Innate Talent: Player

When watching the anime from the perspective of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, it was the quintessential power fantasy, steamrolling everything in its path.

But from the perspective of the Human Species in the New World, it was endless despair. The inhabitants of the Great Tomb were Demons, beings capable of destroying the world.

Of course.

Tang Zheng felt no sense of belonging toward either side. What worried him was the situation he would face if his identity as a transmigrator were exposed after joining the Sorcerer Kingdom.

At its core, the Sorcerer Kingdom was merely a tool for Bone Lord to rule the world. Whether it was Bone Lord or the Floor Guardians of the Great Tomb, they only cared about the Great Tomb.

Bone Lord in particular would destroy without hesitation any person or thing that could threaten the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

Even if Tang Zheng posed no threat, once his identity as a transmigrator was exposed, Bone Lord would see him as a threat and mercilessly erase him.

And in the process.

Tang Zheng believed Bone Lord would definitely put him through Fear's interrogation. Before transmigrating, he had merely been an ordinary office worker. Forget Fear—even a little torture would be enough to break him, or so Tang Zheng believed.

What was more, Bone Lord would more likely use memory-searching magic on him first, turn him into an idiot, and then kill him.

Tang Zheng rubbed his cheeks hard, seemingly intending to use the pain to prove that he was dreaming. Yet nothing before his eyes changed.

What a miserable bastard he was!

Following the bustling crowd, Tang Zheng gloomily found a spot by the corner of a shop wall and sat down against it.

He was not tired.

His energy and stamina even far exceeded the unhealthy state he had been in before transmigrating. Looking at his arms, he could see the lines of exposed muscle.

Tang Zheng had already confirmed it. This was his body, and it was in the state of a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old. Though he had only been twenty-five before transmigrating.

The reason for this situation was likely related to his cheat—more precisely, his Innate Talent!

Tang Zheng narrowed his eyes slightly, and an Attribute Panel that only he could see immediately appeared in his field of vision. The entire panel was divided into two sections.

[Attribute Table]

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%)

Combined Resistance: 0 (0%)

Specialness: 0 (0%)

Total: 7%

...

[Ability Table]

Innate Talent: [Player]

Overall Level: 0 (No Class)

Experience Bar: 0/100

Class: None

Skill Points: 0

Passive Skill: Item Box

Active Skill: None

----

Tang Zheng focused his attention on the Innate Talent in his Ability Table.

[Innate Talent: Player—Grants Player traits. (Unobservable, cannot be taken)]

There was very little information in the description.

The Attribute Panel before him was likely brought about by the Player trait.

As the saying went, the fewer the words, the bigger the deal.

Tang Zheng was an old gamer, after all, so he could more or less guess the abilities contained within the Player trait.

So-called Innate Talents did not exist at all in the game Overlord. They were special abilities possessed by the Human Species of this New World.

Moreover, Innate Talents had a rather high chance of appearing. On average, one person out of every two hundred possessed one. However, most were extremely weak abilities and offered no help in combat whatsoever.

In game terms, it was a special skill that the Human Species of this world was born with.

Setting everything else aside.

What the Player trait could bring was the ability to level up, allowing him to break free from the limitations of the Human Species and natural talent.

However!

Even knowing that he possessed such an Innate Talent, Tang Zheng's confusion did not diminish in the slightest.

This was the New World, after all, not the game Overlord.

Even if he relied on his Innate Talent to reach Level 100 before the Great Tomb descended, he still would not be a match for Bone Lord and the others.

How was a blank-slate Level 100 like him supposed to fight Bone Lord, who possessed Divine Tier equipment, Krypton Gold items, and World Items from head to toe?

What was more!

There was not just one Level 100 in the Great Tomb!

It was precisely because Tang Zheng understood the terror of the Great Tomb better than anyone in this world that he deeply understood the gulf in strength between the two sides.

"All the basic attributes are 13 points. Although I haven't undergone Job Advancement yet, in terms of raw numbers alone, I should already surpass ordinary people in this world."

Tang Zheng looked at the values on the Attribute Table. Feeling the strength in his body and his vigorous energy, he silently thought to himself.

These were not mere numbers in a game. They were values capable of fully reflecting the body!

Tang Zheng could even sense a unique energy within his body. That was probably magic power.

According to the terminology of this New World, he possessed the talent of a Magic Caster.

And the percentages after each value.

Were a calculation method unique to the game Overlord.

If Tang Zheng remembered correctly, Bone Lord's total value was "683.6% + ?%." The "?" at the end was because Bone Lord's magic power had already exceeded the limit.

The light novel version mentioned that a normal Level 100 Player had an average magic power value of 1,300, while Bone Lord's magic power was 1.5 times the maximum value.

Yeah... that was the power of a whale!

Tang Zheng had specifically researched some of the settings of YGGDRASIL, the game in the world of Overlord.

Based on his guess, after removing the values added by equipment, the average attributes of Players from every race should have been the same.

After all, only by having the same upper limit could the game maintain balance and fairness.

[PS: The maximum percentage value for each attribute is set at 1300. This is a personal setting, both to make it easier to compare with the Attribute Tables of various characters in the light novel version and to keep the novel's attributes from becoming too confusing.]

Therefore!

In theory, every level increased all attributes by 13 points. Upon reaching Level 100, every attribute value would be exactly 1,300 points.

But that was only in theory!

In reality, it was not calculated that way at all.

Because every class increased different attribute values. For example, Warrior-type classes only increased options such as HP, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, and Agility, while caster classes only increased MP, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Specialness, and so on.

Additionally.

Among the races Players could choose, aside from the Human Species, the Demi-Human Species and Heteromorphic Species both had independent Racial Classes.

Taking the most obvious example, the Dragon Race—the strongest race in the New World—had a full six Racial Classes: Juvenile, Adolescent, Young Adult, Old, Elder, and Ancient Dragon.

Maxing out all six of those Racial Classes required 50 levels. In other words, only 50 levels could be used for class construction.

The Human Species did not have the issue of Racial Classes. This was both a disadvantage and an advantage. For example, all 100 levels could be used for class construction.

This allowed them to catch up to the Demi-Human Species and Heteromorphic Species. By the final stage at Level 100, the gap between the three major races would not be obvious.

Therefore.

Even Bone Lord had only raised the values of MP and Specialness to the maximum of 100%.

Tang Zheng raised his head slightly and glanced at the crowd on the street. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he reached into the pocket of his crudely made clothes and took out a palm-sized piece of rye bread.

It was called black bread, but it was actually dark brown.

Aside from being somewhat hard and coarse, it was not difficult to eat.

One copper coin could buy two pieces. From that alone, the prices of basic goods in this world were not particularly high.

With the money he currently had being limited, every bit he could save mattered.

This piece of black bread had not been in his pocket. He had taken it from the Item Box, where he had stored his original clothes and the gold coins he had acquired.

Though it was called an Item Box, it was essentially the spatial backpack from games.

According to Tang Zheng's observations, the Item Box had a considerable amount of space, but it still had a limit. Otherwise, magical items like the Infinite Haversack would not have existed in YGGDRASIL.

Of course, although its name included "infinite," it still had a storage limit in reality. It merely served as a supplement when the Item Box lacked storage space.

Tang Zheng brought the black bread to his mouth, bit off a piece hard, puffed out his cheeks, and chewed with a crunch.

His dinner last night had been a piece of black bread. After enduring until now, he really was somewhat hungry.

That hunger made Tang Zheng understand that Player was merely his Innate Talent. This was an incomparably real world!

He could grow hungry, become tired... and even die!