Level Up

PATH OF THE IMMORTAL—2062

GAME: You completed the Story Mission "Birth of the Immortal" on Hell difficulty. You gain a bonus of 559 Essence.

Ignatius stood in the void after leaving the story mission, smiling in satisfaction at this notification.

This was one of the two reasons he'd completed the mission on Hell difficulty.

The first reason was that the gauntlets he'd received were generated at higher power levels when the mission was played at higher difficulty levels. Since the gauntlets were never intended to be used outside the mission in their powered-up state, this simply made the player feel more powerful when they used them.

Not that players were intended to be able to beat the story mission on Hell difficulty at this point in the game. It was supposed to be a difficulty they could go back to later for the sake of earning achievements for beating every story mission on the highest difficulty.

But the second reason Ignatius had beaten it on Hell difficulty was the Essence multiplier.

Each difficulty level had a multiplier for Essence gained during it. On Easy difficulty, all Essence drops were 80% of their base value. On Hard and above, this instead translated into a bonus given 'after' the mission was completed, scaling up to 150% Essence gained on Hell difficulty.

The purpose of a bonus given afterward was supposed to be psychological. It was more exciting for players to see a giant chunk of bonus Essence at the end rather than simply getting more when they killed an enemy.

And, as it happened, Essence gained from selling items during missions also counted toward this multiplier.

Therefore, the 1,119 Essence which Ignatius had received from killing enemies and selling the weapon drop had earned him a total of over 500 additional Essence, raising his total to 1,678 Essence.

That was a pretty good haul for a single mission! Ignatius opened the game menu and moved to his inventory page.

He unequipped all of Siegmund's armor so he wouldn't attract too much attention from other players, then selected the option which would take him back to the City of Stomrus—but in the open world, the version of it where he'd be among other players.

In moments, the empty blackness swirled with radiant light as the desert sun once more shone above him and the worn bricks of the ancient city appeared under Ignatius's feet.

And now, the people who appeared around him were a mix of NPCs and actual players. No companions—almost no other players would have one yet, and teleporting to a new location banished companions by default, so Siegmund was gone until Ignatius called him again.

Many players were clustered together in groups of three or four, talking excitedly among themselves about what they were going to try next.

Since only a small amount of time had passed since the game began, these players had probably only tried a single dungeon run or Eternal Tower attempt, all of which had surely ended quickly with monsters overwhelming them. Despite this, everyone seemed eager for more punishment.

There were a huge number of Necromancers, as well as Gunslingers. Despite the existence of nine classes in the game, these two made up nearly 40% of all players Ignatius could see. These were powerful classes, of course, but people were mostly drawn to them because of the edgy "coolness" of the classes.

By comparison, Ignatius could see only three other Monks among the nearly one hundred players he passed on his way from the looming city gates back to the Eternal Shrine.

Though he'd made an impression in his waiting room, Ignatius's defeat of Daemon hadn't exactly spread his fame across the game as a whole. While the two of them were having their duel, there were probably at least hundreds of other duels happening at the same time.

A handful of players had probably been convinced to play as Monks because they believed them to be overpowered… but hardly anyone who tried out a few classes would make that assumption for themselves.

Monks were truly underpowered in the early game when it came to raw damage. They excelled at avoiding damage and managing a fight over a long period of time, and, as the game progressed, they could fill almost any game role very well.

But in the early game, nobody would be aware of this… or care.

Most people just wanted to use flashy skills, summon cool pets, and slaughter bosses with their burst DPS potential.

And, well... Necromancers were certainly very good at all of those things.

It certainly seemed like this strategy had paid off for many players. As Ignatius walked through the city and looked around at the other new players, he saw many of them wearing gear which dropped from the first few floors of the Eternal Tower, which would be where many players went as soon as they could.

In fact, the Necromancers, and the players who had formed parties with them, seemed to have the best gear out of anyone, indicating that they'd probably been able to reach a floor or two deeper than most people.

For a moment, Ignatius felt a pang of worry.

Had he made a mistake in going for the gauntlets instead of just jumping into the Eternal Tower himself?

