The bubbling crowd of summoned moved their way into a room that looked like a small auditorium. A man wearing robes stood atop the platform in the middle of the room with rows of seats in perfect circles around him slowly rising upwards. There were soldiers lining the edges of the room, a few dozen. However these men were not the same as the ones we had met so far.
While these men still stood at attention they showed changes in facial expressions often and they talked to those next to them in what seemed like excited whispers. They weren’t geared like the one’s near the prince either; having what looked like a standard uniform consisting of a mixture of steel plates and leather that looked easy to move in while still providing ample defense.
We moved to the center with Altru towards the robed man on the raised platform. When we got close he turned to us and announced in a booming voice
“We welcome our new heros to our land and will now have them evaluated before us! Let their power be known to all!”
That shocked me quite a bit. Turns out this little stat viewing party wasn’t only for us, but for the soldiers gathered here. And when I looked closely I could see a window far above us looking down on the whole auditorium. A man who looked almost exactly like Altru (if Altru lost most of his muscle, was much older, and looked more conniving than bave) stood there with a brilliant crown atop his head. Guess the king was here to check out the new arrivals as well.
“Without further ado let us begin!”
Without giving us a chance to argue, complain, or even stand dazed and confused, Altru grabbed the hand of the person closest to him and brought them stumbling up to the stage. The person who just so happened to be there was Bobby and I could see the blood leave his face as he looked around at our spectators.
A man in a purple robe walked up to Bobby on the stage and spoke loud enough for those of us who were gathered around the stage to hear.
“Don’t fret too much, we’re just going to have a quick peek at how amazing you all are, you don’t have to even do anything just stand there and I’ll show the results to everyone.”
Bobby’s face got a little color back and the other transferees looked a little more comfortable with this whole spectacle as well, not to say people were not nervous at all. May moved next to me and Julian and scrunched her body up a bit as though to make herself smaller. She had always hated large crowds.
Me and Julian both told her it would be all right while the mage on the stage began to use his fingers to write in the air. It was my first time seeing it but it was fairly obvious that I was seeing magic for the first time in my life. Instead of the circle I expected it looked more like a box with a blueprint drawn in it as his fingers nimbly drew neat lines and sharp angles. Looking at the order and perfection in his movements made me wonder how much someone had to practice to be so precise.
In less than a minute the mage’s fingers stopped moving. He then proceeded to put his mouth close to the drawing that he drew and took a deep breath in, and then breathed out a stream of glowing smoke into the empty space between the drawn lines. The smoke traveled through the paths and structures and the whole drawing began to glow with a soft light. Despite looking more technical and less mystical than I had anticipated, this magic still held a sense of power and order that even I could feel from off the stage.
The glowing drawing disappeared and in its place a window popped up. The window was large enough for all in the auditorium to read easily and looked a lot like a game stat page as Altru had said it would. It read:
Bobby Grant
LVL: 1
HP: 163/163 Mana: 20/20
Strength: 12
Stamina: 12
Speed: 10
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Intelligence: 3
Dexterity: 9
Vitality: 12
Luck: 20
Special Attributes
[RageKnight] [Growth Up] [Magic Intolerant]
Bobby looked at his page in wonder as the mage began to explain in a loud voice.
“Since our Hero’s did not receive the explanation when they were summoned I will give a brief overview of what you are looking at.
Level is a measure of experience, mostly related to combat but not always. It can be raised by practice and by simply living and experiencing things that broaden your abilities. Since your new and improved bodies are not the ones you are used to, this level will likely be 1 for all of you.”
I guess it was too much to hope for the convenient level ups that make you stronger after beating up some monsters.
“Next is HP and Mana. These numbers are not what you might think of in your world, though they are close. HP represents the amount of life force that your body contains. You will not often see this number go down unless you are in a state of near death or if you start burning life force for certain magics or techniques. Mana is the amount of magical power that your body can hold. It does not reflect your ability to use magic, but only how much magic you have available if you can not use the magic in the world around you.”
I was really starting to like this mage, he was explaining everything in a way that was easy to understand.
“For everybody’s reference, an average adult will have around 20 in each of these categories.”
Wow. That means Bobby has more than 8 times the amount of lifeforce an average person has. Looks like his mana is average though.
“As for the stats let me cover them quickly. Strength is how much power your body can exert on its surroundings solely based on muscular strength. Stamina is a measure of how much effort an individual can exert before running out of energy. Speed is how fast someone can move at a dead sprint. Intelligence is a measure of both knowledge and reasoning. Dexterity is how well an individual can control their body movements. Vitality is how sturdy an individual's body is; this can include both external factors like skin hardening and internal factors like a well functioning heart that will not fail under stress. Luck is just that, it is the one stat you have from birth that you cannot change, some feel it is a reflection of how much the gods favor you or the reflection of how you lived your past life but no one is certain.
An average adult within our empire will have around 3 to 5 in each stat on average, with luck being more varied than any other.”
Bobby’s stats all made perfect sense to me. All of his physical attributes were high while he was at the low end of average for intelligence.
Thinking about it, the mage said that 3 to 5 was average for the empire. If I’ve been seeing things correctly it looks like the level of civilization here is around the late medieval age in our world. If that’s the case…
Bobby is on the low end of intelligence for a medieval age civilian…
The coach for our school must have REALLY wanted Bobby if he made it into college with that amount of intelligence.
“Next let’s cover the best part, the Special Attributes. Special Attributes are anything not covered by the stats. They can be titles you have achieved, powers gifted by gods, or natural enhancements to the body. Anything outside the norm is listed here. If we were to show Prince Altru’s page here it would show that he is a prince in this section as well as a sword master. Each of you should have gotten some kind of attribute in the transfer to our world as a gift from the gods.”
So our powers are gifts from gods? Does that mean that there are tangible reachable gods in this world? I didn’t have much time to think about it as the mage continued.
“Let us show the description of Bobby’s attributes.”
The mage drew a smaller drawing in the air next to Bobby’s window and the window zoomed in to Bobby’s attributes and words appeared next to each one.
Special Attributes
RageKnight: Strength increases proportional to strong emotions.
Growth Up: Stats increase at a faster rate.
Magic Intolerant: Body is not suited to magic, cannot cast magic but is also resistant to magic.
Wow those attributes look really good. Especially for Bobby. Does he get stronger when he’s mad? He’s always mad! He also grows faster and is magic resistant? He’s a cheat character! He probably couldn’t use something complicated like the magic the mage demonstrated earlier anyways so I think everything is well tailored to him. Maybe his luck affected what he got in the transfer?
“Bobby here is a good example of someone suited to combat. His stats are around that of a low grade knight despite having no formal training, and his attributes make him someone who could dominate a battlefield given time to grow.”
Bobby started to smile, I do not think I’ve ever seen him look so happy. He looks like a kid getting the toy he wanted for his Birthday.
The mage then turned to those of us beneath the podium and asked with a slight smile on the corner of his lips.
“Who wants to see their page next?”