**Chapter 2: The Player with an Innate Ability**
2024-11-18 Author: Amnesty L
When watching the anime, from the perspective of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, it was the ultimate power fantasy, a story of easily crushing everything in its path.
However, from the perspective of the humans in this otherworld, it was a tale of infinite despair. Those beings from the Great Tomb were demons, destroyers of worlds.
Of course.
Tang Zheng felt no sense of belonging to either side. He was more worried about the consequences he would face if he joined the Sorcerer Kingdom and his identity as a transmigrator was exposed.
The Sorcerer Kingdom, in the end, was merely a tool for the Bone King to rule the world. Neither the Bone King nor the Floor Guardians of the Great Tomb cared about anything other than the Great Tomb itself.
The Bone King, in particular, would relentlessly destroy anyone or anything that could threaten the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
Even if Tang Zheng posed no threat, the moment his identity as a transmigrator was exposed, he would be seen as a threat in the Bone King's eyes, leading to his merciless annihilation.
And in this process.
Tang Zheng believed that the Bone King would undoubtedly subject him to the interrogation methods of the Lord of Terror. Before transmigrating, he was just an ordinary office worker; forget the Lord of Terror's torture, Tang Zheng figured he couldn't endure even the slightest torment.
Worse, there was a greater chance the Bone King would first use some memory-searching magic on him, then turn him into an imbecile before killing him.
Tang Zheng vigorously rubbed his cheeks, as if the pain could prove this was all a dream. Yet, nothing changed.
What a miserable fate!
Following the bustling crowd, Tang Zheng glumly found a spot in the corner by a shop and sat down, leaning against the wall.
He wasn't tired.
In fact, his energy and stamina far surpassed the poor state of health he'd been in before transmigrating. Looking at his arms, he could even see visible muscle definition.
Tang Zheng had already confirmed it: this was his body, but in the state of a sixteen or seventeen-year-old, even though he was only twenty-five before transmigrating.
The reason for this situation was likely related to his cheat—more precisely, his Innate Ability!
Tang Zheng squinted slightly, and a status panel that only he could see immediately appeared in his vision. The panel was divided into two parts.
Attribute Sheet
Player: Tang Zheng
Justice Value: 0 [Neutral]
HP: 13 (1%) MP: 13 (1%)
Physical Attack: 13 (1%)
Physical Defense: 13 (1%)
Agility: 13 (1%)
Magic Attack: 13 (1%)
Magic Defense: 13 (1%)
Comprehensive Resistance: 0 (0%)
Special Ability: 0 (0%)
Total: 7%
...
Ability Table
Innate Ability: Player
Overall Level: 0 (No Class)
Experience: 0/100
Class: None
Skill Points: 0
Passive Skill: Item Box
Active Skill: None
----
Tang Zheng focused his attention on the Innate Ability listed in his Ability Table.
Innate Ability: Player — Grants the Player Trait. (Unobservable, Unobtainable)
The description was very brief.
The status panel before him was likely a result of the Player Trait.
As the saying goes, "The fewer the words, the greater the matter."
Tang Zheng was a veteran player, after all, so he could roughly guess the abilities contained within the "Player" trait.
The so-called "Innate Ability" did not exist in the game YGGDRASIL; it was a special ability unique to the human race in this otherworld.
The chance of being born with an Innate Ability was quite high, about one in every two hundred people. However, most of these abilities were extremely weak and offered no help in combat.
In game terms, it was like a special skill that the human race of this world was born with.
Putting other things aside, the "Player" trait brought with it the ability to level up, allowing one to break free from the limitations of the human race and natural talent.
However!
Even knowing he possessed such an Innate Ability, Tang Zheng's bewilderment did not fade.
This was an otherworld, after all, not the game YGGDRASIL.
Even if he relied on his Innate Ability to reach Level 100 before the arrival of the Great Tomb, he would still be no match for the Bone King and his forces.
How could a bare-bones Level 100 character fight the Bone King, who was fully equipped with divine-class equipment, cash-shop items, and World Items?
