Eddie said nothing else as he went back to his room and returned after a couple of seconds with a backpack. He then motioned to Zarin to follow him, and they went out of the house and headed to the east side of the town.
Zarin followed him without saying anything, but as they exited the house, a notification appeared in front of him.
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PARTY MODE is ENABLED
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[Knowledge-Otherworlders] 's progress increased to 26%
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Do you want to invite Eddie (Lvl 24 Shaman) to your Party?
YES/NO
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The moment he finished reading the notification, Zarin stopped where he was.
He knew Otherworlders could create parties like how one could into a video game, but until now, he didn't know precisely how he could do so. So the increase in his [Knowledge - Otherworlders] from 25% to 26% was anything he needed to know about Party Mode, how it worked, and its effects on others.
It was a valuable tool to have, not just for Zarin but also for the rest of the party members.
Unlike Zarin, who could raise his level by killing monsters or completing the Quests of others, everyone else could do so. So, a person who didn't have the System of the Otherworlders, to raise their power aura, aka their level, needed to train to understand all the knowledge and techniques that Zarin was just getting from raising his Skills or learning new ones.
But the Party Mode was something that could change that. The people Zarin would have at his parties would start getting experiences from killing monsters just like Zarin did and even raise their level that way.
But once they leveled up, they would earn only one stat point instead of 3 like Zarin, even so, that could make a vast difference. For a non-Otherworlder person to raise their stats, it would take weeks of training at an early level. After that, the amount of time needed later would increase and become more challenging with each level up.
People couldn't see their stats like Zarin did since they didn't have access to their Status Window, but Party members could do so. Of course, adding someone to his Party would be the same as giving them a less powerful System. Still, those few functions could turn a simple peasant into a warrior of great power, given enough time.
But what surprised Zarin most of all was the level of Eddie.
When he first met Eddie, he looked to be a person with no level. Then when Zarin rescued him from Oriel, he saw that his level was 6, and now the notification told him that he was actually Lvl 24.
After Eddie had rested once more, and even now, Zarin couldn't see his level, so he was confident that Eddie had a way to hide it. But even so, he couldn't understand why before he saw that he was level 6 instead of 24.
'Could it be that they had somehow temporarily weakened him? '
Zarin knew that there was no way Oriel could handle someone of that level, even with the help of all the guards of the town.
Level 24 was just one level to pass the bottleneck of the D-Rank Class' Basic State and reach its Advanced State. Even if when one reached level 25, their Class couldn't evolve into a C-Rank Class, its effects on Stats and Skills would increase manifolds.
For a person to evolve their Class, they had to reach at least level 75, which was also when a Basic Class would be at its Master State. The max level of the D-Rank classes was level 100, and the higher the level, the greater the chance to succeed in evolving it in C-Rank.
Still, after level 75, even for Otherworlders wasn't easy to level up quickly. However, their rate would still be faster than that of ordinary people. Other than level, to evolve a class, they would need to complete a set of tasks depending on their current Class and actions till that moment. Then, depending on how one completed those tasks, the System would pick different Classes of higher rank as possible choices.
Of course, that was the case for Otherwolders, as for the rest to evolve their Class was much more troublesome. Still, the Party Mode would help those people to get closer to that point faster. Even if a set of tasks were given to them when reaching level 75, reaching that point would still make it easier to learn from people with evolved classes they wanted to earn or study said classes from other sources.
As for Zarin, even if he didn't have a normal D-Rank Class, that didn't mean his Class wouldn't evolve. He just would have more options than others, but what those options would be, he couldn't know yet.
'My Knowledge increased only 1% by all of that? How much more do I need to find out? '
Everything he learned from the Journal led him to raise it to 25%. It mainly contained information about how Skills worked and very little information on the Stats. Everything else in it talked about the places and monsters that Lady Emlyn's father faced. Still, those didn't count on the increase in the [Knowledge-Otherworlders].
"Why are you not moving? We have to hurry. "
Hearing Eddie's voice brought Zarin out of his intense thinking. But he still had to choose over the notification that started it all.
He looked at Eddie for a moment, then back to the notification panel, and finally made his choice.
As he did so, Eddie's eyes got wide, and he jumped back as he got surprised by something in front of him. Eddie, for a moment, looked at a space in front of him and then turned his gaze towards Zarin.
"What did you do? What is that Party? "
Eddie had received a notification letting him know that Zarin had added him to his Party. But, of course, the sudden appearance of the panel, which he had never had in the past, was why he got shocked like that.
Zarin gave him a brief explanation of the Party Mode and how it would help Eddie raise his level. Zarin didn't mention that he could see Eddie's actual level, though, as he wanted to see when and if Eddie would reveal it himself.
Eddie, of course, seemed to be reluctant to believe that he could become more substantial just like that, but he said nothing. Still, Zarin could read him quickly, or Eddie couldn't lie easily to him — he wasn't confident, which was the case.
"Either way, we should move. We may know soon if it works as you said, as we will have to fight a bit in the forest. "
"Fight? I thought there were no Demonic Beasts in the forest. Even the ordinary beast avoids this place. "
Zarin still didn't know what dangers there were in that forest, but the one time he went there, he could feel something terrible in the air. He couldn't pinpoint what it was back then, but now he was confident that it was some type of mana but felt somehow not pleasing.
"You may see in time. But, as I said, be close and follow my instructions. We may not need to fight our way through it, but stay on guard no matter what. "
They continued their way out of the village and toward the forest area on the east side. They encountered some guards on the way there, but both of them were stealthy enough not to draw their attention.
Zarin was almost sure that Eddie had a similar skill to his [Stealth], but he couldn't check what Skills Eddie had or his Stats. The only thing he could see was Eddie's HP, SP, and MP bars, but not what their numbers of them were. So he could only know the percentage that he got left, but not precisely how much that was.
But since Eddie could open his Status Window and check his stats himself, he could just say to Zarin what he had. But they were in a hurry currently, so Zarin decided to have that discussion for later. After all, Eddie would be the one giving orders no him, and he was more or less aware of everything Zarin could do.
As they reached the first trees of the forest, Eddie signaled Zarin to stop.
"Drink this first before we move on, "he said to Zarin as a glass vial appeared out of nowhere in his hand.
The vial contained some light blue liquid in it and looked like there was a small marble in it too.
Zarin took the potion and drank it without asking anything. He could tell that Eddie didn't mean to harm him, and his guts also said to him that he wasn't in danger of drinking it. Through the past month, he had developed some kind of danger sense, although it didn't warn him over every type of danger all the time.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten ambushed by the Demon Bear the other day.
The liquid was quite heavy, almost like a part of it was solid. It was almost like he tried to drink non-dried cement, but it had no taste, actually.
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BLESSING ACQUIRED
You are under the effects of [Aura of the Holy Faith]
Duration: 1 hour
Description: A being of higher power had let protection on you. Any Spirit Creatures' detection range is 50% less against you, and their abilities have 50% less chance of working on you. If the targeted creature is over 10 levels from the user, the benefits get weaker by 10% per level over a tenth of the difference for that target.
Note: Effects of potion get weaker with continuous consumption
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Seeing the benefits of the potions, Zarin understood why he had this strange feeling about the forest and what they might face.