Miri had to take a moment to collect herself. If what she suspected was true, that could be both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing was that since she’d played the game multiple times before, she’d know the ins and outs of this particular world, thus making it easier for her to navigate within it. The bad thing was that all the dangerous enemies that she knew were lurking within this world—things from vicious monsters to radical templar knights—would be out to get her.

  Thinking about it, her heart suddenly skipped a beat. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel scared. At least, not entirely. Of course, she did feel at least a little bit scared, being put in a strange new world all of a sudden. However, accompanied by that fear was also…an innate sense of exhilaration. The inner fantasy RPG gamer fan within her couldn’t help but be at least a little bit excited by this prospect. There’s an adventure just waiting to greet her. And all she needed to do was to step outside.

  However, before she does so, she should check her stats. No decent gamer should ever brave the wild before checking their stats. If memory served her right, the Altar of the Pentacle was where all potential mages get to check and respec their stats.

  Miri checked around the altar and saw a basin of water right underneath the pentacle. Through the water, she could check her reflection—a young woman with shoulder-length red hair, green eyes, and noticeable freckles. Wasn’t this game supposed to have a feature where you could customize your playable character’s appearance? Would be nice to at least be given the option to alter her appearance just a little. Whatever, it’s not like it’s completely necessary to her anyway.

  Using the water’s reflection like a mirror, she fixed her hair a little bit. All in all, she was not considered ugly but also not beautiful either. Just normal and plain.

  Feeling a bit curious, she tapped a finger onto the water inside the basin. This caused the water to ripple before glowing an eerie shade of purple, projecting some sort of holographic orb that floated just above the basin. Within this orb were inscribed a collection of words and numbers:

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  Name: Miriam Caldwell

  Level: 1

  Skill points available: 25

  Fire: - 0 +

  Air: - 0 +

  Water: - 0 +

  Earth: - 0 +

  Spirit: - 0 +

  Miri recognized this quite well. This was where the player character in the “Runehunter Chronicles” gets to allocate their stat points at the very beginning of the game. Instead of the usual stats that’s typical for a fantasy setting, the stats in this game—also known as affinities—were each based on one of the five elements of the Wiccan Pentacle: fire, air, water, earth, and spirit.

  This game didn’t have a typical character class system in the traditional sense. Instead, all classes could technically use magic. However, some classes could have spells and equipment that make them play similar to a classical fantasy archetype like a knight or a rogue, leaving plenty of room for customization.

  In this game, there were around hundreds of different spells and hundreds of different modifications, each requiring your stats to meet a minimum requirement in order for you to use it. Additionally, the five elemental stats corresponded with the different traits a particular spell might have.

  Fire was the offensive stat, relating to traits such as increased spell damage and wider area-of-effect.

  Air was the mobility stat, relating to traits such as movement speed, aerial maneuverability, and stealth.

  Water was the support stat, relating to traits such as magical defense, healing, buffs, and debuffs.

  Earth was the defensive stat, relating to traits such as physical defense, melee damage, and crowd control.

  Spirit was the summoning stat, relating to summoning creatures and various perception abilities.

  Almost immediately, Miri already knew how she wanted to allocate her stat points. She had always favored an offensive mage playstyle. This meant that she should place the majority of her points on the offensive Fire stat while evenly distributing the other points into the other stats. After tapping and swiping on the various buttons on the floating orb—similar to how one would interact with a touchscreen—she was able to allocate her points to fit her personal preferences.

  Fire: 9

  Air: 4

  Water: 4

  Earth: 4

  Spirit: 4

  “Okay, that should do it,” Miri said to herself with a satisfied smile.