His eyes sparkled and his excitement rose through the roof as he scanned the contents of this strange semi-transparent blue bubble now floating amid his eyes. To him, this was the living embodiment of all his hidden fantasy, the status page.

After all, what man would pass up the opportunity to be the wielder of a status page, acquiring all sorts of magic defeating monsters on their way, and becoming the greatest of all time using cheat-like abilities and modern knowledge. Saving the princess, forming a harem of cute girls while also amassing so much wealth that it would make Mansa Musa blush. He could re-enact his favorite mangas but this time he is the main character.

For a while, his current situation no longer mattered. No, in his eyes it all disappeared, in front of him was a huge decadent hall with a design focused more on showing opulent wealth rather than beauty filled with glitters and sparkles from rare metals and precious gems. Women stood by his side, their loving eyes looking at him whilst men from all around the globe knelt before him in a show of respect.

He was hungry, thirsty, and in a very uncomfortable position. But for a while, he daydreamed of a fantasy that once only existed in books and novels...

That was until his eyes saw his mana points go from 1 to zero almost instantaneously. It constantly happened again and again, whenever his mana had refreshed by one, it would go back to zero without hesitation.

'These chains are pretty annoying...' He tried moving his hands here and there and pulled himself down as hard as he could, but no matter how much he strained, the chains didn't budge. "Metal is still metal... Even with 17 points in strength, it still doesn't matter."

Strength was still his problem, even back on earth he had always been the type to go quiet during PE class hiding inside the cubicle. To think that it even translated the same on this planet amused him.

'My strength and agility are rather poor, but my intelligence is twice, no, thrice more... Was I that smart? Though my grades were somewhat average except for history... No wait, intelligence I believe mostly means magic, right?' He glanced over his MP stat and it did show a rather large number, 'Right, it's magic, no way it's gonna be how smart I am, cause if it was then I should be rather average, I don't exactly get good grades anyway. That said, what does it mean to be smart in the first place?' Isaiah wondered but now was not the time to engage in deep philosophical thoughts as there was one thing that made him curious

[Level: 14]

"Eh?" He tilted his head, '14?'

He found that strange, after all, shouldn't he be at level 1? It was his first day here, so how did he already acquire such a high level?

'Yet somehow I am level 14 already...'

That said, he wasn't too disturbed by it, if anything he felt more thankful that he was already at a higher level from the 'start' and not at a pitiable level. It would make his eventual escape much more manageable,

'But why level 14?'

He began to ponder the question for a while, 'Maybe only my soul got transferred? That would mean I possessed someone else's body, but I don't have his memories also I still look like what I look like back on earth,' He looked down and saw the hideous mark, having settled down right at his chest, 'They did say I was a special good... Wouldn't that mean I had spawned somewhere else entirely and somehow leveled up 13 times throughout my journey here?'

He shook his head,

"That doesn't make sense, no, nothing makes sense."

"What doesn't make sense, Isaiah?" Porridge asked,

"Ahh, sir, nothing..." Isaiah chuckled nervously, he found it embarrassing that somebody heard him mumble out loud, but then a thought came to his mind, "Ah, sir, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You-you said that you didn't know you could use magic before, right?"

"True..."

"Why?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Like... How come you don't know you could use magic when you could just check your status page for it?"

"Wait, wait... Hold on? The what now?"

"Status page?"

"Status Page... What is that?"

"Wait huh?"

"What did you say again?"

"Status page, do you not have one?"

"No... What is that, some kind of book?"

Isaiah was very confused. How come they didn't know what a status page looked like?

'Maybe they call it differently here, there is no way that doesn't exist if I have it.'

"Indeed it is, somewhat like that... It's like a paper that appears only in your mind that tells you how strong you are and what magic you have... Mine here says electricity and... Manipulation? Wonder what that is."

"A paper? I-I don't understand what you mean by that... What kind of paper appears in your m-mind? Also, what's a mind?"

"Brain, you know... Ah wait... Let me rephrase it. A status page is some kind of paper, that is somewhat invisible..."

"Okay?"

"The paper, only you could see it. By mind, I mean your brain, you know, where you think?"

