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"Well, time to get to work." Louise declared and pushed up her sleeves. She was still happy, and probably would stay that way for weeks, but that afternoon's events had generated as many questions as they had answered.
This was reflected in the dozens of small rectangles that hovered around Louise, waiting to be dismissed. She had already read them and knew, from her experience with that first skill, that dismissing the majority of them would only invite another rectangle with more information. Determined to understand what the figments were and what they did to her, Louise sat at her desk and prepared a quill and a few sheets for writing. Then she took out a paper that she'd worked on the evening of the past Voidsday. It had been that day she'd resolved to start marking down and keeping track of what the figments said and it had earned her more 1 of wisdom.
Louise agreed it was a wise decision.
The paper didn't have much. 'EXP' was easy to count since she apparently gained 10 per class, plus the occasional quest reward. Louise's eyebrows shot up and she quickly jotted down another plus 5 she'd gotten at the end of Professor Colbert's lesson, searching for and dismissing the corresponding rectangle. She totaled it up. 260 was a high number, a number whose meaning she had a few ideas about. But wisdom, vitality and strength, to her chagrin, she wasn't quite sure about. Was it really 4 on wisdom? And strength, vitality? 6, 7 or 8?
Nothing to do about it. She should have been more attentive before. She grabbed a new sheet and dipped her quill in ink. Then she started copying what the words said, dismissing and copying down the new rectangles as she marked which ones invited even more to appear. By the end of it, she had moved onto a new sheet and her wrist ached. Massaging it, she re-read her notes. It was a bunch of numbers and letters in combinations that made little to no sense when put together, apparently just quantifying phenomena.
However, Louise had managed to gleam something from that mess.
Every time she cast a spell for the first time, she 'learned a new skill'. Spells were 'skills', that described the effects of the spell. They had several numbers associated with them, like damage or chance of blinding. Plus an 'LV', a per cento amount of 'EXP' and an 'MP' cost. Finally, every spell she learned gave her 10 of the corresponding elemental affinity.
'LV', she'd discovered, meant level. Rank, in sum. Louise had discovered this because the flame, incandescence, fireball and levitation spells had all 'leveled up' and were marked as level 2 in their rectangles. So everybody had their rank displayed, which explained commoners generally having a lower number than mages, but Louise didn't quite think the correlation between level and a person's objective value was that simple.
Montmorency was a level 14 and as a line mage she was obviously better than a commoner guard, yet the ones that guarded the Academy were often 15 or 16. As veteran and skilled as they were, Montmorency was better simply because she was a line mage.
'MP' could only be Willpower. And 'EXP'…
Louise cleared a space on her desk and opened up the book she'd brought from the library. It was the fifth volume of the most complete Tristrainian dictionary available, more specifically, the letter E. If STR, VIT and WIS were all initials, then…
"EXN, EXO, EXP… EXPECTATION, Expectatif... EXPEDIER... Expedition, Expeditionaire... EXPERIENCE, Experimenté, Experimenter, Expert, Experimental, EXPIER... EXPIRER... EXPLIQUER, Expliqué, Explication, Explicable, Explicitement, EXPLOIT, Exploité, Exploitable, Exploitant, EXPRÉS, Expressíment, EXPRIMER, Exprimé, Expression..." She ran over the words again, deep in thought. She gained 'EXP' by going to classes and doing quests, and spells gained 'EXP' by being practiced, as attested to their higher number of 'EXP' when she had practiced them. Finally, enough 'EXP' made spells rise in rank.
Experience. It was the only one that made sense. Like mages needed practice, familiarity, experience with their magic to be able to stack more elements. To rise up in rank, dot to line, line to triangle, triangle to square. In level.
'EXP' and 'LV' measured Louise's progress. Her skill and ability.
She glanced up and frowned.
<The Gamer>
Lv1 Louise La Vallière
Level 1 was… pathetic. Even Guiche was a 9. Commoners had greater levels than her!
Well, that would change, she thought with a smile. It was only a matter of time, time Louise wasn't going to waste.
Although… she still had no clue why she was 'the gamer'. She didn't gamble or play any games in particular. Perhaps it too had a different meaning.
Thoughts for another time. Louise had been let out of the class early. She looked outside and verified with a start that night had fallen. The dormitories were still quiet, so supper should be being served. Louise frowned. She didn't feel like appearing late for supper. And well, it wasn't like she hadn't forgotten to eat before, buried in books and essays.
She'd just spend the time practicing magic. After all, she had levels to rise to.
Also teleport, gotta love the scry and die school of magic.
