Precedence

Felix and Drakon walked through the mangled corpses of the assassins as they started heading back towards Fìrma. Felix had already washed some of the blood that had gotten on him, but because some time had passed since he killed the assassins, he didn't manage to wash it all off.

Looking at the corpses that looked like they had been violently pulled apart by a giant, Drakon asked, "What did you do to the poor bastards? And where did they come from? And why did you not wash yourself right away?"

Shrugging, Felix replied, "Didn't really get the time to ask any questions. They came at me, thinking they were well hidden, and I tried a new Spell on them. As for why I didn't wash right away… I got a little caught up in my training. Speaking of which, I want to try something."

As he said that, Felix used his Band-aid on himself, transmitting the equivalent of 100 HP to himself. Then, he made another one next to Drakon, who looked at it curiously.

After a moment, Drakon asked, "Was that your healing Spell? It is quite impressive to heal so much."

"How much exactly was it though?"

"100 HP, why?"

This made Felix pause as he got his answer. Whatever resource was used, it was internal, not external. This was good.

Using the Spell a second time, Felix asked, "What about now?"

Tilting his head, Drakon replied, "Strange. It was a little less. Around 95 HP I guess? It's hard to stay at full health."

This, in turn, once again made Felix pause. He tried using it on himself again, and he was only healed for around 70 HP.

Crossing his arms, Felix's brows furrowed as he took the revelation in consideration. This meant that the resource consumed wasn't consumed at the same right among everyone. To take the fire comparison from before, it would be like Drakon had more 'air' within him than Felix, allowing him to sustain more fire, or healing.

Turning to Drakon, Felix asked, "How good are the senses of someone in the Control Realm? Could you describe what you felt when I used my Spell on you? Did you feel a difference compared to when you drank a potion, for example?"

Crossing his arms, Drakon took a few seconds to think about it, before he was able to put his thoughts into words, "Now that I think about it, it was different. When I drink a potion, it feels like Health Points are literally poured into me. With your Spell, it was like magic disguised as vitality that entered my body, and spurred my vitality, increasing my regeneration for a moment. It forced my regeneration to increase, and heal myself."

Looking at Felix in the eyes, Drakon added, "That's quite scary, actually. If you can directly affect vitality, you could seriously mess with someone. The more I think about it, the less it feels like a healing Spell."

Scoffing at his worries, Felix asked, "Then could the decrease in efficiency be because your vitality was 'exhausted'? That would explain why it worked better on you than me. The more Vitality someone has, the more I could use my Spell on them. Guess I need to find a way to transfer HP directly into someone if I want to get consistent healing."

Drakon still looked concerned though as he pressed on, "Your Spell is still impressive, and a little scary. Damage aimed directly at the vitality would ignore almost any defense, and take a set amount of HP from someone. That is an unmissable attack too, considering the speed of your attacks."

"But I was trying to create a healing spell, not yet another attacking one. I already got many of those, and you saw the results on those guys. I guess it could be an interesting subject to tackle though…"

For some reason, Drakon looked almost offended at his words.

"Interesting subject? Ignorance truly is the blessing of the fool."

"Hey, not cool!"

Completely ignoring him, Drakon continued, "You don't know how precious and rare direct damage and healing is. To start off, whatever level your enemy is, you will always deal the same amount of damage to them, meaning on damage suppression because of levels, unless there is a large difference."

Tilting his head, Felix muttered, "But my magic already does that."

This time, it was Drakon who lagged. He stared at Felix with wide eyes as he asked, "What?"

Shrugging, Felix replied, "Well, yeah. Because only ten percent of the Mana used in my Spells is mine, and the rest is made of the World's Mana, some of the system's restrictions are lifted, while others are put in place. For example, my Spells aren't strengthened by equipment. However, they also don't get weakened by Level Difference."

"And my Innate Skill is OP?"

Felix suddenly felt a spike of anger at those words as his voice rose in his anger, "Yes. You got it because of luck. On the other hand, I created my own magic, using my very own sweat and blood. Besides, if you knew what it cost me, you wouldn't be so envious."

Felix realized only a little too late he had said too much, as Drakon looked at him skeptically.

Shaking his head, Felix said, "Whatever. It is useless."

Drakon obviously was still curious about what he said, but he tactfully did not ask about it as he argued, "That makes it even better. I'm not an expert, but I know there are levels of precedence in direct damage and defense. A spell affecting vitality used through your magic is probably impossible to guard against. Same goes for your healing."

"What do you mean, levels of precedence?"

Sighing, Drakon asked, "You probably know there are some anti-healing Spells, right? If you get hit, any healing you receive is either canceled, or is weakened."

