Broken System
"More wolves... Wolves, goblins, vampire bats... They're all basic monsters, but their numbers are high."
Aria cut down the last batch of wolves and felt refreshed as she received a notification indicating an advancement in levels.
[Level C Vampire Bat
[Level C Vampire Bat
[Level C Vampire Bat
[Level C Vampire Bat...]
[Experience points increased by 20760.]
[Level increased by 1.]
'How mundane.'
Aria was now at level 13. Killing hundreds and hundreds of monsters only increased her level by 1, making her reluctant to use mana.
She opted for honing her swordsmanship skills instead. With the sword she had taken from Jun-su, she slaughtered her enemies like a berserker, swinging the heavy sword like it was nothing.
She had discovered that her System had many bugs. Once, she complained about how long it took to reach the next level.
To that statement, Yoo Jin replied with: "Right, I'm already at Level 21, I still need around 20000 more experience..."
It was then that she realized that Yoo Jin had caught up with her level, and even surpassed her. Not only that, he was able to tell the amount of experience he needed to progress to the next level.
"You... Huh? I'm still level 13... you know?"
Yoo Jin started at level 7, but now he was already on level 21, successfully passing the third grade. The monsters he killed were not few in number, but the number was still miniscule compared to Aria. It was strange how Aria was behind.
"Huh? Aria-nim, you're still level 13??" Yoo Jin was puzzled as well.
Aria sighed. There seemed to be a new problem.
A defective System and someone who shouldn't exist. What a perfect match.
Although Yoo Jin was eight levels ahead of her, Aria knew that her combat ability was still higher through the fight earlier. Some of it could be attributed to her [Tempered Body] skill that allowed her to charge without fearing about excessive damage, which Yoo Jin did not have.
Second, her System had differences with Yoo Jin. Aria noticed that the young boy did not have the leisure of allocating his status points.
The System decided it for him, and he was treading on a path of high Strength and Vitality, normal Dexterity and Agility, and low Intelligence. This suited the nature of his power, which was morphing into a dragon. He had a set distribution ratio.
On the other hand, Aria had allocated her points based on her intuition. Most of it went to Intelligence since she figured that she would have to use magic a lot to get her Summoner ranks back up. An abundant amount went to Strength for brute forcing, some to Agility, and the rest was distributed fairly between the other two.
The changes that applied to her body once she added the status points were not simple. For example, her mana bar and amount directly increased once she upgraded her intelligence, this was an absurd thing back in Aria's time. Being able to get stronger this easily instead of training and cultivating nonstop.
'
'But the status points I'm earning is on the same rate as Yoo Jin. Five per level. If I distribute it carelessly, I will be a master of none.'
Thinking about her choices, she decided to distribute it evenly for now since it won't matter too much, and continue when she was at a higher standpoint.
"Alright, we're done resting and talking.. Let's go check the deepest part." Cleaning her sword one last time, she cringed as she felt like the blade was about to break.
The edge had dulled down considerably over the number of creatures she slayed, but Aria had forcibly sharpened it by grinding the edge against one of the wolves' fangs, hoping that it would make it better.
They had determined the door in front of them as the last stage. After cleaning up all the branched paths and finding most of them to have a dead end, one path led them to this place.
They had went through more than ten sublevels in the dungeon.
Aria noticed that monsters were not only determined by their grade, but also their various levels.
One could be of the same species and yet be stronger than their peers because of the difference in levels. As they progressed further into the dungeon, the monsters' levels kept increasing, peaking at the Level C Vampire Bat which was level 25.
'Indeed, that one surprised me a bit. Their levels are high. I was still able to beat it though, and our levels are twelve digits apart.'
'Yoo Jin is pretty on par with them for now.' She glanced at the little boy, who was sweating from the amount of movement he made.
"Miss Aria, I'm just going to warn you, but what comes after this is commonly known as the Boss Stage. The monster behind this door is usually significantly stronger than the previous ones we'd fought. It'll be nothing like the bats, wolves, and others." Yoo Jin had a grim look on his face.
"I'm at level 13, this boss should be enough to boost my experience points to level 14. There's no way I'm stopping. I just leveled up, so my status was recovered to max." Aria was not confident without basis.
She had tested the formidability of her [Tempered Body] skill. Although she couldn't control it directly, she learned that it worked like a sensor. Her skill was perfectly fused with herself.
If danger approached, she was able to sense the threat her enemies possessed right away. If she chose to face the enemy, however, the skill would provide her with great protection that scaled with the danger.
If she faced the wolves, the protection it gave was minimal, as they were not viewed as threats. However, if the boss behind this door was strong as hell, then Aria was even more excited. She wanted to test the limits of her skill, especially when it was titled MAX.
Looking at her nearly filled up experience bar, she swallowed her saliva and opened the door.