Chương 48: Villager Variance

It took me a few months of practice before I finally learned how to teleport properly. It was very difficult to get used to seeing the 'ripples' in space out of the corners of my eyes and manipulating the space around me, but as I got more and more used to looking for spatial ripples and, I eventually figured out how to use my teleportation ability. The first thing I realized that was space wasn't very even. I had previously felt that the space around me was like a sheet of paper; flat, smooth, and uniform.

However, space wasn't actually any of those things. Rather than a sheet of paper, space was more like a bowl of noodles. It was filled with cracks, gaps, and unevenness. My body itself seemed to exacerbate these cracks in reality now, allowing me to just barely peek through the gaps in space. This was the actual nature of teleportation. I couldn't just move myself from point A to point B at a whim. Instead, I needed to find a 'crack' in space nearby, and exploit it if I wanted to move somewhere.

The space in this dimension was extremely distorted and uneven, meaning it was very easy to find a gap in space near my position. However, that might change in future dimensions. I also realized that the Glowing fish wasn't teleporting in the way I understood teleportation. In simple terms, teleportation didn't just let me disappear and reappear wherever I wanted to go.

Instead, what I was doing was taking chunks of 'space' and altering what they connected to, making two places appear 'right next to each other' even though they were actually very far apart. Rather than teleporting, it would be more accurate to say I was making gates that connected to spots. I still needed to physically move through a gate I made if I wanted to 'teleport.' Of course, given my rune count, it was easy for me to move incredibly quickly, and so this didn't actually prove to be a problem.

However, if I was completely unable to physically move, I wouldn't be able to teleport. Apart from that, due to my inferior eyes, my control over teleportation was also inferior to that of the Glowing Fish. While the Glowing Fish had been able to teleport extremely precisely during the beginning of the hunt, I usually had to settle for 'close enough' while teleporting around. I wasn't so far off that the ability was useless, but I was almost always at least a few centimeters off the mark.

During the time I worked on mastering my teleportation abilities, I also got more and more used to the occasional impulse to attack the people around me. Such flashes of anger were… disturbing for me, since I had no intention to harm my fellow villagers. Luckily, they were easy to manage, since my Willpower was high enough to cope with my occasional random flashes of anger. I didn't lash out at any of my fellow villagers, or hurt any of them.

However, I occasionally had to break off a conversation and wait a few moments, until I got my thoughts back under control. It was easy to manage the influence of the ocean's heart with my grade 6 Willpower, but I suspected it would be too much for anyone with Grade 4 or below to retain their sense of self if they absorbed a storm orb. Even Grade 5 might be pushing it a little. I frequently reported everything I felt and saw to the village chief, who learned as much as he could about my condition.

I wasn't sure if he intended to use the storm orbs at all, but I wanted to make sure he knew everything he could about the potential risks and rewards of doing so before storm season came. The most immediate impact of my unusual fifth rune came in the form of my spars with Felix and Sallia. Since my 'teleportation' worked by distorting reality and creating gates from one point to another, I didn't need to move my whole body through a gate when I was trying to make a tricky attack.

Instead, I could just shove my sword into thin air, and my sword would suddenly appear near Felix or Sallia. Of course, I had a very hard time opening portals in exact locations. However, my swordsmanship was good enough that I could just barely compensate for these issues. I couldn't help but wonder if I would reach the next grade of Swordsmanship before I died, and how much different my swordsmanship would look if I reached the next Grade.

However, even without [Advanced] grade swordsmanship I could still make very strange and unpredictable attacks during a fight by teleporting the tip or edge of my blade around. And, just as easily, I could also teleport myself around once every so often, letting me dodge Felix's ranged element manipulation if I noticed it in time. I needed to wait eight seconds between each teleport, which was worse than the Glowing Fish, but I assumed that was another biological compatibility issue.

Of course, this didn't mean I won 100% of the spars with Felix. I could blast Felix with water, teleport, and make illusions during our fights, but Felix could make his sword just as unpredictable as mine by manipulating bone and wood, and if he caught me in a bad position after I teleported somewhere he could usually restrain me with tree branches before poking me in the heart with his sword.

I won about 80% of the fights we had, which was a stark contrast to my previous losing streak, but Felix could still eke out wins against me sometimes. My ability to attach the Call of the Ocean to my illusions made me basically undefeated against Sallia, because her Willpower was low. No matter how good she was at swordsmanship, she still needed a second or two to recover if I blasted her with a bunch of illusions that directly attacked her willpower.

I was competent enough to exploit those weaknesses, making it hard for Sallia to win if I used all of my abilities during a spar. Four months after I formed my fifth rune, Felix began working on his sixth rune. A month later, he succeeded, giving him a rune that allowed him to manipulate bronze. This wasn't very useful against land beasts, because bronze tools and armor were too precious to waste on regular hunts.

However, if the outsiders ever returned, it could play a devastating role in a future fight, allowing him turn someone's armor and weapons against him. It didn't change the outcome of our sparring sessions very much, but even if it was only useful in a few situations, I could see how helpful it might be in the future. However, Felix's sixth rune also presented us with a strange and unique insight into the nature of transmigrators, one that we hadn't considered before.

