Felix smiled and lamented, "Here I thought I was simply a nice person to talk to."

Earl Eric snorted in amusement and said, "Honesty and authenticity are two of the qualities I find the most important in men. I have Northerner’s roots, you see. So I am not going to lie to you or beat around the bush. I met you because you helped me, by helping Drakon take care of these fanatics. But as you might imagine, whatever most Tier 0 think of me and the Kingdom is none of my concern."

"Except if they happen to be a Runemaster."

"Or any kind of status that could help us. You have potential, which could come to use. In other words, you would be a good recruit for our country, and if not that, then at least an important ally. So I am extending an invitation to you, just as I am sure that Elf presented one to you."

Felix nodded slightly, seeing no interest in denying that, and instead asked, "Speaking of that Elf, Vaena… How come she is here? Not that I minded her presence, she truly was of great help, but doesn’t that go against your no foreigners policy?"

Earl Eric snickered in response, "The Queen is powerful, and merciful. When she took over the country, many of the invaders were left in our lands. The few of our people left, they were full of hatred, me included. We would have slaughtered them all, with no remorse. Yet, she let all innocents walk away safely.

"And the Queen’s current foreign policies remain the same as before. Only natives of the Kingdom are allowed free access in and out of the Kingdom. Their extended family and human merchants need verification to come and go. Experts also come into that category. As for the rest of humans, they require thorough check-ups.

"As for foreign races, they are mostly not allowed entry. They are carefully selected, and only if given special invitations may they visit. Vaena Fenìn was in that category."

Crossing his arms, Felix said, "She sounds like she belongs to an important clan in Ilin. Doesn’t that make her a big no-no in your books?"

Tapping on his metallic arm, Earl Eric groaned, "I lost my arm to a Fenìn lowlife. Any other member of their clan would be expelled from my territory, if young, and killed on sight, if older. Wars be damned. So I personally dislike the freak, but… I am willing to make concessions, for the greater good."

Smiling slightly as his impression of the Earl had considerably improved since the beginning of this discussion, meaning the man had done a good job, Felix asked, "Well, all this was certainly enlightening. I think I will remain in the city for a while longer, before leaving to explore more of the world. But I won’t forget about your words."

"Fine by me. Oh, and before I forget, your reward for the task. I did promise you one after all. Anything you fancy?"

Tilting his head, Felix muttered, "I don’t really need equipment, although I may need a new place to train my Runesmithing and abilities since I over-leveled Red Dawn… I could settle with XP too, I guess."

Smiling, Earl Eric waved his hand, making a tablet appear in his hand as he said, "You are not very picky. But if that is all that is troubling here, I think this could interest you."

Felix took the tablet, and read its description.

[Red Dawn Town Permit, Semi-Fine]

[Permit: Allows Rank 0 to stay within Red Dawn Town for two weeks without facing any repercussions from the System. Killing in the vicinity of the Town will make this permit null.]

Felix raised an eyebrow at the item and said, "That is quite the interesting item. Thank you."

Earl Eric rolled his eyes and Felix received another notification.

[You have assisted in the completion of a Quest!]

[Rewards: Red Dawn Town Permit, XP]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

Astonished at the easy two levels, Felix looked at the Earl, who scoffed, "Even if I wanted to be cheap, I would be punished by the System if I only rewarded you with that permit. It isn’t even worth 5 Silver."

Felix nodded, and sent a look at his Status.

Name: Odin

Level: 27

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Title: Runefather, Otherworlder

Class: Runic Mage

Profession: N/A

HP: 370/370

MP: 1100/1100

Vitality: 37

Spirit: 110

Strength: 52

Agility: 54

Intelligence: 100 (104)

Faith: 5

Free AP: 30

Skills: [Expand]

Equipment: [Expand]

Noticing the AP, Felix realized he had forgotten to use his AP after he leveled up from killing Yusax, meaning he had a grand total of 30 AP to use. He did not do so immediately though, and instead asked, "By the way, what is the limit of attributes earned through training at Level 50? At Tier 0, that is."

Earl Eric replied, "100. It takes quite a while to reach, and has an interesting effect on ranking up. The closer to the limit you are, the closer to 100% Mana Synchronicity you will be able to get. But at the same time, it also makes it even harder to control. Most people skip the training anyway as they already reached the cap with their AP."

Felix nodded, he did not doubt many players would skip the tedious training and directly rank up. While it may seem idiotic in the long term, ranking up and continuing to level up in the higher Tier will make one stronger faster, meaning they would be able to grab the higher tier resources.

