Feeling the onset of the familiar weightless sensations presented by the Shadow Realm allowed the party to catch their breath after the intense previous predicament.
Cynrik was the first to move after touching down on a shadow pillar by shrugging Gabby off his shoulder and releasing Benny from under his armpit. His actions caused the little girl to yelp in fear as she began floating away in the zero-g environment. Lastly, Cynrik released his grip on Brance’s shoulder and hovered in place while sitting in the lotus position.
Cynrik’s eyes followed Gabby, who was twisting in the air, flailing about like a cat in space, and a small chuckle escaped his mouth.
“Hehe, ok, quit playing around; time is a resource we don’t have.” As Cynrik spoke, he felt Brance’s worried gaze burrowing into his back.
[I’m fine; besides, we have bigger problems than me being a crazy person.]
[Once this is all over, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Cyn, and don’t act like I won’t have Mom take you to a psychologist.]
[Pfft, I don’t need a shrink to tell me im coo-coo for cocoa puffs.] Cynrik waved his hand towards his brother dismissively and redirected his attention to his status panel.
[Tobs, give me a complete summary of all the XP and Stats we received during the last battle.]
-Since the host suppressed the majority of notifications, I will compile the results. Please wait a moment.-
-Calculating total XP gain.-
-Calculating total Stat point enhancement.-
-Calculating Total Codex accumulation.-
-Calculating Total Skill Point Item accumulation.-
Cynrik closed his eyes and waited patiently for Tobs to finish her compilation. A few seconds later, he heard a ding from his system, causing Cynrik’s eyes to snap open.
-Your party defeated a total of 68 non-combative Kobolds, earning 893,500 XP, 21 STR, 17 DEX, 11 AGI, 5 INT, 8 VIT, 6 MIND, 68 KIN, 42 Tier-1 Fire Codexes, 26 Tier-1 Affinitiless Codexes, and 10 Slivers of Skill.
-Your party defeated a total of 36 Kobold Soldiers, of which 13 were Tier-1, with the remaining 23 being at Tier-2. You have received double rewards for several of these victories. Your party has received a total of 2,664,000 XP, 18 STR, 11 DEX, 10 AGI, 6 INT, 14 VIT, 4 MIND, 63 KIN, 9 Tier-1 Fire Codexes, 4 Tier-1 Affinitiless Codexes, 18 Tier-2 Fire Codexes, and 5 Tier-2 Affinitiless Codexes, 5 Slivers of Skill, and 10 Shards of Skill.-
-The overall Stat and XP gain between the two is 3,557,500 XP, 39 STR, 28 DEX, 21 AGI, 11 INT, 22 VIT, 10 MIND, 131 KIN.
With Tobs’ words, the bodies of all four children convulsed violently as the stat points were forcefully added to their profiles. Which in turn caused their muscles, tendons, ligaments, bodily fluids; well, let’s just say their whole bodies freaked out as she released the floodgates, allowing a surge of mysterious energy to enter their bodies. It wasn’t just Cynrik and Brance either; since Gabby and Benny had attached themselves to the brothers through the party system, Tobs had limited control over their systems as well. Nevertheless, she had given them the same treatment as the brothers.
The stat points wouldn’t be added to their profiles until requested by suppressing the notifications. So Gabby and Benny, who were innocent to the ways of the world, were scared shitless by the sudden assault on their bodies and were twitching like slugs who had salt poured on them. As this was happening, Brance and Cynrik, who had experienced this before, adjusted to the pain. It only took them a few seconds to end up sitting calmly.
“Calm down, don’t focus on the pain, you two, focus on your breathing, slow it down and try your best to ignore that itchy feeling. You are feeling the effects of a sudden Stat point increase right now. This is nothing for you both. Just relax and listen to my voice.” Cynrik stepped up at this moment.
He was aware of how the two children would react and once again took the brunt of any frustrations and opted to calm them down.
“Listen to Big Brother; the two of us have done this before,” Brance added in his two cents and allowed Cynrik to continue his sermon.
“Brance and I have a variant system, a special one. It allows us more freedom when it comes to things like this, so I had it suppress the majority of the incoming notifications from our battle, only allowing a select few to be administered. Once you defeat a creature, you must know that you won’t receive the boosts until you read the notification.”
Cynrik watched as the Sanfords slowly regained control of themselves and hung in the weightless space with eyes tightly scrunched up. They were listening to his every word.
