We met the rest of my relatives in the waiting room for visitors. Only two or three people could visit the patient at one time, so we were taking turns. We spent some time catching up since it had been a while since we last met. My uncles and aunties bombarded my mum and dad with questions about our Malaysian home and thankfully, they all but ignored me. My mum fielded most of the questions and showed clear relief when our turn came.

I entered the ward first, and greeted my grandma, who was sitting up in bed. She was looking pale, but gave us a smile when she saw us come in. I gave her a careful hug and offered her the potion in the thermos before sitting down beside the bed. My parents also sat on the chairs provided and asked her how she was doing. As she opened the thermos to take a sip of the "herbal tea", I crossed my fingers and hoped that this potion wouldn't have the stereotypical glowing effect. That would be hard to explain away.

My grandma's eyes widened as she drank the potion, but she merely replied that she was feeling fine. "In fact, I'm feeling much better now that you all are here," she spoke in Hokkien with a smile. My Hokkien wasn't all that good, but I could understand the gist of what she said. She handed me the thermos back and thanked me, then gave me a long look. I tilted my head, but she just shook hers and turned to talk to my parents. The thermos still had some liquid, so I drank the remainder because I was curious to see how it tasted like.

Um, well, it wasn't exactly gross, but it was bland with a hint of bitterness and spiciness, as if someone had juiced a random mixture of grass and herbs. Perhaps a person in dire need of healing wouldn't care about the taste, but would it kill them to add a drop of honey into the concoction?! I struggled to stifle an impulse to stick my tongue out at the taste and quickly gulped some water from my other water bottle. Ah, maybe Grandma would appreciate some water too. I stood up to pour her a glass from a jug on the bedside table. She beamed at me as she accepted it and took several sips before continuing her conversation with my parents.

I studied her face to see if there was any visible improvement in her condition. I certainly couldn't feel any change in myself. Inspect might be able to tell, but I couldn't use that here. Or could I? I still only had a vague idea of how Skills worked, and apart from Language and Map, I was unlikely to have an opportunity to use them here. After some hesitation, I concentrated on my grandma's face and used Inspect. The result almost made me drop my bag in shock and far outweighed the fact that it had worked.

Lim Leng Che

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Race: Human | Age: 83

Level: 9X | Condition: Normal

Attack: 1XXX

Endurance: 2XXX

Agility: 2XXX

Speed: 1XXX

Intelligence: 1XXX

Mana: 2XXX

Skills:

Needlework, Bargaining, Spatial Sense, Stealth, Negotiation, Cooking, Cleaning, Laundry, Arithmetic, Education, Archery, Dagger, World Map, Evasion, Identify, Detection

Magic:

Transportation, Class 5

Conjuration, Class 5

W-what was with that status?! So many Skills? And her stats were all beyond a thousand, and most of all, her Level was over 90! Were people able to level up here too?! There were so many questions running in my head that i felt dazed. I was so astonished that I must have been staring too hard at Grandma in silence, as my mother tapped me on the shoulder and shot me a stern look. Right, right, it was rude to stare. Grandma didn't take offence though, and smiled kindly at me.

"You look like you have some questions to ask," she said. "Go ahead and ask Grandma anything."

"How did you level up–“ the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “–your Hokkien?" I concluded lamely.

She gave me a gentle smile and said, "By conversing a lot with others, of course. But then, this is the only language I know, unlike you young ones who can speak multiple languages."

I nodded quietly, although I was itching to ask her about her status and Level. My parents were also in the room, and besides, I didn't know the Hokkien terms for those. Wait, if Inspect had worked on her, would it also work on my parents? I had assumed they didn't know anything about Shyi’eld, but what if they had high Levels like Grandma? Maybe they also had crazy high stats and Skills? It would be kinda sad if I was the one with the lowest Level in our family though...

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I took a deep breath and focused on my mum's face. My heart thumped in anticipation, but nothing happened. Huh. Either Inspect had not worked because it needed mana to work or my mother didn't have any status that could be inspected. I tried looking at my dad too, with the same result. Well, maybe I could just try the next time I returned from Shyi'eld. If I remembered, that is. Speaking of which, I hadn't tried to Inspect Muhammad either. That guy seemed to have some history with Shyi'eld, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had a pretty high Level too. Maybe not as high as Grandma, though.

I still had plenty of questions I couldn't ask, but our visit was over. We bid Grandma farewell and she promised that she was on the mend as she gave me a wink. I gave her a wry smile. Surely a standard potion wouldn't have had much effect on her. Maybe she felt that it was the thought that counted. As we went back home, I was contemplating how to break the news to Masa. "Hey, guess what? My grandma's over Level 90!" sounded like I was bragging. "I just met someone over Level 90 today!" was too vague. What about "Did you know Inspect can be used here?" Hmm...