Felix nodded, he hadn't experienced any, but he did know they existed. They were quite valued, as they could make a Boss fight much easier.

"Well, what if a Level 10 uses an E Rank anti-healing Skill on a Level 300 NPC of the highest rank. Do you think it would make sense for an E Rank Skill to block an SSS Rank Healing on a Level 300?"

Felix shook his head, and Drakon added, "Exactly. That's where most of the level of precedence takes place. It is quite the convoluted subject, but basically, everything has a level of precedence, which is determined by many factors."

Raising an eyebrow, Felix asked, "Did you learn this with your Innate Skill?"

Smiling as he got what the real question was, Drakon replied, "You never told me what your Innate Skill was. Nor what this terrible price for your magic was."

Felix snorted, before saying, "Fine, keep your secrets. Are you saying that the precedence of my Runic Magic will be added to the precedence of a Spell that affects vitality?"

Nodding, Drakon replied, "It should. The two main factors to take into account for precedence are the parties involved, and the environment/element. As far as I know, Spells and Skills that directly affect vitality are the highest level of precedence possible for that second category. As for the first, the world naturally is the highest."

"In other words, my poor First Circle Spells might actually reach the highest level of precedence possible. Cool."

"Cool indeed."

Taking a step to the right, Felix suddenly dodged a glowing arrow, saying, "I kind of want to make a Spell that would damage vitality now, but it is harder to test. For the healing, I could aim it at myself and test it until it worked, but I'm not sure I want to do that on myself. What if I damage my vitality permanently."

Grabbing the air behind him, Drakon raised his hand before him, tightening his grip as a crack was heard, and a young woman appeared, her neck broken within Drakon's grasp.

"Well, I guess you would need to find something alive and that isn't moving. Maybe if you break their limbs?"

'First Circle: Fireball'

Three Runic Circles appeared a few meters away from Felix, manifesting three fireballs that flew right onto the hidden archer, killing him on the spot.

"Nah, that would be cruel. I'm a peace-loving mage."

Running at them from behind a tree, a warrior came charging at them, his sword raised high as he screamed to empower himself.

Charging his Innate Skill for less than a second, Drakon moved with a burst of speed, knocking his shoulder against the warrior's chest and sending him crashing to the ground. Planting his spear into his chest, Drakon replied, "You sure are."

'First Circle: Earth Shift'

The ground below the fleeing healer slightly moved, making him lose his balance and miserably fall. Before he could get back up, the next attack followed, beheading him.

'First Circle: Wind Blade'

The last of the enemy squad dead, Felix groaned, "I still haven't leveled up. I hope handing over the Quest will allow us to level up."

Smirking, Drakon said, "Level 25 is a threshold. After that, Common Rank monsters become nearly worthless. But with all the killing we did, we should get at least a level."

"Still, one level in a day isn't a lot. We should find another Level 50 Rank, to get a few more levels."

"They aren't exactly the easiest to find though. But if more players continue throwing themselves at us, we might get some levels out of them. Not to mention equipment."

Fiddling through the pockets of the healer, Felix nodded, "True."

And like that, the two players, now friends, peacefully returned to Fìrma.

---

Ribbit, the frog-faced website, was known as the front page of the internet, and was where much of the discussions around Epoch took place.

And recently, a special subribbit had been created.

'HuntOdinDrakon'

It had been specially created for a singular purpose, to kill the two players, Odin and Drakon, and get the 1000 Gold Bounty on their heads. It wasn't a meager reward, as 1 Gold could be sold for around 50 Euros, give or take 10.

This meant killing both of them could get someone around 100 000 euros, quite the sum of money.

When the subribbit was first created, there were only a dozen, but the numbers quickly climbed as by now, it had more than 4000 users, and the number was still rising.

Now though, everyone was watching one video that had been sent by one of these users.

In the video, night had recently fallen, and twelve assassins quickly moved through the darkness, all in stealth.

They were surrounding one unsuspecting player, who sat down next to a lake.

[Runefather Odin, Level 27, Runic Mage]

Moving as one, the twelve assassins launched towards the sitting mage, not making a sound. The video was taken from the first person, and followed the eyes of one of the assassins.

And this made the video all the more confusing. At one moment, he was running, and in the next, a blue circle filled with intricate blue lines appeared before him.

Then, the world was flipped upside down as the video was slowed down. The video showed the lower half of a body, the upper half missing. It wasn't a clean cut either, but looked like someone had twisted the body and torn it apart.

Then, as the video, which followed said upper half, hit the ground, a glimpse of the surroundings was shown. Several more blue circles had appeared, and the rest of the assassins had met a similar end.

As for the video, it was titled 'What the fuck happened?'