Riri stared at the numbers, her brain running calculations.
Twenty in each stat. That would put her at the average human baseline across the board—functional, competent, not a liability.
Her finger moved through the interface, distributing points with mechanical precision.
[Strength: 3 → 20] (-17 points)
[Agility: 6 → 20] (-14 points)
[Constitution: 4 → 20] (-16 points)
[Intelligence: 14 → 20] (-6 points)
[Wisdom: 12 → 20] (-8 points)
[Charisma: 18 → 20] (-2 points)
The math left her with thirty-seven points remaining. She paused, considering.
Training Dungeons would open within the week—the System staggered access to prevent server overload, or whatever the equivalent was in a death game. Those dungeons weren't about strategy. They were about getting people battle-ready. Teaching them that monsters bled and hit back and didn't care about your feelings.
Low-level encounters. Straightforward objectives. Survive, kill, extract.
Which meant the Players who thrived early were the ones with raw stats. Speed to dodge. Strength to hit hard. Constitution to take a punch and keep moving.
If she walked into her first dungeon with higher physical stats than most Level 5 Players, she'd have an edge. Not a guarantee—never that—but an advantage.
Riri allocated the remaining points.
[Strength: 20 → 32] (-12 points)
[Constitution: 20 → 32] (-12 points)
[Agility: 20 → 33] (-13 points)
[Allocation Complete. Confirm? Y/N]
She pressed "Yes."
The change hit her immediately.
Heat flooded through her body—not painful, but intense, like someone had lit a match under her skin. Her muscles seized, then released. Her bones ached, a deep pressure that made her gasp. She braced her palms against the marble, feeling the texture bite into her skin differently now, sharper, more present.
Her heartbeat slowed. Steadied. The fragile flutter in her chest gave way to something solid, rhythmic, strong.
When the sensation faded, Riri flexed her fingers. The motion felt right. Not borrowed. Not foreign.
Hers.
She stood, and the movement was effortless. No wobble. No tremor. Her boots felt lighter, the tactical pants less cumbersome. She rolled her shoulders, feeling the leather jacket shift where she'd left it on the floor.
Her reflection in the window showed the same face, the same too-pretty features—but something had changed in the way she held herself. Less breakable. More grounded.
[Updated Status:]
[Combat Power: 87 → 965]
[HP: 40 → 320]
Nearly a thousand Combat Power. At Level 1.
Most Players would hit that around Level 8 or 9 if they allocated smartly.
Riri exhaled slowly, testing her new lungs. They didn't burn. Didn't ache. Just worked.
She could survive two hits from a tutorial slime just 10 minutes ago. Now she could survive twenty-one.
[Host! Host! You're forgetting something important!]
The cheerful notification made her blink.
[Your Luxury Lottery Ticket! Shall we use it now? This unit is very excited to see what you'll receive! Guaranteed S-Rank minimum means the possibilities are—]
"Hold on." Riri held up a hand, even though the System couldn't see it. "Let me think."
[Of course! Take your time. This unit will wait patiently. ♡]
The heart symbol lingered in her vision, pulsing with barely-contained enthusiasm.
Riri crossed to the windows, looking out over the empty city. Somewhere down there, millions of people were waking up to their own Systems, their own quests, their own countdown clocks.
And she had a lottery ticket that could pull god-tier loot.
She needed to use it smart.
Riri turned the lottery ticket over in her mind, weighing the temptation against practicality.
S-Rank minimum. That meant weapons that could cut through steel. Skills that bent reality. Equipment that glowed with enough power to make other Players salivate.
And that was the problem.
She was already going to draw attention. System #2 was the second-most powerful System on the planet. The moment she entered a Training Dungeon, every Player in the lobby would see that number floating above her head. They'd know she had advantages they didn't. Resources they'd never touch. Luck that made the game bend in her favor.
Adding a piece of god-tier loot to that equation would be like painting a target on her back in fluorescent paint.
Later, she decided. Once she had a better grip on how this world worked. Once she knew who to trust and who to avoid. Once she wasn't standing alone in a penthouse with tissue-paper combat experience and a body she'd owned for less than an hour.
The ticket could wait.
"System," she said slowly, a new thought crystallizing. "Is there any way to hide my System number?"
The interface flickered.
[Negative, Host. System Numbers, Player Level, and Basic Stats are publicly visible to all Players. This is a core function of the Integration and cannot be disabled or concealed.]
Riri's stomach sank.
So everyone would know. The moment she stepped into public view, they'd see the golden "2" hovering above her head like a crown she hadn't asked for.
"What counts as Basic Stats?" she asked, needing to know the full extent of her exposure.
[Basic Stats visible to all Players:]
StrengthAgilityConstitutionIntelligenceWisdom
[Level and Combat Power are also publicly displayed.]
Riri frowned. "What about Luck and Charisma?"
[Oh! Those are Hidden Stats. Only System #1 and System #2 have access to Luck and Charisma metrics. Standard Systems do not track or display these values—most Players don't even know they exist as quantifiable attributes.]
That... was interesting.
So she'd have a 25 in Luck—five times the human average—and no one would know. They'd see her high basic stats and her System number, but they wouldn't understand why she kept getting better loot drops or landing critical hits at improbable moments.
And Charisma at 20 meant... what, exactly? Better prices in shops? Easier NPC interactions? She'd have to test it.
"So people will see I'm System #2, Level 1, with stats in the low thirties across the board."
[Correct! Although, Host should be aware: most Level 1 Players have stats between 5-12 in each category. Your current stat distribution will appear... unusual. Particularly if you encounter other Players during the Preparation Period.]
Of course it would.
Riri pressed her palm against the cold glass, watching her reflection overlap with the city below.
She couldn't hide the number. Couldn't hide her level or her basic stats. The moment she interacted with another Player, they'd know she was playing on a different difficulty setting.
Which meant she needed to be smart about when and where she made her first public appearance.
"Training Dungeons," she said. "When do they open?"
[First wave access begins in 36 hours. Subsequent waves will unlock over the following week based on System lottery assignment. Host has been granted Priority Access due to System ranking.]
Thirty-six hours.
Enough time to figure out her gear. Test her new stats in private. Maybe run through the penthouse and see if she could find anything useful the original Riri had left behind.
And then she'd step into her first dungeon and hope her editor knowledge of monster patterns would be enough to keep her alive.