Chapter 58: MMORPG Style Status Screens Are Just Too Cool

’So where’s my status screen? Was it even worth all that pain?’

The moment Magna thought that, brand new texts appeared right in front of his eyes.

[Real-time body analysis in progress...]

[Muscle mass measurement complete... Strength calibration complete.]

[Neuromuscular coordination measurement complete... Agility calibration complete.]

[Nerve response speed measurement complete... Reaction calibration complete.]

[Energy efficiency measurement complete... Stamina calibration complete.]

Transparent blue text kept appearing one after another until all of it finally faded away and left behind actual numbers.

[Status Panel Active...]

Strength: 9

Agility: 16

Reaction: 16

Stamina: 21

Looking at the numbers, a smile crept onto Magna’s face without him even meaning to, excitement rising inside him.

It had been a long time since he had last seen a status panel like this.

He didn’t even need to ask Gaia, who probably wouldn’t have answered anyway, what each stat actually meant.

He had built so many status panels just like this one back in his previous life that he already knew exactly what each stat represented.

Strength was tied entirely to how much power his body’s muscle mass could put out.

The number wasn’t broken down by body part, but since Magna’s legs were currently much stronger than his arms, it was clear this was just an overall average across his whole body.

Agility had to do with flexibility, along with how efficiently his muscle mass worked together with his neuromuscular coordination.

Reaction, as its name suggested, was about how fast his brain and body could respond to events, a mix of mental thinking speed and physical reflexes.

The agility and reaction stat being higher than the strength stat was completely foreseeable as well.

Both his cold-blooded assassin mutation and his red lizard speed mutation had built up his muscle structure a little, giving strength stat a small boost along the way, but the real focus of those mutations had always been speed, which meant agility.

As for why stamina came out the highest of all, that was thanks to the earlier upgrade that had multiplied his stamina and endurance by 5 times.

’Good thing I picked that option back then,’ he thought bitterly, doing some quick mental math to guess what the number would have been before that multiplier, landing somewhere around 5.

It was probably that which saved his life from Titus’ punch.

The only real challenge now was figuring out what these numbers actually meant compared to other people in this world.

Starting with Titus, he figured the gap between them had to be massive.

By his rough estimate, the big man’s stats were probably around ten times higher across the board, agility included.

As for other kids his age, seven or eight year olds, whether ordinary or being raised as future Shadows, he had no way of knowing where they stood.

But judging purely by how Celeste and Titus had been reacting to him, and the way they treated him, he could guess his stats were probably still quite high compared to theirs.

There was actually one more point of comparison he could rely on. He was the one who had created Gaia and taught her how to measure stats in the first place.

So when he had built her, he remembered feeding her the data that an average healthy adult on Earth typically scored somewhere between 5 and 6 across the board.

Which meant, if Gaia was still working off that same data, and if ordinary people in this world had bodies and builds similar to those on Earth, he was already stronger than an average adult, even now.

’Well, either way, I’m sure this status panel is going to help me a lot in this world.’

Satisfied, he sat back up in bed, feeling like all that pain had genuinely been worth it.

Soon after, Faye returned to the room too, carrying a small stack of books in her arms.

She could barely see over the pile stacked up in front of her, walking in slowly through the door the maid had opened for her, trying hard not to trip and fall.

’Looks like there are a lot of books about mana-rich food.’

"I brought as many as I could carry. Mother said if you want more, you can just ask her later," she said, setting them down on the table.

Learning there were even more books out there didn’t discourage Magna at all. If anything, it only made him more eager, since it meant those foods weren’t rare in this world, not rare enough to be impossible to find, anyway.

"Thank you," Magna said, walking over to her as he tried to raise his arm to pat her head, though it didn’t move much.

"It’s nothing." Faye waved her hand dismissively at the compliment, acting like it was no big deal, though as always, it was obvious she loved hearing it.

Then, as if something had just occurred to her, her eyes lit up. "Ah, Mother also said that since you can’t move your arms, I should help you read them."

Normally, that was the kind of offer Magna would have turned down, since he preferred reading alone in his room. But since the alternative meant flipping pages with his nose or his toes, he accepted anyway.

"Thanks for that too. I’ll just need you to flip the page whenever I tell you to." He sat down on the edge of the bed and waited as Faye picked up a book and set it down in front of him.

Then, the moment she opened the cover, a long day began, one that turned out to be incredibly productive for Magna, and just as unbearably boring and exhausting for Faye.

—

"Ahh, finally done." Magna finished the last page and lifted his head, stretching.

His back had gone completely stiff from sitting hunched over books for so long.

There wasn’t a clock anywhere to check the time, but the sun had long since set, replaced by the pale blue moon hanging directly overhead. It was clearly well past midnight by now.

"Done? You sure?" Faye asked from where she lay flat on her back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with empty, glazed eyes, closing the book with one hand without even looking at it.

It had probably been the single most boring thing she had ever done in her life. Toward the end, she had genuinely started to feel like she was dying, assuming that was what dying actually felt like.

She had even dozed off a few times while lying there, but unfortunately for her, Magna read so fast that he never gave her more than a moment’s rest, constantly asking her to turn the page again.

"Yeah, I’m sure. Thanks for your sacrifice." Magna said with a grin, fully aware of the quiet torment he had just put her through.

Part of it, admittedly, had been payback for calling him a worm and making him kneel for hours before.

"Are you hungry?" He asked her, practically starving himself after going so long without a single bite while reading.

But when he looked over and saw her eyes closed, a soft snore escaping her, he chuckled.

’Looks like her bedtime came and went a while ago.’

Since he could move his arms a little now, he grabbed his pillow and gently placed it under her head, then covered her with the folded blanket sitting nearby before slipping out of the room to go find something to eat.