11. Deep Study

Callie studied the Help articles well into the night. She didn't even notice as her mother left the room, so deep was her concentration on the articles she was reading.

It was really fascinating stuff, honestly. The system articles were pretty detailed, though just about every one seemed to have some section that read Unknown Error. Obviously there was a lot of information she wasn't allowed to know yet. Hopefully, that wouldn't count against her in her mission.

The stats were broken down into Physical, IQ, EQ, and Divine Effects. Stamina, Strength, Dexterity, and Agility were all considered her Physical stats and effected her total Health. Intelligence, Wisdom, and Willpower were all considered IQ stats, which controlled how much Mana you had, once you had a mana core to produce it. Perception, Charisma, Control, and Endurance were all consider EQ stats, which controlled how well you were able to recover both your Health and Mana. Finally, the Divine Effects were Luck and Faith. These stats were directly related with divine forces, and thus effected the general direction of your life. Faith increased magic effectiveness, cultivation speed, allowed access to holy spells, and allowed the gods to directly interfere in your destiny, while Luck increased the chances of getting the things you really need and want. All of the stats also had other, more straight-forward effects, such as Charisma effecting other's perceptions of Callie, etc.

The only part that gave her pause was Faith. Callie wasn't sure how she felt about the Faith stat, honestly. Its effects were pretty great, except Callie really didn't like the idea of allowing the gods to further interfere in her destiny. As far as she was concerned, they'd gotten to meddle around with her life quite enough already!

Then there were all the details about Skills and Abilities. Abilities were basically just passive skills that were always active, whereas Skills were things you had to consciously activate. Both of these were sold by the various System Stores, while also being available as Skill Books found in dungeons or dropped by living things when they die. Some Traits and Titles also came with Skills or Abilities. Finally, some Skills or Abilities may come with Spells, which you can only use with a mana core that has sufficient amounts of Mana stored.

Blessings and Curses were pretty straightforward. There were Spells on this planet that one could acquire to Bless and Curse others, but all of these Spells were completely dependent upon the Bless or Curse Skill. The effects of the Blessing or Curse were dependent on the Traits of the caster, as well as the Spell one had. There were many varieties of Blessing and Curse Spells to use, and the possible effects were almost limitless in capacity.

Titles were a simple matter of meeting their requirements programmed into the System. This Help page was one of the most fascinating to Callie, as it described the requirements of a few, basic Titles she could earn. None of the Titles mentioned were particularly life changing in their effects, but earning them certainly wouldn't hurt her, either.

--Teacher--

x2 Charisma stats when mentoring or teaching! +10% increase in learning new skills! Permanently produce Aura with Effect: Skill Learning Increase that gives a +10% increase in learning new skills to others within 20 ft. of you!

Requirements:

-Acquire Mentor Skill Lv. 5

-Mentor 30 students

-Max 1 Skill

--Student of Magic--

+10% power to all spells! Learn magical spells and skills 2x as fast! Mana regenerates +10% faster!

Requirements:

-Acquire 1 Magical Skill

-Acquire 1 Magical Spell

-Acquire a Mana Core

-Acquire 1 Magical Teacher/Mentor

--Cultivation Student--

Cultivate the soul 10% faster! Learn martial arts 2x as fast! Health regenerates +10% faster!

Requirements:

-Acquire 1 Cultivation Technique

-Meditate for 1 Hour Every Day for 30 Days

-Acquire Spiritual Sight Ability

-Acquire Cultivation Teacher/Mentor

--Scholar--

+20% reading speed! +50% retention when reading the subject! x2 to the Intelligence stat!

Requirements:

-Read all Help Articles in the System

-Read 100 Books in Total

-Read for 1 Hour Every Day for 30 Days

Only 4 Titles appeared on the Help Article about them, but they clearly showed that Titles were a powerful, useful tool, none the less. Even though the section was currently locked, Callie made it a personal goal to start meeting the requirements she knew about as soon as she could.

Professions were similar to Skills in that they had levels, but they also had unique Titles you could only earn through those professions. In order to get a Profession, Callie had to buy a Profession Package. They were understandably expensive, but the rewards were truly great. For instance, Callie could learn to use alchemy without purchasing an Alchemy Profession Package, but her equipment wouldn't be as good, her learning would be stunted, the potions she made wouldn't have as good of effects, and she would earn significantly less when selling her potions to the System Store. Also, there were literally thousands of recipes she couldn't get without first unlocking the Profession.

System Points was a pretty short article. Mostly, you just needed to invest points to unlock the so-called Premium Features. The amount of points needed to unlock a feature varied, however. Callie scrolled through, hoping to find a list of system unlock options, but couldn't find one, much to her disappointment.

Mission Points were also pretty simple. Earn Mission Points by doing Missions, and use them to access higher Mission Classes. You'd need increasing amounts of points to be able to access Missions of the next class, but the Tutorial-Class only needed 1 point to unlock the access to F-Class Missions. Unlocking E-Class Missions, however, cost 20 points. There were 9 Mission Classes in total, not including the Tutorial-Class, and they ranged from F-Class to Mythic-Class.

