Chapter 25: Chapter 25 – Stat Panic & Bad Decisions
Chapter 25 – Stat Panic & Bad Decisions
The world stopped spinning about four hours after the forge let me go.
The pain came in waves — not sharp, just heavy, like the world had parked itself on my shoulders and forgot to leave a note. My left hand still ached where the cut had been. Absolute Regeneration had patched it halfway, but I could tell the skill was tired. Even cheats need naps.
I sat on the edge of my bed with the kind of quiet that hums, breathing through the leftover ache until it stopped trying to be poetry. The band on my wrist pulsed once — slow, content — and a faint shimmer tugged at the edge of my vision.
The system wanted attention.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "Daddy’s home."
The window opened.
[Status Window]
Name: Ethan Cross Level: 20
HP: 180 / 180
MP: 0 / 0
Strength: 50
Agility: 46
Endurance: 14
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Luck: ???
Unassigned Stat Points: 75
Seventy-five.
For a second I just stared at the number like it might ask for rent. Then I laughed — a stupid, short laugh that bounced off the cracked wall.
"Seventy-five points," I said. "You could buy a small personality with that."
I hadn’t opened this window since the Fog-Mire. Everything after that had been blood, light, cold, and work. Now the backlog of progress sat there like an uncashed paycheck that could get me killed if someone saw it.
I tapped the air.
[Assign Points? Y/N]
The yes hovered like a dare.
I remembered the Guardian fight — how my arms had felt like glass — and the forge, where the hammer had weighed double my willpower. Strength made sense. So did Agility; dodging kept bones in one piece. Endurance was the unsung hero, the stat that didn’t look sexy but stopped you from dying a ugly death.
I started dividing.
Strength +25 → 75
Agility +25 → 71
Endurance +25 → 39
The numbers blinked, accepted, and folded themselves into me. The air shifted like the room had exhaled. My heartbeat slowed, heavier but steadier, like the body underneath had upgraded its warranty.
[Points Assigned.]
[Status Updated.]
The update hit slow — a deep warmth spreading through muscle and bone, like every part of me remembered it had a job. The floorboards creaked in new tones when I moved. Not power-trip strong, just ... aware.
"Okay," I said under my breath. "So that’s what competence feels like. Weird."
The system didn’t comment. It rarely did unless it was planning a trap.
I scrolled down out of habit and almost missed the new header that bloomed at the bottom of the window.
[Mission Unlocked — Path Synchronization]
Stage: Post-Conquest Alignment (Required)
Objective: Return to Origin Source — Reinforce Primary Link. Target Location: Mara. (residence registered). Reward: Skill harmonization (+ tier stability). Penalty for failure: Path fragment decay / Forge Dominion lockout. Timer: 72 h (soft limit).
I blinked at it. "You’re ... sending me to her?"
The band pulsed affirmative.
"Oh sure," I said. "Because that went so normal last time. I died in a dungeon, woke up half-naked on her couch, she patched me up, we—uh—got to know each other, and then I got a glowing window in my face that called it a conquest. Totally casual. Very professional. Nothing weird about visiting the woman who accidentally turned me into a cheat code."
My feet disagreed with the whole plan. They dragged like I was walking toward a boss fight that wore perfume.
I’d told Mara twice I’d stop by. Twice I didn’t. Once because I was bleeding again. Once because I was just a coward in better shoes.
It wasn’t just the sex, though yeah, that didn’t help. It was everything after.
The quiet. The way she looked at me like she’d seen too much and didn’t regret any of it. I didn’t know what to do with that kind of warmth. I still don’t.The band pulsed once against my wrist—amused, judgmental, both.
"Don’t start," I muttered. "She’s hot, I’m weird, and this is purely professional. Just... reinforcing the link. Not emotional damage. Not therapy with boobs."
It purred again. I sighed.
"Yeah," I said. "I don’t believe me either."
The pane scrolled like it didn’t care.
[Note: Major boost to active and passive skills possible upon link reaffirmation.]
[Recommendation: Do not delay. Interference detected.]
"Interference." The word sat in my mouth like copper. "You mean scanners. Or the guild. Or whatever’s sniffing around my aura because I hit level 20."
No answer. Just the faint hum of system logic pretending to be silence.
Outside the window, Arcadia was already stretching into another shift of pretending to be normal. The kind of morning that looks harmless if you don’t know what hides under the fog. Streetcar hum. Vendor shouts. Somewhere, two pigeons argued over breakfast like they’d both lost a bet.
It was barely noon, and I’d already lived a full day. Job quest at sunrise. Hammered a soul into a knife before breakfast. Survived an inspector interview before nine. Smiled, lied, didn’t get dissected — that’s called growth.
Now I was running on leftover adrenaline and one bad cup of vending-machine coffee, about to knock on the door of the woman who’d literally screwed me back to life. My brain said rest. My system said "Quest Objective Pending."
I stared out at the skyline for a long breath. Steam rolled off the river like the city was trying to exhale something it couldn’t name. Somewhere in all that noise, I swore I heard my heartbeat checking its schedule.