What's more, the Great Tomb didn't just have one Level 100 individual!
It was precisely because Tang Zheng understood the horror of the Great Tomb better than anyone else in this world that he so profoundly grasped the chasm in strength between them.
"So all my base stats are 13 points? Even though I haven't taken a class yet, in terms of sheer numbers, I should already surpass an ordinary person in this world." Tang Zheng thought to himself as he looked over the values on his attribute sheet, feeling the power and vigorous energy his new physique provided.
These weren't just numbers in a game; they were values that perfectly reflected his physical condition!
Tang Zheng could even feel a unique energy within his body, which he assumed was mana.
In the terms of this otherworld, he possessed the talent of a "Magic Caster."
As for the percentages behind each stat, they used a unique calculation method from the game YGGDRASIL.
If Tang Zheng remembered correctly, the Bone King's total value was "683.6% + ?%," with the "?" indicating that his mana had broken the limit.
The light novel mentioned that the average mana for a normal Level 100 player was 1300 points, while the Bone King's was 1.5 times the maximum.
Hmm… So this was the power of a whale!
Tang Zheng had specifically researched some of the settings for the game YGGDRASIL within the world of Overlord.
He guessed that if you excluded stats from equipment, the average base attributes for players of all races were likely the same.
After all, the game needed to have the same upper limits for everyone to maintain balance and fairness.
(PS: The maximum value for each attribute's percentage is set at 1300. This is a personal setting to facilitate comparison with the attribute sheets of various characters in the light novel and to prevent the novel's stats from seeming chaotic.)
So!
Theoretically, every level up would add 13 points to all attributes, so after reaching Level 100, all attribute values would be exactly 1300.
But this was only in theory.
In reality, the calculation wasn't that simple.
Each class increased different attributes. For example, warrior-type classes only increased stats like HP, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, and Agility, while caster-type classes only increased MP, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Special Ability, and so on.
Furthermore.
Among the races players could choose, besides humans, demi-humans and heteromorphic races all had their own racial classes.
Take the most obvious example: the Dragon race, the strongest in this otherworld. They had a total of six racial classes: Infant, Juvenile, Young Adult, Senior, Elder, and Ancient Dragon.
Maxing out all six of these racial classes required a total of 50 levels, which meant that only the remaining 50 levels could be used for job class construction.
The human race, on the other hand, had no racial classes. This was both a disadvantage and an advantage, as it meant all 100 levels could be used for job class construction.
This allowed them to catch up to the demi-human and heteromorphic races. By the final stage at Level 100, the gap between the three major races was not significant.
Therefore.
Even the Bone King had only maxed out his "MP" and "Special Ability" stats to 100%.
Tang Zheng raised his head slightly and glanced at the crowd on the street. Seeing that no one was paying him any mind, he reached into the pocket of his coarse clothes and took out a palm-sized piece of rye bread.
Though it was called black bread, it was actually deep brown.
Aside from being a bit hard and coarse, it wasn't unpalatable.
A single copper coin could buy two pieces. From this alone, it seemed the price of basic supplies in this world wasn't high.
With his limited funds, every coin saved counted.
This piece of black bread hadn't been in his pocket; he had taken it from his "Item Box." His original clothes and the gold coins he'd acquired were all stored inside.
The "Item Box" was essentially a spatial backpack from a game.
From what Tang Zheng could tell, the space inside the "Item Box" was quite large, but it still had a limit. Otherwise, there would be no need for magic items like the "Infinite Pouch" in YGGDRASIL.
Of course, despite having "Infinite" in the name, it also had a storage limit and served as a supplement for when the "Item Box" ran out of space.
Tang Zheng brought the black bread to his mouth, vigorously bit off a piece, and began to chew noisily, his cheeks bulging.
Dinner last night had been a piece of black bread as well, and holding out until now had made him quite hungry.
This hunger made Tang Zheng understand that "Player" was just his Innate Ability. This world was all too real!
He would get hungry, get tired... and he could even die!
(end of chapter)