Temporary Quest: The First Lords of the 42nd
Description: Claim your own Mandate and become the head of a new Kingdom. As part of this Quest, you have been granted a sense of direction toward the nearest Mandate. This sense will only remain until the end of the Quest.
Reward: The Title of Lord. Additional rewards may be granted based on performance.
Mandates remaining for this Quest: 17/25
Congratulations!
You have claimed the 8th Mandate and quality for at least one additional reward!
New Title Acquired:
Title: Lord
Description: Be one of the few who claim a previously unclaimed Mandate and start a new Kingdom.
Benefits: +5 to all Stats, +5% to all Stats, ownership of a Kingdom.
Additional Rewards:
+2500 EXP, Upgraded Title, First Kingdom Boon
Level Up!
Level 3 to Level 4
Jordan’s vision was filled with multiple screens as the System smacked him with a rush of pop-ups. His legs still feeling rather sore from the ride here, and the fact that he was feeling a little weak from being dehydrated, he quickly sat down. The dry leaves loudly crunched as his weight pressed on them, the crown still firmly held in hand.
More notifications had already continued to appear, but the tired and now slightly overwhelmed man just shook his head. With just a thought, he had them all pushed off to the corner and minimized. For now, he’d address it all as just one thing at a time.
First things first, that absolute horde of Experience Points. Jordan sharply inhaled through his nose as he processed just how insane it was to get so much in one go. To get it himself, he would have needed to slaughter over a hundred of those Bark Snakes.
Yet something else about it was equally surprising. Despite being a metric ton of Experience, it’d been only enough for one Level. Just how much did it even take then for the next?
EXP: 1637/2025
Okay, so that was at least enough to get him most of the way there. But even so, that was quite the sizable jump in requirements for getting to the next Level. From the starting 100, then 225, 900, and now this. He would have to actually sit down and do the math from that pattern so far to find out what the next threshold should look like.
Still wild that it’s going to require a lot of killing just to reach Level 6 afterward. Just how the Hell did the top guy get there so fast? Like the only possible way would be if the System had placed him in a pit filled with a literal army of stuff to kill. Actually, you know what? That might not be that far off from being plausible, Jordan considered.
If it can be assumed that not every starting zone was magically created equal, then there would be those that had to be more dangerous than others in terms of the local animals. While the Grass Panther had decimated his group, it was true that it’d been the only threat that he had encountered so far. But the predator itself had only been Level 5, which must not be anywhere near the strongest thing on the planet. Not if there were people who could be surpassing it in Level by just the end of day one.
So if someone had been dropped in a cave or something where instead of Rabbits, the common animals were equal to the Grass Panthers, just surviving would be a nightmare. But then what if, just hypothetically, someone had killed their entire group for an early boost to at least reach Level 2? What if that group had been even bigger than his own? Which meant even more double Experience to farm assuming you somehow, someway managed to take everyone down before they ganged up on you.
In any case, while Level 4 was relatively close, Jordan wasn’t sure how long it’d take him to reach Level 5. Maybe it’d just take a lot of grinding of snakes, or perhaps this part of the forest deeper in had stronger animals. Or he could just keep getting directly rewarded by the System from future Quests, since this had now been established as a precedent for the future.
Moving on, Jordan opened the next screen.
Title Upgraded:
Lord to High Lord of the 42nd
Title: High Lord of the 42nd
Description: There are those who start a new Kingdom from an unclaimed Mandate, and then there are the truly rare few who are the very first to bring order to an untamed universe. For all dynasties to come, it is those who start from these original High Lords that may eternally stand above all others.
Benefits: +10 to all Stats, +10% to all Stats.
Holy- That’s just a bit too much, isn’t it?! Like that’s several Levels of Stats right there! And it’s just applied such a big increase to all of them, just like that?! And just for finishing one Quest faster by placing really well? Like the experience alone was amazing, but this, it’s just-
Jordan was rubbing one hand against his chin and lower mouth as he read and then reread the screen again, just to make sure he hadn’t gone insane and misread it. He was just in utter disbelief as his eyes repeatedly flicked across the text.
But wait a second. If there are eight billion people alive, and I’m specifically in the top eight. Then doesn’t that mean…? Jordan’s eyes then widened as the realization finally hit him like a sledgehammer.
“I’m one in a billion. I- I’m one in a billion!” Jordan repeated with a loud voice. In every widespread competition, there had to be a top. Those who placed at the highest percentile, or even percentile of a percentile. While many dreamed of being part of that elite few, rarely did anyone seriously expect it. But in this case, he was one of them.
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That was the reason why the reward was so out of this world. It was like winning the lottery, and then wondering why you got so much more money than the average from scratch tickets. Out of billions, only a relatively tiny amount of people would be able to claim this Quest. With an even smaller amount who would be considered as worthy of the additional reward for what the System considered as placing well.
And from the way the Description had read, this was highly limited as well. Because it’d talked about being the very first, period. Even if someone came by right now and ripped the crown out of Jordan’s hand, it might not matter as much for them anyway. Because they would still only be the second one to claim it, and not the never-repeating title of first.
