Talent: Player

When watching the anime from Nazarick's perspective, it was unquestionably a satisfying power fantasy, crushing everything in its path.

But from the perspective of the humans in the New World, it was endless despair. The people from the Great Tomb were demons, beings capable of destroying the world.

Of course.

Tang Zheng felt no sense of belonging to either side. What concerned him was the situation he would face if he joined the Sorcerer Kingdom and his identity as a transmigrator was exposed.

The Sorcerer Kingdom was, in the end, merely a tool for Ainz Ooal Gown to rule the world. Whether it was Ainz Ooal Gown or the Floor Guardians of the Great Tomb, they only cared about Nazarick.

Especially Ainz Ooal Gown. He would destroy without hesitation anything or anyone capable of threatening the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

Even if Tang Zheng posed no threat at all, once his identity as a transmigrator was exposed, it would represent a threat in Ainz Ooal Gown's eyes, and he would be ruthlessly annihilated.

And during that process,

Tang Zheng believed Ainz Ooal Gown would definitely subject him to an interrogation by Kyouhukou. Before transmigrating, he had been nothing more than an ordinary office worker. Forget Kyouhukou—even if he were tortured only a little, Tang Zheng believed he would not be able to endure it.

What was more, it was even more likely that Ainz Ooal Gown would first use some kind of memory-searching magic on him, turn him into a fool, and then kill him.

Tang Zheng vigorously rubbed his cheeks, as if intending to use the pain to make himself realize that this was a dream. However, nothing before his eyes changed.

What a miserable life!

Following the bustling flow of people, Tang Zheng gloomily found a spot beside the wall of a shop and sat down with his back against it.

He was not tired.

In fact, his stamina and energy far exceeded the unhealthy state he had been in before transmigrating. Looking at his arms, he could even see the lines of the muscles beneath the skin.

Tang Zheng had already confirmed that this was his body—and it was in the condition of a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old, even though he had only been twenty-five before transmigrating.

The reason for this situation should have been related to his cheat—more precisely, his Talent!

Tang Zheng narrowed his eyes slightly. A panel immediately appeared in his field of vision, visible only to him. The entire panel was divided into two sections.

[Attribute Panel]

Player: Tang Zheng

Karma 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%)

General Resistance: 0 (0%)

Specialty: 0 (0%)

Total: 7%

[Ability Table]

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 shifted his attention to the Talent on his Ability Table.

[Talent: Player—Acquires Player traits. (Unobservable, Unstealable)]

The description contained very little information.

The Attribute Panel before his eyes seemed to be something brought about by the Player traits.

As the saying went, the fewer the words, the greater the matter.

Tang Zheng was an experienced player, after all, and he could roughly guess what abilities the Player traits contained.

Talents did not exist at all in the game Overlord. They were special abilities possessed by humans in this New World.

Furthermore, the probability of a Talent appearing was quite high. On average, one person appeared among every two hundred people. Most Talents, however, were extremely weak and completely useless in battle.

In game terms, they could be considered special skills that humans in this world were born with.

Other matters aside,

The Player traits allowed him to increase his level and escape the restrictions of the Human Race and its innate talents.

However!

Even knowing that he possessed such a Talent, Tang Zheng's bewilderment did not lessen in the slightest.

This was still the New World, not the game Overlord.

Even if he relied on his Talent and reached Level 100 before the Great Tomb descended, he would not be a match for Ainz Ooal Gown and the others.

How could a bare Level 100 like him fight Ainz Ooal Gown, who was equipped from head to toe with Divine Class gear, Pay-to-Win items, and a World Item?

Moreover!

Ainz Ooal Gown was not the only Level 100 being in the Great Tomb!

Precisely because Tang Zheng understood the terror of the Great Tomb better than anyone else in this world, he deeply understood the chasm between their strengths.

All my basic attributes are 13 points. Although I have not taken any Class yet, judging from the raw values alone, I should already be stronger than ordinary people in this world.

Looking at the various values on the Attribute Panel and feeling the strength and boundless energy his current physique provided, Tang Zheng thought silently.

These were not merely numbers in a game. They were values that completely reflected his body!

Tang Zheng could even sense a unique energy within his body. That should be magic power.

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

As for the percentages after each value,

They were a unique method of calculation used in the game Overlord.

If Tang Zheng remembered correctly, Ainz Ooal Gown's Total was "683.6% + ?%." The reason for the "?" was that his MP had already exceeded the limit.

The light novel mentioned that the average MP of a normal Level 100 Player was 1,300 points, while Ainz Ooal Gown's MP was one and a half times the maximum value.

Well... that was the power of a Pay-to-Win whale!

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

According to his guess, after removing the values added by equipment, the average attributes of Players from each race should have been the same.

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

[PS: The maximum percentage 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 and to prevent the novel's attribute values from becoming too confusing.]

Therefore!

In theory, every level gained should increase all attributes by 13 points. After reaching Level 100, every attribute value would be exactly 1,300 points.

But that was only in theory!

In reality, attributes were not calculated that way at all.

Every Class increased different attribute values. For example, Warrior Classes only increased options such as HP, Physical Attack, Physical Defense, and Agility, while Caster Classes only increased MP, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Specialty, and so on.

In addition,

Among the races Players could choose, aside from the Human Race, the Demi-human and Heteromorphic Races all had independent racial Classes.

Take the most obvious example, the strongest Dragon Race in the New World. It had a full six racial Classes: Youngling, Juvenile, Young, Elderly, Elder, and Elder Dragon.

Maxing out all six racial Classes required fifty levels. In other words, only fifty levels were available for constructing Classes.

The Human Race had no racial Classes. This was both a disadvantage and an advantage. For example, all one hundred levels could be used for Class construction.

That allowed humans to catch up with the Demi-human and Heteromorphic Races. By the final stage at Level 100, the gap among the three major races would not be particularly obvious.

Therefore,

Even Ainz Ooal Gown had only raised the values of MP and Specialty to their full 100%.

Tang Zheng slightly raised his head and glanced at the people flowing along the street. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he reached into the pocket of his coarse clothing and took out a piece of rye bread the size of his palm.

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

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

A single copper coin could buy two pieces. Judging from that alone, the prices of basic supplies in this world were not particularly high.

With the limited money he currently had, he had to save wherever he could.

The piece of black bread had not been in his pocket. He had taken it out of his Item Box. His original clothes and the gold coins he had obtained had also been placed inside.

It was called an Item Box, but it was actually the spatial backpack from the game.

From Tang Zheng's observations, the Item Box had a considerably large amount of space, but it still had an upper limit. Otherwise, a magical item like the Infinite Backpack would not have existed in YGGDRASIL.

Of course, although its name included "Infinite," it also had a storage limit. It was merely a supplement for when the Item Box's storage space was insufficient.

Tang Zheng stuffed the black bread to his mouth, bit off a large piece, and chewed it with bulging cheeks, making a crunching sound.

His dinner the previous night had also been a piece of black bread. After holding out until now, he was indeed somewhat hungry.

This hunger made Tang Zheng understand that Player was only his Talent. This was an utterly real world!

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