Also, you could unlock the ability to take various Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Missions! However, these missions were special, in that you would be penalized if you failed to meet them. But the rewards were supposed to be better than regular Mission rewards, depending on their difficulty. Their difficulty varied based on your level, life stage, and evolution level. This was a great tool for gaining extra points and steady growth!

Callie was a little nervous about unlocking these special missions, though. The penalties sounded ominous!

Now, the various Points systems were where Callie found herself spending most of her time that night. The different points she could earn and the different ways to earn them was really fascinating. Starting with the Skill Points, which can be earned from Missions, killing living creatures, found in dungeons, or bought with Gold in the System Store. Various amounts of Skill Points could be needed to buy a Skill (or Ability) Book, depending on the rarity and power level of the Skill Book. Also, Skill Points were needed to Evolve and Merge Skills. These could get quite expensive.

Then, there were the Karma Points. These Points could only be earned when Callie did something that benefited others. The greater the benefit, the more points she would earn. Sometimes, they would be listed as Mission Rewards, but only if the Mission specifically benefits people other than Callie.

This explained why Callie had so many of those. While the goddess obviously got the amount of lives Callie had lived wrong, she must have been right about her sacrificing herself repeatedly. Good karma would, of course, come from sacrificing your life for others. Thus, Karma Points!

There was a store just for Karma Points called the Karma Store, and it could be found under the System Store tab. In this store, Callie could buy items, weapons, armor, Skill Books, Traits, and even a few Titles that were exclusively found in this store. Of course, you'd also have to meet the other requirements for those Titles in order to purchase them.

Divinity Points, on the other hand, were much more valuable than Karma Points. These Points could only be earned by actions that impacted the gods in some way. The greater the impact, the more points earned. Callie wasn't sure how she'd earned all of her Divinity Points, but she supposed volunteering to take Clark's punishment had impacted the gods. And since it impacted no less than 4 gods, maybe that accounted for the amount of Divinity Points she'd unlocked from her Past Lives?

The Divine Store had much rarer items, weapons, armors, Skill Books, Traits, and Titles available. The power levels of these things were supposed to be on par with the gods! Apparently, a lot of the merchandise can be greyed out even after unlocking this store with System Points, as it's sorted by level. According to the Help Article, the greyed out merchandise would kill you at your current level if you tried to learn or use them.

Her favorite, though, were the Universal Points. These could only be earned by actions that effected the entire universe! Callie couldn't imagine how she'd gotten 2 of them! Surely, nothing she remembered doing effected the entire universe. It must be part of the Unknown Error sections...

Because of the rarity of earning these Points, Universal Points were ridiculously OP. According to the Help Article, these were exclusively Skills, Traits, and Titles that were more powerful than anything wielded by gods! It said that these Skills, Traits, and Titles powered up with you, so you could only access a portion of their power dependent on your level. Otherwise, unless you were a god, Titan, or Universal Entity, all of these would kill you.

The Ally System sounded fun to Callie, who was feeling kind of lonely in her newborn body. This System allowed Callie to claim people, animals, monsters, and even plants as allies. With anything that had a sentience level above level 3, she would require their permission to claim them as her ally. Once claimed, Callie must release them from it herself, manually. They couldn't remove themselves without her permission.

The Ally System also had a Pet area. These were where any Eggs given to her by the system would go after being hatched in the Hatchery. Only creatures created by the System in this way could be considered Pets, and they were always dedicated and loyal to the Host.

Plus, there was an entire Perk system in the Ally System, that Callie could use to purchase various Perks to share between herself and her allies and pets.

This Ally System also gave Callie access to her allies' status screens, and updated their system to match her upgrades, with the exceptions of having their own Ally System, Universal Points, and Past Life Rewards System. It also meant they shared experience for their kills, missions, and in dungeons.

In other words, Callie didn't have to solo this stuff to get power. With allies, she'd level up faster and become stronger faster.

The Past Life Reward System was the last system covered by the Status section of the System Help Articles. It detailed pretty much everything she already knew from using it, that she'd gain all the Points and such that she had earned in former lives transferred straight to this life, giving her the boost she'd need to be able to compete with the creatures like her father, who had been hoarding power in this world for, quite literally, millennia.

That was as far as Callie got that night. When her mother interrupted her just as she was about to open the first Store-related Help Article, and proceeded to feed and change her once more, Callie decided it was time to finally sleep.

First, though, she closed her eyes while her mother held her, calling the Status screen up behind her closed eyelids.

She quickly added 5 points to each skill, just to see what would happen.

As expected, the IQ and EQ stats made her head ache and made her want to fall asleep. The Physical stats made her entire body ache from head to toe, as if she'd pulled every muscle and broke every bone at once.

What surprised her were the Divine Effects. Adding points to her Luck and Faith stats made her itch uncontrollably from head to toe.

This time, when Callie cried until her mother rocked her to sleep, it wasn't a ruse.