“Hah! I can’t believe it! Hah, hah hah!” Jordan let out a somewhat crazed laugh filled with both his excitement and remaining disbelief. The laughter cracked at times due to his throat being sore and mouth still rather dry with thirst.
Then reaching into his pocket space, he pulled out a gem. The very first of the Advancement Crystals he’d collected, made from Audrey the Healer. Jordan regarded the small little gem, and held it up.
“It might be too early to say this for sure,” he said after clearing his throat. “But when it came to this Quest, I think I can say that I won. For what I promised before, it’s a damn good start. If this new Title gives me an edge over everyone else, then I’ll do my damndest to keep that lead.”
For now, though, he put the gem back away. Jordan then opened his Status, just to take in exactly what it looked like after the massive boost the Title had given him.
General Info:
Name: Jordan Joyner
Species: Human (Earth)
Guild: N/A
System Info:
Class: Combat Engineer
Subclass: N/A
Traits: Tech Savvy
Titles: Initial Merger, Adept of Advancement, High Lord of the 42nd
Level: 4
EXP: 1637/2025
Grade: E
Resources:
Tech Points: 24/24
Tech Points Regen: 7.88/Min
Stats:
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 33
Vitality: 35
Endurance: 32
Intelligence: 46
Wisdom: 51
Will: 31
Free Points: 5
General Skills:
Active: Appraise-E5
Class Skills:
Active: Summon Land Drone-E2
Active: Summon Air Drone-E1
Active: Zap-E1
Active: Overcharge-E1
Passive: Tinker-E1
In less than 24 hours, his Stats had ballooned massively. But aside from the boost to his Resources, it felt hard to put them into perspective. If the initial theory of base 10 for each Stat being an average for humans was indeed true, then what did that mean for him now? Was he suddenly at least three times stronger than the average, or five times wiser? Or if the curve was different than just an equal multiplier according to the difference, then could the result be even greater?
In any case, it was time to assign those five Free Points. And now that he’d leapfrogged past the goal of regenerating 6 TP per minute, it’d be potentially a good chance to switch things up. After thinking about for just a moment, Jordan went ahead and decided to put them into Intelligence.
Why?
Because his land drone basically meant that Dexterirary wasn’t needed. Since there was no world where his running would be faster than just grabbing onto it and having it flee at top speed. Then, if he managed to away, being tougher wouldn’t necessarily be needed either. You can’t get hit if you’re miles away from someone who only has a sword to swing, after all.
So the most important thing for the time being, he felt, was to increase his max capacity of Tech Points. That way if his drones got destroyed quickly by something, he had plenty of reserve TP to resummon them. The more total TP he had, the more times in a row he could just afford to spend the repeated uses from the base costs.
When Jordan did so, the percentile boosts from his Titles very quickly reminded him once more of their value. Because rather than a new total of 51 Intelligence, it now sat at 52 instead. So it’d effectively thrown in an extra Free Point for the price of five.
Finally, just one more pop-up remained. And hopefully he’d been saving for the best for last. Because surely something called a First Kingdom Boon had to be really good.
New Kingdom Boon Acquired:
Boon: Herald of Industry
Description: After the formation of the Kingdom’s initial territory is complete, this Boon shall provide the automatic building of a structure. As a High Lord, the Boon also includes an additional reward in the form of a unique construction within the structure. Of which the construction will befit the nature of the Boon itself, and will be unique amongst other Kingdoms in the user’s universe.
Note!
The first Boon of a Kingdom is always selected by the System based on the user’s Class and inherent preferences. If the user wishes to deviate away from this default assumption of their Kingdom’s path, the opportunity to do so will be given through any Boons received in the future.
As of late, the System had been feeling quite generous with providing these little informational notes. Not that he was complaining, but it just had to be noted.
That sounds… interesting. The bit about the unique construction is just a little vague, but okay. Now, System, what was that about you automatically building something for me? Jordan asked, his curiosity most certainly piqued.
In response, the cool metal crown in his hand began to feel warm. As he looked down on it, a mark began to appear on the back of Jordan’s hand. It was the same one that had the tattoo symbolizing his pocket space on his palm.
Even through the glove covering it, a golden light shined as a new symbol appeared on his skin. When Jordan took off the glove, he caught the moment that the new tattoo had fully formed and the light had just begun to fade. As the first had been in the shape of a treasure chest, this one’s purpose was abundantly clear.
For it looked just like the crown he currently held. Or rather, the one he had been holding onto, because now it was gone. The second the glow had fully faded away, Jordan’s clenched fingers suddenly met empty space before being pressed together. As he focused on the new tattoo, just like before, an influx of information about how it worked then hit his mind.
“Oh boy. This- this is definitely going to be an upgrade over just finding a cave for shelter. I need… space. Yeah, gotta stand back for this,” Jordan mumbled to himself as he then began to look around. He went ahead and ordered his drone to back away until it was next to the nearest trees. As it did so, he also walked over to join it.
Because when looking around, one would be able to note that the Mandate had been placed right in the middle of a modest clearing. Where all the trees around it formed an even circle that had them equally away from the center.
And what the System had planned in terms of the free building would be taking up nearly that entire space.