Remembering all of it was quite funny to Maria and Emily, but to the people who saw the transformation skill for the first time–those being Gerald, his guild members, and the Fallen Angels guild members that had been kept in the dark about their guild master’s Third Class advancement–all thought that it was a really incredible skill. No one noticed the change in Emily, however, because her skill was only a passive skill which didn’t provide any visible change to her character’s appearance.
If someone were to analyze the earlier battle and count how many times Emily used her skills and managed to notice that she was using all of her skills far more frequently compared to the other Knight-class players in her group, only then would someone be able to deduce that something was unusual about her as well.
The full description of Emily's [Titanic Order] skill was that on top of giving her a 30% reduction to all of her Knight-class skill cooldowns, it also provided her a 200% increase to her regular Health Pool and an "overload pool" of 25% of her total HP. It was like Maria's Sins series skill, [Stockpile], though in Emily's case, it was limited to only her HP and not all of her resources, but since it was focused entirely on her HP, the effects were naturally much better than Maria's [Stockpile] in that specific regard.
Additionally, it increased her VIT stat by 50%, which gave her even more HP, enhanced her Health regen by 100% both inside and outside of combat, and an extra effect called [Shield Protection]. This extra effect was the main reason why no one in the Fallen Angels and Citadel's guild parties died in the earlier battle. The effect was something that randomly triggered as an extra AOE buff provided only to her allies within a certain distance whenever Emily used any Knight-class skill.
Extra Effect: Shield Protection Description: When the user casts a Knight-class skill, has a 5% chance to create a barrier to all allies within 25 meters of the user. The barrier strength equals to 25% of the caster's total HP. Cannot be casted on the user. Cooldown: 30 seconds
With only a 5% chance of triggering the effect, one could say that the chances were quite low to trigger the effect, but since she could spam her skills more often thanks to [Titanic Order]'s 30% cooldown reduction on all her Knight-class skills, which also influenced this effect's cooldown, it triggered pretty often–to the point where it seemed pretty balance breaking.
Maria and the girls had decided that it didn’t really matter if Lizzy’s unique skill became known to others because, although it was overpowered in its own right, it wasn’t as broken as compared to Emily’s skill.
Naturally, like her two other friends, Amanda had also received a similarly broken skill as she was the first Mage-class player to complete her Third Class Advancement, and like Emily, it didn't outwardly show that there was any kind of change in her game character. The skill she had obtained after being promoted to a Void Arch Witch, the hidden class she had obtained a while back which was part of the Mage Class Branch, was called [Draconic Heart], which was basically the Mage version of [Titanic Order], and it gave Amanda a huge overall upgrade to her abilities as a Mage-class player.
First of all, [Draconic Heart]–like [Titanic Order]–gave its user a huge increase to their basic class resource. In Emily's case it was HP, so for Amanda, it was MP. The 25% "overload pool" was similarly to MP as well. The stat bonus was towards INT and the enhanced regen was towards Mana regen, and just like Emily's [Titanic Order]'s cooldown reduction towards her Knight-class skills, [Draconic Heart] gave Amanda a 30% cooldown reduction to all her Mage-class skills. In addition to that effect, the skill also reduced her casting time by 30%, and just like how [Titanic Order] had the extra effect [Shield Protection], [Draconic Heart] had an extra effect called [Multi Cast], which what made this skill incredibly OP.
[Multi Cast]'s effect was pretty much in its name. It allowed the user to cast the spell that they were using an 'x' number of times in one instance. For example, if Amanda was using [Gravity], one of the most basic Void Witch spells in her arsenal, and [Multi Cast]'s effect triggered, then one or even two more [Gravity] spells would also trigger in the area that she designated for her first [Gravity] spell.
Extra Effect : Multi Cast Description: Allows the user to cast multiple instances of the same spell that they last used
- 10% chance for a Double Cast
- 5% chance for a Triple Cast
- 1% chance for a Quadra Cast
- 0.5% chance for a Penta Cast
The damage and effects of the multi cast spells are reduced by 50% of the previous cast Cooldown: 30 seconds
It was truly an amazing skill for a mage-class player. It was so incredible that Maria felt pretty envious of her friend since she too was more or less a mage-class player. She was actually a Priest-class player, but she played as if she was a warrior or mage. She rarely used her Priest-class skills and mostly fought using her warrior-like skills and mage-like spells.
