Chapter 26: Are You Sure You’re An F-Rank: Part Two

“The Warriors Association deals with all problems concerning Warriors and Dungeons in a just, righteous and fair manner.” Peyton said with a firm tone, almost conveying her pride to be a part of such an organization. “The Manager, Chadwick Sukala gathered, from the info we were given about what happened in the E-Rank Dungeon, that if you really did kill the members of the Zeke Party, then you must’ve done it in self defence, meaning you were innocent. Hence your protection, against the Reinhardt Family specifically, is of great importance.” She finished.

“’Sukala’, can it be? Old man-Gam’s brother that he only told me about once while teaching me about lying?”

“I see.” I said in reaction. “I’m flattered though, how high maintenance would one have to be to be assigned an A-Rank Warrior as a protector?” I asked rhetorically while smirking.

“H-how did you know I was A-Rank!??” She asked genuinely while looking surprised.

“My B-Rank Skill couldn’t detect you.”

“You have a B-Rank Skill?” Crap. Why did I blurt that out so easily?

“Uhh….no?” I said, hoping she’d buy it.

“You literally just said you have one.” She did not.

“You must’ve been hearing things.”

“Please stop.”

“Rats, of course that wouldn’t work.”

“Fine, I have a B-Rank Skill.”

“Okay.” Huh?

“You….don’t look as surprised as I thought you’d be.” I said in observation.

“I just saw you heal a hole through you chest a while back, so….”

“Good point.” It really was.

While she in particular was pretty quick to accept it. An F-Rank having a B-Rank Skill was believed to be… How should I put it? Impossible. Just downright impossible. Warriors can only have Skills up to 3 Ranks higher than their own. And even then, not very many. At least, 1, at most, 3 or 4. Even the number of Warriors who had that privilege was low. I couldn’t make heads or tails of why I was an exception of those rules so I simply just ignored it.

“She’d probably react differently though if I told her I have an A-Rank Skill, which I don’t believe is impossible to turn to an S-Rank. Difficult, sure, but not impossible. Well it’s not like I’d ever tell her about Bladework anytime soon, I mean, I like her, sure, but I still don’t trust her enough for that.”

“So did you know I was following you the entire time?” She asked.

“Well not the entire time. My senses picked up on your presence about a minute after I entered the Dungeon. They spiked up like crazy and my brain started throbbing. It wasn’t necessarily a your-life-is-in-danger type of warning, just a slight heads up. So I used my Skill to try and find out who it was that was watching me, but it didn’t detect anything. I knew that meant that either the person who was watching me had an A-Rank Skill-”

“Or they themselves were an A-Rank Warrior.” She concluded

“Exactly.”

“You were able to pick up on my presence with just your senses, which means that you have A-Rank level senses. Elemental Magic, a regeneration Skill, a B-Rank Skill and A-Rank level senses, I gotta ask. Are you sure you’re an F-Rank!”

“As sure as the System is.” I answered nonchalantly.

“Speaking of which, haven’t you gotten a message about the Quest you just finished?”

“Ah! Right! Thanks for reminding me.” I had completely forgotten about it, I then noticed that a message had been hovering next to me for a while now. I checked out it’s contents.

[Report. Immediate Quest: Goblin Village Conquest has been completed. Now calculating rewards…]

[Tetrax Skill has advanced from F-Rank to E-Rank. Marid Skill has advanced from F-Rank to E-Rank.]

[Weapon Fanatic’s Sub-Skill Bladework’s effects on the Subject’s Stats have increased. Effect on Strength has increased by 1700. Effect on Speed has increased by 2000. Effect on Health has increased by 1000 and effect on Intelligence has increased by 750. Now redesigning the effects of the A-Rank Bladework Sub-Skill on the Subject…]

A-Rank Bladework Sub-Skill: Effects When Active

• Strength +4000

• Speed +4570

• Health +4260

• Intelligence +6470

[Furthermore, Mana Capacity has increased by 3000. Strength has increased by 1900. Speed has increased by 2000. Health has increased by 1500 and Intelligence has increased by 1000.]

[Now redesigning overall Warrior info…]

Name: Raid

Surname: ???

Affiliation: Awakened Warrior

Class: Blacksmith

Skills:

…

•• Tetrax E-Rank: Possesses a moderate level of control over Wind Elemental Magic.

•• Marid E-Rank: Possesses a moderate level of control over Water Elemental Magic.

