Chapter Fifty Two

Joe woke the next morning quite rested, although his mind seemed to dance spastically throughout the last evening and even into his dreams as his mind tried to understand the startling coincidence. When he'd heard the name Loki, he realized that several of the other gods and goddesses that were listed didn't sound similar, they sounded familiar, and he recognized some of the names. This revelation left him a little out of sorts the previous evening, and the fact that Kukurnal didn't show up for the evening discussion didn't calm his nerves at all.

Despite that, he was well rested and drifted awake in almost as perfect transition as possible, his mind simple suddenly aware, rested and drifting into awareness of day, the dim light of the gas giant suffusing the room in dark brilliance, enough to see, but still dark enough to enjoy rest.

He spent quite some time in this state, simply enjoying the moment of perfect peace before some odd twinge in his left leg causing it to jump slightly and broke the moment, his mind suddenly remembering his urgency.

He smiled and stretched, deciding to continue to indulge and popped open his status as it had been some time sense he'd done a deep dive in everything he had. More and more, he found the status display capable of displaying everything he needed, and was less reliant on his books, but given how the status was changing, he felt uncomfortable trusting everything to that, so still kept meticulous records in his notebooks. The notebooks also allowed him to have quite a bit more detail and kept his theories as well.

He took a look at his main status page but found nothing new. Still, he took the time to consider it carefully, looking over his stats once again with caution and checking it against his notebook. He had a page just dedicated to the changes of his stats which was quite a mess with written and rewritten numbers piled on top of each other with crumpled wrinkles from the repeated erasures. He wasn't sure how much longer he was going to be able to use this page before it became useless, but he still could make out the numbers, so checked and double checked them, finding no difference in his base Earth stats, and only some minor differences in his new… what is the name of this place? The only thing I really remember is that first notice said that this was the Cradle of Aelthron? Hmm… too long, maybe Aelthron's Cradle? Guess I can live with that, but from what I understand a cradle is… isn't the gas giant? Wonder if they even name individual moons? Maybe I should ask Garnedell. Hmm…

Anyway, his new Aelthron's Cradle stats were normal, with only changes coming from the new job change. He did smile brightly at when he noticed that his stats were now significantly better. He'd surpassed intelligence and wisdom significantly, and even was able to make it to his normal dexterity, which was a pleasant surprise. Why didn't the system ask if I wanted to achieve equivalency again? Or… maybe I said no too many times now. That's… going to be annoying… hopefully I can ask for it later!

Joe then looked at his other stats, but still found his attack and defense grossly lacking and while his health wasn't as bad, any hit to health made him, uncomfortable. His speed and agility were close, especially his speed, but his endurance still had a good ways to go. His magic, on the other hand, was quite above the average now, although he wasn't sure what it all meant. Finally, his physical resistances were significantly weaker than what he'd had on Earth, and he worried what it would mean if he ever got punched or even a splinter.

In any case, the huge pile of magical resistances that he'd gotten from the magus theorist job were very satisfying, and he found himself what all those meant in comparison to what magic was. That's a lot of different kinds of… magic! That's going to be very fun! Wonder what it all means though. I still haven't seen many mages, so I'm not sure… Hmm… are they lost tech… knowledge? Or … are they forbidden… maybe I should ask, although Kukurnal never made in mention of it when I spoke about it, so… Joe's eyes lost focus as he lost himself in what magic would mean and how it would look in this world and found himself daydreaming before finally returning to his next tab.