POV Eliza
Over the next few weeks, Aslan added more units to my previous training program. First there was an introduction to the basics of a person's status.
“The status contains the personal information. This includes basic things like name, age, race, class and gender. Most of it can be figured out just by looking at it and is the least of mysteries. Monsters and animals also have status, although greatly reduced. With Appraisal you can see people and with Identify Monster you can see them.”
“Appraisal and Identify Monsters sound like very important skills. How can I learn them?”
“You can learn to identify monsters very easily. You will also be taught it in the next few years. But appraisal is a different story. I only know of one way to learn it and that is through specific upgraded classes. There is the analyst as an upgrade of wizards or the informant as an upgrade of a scout. There are certainly other classes, but I don’t know all of them either.”
It's a shame, I may never be able to learn appraisal, but the skill sounded extremely interesting. Having information about your opponent always brought great advantages, I learned that from many games or books in my old world.
“First, the status values. These include the level, the life points, the stamina points, the mana points, commonly referred to as basic values. Then the three physical characteristics of strength, endurance and agility as well as the three mental characteristics of intelligence, charisma and intuition, generally just characteristics. To give you a comparison of your stats to an average human, a level 0 human has an average values of 10 in each of these six characteristics, as well as 10HP, 10SP, and 10MP. Elves seem to be born with higher levels of agility and intuition due to their abilities Good Senses and Strong Reflexes. Level 0 means you have not yet gained any experience and have not selected a class. Choosing a class gives you enough experience to advance to level 1. Then the bonus points of the skills for the basic characteristics are also unlocked. The characterics are calculated as the sum of two parts. One part is the product of level and basis characteristics you are born with. The other part is from your skills.” (Aslan)
I listened intently to my master's words. All of this information was new to me and important.
“Various advantages and disadvantages change these values, such as your strong reflexes ability. Twilight vision should give you advantages in the dark. Next I will explain to you what each property stands for. Strength is your physical strength. It is responsible for your carrying capacity and for the damage in close combat. Too little strength also prevents you from wielding heavy weapons and armor. Stamina is a measure of your stamina and also part of your health points. Agility describes your speed and reflexes. The dexterity with the fingers can also be found here. Intelligence is the sum of cleverness, logic and reasoning. It affects also the mana points. Charisma describes your aura and your charisma. It also affects mana points and mana regeneration. Intuition describes your senses and overview in battle. Understood everything up to this point?”
I nodded.
“Each of the characterics is assigned different talents, which receive bonuses depending on the level of the talent. All sensory talents give a bonus to intuition, while most magical talents give a bonus to charisma. Most combat skills provide a bonus to Strength or Agility. The exceptions are the status values LP, AU and MP; special skills like body control or mana vessel are assigned to them directly. Many skills are assigned to agility and intuition, but they contribute nothing to LP, AU and MP. Basically strength is for combat and Intelligence is for magic. Charisma is for dealing with people, animals and also in prayers. Endurance generally stands for perseverance. So each has its own importance and each characteristic is weighted roughly equally. There is a lot of skills out there, but you only have a limited amount of XP and time available. Therefore, everyone has to decide whether they would rather have many low talents or a few high ones. The first levels can be picked up quickly, but the higher they get, the longer it takes. Therefore, I advise you to get to the advanced rank through pure practice and then rely on the skill points without neglecting training. The combat skills are only activated once you have reached level 10 in a weapon talent. Some skills, such as resistance, only increase passively and some, such as magic, increase almost exclusively through XP. You're probably wondering why this is and the answer is simple. Actively casting spells increases magic control and only a small amount of the corresponding magic skill. Therefore, increasing magic skills without using skill points takes a very long time. But don't neglect magic control because it limits your effectiveness in casting spells.
Now let's get to class. At the age of 10 you choose a class. Each class is based on two basic characteristics. Warriors, for example, have strength and endurance as their base, while scouts have agility and intuition. Classes are divided into three groups: pure fighters, pure magicians and mixed classes. Pure fighters base on two physical attributes, pure mages base on two mental attributes, and the mixed classes base on one of each. Pure fighters start with LP:40 and AU:40 and MP:0 and cannot learn any magical talents that relate to casting because they remain at MP:0. Only a few purely passive talents in this category are available to them. Pure mages have LP:20, AU:20 and MP:40. Mixed classes have slightly different status values individually. They have LP:25-30, AU:25-30 and MP:20-30, but the total value is always 80. Bonuses from skills and characteristics only come afterwards. All of this applies to humans, but there may be differences in other races. At least it's the same with Beastkin and we'll find out from you whether it's the same with elves. You already have MP, which is usually only added when you choose a class. I'm very interested in the reason. Therefore, I don't know whether the rules mentioned above also apply to you."
Other than the fact that I was insulted and enslaved here in the Empire, being an elf seemed to bring many advantages.
“I should also mention that the choice of class is very important, probably the biggest choice you have to make. I mentioned earlier that there is a lot of skills. With certain exceptions, anyone can learn and improve any skill. The exceptions are mostly the magic skills. Pure fighters have no magic, mixed classes start with 1 elemental magic ability, and pure magicians start with two. It is possible to learn additional elemental magic as a mixed class, but they are weaker than the first. The second additional one is even weaker than the first and so on. Therefore, no one usually learns more than one additional elemental magic. Same apply to magicians. But there are exceptions to the magical classes. There are spellcasters who receive other forms of magic instead of elemental magic. Druids, for example, receive nature magic and one another elemental magic. Priests of Lumos automatically gain light magic and are not allowed to learn any other forms of magic.
The choice of class is also important because it can only be changed in exceptional cases. You can give up a class again in a special church ritual. You will then start again at 0 XP in your new class, but you will keep the XP and skills you have acquired so far. You then have the opportunity to improve your new class and gain more XP. You're probably wondering why you should do this, and the answer is simple. The XP you gain from battles depends on your level and the level of the monster you defeat. The more your level exceeds that of the monster, the less XP you get from the fight. Resetting your level will give you full XP again. You'll even generate XP much faster because your combat skills remain the same. But it also has some very serious disadvantages. On the one hand, every class has minimum requirements so that you can choose it. The minimum requirements apply to the two properties you choose. One of them will be your main characteristic and the second your secondary. The main one must have a value of at least 15 from birth and your secondary one must have at least 10. Therefore, a person can never choose all classes. You have a second disadvantage because you have a lower level compared to someone who hasn't changed their class. In a direct fight, the one who doesn't change class will often win. To put it simply, the maximum up to which you can increase a skill also depends on your own level. Why is that?
You can improve any class just as you can improve a skill. Like me, you can improve your class from scout to informant. This requires special training and certain level and skill requirements and is therefore only possible with a certain number of XP. Then your basic status values and your ability to improve your skills improve. This is where another reason against the class change comes into play. Skills and characteristics that you received as a result of your class upgrade lose their effectiveness. They will only become active again when your new upgraded class supports these skills. By the way, this is the reason why most people who decide to change classes after a class upgrade end up switching back to their old class. But once you switch back to an old class, you are never allowed to change your class again. So you have to plan well when considering changing classes.
Now let’s get to the magic.” (Aslan)