No, that was a silly thing to worry about. This early in the game, the fact that other players were doing well meant absolutely nothing in the long run.

Before taking on the Eternal Tower, Ignatius needed to do two things: level up and buy food. Those would ensure he could stay in the Eternal Tower for as long as possible before needing to head back up, which would increase his chances of encountering rare monsters and getting better loot.

As he entered the Immortal Shrine once more, Ignatius passed a notification board posted just outside its gates.

Since players could only level up at the Immortal Shrine, it served as a hub for many game event announcements. At the moment, there were a few poster-styled announcements about how many players were currently in different game modes, as well as a tip that a certain very rare goblin could be found within the first five layers of the Eternal Tower.

But what caught Ignatius's attention most of all was the notice that the game's first PvP tournament would be held in three days.

"I hadn't thought about these things at all," he said to himself. In his first life, Ignatius hadn't cared much about PvP. Though the events gave excellent rewards, many of them were Skill Gems and equipment with effects that were more suited for PvP than for dungeons and other PvE (Player versus Environment) play.

And so it was a self-perpetuating cycle: those who were good at PvP got better at PvP. If you didn't get into the scene early, it was very difficult to do well at all. This was eventually one of the major factors which resulted in the introduction of "League Play" a year into the game's life, which allowed all participants to start from scratch and level the playing field.

"I didn't take advantage of the PvP leaderboards back then," Ignatius continued speaking aloud, ignoring the handful of players pushing past him on their way inside to level up, "but this seems like a good opportunity. I'm sure I could do well."

His duels wouldn't be as easy as they were against Daemon in the waiting room, of course. Anyone who had properly paid attention to the Necromancer tutorial would have done better than him, and anyone less skilled than Ignatius could have still lost against such a powerful early game class as Necromancer.

But… by the time the PvP tournament rolled around, Ignatius would have found enough loot to be more than a match for even a seasoned PvP veteran from another MMO coming along and asserting his dominance over this new game.

The fully powered [✵Sarexia's Gauntlets] in his inventory would be a tremendous help, of course!

So before walking inside the Immortal Shrine to level up, Ignatius signed his name on the PvP tournament's sign-up sheet.

Then he walked inside. Though many players were crowded around the slab of iron which allowed them to channel Essence into new levels, the game turned the players closest to the slab transparent as Ignatius approached, and he was able to walk right through them. This was a game system designed to prevent players from blocking each other from leveling up.

After a certain point in the game, leveling up followed a very specific formula for how much Essence was required, an amount which rose drastically with each new level. For example, it took over 278,000 Essence to get from Level 50 to Level 51, but it took over 295,000 Essence to move from there to Level 52.

In fact, it was a common saying among players in Ignatius's first life that Level 84 was halfway to Level 100!

At this point, though, the players simply weren't aware of the level curve. In fact, the first five levels had Essence requirements which didn't match the curve at all but were intended to feel like a natural progression for early players.

Ignatius put his hand on the iron slab and channeled Essence into it until he gained as many full levels as possible. Energy swirled around him five times, infusing him with a torrent of Immortal power that made the other players standing around stare at him in astonishment and speak in disbelief.

"Wow! How'd you get so much EXP?"

"He must have bought it. This game's gonna suck if the whales can be so much more powerful than normal people…"

"Come on, Mate, tell us where you got all this Essence!"

Ignatius smiled thinly at them, glancing down at the notification that had just popped up.

GAME: You reached Level 7.

Then he looked up at the players who were crowding around him. "Grinding in the Eternal Tower's the best way to get Essence in a group," he said.

Then he walked right past them and out the door.

It didn't really answer their question, and it wouldn't help the players at all if they were too incompetent to figure out how the Eternal Tower itself worked, but it was more or less the truth for normal players.

After leveling up, Ignatius had 246 Essence remaining. It wasn't enough to buy much, but he spent 200 of it on rations made up of bread, sausages, and hard cheese, then opened the game menu and selected "Graveyard of the Eternal Tower."

Time to get grinding.