I won't be updating any stories on this site today as I had intended to take the weekend off, and will do so even if I am not currently fishing. (Nothing was biting but sand sharks, an octopus, a few tiny mullets, pin fish, and one strangely persistent little puffer fish that several people caught. My mother caught an angel fish, but she refused to keep it because it was too pretty. :) )

Anyway, you did not come to this page to read my mini-vacation synopsis. I decided to explain a few basic things about stats and skills since it can cause confusion. I won't explain everything, but will explain the basics of the basics. I need to leave SOME mystery for the story (and some writer error room, but you didn't just read that I wrote that.) Shhh.

Stats - These are a basic guideline to potential maximums that a character has available. There are hidden stats like strength or luck. The visible stats can be confusing due to the fact that they don't necessarily follow more conventional roles.

Vitality - This is more like Ki, Chi, and the like. Think Dragon Ball Z is you have to. It helps you resist serious injury, can be used to withstand poisons, and repairs the body if possible. It isn't really health points, but it can be seen that way.

In this setting vitality is used like a martial arts setting uses ki. So, it is both the life force and the source for supernatural power. This is also why the mana generation skill is so important for a mage. Without it, they can only use their own vitality.

Weapon Attack - This is the offensive will of the character. Basically fighting spirit. I chose weapon attack instead of just attack, because I... well I felt like it basically, and because it shows that it focuses on the physical aspect of martial power.

Durability - This is a natural defensive aura that allows for bodily cohesion to be maintained easier. In less fancy terms it is a damage absorption aura or the will to withstand damage. Think of it as how mentally and physically tough they are. This is a full body effect and even includes things like the eyes or neck. However, things like critical hits are more likely to occur if aiming for vital spots such as the eyes or other organs, so durability is not a perfect defense.

Technically, however, if you receive an attack to the eyes and it doesn't register as a critical hit, it would be only as effective as a hit to the chest. Even if it is a critical hit, if durability is high enough you might take little to no damage anyway. Think about how a martial arts character or say, a super powered Kryptonian can have bullets bounce off them, even their eyes.

Natural Defense - A rare state only available to people who train in specific arts, or to supernatural beings. This is a modified form of the 'durability' stat and instead of absorbing damage and redistributing force to lessen injuries, this is a full-out damage stopping force. If an attack is equal to or less than this defensive aura it is stopped completely. This differs from armor defense in that armor can still transmit damage through if certain attack types are received. Blunt force trauma, for instance. Just like wearable armor, some skills can negate this defensive power.

In a dragon, such as the MC, this aura relates to something specific about him. You can probably guess what, but if not you'll find out soon.

Speed - This actually relates to how quickly the character's energy cycles and thus how fast their various energies can be accessed. However, in practice its is how fast you can move your limbs, and relates to agility in both attacking and evasive ability. Running and sprinting also depend on this stat.

Spirit - This is the raw strength of your soul. It is a resonance effect of your soul and is utilized as a measuring stick for how much damage you give and take through special abilities such as magic or special attacks. Hidden stats for magical damage and resistance also exist, but this can be seen as the raw power of the soul and directly used as part of the calculations for damage given or received from abilities.

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But random author... why have hidden stats?

Simple. This is a story about life having become a game. Stats are awesome, but you have seen the skill lists. Imagine if I added the stats for every single little things. You would have a table a chapter long that popped up every time I showed you what was going on. It would not really help with immersion, and if anything it cause problems with it in general.

Hidden stats in my stories can be seen as the stats that are important, but not as vitally important to have direct access to as the ones that you are shown.

Showing every stat would be great in an actual game. In a written story, however, they would be too distracting and many people would say TL;DR (Too long ,didn't read.)

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OK, skills... whats up with those things? Howzzat work?

OK, there are 3 skill tiers, 4 if you count untrained skills, which I don't.

Primary - This tier relates to skills that are unique to your race or are relevant to your chosen talent. I won't produce an exhaustive list of talents, but I will mention melee combat and magic talent as they have been somewhat mentioned before.

Only skills that are racial in nature (Mahorela Abaivonin Magic, for instance) or talent related can be in the primary slot. So, the MC as a magic talent dragon gets magic related skills and dragon skills as part of his primary skill-set.

Sonja, for instance, gets Valkyrie skills and melee combat skills as part of her primary skill-set. The thing is that these greatly overlap so she gets started in life with several different weapons skills from birth (Like the MC gets his dragon magic and metamorphosis from 'birth' now)

Skills in this tier provide 3 stat point upgrades per level increase. These can be split up, or just relate to one stat.

Sword mastery and Dark Magic will be used to demonstrate.

Sword mastery provides 1 point of vitality and 2 points of weapon attack when set to primary tier.

Dark Magic provides 3 points of spirit in primary tier. 100 levels of Dark Magic will increase your spirit stats 300 points.

Secondary - This tier is for preferred skills not related to race or talent. Earth people were required to take a combat skill in this tier if they had no primary combat skills. You learn these skills at 1/2 to 1/4 the rate of primary skills, when no racial or special bonuses are added. The learning rate depends on things like race, talents, and the actual skill.

Skills in this tier increase stats by 2 points.

Sword mastery in second tier (like the MC) increases vitality by 1, and weapon attack by 1, per skill level.

Dark Magic in second tier would provide 2 points of spirit per level.

Tertiary - These are just general skills that the character has trained in. They are learned at 1/4 to 1/8 the rate of primary skills

Skills in this tier increase stats by 1 point per level.

Sword Mastery is 1 point of weapon attack.

Dark Magic is one point of spirit.

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I won't go into details about level-up stat modifiers but the talents and primary/secondary stats determine modifiers that cause someone to have a chance to gain higher stats per level.

A human naturally has 0-4 stat increases per stat per level. With modifiers that could range much higher, but the same is true for other races. A basic valkyrie with no skills at all would have a baseline grown of 6-10 per level in most stats, and slightly higher in some. Sonja has a tendency toward 8-15.

For the record, the MC ranges from 8-22 in various stats (12-20 is most common, but one of them is as low as 8-16. No, I ain't saying which.) Those are his HATCHLING stats with level-up modifiers added.