"I can probably only form one more rune after this," said Felix, a few days after he had formed his sixth rune.

"I'm pretty sure I have enough for the seventh rune, but after that most of the absorption essence I generate per day will be spent maintaining what I have. It'll be hard for me to form an eighth rune."

"Huh?" Asked Sallia.

"I'm sorry, what? You can only form seven runes total? But you have grade 6 Absorption essence. That's the best grade you can have. Why is the total so low? Shouldn't you be able to match the village chief? Or at least match the best hunters of the village or something? The hunters of the village all have between 7 and 9 runes available. If you can only form seven that's… barely at the bottom of the hunters." I also frowned.

"I figured you would be able to match the best hunters in the village eventually," I said.

"Having maximum grade absorption essence, at least in my mind, should mean that you would be able to match the strongest members of the village. Even if your innate talent for Absorption Essence is lower than Sallia's, that should still let you match the hunters of the village," I said, trying to figure out what we were misunderstanding. Something was clearly wrong here.

"Maybe the villages have some sort of unique resource people groomed to be the next village chief consume, which boosts their Absorption essence?" I offered, after a bit of thinking. I had already seen weird and unique magic resources like the storm orb in the village, so it didn't seem very far-fetched to assume that hunters and the village chief had access to another weird resource. Sallia shook her head.

"That doesn't make sense. Even if the islanders have some sort of rare, hidden resource for village chiefs, it doesn't make sense for Felix to lag significantly behind the other hunters of the village. After all, there are plenty of 8 and 9 rune hunters here. And if that resource is common enough that every hunter in the village can use it, thus boosting their rune count, the resource wouldn't be secret. Out of the five or six hundred villagers alive right now, about 30 or 40 are hunters.

That's a full 5% of the village. I doubt they could keep a resource that permanently increases absorption essence secret for several generations with so many people in on the secret. It would become well known sooner or later." Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Felix, who was frowning, began squinting as he looked at something in midair. I wondered what he was doing, before Felix suddenly chuckled.

"I think I see the problem here. Pull up your Status Screen, and look at the description for your current vessel." Current Vessel: Teenage Body - born from the parents of your current body, this vessel has no leaks and is truly 'alive.' You may check the Stats of this physical vessel in your status screen. Your body is nearly grown up, and you no longer experience any Stat penalties due to your immature body.

Due to absorption of a Damaged Fragment of the Heart of the Ocean, your body exerts a certain influence on its surroundings. Your eyes are forever changed from their original color, allowing you to see things you couldn't before. Note - due to the characteristics of a Transmigrator, it is impossible for a physical vessel to ever have Stats BELOW 70 or ABOVE 130 without input from your soul. If you wish to exceed grade 6 you must purchase Stats.

I stared at the last line of my vessel description again, before Sallia read it out loud.

"Due to the characteristics of a TRANSMIGRATOR, it is impossible for a physical vessel to have stats below 70 or above 130 without input from your soul. In other words, normal villagers don't have Stats explicitly stuck between those numbers. Only Transmigrators do. If we weren't attached to the Market, we might also have Stats way above or below 70 and 130 each time we were reborn. The reason our Stats have such a low level of variance is because we're part of the market," said Sallia, thoughtfully.

"In that case, does that mean the hunters just have higher Absorption Essence grades than Felix?" I asked.

"Maybe. I'm willing to bet Grade 6 and Grade 7 are the standard numbers for a Hunter in this village. Maybe talent plays a bigger and bigger role in maximum rune count, the further you go into this magic system," Said Sallia.

"After all, I need less absorption essence to form a rune than other people, meaning that maintenance costs don't hit me as hard as everyone else when I try to form a new rune. If my assumption is correct, village chiefs probably have Grade 8 or 9 in Absorption essence. I'm not sure what people with more than 12 runes would need, and my assumptions could be wrong, but that's my rough guess for rune totals right now.

After all, it's impossible for village to form 11 runes with only grade 6 Absorption Essence, based on Felix's experiences and my understanding of the world we live in." Sallia shrugged.

"Since village chief doesn't have a Status Screen, it's hard to say how correct my assumptions are. But clearly, the inhabitants of this world have a greater range of statistical variance than the three of us."

"Hmm…" Felix frowned, before turning back towards Sallia.

"You know, now that I think about it, that makes a lot of sense. A lot of babies and children get sick and die before they grow up, but you survived. You only have Grade 3 Fortitude, right?" Sallia nodded.

"If you don't include my Runes, I have 74 Constitution. When I was young, I was actually pretty sickly. I felt like I had the flu for almost a full year before I got my first rune built. If I hadn't made my fourth rune faster, I might have died if I got a serious illness. My body wasn't that sturdy when I just got here. Wait…" Sallia nodded.

"I see. A lot of children DO get sick and die young, but I didn't, even though I rolled nearly the worst possible outcome for my Fortitude. In other words, the reason I didn't just die as a baby is because I can't roll below Grade 3. A baby with grade 2 Fortitude will almost inevitably die before turning four, but since I'm a Transmigrator, I'm unable to roll below 70 in a Stat, which kept me alive this time. Is that what you're thinking about?" Felix nodded.

