Chapter 2 - Power scaling

2463 words

A/N : Each chapter has less and less words yikes. I will try and keep it in the range of 2.5k to 3.5k words. Enjoy!

A year has already passed since Max came to this world. His life wasn't anything special so far. Pretty boring stuff like sleeping, toilet time, crying time and other things that babies do. Frankly he didn't want to stand out at all.

For Max it was incredibly boring and so he kept sneaking out to explore the world (House). Sadly his plans were kept getting ruined by his mother. At least he finally learned the language somewhat well. And that was all thanks to the power of books.

Using his deadly weapons against his mom which obviously was his begging face on the verge of crying, he managed to persuade his mom into reading aloud for him every day before sleep for at least an hour.

With that he grasped the language and managed to learn how to read too.

After that though it started to be boring again. Thankfully watching his dad practice killed some of the boredom. Even after thinking for a long time he couldn't grasp the power which his dad used to perform the triple cut as he called it.

One day when he sneaked out again to watch his dad practice he slipped and made a heavy thump on the floor.

When Magnus saw him lying on the floor and besides him a stick he grew excited.

"Max do you want to learn dad's swordsmanship?" Said Magnus grinning. Of course he would never give a one year old a real sword. Not to mention it's probably impossible for the kid to hold it.

But learning with a small carved sword wasn't impossible. Thanks to mana, Max learned that kids grow quickly. So instead of a one year old his body was that of a three year old according to his old world's standards.

Which was a very welcomed surprise. And when Max heard that he could learn his heart thumbed out of excitement. It was a feeling he didn't feel in a long time.

He knew that this world is different and it's challenges must be too. In his old world he was like a fish in a water tank. There was no challenge, but here? A place where wounds that could take few days to heal are healed almost right away.

He really thanked the statue. Because he knew with these challenges ahead of him, he will have enough inspiration to draw without stopping.

And so his journey with a sword began. Of course it took a bit of his deadly weapons to have the permission to train. After all which mother that cares for it's child, agrees for it to be learning dangerous things?

Though it was agreed to, that he can only learn under the supervision of his dad or mom. Which he didn't have any problems with.

At first it was a bit hard to get the right balance and posture because his body was too young, but it wasn't anything that could stop him and after few days he seemed to have a perfect posture for sword training in his father's style.

Magnus was really surprised at the degree of control Max gained only after a few days. After all most children at age one are exploring their houses or stuffing everything they can see in their mouths.

He was really proud of his son at the moment and he could imagine if his son was really talented, he could soar the skies and venture into the world unhindered.

He knew his son yearned for freedom and he could feel his son's desire to see something unique and unprecedented. With that in mind he began training Max harsher than he originally wanted to. Though it took a bit of convincing his wife that it was for their son's own good.

And with that, Max began training everyday in the morning and afternoon for at least an hour in the morning and another hour in the afternoon. Though with the passion Max displayed it further increased to two hours each.

And so... Max spent few months just swinging his sword and conditioning and optimizing his body as best as he could.

He also learned about the basic power structure of this world. Here on the continent there are two basic power structures. Warriors and Mages

Majority of people believe that warriors are inferior to Mages when they are on the same power grade. But that is not the full truth.

Warriors are often weaker because of their vast numbers that grossly outnumber the mages. Furthermore for a warrior to truly fight head to head with a mage they need to master their weapon, body and skills.

For geniuses it isn't that hard to full fill two conditions but the third one is the hardest. There are very few powerful legacies amongst the warriors on this continent and because of that most warriors lack the necessary legacies to combat the mages.

There is sort of a balance between the two classes on the overall power scale.

Warriors are numerous in numbers however most of them lack the necessary legacy to fully unleash their potential.

On the other hand mages are few in numbers, but their community is tightly bonded. Thanks to that if you have talent as a mage you can learn spells to an advanced and high level.

But even if you had the talent to be the most powerful warrior, without a legacy you can't become something that the mages fear.

Warrior basic power structure boils down to 9 grades and each of these grades have a percentage of completion. You could say that a person with 50% completion could be called mid completion, but because of the legacies it all differs.

Some legacies have the so called beginner level, medium level, advanced level and completion, but all of them are of different qualities. Because of that using a percentage is a more accurate way to describe the person's power level.

If they for example are at completion 50% and are 6 times stronger than people with common legacies that could be found everywhere, then they have power level of 300%.

You may think that you could simply grade their power level on a grade higher than their own. However each grade has a different wide power gap. And so, for a genius to truly fight a grade above their own they would need 300% completion at grade one to combat grade two 0% completion grade.

And the higher you go the further the gap. But all of this is just the base. The brute strength, vitality and agility.

Techniques and skills decide the application of the base power. Which is the most advanced way to judge a person and their power. Generally techniques that require sacrifice do not count in this category as it is a limited way to express one's strength and can rapidly decrease the strength of a user or even cripple them.

It is quite complicated to count techniques and skills based on % grade when used with the base grade as using a pure power application is inaccurate.

Techniques that can multiply one's power in a brute way by 5x may be weaker than the ones which amplify by 2x with absolute control over the multiplication. That is why mastery grading over techniques exist.

It is a simple grading way. There are 5 known grades for techniques so far. From one to five, one being the lowest and five being the most powerful.

