Chapter 2 – Stats, skill and even more stats.

Roland kept looking at the status window, he was someone versed in computers, so he knew what those meant. 'Am I stuck in some kind of game world? Did someone put me into virtual reality?' He pinched himself to see if he was feeling any pain, and it is no surprise that he did. 'Dilly die... is this the afterlife...' He was shocked, not too long ago he was tinkering in the computer repair shop, and now he woke up in a young boy's body. He even knew who this child was as he regained all of his memories and what the child knew about this world. The place he was in was called the Kingdom of Caldri, and he was the 4th son from the house of Arden. His new father was a Baron, and he was the youngest son; besides that, he even had two sisters, one of whom was younger than him. 'This kid... his family doesn't think much of him, does it?' He looked at the shabby room he was in. He knew from his memories that he wasn't really in contention for the noble title of this house. This 'honor' belonged to the firstborn; maybe the second-born still had a shot at it if he was especially talented. But he was only the 4th in line; unless all of his brothers died, he had no chance. He wasn't sure what this boy's fate would be in the eyes of his family. He was too young to know how the political structure in this world worked. He only knew that he was the son of a noble, so it was probably still better than being a commoner. 'I should be safe here for the time... not sure what the age of adulthood in this world is, but the bigger question is...' He looked to the hovering window in front of his face, which looked like some kind of status screen of an RPG character. It had things like strength and endurance, just like in games that he used to play. Most of his stats were low, but some of them stood out. 'My intelligence is quite high, so is my willpower and dexterity. Aren't the first two mage stats?' He needed more information first; he needed to figure this status screen out. This was something that the people living in this world saw as natural; the boy's memories reflected that as he could recall using it. 'Okay, I need to think status and it should show up...' He strained his thoughts, the game-like screen appearing in front of him again. He could see all of his main stats. If he guided his gaze to the desired option, he could even get some flavor text to give him an explanation. Name: Explanation Strength: Indicates the physical power of an individual, increases attack damage, and slightly. Agility: Indicates how agile and nimble a person is, increasing speed, quickness, and stamina slightly. Dexterity: Indicates skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands, increases attack damage with finesse weapons, and attack speed. Vitality: Increases health points, defense, physical resistances, and the life span of an individual. Endurance: Increases an individual's stamina, stamina regeneration, and health points slightly. Intelligence: Increases an individual's mana points, magic attack, and learning speed. Willpower: Increases an individual's resistance to elemental attacks, status effects, and mana points slightly. Charisma: Indicates an individual's charm. A measure of personality, persuasiveness, and leadership. Luck: Increases the chance of critical attacks and other various skills related to chance. He started reading the short explanations for the attributes and looked at his own to see what he was good at and bad at. Most of his stats were quite low, but some were uncharacteristically high compared to the others. For one, his intelligence stat was high at a whopping 35. Followed by willpower at 18 and then dexterity at 15. 'Intelligence increases my mana and magic attack... am I a mage or something? I'm resistant to status effect and good with my hands?' Besides those three, everything else was below the; he had no idea what the stats of an average person in this world looked like. He tried recalling something from the memories that he got from this child, but there was nothing concerning this. The boy left a boring life without anyone telling him anything. This was due to how low his social standing was in this family; he was the lowly 4th son, and he wasn't even the child of the main wife but came from a mistress who wasn't even allowed to live together with him at this estate. He tried recalling how the boy's mother looked, a face or even the shape, but he couldn't. 'Don't think he ever saw his mother...' He tried thinking about what kind of world he was in now. There was a window in his room, but he was still feeling sickly. By the looks of the doctor and the main, he was somewhere where the technological advancement wasn't that great. 'Great... how am I supposed to live without the internet now?' He became dejected; all those shows and movies that he was eagerly waiting to devour in his free time were all gone now. What was he even supposed to do here? Go to school like a normal kid and then become some kind of court official? 'Is that even an option? My status is fairly low... won't they just toss me out, or tell me to go join the army or something?' He wasn't sure how things worked; from his internet knowledge, he knew that noble sons sometimes became servants of higher nobles. Some were even forced to join the clergy to become monks. 'Ugh, I don't want to shave my head... or be forced to take some vows...' He moved his attention back to his statue. Did it always look like this? He tried recalling the memories of the boy who had previously looked at his attributes. 'I'm sure those three stats were lower... though his intelligence was above 10 from the start...' He had somehow influenced these stats, but what was the reason? He decided to investigate and looked at his status screen again. 