"Someone is here?" A woman, who spotted the duo became fascinated by them, she had an arrogantly cheerful attitude. "Did you come before the player association took control?" She asked.
"What do you mean by that?" Haruka yelled. "We came by legal means." She felt inferior upon seeing the woman's ample bosom.
Akira looked at the woman without speaking. 'Isn't she Hasegawa Mirai? She is the successor of the organization that produces potions and medicine, although she herself doesn't have alchemy skills. She is a claymore user.'
"Okay, geez! Do you have to yell?" She picked at her ear.
'And arrogant,' Akira thought, 'but she is a good person.'
"Hey, aren't you the guy that cut off the hand of a 2nd generation-rich kid? Your body figures are the same, and you must be strong to get approval from the player association. You must have gotten 1st level VIP status like me."
"What do you want?" Haruka asked cautiously, more like trying to send her away so that Akira wouldn't look at her.
"Why are you so aggressive? And your voice sounds a little girly. Don't worry; I don't like to eat little boys. I only like men."
That hit a disappointed arrow in Haruka. 'Little girly? I am a girl.'
"So what do you want from us?" Akira asked.
"Let's become friends. I like to befriend strong people," she said, "My name is Mirai, Hasegawa Mirai. You can call me Mirai."
"Sorry, but please leave," Akira said firmly.
"Hey, you don't know when you need a friend," said Mirai, trying to convince him, she convinced herself that they would recognize her as the heir of the Hasegawa company, which backfired on her.
"I exactly know when I need a friend, and I have such a friend," said Akira.
Mirai threw a visiting card at Akira and said, "I like your style. Contact me if you have any good deals or need my help." Then she left.
"What a weirdo!" Haruka said, taking the visiting card. "I will keep it."
30 minutes later,
"Luckily, we didn't encounter a monster above level 50," said Haruka while resting.
"Actually, 50 is the limit for the 1st floor. There is also a 2nd floor."
"Isn't this taking too long?" Haruka asked. "How long will the 2nd floor take?"
Akira was astonished by her greed. "Just what kind of thoughts are you having? It will take 4 level 60 players with at least 3 skills to raid this dungeon, and you know how long they will take? 6 hours on average. It seems I am spoiling you too much."
Haruka caught and pulled his ear. "You brat, you are becoming cocky these days." But her frustration came from the fact that he was hiding many things from her.
"Ouch! How did you locate my ear under the hood?"
After some time, they reached the entrance portal to the 2nd floor.
"We finally got to level 10." Haruka looked at her level-up panel. "Black, look at this, why is the cost of ascension 15,000 crystals?"
When referring to crystal as a currency, it would be in level 1 crystal.
Akira checked it too. 'What is this? This is different from what I know.'
"Didn't they tell us it only costs 10,000 crystals on the internet?" Haruka asked. She was not worried about crystals anymore; she was worried that the system might do something bad to them.
"Calm down, white, it is the same for me too. If the system is asking for more, it means we might get stronger. Maybe some people get it like this," said Akira and thought, 'No, this never happened. The system is very fair. I can only think of one thing, the error message. It must have done this.'
Haruka believed him because she knew he had a futuristic view. So she ascended.
**You ascended from F- to F rank. All your stats are increased by 5.**
"Why are there so many professions?" Haruka asked in confusion while scrolling.
"You leveled up already?" Akira also leveled up.
**You ascended from F- to F rank. All your stats are increased by 5.**
That notification shocked him. 'What is this? Ascension never gives stats. It only allows us to level up further. Is the error message doing this too? Just what is this error message?'
"Did your stats increase by ascension?" Akira asked.
"Yes, isn't it normal?" Haruka asked. "Isn't this too much? Each rank has hundreds of professions."
"Stop complaining; let's pick the profession called mystery punk."
She searched and found. "Mystery punk female? Why is there gender-specific just for this?"
"Mystery punks are like delinquents that hate social order and like to do whatever they want. They have many tricks that let them escape any kind of pursuit.
Males and females have different tricks, so it is gender-specific. And mostly they like to be a duo. As we are a duo, this is the best profession. We will even get party buffs."
"But this is an SSS rank. There are only 5 SSS rank professions in this system."
"That just means it is powerful," said Akira proudly.
"No, I am talking about the amount of resources it takes to ascend." Haruka freaked out by the amount. "We only paid 15,000 level 1 crystals to ascend to level 10, but it says for level 20 it will cost 9 times an F rank profession.
If you calculate it, for F rank you need 25000, so 9 times is 225,000 crystals?
And it increases for every 10 levels. No wonder you kept the profession we will take a secret and delay leveling up because we need to collect crystals. Wait, then doesn't all the exp we get is a waste?"
"No, there is a special privilege for professions," said Akira, "we need crystals to level up skills, right? But a person who has an F rank profession can pay 10% of the cost with exp. And for each rank higher, another 10% will be added.
So for us, we can pay 90% exp and 10% crystals to level up skills. Most importantly, the F-rank only gets 10 free stats after every level up, and for each rank, one free stat is added.
So we will get 18 free stats for every level up. Every profession gives 7 skills, which can be unlocked one by one for every ascension. Every skill is a growth type, and the maximum growth is set by the profession rank. Which means we can get 7 SSS ranks in the future."
"Don't try to trick me." Haruka figured he tried to lure her with high-rank skills. "God knows how many crystals we need at high levels?"
"Okay, what should we do then?" Akira asked, acting as if he yelled.
But she didn't know. She got embarrassed and turned away. "Well, what else, I already said I will be the strongest in the world. If I back down now, you will look down on me. I won't allow that; I just have to work harder."
**You have chosen the mystery punk (male) profession.
Free stats from level up are increased from 10 to 18.
Profession special stat intelligence will increase by 2 for every level up.
Mystery punk can only use throw weapons, swords, daggers, gauntlets, and whips. No other weapons can be equipped. Mystery punk doesn't have a limit to the number of weapons to hold.
Having a duo party with the opposite-sex mystery punk increases intelligence and attack by 50%.
Having a party with more than 2 mystery punks and only mystery punks increases intelligence, attack, and speed by 25%. At least one opposite sex must be present.**
"You didn't tell about the intelligence increase by 2," Haruka asked.
"Every profession has a specific stat they should excel in, and regardless of rank, every profession gets 2 additional specific stats for every level."
"Then what about the weapon restrictions?"
"Of course, each profession needs some specific weapons to use. A knight can only use a sword, spear, claymore, and shield. An assassin can't use a claymore, right? Each has their own weapon types."
"Then what about your strings? They are not considered throw weapons, right?"
"Strings are support weapons, which means any profession can use them. Why do you care about that anyway? You are a sword user."
She pouted. "Well, you said you would teach me once I reach SSS rank, so let's form a party and get going. We have a long way to go," said Haruka and she just realized something.
"What does...duo mean in mystery punk terms?" Haruka asked curiously.
"Oh, that, it means they are a couple. After all, they are anti-social, so they are very loyal to each other and extremely protective of each other."
Haruka remembered Akira's rage when she got pointed by a gun. 'Wait, doesn't that sound like...' She got embarrassed but then she remembered Akira's words.
'How did you manage those 12 years of suffering?' Which made her sad again.