"That's what I was thinking, yes. Other villagers can easily roll below Grade 3, or above Grade 6 in a particular attribute. We can't, which makes us unable to become the 'best' in a given world without heavy investment. But we also can't get Stats so low we stop functioning. Without investing into our Stats, we will always remain somewhere around the average inhabitant of a world we live in." I frowned.

"Is there an upper limit to non-Transmigrator stats, then? I mean, I do think your ideas make sense. I hadn't realized that Sallia's survival was so strange, but now that you point it out, she definitely seemed healthier than some babies despite her abysmal rolls. But I also haven't seen any six year olds running around with, say, Grade 9 Strength or something in the village. I mean, if a four year old with no runes had Grade 9 Strength, it would definitely be noticed.

Even if his perception couldn't keep up with his physical stats, and lowered his practical Strength value, he would still be renowned for his weird strength. Low Perception can significantly reduce the benefits of more points in a Physical Stat, but it's not like having more points in a Stat is ever useless." Felix also frowned.

"Maybe physical stats have less variance than Essence Stats? I mean, there are certain limits to what the laws of physics and your biology can support, especially before you start introducing magic into the mix. And I do think our 'original physical abilities' are kind of close to the strongest villagers. I don't think anyone here naturally has more than Grade 7 in a physical attribute. But by Sallia's estimation, we're probably multiple Grades lower than village chief in absorption essence.

Perhaps the variance for some Stats is lower than for other stats?" Sallia nodded.

"And then perhaps Mental Stats can have a medium level of variance. It's normal for geniuses and people with incredibly strong willpower to be born, even here in the islands. If Felix's stories about his first world are accurate, people with high Intelligence are probably the ones who make major technological breakthroughs. And I know that Miria didn't have the highest Willpower in the village, even after she finished doing her storm-watching training.

Grade 7 was considered pretty good, and Miria was known for having a decent Willpower… but it wasn't the best in the village either. It was just known for being pretty good." I frowned, and then nodded.

"So going off of our assumptions, Essence Stats have the most variance? After all, if Olav's memories are correct, the emperor of Megailia had some sort of absurd rune count. He was supposed to have like 15 or 16, I think? Either way, that implies his Absorption Essence Stat must be completely ridiculous."

"In other words, every world we visit in the future isn't going to be easy for us if we only get a few Grades in a Stat," said Felix, sighing.

"If non-Transmigrators have greater levels of variance, that means that in future worlds, there are going to be people stronger than us in most areas we're born in. At least, at first, until we invest a lot more Achievement into our Stats and Abilities. I had excellent rolls this life, and I'm still barely at the bottom of the village hunters. I am barely in the top 5% of the village, and I'm only competing with 500-600 people.

The more people there are concentrated in an area, the more chance for variance there will be, meaning the strongest person in an area will also be more powerful the more people you have. Right now I'm barely in the top 50 out of 600. Who knows how hard it will be to stand out in a city of, say, 10, 000, or a nation of a few million. By that point, even with perfect rolls we might barely stand out if our Market-based Stats aren't high enough."

"That's only if we rely purely on rolls," I said, shrugging.

"After this life we'll have Abilities backing us up. And those abilities will make it easier for us to acquire Achievement, helping us along. I notice the swordsmanship abilities, for example, offer big boosts to physical Stats after we train our swordsmanship back up every life. I imagine we'll have more and more ways to compensate the further we grow." The three of us fell silent, thinking about the future as we watched the nearby village bustle about.

Finally, after a few minutes passed by, Sallia spoke up again.

"It does feel a bit bad, knowing that we're going to struggle just to be 'above average' in the future, but I think it isn't just a bad thing. I probably would have died upon being born if I hadn't been part of the Market, judging by how badly my rolls went this life. And the fact that we have less variance also means that our progress will be more stable from life to life. We don't have to worry about being so bad in a Stat that we end up effectively crippled, even if Grade 3 feels pretty close.

At the end of the day, we just need to work harder and live longer. Once we get old enough, we'll be able to match the strongest people even in high population worlds." The three of us fell silent again, as we thought about the future. Then, I sighed, stood up, and dusted myself off.

"I think we've learned everything we can from this conversation right now. We've established that non-Transmigrators have greater Stat variance than we do, and we've also guessed that Physical Stats probably have the least variance, while Essence Stats probably have the most variance. My brain hurts, and I want to train. I'm pretty far away from learning [Advanced] Grade swordsmanship, but I'll never get there if I don't keep working on it. Are either of you willing to spar with me?"

"Aren't you just enjoying finally being the strongest of the three of us?" Asked Felix, chuckling as he picked up his sword. I felt my cheeks flush as Felix called me out.

"Since you spent most of this life being the weakest of the three of us, I think you're just enjoying being at the top for a bit. Let me show you that there's always a better Transmigrator, miss Mira." Sallia snorted, before she also laughed. The three of us returned to our sparring for the rest of the day.