Since she had the sub-class Magus, she could be considered as a mage by other players, but in the system's eyes, she was still a Priest-class player since her main class fell under the Priest-class branch, though technically [Divine Vessel] didn't fall under any one specific main class branch. It was a high-grade secret hidden class that any player from any branch of the main classes could obtain if they fulfilled the necessary conditions like Maria did, but since her starting main class was a Priestess, the system still categorized her as a Priest-class player.
Since she was a Priest-class player by the system's definition, she wouldn't have been able to obtain the mage-class exclusive skill, [Draconic Heart], even if she had attained her Third Class Advancement before Amanda. If anything, she'll probably obtain the Priest-class branch's exclusive skill instead, but since she was nowhere near the level required for her Third Class Advancement, it was highly likely that the OP priest exclusive class would go to someone else.
It was pretty discouraging to know this fact, but there was nothing Maria or her friends could do. It's not like they could just prevent others from leveling up, so the other unique class exclusive skills would probably land in the hands of other players.
Of course, they could just take one of their trustworthy priest-class, archer-class, and rogue-class friends from their friend group or guild and bring them to the Underworld to level up, but they were already past that stage now and Lizzy thought that it wouldn't be too good for them if they monopolized all those things for themselves. Sure, they were tempted to do it, but excessive greed could land them in a problematic situation in the future.
Maria still thought that it was a shame that they'd have to leave those great skills to other people, but there was no helping it since none of her friends were willing to try and monopolize those skills. If it was up to her, then she would do it since she wanted to keep the individuals with those skills close to her as they would serve her better as allies than unknown elements. Even better if she could have those skills herself, but there was also no reason for her to be worried about getting any of those Third Class Advancement skills since she was no where near the level requirement to even initiate her class advancement anyway, so all she could do was lament about her early disadvantage of being a Fallen race player.
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After making sure that everyone was fine and that they could resume hunting in the inner layer of the island, Maria returned to Mikael’s side and continued to go around killing monsters with them in the island’s outer layer. Mikael was just a few levels shy of level 250 and once he reached that level, he could finally start his class change quest. The faster Mikael started the quest the better because it was highly likely that once he completed the class change, his level would reset to level 1 again and he’d need someone to help gain back his original level.
Naturally, his cute and wonderful little sister, Empress of the Dire, Maria, would be the one to help him after he completed his quest. Unfortunately, she couldn’t directly help him with his quest because of the quest’s requirements and the system’s restrictions. Unlike in other games, it was nearly impossible to find any loopholes in the system’s restrictions since it was all governed by an all-powerful AI.
Mikael had to complete the class change quests by himself and Maria couldn’t exploit the ‘non’ party member gimmick that could be exploited in other games in Unitale because the game’s AI, Zeus, would immediately pick up on it. Zeus would analyze the situation Mikael was in and if it detected anyone helping Mikael, it would penalize him and his helper.
Maria had read a few stories on the forums about how a few lucky people became unlucky people in the blink of an eye because they thought they could outsmart the game’s system. Their fortune became misfortune because they tried to ‘play smart’ and dupe the system. Sometimes, playing by the rules and not trying to outsmart them was the smart decision. Many people took to the forums to complain about how they failed their quest despite doing it 'alone'. They weren't in a party with other players, but they did receive help from those who tagged along behind them because they thought it was permissible.
Unfortunately, the AI wouldn't have that and immediately judged that they had failed their quest because they had received external help. Fooling the game's system AI wasn't that easy and complaining about how they did no wrong using a little bit of sophistry wasn't going to earn them any sympathy points from the devs.
After the devs reviewed what happened, because quite a few players had jumped on the wagon and began expressing their grievances, they decided to add insult to injury by figuratively slapping those complaining players in the face. Instead of reinstating their quests, they compensated the players by giving them the equivalent amount of gold that they had spent on the quest before they failed it.