'What is that... there is a skill menu...' He willed the skill menu to open, with some mental gymnastics, she managed to bring out the window, this one showed him all the skills and traits that he had. Roland's eyes went wide, he didn't expect to find so many various skills in there. He knew that most of those weren't in here before;e, this also explained why he had an increase in stats. 'Most of those passive skills and traits increase my intelligence, willpower, and dexterity...' The traits and skills that were there before he got here were: Fast Learning, Knowledge Retention, Identify, and Mana Sense. He could also recall that this kid read a lot of books in his free time. Though that probably had to do with the fact that there was nothing else for him to do besides that. 'Those nights I spend playing games must count for that sleep resistance passive...' 'Okay, so why am I here? Did I overwrite this brat's brain, or did he die and then my soul jumped in, or something?' He tried recalling why the boy was sick, and the moment he did, he got a slight headache. He recalled that the boy was trying to do something; he managed to see some kind of glowing mist in the air, and he tried to somehow absorb it into his body. 'Then something went wrong and he got sick. Didn't that doctor say something about my status already recovering?' He looked at his status screen again. The moment he thought about it, the window expanded and showed him a new part. Roland Arden HP 40/52 MP 492/492 SP 35/67 Status Effects: ???? Sickness ( Recovering) '???? Sickness?' 'Why are there question marks there... do you need some kind of knowledge to see what it is?' He squinted and concentrated on the question marks, but nothing changed. He did have some kind of identification skill, but maybe it wasn't high enough, being only at L1. 'Well, he got sick after that glowing mist entered his body...' 'Does it have something to do with that mana sense skill... I sure have a huge amount of MP compared to everything else.' This was an odd situation to be in, he thought of what had happened that night. Two murder trucks turned him into a bloody pancake, and now he ended up in some place with a game system. From her memory, she was sure that he wasn't the only one with this system; everyone had it with them since birth. The rest was unclear, as no one explained much to this child; this was probably also why he suffered some kind of backlash from absorbing that glowing mist. While he was at it, he looked at his stats and then compared the bonuses from the passive skills that he was receiving. Most of his intelligence came from his passives and traits; if he removed them all, then he would end up with 11. 'Still over 10, thou, is that even a lot for a 5-year-old?' 'Still with those two traits that he had, it would put his int at 19... maybe his weak body couldn't handle the excess mana?' He started doing some mathematics in his brain, trying to count how much his stats affected his HP and MP. It didn't take him too long to figure out that he gained 10 MP for every 1 intelligence, and 4 MP for every willpower point. The surprising thing came afterwards as after he was done with his calculations. You have learned the Basic Mathematics skills. "What?" The sounds belonged to a woman, and she sounded quite gentle. He looked around to see if anyone had come into this room, but there was no one to be seen. 'So, I've gained a new skill...' He checked the description, but it didn't say much besides it being an indicator that he knew mathematics; it didn't even increase his intelligence stat at all. 'Guess you don't get stat bonuses for every skill?' He had no reference point; the boy's memories didn't answer many questions about these skills. The identity skill was something that showed up after time passed, maybe it was something everyone had? He needed more information about his situation, but he was only a five-year-old child who wasn't taken seriously around here. 'Maybe that maid will answer some questions?' He thought back to the old lady who showed concern when tending to him. Her name was Martha, nd from the looks of things, she was the only person who tended to he young boy's needs. He had a vivid image in his mind of the woman bringing him food, helping him put on clothes, or cleaning around the room that he spent the most time in. He remembered something, there was a certain book that the youth was reading before succumbing to the sickness. In the corner, there was a large desk with a chair. Some old cushions were placed there by the maid so that the boy didn't feel uncomfortable while reading. There was a pile of books there, and one, in particular, was the one he was interested in. 'Think I feel better now, should be able to move...' He wasn't sure if it was due to his willpower stat that supposedly helped with status effects, but he was feeling better with each passing moment. He wiggled down his bed and moved over to the de,sk which had the book in question. "The basics of magic..." "So, he started learning this and something went wrong... that's harsh..." He thought back to the poor child. He was more or less abandoned by his family, the doctor was too late to save him. He might have even been too lazy to be bothered by how he acted when he saw him recovering. He left the book on the desk and moved to the sole window that was right next to it. He peeked outside and noticed that there were some people there. They looked to be working the field, some kind of plow was attached to a farm animal. 'Is that an Ox?... Why is it so big, and why does it have three horns?' He was not on Earth anymore; the farmer there was using the large animal to help him plow the field. He could see other people walking around, even some in not-so-well-kept armor. While he was preoccupied with sneaking glances outside the window, the door opened up, and Martha returned to check up on the boy. "Master Roland! You shouldn't be out of bed, Here I brought you some porridge." The man in the child's body looked at the smiling woman. He wanted to speak up, but decided on just nodding and going back to bed. 'This will take some time getting used to...'