Tom flipped through the pages, appreciating the quality of the information. Each profile was standardised: there was a picture of the species in the top right corner, then a blurb that described it. The images were not photo-quality, but they were close, and each one was accompanied by a silhouette of a starfish to convey relative size. Most of the species were significantly larger than a human, but some were like the starfish or even smaller, and only the size of a human head.

For a minute, he flipped through the pages, admiring the artwork. The breadth of natives captured was extraordinary. There was the occasional species that appeared vaguely humanoid, three on his count amongst the hundreds of entries, others that were animalistic like the wador. The kind of presentation that, in computer games, would have had mutated in their description. They ran the entire gauntlet of features: some had skin that was hairy, hide based or scaley; some had limbs ranging from none to four, to six, to eight - right up to the hundreds you would see in the millipede territory. There were frills, bright patches of colour, decorative antlers, and lots of focus on natural weapons like prominent tusks, horns, or canines. Tom doubted that he could have come up with all the images that he saw, especially the exotic ones, sapients that just looked weird. A tangle of tentacles, a pile of pine cones, a marshmallow jelly fish - the variety relative to the conformity he was used to from earth, where most things had a common design, was astonishing.

For a moment, he lay the book down and assessed his body. He was still sore, but his breathing was mostly under control. Fighting when fatigued could save his life, so he got up and dutifully went through spear forms while letting his mind drift in order to internalise what he had just learnt.

His subconscious teased at something, a kernel of an idea. It was something hidden, something important. He thought about the different native species, how they looked, the construction of the book, the consistency and precision of the language. He thought of the way he reacted to the presentation on an instinctive level; of the fact that the book existed in the isolation room in the first place. That was significant, as he was sure that priests or people with similar skills were involved and curating the content.

On earth, there were things you could say were truthful. There were those where there was a weight of evidence that supported the assertion, but you were never a hundred percent sure. Evidence could be forged. In Existentia, it was different: there were skills and active gods. Here, the concept of truth was real.

Understanding bloomed through him. He finally understood what his subconscious had been trying to communicate to him. The book had a presence to it. It was like he was reading from the experience shop with the implicit guarantee of truth. It had nothing vouching for it, but Tom found himself trusting it more than anything he had ever read on earth. He could tell that all the assertions of fact were vigorously tested and confirmed, and there were no errors anywhere on the printed pages.

That’s the insight his subconscious was trying to share?

He felt almost betrayed.

What a useless segue! He threw the spear away, and it clattered against the door. He honestly didn’t care about the book’s provenance. Nevertheless, he picked it up and flipped rapidly through its pages to try to work out why his subconscious had so fixated upon that particular insight.

It was his intuition at play, which meant he could be wrong, but at least eighty percent of the time he would be correct. As he skimmed through the book yet again, he reached the final pages.

They were different, and this was why he had been certain of the veracity of the rest of them.

The last six had been compiled by humans and covered the other competitor species. For them, the language was less definite, and the racial traits were question marks.

Xetorlogs (Giants): Are vaguely humanoid and range in height from ten to sixteen metres tall. They are known to be very rigid in their thoughts, honour-bound, and liking to settle things by a display of strength. Warning: they consider anything weaker than them to be either their property or inconsequential and thus to be ignored.

The description seemed innocent enough, but Tom, having met one of them, knew better. Sixteen metres tall was equivalent to eight humans standing on top of each other. When he had stood next to the giant, his eyes had been at a level just below their knee cap. It had towered over him. Its head was at the height of a three-story building, but, despite their mass, they could move faster than the wind.

His finger tapped the question marks where the giant’s racial trait was supposed to be. Their advantage was unknown, and that realisation made him hurriedly flip back to the human page.

Given the obvious sensitivity of the information, Tom wondered why the human details were published at all. He knew the value he had got from seeing it, but satisfying his curiosity was hardly a reason to take that sort of risk.

Now that he was searching for it, the footnote almost leapt out begging for his attention.

The cost of getting this book out included the requirement to divulge the human racial trait. The proposed bargain was fiercely resisted by numerous factions, but in the end it was approved when the priests explicitly supported it.

All versions sold are enchanted to self-destruct if read by anyone other than the owning species.

Tom stared, and then mentally shrugged. The priests supported the deal. Which meant DEUS had signed off on it, so it was beyond him to question the why.

He smacked his leg.

“Stop this! You’re getting distracted by bullshit!” He told himself fiercely. “Ten minutes wasted staring at dumb pictures. You have to do better, Tom!”

With an effort of will, he slowed his breathing. Gawking at the pictures had been interesting, but not particularly valuable. What he had been trying to do was to baseline the value of the additional traits humanity had earned. To help with that, he spent a couple of minutes studying primary traits. Most of the species also had what he was terming secondary traits. They were noticeably weaker, so he ignored them.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

One by one, he examined the primary trait of a number of different native species.

Extra Strong: Strength attribute is 15% more potent and receive three extra strength per level.

Speedy: Speed increased by 40%.

Twice as dense: All rocks incorporated in your body have their effective mass doubled, but remain as manipulatable as the base mineral.

That one was for a rhinoceros-like creature, which, according to the blurb was part reptile and part earth elemental.

Inferno: Fire manipulation abilities are 100% stronger.

Magic Gifted: Plus one magic per level and all spells are 50% cheaper or easier to acquire.

There was no way to directly compare the power of each of these to the human racial traits; nor did Existentia pretend to make things balanced.

