In addition to the sheer power of her skill, Karoline had to spend coins and stat points to maintain her existence.
C'mon, I had nothing more abundant than those two resources right now in my inventory! To her, it was a life-draining curse; to me, it was just another line item in a budget I could easily afford.
"Are you trying to brag in front of me?" she asked, but she mistook my confident tone for arrogance and laughed. For a moment there, her laugh seemed pure and enchanting, a sound that didn't belong in a world filled with the screams of dying monsters.
"I'm not," I said simply. I reached into my inventory and pulled out a large, pulsating stat crystal—a high-grade one I had been saving. I threw it at her in a careless, offhand manner. "Take this as a gift for now. Consider it a signing bonus."