This way, neither side was 'screwed over', but it was quite obvious which side was on the losing end. The players who sought to exploit the system were compensated with a few measly amounts of gold when they lost the potential of a hidden class. The devs felt no remorse or pity for those players because if they had done things the correct way, they could've obtained a hidden class.
Obtaining hidden classes in the game wasn’t supposed to be easy. If people could help others complete a quest line that possibly led to a hidden class, then more people in the game would have obtained hidden classes already. They wouldn’t be called hidden classes anymore if the methods to obtain them weren’t so "hidden".
The difficulty of the quests was what made the hidden class quest lines so unique and the devs wanted to keep things that way. Whether you were a player that was high-leveled or low-leveled, you had an equal chance of finishing the quest even if you did it alone. The difficulty of the quest was adjusted according to the player that was taking it, so it didn't matter if you were a high-leveled player or a lower-leveled player. If you followed the system's rules and did it by yourself without anyone's direct help, then you'd have a good–but not absolute–chance of completing the quest.
One could still fail their quest because it was quite difficult, but the trials a player faced throughout the course of completing their quest line would give the player a better understanding of how the hidden class they were trying to obtain functioned. If a higher leveled player helped a lower leveled player speed run their quest, then it would diminish the quest line’s value and ultimately make the lessons they were supposed to learn about their hidden class invalid.
Of course, the prize at the end wouldn’t diminish in value at all, but many among the devs thought that the journey to obtain that prize was just as valuable as the prize itself. Players could still help each other, but they were limited in what they could do. Take, for example, Maria's current situation with her brother. She was currently helping him level up to level 250, but that was all. Maria did it only to help Mikael get to the next starting point of his quest and didn't directly interfere with anything regarding the actual quest.
Maria gave her brother equipment, some life-saving items, potions, skill books, and other miscellaneous supplies that would increase his chances of completing the quest, but since it wasn't direct interference with his quest, it wasn't punishable by the system's AI, Zeus. Now this is how you should 'outsmart' the system. Mikael was immensely glad that she had a sister who could help him like this. His confidence and excitement were growing bigger and bigger the closer he got to level 250. He actually couldn't wait to see the end of his quest.
While Maria and those on the island were having a blast seeing their EXP bars jump closer and closer to 100 percent every time they killed a monster before leveling up, the rest of the player base were currently in a frenzy after the news that Maria was on Vanargand began to propagate throughout the player base. No one knew who spread this news. Not even Zhuge Lan was aware of who started the rumors which led to the current situation, because he surely wasn’t the one who did it since his faction needed to keep the news a secret because it would be detrimental to their plans to wipe out the fakes in their ranks.
Hecate wasn’t the one who propagated the news and neither was it anyone from Eos’s side, since no one on that side even knew about Maria’s presence on the continent. When Hecate and Zhuge Lan investigated things a bit further, they found out that it was the NPCs who spread the news. Word had gotten around that the Empress of the West Continent had appeared and she had liberated a bunch of werewolf territories from the oppression of their own kind and from the players who sought to exploit them.
Maria didn’t want any of this to happen, but it was extremely hard to keep the large number of NPCs she had essentially rescued from oppression and poverty in the Lycan territories that she had conquered. It wasn’t even her objective to liberate them from the Lycan society that badly ruled over them, because all she wanted to do was conquer them. She had her own agenda in conquering those outlier territories, but her agenda led to the land she conquered to develop and prosper a little bit, which caused the lives of the NPCs living there to become so much better than before.
They couldn’t help but sing praises of her and worship her. This naturally led to Maria gaining more followers in her ‘religion’ and it increased her Divine Power, but the consequence was that the players picked up on the news and figured that she was still somewhere on the continent. She had already temporarily retreated from the continent, but none of the players knew that. All they knew was that she was currently on the continent and was conquering the land. This caused many of the player factions to become vigilant as they didn’t know when and where Maria would strike next.
The Lycans also caught wind of this and they tried to take back the territory they lost, only to be met with fierce resistance from both the residents who were living in those lost territories and the Dire’s armies that were left behind to oversee its security. Many fights broke out in those outlier territories and the entire Vanargand Continent was plunged deeper into chaos.