Ten Stats, One Hope

Chapter 6

The year blew past like a bullet.

Over that year, some three thousand interns recruited from Old Earth boarded together at the Shinseung Group's Complex Center built in Sangam-dong, in Seoul's Mapo district, throwing themselves into brutal training from morning to night, every single day.

Long ago, they said, a World Cup stadium had stood on the very ground where the Complex Center now rose. But since the Great Cataclysm the World Cup itself had ceased to exist, and teenagers Haneul's age had no idea what the name even referred to.

In any case, Haneul rolled and rolled around the Complex Center day after day alongside his fellow hires, their heads freshly shaved by regulation.

Then, on April 28 of the following year, they were finally put through their final inspection.

The inspection covered a surprisingly wide range of events. Shinseung Group had decided to measure ten ability stats per intern through nine test events, and the Group's HR team had distributed the following table to everyone in advance, announcing exactly which stats each subject would be evaluated on.

Please—!

Haneul's heart plunged the moment he saw the table.

Stamina Point. That first stat alone was a problem. Over a year of barracks training, Haneul had quietly figured out that his physical strength sat near the bottom of his cohort. His speed and agility were no different — no matter how hard he gritted his teeth, they refused to climb out of the lower ranks. Striking Power was worse still; there he ranked almost dead last among his peers.

His defense seemed to hover somewhere around the middle at least, and his various resistances were positioned somewhere between middle and bottom.

Only his Mental Strength rose clear past the upper ranks — outstanding even among the three thousand interns.

Out of ten stats, I get exactly one good one? That's flat-out unfair.

Fear clamped down on him. For someone whose first and only creed was safety and self-preservation, this was a state of affairs that would never let him rest easy.

Midland is by no means heaven.

By now, Haneul understood the reality of his situation. If he wanted to survive unscathed in Midland Seoul, he would first have to enter Highland and bloom into something usable. After that, he would need to stay alive a bare minimum of three years to shed the rookie tag.

They say once you're out of rookie status, you can apply for a desk position. If I got transferred somewhere like the HR team, my life wouldn't be on the line anymore.

That was Haneul's hope. To get there, though, he would first have to beat one-in-a-hundred odds and survive those three years.

And yet, from the very start, a sense of dread kept nagging at him.

Would they really have built those ten stats into the table for no reason?

Haneul judged there was no chance of that. For instance, that Shinseung would measure the interns' fire, cold, poison, and lightning resistance could only reflect one thing: Highland's natural environment was riddled with seas of fire, deep-freeze wastelands, lightning-scorched regions, and poison zones.

No. I can't let things stay like this.

Haneul bit down hard on his lower lip. Still, it wasn't as if hope was entirely gone.

Lee Jaein, the HR Team Leader in his horn-rimmed glasses, stepped up onto a raised platform, swept his gaze across the interns lined up in perfectly aligned rows, and breathed some hope into them.

"There is no need to be discouraged if today's measurements come out poorly. Stats taken before you bloom an ability don't carry much weight."

"Ahhh!"

The moment he finished, a collective groan of relief burst from the buzz-cut interns.

Phew. Thank god.

Haneul felt the knot in his chest loosen a little too.

Jaein continued. "Then why are we running these measurements today? Simply to compare how far your stats have grown once you return from Highland. So take the tests with an easy mind."

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Haneul and the rest leaned back slightly as they answered, roaring the reply loud enough to bare their Adam's apples.

Chapter 7

The tests then kicked off simultaneously across nine test sites.

Haneul went to Site 9 first and measured his lightning resistance.

Clank. The moment he sat down, shackle-like cuffs locked themselves around his wrists and ankles of their own accord, and with a sharp crackle a dozen measurement patches were slapped across his head and chest. Then, without warning, high-voltage current flooded through the cuffs.

A searing shock, from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

Nnngh!

His head snapped back at a ninety-degree angle. Haneul was certain his heart was about to stop right there. The smell of singed hair rolled off him in waves; burst vessels stained the whites of his eyes a furious red; and his heartbeat immediately began tracing an abnormal waveform.

The power cut out just in time.

"Khh—."

Drool streaming, Haneul slumped in the chair.

The examiner keyed the number on the monitor into a terminal.

3.

That was the lightning resistance stat Haneul had been assigned. Using ordinary, ability-less people as its baseline, Shinseung's HR team had set the lightning resistance of the single most shock-tolerant human at 10. An infant's stat was 1, and the average man in his twenties sat at 5. A 3, therefore, meant Haneul's resistance fell well below the average of the competitors he'd be up against.

Hah. I'm finished.

Haneul squeezed his eyes shut in despair.

"Next."

The examiner jerked his chin without expression.

"Yes, sir."

Haneul scurried off to Test Site 1, clutching his admission ticket. Minutes later, patches fixed to his head and chest, he was sprinting full tilt down an unpaved road with a heavy tire harnessed to his back. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably. The color drained from his face. His bones felt ready to crack.

Haneul truly gave it everything he had. Even so, the number that came up was 3 again.

It meant his Stamina Point didn't even reach the average for a man in his twenties.

Damn it all.

Haneul's face went sallow.

