His job growth, on the other hand, shocked him greatly. When he popped open his status, he saw that his job had hit level twenty six. Woah! Joe ended up just staring at his current status for a few moments. Man… maybe it was worth it to kill those insane monsters! Normally I would only get two levels a day. Some quick number crunching showed that it would have taken just about one and a half days per level after level twenty, but he went up seven levels in a single day. Joe seriously considered the option, but decided against it simply because he didn’t know what a spark of that magnitude was capable of. They’d been relatively lucky in what had happened today, and he’d already made a lot of mistakes dealing with a three gem slime, its growth much greater than a simple addition of a single gem. Joe had no backup if the spark had proven capable of freeing itself from the spoon spear trap. And the slime had increased not only speed, but also cunning and intelligence.

Joe decided that he would consider using this method again in the future only after being able to ask Garnedell the questions he needed to figure out the world and what was going on. Joe was well on his way to learning the language, and hoped to be able to ask his questions in another month or two. An idea for later.

Joe then looked at his available jobs, and felt a spark of hope. Maybe not too much later?! New jobs had opened up under linguist: polyglot and spell casting. Joe was very intrigued by spell casting but felt the most excitement for polyglot and realized that this must be the job that the priest had recommended. I’m going to definitely come back to check out spell casting later! It could prove incredibly useful, and Joe could only hope that he would be able to gain a language speaking skill early in the job. Man, if it’s at level thirty, that would suck! According to his numbers, making level thirty would take a bit over a month, even with his currently greatly boosted learning stats. Please be less than twenty! Or…at most at twenty!

Joe decided to try to at least figure out his experience gains, wondering if he could duplicate this insane growth. He scrolled back through the log entries looking for his kills and found a couple surprising log entries.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: You have killed a Legendary spark and gained 90,240 experience.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! You have reached level twenty one!

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! For defeating a Legendary Spark, you have gained the title: Legendary Spark Killer.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! For defeating a Legendary monster, you have gained the title: Legendary Monster Killer.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: You have killed a Legendary spark and gained 103,040 experience.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! You have reached level twenty two!

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! For defeating a Legendary Spark, you have gained the title: Legendary Spark Killer (*2).

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! For defeating a Legendary monster, you have gained the title: Legendary Monster Killer (*2).

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: First time Kill: Legendary monster bonus: 193,280 experience.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Monster group kill bonus: 386,560 experience.

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! You have reached level twenty six!

Log Entry: (SY 55.5 – 4.36) (10:36) :: Congratulations! You have unlocked the job: Spell Caster!

Well… that’s… a lot to take in! Joe stared at the entries with a bit of glee brushed with shock. He was happy for his gains, but it looked like they weren’t quite repeatable. The biggest boost that he’d gotten was from the monster group kill, which gave Joe hope he could continue doing this, but the problem was that it looked like it was simply a multiplier on what he’d gained before. His total gains from the two kills was 193,280 experience. Both the first time kill and group kill bonuses seemed to simply multiple what he’d gained by two. The total experience gain was just a series of multiples of two. His total gain from the kill was 193,000. His first time kill was also 193,000; essentially a doubling of his kill experience. His group kill bonus was double that: 386,000. If I didn’t get the first time kill bonus, then I would have probably only gotten 193,000 experience from the group kill bonus. Joe’s glum thoughts left him a bit frustrated, and he could only think this way simply because the system seemed too skewed towards screwing over the players, especially if the players didn’t understand the consequences of what they were doing. Or the person who set this up thought this was the best way to screw people over but just didn’t understand how significant a ten percent bonus to stats per job per level really was? The whole thing smacked of an oppressive system designed by a person who didn’t know math. Or designed for people deliberately uneducated?

Joe left his thoughts to the side, making sure to record them in his notebook but otherwise put them aside. There was no gain to ponder it too long. Joe instead went back to running the numbers on his experience gains from just killing the two sparks. He had to go back and figure out what his learning had been, running the numbers for his base stats and what gains he would have had at the levels listed in his log entries. Finding the learning stat turned out to be most frustrating, and when he double checked it with his current learning, he realized that he was off. It took him a bit of time to realize he’d forgotten to add the fifty percent bonus he’d gained from his specialist skill and reran the numbers.

Satisfied with what he’d found, he took his experience and divided it by his learning and found that Legendary monsters seemed to give two hundred fifty six experience each. Both kills verified this and Joe found some hope that the experience gains the monsters gave weren’t simply an extra point per gem level. He couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but the first three gem levels were just a single point difference each: one gem creatures gave one experience, two gave two, and three gems gave three. But somewhere in that mix, they started growing quite a bit more drastically. Just gotta up my game then, I guess?

Joe then turned to trying to find any information about his new titles. He started perusing his tabs looking for where he could find information on titles when he found it under his blessings tab. Huh… I guess this lists blessings and titles? There were two new entries: Legendary Spark Killer (T) *2 and Legendary Monster Killer (T) *2. Well… let’s see what they do? Joe clicked on both of them and studied the information.

Legendary Spark Killer (Title) (*2): You have killed a Legendary Spark. With this, your name will resound through the cosmos as the multitudes shudder under your great strength. All lightning creatures quake under you skill and will find their strengths reduced by one percent (*2) (maximum fifty percent) without reducing experience gain.

Legendary Monster Killer (Title) (*2): You have killed a Legendary Monster. With this, your name will resound through the cosmos as the multitudes shudder under your great strength. All experience gains increased by one percent (*2).

The first title was basically useless for now but being able to make them weaker by half! I’m going to have to kill some more legendary sparks! If I do that… The possibilities whirled through his head, and the idea of cutting a monsters stats in half was enticing. If it’s anything like how people seemed to operate, halving capabilities would be significant. Well, at least the lightning ones! Heh! It was the second one that really brought Joe to startled awareness. Serious! A one percent boost to experience gain per kill? It’s per kill, right! Gotta be! Another one percent every time I kill a legendary?! That’s why there’s the (*2) after the name. It’s gotta be! Right!? I’m going to have to check the numbers tomorrow. I should be able to see it, right?

Joe considered his numbers and quickly came to the conclusion that he would be able to easily catch the experience discrepancy. He was getting one experience per spark at the moment, and so his experience gain was exactly his current learning stat. He just had to see if it was a bit higher or not, and by how much. His current learning was almost five hundred. A one percent gain would give him five more experience, and two percent would give him ten more. Five hundred versus five hundred five versus five hundred ten would be very easy to see. He just had to look in his log entry to see what his kill would gain him. Although, my learning’s going to take a huge hit when I swap out for a new level one job tomorrow!

If the legendary monster killer title turned out to be a multiplier for each time he killed a legendary monster, Joe seriously reconsidered his plan to not create more legendary sparks. His growth would only be insane while simultaneously increasing his growth capabilities. But Joe recognized that things had seemed to be a bit different at the dungeon and the inn tonight, and caution drove him to just wait one more job. He’d be able to speak freely with Garnedell in just another day or two. He could afford to wait. Just gotta wait till tomorrow. Maybe two days. Not long tomorrow. Polyglot, here I come.

Status

Blessings

Current Job

Available Jobs

Current Skills

Available Skills

Log

Joe McConnell

Status

Physical Resistances

Magical Resistances

HP

26.00

Physical:

MP

26.00

Piercing

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

0.00

Attack

26.00

Crushing

0.00

Defense

26.00

Slashing

0.00

Magic

26.00

Magic Defense

26.00

Strength

26.00

Dexterity

26.00

Agility

26.00

Linguist

26

Speed

26.00

Endurance

26.00

IQ

312.00

Wisdom

208.00

Learning

260.00

Luck

0.00