"Sure," I muttered to the window. "Let’s add emotional trauma to the list."
The band on my wrist hummed in polite agreement.
I rubbed my palm — the one with the faint scar that shouldn’t still exist if Regeneration were working at full throttle. The cut had healed, but not erased. Maybe the forge had left a mark deeper than tissue. Or maybe the system liked souvenirs.
The band pulsed again, warmer this time. The glow from its center flared just enough to throw reflections over the windowpane.
"Don’t look at me like that," I said. "It’s not like you don’t owe her too."
The hum softened. Agreement or warning, hard to tell.
I pushed off the bed and started packing — not much to bring, because Inventory makes hoarding obsolete. The three knives floated into view when I called them: Fangpiercer, Gloamthorn, Fogbite. Each one caught the light differently. Fangpiercer gleamed clean and cocky; Gloamthorn drank the light and pretended to be modest; Fogbite exhaled frost like it found the room too warm.
"Family portrait," I muttered. "Smile."
They didn’t.
I slid them back into Inventory, feeling the ripple each time. Space folded, weight vanished. It still amazed me how quiet the system made something impossible. I remembered telling the inspector it was a cheap item-box bracelet. Maybe I even believed it for a second.
The panel flashed again before I could leave.
[Forge Dominion stability: 82%]
[Smelt Sight proficiency + 2 → Tier B-]
[Bonded Craft → Tier C+]
[Lightning Step efficiency ↑ 20% (post-alignment forecast)]
So yeah — apparently visiting Mara wasn’t optional. My stats were already leaning that way, like the system was dragging a compass needle through my bloodstream.
"Fine," I said. "She gets a visit. I get ... a skill booster and probably judged for my life choices."
My reflection in the glass grinned back — the tired, sarcastic kind of grin that says this will end poorly but we’re going anyway.
By the time I hit the stairwell, the city’s pulse had caught up with mine. Mrs. Dobrev’s door was cracked — light slivered through like a warning. Her morning TV murmured something about rising mana density near the outer districts.
Her rent note was still taped beside my own — hand-written knife emojis and all. Cute reminder of the woman whose house had been my respawn point.
"Going somewhere nice," I whispered to no one.
I paused halfway down the stairs, fingers brushing the rail that used to be sticky with rain. Funny how everything looked the same but felt one rank heavier — like the city could smell the change. Like it was whispering, You’re not supposed to be this strong.
A news drone buzzed by the window, low and slow, the red lens blinking with that too-human patience. Probably recording mana levels or faces. Either way, I looked down until it passed. Being a walking anomaly came with homework: stay boring, stay unremarkable, stay off charts.
When the hum faded, I exhaled the breath I’d been saving and stepped into the street.
Arcadia’s morning air was always the same: cold concrete, burnt oil, cheap food, and the faint metallic tang that meant something had bled nearby. Vendors shouted prices at hunters who looked hungover. A scanner van rolled by, antennae twitching, hungry for signatures that didn’t match the registry.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked casual, like I had a normal nine-to-five and not a personal murder simulator running in the background.
[Quest Tracker — Active.]
The faint blue arrow pointed downtown. I didn’t need it; Mara’s place was burned into memory — her kitchen, her sarcasm, the way she’d looked when she told me to stop dying in her apartment.
I slowed near the overpass and stared up at the skyline. My reflection shimmered in the tram’s side window—taller, maybe, or maybe I was just standing straighter. "Do not get weird about this," I told myself. "You’re just visiting your hot landlady who gave you god-tier regeneration. Totally professional."
The band didn’t laugh, but I swear it pulsed like an eye roll.
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Let’s go see mom."
Arcadia hummed around me, loud and indifferent. Steam crawled from vents, flickering with old neon. Street vendors argued with patrol drones. A busker played something that might’ve been music if you were generous or deaf. The city had its pulse back, and mine still hadn’t caught up.
I passed the noodle guy on 4th—the one who kept calling me "sir" ever since I came back from Lot C in one piece. He nodded like he’d seen my obituary and didn’t want to be rude about it. I bought a bowl anyway. Spicy enough to make me sweat, hot enough to remind me I was still built mostly of nerve endings.
Everywhere I looked, someone was bargaining with survival. Junkies trading favors for stim patches. Guild scouts trying to poach muscle that wasn’t in the morgue yet. Rent collectors marking doors. The whole place smelled like rain and desperation, two things Arcadia had in endless supply.
I checked the band again. Still glowing faint, still smug. "You’re enjoying this," I muttered. "Whole new skill tree and I’m still one bus ride from broke."
A tram screamed by, sparks scattering from the rails like they were trying to escape too. My reflection blurred. For half a second, I thought I saw the mask from the forge in the window behind me—watching, patient. Then the lights changed and it was gone.
[Quest Updated]
Objective: Reinforce Primary Link — Mara.
Timer: 71h remaining
Reward Preview: ???
If I was about to make another mistake, at least it was on schedule.
And if she asked why I looked like I’d been hit by a forge and then made friends with it, I had a great answer ready:
"Occupational hazard."