Parallel Vol. 5

Chapter 53: Overhaul (2)

A heavy silence hung over Destia. A mixture of dread, longing, and hints of hope interwove above the tumultuous continent, proving the people's mixed reactions to Genesis' proclamations. Intriguingly, regardless of their feelings, no one dared look away or shut their ears to the Prime Adjudicator's following words.

A satisfied smile tugged at the edge of Genesis' lips as he began the crucial address. "First, and foremost, we shall tackle your Stat systems. Stats are the building blocks upon which all your skills and powers are built. Until now, we have used a very clean, easy-to-understand, stat-calculation system to help you all become familiar with how stats work. However, reality is a lot more blurred, is it not? Health Bars do not exist. It does not make sense that something dies just because you emptied a health bar. There are plenty of miraculous tales of men, women, and animals surviving what should have been certain death. To better reflect these realities, your current stats will be condensed into seven stats that I will explain now."

Genesis' subsequent explanations were long, aiming to cover all possible sources of confusion for Residents and Summoned alike. Summarizing the key details, they came out as such:

Strength was the first and simplest stat. In essence, it covered the total value of every muscle in a being's body. Due to some beings' ability to better condense their muscles, beings with similar strength values could end up with largely different physiques. Of course, some might train their upper body to absurd levels while neglecting their lower body. They could end up with similar strength values as those with more balanced builds but weaker upper bodies.

Agility was the second stat. Agility governed a being's reaction speed, reflexes, coordination, balance, and body control. Just like with strength, beings could now train in a specific direction to further perfect an aspect of their agility. For example, someone train to be insanely fast, but if they had poor body control, they could end up appearing clumsy to similarly fast warriors.

Constitution governed stamina, toughness, body density, blood amount, and immune system. Like all previous stats, a being's constitution was an average calculated from the factors above. A being could have insanely high stamina, but with relatively low toughness, whereas another could have adamantine-like skin, but with low stamina.

Vitality, which was the bedrock of all living beings, governed cell vitality, metabolism, and cell-repair efficiency. Essentially, those with high vitality were like unkillable cockroaches. They could rapidly recover from any injury as long as they were given time. However, Vitality did not equate to lifespan. For example, sea cucumbers could regrow damaged organs in less than a week, but could only live for eight years on average.

Intelligence covered a being's reaction speed, memory, ability to focus, mental strength, processing speed, visualization, creativity, and many other cognitive abilities. Intriguingly, the wisdom stat had been scrapped, absorbed into the intelligence stat. Furthermore, Intelligence no longer directly affected magic. It boosted a being's ability to understand and execute the complicated magic spells, but it no longer correlated directly to the damage inflicted.

Perception covered the five senses: Smell, Sight, Hearing, Taste, and Touch. As always, beings could train to be better in one of these senses compared to the others.

True Perception covered a being's ability to sense other energies in the world. These included mana, chaotic energies, and much more. It could be seen that this stat would become deathly important for mages, and any who intended to use mana to strengthen themselves.

The previous Wisdom Stat was glaringly missing. This left people wondering how they would calculate how much mana they had going forward.

"You are all wondering how you can figure out how much mana you have?" Genesis confirmed with a gentle smile. "As a default, most beings will not have mana in them going forward. Instead, you will be able to use True Perception to sense and control the world's mana to cast your spells. The higher your True Perception, the easier it will be to control, manipulate and cast the world's mana. This does not mean that you can cast spells ad-infinitum."