The Truth of Magic


Chapter 34: Character Stats

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“You are now a Level 1 Wizard,” Antonya said to Zhao Xu.
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Zhao Xu was initially shocked. He had thought that the ceremony earlier had failed. He didn’t expect such an unexpected scene to appear.
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So the ceremony had been successful?

Zhao Xu had been feeling tense all this time, and now he could finally relax a little.

His plan was progressing ahead normally.

Zhao Xu tried hard to suppress the excitement in his heart and he looked at Antonya for her next set of arrangements.

“Now when you focus your attention, your character stats will appear in your head.”

Actually Antonya didn’t have to tell Zhao Xu in such detail. He already knew about this.

Arthur could be described as a quantifiable universe.

The moment anyone was able to reach Level 1 in a character class, he would be able to view his own character stats.

You could understand it as a point system for each character class that wasn’t able to speak and wasn’t able to provide any cheats.

This was a universe where everyone was part of the system, and everyone had an equal chance to advance as long you worked hard.
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And that was also why every player’s stats became their actual stats after they transmigrated one year later.

In this universe, everyone was born as a Level 1 Commoner, and Commoners were unable to view their own character stats.

The special thing about being a player was that they could already see their own stats before they became a Level 1 character, and they could also choose how to allocate their Ability Scores.

After that, Antonya started to explain some fundamental things about how to read the character stats.

Even though Zhao Xu had seen his character stats for the past ten years of his previous life, he lept his head bowed and listened to his mentor’s teaching.

“After you are able to level up successfully, then you should be able to view your health stats.”

Zhao Xu scanned the character stats in his mind directly.

Health: Currently 6/6 HP
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Hit Points: 6=4 (Character Class) +2 (Constitution)

Hit Dice Type: D4 Wizard

He now had 6 Hit Points in his Health bar, of which 2 points came from his Constitution modifier score and the other 4 points were from his Wizard hit dice score.

A Level 1 character could use all the points of his Hit Dice and you didn’t have to rely on chance.

But after leveling up, you could only add the points on a D4, which is the points on a four-sided die. So you could land on any number between 1 to 4. If it was a D12, you could land on any number between 1 to 12.

But you could only add your Constitution modifier score once every time you leveled up, and that was why Zhao Xu spent 6 points on increasing his Constitution score to 14 points.

If players didn’t make use of their additional points, then they would start with 8 points for each Ability Score, which gave a modifier score of -1, and their Hit Points total would go down by one for each level, instead.

Compared to other character classes that could use D12, D10 or D8, those with a D4, like Wizards and Sorcerers, had way fewer hit points compare to the rest of the classes at Level 1.
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This was also why Wizards were so fragile, and they were easily shot to death by random arrows when they were at a low level.

Antonya kept explaining and her voice became rather solemn towards the end.

“Zhongxia, according to your understanding, what are Hit Points?”

“Like health points?” Zhao Xu’s first reaction was just like all the other players on Earth, and they all carried this misconception. But, after he uttered this, he suddenly realized that he sounded a bit stupid.
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Antonya didn’t make things difficult for him, just shook her head gently. “Hit Points aren’t just a symbol of how strong our health or energy is. If you die and become a skeleton, then your Hit Points will be calculated according to your skeleton self, even if you used to be a Legendary Fighter before dying.”

“You must remember this. Hit Points represent how much damage each person is able to handle.”

“A Fireball is enough to wipe out a group of Commoners, but a high-level Fighter would be able to take it with no problems. That means that he has enough Hit Points to offset the damage caused by the Fireball.”

“Also, death isn’t when Hit Points reach 0, but -10. Between 0 and -10, you’ll be in a vegetative state and you can only wait for your companions to come and rescue you.”
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Zhao Xu just nodded as he listened to Antonya explain these things to him.

Since Zhao Xu looked like he got it, she started explaining Saving Throws.

