Wade's heart skipped a beat.
He looked at Calista, startled. "You can see it?"
She lifted her chin at the cube. The mirrored surface now held a single block of text where his palm rested.
Name: Wade Barrett
Class: Dimensional Merchant
Origin Skill: Dimensional Ledger
Only those lines. No more.
Calista's eyes flicked back to him. "So, what does your origin skill do?"
Wade felt his heart go into overdrive, trying to beat its way out of his chest.
He held Calista's gaze, seeing it in her eyes. She truly did have no idea what his origin skill did.
But he couldn't let them know the truth. Not when he knew the true face of the guilds.
He needed to protect his one real edge, or he might never break free of his contract.
And that meant he had to give them something without giving them the truth. If he said nothing, that would be worse. Suspicion grew where silence lived.
"The skill is in the name. Dimensional Ledger," he said casually. "When I make a profit on a trade, it rewards me in stat points."
A half truth that might as well be true.
Profit did reward him. He just simply left out the keys, the private dungeons, and the scale of what "profit" might mean.
Calista studied him for a moment that felt long. Then she turned her gaze a few degrees past him, eyes unfocused. "I can see your status, you know."
Wade's stomach dropped, but he stopped it from showing on his face. "You can?"
"I have a skill called Observe. Most adventurers do." She met his eyes.
"You have one hundred unassigned stat points. That's the highest awakening bonus I've seen in this hall. Possibly the highest in the city."
Her mouth twitched into something not quite a smile, and not quite a warning.
"With that, you can raise yourself to match some adventurers between levels five and ten in a single day if you know what you're doing."
"And if your origin skill pays you in stat points when you profit, you could grow in any direction you choose. Flexible, fast, and hard to pin down. The guild values that."
The room felt smaller for a breath. The fact that she wasn't calling him out meant that she really couldn't see the details of his origin skill.
Wade felt so relieved, his vision wavered. He blinked, clearing it.
He did not know where to put his hands. He kept them where they were and tried not to stare at the cube's perfect face. "Is that… good?"
"It is good." Calista said. "It is also a target on your back if you are careless. So don't be careless."
"However," she continued, "the guild will equip you with Observe as well. And other skills, including a concealment skill to hide your numbers from others who have skills like Observe to see your status."
"The cost of those skills will be tallied to your account and deducted from your future earnings. That is separate from guild tax and other terms in your contract. Standard practice."
Wade nodded. Relief and worry tugged in different directions inside him. 'They give me tools. Then they take their cut. That's fine. For now.'
"Check your status," Calista said. "See what you're working with."
Wade lifted his free hand, then hesitated. "How do I…?"
"Think it," she said. "Call it the way you'd call your name in your head."
He focused and formed the thought like a word. 'Status.'
A panel of light bloomed before him, colorless and clear, with letters the same gold as the previous messages.
Name: Wade Barrett
Race: Human
Class: Dimensional Merchant
Origin Skill: Dimensional Ledger
Level: 1
Exp: 0%
HP: 59
MP: 144
Strength: 5
Agility: 6
Perception: 9
Constitution: 15
Stat Points: 100
Skills: N/A
He read the numbers and felt two truths at once.
One, his body was a ruin.
Two, the ruin could be rebuilt.
Calista stepped closer and tilted her head to see. "For reference, the average human adult sits at ten in each core stat. That is a general rule, not law."
"You are below that in most areas, which matches your… current condition. But your constitution is better than the rest, which is why you're still standing strong even with what your body is going through."
She crossed her hands, and lifted one hand, tapping her cheek with her fingers.
"Hit points and mana points look close to the range we expect. Neither low nor high for a level one adventurer."
Wade kept his face blank, but inside, a dozen plans flared and died and flared again.
'I need food. Then training. Then skills. Then a way to move money without their eyes on it. Then… keys.'
Calista touched the face of the awakening stone, and his awakening text faded back from the surface into mirrored steel. "We're done here."
"That's it?" Wade asked.
"That's it." Calista said.
She gestured back towards the gate they'd come through. "Now we register your class with the guild, assign you an identity token, and give you your starting skills."
"After that, you get food. Then we speak about your room in the dorms and your party assignment."
"Party?" Wade asked.
"Adventurers work in parties," Calista said. "You will not enter guild dungeons alone. Not yet."
Wade took his hand from the cube. The cool surface left a memory on his palm that made him want to touch it again, to make sure it had happened.
He flexed his fingers and followed as Calista moved towards the gate.
After what seemed like more than a minute of walking, they entered a narrow hall with sigils carved into the stone at shoulder height.
The sigils pulsed once as Wade passed. He felt nothing.
A clerk with a pinched face sat at a desk just inside the next room. He looked up and slid a slate forward.
"Name?"
"Wade Barrett."
"Class?"
"Dimensional Merchant."
The clerk's hand hesitated. He glanced at Calista. She gave a single nod. The clerk swallowed and wrote the words on the slate with a stick of chalk.
He turned to a small device set into the counter, placed the slate into its mouth, and pulled a lever.
A thin metal token rattled into a tray.
He picked it up and pressed it to a stamp that smoked at the edges, then passed the token to Wade.
"Guild identity badge," he said. "If you lose it, you pay for the replacement."
Wade took the badge. It was warm and stamped with the lion and sword crest on one side and his name on the other.
When he turned it in his fingers, a faint number hovered above it for a breath, displaying 000000, then the zeros rolled to 040137.
That would be his identification number for as long as he was an adventurer for the Lion's Guild.