Chapter 37: Preparation for the Tournament [3]
’Should I check my stats.’
The question had been sitting there for a while now, patient, waiting for him to stop arguing with himself about it.
His fingers pressed together in his lap.
’If I call it and that red screen comes up again?’
He shook his head once.
But then the other side of it arrived, equally patient. ’If I don’t check, I have no idea where I actually stand. A week of training. Not knowing the number is just choosing to be ignorant about something I could know.’
He ran a hand through his hair.
"Damn it," he said quietly to the floor.
He sat there for another few seconds, stuck in the specific discomfort of a decision that felt bigger than it should. This was the system. He’d used it casually a hundred times without thinking about it, scanning enemies, checking stats after fights, letting it give him directions to a bush. It had been as natural as breathing.
And one red screen had made him afraid of it.
He straightened up.
"Enough," he said, with the tone of someone who has given themselves a final warning.
He took a slow breath and closed his eyes. Let the hesitation settle without trying to push it away. Then, quietly, steadily
’Stats!’
A beat of nothing.
Then the screen formed. Faint at first, materializing at the edges before sharpening into something clear and familiar in front of him.
Lucas didn’t open his eyes right away.
He sat with them closed for a second, aware of the glow on the other side of his eyelids, bracing for something he couldn’t name, that red color, that tone.
He opened one eye.
Then the other.
_________________
[SYSTEM INFORMATION]
_________________
[Level: 22]
[Health: 100]
[Mana: 80]
[Strength: 44]
[Agility: 40]
[Defense: 41]
[Stamina: 49]
[Unallocated Stat: 8]
[Magic: Not awakened yet]
[Skills: Mana Perception]
[Weapon: Shadowfang]
_________________
The screen was normal. The same soft blue. The same clean interface.
Lucas stared at it. Read it again. Slowly, line by line, like he was checking every word for something hidden underneath it. Nothing shifted. Nothing flickered. No red edges.
He let out a breath that had been collecting in his chest for a week.
His shoulders dropped. The tension that had been living between them since that night released itself quietly and completely, and he leaned back and looked at the screen properly for the first time — not with suspicion, just with his actual eyes.
"...Maybe I was overthinking it." he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck once.
Then he actually looked at the numbers.
"Level twenty-two," he said, and the disbelief in his voice was genuine. Three weeks ago he’d been grinding alone in the dark at level twelve, thinking twenty-five was a distant goal. He moved his eyes down the screen. "Strength forty-four. Mana eighty." He paused there. Let it sink in properly. "That’s... basically the same as Nova."
The thought sat with him for a moment.
Then a small, satisfied smile appeared at the corner of his mouth that he didn’t particularly try to stop.
He looked further down.
[Unallocated Stat: 8]
He stared at that number.
"Oh," he said, with the quiet reverence of someone discovering money in a coat pocket but significantly better. "Now that’s what I’m talking about."
The grin that came next was not a small one. It arrived with momentum and kept going, spreading across his face with the particular energy of someone whose imagination has just been given eight units of fuel and a running start. He dropped back onto the bed, hands sliding behind his head, the glowing panel still hanging in the air above him.
’Level twenty-two. Eight unallocated. At this rate—’
His mind started running ahead of him, which it often did when things were going well.
’By the tournament I’ll have blown past Nova for sure. Then Gideon. Then Celia. And then—’
The grin widened further as the calculations kept piling up, each one more optimistic than the last, his eyes gleaming at the ceiling with the pure unfounded confidence of a man who has just checked his stats and forgotten every difficult thing that happened to get there.
And then Sylvi—
He paused.
Blinked once.
’Wait. Why does she look upside down.’
Because she was.
Sylvia was leaning over the head of the bed directly above him, her red hair hanging loose around her face, looking down at him with the expression of someone who arrived expecting a person to be awake and functioning and has found something considerably more concerning.
Their eyes met.
Him flat on his back, grinning at the ceiling. Her upside down above him, one eyebrow at a very specific angle.
One second passed.
"WHAT—" Lucas launched himself upright so fast the momentum carried him directly into the wall behind the bed. The thud was considerable. He bounced off it, scrambled sideways, got his feet under him, and ended up pointing at Sylvia with a finger that was shaking slightly from the shock.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE—HOW ARE YOU IN MY ROOM AGAIN—"
Sylvia watched him complete this sequence without moving from her spot. She tilted her head a fraction to the right. "You weren’t showing up," she said, as if this explained climbing through a third-floor window.
"THAT DOESN’T EXPLAIN THE WINDOW—"
"That was ope-."
"I CLOSED THE WINDOW—"
"I’m talking about the door."
Sylvia said, lifting her hand and pointing toward it without even looking.
Lucas followed her gesture and turned his head. The door stood slightly open.
He stared at it for a second.
"...Oh." He let out a long breath, rubbing the back of his neck. "Alright, that’s on me." He shook his head once and straightened up a little, trying to recover from the embarrassment. "Anyway, what do you mean by me ’showing up’? Do you need help with something?"
Sylvia blinked at him. Then, with the patient energy of someone who has been waiting for a conversational opening and has found one, she sat down on the edge of his bed and crossed one leg over the other. Her expression returned to its default setting — composed, mildly tired, carrying the specific exhaustion of someone who has had to think about something much more than it deserved.
She looked at him.
"You idiot," she said, not unkindly but not gently either. "Did you seriously forget that we’re supposed to be dating?"