Chapter 68
Chapter 69
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 68
Chapter Title: How to Use the Slate
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The surface of the slate rippled,
and a strange sound echoed out from it.
Ding-a-ling—.
Something...
It sounded sort of like a doorbell, but clearer, buzzing right by his ears.
He froze completely in this utterly unexpected situation.
'What... what is this? ...Did it break? Is it going to explode?'
He held his breath and stared at the slate.
Tremendous durability.
Covered in unreadable characters.
A slate that had made sounds now, on top of everything else.
Best not to touch unidentified objects like this recklessly.
'Can't just hand it over to a magic research institute or something.'
He fetched a hand mirror and shone it on the slate.
As expected, this square slate didn't reflect in the mirror at all.
It operated by laws different from normal physical matter.
'Marian Laverin... just what kind of person are you?'
He had never seen or heard of an item like this.
No clue about its origin, creator, or principles.
As he had suspected, she wasn't an ordinary person.
Marian Laverin.
She looked simple on the surface,
simple to the point of being an airhead... with a pure, clear mind,
and her actions gave off zero sense of threat, like a fool.
But—
Behind that simplicity,
she harbored something truly unimaginable.
Her credibility was growing by the minute.
Regarding her prediction of what she thought would happen a month from now.
'Though now there's only a fortnight left.'
If things went according to her inner thoughts—
after a fortnight, the first crisis would befall Ruena.
His fist clenched tight.
After taking a deep breath, he approached the slate again, closing the distance he had put between them.
A fortnight remained.
He had to figure everything out within that time.
Marian's older sister.
The information they knew about her.
And—
this slate right now.
This thing he suspected was the source of Marian Laverin's power.
'If it explodes, all I can do is die.'
Hesitating wouldn't change anything.
He carefully tapped along the slate's edge with his index finger.
Fortunately—
unlike before, no sound came out.
Wondering if something had changed when the sound rang,
he scrutinized it, trying to recall among the unfamiliar characters.
"Huh... this character wasn't here before...?"
At the bottom of the slate, two new characters had appeared where none had been before.
One blue.
One red, engraved in a square.
He had no idea what they meant or why they had suddenly appeared, but...
They were faintly glowing, as if urging him to press right there.
And—
they stood out with more dimensionality than the other characters.
'Come to think of it... some other characters feel dimensional too. Are those buttons as well?'
After examining closely, he reached for one of the newly added characters.
There was no other choice for now.
He had to follow this sudden change.
Red and blue.
If even the barest conventions applied to this slate,
pressing blue would be safer than the warning-heavy red.
After catching his breath, he pressed the blue character.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ <Complete> That instant—
enigmatic large characters appeared in the center of the slate and then vanished.
"...What the hell is this now."
Stunned, he examined the slate.
The red and blue that had been there were gone.
Probably... the blue one was the trigger to make that word appear.
'Alright, has anything else changed?'
He scrutinized the slate carefully.
But there weren't any major changes.
The numbers were the same.
Some characters remained unchanged as well.
"This is tricky."
He looked over the square slate once more.
⚔ STATUS ⚔ ⚡ Strength: STR (Muscle Strength): 334 💨 Agility: AGI (Speed): 51 ✨ Magic Power: MP (Magic Power): 300 💪 Stamina: HP (Vitality): 3100 🍀 Luck: LUK (Luck): 33 🛡️ Endurance: DEX (Dexterity): 90 🧠 Intelligence: INT (Intellect): 3 Name: Marian Laverin Level: 23 Class: Hero ...Seriously.
For real.
He had no clue what any of it meant.
He stared at the slate over and over, then let out a long sigh.
Why were all these numbers so varied?
And what did the characters in front of the numbers mean?
Priority?
Unique ID?
Or...
After pondering this and that, his gaze fixed on one spot.
'But why is this one the only single digit?'
Among the many numbers, he tapped the lone '3' that stood out.
All the others were two digits,
making 'INT (Intellect)' the only single digit, drawing the eye.
And awkwardly 3 at that.
Ridiculously low as a number, but ambiguously high if it was a rank.
Why did this one play by its own rules?
'If... it's priority order, does that mean this is the most important value visible?'
He examined the number layout again.
There were multiple numbers, but no duplicates.
So it really could be priority.
'Gotta remember that for now.'
He engraved the characters 'INT (Intellect)' before the 3 deep into his mind.
As he carefully stroked the slate with his hand—
that very instant—
the surface rippled again, and another strange sound rang out.
'Again.'
Red and blue formed again at the bottom.
And some characters newly appeared or gained dimensionality.
Time for another choice.
'Should I press red this time?'