"I think I get what you mean."

"And in there, you could see your status page."

"But the brain is inside the head, do I have to cut open my head then?"

"No... You just have to say status page in your mind, like just think of the word and it should appear."

"Okay... Well, status page?"

Silence...

"Status page? Huh, status page? Hmm..."

"Is it not there sir?"

"I don't see any... What does it look like?"

"..." Isaiah paused and was dumbfounded... 'I have a status page, yet this guy doesn't... What?'

He began to dig into his memories but couldn't exactly figure out what is the cause.

'Could it be that there is some kind of item required for it to show up, like a physical card? Or maybe it's a racial thing, but were both humans though, and same skin color too? Huh...' As he was pondering his thoughts, an idea popped up into his mind. 'Could it be...'

"Look, kid..." Porridge opened his mouth after a while, "I know you want to escape, but trust me... In the many years this mansion stood, not one person managed to escape, not one... Give it up, and just wait... You are young, and based on your voice y-you should look good. There will be many who would buy you."

"No wait..." Isaiah turned to Porridge "Just forget about that, we can still escape... Hmmm," Isaiah began to look around, "Nothing I can see here huh, anyway, sir, when does the guard come?"

"Why? You want to seduce them or something, ahahahaha! Well I mean it might work one of them is into fa-"

"Just asking," Isaiah said before he could finish

'No... I am going to level up...' He told himself, 'After all, if what you said was true, then only I have a status page.'

He felt excited after hearing of that possibility since the implications of this were too much for him to just ignore. It meant that only he could access the status page, and the systems that go along it including the concept of leveling-up, and if only he could level up then he could get stronger at a much quicker pace compared to others who will have to bring in years upon years of constant effort only to gain a fraction of what he could accomplish in a day.

However, if he wished to escape, he needed to figure out how to overcome the issue of his mana disappearing. Based on previous indicators, if he leveled up his statuses should be refreshed and by that point, he could use his magic to break the chains, even if the window for this was only a few seconds it was still possible.

That said...

'Is this even a status page?' Isaiah asked himself, rather unimpressed by the lack of information the status page had, 'Like... Is this even supposed to be like this?'

Unlike the many examples he had seen in video games and novels, his status page was rather empty. It contained only three attributes, his three talents, and two skills. But that was all.

He couldn't even see his attack power, his defense, his speed, or his magical capacity, three rather crucial statistics. The three attributes of strength, agility, and intelligence were way too broad when used in gamer terminology. Though he could see that the strength and intelligence stat is somehow affecting his HP and MP respectively, he wasn't exactly sure how or if it affected any other stat. No matter how much he divided or subtracted, he couldn't figure out how one worked with the other. Even worse he couldn't even tell if his three attributes actually affected his other stats or are they independent, reliant on something else completely.

'What is here? Hmm, is there a help button?'

He began to look around but found nothing more than what was being shown. His name, his level, his HP and MP, his stats, and his skills. That was all there was.

His eyes continued to scan his page, and when it reached the skills part, it was here he saw something new.

'Ah... Here it is, descriptions...'

[INT Boost II - +5 INT points per 1 attribute]

[Holy Blessings I - +20% Damage dealt to Demons]

[Taming I - +10% Stats to monsters tamed (0/1)]

'Okay... What is this? This feels... Odd.'

The descriptions were not descriptive, that said the names of the skills are very straightforward but what exactly they do, apart from those numbers, is questionable. The more he read and reread them the more he started to feel like he was staring at a contract chock-full of legal traps to the unsuspecting eye.

'One of them should be my cheat skill right?' Though the status page itself might be a cheat, there was nothing wrong with having one more and Isaiah wasn't content with having just one. 'At least I can open stuff up just by using my mind.'

He rescanned his status page, checking every corner to see if there were any hidden buttons but alas it was all for naught. Apart from those three description bubbles, nothing popped up, not even in the 'active' section of his status page. As a person with a hinge of OCD, it bothered him to an extent that he couldn't just help but try to fix it. He always hated seeing the lack of something. Especially when he knows exactly if it has something missing but not what is missing.

