Damn it, how long does she intend to make me wait?

Devon stood outside the entrance to Plainstown, waiting for Eve to show up. The woman was already half an hour late and had stopped opening his repeated message attempts. He had proposed the idea of the two of them clearing out the remainder of the mountain den dungeon he'd found but had never cleared, to which she'd immediately agreed.

Battle fanatic…

He truly wondered whether her zeal toward combat was a product of her nature or something she continually forced herself to strive towards due to the unique situation they found themselves in. He thought back to their first meeting and how she had pretty much immediately claimed the number 1 spot on the ladder and concluded it was more likely the former.

Of course, he would have liked to clear it himself, but that was a bad idea. With the stats and gear he'd acquired since he last went through it, he doubted any individual monkey would pose any threat. Even so, he couldn't help remembering the massive horde that had descended on him the first time he'd entered the dungeon.

He was still a far ways off from being able to fight against an army by himself. His new skills and strength wouldn't help at all if he were to get consumed by the horde.

Breathing out a long sigh, he once again went over his preparations.

He'd fully stocked up on healing items and picked up his freshly repaired armor, so he was good on equipment. Now that he'd finally distributed the crafting materials cluttering his spatial bead he was wondering if he should pick up any and all oddities he found, but if he was honest he wasn't sure what to look for.

According to all the gatherers he'd spoken to this island was chock full of useful stuff to collect, but it seemed a waste of time to bother going around asking for help to essentially level a profession he didn't specialize in.

It'd be really nice if I could find some kind of remnant of the cursed king's civilization, but it doesn't seem likely that anything survived.

So far the remnants of the architecture was all that remained from that time. He hadn't found anything useful within either the ruins or the tiles of the people who had surrounded the cursed king.

He brought up the ladder and his status just as another reminder of where he and everyone else stood within the tutorial.

[Level Ladder]

1. Eve - Level 40

2. Zane - Level 39

3. Ingrid - Level 38

4. Trey - Level 38

5. Ash - Level 38

6. Vanir - Level 37

7. Nix - Level 37

8. Kyle - Level 37

9. Darius - Level 37

10. Raphael - Level 37

Some of the names that had been prominent for so long on the ladder were gone, never to return to its ranks.

A lot of the initiates are starting to level out. There's far less of a lead between Eve and Zane, and the other elites now. There's still a pretty big disparity between the elites and the common man though.

It was only natural. There was a limited amount of prey within the bounds of this island, so it was to be expected that the initiates' progress would begin to teeter off the longer the tutorial went on for. He wondered what the average of the elites would be by the end of the next ten days, and if anyone would even be able to make it past 50.

So far the only creatures I've heard of being above level 40 are the biome lords and the ape leader I fought. It'll be annoying if most of the elites aren't mid-40s before the end of the tutorial, but it won't be as much of an issue as I'd initially expected.

This disparity in levels didn't bother him as much as it once did. The further he grew the more he realized that the further one advanced in levels the more marginal the improvements became. His initial assumption that power would ramp exponentially was based on the flawed assumption that either people would gain stats at an increasingly high rate like he did, which was wrong, or that they would have hit some other kind of boost along the way. But so far nobody had stumbled upon the next tier of classes or race as far as he could tell.

[Status]

Name: Devon Wells

Race: [E-Grade Human]

Level: 33

Class: [Cursed Warrior]

Profession: [Cursed Schemer - Level 3]

Mana: 210/210

Talents: [Spear Proficiency - Level 6], [Sword Proficiency - Level 5], [Hammer Proficiency - Level 5], [Dagger Proficiency - Level 3], [Axe Proficiency - Level 7], [Quarterstaff Proficiency - Level 6]

Skills: [Sever], [Shatter], [Lightning Thrust], [Lacerate], [Split], [Bone Breaker], [The Mask], [Refine]

Abilities: [Respite], [Small Presence]

Magic: [Light], [Fireball], [Lightning Imbuement II], [Adrenaline], [Boost]

Titles: Initiate, Cursed(3), Vicious, Ambitious, Giantslayer, Lord of Massacre, Novice Dungeoneer, Independant, Discoverer

Strength: 210

Dexterity: 206

Vitality: 199

Endurance: 198

Arcane: 202

Spirit: 46

Free Points: 160

Talons: 2875

For example, when he'd gone from level 11 to 12 he'd gotten 3 points per stat for that level, which was about a 6-7% increase at the time. Now when he leveled up he got 5 points per stat, only around a 2-3% increase. Of course, he himself got additional percentage boosts, but those weren't relevant for approximating the strength of others. He was willing to bet he was something of an extreme fringe case, a true freak of nature.

Those boosts are only going to become more marginal as levels increase. Something tells me there's some sort of threshold to pass before one's power can once again rocket upward. Perhaps race advancement?

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He did some quick number crunching. If he assumed most of the elites among the humans and the vishan had uncommon classes and gained roughly 17-18 points per level then by level 45 they'd have accumulated roughly 750 total stat points. Take that up to level 55 and you'd have roughly 925 total points. Quite a big jump, but in terms of relative distance it was only about a 20% increase.

It wasn't as significant of a disparity as he had feared in the early stages of the tutorial. It was still a large step up in relative strength, but it was by no means a gap that couldn't be crossed, especially if the humans managed to eke out a numerical advantage.

The only wild card that he couldn't predict would be what kinds of titles or completed quests the vishan had up their sleeves to boost their stats. Being from the realms beyond, they likely had access to far more opportunities and information than was available to the initiates, so there was no way he could even guess what hidden cards they had.

Even so, thinking about the averages was a reminder of just how beyond the realm of common sense he himself was. Devon couldn't distribute his free points, so when calculating his total it was better if he just excluded them from the pool entirely. That still left him with a total hovering just above a thousand.

