[NR] From ★ To ☆ - Chapter 501 (Patreon)

Jason shook his head, what was one more secret? Though thinking of that, if he stuck around in this room too long others would wonder and so he closed the last screen, not expecting anything.

That of course means something has to happen. In this case he almost trips over his own feet as a rush of power flows through him. It is only through the grace of that surge also including a bump to his Agility that he stayed standing. He has a suspicion of what just happened and so pulls up his and Lily’s stats.

{Jason’s Normal Stats

• ☆Strength 99+1 -> 105 ( 104[Base] + 1[Ascendance] )
• ☆Toughness 60+1 -> 99 ( 98[Base] + 1[Ascendance] )
• ☆Agility 83+1 -> 105 ( 104[Base] + 1[Ascendance] )
• Control  180 ( 180[Base] )}

{Lily’s Normal Stats

• ☆Strength 50 -> 63 ( 63[Base] + 0[SP] )
• ☆Toughness 71 -> 78 ( 78[Base] + 0[SP] )
• ☆Agility 99 -> 121 ( 121[Base] + 0[SP] )}

After seeing them, his suspicion is proven quite true. With the last screen about his bottleneck closed, all the little benefits of breaking through are provided. This included taking both of their capped stats, and opening them up.

Jason saw the biggest improvement overall, both in overall quantity and single largest jump. Not that Lily was slouching in her growth. It is just kind of hard to beat a 38 point swing like what Jason experienced with Toughness. That was actually going to be a bit of a problem for him in the short run.

His almost fall wasn't because of a sudden jump in Strength. Rather, it was because his body was suddenly firmer by more than fifty percent. Not that he can't get used to it.

Maybe if his toughness outmatched his Strength and Agility, it would become a problem. However, Jason didn't see that happening. Though this small discovery highlighted one of the reasons no one else really tried this method of growth.

While it wasn't how others would view it, stat points gained from leveling are false. A small bean pole of a lad can have a few hundred strength while looking like he never lifted more than a pencil in his life. Get an actual increase in your base stat? Your body follows through with the gains.

Muscles bulk up and become denser, skin and bones toughen, and joints are stretched to allow a wider range movement. Suffice it to say, while most guys don't bother training their strength too much, just about all of them get a base amount of the stat to gain that athletic look.

On the other hand, they avoided Agility like the plague if they were going for the rugged look. While not all effects of the stat were known, it was well reported on the effect it had on scars. After all, a scar tends to be a toughened bit of skin and that isn't good for Agility. Get enough base stat points into it and of course scars and blemishes begin to vanish.

Jason's problem was the same one that chased almost everyone away from the path. Those changes? Taken to the extreme caused problems.

A good example is with toughness as Jason had just experienced in a minor way. If your Toughness becomes about equal to your Strength and Agility added together, you become nearly immobile. Though the other stats aren't all that much gentler on you either.

At about the same break point, Strength starts snapping your own bones and Agility loosens up your joints to the point of your muscles not being able to keep things in place. This means that in classic gamer speak, to build your base stats you end up MAD. On the other hand, using stat points allows you to be SAD.

And yes, those are both acronyms. The terminology doesn't quite fit NeoRealm's, but they're traditional with the last two letters on both meaning the same thing, "Ability Dependent". That basically just means stat dependent, but msd and ssd doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way.

As for what the first letters mean? Multiple and Single. In older games with a larger number of stats, this was extra important because you couldn't spread yourself over six or seven stats and expect to be effective. This was especially so pre true VR.

If you could focus all your stat growth on a single stat and power everything off of it? You would be so much more powerful than someone who needs to spread themselves over multiple stats. With Jason's goal of training his base stats representing the ultimate in MAD.

Jason couldn't leave a single stat behind. While it took one stat being basically double the others for the worst effects, you would still slow down with too much toughness and so on. Then there was the fact that you could never know what a stats cap would be.

What if your natural caps for two of the stats together happened to be lower than the cap of the third stat? Or worse, you travel far down this path, except two of them keep lagging behind more and more until you end up with the same problem, but no way to fix it?

At least that was the theory. No one went that far after a few got held back at the first step. Oh sure, people tried all the time. If only this world was more of the sort that shared information, maybe something would be made of the information gathered.

Then again, the locals who have had the longest time to work with the limits, had the most to lose. After all, it doesn't matter if the local has a player guild backing them up with revives. If they become so strong that moving breaks their bones, they aren't going to live long.

Jason didn't worry about this though. Well, he did worry a bit with Lily. Her Agility was much more advanced than her other stats and her Energy might be working to keep things together even at this point. Though speaking of Lily, she should be improved beyond just her stats.