Next up was Test Site 2. For some reason, the place felt like a blood-draw room. When his turn came, Haneul stepped behind the curtain, where a middle-aged woman in white, dressed like a nurse, sat waiting and beckoned him over with a crook of her finger. Haneul sat down across from her and offered his left arm.

"This is going to hurt a little."

The middle-aged woman took a firm grip on his hand and gave the standard warning. Haneul, a coward at heart, wanted nothing more than to turn his head away — he didn't think he could bear to watch his own blood spurt. But flinching like a coward here might cost him points on his evaluation, so he fixed his eyes dead ahead instead.

And then Haneul saw the woman's soul.

Except that within it, there was no Mental Image at all.

What? She's clearly an ability user, but there's no Mental Image? Don't tell me Mental Images have nothing to do with abilities?

It was a bolt from a clear blue sky — the sound of his one and only thread of hope snapping, pitifully, in two. So vast was his despair that he didn't even register the woman swiftly raising a scalpel and slicing into his wrist.

The artery splits open, and blood fountains skyward.

Huh?! Just as Haneul jolted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠upright in shock—

"Don't move!"

the middle-aged woman barked. Haneul forced down his trembling heart and breathed deep — hoo, hoo — great heaving breaths. Meanwhile the woman pressed both hands hard over his wound and began the treatment, warm light erupting explosively from her palms.

Only then did Haneul find his calm. Shortly after the light sank in, the bleeding at his wrist stopped as if by miracle, and the scalpel wound began closing at a remarkable pace. Before long, the measurement patches on his head and chest were emitting a steady, even waveform.

"Oh ho?"

The middle-aged woman looked him over with an intrigued glint in her eye. A moment later, she delivered the good news.

"Your wound's regenerating unusually fast, for one. And the rate at which your vitality's refilling is no joke either. Your test result is an 8."

"Eight? An 8?"

Haneul couldn't believe it. An 8 was practically top-tier.

The middle-aged woman nodded warmly, smiling. "Health Point 8, that's right. Now off you go to the next site."

"Yes, ma'am. Understood. Thank you very much."

Haneul bowed to her over and over as he hurried out of the test site.

Could I actually bloom into a healer type? Because that would be a jackpot. Healers don't just get treated well — they get to stay safely in the rear.

The face that had been gloomy only minutes ago lit up all over again. But it didn't take long for that face to turn ashen once more.

Chapter 8

At the next test site, the instant Haneul pulled the VR headset over his face, a magic beast ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠materialized with a chest-rattling roar. Grotesquely elongated neck, hooked claws longer than forty centimeters — the thing came barreling at him at a terrifying speed.

"Uh—?"

Haneul landed hard on his backside with a very dimwitted yelp.

"What is with that kid?"

The burly examiner scowled on the spot, and as Haneul rolled this way and that with the headset still strapped on, the man's expression darkened by degrees. In the end, Haneul washed out of the striking-power test faster than anyone in his cohort. He never got off a single proper attack.

2.

That was Haneul's Striking Power stat. A newborn infant's attack power is 1. That alone tells you just how hopeless his was.

"Haaah."

Head down, unable to meet anyone's eyes, Haneul stewed in shame. It was at the next test site that his heavy heart finally lifted its gaze again.

The moment he stepped into Test Site 4, he saw machine guns mounted on all four sides. When Haneul raised his guard with both arms and curled himself up, the test began at once — all four guns opening fire and peppering him with tennis balls.

Ngh. Kgh. Ugh.

Haneul took every single hit without dodging. This was not a test of evasion; he was forbidden to move. While he gritted it out, the patches on his head and chest streamed back his body's waveform readings. When it ended, the monitor displayed a 6 — a result meaning his Defensive Power exceeded the average for a man in his twenties.

Ohh. Not bad. A 6 I can work with.

Haneul let out a sigh of relief. Apparently all those years at the orphanage, roughhousing with the delinquent older boys and putting on a tough front, were finally paying off.

Next, Haneul pushed through a wall of flame at Test Site 5. His Fire Resistance, like his lightning resistance, was a measly 3, and his head sank low. The Cold Resistance tested at Site 6, however, came in at 4 — close to average — and his complexion brightened a shade.

The results at Sites 7 and 8 were more encouraging still. Dizzy with the nerve toxin coursing through him, Haneul still managed to cross a narrow footbridge and make it all the way back; then, at Site 8, he navigated his way out of a maze flooded with poison gas. Both tests took him longer than most, but he'd seen them through without once giving up — and thanks to that, his Poison Resistance landed at 6, above the average.

Next, from the combined evaluations of Sites 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8, Haneul's Move Point was calculated and displayed on the monitor. The result: 4. Below average — but still higher than his striking power, his stamina, his fire resistance, or his lightning resistance.

Last of all, every test result was pooled together to compute Haneul's Mental Strength.

Known in English as Mental Strength, this stat took the fear, strain, and other emotions a subject's brain registered across all nine evaluations, quantified them, and then scored the subject on how quickly they overcame those feelings and held onto their composure.

Here, Haneul received a perfect 10 out of 10.

Not one of his peers had a higher Mental Strength stat. Even across every scrap of historical data Shinseung Group had ever collected, few could match his ability to keep his composure.

Ohhh, now that's more like it.

At last, Haneul broke into a broad grin.