Yes, I'm way ahead of the curve due to the unique titles and plots that have contributed towards my total, but for how long will that lead last?

His level gains would only be slower and slower from here on, and when he'd tried to initiate another plot the system had rebuffed him, saying that all of his ideas were only task level. He supposed that since the first and second steps had been completed the system considered the hardest hurdles past, and so everything else would gradually feed into the overall scheme.

This was precisely why he needed to get back to the grindstone. He could feed the flame of contempt between the two camps passively now that the fire had been lit and Trey was there to help, but he didn't want to remain content just because he had a lead on everyone else.

He could only approximate how many points people had before titles. Not to mention the outliers who had rare classes like Eve and would be even higher than his approximated totals. In fact, he was almost certain Eve was right on his tail in terms of stat total.

Speak of the devil…

Eve came sauntering up to him from out of the grasslands. She looked around, making sure there were no other unknown figures who looked like they were waiting on someone. Devon supposed this reaction was something he was going to have to get used to when he wore a new face almost every day.

"Oi, we ready to go?" She asked, seemingly impatient.

"Been ready to go for the past hour, actually. What took so long?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, things are a little crazy right now. I had to put some hotheads in their place in the wake of this stupid feud that's popped up."

"Do you think it'll escalate?" Devon asked, feigning innocence.

"I hope not, but this place isn't exactly a great spot for bringing out the best in people." She sighed, "I might need some help to calm shit down so Phil doesn't get drawn into any stupid conflict."

Exactly as expected.

Eve, Nix, and Zane were the three people Devon absolutely couldn't allow to catch onto his scheme. Nix and Zane would have the authority and power to shut it down immediately, but so long as they remained in the dark to his machinations they'd see Trey and Plainsville as a potential threat and would be forced to treat them with caution.

Eve was an entirely different case. She acted almost entirely as a loner, and the only influence she possessed was based on her reputation as the strongest. The issue came from where her priorities stemmed from.

Managing Eve was an important part of his scheme. If they lost their strongest fighter then their chances of surviving would be drastically reduced. According to the datalog on the tutorials, it was normal for a small number of additional overseers from outside the tutorial to appear to assist those present in any way necessary. If the enemy brought in a powerhouse even bigger than Val Kazar then they'd be in serious trouble without Eve, the biggest powerhouse in the tutorial.

However, her main concern first and foremost was the safety of Phil, not the lives of everyone in the tutorial.

If Eve learned of the conflict he sought to create, a conflict in which Phil's life could easily be trampled over and destroyed, everything would change. She would shift focus to finding some way off the island for Phil, or more likely she would seek to prevent it from happening at all, and become his enemy in the process.

"So where exactly are we going? You said there's a dungeon up the mountain, but you never specified where."

"We'll be stopping at a terminal nearby first. There are probably other spots on the mountain that would prove to be good grinding spots, but it'd be annoying to have to make the trek every time, right?"

Eve nodded, and they set off. Devon explained the situation with the dungeon as they went.

"Wait, you already killed the dungeon boss?" Eve asked.

"I mean, I myself didn't kill it, but I did get the assisted kill, yeah. Why?"

"Well, usually a dungeon is counted as cleared once the boss dies. Even if you only got an assisted kill I think it still should have counted you as a participant and given you the notification."

"What usually happens to the other monsters inside?" Devon asked, suddenly worried he'd accidentally destroyed the hunting ground by isolating and killing the boss.

"For naturally created dungeons like a den they stick around, I think the system just doesn't consider a place to be a dungeon unless it has a boss-type figure inside. But instances like the spirit dungeon we entered…"

"Probably collapse and take everything inside to the void when the boss dies, huh?"

"That's what I assume at least, yeah."

"Oh, wait up," Devon said, stopping their ascent.

"What's up?"

"There's a certain monster that lives around here that I want."

"That you want?" Eve tried to ask before Devon shushed her. He led the way in a meandering path until they found what he was looking for.

Three leafstags were grazing in a gentle grove. They almost looked like they'd grown out of the ground with how the vines coiled around their entire bodies.

As soon as Devon stepped into the glade all of their heads immediately turned to him and the tranquility of the scene was ruined as they were sent into a frenzy at the sight of him. It didn't matter though, level 6 creatures were no longer a threat to him, and they were each dead within seconds.

Devon threw two of them into his inventory before turning to Eve, "Do you want one? I've yet to find an animal that tastes anywhere near as good in this place."

Eve gave him a strange look, "My mental image of you out here covering in fear from the overseers at the start of the tutorial has been thoroughly ruined now that I know you were really out here being a massive foodie."

"It was just a coincidence, I swear. For the most part, that mental image is accurate. Now, do you want it or not?"

Eve looked at her system before shrugging, "Sure, I've got room."

After that, they once again set off. It didn't take much longer to reach the ravine that had been his base of operations on days two and three, and it wasn't much farther from there.

The trip itself was yet another reminder of how much stronger and faster he'd become. The trek up the mountain that had taken six hours before now only took two and a half as he and Eve proceeded at an inhuman pace.

I need to get used to the fact that this is the new normal.

They didn't bother descending into the ravine, instead choosing to walk along above it while being careful not to slip in. However, when they went down into the cave that had served as Devon's true base of operations for so long he'd started to become attached to the former spider den, he found that it was not as empty as he'd left it.

Sitting opposite the entrance on the vishan cot that he'd left behind was the reptilian form of an overseer, revealed by the soft light of the terminal it sat beside. It looked up from the terminal as Eve and Devon entered the space, and Devon felt a chill go down his spine.

There sat Kal'o Kir, the overseer's executioner.

Devon's base of operations that had been undisturbed for so long was now irrevocably compromised.