“Overall, this is more beneficial; it allows for rapid strengthening and tempering of your bodies. What that means is instead of needing a long time to adjust to your new power, your body will automatically adapt to its newfound strength. Instead of needing days or weeks to get used to it, the sudden shock is like jumping into an ice bath when your muscles are sore; it allows them to constrict and loosen faster. So bear with the pain; it will be over in a few seconds, I promise.”
Like Cynrik said, within a few seconds, the pain receded, allowing Gabby and Benny to open their tear-filled eyes. The process had only lasted a short amount of time, but it felt like hours for them. Confused and still tingly all over, the two of them righted their floating bodies and assumed the Lotus pose just like Brance and Cynrik.
Seeing this, Cynrik smiled at the two children, “Good work, you two; I am proud of you both; this is the first step towards being as strong as Brance and I,” and praised both Gabby and Benny, who weakly smiled in response.
“Alright, this is only the beginning; just remember everything I taught you just now.” Cynrik paused and looked over at his brother for a moment.
[Looks like you had both of them Evo already; good, that saves us some time, did they pick Classes already?]
[Un, I had them do it earlier when I first brought up my Mana dome.]
Cynrik simply nodded in response to Brance; he approved his younger brother’s actions and had nothing to add.
“I see that Brance already had you two Evo and picked Classes; this next part is a bit tricky. As you both can already see, now that you’ve reached Tier-1, you no longer have a single Level to worry bout, but instead of two, Main Level and Class Level. From my research and what our parents have told me, It is common practice in the world to increase your Main level before Class, but we are doing it in reverse. To bring you in on my mindset, we have to think in the long term. I want you all to bring up your Status Panel real quick and follow along.”
All three of them opened their Status with a wave of their hand before looking back at Cynrik.
“If you direct your attention to your Primary Class and Distribution, you will notice something important. Every Class will give some kind of Stat benefit upon leveling up. As you increase your Class Level, this point bonus will increase to a cap of 2 free extra points in the specified Stat. However, this increase only happens when you level up your main level. So you’d be fucking stupid not to raise up Class first when you can get way stronger by doing it.”
Cynrik could see Gabby and Benny giving him a confused look, so he chose to delve deeper into his reasoning. Then, smacking himself in the forehead, Cynrik had to remind himself that he was talking to children and not adults.
“Ok, let’s put it this way. Using Brance as an example, he will only receive an added 0.1 to his STR and VIT if he increases his Main Level. BUT, if Brance raised his Warrior Class to its cap of 20 before raising his Main Level, he would instead get an extra 2 points in STR and VIT every time his Main Level increased.”
Even though what he said seemed repetitive, this time, it seemed to resonate correctly with the Sanfords, causing Gabby to raise her hand as if she was back in school, to which Cynrik nodded, allowing her to speak.
“If that’s the case, then Brancie would get an extra 20 Points by the time he reached the Tier-1 cap. So why wouldn’t people do it this way, to begin with?”
She posed the exact question Cynrik had been racking his brain about.
“Ahh, this is what I have no clue about. But, to be honest, my best guess is people usually only want to get stronger quickly, so they don’t take the more challenging path. Think about how much XP it takes to level up only your Class, from Zero to 20 is over 2,000,000 XP, then you need another 1.5 million just to reach the cap on your Main Level. Generally, you won’t get a feast as we had, and it takes a long time to store up that much XP. This isn’t even factoring in the Prestige System, either.”
Rubbing his chin in thought, Cynrik debated on whether to continue this theory or not, but eventually, after seeing Gabby’s expectant expression, he did.
“In reality, the difference may not seem that much; after all, we are only talking about an additional 20 points in each specific Stat; however, what if you have more than one Class. As you get stronger and Evolve further, you gain access to Sub-Classes. This means now, instead of only getting 20 points per Class-specific stats, your getting even more. For example, If You have a Primary Class that Gives 2 points in STR, and your Sub-Class also gives 2 points, that’s an additional 4 points in your STR each time you level up for a total of 40. It’s better to get in the habit of training up your Classes to their cap early on than cry later when everyone is stronger than you for some reason.”
Gabby and Benny both nodded; they wholly agreed with the theory Cynrik was explaining.
“With that out of the way, let’s burn some of that XP we worked so hard for. Everyone go ahead and cap out your Classes. Then, it’s time to power level.” Cynrik smirked as he watched the Sanfords impatiently squirm about, waiting for his go-ahead. His eyes drifted over to Brance, who was waiting for his orders.
[That goes for us too, Classes first, we will worry about Main Level later, we need to get both our Classes up to cap.]
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