PenguinKills
patreon
Chapter 115 - Less Than Honorable
🕑 Added 2024-08-23 20:00:31 +0000 UTC~~AN~~
There will be two extra chapters this weekend so stay tuned for those!
~~
Jonathan's evolution carried with it a shocking revelation. Evolving both Class and Profession simultaneously did come with a bonus to the process.
If it hadn't been so cliche, I might've been surprised. This seemed on brand for what we had learned so far and wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.
After finding out it was true, it wasn't hard to come up with a reason why. From everything we have learned about this new System that watched everything we do, it all revolved around effort expended.
The System didn't do anything for free. It helped with leveling by taking a cut of the essence, the same held true for evolving. To keep that assistance you had to prove you were worthy of it.
For every bit of aid you received, there was a cost that came with it. I wasn't sure if it was a net even for the System, or if it came out ahead, but it wasn't hard to come up with reasons for why there was a bonus.
During evolutions, the System expends effort to help you through the process, whether class or profession, it didn't matter, but it aids you through it. Doing both at the same time probably saves the System either energy or power of some sort making the process cost less than doing them both separately.
Since that seemed to be the case, both evolutions cost the System less to help with. The bonus on the other hand could be for one of two reasons. One, the System wanted to incentivize evolving both at the same time, hence the bonus.
Or two, the leftover energy the system would have had to expend stayed with you, rather than being used as payment.
Finding out there was a bonus was all well and good, except it took a while to find out what the bonus actually was. It wasn't explicitly stated anywhere and it took us a minute to figure it out.
There were two things different between the evolution to E-rank when evolving separately compared to at the same time. The stat boost during the evolution and the racial boost.
Every time a person went up in rank, there was an associated stat boost to all stats. For H to G, it was 2 stat points. From G to F, it was 5 stat points.
What took so long was because that wasn't the set-in-stone rule we had assumed it had been. When I evolved to G-rank, 2 stat points in every attribute was my reward.
We were still new to ranking up and all that so when we told each other, everyone confirmed they received 2. Thinking that it was all standardized, when we evolved to F-rank we didn't think to say anything about it.
When I evolved to F-rank, I got 5 points in every stat, the same as Austin who I had mentioned it to at one point or another. After his confirmation, I didn't think anything of it.
Except now, in our questioning of what was different, Brayden and Vinny got a different boost than Austin when evolving to E-rank, even though we all assumed it was the same.
With some backtracking, we found out the reason. The rarity of the class, or profession, you were evolving into mattered. Depending on the rarity, the boost for the racial rank-up changed.
We all got two at the start because there wasn't that much of a difference between rarities at that level. One got 8 stat points per level and the other got 10. For the 15 levels in G-rank that was only a 30-point difference.
A difference that could easily be made up in other ways, like training.
The F-rank evolution was where differences started to show. Austin and I both got 5 points in every stat while Rachel, Jonathan, Vinny, and Brayden all got 4 while everyone else got 3.
It happened again at E-rank. Austin got 10 while Vinny and Brayden only got 9.
The only common denominator between everything was the rarity we all evolved into. Austin and I evolved with Rare classes for F-rank and Austin kept that going into E-rank.
Vinny and Brayden both had Uncommon professions for theirs making it clear what was happening after that.
How we noticed the discrepancy was because Jonathan got a different number than either of them. Jonathan, with a Law and Spirit Anchor, evolved with a Rare class matching Austin.
Being the same rarity as Austin, he should have gotten 10 stat points, but he got 13.
Everyone was wondering about the difference and it didn't take until Abigail wrote it all down that we found out the math behind it. The stat boost when ranking up your race was 20% of the stats per level of the class you were evolving into.
There was some rounding that happened but that was generally the case. When I evolved into the class I have now, Champion of Niflheim, it gave 24 stats per level resulting in a 5 point boost to all stats.
Jonathan, evolving into an Uncommon class for F-rank, got 20 stat points per level and only received a 4 point boost to all stats. The same held true for the Common rarity as well.
The difference this time was instead of the boost being 20%, it was 25%. Only getting a 5% boost for evolving both at the same time didn't seem like that much but you also had to consider we were still in the lower ranks.
Compared to the stat points that would be bouncing around up in A or S rank, the small amount we got per level wasn't that much. Altogether, Jonathan received 117 stat points for his evolution while Austin only got 90.
27 free stat points for evolving both at the same time didn't sound too bad when you thought about it like that. Plus, we learned that when doing both at the same time, the higher rarity class or profession was all that mattered. The boost was only from the higher one.
Jonathan had a Rare class and an Uncommon Profession but he got the stat points of his higher one.
