Chapter 3

“Strength to protect, Dexterity to move, Intelligence to understand. Do you remember this? These are the building blocks to further Attributes.” Oh-jin had immediately stepped up and into his role as an educator. Kopius gave a noncommittal shrug before the old man continued. “There are two tiers beyond these first Attributes. Strength leads to a higher Constitution and Endurance. Constitution leads the way to your Resistances and Physique; Endurance to Fortitude and Willpower. All these together manifest in your ability to protect yourself from external threats.”

“What about the other two? What do Intelligence and Dexterity lead to?”

“Well now, you can pick up a book and discover that in your free time!”

“Fair enough,” Kopius half laughed. “I saw a bunch of the ones you mentioned when my notifications went all crazy. Are they all active now?”

“Yes and no,” Oh-jin answered carefully. “There is no noticeable difference if the numbers are not solid, not whole. Where a ‘1’ in Resistance will stave off basic snake venom, a .25 or .5 in the same Attribute will have little to no added benefit. Keep in mind, growing an Attribute too quickly has its disadvantages as well.”

“I don’t understand,” Kopius stated.

“I’ll take this one Oh-jin,” Cici said, cleaning his mouth of any residual food or drink. “There was this one time I had leveled up while also finding a few Senteney Accelerators–that's a rare stone used to advance an Attribute by plus one–and got the bright idea to place all my points, four total, into Strength. I figured, the stronger the better, right? But then I went to swing Celeste and I was so off kilter I landed on my ass after one swipe!”

“That doesn't explain much,” Kopius pointed out.

“I wasn't used to the weight lad! Celeste felt lighter, more fragile. When I swung her about I had difficulty keeping her on target. It took almost twenty rotations before it all felt normal again.”

“Muscle memory?” Kopius asked.

“If by that you mean my muscles lost theirs, then, yes. They treated my poor girl like some willow reed with a skipping stone at the end.” Cici picked up his hammer from its resting place and stroked it like they both just got over the whole ordeal.

This all reminded Kopius of a time when he had gotten into a fist fight in the parking lot of an old 24-Fitness. Cory, still in his baseball years, had worked out for the better part of two hours and was making his way to his car after a shower in the locker room. Another fellow, leaving as well, took offense to Cory not holding the door open for him on the way out. They jawed at each other until the testosterone had kicked in and the two started throwing blows. Cory had felt like he was moving through water and the few times he landed a solid hit it felt like soft tap. When he had received a few in return, they felt the same. They would have been better off slapping each other.

Another time he had lifted weights prior to a ball game and the results were no better than the aforementioned parking lot. Because he had not warmed up with a baseball bat weight, commonly known as a ‘donut,’ he had failed miserably at the plate. The donut would have given him a slightly faster swing, a swing that he could control. The extra weight from the workout had thrown off both his balance and his timing. Those were two things that Papa had held in high regard.

“Balance and timing,” Papa used to say. “That’s all you need… for everything.”

Kopius came to terms with this new information, that by adding a large amount to Strength on Metem did not instantly produce more powerful hits. Well, it did, but the ability to hit the target to inflict any kind of damage was partially negated due to the lack of experience with said strength. Ugh, slow and steady wins the race or however that goes, Kopius lamented internally.

Incremental growth had always been a hard pill to swallow. Cory, like most Americans, preferred instant gratification over slowburn progress. Everybody wanted to leap and bound their way to success; they overlooked the importance of baby steps. Guilty as the rest of them, he would look for shortcut after shortcut even when all that looking took significantly longer than just completing whatever the task was.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

With the prospect of dumping all his accelerator points into one stat quashed, his mind moved on to other questions. He reprimanded himself for not writing down or at least remembering the increases he had received during all those pop-ups.

“Okay,” Kopus exhaled. “When one of these new Attributes activates, do I get additional accelerators?”

“You do not,” Oh-jin answered regrettably. “You can add one of the three points to the active Attribute or apply it to the top level.”

“How does applying it to the top level help?”

“The points will trickle down to the other Attributes; active or not.”

“I don’t know man, in my experience ‘trickle down’ is a bunch of bullshit. That's what the rich tell the poor to keep them poor.”

“It is a slower progression, that much is certain,” Oh-jin admitted. “Yet, it is the most balanced approach.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Do you know how the trickle down is distributed or is it just some fancy theory?”

“Of course I know!” Oh-jin replied with a huff. “You would too if you did the minimum amount of reading!”

Kopius felt like he blushed a bit, his face and hands growing warm like he just got caught doing something less than ‘good’. He had only read as far to understand how the magic boots worked and not much more. His persistence to put things off was nothing new. Cory would have won all kinds of awards and accolades had procrastination been held in any kind of reverence. Thinking about it now and he cringed at his past lack of action. There were too many instances to reference at the moment. Too many times, where doing just the bare minimum would have saved himself from himself.

“I will read the books,” Kopius finally replied, a bit of shame leaking through.

“Please do, it will only be to your benefit. Now, trickle down works by adding one accelerator to the top level Attribute. A point in Strength will grant .50 to both second tier Attributes and .25 to all third tier items.” The old man paused to let the information sink in. “Applying a whole point to either the second or third tier will only benefit that one Attribute. Those are the basics, do you understand?”

“I get it.”

“Good, now have you applied your accelerators already?”

“I thought the Universe, or whatever, did that for me?”

“Only through level 10, you are level 12, yes?”

Kopius nodded along until a lightbulb went off in his mind. His eyes widened and he cracked the thinnest of smiles. He opened his profile page and searched through all the Attributes but didn’t see anything that looked like or referenced unused points. He mentally clicked through the available tabs on his profile but still came up with nothing.

“I don’t see any points to use,” Kopius finally admitted.

“It will be in the upper right, lad. A number 3 should be there.” Cici instructed.

“I see a number 9,” Kopius replied after looking at his profile. “I was wondering what that was.”

“Nine? That’s right, you're level 12.” Cici said with a smile. “You’re old enough for a job, my friend!”

“High enough for your Practices, that much is certain. Have you chosen them?” Oh-jin asked.

“I have not. There was a window that popped up and asked if I was ready to pick but I said ‘no’ and it went away.”

“We should address your Practices first and then your accelerators, just in case.”

“How do I do that?”

“Do what,” Oh-jin asked.

“Select my Practices.”

“You accept the invitation from the notification.”

“Okay. I can retrieve closed notifications?”

Oh-jin gave him a look that reiterated his past point about reading. Kopius could see that, even behind his thick, ever present goggles, Oh-jin was disappointed. The head shaking also indicated that he was also not surprised.

“With your profile open,” the old chemist said slowly, ”Concentrate on your Summary window and you will find a section labeled ‘Unresolved’. That is where you will find unfinished or unaddressed items. Let’s get this done before level 13, you will want none of that, I promise.”

Kopius made short work of locating the Unresolved tab and opened it. Only two items sat in this section: the Ripple quest Public Announcement and the Practice notification. He gave the Ripple quest a considerable amount of side eye before he opened the Practice window.

image [https://i.imgur.com/KWqDwsr.jpeg]

Yes, Kopus answered.