After a moment's hesitation, he closely examined the added or changed characters.
As he looked around—
he spotted something in the corner of the slate that wasn't a character.
↺ : 18
The number lacked dimensionality,
but that suspicious symbol had clear dimensionality.
He slowly traced a circle following the symbol.
'Wait.'
That instant—
memories from the past flashed through his mind.
"Swordsmanship... I've got points allocated there, so that's fine as is. The rest, I think I need to use a reset stone once."
"Ugh, used two reset stones on one magic exam... But at least I built up advance points... right? ...Right...?"
"Aaaah—! Thank goodness it was worth using the reset stone... ...Wait, don't I need to use another one...?"
Reset.
This symbol was probably referring to that.
'Does this reset the power?'
According to Marian,
resets seemed to have a limited number of uses.
If his guess was right, 18 times.
'If I can try 18 times, that's plenty.'
For a thief, even one chance was too generous,
but providing a full 18? What luxury.
Without hesitation, he pressed '↺'.
That instant—
red and blue buttons appeared in the center of the slate.
'Same characters as the bottom ones. Probably confirmation.'
Without hesitation, he pressed blue.
Then, truly in an instant, all the numbers changed.
⚔ STATUS ⚔ ⚡ Strength: STR (Muscle Strength): 1 + 💨 Agility: AGI (Speed): 1 + ✨ Magic Power: MP (Magic Power): 100 + 💪 Stamina: HP (Vitality): 100 + 🍀 Luck: LUK (Luck): 1 + 🛡️ Endurance: DEX (Dexterity): 1 + 🧠 Intelligence: INT (Intellect): 1 + Name: Marian Laverin Level: 23 Class: Hero The varied numbers from before had mostly become 1s.
And—
the number next to POINT, which had been 0, had changed.
With a '+' appearing beside it.
He recalled Marian again.
More precisely, how she had tapped at the air during the entrance exam.
What he had stolen was Marian's 'power to change abilities'.
This mysterious slate was definitely the reason she had flailed at the empty air.
'Seems like... this is for manipulating the +s.'
Which one to press?
He still had 17 chances left, but
as Marian had said, he needed to conserve these reset stones or whatever.
So—
he had to get maximum value from one chance.
'Let's see... for now...'
He hesitated, then reached for HP (Vitality).
The instant he pressed the '+' next to it—
the 100 jumped straight to 200.
Then a '-' appeared next to the +.
'Can revert it too, huh?'
Pressing '-' brought it back to 100,
and the number next to POINT returned to normal as well.
Truly a wondrous item.
He fiddled with the slate in admiration.
'With this... Marian was changing herself. Like turning from a swordsman into a top-tier mage in an instant.'
He recalled the original numbers in his head.
Two stood out among the ambiguous ones.
HP (Vitality): 3100? Wait, earlier 3100.
INT (Intellect): 3
One was exceptionally high,
the other the sole single digit.
Why were these two at such extremes? What was the reason?
After thinking, he reached for INT (Intellect).
'Let's at least try pressing this.'
He pressed the + next to INT (Intellect).
Then, 1 became 2.
Clearly different from HP, which jumped by 100 at a time.
'The values differ this much?'
His thief's intuition told him:
if it's hard to raise, it's definitely rare and powerful.
He quickly pressed '-' to revert 2 to 1.
The rarer the value, the more precious,
the harder to obtain, the greater its worth.
Just in case, he tested the others.
HP (Vitality) and MP (Magic Power) rose by 100 each.
The rest followed INT (Intellect)'s pattern, rising by 1.
'Then...'
He had a rough idea of what to do.
Without hesitation, he pumped MP (Magic Power) with +s until they were gone.
Then immediately pressed the blue button to confirm.
⚔ STATUS ⚔ ⚡ Strength: STR (Muscle Strength): 1 💨 Agility: AGI (Speed): 1 ✨ Magic Power: MP (Magic Power): 53,900 💪 Stamina: HP (Vitality): 100 🍀 Luck: LUK (Luck): 1 🛡️ Endurance: DEX (Dexterity): 1 🧠 Intelligence: INT (Intellect): 1 Name: Marian Laverin Level: 23 Class: Hero Unlike HP, the abilities he hadn't touched at all.
This way, the most worthless, useless ones would be maxed out.
Marian Laverin was the enemy.
He wouldn't give the enemy a single advantage.
Common sense among common senses, basics among basics.
If he messed up, he could just hit the reset button and redo it.
'Can't wait for morning.'
He wondered what reaction Marian Laverin would have.
Thinking he had to watch her response without missing a beat, he curled up the corner of his mouth.