Despite the vagaries of it all, he was confident that human sub-traits were far stronger than even the primary traits of the other native species. The difference between humans and everyone else’s sub-traits couldn’t be clearer. His finger traced the description of three of a terror species’ abilities.

Flight: Air speed increased by 30% and allows the individual to change their effective weight instantly to be between 50% lighter or heavier.

Mana Pool: Mana pool is 15% higher than the magic attribute would otherwise give.

Agility Boost: Receive an extra point of agility on even levels.

The last two were the sub-traits, and, just like his oracle questions in the tutorial had revealed, they were substantially weaker than the primary one. For humans, it was the opposite. If anything, Community Fate and Intrinsic Fate Link was more powerful than Directable Fate.

He already knew what Directable Fate, their original racial trait, did. It was contained in just four words, ‘can actively direct fate,’ but that represented an ability with wide ranging and immense impact. Personally, he rated it as being significantly stronger than all the traits in the book - especially the competition version of it, which had no limits on what you could apply the fate to. However, he admitted that that was because he had used it. The rhino-like creature with the trait Twice as Dense could very well benefit from a trait tailored for their unique physiology more than they would from Directable Fate, no matter how highly Tom valued it. Even when the GODs weakened Directable Fate after the end of the competition, it would still be more powerful than everyone else’s trait, though not as obviously overpowered as it was currently. There was a reason the GODs had a Geas in place to stop humans from communicating about the best ways to apply the ability. Its power was of a more subtle variety, like Community Fate, which could not be directly measured against other traits. Intrinsic Fate Link, on the other hand did not suffer those weaknesses.

Intrinsic Fate Link: Provides a number of benefits:

Fate is 20% more potent.

Bloodline fate properties are improved.

Receive +1 fate per level.

And fate specific traits, skills and spells are 30% easier or cheaper to acquire.

That was a trait that could be compared to these others.

Tom did exactly that.

The component that caused fate to be twenty percent more potent was equivalent to speed being boosted by forty percent, or at least close to being comparable. After all, fate was a primary attribute, while speed had an important, but narrow application. As for the trait Magic Gifted, Intrinsic Fate Link also gave plus-one of an attribute per level while also making traits, skills and spells thirty percent cheaper. Yes, thirty was less than fifty, but the range of both abilities were similar, with Magic Gifted applying to all spells, while the sub-component of Intrinsic Fate Link, covered traits and skills. Admittedly, only those with a fate aspect to them, but still. The human version applied to fewer numbers, but including skills and traits at all was a massive bonus that, in his opinion, triumphed over the raw number advantages of Magic gifted. It was, like most things, impossible to compare directly, but he judged them to be equivalent, though maybe the human’s sub, sub-trait was slightly weaker than the primary trait of the other species. However, no matter what mental gymnastics you performed, it was definitely a close call.

If he was going to do the mathematics, he would estimate that the human trait was two to four times as strong as the average primary trait.

For a moment, he stopped doing anything, as he truly comprehended the full scale of Clare’s success.

He stood and laughed, with actual tears of joy running down his face. They had quadrupled the strength of the trait, or more likely octupled it, because Tom knew the benefits scaled in multiples of two. She had upgraded the trait by eight times - maybe even sixteen, if the advantages of Community Fate were greater than he realised.

She had done far better than he had hoped.

If she was still alive, he would give her a hug and tell her she was forgiven for the evil actions that circumstances had forced on her. He wiped the tears away.

As a competitor fighting on the same side as him, she had always been admirable.

She was one of the few people who were truly willing to do what it took to win. She was a mum prepared to cross lines to save her toddlers, and then there was the plan she had put together to beat the dragon and the giant. She had been brilliant as well as pragmatic, and he was very glad she had been in charge when he died.

His gambles had paid off. Clare had made his dreams a reality, and that meant the world.

Fourth place was enough, he decided.

It wasn’t ideal, and of course he would prefer first or second, but those estimated death rates were those predicted at the start of the competition and were now wrong. The new traits changed everything, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the survival of humanity was now guaranteed, even for fifth and maybe sixth place.

Seventh remained a death sentence for them, but sixth would give them a chance. The ability of these trait changes to supercharge survival couldn’t be underestimated.

Things were no longer as dire as they had been.

Still shaking, he studied the bloodline information to find out what the last benefit of Intrinsic Fate Link had changed.

Bloodline

Tier 1

Plus 10 fate.

Tier 2

Plus 30 fate.

General Affinity Efficiency +8%.

Tier 3

Plus 70 fate.

General Affinity Efficiency +16%.

Tier 4

Plus 130 fate.

General Affinity Efficiency +30%.

Plus 1 fate for all future levels.

He had already known just based on his own pool of fate that the changes to the bloodline had been material. This just confirmed it. The boost was no larger than he had expected, but seeing it written sent a thrill through him.

The human bloodline had basically been trash-grade, but with these changes it had risen to be slightly above average. It was nothing like the one he had seen for the native dragon species, but it was now something to pursue. From what he could remember, the old tier-two bloodline had previously awarded only ten fate, and that potential gain from the general affinity efficiency alone had made it worth pursuing. For it to award thirty fate instead of ten was a significant benefit.

The only real question was: what was it going to take to get him to enhance his bloodline to tier four before he started leveling, so he could receive that extra plus one to fate for each level that he got?

It was a problem to solve when he was a little older, but he hoped that there was some sort of scholarship program that had that as a reward.