"Let's continue with the Waves.

The Waves are something I hadn't expected when I made the Original system, so I had sadly no countermeasures prepared.

First, they made sure to deprive humanity of all their infrastructure, and then, they made the Waves with the single purpose to kill off as many humans as possible. They tried to throw you into the wilderness in small scattered groups while also making loads of demons in the same area to hunt you down.

The goal was simply to ensure that as little knowledge from the old world order is carried over to the new one.

Simply because when humans have an easy life, they start getting ambitious. And when they get ambitious, a 'Wife' suddenly stops being happy with just being a wife and a 'Banker' starts hunting Demons as a hobby.

That's what they don't want, so they tried everything they could to make your new lives as hard as possible.

I tried my best to fix that, but there were issues everywhere, so this turned a little sloppy. But I tried my best to give you time to prepare by leading you to a defensible position and by giving you a headstart through the settlers."

"So, the whole bad luck thing if you don't want to be a settler was your work?", Victoria asks.

"Definitely not my best work, but I needed a quick fix. And sometimes, you have to force people to be nice. I know, I was the one who made you into selfish assholes in the first place, so I can't really blame you, but you can be hard to work with at times.", the god sighs.

"And then, there is the thing with the wave levels. The thing is, they managed to sneak in a function that would make the average strength of Demons relative to the average strength of Humans.

The wave levels on the other hand, well, all your stats are raised by a number equal to your wave level, and you gain 'wave experience' just by not dying.

While getting to level ten takes only around four and a half years, getting to twenty, takes a total of seventeen and a half. It may sound like a lot to you right now to have thirty points in all stats, but it really isn't. A Tier five Class for example starts with that many points at level zero. Right, you should have seen that in your friend's status already.

Basically, the Wave level is one of two measures to raise the average strength of demons, with the other being Heroes. But we will get later to that.

Then, there are the talents. They are a bit of a curious phenomenon that I didn't expect because they are actually just how your natural talents interact with the system. All I did was making it appear in your status."

The boy takes a deep breath before he continues: "Phew. We're almost there now. Heroes! Heroes, Heroes, Heroes! They are, by far, the most annoying thing Creation did to my beautiful system.

You remember what I said about gods being unable to interfere too much with humans without asking them? Well, Heroes are what happens if a human ends up agreeing. And once they do, they are put into a position where they are strong enough for everyone to admire them and their patron gods, and think of them as having attained a unique strength no normal person could ever achieve, but simultaneously they get their ability to grow completely crippled."

"You mean their talents? Heroes really get their talents sealed away?", hearing all that, Victoria couldn't help but worry.

"Yeah. As you can see with your own, talents often have great and unique potential. But a Hero loses that potential strength that would allow them to grow further. Instead, their own talent gets sealed away and they receive the so-called 'Incarnation' ability. What it does is that it allows them to borrow power from their patron gods. Obviously extremely powerful, but as long as they use it, they don't earn any experience. They can win against the strongest Demons if their gods allow them to, but little of that is their own strength.

But that's not even everything. The basic stats that you have? You get a total of Tier times five plus five of them in every stat. Ten for Tier one, Thirty for Tier five. Point is, if you do things the normal way, they are supposed to accumulate. By becoming a Hero, they miss out on sixty points in every stat. That's Thirty-six levels worth of stats even for a Tier five.

And then, there are the Skills. For one, they get two or three 'special' Skills that work similarly to the Incarnation ability, making them stronger without it being their own strength. And for the other, the Hero Class has abnormally high Skill multipliers for every category. You can guess what that results in, right."

"High Skill levels that actually don't mean anything, but make them look stronger.", Victoria nods understandingly.

"But now the question, why are you telling me all this?", she finally asks the question she had been wondering about the whole time.

While she had an idea about the answer, she was still curious.

"Well, I want you to be my own Hero.", the god answered.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Just as Victoria had expected.

"Though, in this case, 'Knight' might be more precise. A Hero but without the disadvantages. You wouldn't get the Incarnation ability and you would still start at Tier one. But I can give you a better Class and a few special-Skills. Together with all this information, that should allow you to get very strong."

"Let me guess, the Class would be combat-oriented?"

"Obviously."

"And you would want my help to go against the other gods?"

"Sure."

