"... AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS A HUGE PIECE OF SH*T LIKE YOU? THE GODDAMNED ROTTEN PIECE OF..." It's been around 30 minutes ever since he started screaming and cursing his lungs out for his extremely low potential level. While Soren was cursing, Lavenza has already grabbed a piece of seaweed so she could use it to close her ears from Soren's ear-bleeding voice.
"AND... AND I... I have... I have nothing else to say to this mess anymore. Still, how can I have potential level 1? It's like I never worked in my entire life." Soren was almost out of breath and steam from his constant yelling, so he decided to ask the reason for that.
[Potential levels are upon the birth of a spirit, so no matter how many times you reincarnate, your potential level is only one. Which is pretty low even for your world's standards.] The system commented monotonously.
"Wait, hold that last part there. What do you mean by "Which is pretty low even for your world's standards."? " Soren asked once he picked up an interestin part of that comment.
[Earth itself has much more stronger individuals with average base stats of 50-55 in overall, which compared to this world's base stats of 25-30, is pretty high. But in exchange for extremely high bases and the decent growths, it has given up the ability to use mana and its potential levels, so not only is Earth manaless, but the average potential level is a measly 6, compared to the average 30, hence why your potential level is pretty low, even for Earth's standards.] The system explained monotonously.
"Wait, Earth used to have mana?" Soren asked suprised.
[It did, at least until the era you called "The Middle Ages".]
"Alright, then what is the maximum potential level possible?"
[Level 50.]
"Why is it so low, considering that there are monsters and people who are way ahead of that?" Soren asked with a skeptical expression.
[2 reasons. One, to allow a balanced and self-sustained ecosystem with both strong and weak into the mix and two, the breakthrough from level 50 to 51 works way differently and so do the level ups from there, hence there is no point of having a potential level higher than 50.]
"Alright, then what about the level up from 50 to 51?" Soren asked with a curious but slightly confused expression.
[Access denied. You lack the the current conditions for this kind of information:
Be level 50 or higher.]
"...It was worth a shot, at least." Soren said dejectedly.
'So I have to do this "fight someone, one tier higher than you", at least 4 times and that level 50 level up kind of scares me now. Just imagining what you have to do for that.' Soren thought to himself while holding his head with his right hand.
"Alright, then the next moster that I have to kill, has to be a Ravaged Wolf, or a Mer-Hobgoblin. Talking about pain with a capital P." Soren said slightly dejected now that he had to put a temporary hold on his quest.
Just as the two of them were going on their own way, Soren then remembered something and asked in his mind:
'Almost forgot, have I missed an opportunity already?'
[You have missed one opportunity. Do you wish to know when?]
'No need. I already know.' Then Soren remembered his battle with the Undead Leviathan and felt pretty irked that he would be definitely level 10 or above, at least by now. After taking a few of the corpses and the Ravaged wolf corpse, he continued on his way deeper in the forest with Lavenza following him.
This forest had many more living creatures than the coral forest that was in the opposite direction. From small coral bushes and kelp grass, to all kinds of small critters like crabs and starfish and the occasional pink axolotl that was climbing the nearby coral trees. Soren did want to pet one, since he had never seen one in front of him, but the he remembered that it could jump at him, or worse at Lavenza, since she falls in his food range.
After around a couple of hours of wandering around, Soren and Lavenza saw a jellyfish that was as tall as an adult, sitting on a corpse of a sea wolf, so Soren decided to check on it.
[Name: Viscocious Jellyfish
Species: Mer-Beast
LV: 8
HP: 21
MP: 165
STR: 12
VIT: 7
AGL: 16
INT: 33
WIS: 5
RFL: 11
LCK: 18
S (A): Poison Stinger LV.4, Mana Ball, Mana Wall, Constrictive Grab LV.2
S (P): Mind over Body, Mana Manipulation LV.2
'Holy crap, that thing is so frail it could easily die from a swing of the sword, but the book didn't mention it could know magic, did it?' Soren thought to himself after he saw those stats.
"Let's leave for now Lavenza. I don't want to kill anything for now, unless it's a ravaged wolf." Soren said very quietly to Lavenza, before the two of them left. As they were leaving, Soren thought to himself:
'Damn, what a waste.'
After that quick encounter with that Viscocious Jellyfish, Soren realised that, unless there was a tier 2 monster, he wouldn't fight at all, which could pose a huge problem for his current quest right now. Hence, his plan was now to look for a tier 2 monster for the first couple of days and if that didn't work out, he would abandon the level up and continue working on his quest.
Time went by as the duo was swimming through the forest and by the time they decided to find a good place to rest, it was already pretty dark. Without taking the risk for now, to venture in the forest, Soren decided that setting up camp for today, was probably the best idea for now.
The duo's new objective was to find a decent camping spot to spend the night, but Soren felt like he wanted to avoid open areas. After around 20 minutes, they find a slightly open area with a big boulder that covers around one third of the area's perimeter.
"I guess we found ourselves a decent area to rest for the night. Let's set things up Lavenza." Soren said before he took out the camping gear that prepared by Rohan. The gear itself consisted of a camping tent, some red stones, a multi-tool and the lure, Soren had also put some rations to fill him during the next few days, so he wouldn't have to rely on eating seaweeds.
"Honestly Rohan, you could have put, at least a small pan of sorts." Soren said dejected while holding his head with his hand. After spending around twenty minutes or so, he had put up his tent quite nicely, but there was still the problem of the fire for the night and basic logic dictated that normal fires, underwater can't exist. As Soren decided to check if he missed something in the bag, he noticed that there was another note under the spot of where the red stones were.
"Fire starting magic stones.
They are the same as flint stones, so just knap them together and the sparks will lit a magic fire that will last for at least 12 hours. To put it off as well, you need just some water magic." Those were the note's contents.
"I guess we won't have to worry about the fire tonight." Soren said while picking up a bunch of coral sticks and a few stones from nearby. After setting up the campfire, he started knapping the red stones and sparks starting to appear after the second or third hit. After a few more knaps, a fire lit up on the coral sticks and started to burn brightly.
"Here. You are probably hungry right now." Soren said after he sat down and took out one of the ration packages thay had dried jerky and cookies. Lavenza nommed on one of the pieces of jerky happily, since she hadn't eaten anything all day and Soren was having a bit of trouble just tearing it with his teeth, so he wasn't enjoying it all that much.
"Kyyyyaaahhh~..." Lavenza yawned a bit and Soren noticed her fatigue, so he said:
"Rest for a while little girl. I'll take first watch, so get yourself some sleep."
"Kyuu~..." Lavenza answered with a sleepy expression before she entered the tent to sleep. After she entered, Soren was left alone to look after the camp, but because he felt tired as well, he also had the urge to sleep.
"Waaaaahhhhh... Man, this day had been quite tiresome, despite the fact that we only had one battle, but then again, we swimmed for quite a while before we decided to rest, so I'm not suprised from the amount of fatigue that we have built up." Soren said to himself while looking upwards.
*rustle* *rustle*
At that moment, Soren put his hand on the hilt, getting ready to fight whatever was making that voice, but after ten minutes, nothing appeared and let his hand off the sword's hilt before he said:
"Turns out that lookout might be way harder than I thought."