I returned to my room, even though it was tempting to spend the rest of the night in the library, hoping to find something, but after some consideration, I decided against it. I was afraid of the captain who might check that I had gone where I was supposed to be.

I just stopped to steal a book from the library to see if I could use that to my advantage.

The temptation to go and poke around the room Toross and Falael were currently occupying was even greater. They were still sleeping with the door open, drunk, but I didn't want to risk it. Even with my limited Vitality, the impact of the alcohol had long disappeared, and I didn't want to take the risk of one of them waking up to find me sneaking around.

My harmless aura was my single greatest asset, and I didn't want to risk it for the moment. I wasn't afraid of them getting rid of me after all the trouble they had gone to but that didn't mean I was willing to show myself.

Right now, they were confident that a blast of mental pressure was all they needed to gain my serious cooperation, and the longer I could make them believe it was useful, the looser their control would be around me.

I closed the door once I returned to my room, and put the book on my bedside table, into the drawer, outside of the view of someone, but actually hidden. No need to make it look like I was actually trying to keep it hidden.

Then, the next question ... my stats. According to what soldiers had said, awakening stat points were supposed to be challenging affairs, often requiring years of dedicated effort. And, since none of the other soldiers looked inclined to disagree, I was willing to take that comment at face value.

Yet, I was able to awaken several in one evening. There were two possibilities. One, it might be a feature of my class, Hero. It was not impossible, and fit with other details which they had slipped. Many other classes were gaining somewhere between one to three points with each level. Even assuming there were others they didn't mention that gained more, I guessed that ten was already somewhere near the peak, if not the peak.

Still, that stat disparity, along with the near-exponential growth the experience requirements displayed, gave me a solid idea of why they had gone through all that trouble to summon others from another world and brainwash them rather than just raising a few of their own. Maybe there were other reasons as well, but the potential it represented was a good start.

The second case was about the life I had lived. The guard had mentioned years of training required to familiarize oneself with the stat. And, it was hard to argue that my life had more than qualified for that, forcing me to explore my limits again and again as I fought to survive, from the streets to the top.

Maybe it was what they meant by familiarization, or maybe it was just a combination of two factors.

Either way, it still represented the greatest opportunity I faced.

I wanted to awaken as many stats as I could find. And, I had two targets for that, Intelligence, and Charisma. For Intelligence, I tried to read the indecipherable book again and again, did hundreds of mental calculations, and even tried to recite some of the stories I had memorized.

Unfortunately, none of them gave me the line of writing that I was trying to attain.

Still, there was a silver lining, I decided even as I leaned against my pillow once more, my eyes firmly shut. It confirmed that it was more about my life experiences than the class. I had never been particularly skilled in subjects such as math, languages, or anything else that people might treat as intelligence. I had what others called street-smarts, which was more about paying attention, staying alert, and reading people than actually making calculations.

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A task for the future, I decided even as I shifted my mind toward the next possible target.

Charisma.

It was certainly a fascinating concept, one that was far more familiar with. Even back in my world, charisma was something fascinating, something almost mystical, with some of the greatest paragons — and monsters — of the world rumored to wield it.

Of course, I had a different perception of it. I had befriended, commanded, and ruled over enough people to know that Charisma was a tenacious concept of managing the perception of others, ensuring their reactions to the situation were instinctive and emotional rather than calm and rational. A concept that had roots in many different aspects, our biological disposition to form groups, growing up with the idea of following authority since our childhood…

Even the mental shortcuts we use to make our decisions.

What people termed as charisma, whether used by conmen, seductresses, or genocidal leaders, targeted those concepts to bypass rational thoughts and create an emotional response — or even better, trigger an automatic action.

The suffocating mental wave that was emanated off them constantly as they threw out orders was not that — but just like that, the radical healing displayed by Vitality and Health points wasn't exactly how healing worked as well.

Clearly, there was some mystical enhancement of the concept, enough to turn that implied force of interaction and command into something much more intense, almost a physical presence.

In that light, I wasn't surprised in the slightest when the soldier mentioned some vague consequences of awakening Charisma without noble blood. A simple statement, yet surprisingly packed with a lot of information.

First, and most importantly, it showed that soldiers were aware of the existence of the mental effect and somewhat accepting of its effects and existence — which had several interesting implications about how the ruling aspects of the world worked, the kind that would require weeks and months to even have a preliminary accurate guess.

Or, I could just wait and see once we arrived at our destination.

The second implication was simpler. Charisma was restricted, just like access to weapons was limited back in my world. Of course, there was no one rule globally, with different countries having looser aspects to personal weapons, but no country actually allowed their citizens to possess tanks and fighter jets.

The mention of the soldier about only nobles being allowed to attain Charisma reminded me of that.

Whether that restriction was actually applied efficiently and fairly … was a very different question. Even without knowing anything about the world, I would be willing to bet that a numerable amount of organizations were actually flaunting that role. I could even go further and guess that those included not only some freelance conmen but also some underground enterprises, rich merchants, and possibly many other 'upstanding' citizens secretly or not-so-secretly generating such forces.

Expecting people to ignore the potential for power and authority was … optimistic at best.

The third implication came from their sudden panic at the mention of charisma to me. Combined with the dismissive way he mentioned when relaxed, my best guess was that they were ordered never to mention Charisma to me — understandable as they were clearly determined to brainwash me as we traveled toward our destination.

I didn't need the potential boost from that elusive Intelligence to deduct such brainwashing would work much better if I stayed unaware of the effect.

The initial mishap that happened during the summoning already made that part more difficult than necessary, when they used the impact of the Charisma to make me level up, but it was clearly an unexpected crisis they had to deal with due to my own … volunteering.

Even then, Falael clearly had no concerns about using Charisma on me, expecting it to work perfectly. Maybe he would have been right without the mysterious assistance of Resilience, but life didn't work based on hypothetical cases.

Unfortunately, the theoretical breakdown of Charisma didn't bring me any closer to attaining it. Even as I spent hours trying to awaken it, I failed. And I tried a lot, thinking about the notable events of my life, giving imaginary orders, whispering orders despite the risk of being heard — even striking some charismatic poses despite being aware of how ridiculous they looked — but every single one of them came blank.

Maybe it required some kind of medium to interact. Resilience awakened when I was trying to resist death itself, and while I awakened Strength and Agility relatively easily, Strength was still triggered by push-ups, while Agility required some coin tricks.

Maybe Charisma required a target to be awakened as well…

Finally, as I was lost in my thoughts, I heard a knock on the door.

I pulled myself out of bed and got up, ready to invite them inside.

It was time to put up another show…