'Maybe it's only limited to my status page... Maybe the system is more straightforward than I think and so other things require no status page instead?'

Hunger and thirst were making his mind weird. He decided to change his focus and look around, only to be annoyed.

'Not even the things outside huh...' He was looking at a semi-empty bowl of soup that looked like it had left that way for days, a few cockroaches were busy feasting on its contents, yet no matter how hard he stared it didn't produce a description of what the bowl was, not even the rats gave some kind of indicator... 'But shouldn't there be descriptions, do I have to hold it with me, or maybe it's a skill issue, like I need to find or buy something... Wait, shop... Hmm?' He looked down and focused his attention on the chains holding his foot, 'Can I just store the chains in my subspace?'

He grinned and focused on the action.

"Store!"

"..."

“Store? This isn’t right... Do I need mana to store things in my subspace? But my mana gets constantly drained, right? No wait, maybe if I just constantly say store without stop I may use my mana before it gets sucked away.”

He looked to his front to allow his neck to rest and then took a deep breath,

“Store, store, store, store, store, store, store, tor for tor tortortortor.”

“Shut up, can't an old man sleep here?”

“Sorry...” Isaiah's cheeks burned red as he lowered his head. Only when silence returned did Isaiah look up. ‘So wait, he was sleeping? But why isn't it working?’

=============================
Name: Isaiah Peter Dragovitch
Level: 14

HP 32/32 MP 0/208

STR - 17
AGI - 15
INT - 52

Talents (Passive Skill)
[INT Boost II]
[Holy Blessings I]
[Taming I]
Abilities (Active Skill)
[Manipulation]
[Electric]
===============================

He rescanned his status page but found no mention of any kind of storage system. Heck, there was no mention of anything at all.

'Storages are a staple in status pages but I don't have one, not even a shop? Wait, wait, wait... I have no help menu, the system lacks complete descriptions, and there is no currency indicator or storage subspace... What useless system this is?' He sighed heavily, 'Fine, whatever, have it the hard way then... At least I have some skills, and my three passive talents are like supports for magic-based combat, and looking at my abilities, it is magical.'

Though most of his skill names are clear on how they worked, the only problem was,

'Manipulation, what does it mean? I can use electric magic, but what is manipulation? Hypnotism? Reality bending? I may be overpowered and should have some cheat-skill but reality bending should be way too overpowered, like not something I should be given... Maybe hypnotism.' He deliberated further with his mind as he tried to find out what his powers meant, 'Manipulation meant control of some sort... Override, hijack... I guess hypnotism or wait... Hmm. Electricity... Four elements, fire, earth, water, air... Electricity is definitely a fire element, so maybe... I can control the elements?'

Being able to control multiple elements is indeed great, but it's not really 'powerful'. It does give him lots of flexibility but weakens his overall impact as a jack-of-all-trades master of none type.

'Am I the avatar or something?' Isaiah chuckled, 'But only time will tell... Still gotta be able to use magic, but my mana is always 0... So how do I increase this?'

As he was thinking about his situation, he heard the loud sound of a metal door opening from somewhere down the hall,

"Wake up, wake up, wake up you schiese..." A loud rough voice boomed from that direction followed by the banging of something metallic, of course, many were annoyed by this, Porridge included, but the wardens didn't care, "Time to eat..." Announced the bearded individual while behind him a tall but skinny soldier trailed along, carrying a wooden jug that was riddled with dried marks of some kind of soup.

"Shut up! Shut up!" A prisoner from another cage Isaiah couldn't see shouted back but the bearded man took out his sword and banged it on their jail cell until the prisoner stopped complaining. "Okay okay okay, stop it! Fuck!"

"And you there... Hurry up, boy..."

"Yes... Yes sir," The tall warden hurried inside the room and placed the jug on a table, retrieving the many bowls that were hanging on his net, he began to fill them in one by one in a clumsy manner. "Son of a bitch." The warden sighed and shook his head prompting the other to shake,

"Sorry."

"Just... Be done with it, we still have plenty more to deal with."

'I can use this...' Isaiah thought to himself as a plan formulated in his mind.