"He teleported us?" I look around to make sure Maddy and the shadowbirds are with me, but I do not see them. "Maddy!? Where are you?!" I immediately begin to panic. Looking around I realize that I am inside a brightly lit cave. What is emitting the light is not torches or lanterns, but crystals. Blue crystals make up the whole of the cavern and emit a calming pale blue light. The room I am in seems to be a dead end with only one way out.
"This cave is strange, but I don't have time to worry about that." Rushing out of the small room I walk hastily down the crystal cavern. My mental state is not what it usually is, and this will inevitably lead to a mistake. While running down the cave I stop and remember this isn't the most efficient way to search, this is a game! There isn't any wind within this cave, but the flow of energy is unnatural. Due to the unnatural flow I believe that my spiritual essence will flow through the cavern relatively well.
'I need to find her.' This is the only thought that comes to my mind. If I got separated from the group she may have too. She is powerful against a small group, but if she were to run into a large group there isn't much she could do. Even if there isn't anything I can do to help her I would still like to try. Rather than release a small amount of my energy and let it flow freely through the cave I instead condense a large cloud of it. While my spiritual energy is not typically visible if concentrated enough it can appear similar to a mist, but of course it is not anywhere near the level of the saint experts who could cover their whole bodies in a shroud of spiritual energy. With a wave of my hands the energy is dispersed into the vast cave system.
Like a sixth sense my mind is linked to my spiritual essence and I can intuitively detect it while the density is high enough. This cavern is incredibly long. The path I am currently in spans over a mile, and at the end of this path it splits into five more paths of unknown length. My spiritual essence did not come in contact with any people or living creatures.
"Where is she, and why did that teleport spell split us up?" I continue talking to myself as a walk quickly through the cavern. While I walk I do a sort of meditative breathing. My focus is not entirely on my breathing so the amount of energy I can restore is much lower than the standard meditation, but it still restores my mana than not doing it.
In many roleplaying games enemies are incredibly common and going into a dungeon without monsters would be quite strange, but this game is quite different. I can't be entirely sure that this game is entirely different to other games because I have spent most of time learning in laboratories and the like. I guess it's a good thing that I have ventured out though because now I can gain experience.
I am rather disheartened about not finding Maddy as she graduated and doesn't have to go to the last day of school, so in the game is only way I see her unless we specifically make plans to hang out.
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"This cavern is so boring, rather than searching it for Maddy it is probably easier to just call her instead." I think out loud while continuing alone through the empty crystal cavern.
Instead of walking aimlessly through the cavern and wasting time I decide to read a few higher level books. The brief battle between saint level experts that I witnessed was incredibly fascinating, and delving deeper into such a world would not be a bad thing. The different paths the two experts traveled were both incredibly powerful, and with my special class I will surely not be any amount weaker than them at saint level.
According to the books I read every different class has three grades. There is large variety even inside a single class. One swordsman may pursue speed and strength for quick finishing moves, but another swordsman may attempt to be more of a tank with heavy armor and a shield. Having such variety between a single class the difference between different classes is even more apparent. A class such as the assassin is clearly different from the swordsman class. While both pride themselves on their one against one capabilities the assassin's forte is stealth and instant kills where as the swordsman is better at more drawn out battles thanks to their high stamina.
Bottlenecks appear at different points for different people even within the same class. The first bottleneck for class advancement is typically close to level 150. After the second bottleneck one reaches the saint level. Once one reaches the saint level they are able to separate their spirit and physical forms and conceal their physical form to prevent from receiving damage. Saint level experts are also able to manipulate their spiritual energy, but I am able to do this anyway so it does not mean much to me. After the saint level however is the level of deity. Those of the deity rank are not separated by classes like mortals. After reaching the rank of deity one's soul separates from their physical vessel and can manifest a new vessel whenever they wish. This is different from the saint ranked experts who can only conceal their physical form as their body remains intact and linked to the soul, should their body be destroyed their soul will be destroyed as well. Those of the saint rank are generally not able to use spiritual attacks that are strong enough to destroy the spirit, thus they use their spirit forms to prevent from being suddenly destroyed by saint or lower ranked experts. Deity level experts shift their focus from physical attacks to spiritually supported attacks so that they can damage a deity's spirit form.
While this may sound complicated it simply means that class rank disparity disappears when it comes to deity ranked experts as they must all change their focus to spiritual attacks. This also means the difference between power in deity ranked experts is extremely apparent.