I continued to grind with the girls on level fifteen. They both managed to get their second ability up to level ten. Miki giggled with delight when she found herself able to throw a small fireball, and Lydia's speed and visual acuity was also enhanced. After careful observation, I determined that basically, every level you made in a job increased your status somewhat.
So… every level in Swordsman would give you status that would make you a better swordsman. You might increase in speed, agility, visual acuity, strength… while things like intelligence wouldn't increase all that much. These changes occurred even if your job changed. In fact, some of these changes were likely necessary to unlock other, higher tier jobs. You probably couldn't become an Advanced Swordsman until your status was high enough, or something like that.
However, there was also the act of having the job equipped. This gave you access to all of the skills from that job. In some cases, you could learn a skill without the job. For example, you don't need the language skill to learn a language, although it definitely makes things easier. This is why a person could seamlessly advance from a level 50 Basic Magician to a level 1 Advanced Magician without suddenly growing weaker. You still had all the benefits of the Basic Magician
Anyway, your skills were their best when you had the job equipped. So even though every level of Swordsman increased your strength incrementally, there was also a massive bonus associated with having that job equipped in the first place. Presumably, a second-tier job would have a better bonus than a first tier. In this world, this system seemed set up so that what someone did would slowly cause them to grow stronger, eventually evolving to higher tiers.
Of course, this world had limited knowledge of job systems, and there were likely plenty of jobs out there that they had never heard about before.
The girls worked very efficiently together. Weeks fighting alongside each other as they fought for a common goal had truly enhanced their teamwork greatly. Lydia was able to make her fiery spirit sword almost instantly. Miki didn't waste a second to bring up the Spirit Fire so that she could battle ghosts. The two worked together seamlessly.
Other than occasional Refresh and healing, I found I wasn't all that necessary. However, I did find out something quite interesting. With my Duplicate Slave Skill, I was able to create the spirit sword myself. It turned out that I didn't need to depend on Lydia to hand me a spirit enhanced sword. As long as Miki tossed me some fire, I could do it myself. In fact, I started more closely looking at both girl's abilities. I could now emulate Miki spirit attacks too!
Both girls clapped their hands when they saw me copy their abilities. I couldn't do any ability as well as either of the girls. Without 8 spiritual tails allowing me to absorb spiritual energy, I actually found a lot of her skills very taxing, and I engorged on the waters of life to recover in a reasonable amount of time. As I was drinking some water, I casually considered their new jobs. Naturally, Basic Magician was most interesting to me.
I tried to copy her fireball, and dropped my water skin and choked on water as fire actually sprung from my fingertips! I could cast all of their skills, including skills that weren't active! As expected of a Slave Master ability!
"Master is so cool!"
"Master is a basic Magician too?"
Before I could shake my head, text appeared in front of my vision.
{You've managed to manipulate mana to invoke magic. You have unlocked Basic Magician.}
I let out a noise of complete surprise. Basic Magician was a job that I had been eyeing enviously. I had the White Mage ability. By all accounts, I had been invoking magic from the beginning, but this world never heard of White Mage. It's possible that White Mage was a very niche high tier ability. In that case, since I skipped the jobs leading up to White Mage, I couldn't retroactively learn them.
This was also probably why I knew Slave Master but didn't suddenly get Slaver or one of the lower-tier slave jobs. Dungeon Diver and True Dungeon Diver were different in that they were both earned the same way, but one was higher in level than the other. This only confirmed what I already suspected. When it came to job tiers, White Mage was broken. I had gotten it without starting as a Basic or as an Apprentice Magician.
I equipped it briefly.
{You have unlocked Mana Control.}
Somehow, this ability made it feel easier to control the White Mage spells. I could target easier and I felt like I was using less mana. It looked like starting from the basics was truly helpful. I had so much to learn about this world.