The five grades represent the limit of said legacy. Usually grade 1 legacies can boost one's power consistently while fighting by a maximum of 50%. And the legendary grade 5 legacies can go up to 1000%.

There are exceptions to this. One of the few are the techniques that require sacrifice in order to use it. The other include pure strength techniques that disregard any flexibility and focus on one strike one kill.

Of course grade 1 technique cannot give a grade 9 warrior 50% power boost. There is a limit to that.

After a warrior ascends to grade 5, the techniques at grade 1 will be useless. And grade two will basically power the warrior like grade one. Grade three like grade two and etc.

Only grades that are two below the grade of a warrior are unaffected and retain their usefulness.

And now for the mages system.

Mages have it easier than warriors when it comes to their power scaling, because it depends only on two things.

Mana and Spells. There are 9 grades for mages too, but each grade is only a way to tell which grade of spells they can cast. It doesn't matter if a person just started learning magic.

If they can cast 3 different spells of let's say grade 6 spells and can use it in battle then they would be automatically grade 6 mages.

Mages pursue knowledge and mastery over it. The spells are said to be made using ancient runes left behind ancestors.

Mages over the few hundred years combined and researched these runes to create spells. Thanks to that there are many spells. Most of them can be similar to each other in their usage, but the runes can be entirely different.

Some are tweaked to store and unleash more mana and some runes use the mana in a more mana effective way.

The spells that store and unleash tremendous amounts of mana are usually final spells used by a mage. Or can be used as effective siege weapons or against armies. Over all they are the most powerful but cost too much mana.

Interestingly enough there is sometimes a genius blessed with a body that can store or recover mana quicker than their peers. Thanks to that they can use the final spells of mages multiple times in a battle, resulting in an unparalleled mage within their grade.

There are also special cases of mages being born with a body that can purify and condense mana making it more powerful. Sadly there are no legacies known in the continent to have that power.

There are two more power structures not located on the continent. One is an eastern continent of cultivators. They are almost a combination of a warrior and a mage with their strengths and weaknesses.

There are countless number of cultivators there but almost no legacies spread on the continent as a whole. They are all concentrated within Sects.

A place where powerful cultivators guide and teach younger generations in hopes of preserving their legacy and brining glory to their families.

The power scaling of a cultivator is as random as it gets. Sometimes the most powerful of cultivators in terms of grade can be beaten up to three grades below their own.

That is near impossible on the continent of warriors and mages. There warriors train their body with their will. Thanks to that it is almost impossible to torture a proud warrior. They simply endured so much to be on the level they are, that it makes their will the most powerful in the world generally speaking.

Cultivators do not endure much. One can ascend to the highest grade or even go beyond with their talent and all it takes is meditation and the understanding of "Dao".

Though Dao is mostly understood at the very peak boosting the power of even the most weakest of cultivators.

Dao is about understanding the laws of the world which border that of mages. Both systems learn how to perceive and control laws to a certain extend. With that they gain incredible power. But there is a difference.

Mages concentrate mostly on elemental laws and advanced laws like the law of space. On the other hand cultivators focus on the sub laws first and then combine it to create a unique version of the said law.

Cultivators are more like a creator of various laws depending on their understanding of Dao.

Mages however focus on the laws created by the universe. That is also why cultivators have to endure tribulations if they create a truly powerful law.

Because they are essentially creating something more powerful than the original laws of the universe. And so the universe suppresses the said cultivator. That is where most of the powerful cultivators die.

Only the cultivators that cultivated their base vigorously and steadily have some chances of passing the tribulation. But there is one more crucial thing that they need.

That is a powerful will. Which most of the cultivators lack. Arrogance is one of the many things that corrode and weaken a will of a person, in rare cases it can result in an inner demon, which will haunt the cultivator stopping their progress for good or outright killing them.

Sadly the culture of the Eastern continent of cultivators cultivated arrogant and ignorant people. Most of them are referred to as 'young masters' and 'family/sect heads'. In both cases it makes the person slowly lose their focus on pursuing the dao.

Most of them despise the weak without knowing that each time they do so, they grow weaker themselfs.

And for the final power outside the continent lies within the continent of the God. There power is based on belief. All of the citizens that believe in the God gain a so called 'system'. The system is totally random and can range from 'Panties cleaning system' to 'Dragon slaying system'.

The ones blessed with a good system are also the people that grow in power the quickest. There is a huge downside to that however.

They are limited by the system. They cannot grow stronger than the God and they cannot accept the other three power structures at the same time. Their skills are also based around the system and one can gain more skills only by sacrificing various valuable things like herbs that can heal and power people of other continents.

Their body however rejects any kind of external things that could power the person. Like the aforementioned herbs. They can only gain power by slaying enemies which they gain 'XP' from and by completing quests issued by the system.

Overall the continent of the God is the most powerful out of the three, but also the most unstable one. Because if misfortune strucks and there are no people born with good systems the continent's power will fade.

Partially because most of the systems cannot grand more life span. Only the most powerful ones or the ones solely focusing on life span can.

Which means that a powerful cultivator, mage or warrior from the two continents can see multiple eras of the third continent.

That is also the reason why the continent of God cannot conquer the other two continents despite having the highest combat power and growth.