Zhao Xu kept looking at his character stats. Saving Throws was another field that only appeared after he had successfully become a Wizard.

Fortitude: 2=0 (Character Class) +2 (Constitution)
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Reflex: 1=0 (Character Class) + 1 (Dexterity)

Will: 4=2 (Character Class) +2 (Wisdom)

A Fortitude saving throw was to help one stand up to any attacks from poisons or anything that affected your vitality and health, while a Reflex saving throw was to give you the ability to dodge certain special attacks. For example, if a Fireball came at you, you could rely on a Reflex saving throw to offset its damage.

A Will saving throw was to hold up against any test of your willpower or any part of your mental state, such as a spell like Charm Person or other magic like that.

Zhao Xu was only a Level 1 Wizard, so his Will only had 2 points from his character class.

Normally speaking, once these three totals had reached a certain point, you could offset almost all sorts of damage.

As long as it could get through the Difficulty Class. Arthur would normally set a level of difficulty, and these three saving throws could be added to a D20 roll to be compared to the Difficulty Class. As long as your saving throw was higher than the Difficulty Class, then you could avoid the attack. So, the moment your saving throw points exceeded the Difficulty Class, then you wouldn’t have a problem.

“Now let’s talk about feats,” said Antonya at the end.

When Zhao Xu heard these words, he instantly perked up. Even though the information she had explained earlier was important, they were all things that he already knew.

“First of all, what is a feat?”

Zhao Xu’s pupils narrowed a little. “An ability of a character.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s an ability that hinges on a person’s spirituality.

“In reality, you could achieve a feat through a long period of training, but this would wear down your Spirituality. Everyone’s Spirituality is fixed, though you can get some through leveling up. You can get this at Level 1 as well as every level after that that’s a multiple of three.

“Also, because we’re Humans, we’ll get an additional boost of Spirituality naturally, so that’s equivalent to 1 feat.”

After hearing this, Zhao Xu was suddenly enlightened. In his previous life, they just used a Feat whenever they got one, but as to where and how this feat came about as well as why you could only use this feat after leveling up had always been something they never quite fully understood.

The forums had different ways of explaining the phenomenon.

“If you had learned Scribe Scroll as a feat in the beginning, then activated your Enlightened Spellcaster later and became a spellcasting class after that, the ability to use Scribe Scroll would have taken up the spirituality of your Level 1 character feat.”

“Mentor, didn’t you say one would forget it?” Zhao Xu suddenly remembered that Antonya had explained this differently to him the last time.

“Now I really believe that you don’t have 16 points of Intelligence. The prerequisite for Scribe Scroll is that you have to be a Level 1 spellcasting character. And the prerequisite for forgetting it is that you didn’t get to become a Wizard in the end.”

After hearing Antonya say this in annoyance, Zhao Xu’s face couldn’t help but turn red.

“And how many feats do you have that haven’t been allocated yet?” Antonya asked

Zhao Xu didn’t have to look at his character stats to know this one. He proudly replied, “I have 4.”
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“Huh? You even have additional spirituality?” Antonya’s divination spells could see what Zhao Xu was currently capable of, but she definitely couldn’t see anything that he hadn’t selected yet.

“I have two natural flaws, so I get to choose another two feats,” replied Zhao Xu.

Before this, he had felt that using natural flaws to exchange for feats was a rather magical thing, but after he found out that spirituality was correlated to feats, he could understand all of this now.

“You’re one lucky kid. There are plenty of people with natural flaws in Arthur, but not all of them get compensated with Spirituality.

“But that makes everything easier. Since you have 4 feats, then let me ask you a question. Do you want to be able to cast spells anytime without being limited by the idea of preparing spells every day?”
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Zhao Xu’s heart started to pound wildly when he heard this. You mean that was possible? If he could cast spells freely, then he didn’t even need to prepare scrolls at all.

This was beyond the skills of an advanced wizard, right? This would be equivalent to being a wizard god, no?

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