Rank: F

Level: Locked

Mana Capacity: 27380

Strength: 6290

Speed: 7683

Health: 9084

Intelligence: 10000

[Final rewards are being allocated. Subject has received 691 E-Rank monster cores.]

“What the!?”

“Something wrong?” Peyton asked while looking at me.

“Uhm….no…no, nothing’s wrong.” I answered.

“Something’s definitely wrong.” I thought.

“Warriors can’t see other Warriors’ messages so Peyton isn’t seeing any of this right now, but in hindsight though, this…this…really doesn’t make any sense. My Mana Capacity is currently twenty-seven thousand plus, but my Rank is still what I officially deemed my least favourite letter in the world yesterday when I chose my Class. F. Friggin’ F!”

All Ranks F through SSS have what is called a Minimum and Maximum for their Stats. All Stats excluding the Mana Capacity Stat have the same Minimums and Maximums, namely the Strength Stat, Speed Stat, Health Stat and Intelligence Stat, groupely known as Physical Related Stats. The Minimum of these Stats of a certain Rank, starting from C-Rank whose Minimum is 5000, is five times as much as that of one Rank below, making the Minimum of D-Rank 1000 while E-Rank, being exempt from this relationship, is 700. The Maximum however is one point less than the Minimum of one Rank higher, and this relationship specifically, applies to all Ranks, including E-Rank. While the Minimums and Maximums specifically, of the Mana Capacity Stat are different from those of Physical Related Stats, the relationship between them is similar, the only difference is that, instead of the Minimum of a certain Rank being five times as much as that of one Rank below, it’s ten times as much. So to clarify, the Minimum of F-Rank for the Mana Capacity Stat is 2500, making the Minimum of E-Rank 25000, while the Maximum of F-Rank is 24999.

Advancing in Rank, is a method of making sure that all Stats reach the Maximum of your current Rank. If even one of a Warrior’s Stats haven’t reached their Maximum, then the Warrior’s Rank cannot increase. If a Warrior is left with a certain number of Stat Points for one of their Stats to reach its Maximum while the others are still far off and the System grants them more Stat Points than needed for the Stat to reach its Maximum then the extra Stat Points will be terminated and the Stat in question will be stuck at its Maximum until all other Stats also reach theirs. Then there’s the Level Stat.

The Level Stat operates on a whole different pattern from all the other Stats. For starters, unlike the others, that continuously increase, it has a reset function. Its Minimum is 1 while its Maximum is 99. When all Stats have reached their Maximum including the Level Stat, your Rank will increase and it will reset back to 1. Hence the Level Stat better represents the difference in strength between Warriors of the same Rank.

“I really should’ve expected something like this to happen. Considering my Physical Related Stats have constantly been surpassing Rank Maximums, it’s a given my Mana Capacity Stat would do the same. I just didn’t think much of it because in the first place, as a result of my three year term strenuous training, my Physical Related Stats had already started off higher than average, which is the E-Rank Minimum. Because of that, the Physical Related Stats of F-Rank are unknown. We can theorize the Maximum to be six-hundred and ninety-nine but as for the Minimum, information on it is basically nonexistent. It can’t be zero though since normal human peak capabilities, speed, strength and all, have been calculated to be equivalent to fifty-to-seventy Stat Points, so F-Rank Minimum is definitely over one-hundred, as for the exact numeral however, we don’t know jack-shit.”

I instinctively put all my Mana Crystals in the Item Space as I was lost in thought.

“One thing’s for sure, all of this is happening because of my locked Level Stat. Because it acts like a gauge that regulates and measures the strength of a Warrior, the other Stats all piggyback on it when it comes to that aspect. So if it’s locked, it’s as if it’s not even there to begin with, so the other Stats start to operate on a different set of rules, rules that suggest that the absence of a gauge means the absence of a Maximum which thus means the nonexistence of a limit. In conclusion, my Stats will continue to increase, surpassing Maximum after Maximum, ignoring my Rank entirely. And as soon as I accomplish what I need to accomplish in order to unlock my Level Stat, if I had to guess what’d happen then, I’d say that my Stats will operate as if the Maximum and Minimum of whatever Rank they match with at the time are in fact, actually that of F-Rank instead, and as such, will keep advancing like normal from there. With that in mind, it’s possible for me to actually surpass the Maximum of SSS-Rank. Something not even the Six Emperors could do. Holy crud! I might just be a cheat character!”

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