During the next few days, Mark and his family enjoyed their time in the circus. The crowd kept getting bigger since the news that the circus had incredibly unique entertainment. The funny thing was the young people began dressing up as the characters from the Star Wars movie franchise.
One could see tailors and seamstresses around the circus copying the costumes of the circus people and all of them had already seen all the Star Wars movies that the circus had shown. Most of them also experienced playing the Star Wars The Old Republic game and they copied the clothes one could see inside the game or at least they tried their best to.
The popularity of the game exploded when the first players reached the level when they could own their spaceship and travel outside their home planet. Mark was highly amused at how slow the players were but that was one of the good points for new players. They were not rushing to end game but enjoying the journey.
One afternoon while they were eating lunch at the table set in the middle of the circle of RVs, Sam, Enleed, Armina, and Blake arrived from their dungeon dive in Narcone.
“You’re back! I thought you will only stop once you reach level ten?” Mark asked his friends then he invited them to lunch. He then replicated lunch for them.
The whole group started eating when Sam answered him.
“Well, we finally reached level four after several days. I thought that just like gaming, if we focus enough and do some hard grinding, we will level up fast but we’re mistaken. Initially, it was fast enough but after level three, the speed of gaining level decreased so much that we thought we encountered a bug but when we asked some adventurers, it was the normal way.”
“Some of our new adventurer friends were extremely surprised that we leveled up so fast. I thought by now we’ll reach our goal,” Enleed said.
When Milena and the others heard what Enleed had said, they laughed.
“What so funny?” Mark asked.
“If gaining power is that easy, our world would be teeming up with very powerful beings. You haven’t reached the first threshold yet. Once you reach those, the powering up will not be as simple as killing monsters. You will need to break through the threshold by attaining enlightenment or understanding of the power your body holds including a deep understanding of the spells that you’ve learned. There’s no visible indication that you have broken through that threshold so the only thing that you can do is to try to study and understand. Once you’ve broken through, you will instinctively know then you can go powerup again by killing monsters,” Milena said.
“Are you not aware of that, Mark? Your level is incredibly high,” Nedertu asked.
“I’ve heard of people who didn’t experience delay in their powering up, meaning they don’t need to delay for breakthrough because they’re geniuses. They understand their power already. Maybe Mark is one of those,” Lisa said.
Mark and his friends didn’t say anything but they all knew the reason. Mark was blessed with a system that allowed him to level up without the need for “Breakthroughs”. All of them instinctively understood what the threshold for breakthroughs could be. Just like MMORPG, those were the levels that would allow them to advance in their profession like reaching level ten to choose an advanced profession and then reaching level twenty to choose their profession branch or something like that but apparently, in this world, it was not as simple as just clicking on their choice. They would need to study and understand.
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“We need to tell these things to Donald and Robert,” Mark said.
Suddenly, they saw the Warp Gate activated and Donald and Robert’s group exited from it.
“Mark! Why am I leveling up so slowly?! I’ve only reached level four!” Albert shouted when he saw Mark.
Mark then asked the newcomers to sit down with them to eat lunch since they had learned some information about leveling up that they needed to share with them.
Once Mark served the food that he replicated to everyone, Sam started telling Robert, Donald, and their group the things they learned about the normal speed of leveling up and how there was a threshold possibly every multiple of tens. The threshold needed to be broken through and the only way a person could do that was to achieve enlightenment or deep understanding of the power that they currently hold and the spells and skills that they were currently wielding.
“Man, I thought it would be as simple as killing hordes of monsters,” Albert said while pouting.
“You have to prepare yourselves. Some took a very long time before they broke through the threshold. I know of someone who had taken decades before he was able to break through the first threshold,” Milena said.
All of Mark’s friends became grim when they heard what Milena had told them.
“At least we have the opportunity to gain levels. Even if we remained below level ten, that power that one could wield at that level is simply magnitude above those of a regular person,” Robert said.
“I guess that it’s not going to be a problem for any of you to break that threshold. You’re all incredibly talented and highly educated people and most of our hobbies revolved around games and magic so a deep understanding of the mechanics of the spells probably wouldn’t be a problem for any of you but again that’s just a guess,” Mark said to everyone.
“That's a relief. If it comes to gaming, I’m definitely better than any regular Joe but I was worried for a bit because when it comes to anything else, I’m a bit stupid,” Enleed said.
Of course, Mark and the others protested that Enleed was stupid. They knew him since they had been gaming with him for a very long time and sometimes Enleed’s understanding of the game mechanics was truly deeper than what they had.
“Even if the leveling-up process is very slow, I want power so I’ll soldier on,” Sam said seriously and by the look of all Mark’s friends’ faces, they agreed with his best friend.
The opportunity to acquire deep mystical power was not something that was offered to everyone, even in this world. All of them understood that they would need to take advantage of that opportunity because it was the gateway to unimaginable power that could allow them to rise to the top of beings in all the universes. Everyone understood it, even Albert.
“Let’s not talk about that anymore. What are your plans next?” Mark asked.
“We’re exhausted so we’ll rest this afternoon and go back to leveling up tomorrow,” Blake said and Donald said their group would do the same thing.
“We’re planning to roam the circus and possibly explore the city of Melona,” Armina said.
“I recommend that you visit the tavern between the circus and the army barracks. It looks like an old-school tavern,” Mark said enthusiastically.
“Nah, a soldier buddy of ours said that aside from the people from the Melona army, the only customers there are the circus customers and most of them are wearing costumes from Star Wars. I want to see the real people from this world not cosplayers!,” Enleed said and that made Mark and the others laugh.
“What about your group,” Mark asked Robert and Donald.
“I’ll play with the twins,” Albert said.
“We’ll just rest inside our RVs,” Danielle and Elizabeth said.
Mark just nodded and asked Sam if he could join them in exploring Melona so everyone stood up and after cleaning up the dining table went to do their next plan.