On top of all of this, his damn profile listing his stats wouldn’t go away, affecting his vision.

“Hold on,” he said. “Can we backtrack a moment? I can see—my stats? Almost like a video game. How do I make them go away?”

Sakura giggled. “That would be your profile. Every climber has one. Just like every climber has a trait. As you can probably see, yours is pretty special.”

He looked at his profile once more and read over his trait.

Trait (Unique): Mimic. Unleash the last move you were hit with at double the power.

Parts of the battle with the minotaur were coming back to him now. His arm glowing yellow and dealing a devastating punch to the monster.

“My arm—it glowed during the fight,” said Max, looking at his fist.

“As did the minotaur’s arm, remember?” said Sakura. “Your trait is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. When you were hit by that blow from the minotaur, your body retained the mana from the attack and was able to manipulate that with your own mana to deal a devastating blow.”

Max lifted up his hands and stared at them. These had been the hands he had his entire life and yet he felt like he was looking at the hands of a stranger.

“Did I really do all that?” he asked, looking at Sakura. “I don’t know if I could do it again.”

“You probably can’t,” said the woman. “You’d probably heal somebody though as the last move you were hit with was a heal spell. Starting to get it?”

“Sort of,” he said. “But back to the original question. How do I get rid of this screen in my vision? It’s driving me crazy.”

“Just think in your mind, close profile, or something remotely like that and it should go away,” Sakura explained. “Give it a try and let me know what happens.”

Max took a deep breath and thought to himself.

Close profile.

The profile disappeared from his vision.

“All better?” asked Sakura.

“Yes, thank you,” said Max.

“Good,” she said. “If you want to see it again. Just like with closing it, think to yourself: open profile.”

Max scratched his head. Questions kept piling up in his head, one then the other, and by the time he got answers from Sakura he felt like he had even more. Sometimes the answers ran so far ahead of his questions, he realized there were more basic things he had to ask.

“Okay, my mind is clearing up a bit now that the damn screen isn’t floating in my vision like a fly any more,” said Max. “That’s cool that I have this profile and all, but how did I get this? You said every climber has one—am I a climber now? And—the biggest question of all—how come I can use my legs again?”

Sakura nodded her head.