Universe's End

Anyone who had played almost any amount of video games could tell you there was little more thought-provoking than planning out a build.

One could go full unga-bunga and go all in on Strength, looking to club enemies over the head and caring little for complicated things like 'plans.'

Others would go full dexterity and sneak around the shadows, stealth kills, and assassinations.

The problem was that this wasn't a video game. The attributes before Rory, while reminiscent of video game stats, were nuanced in their approach. Want to invest in Strength fully? Well, have fun with your body tearing itself apart, as it's too fragile to handle the sheer force generated. Unkillable with maximum Durability? You may be unkillable, but with such pathetic Strength or other attributes, you'd never manage to scratch even a baby.

"Well, maybe that's pushing it." Rory half-chuckled.

Still.

Strength was generally valuable, as it allowed for more power output and speed, given that it was tied to the body's physical capabilities.

Durability would prevent him from being killed by a bunny slicing open an artery in a drive-by attack.

Flexibility, while not as directly useful as Strength or Durability, would allow for never taking a hit in the first place if you could twist out of the way in ways only an Olympic gymnast could pre-collapse.

Which left Cognition, Pneuma, and Growth. Cognition would be necessary as monsters began to move faster and faster, but they hadn't quite reached that point yet. Therefore, it was a relatively low priority for the time being.

Pneuma was where things got interesting. It was an attribute that pertained to magic, of all things. However, the System Avatar had made it apparent that it wouldn't magically—pun intended—teach him how to use magic. Until he had a better grasp of Pneuma and magic, it would be a waste of attributes.

Which left Growth.

I won't lie. It's tempting.

To invest in Growth was to invest in his future potential, and it would also allow him to delay deciding on a direction for the time being.

Plus, what did the System make clear? That I'm an Architect.

Perhaps he was buying into the stupid title a bit too much, but when you only had so much information to work with, why not take advantage of what he'd been explicitly given or stated to have?

After all, do you need the Durability to take a hit, the flexibility to dodge one, and the Strength to put a monster down if you can create things to make it easier?

It was a simplified reasoning, but that didn't change the fact that it wasn't wrong. Mind made up, Rory quickly put thirty percent of his available attributes into Durability, another twenty into Strength, and the final fifty percent into Growth. The bell curve next to Growth immediately shot up, putting him at the top percentile.

So, I guess everyone else had different thoughts.

His Pneuma distribution rank was dead in the middle, meaning he hadn't been the only one to realize investing in an attribute you couldn't even use for the time would be a waste. Cognition, he was slightly below average, meaning at least one person had put some of their overall attribute density toward it. Flexibility was likewise below average, more than even cognition, meaning it had been more invested overall than cognition. Lastly, both Strength and Durability were well behind the curve.

Almost everyone else allocated most of their points to some combination of Strength and Durability, with small amounts allocated to flexibility.

Satisfied with his direction, he closed the Attribute display as a new one replaced it.

"Vocational Capabilities expanded." Rory read aloud.

I guess the System wasn't kidding about being able to improve it with an Ascension.