed solidified when a small, flashing light appeared in the top left of his vision. He tried looking at it, and a screen appeared, floating in front of his face.

Level: 1 Class: none Affinity: none Path: none

Strength

Dexterity

Constitution

Intelligence

Wisdom

Charisma

-19

-11

-7

0

1

3

Basic stat points: 3 gold stat points: 3 Ability Points: 1

Skill Attributes: None

His dad was right. He looked around to see if anyone noticed, and the window immediately disappeared. He looked up to the left, and the window popped up. Then he made it go away by simply looking past it. He pulled it up again to look closer.

Why are my first three stats negative numbers? He asked himself before focusing on the basic stat points. The basic stat points lit up, as did Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. He knew his strength was the worst out of his basic stat points and decided that was the first one he would need to upgrade. Immediately, strength went to negative eighteen, and basic stat points went down to two. That was treacherously easy, he thought before a wave of hunger struck him like an arrow to the gut. His hands nearly shook, and he reached into the bag and pulled out and consumed seven hard-boiled eggs, four slabs of hard-tack bread, a lump of cheese, a jar of pickled minnows, and four strips of meat. He drank deeply from his water skin until it was less than half full. When his hunger was sated, he moved his arms around and felt them to see if anything had changed. His arms didn’t feel bigger; they felt denser, and he felt stronger. He took inventory of his rations and found he only had one meal left; it was significantly less than he needed if he was going to upgrade his basic stat points again.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

With a sigh, he sat back in his chair and noticed a blinking light to the top right of his vision. He looked at it, and a quest bar popped into his line of sight. It read: Sovereign Quest Complete: Flee the nest: +1 level, +3 basic stat points, +3 gold stat points, +1 ability point.

I guess leaving home is the equivalent of fleeing the nest, he pondered as he mindlessly chewed another strip of meat from his sack. He looked up to the left again, and the stat window popped back into view. He focused on the gold stat points, and all six categories lit up. Careful not to decide on anything, he made a mental note that the gold stat points could be allocated anywhere. He then selected the ability point, and a different menu popped up. It was a picture of a dragon on the left of the screen, and each part of it was selectable. He looked at the wings, and the right side was populated with descriptions in blue lettering. It read Wing Attack and Wing Shield. Knowing he would never need a skill for something he didn’t have, he selected the head of the dragon and read, Jowls of Strength and Fear Howl. He chose the claws and read Crushing Grip and Strengthened Talons. He then pointlessly scanned over the tail attributes before selecting the body. On the body, he read Pain Resist and Piercing Resist.

On seeing Pain Resist, he decided that was the first attribute he would upgrade when he had more food. His father didn’t say the side effects of upgrading an ability, so he decided that as soon as he was prepared, he would select it.

The Pain Resist attribute glowed and disappeared from the list. He quickly selected the status page and saw that his skill attributes now read passive attributes: pain resistance. Fin silently cursed himself for accidentally choosing a talent before being prepared for it. He preemptively held his strip of meat at the ready, but his hunger didn’t return. Instead, he felt a cool tingling sensation spread over his whole body. He didn’t feel tired or hungry; he felt invigorated.

“Hey,” Fin got the attention of the soldiers driving the cart. “How much longer until we get to wherever we’re going?”

“The royal armory won’t take, but maybe three or four days at the pace we’re going,” one of the soldiers said. “I would try to rest as much as possible. It’s going to be a lot of hard work once we arrive.

“Oh, just one thing,” the soldier continued. “Can I see one of your boots? We’ll need to size you up for a uniform once we get there.”

Fin pulled off one of his boots and passed it through the bars. The soldiers looked it over and held it up against their own boots.

“Looks about your size,” one of them said.

“Yeah, that’ll have to do.” The other one said before passing the boot back to Fin.

After a brief conversation, Fin decided to allocate a single golden stat point and go to sleep for a while. He looked up at his menu, selected the gold stat point, and held it to experiment with mental control. As long as he didn’t make up his mind, the stat point didn’t allocate. He knew he didn’t want to put it in Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution; he could use basic stat points for those. Instead, he looked at the last three, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. His father said upgrading one of these three would put him to sleep. Still, he couldn’t recall the difference between Intelligence and Wisdom. Since his intelligence was zero, he decided he would put one there first, and then later, he would allocate one to wisdom and then compare the differences.

Immediately, Intelligence went from zero to one, and then Wisdom went from one to two. He laughed to himself as the realization came to him. The decision to allocate the point was all it needed. Next time he would hold off making any mental decisions until he was ready. Then he would even it out by putting his remaining point in intellige- He cut off his thought too late as intelligence went from one to two. He let out an exasperated laugh and said out loud, “Okay, now I’ve learned my lesson.” Then he laid back and went to sleep.