And that wasn't even the only bonus. Jonathan got to boost his bloodline more than the other three had been able to. That one was a bit less definitive since we were unable to get hard numbers, but we were confident that was the case.
From what we had read, he should have only been able to use two Stone Turtle shells as material but managed to use 3 instead. We were lucky we bought extra thinking that could have been a possibility.
All of it added up to be a decent-sized boost for evolving both at the same time rather than doing them separately.
With all the excitement and brainstorming that the crowd turned into, I was ready to get back to what I was doing. I still needed to finish making what I was dubbing the Wind Chamber.
It didn't sound that impressive but I didn't really care about that. It beat calling it the 'room' forever.
Before I managed to sneak off back to my books, Austin stopped me outside of my- his lodge.
"Can we talk before you bury your head in books again?" He asked.
"Sure but make it quick. I'm kind of on a time crunch with this." I answered.
"With the end of the tutorial coming up, people have been... speculating. Have you heard what they are saying?" The way he said speculating clued me in on what he was referring to. People spoke in hushed whispers about it, hoping that talking about it quietly wouldn't jinx it.
"Are you talking about how the final wave will come on day 88 but we won't leave until day 90?" I asked without the usual deference. It would happen or it wouldn't, talking about it in a whisper didn't change that.
"Yes," He nodded.
Only an idiot didn't do the math. The tutorial lasted 90 days with a wave coming every 3 days starting on the first. Marking all the waves out starting on the first made the final wave come on day 88, not day 90.
There would be 2 more days of the tutorial after all the waves were over. We didn't know what they would be used for but it seemed unlikely that another wave would come.
The tutorial had held to its pattern almost religiously, it seemed reasonable to assume that it wouldn't break it right at the end. We didn't know what the last two days would be used for, but another wave was not the running theory.
Plus, 30 seemed like too even a number to break with another last-minute wave. The last wave already had so many things going for it symbolizing that it was the grande finale. I didn't think that there would be another.
Some thought it was time to get everything in order before being transported back home. An opportunity to pack everything up and take what we needed while also giving time to farm that last bit of points before the store disappeared.
It didn't matter to me which was the case, I had my own plans for how I was going to spend the last few days.
There were pylons out there that would look better conquered if you catch my meaning. I planned to try to get the most out of the tutorial prizes by conquering as many pylons as possible in the two-day span.
We hadn't solidified any plans yet, but everyone in the family was on the same page. Austin and I were able to fight pylons by ourselves while Jonathan, Rachel, Hal, and Carrie would form a group to go around and do the same.
We planned to get as many as we could.
"From what I've heard, Tracy plans to do the same as us," He said.
"So? What does it matter?" I scoffed, "She isn't strong enough to get that many and I doubt we will be able to get all 50 anyway."
There were enough pylons to go around, what did the ones Tracy would conquer matter?
"What if that Kurt guy gets involved?" Austin brought up the man in the south. Tracy was still negotiating with the man trying to merge and it was looking likely to happen.
I wasn't certain when, but if it happened, it would be soon. Most likely before the next wave.
"What are you suggesting?" I questioned. He knew that the extra 'competition' wasn't that big of a deal. We most likely wouldn't be able to get them all so it was odd that he was bringing it up.
"What if we were to be... more domineering about it?" He threw out there.
He didn't say the words specifically but I understood what he was implying.
"That could be seen as betrayal. I gave my word that we wouldn't come into conflict with her." I said, "Less than honorable almost."
"Betrayal is a strong word. I would say more like... inevitable. We are stronger than her, we could easily let her conquer as many pylons as she wants and then subjugate them." He tried to butter up the words used but it was clear to me.
"So not only are you suggesting we betray her, but wait until the last possible moment to drive the knife in her back?" I wasn't angry or mad at the suggestion, just surprised.
"Don't make it sound so bad. It isn't like we're killing her, just liberating some of the rewards she may or may not receive." He said, wiggling his hand back in forth in a so-so manner.
"Is this necessary? Must we go to such lengths for a reward we don't even know the value of?" I sighed dejectedly, "We are strong already, isn't that enough?"
"We have no idea what the world will be like when we get back. Might as well get everything out of this tutorial as we can." His voice was firmer now, more resolute.
"You know he wouldn't like this." My tone wasn't like Austin's. It didn't have the firmness, only resignation.
Austin knew the he I was referring to, "I know. I won't force you, but it is something you should think about."
Saying his peace, he let me go back to my books.
It was hard to focus on the words on the page after that conversation.
Comments
Alexander C Hyde
Saying his peace, he let me go back to my books. (Piece) instead of (peace).
Supperwaffle
I had a errant thought about how he is level locked and wasting exp what if all the exp is going towards his stat debt from his skills
Demonlord
Thanks for the nice chapter π Can't wait for his evolution ππ