In that case, she already knew what her answer would be.

"I'm sorry, but I have to decline. Though I'm willing to work together with you if you can prove to me that you are who you claim to be, of course depending on the situation."

"Can I at least ask why?", the god asks curiously.

"Two reasons. First, I don't want a different Class. You said it yourself, if I give myself to my Class I can live a happy and fulfilling, albeit mediocre life. And while I have grand ambitions right now, even I want to settle down someday. Also, I think it's going to be a lot easier to use household and fashion skills for combat, then to use combat Skills for something else. Sure, I might be able to become a great lumberjack or mine worker that way, but I don't want to be a lumberjack or mineworker.

And secondly, I don't want any special-Skills. If I get strong, I want it to be because of my own hard work. The information you gave me is more than enough to become strong. No, 'strong' is the wrong word. I mean 'the best', at everything.

I wouldn't get anything I want from becoming your knight, it's as simple as that."

"Well, that's a bit disappointing. You were pretty promising. But you said you would still work with me if I proved to you that I am Who I claim to be, right?"

Is This good enough for you?

Seeing the message, Victoria nodded. It gave him some degree of validity.

"System, grant Skill: Call: Homy, Target: Victoria Bright."

You are offered a skill:

Call: Homy

Accept? (Y/N)

"Accept. System, set target: on touch.", Victoria accepts the skill and addresses the system. Then she stands up and touches the god's leg.

Target set

"System, change name of: target to: Andrew. "

"Hey, you can't do that! Just call me by my name damn it!", the boy complains.

Set Target name to: Andrew

Accept (Y/N)

"It seems like I can. Accept!", Victoria says with a winning grin.

"Why? What do you have against my name?"

"It's stupid.", she answers matter-of-factly.

"Status.", Victoria brings up her status that had changed considerably.

Name: Victoria Bright

Waves: Lv. 0 (0/1)

Class: Wife T1

Level: 0 (0/1 exp)

Stats:

Endurance: 10 + 0 + 0

Strength: 10 + 0 + 0

Concentration: 10 + 0 + 0

Willpower: 10 + 0 + 0

Magic: 10 + 0 + 0

Magic power: 10 + 0 + 0

Talent: Learning Lv. 1 (0/55 exp)

Skills:

High-heels: Balance Lv. 5

High-heels: Surfooted Lv. 5

High-heels: Style Lv. 5

Styling: Clothes Lv. 1

Styling: Hair Lv. 1

Needlework: Sewing Lv. 3

Body: Sleep Lv. 1

Call: Andrew

One thing she quickly noticed, was that the Call-Skill didn't have a level. But considering what she had heard, it made sense.

"Right, two more questions. If the Hero agreed, could you return his status to normal?"

"For your friend? You think you can persuade him?", Andrew asks and then continues: "System, grant Skill: single-use: grant Skill: single-use: Reset Status to target: Victoria Bright"

You are offered a skill:

single-use grant Skill: single-use: Reset Status

Accept? (Y/N)

"Accept.", Victoria accepts this Skill as well.

"Once he accepts the Skill from you, he can reset his Status whenever he wants. He will lose all his Skills, levels, and Stats, but he should also get his Talent back.

Oh, right. But you can't tell him any information about the system. In fact, you can't tell anyone."

"That's going to make this a bit harder. But why?", Victoria asks worriedly. That somehow didn't sound good.

"Well, the other gods obviously don't want this information to spread. And while I made sure that they won't find out what you know, they will if you tell anyone. And then they are going to send their Heroes on a witch hunt.", Andrew explains.

"Thanks, I will be careful."

"Well then, how about I teach you some useful Skills? You would at least accept that much, right? It's not like I can choose a different Knight until the next wave after all, so I some time on my hands."

"You can't?"

"Yeah, I at least managed to put some strict limitations on the creation of Heroes at least. You can only be chosen during the transfer procedure of the wave. So even if you don't become my knight, if there is a chance that we are going to work together, I can show you some things.", Andrew explains readily.

"In that case, I will gladly accept."

Victoria may have decided to take everything Andrew said with a pile of salt, but until now he hadn't lied as far as she could tell. And while she wanted to achieve things with her own strength, he wasn't giving out free stuff, but offering to teach her, so she had no problem with that.