So even if one wanted to go full training and get all their Stats to 100, by the time they managed to do so other players would probably have already reached the higher end of Tier 1, and push most if not all of their Stats above 100.

But as things were, Felix wasn’t getting beyond Level 50 for a while, if ever, so he might as well consolidate his foundation and train his attributes. And since he decided to do so, every AP he would put in the Stats that hadn’t reached 100 would effectively be wasted.

Hence, Felix decided not to add any of his AP to his Vitality, Strength and Agility as they all could be pushed to 100 by training. As for his Spirit and Intelligence, they had already reached 100.

He could hold on to his AP or put them in his Faith to keep the value where it was, so as to be able to train these two Stats if he ever managed to reach Tier 1 and level beyond Level 50.

However, Felix wasn’t going to abstain from using AP just to optimize his Stats and get as many of them as possible. If Felix ever managed to get beyond Level 50, then he probably would be able to go beyond the other Tiers, and he wasn’t going to delay all his rank ups to train his Stats. Besides, if he really wanted to min-max, then he should never spend a single AP until Level 300, pushing his Stats to their limit at every Tier, and only use all of his AP when he reaches Level 300, and couldn’t train anymore.

This was obviously not a viable way to play the game, as he probably would take years upon years of futile work before getting anywhere near the top of the game, and Epoch might have turned irrelevant by the time he achieved that goal, if he ever did. After all, the difficulty in earning AP through training seemed to rise exponentially as one’s Stats increases.

So for all these reasons, Felix did not hold onto his AP, and instead used it on his Stats. He placed 20 in Spirit, pushing it by 40 thanks to his Title, and the remaining 10 in Intelligence, making it a boost of 20.

[Spirit: 110→150]

[Intelligence: 100→120]

His MP having reached 1500, with his Inner Perfection, Felix could now regain 1 MP every 2.4 seconds. He was getting closer to 1 MP per second, and that excited him. Well, he still had some way before getting there, the math wasn’t that hard.

All he needed was 3600 total MP, so 360 Spirit. That was 210 AP, or 105 with Felix’s Title. Gaining 5 AP per level, that was a total of 21 Levels, meaning it was actually possible for Felix to reach that milestone by Level 48, if he put all his AP in Spirit from now on.

Logically, he shouldn’t do it, he needed Intelligence just as much as he needed Spirit, but Felix was only human, and couldn’t always be logical. For example, the right distribution of these 30 AP would have been 10 to Spirit and 20 to Intelligence, to somewhat equalize the two numbers. Yet he did the opposite, because he wanted his Spirit to reach 150.

Stats ending by anything else than 5 or 0 were heresy, 5 was ugly, and multiples of 50 were awesome. Of course, those were all trumped by multiples of 100.

The human mind could be weird like that sometimes.

"Now that our business together is over, Drakon did mention he would be waiting for you to contact him, once you were finished with the Dark Gate."

Felix nodded, turning towards the exit as he said, "It was a pleasure talking to you, Lord Eric. Feel free to call for me, if there is anything I could help you with. That said, good night."

Earl Eric smiled and said nothing as Felix walked out of the residence. As for linking their Communication Tokens, ignoring the difference in status, Felix would be staying in Earl Eric’s territory for now, so if he did need him, he would probably easily be able to reach him.

Besides, Felix had already reached half of his token’s contacts, so he was fine with it too.

The visit had certainly been enlightening, however. He already had some general knowledge about the Kingdom thanks to his discussions with Chris, but he lacked many details. He knew that the Queen was a badass, but only today did he learn why.

Outside, Captain Leopold was in the exact same position as Felix had left him, and he led Felix off the villa’s grounds.

Stopping at the inner wall, next to the two other guards, he made a salute and spoke louder than needed, "Thank you for your cooperation!"

The two other guards immediately saluted, their fist all making the same loud sound as it struck against their armor.

Still not sure of what he should do, he decided to do the same thing as before and simply nodded at them, before walking off, Communication Token in hand.

Thankfully, it seemed Drakon was still in the game as Felix’s token got connected to Drakon’s.

"Already finished?"

"Hmm. Where are you?"

"The Adventurer’s Guild. Come over, we’ve got to talk."

"Sure, I’ll be there in a minute."

"Copy that. Over."

Felix titled his head at the token as the link was broken. Copy that? Was Drakon in the army? Or did he use to?

Shaking his head, Felix headed for the West of the city, something very easy to do thanks to the pillars around the city.