The second Jack closed out his personal stats panel, the class chat in his comms feed pinged nonstop, blowing up again.
Pedro had just dropped a new message: “Ugh, this sucks. Hit level 5 and the XP bar’s totally hard locked. No one’s cracking level 6 till we clear the Novice Dungeon next week, that’s for sure. I’ve got nothing but free time right now—anybody need a hand farming mobs?”
In this data-driven world, every preparatory academy graduate had their level capped at 5 by the system before they entered the Novice Dungeon. It was a rule enforced by the Professional's Guild to keep dungeon trials fair, baked right into the system’s core restrictions. Without earning a Guild Badge from the dungeon, all higher level permissions stayed locked. Even Pedro, who’d burned through a stack of gold coins buying XP Scrolls, was stuck with overflow XP that couldn’t actually push him to the next level.
Within seconds, half a dozen guys spammed the chat to death, flooding it with their coordinates begging Pedro to come carry their parties.
Pedro ignored every single one.
Until a girl’s avatar popped up. It was Ginny, the unofficially crowned hottest girl in the class.
“Pedro, our party’s farming level 1 Longhorn Hares out in the Prospect City Outskirts Newbie Zone. Our DPS is kinda low right now. Think you could come lend us a hand?”
Ginny had bright blonde hair and a total bombshell figure—curves in all the right places, legs that went on for miles. She’d awakened a B-rank talent, so her potential was rock solid. Pair that with her looks, and she was always the center of attention, never short on guys fawning over her wherever she went.
Pedro saw Ginny’s message and shot back a reply instantly: “No problem. Send me your coords. I’m on my way.”
Jack, deep in the level 3 monster zone, glanced at the screen and recognized Ginny’s name, and that was it. He didn’t bother reading further. The petty drama and popularity contests of these newbies meant absolutely jack to him now. He closed the chat without a second thought, tightened his grip on his scuffed training shortbow, and locked his focus back on the Gray Wolf that had just spawned up ahead.
--- Fifteen minutes later. The low-level plains zone on the edge of Prospect City.
Pedro strode up to the marked coordinates, clad in a full set of leather armor that glowed with a faint magical sheen.
Ginny’s party was already waiting next to a thick patch of tall grass. With Pedro there, they made a perfect standard four-person squad.
Pedro was level 5, and in an area packed with fresh level 1 newbies, he stood out like a neon sign. He swept his eyes over the three level 1 rookies in front of him, his confidence swelling higher than it ever had.
“Hey, Ginny. I’m here.” Pedro greeted her with obvious warmth, his eyes lingering on her figure a few beats longer than he needed to.
Then he turned, eyeing the other two party members with a dismissive, evaluating stare.
It was Peri and her boyfriend Chuck. Peri was Ginny’s friend—she’d awakened a C-rank talent, class Cleric. Chuck was a Swordsman who’d lucked into a B-rank talent.
“Hey, Pedro.” Chuck stepped forward, his tone carrying a clear note of sucking up. “I awakened a B-rank talent too. Mine increases the attack power from my weapon by 15 percent.”
For physical DPS, a percentage-based damage boost was insanely valuable late game.
But after hearing that, Pedro huffed a quiet, condescending laugh.
“Chuck, if your family was rich enough to buy you some top-tier weapon with crazy high base attack, your talent might actually come close to being as good as mine.” Pedro shrugged, holding nothing back in his assessment. “But looking at that plain white-tier iron sword you’re holding right now? Your talent’s basically useless.”
In this phase where gear stats made all the difference, a 15% boost on a late-game god-tier weapon would completely break your DPS—it’d be a straight-up divine ability. But right now, Chuck was holding a white-tier piece of garbage that gave barely any attack power. 15% of practically nothing didn’t even add up to 1 full point of bonus damage—the system would just round it down. That made this B-rank talent totally dead weight in the early game, no actual combat boost at all.
Chuck’s face flushed red with embarrassment, but he bit his tongue. Pedro was a level 5 powerhouse, built with actual cold hard cash, after all.
Same B-rank talent, but the gap in real combat power was night and day.
Pedro’s class was Warrior. His B-rank talent was brutally straightforward: an innate 8% boost to base physical critical hit chance.
Crit hits were the most hype combat stat in the entire world. When one procced, you dealt double—sometimes even higher—devastating damage.
On top of that, Pedro’s family had dropped serious cash buying him several pieces of novice gear with bonus stats. All those expensive items added up to an extra 4% crit chance.
His total crit rate now sat at 12%.
Pedro drew the polished longsword from his waist, its blade glowing with a faint green sheen. This was a green-quality weapon, worth a jaw-dropping several dozen gold coins. He walked toward the tall grass ahead, already eager to show off his raw crit power in front of these newbies—especially the smokin’ hot Ginny.
A Longhorn Hare had just spawned.
Pedro charged forward in a blur, swinging his longsword down in a wide slash.
-27!
The red damage number popped up.
The Longhorn Hare, full health just a second ago, didn’t even get a squeak out before collapsing into a corpse under that crushing 27-point hit. Level 5 vs level 1—the stat gap made one-shotting trivial.
Still, Pedro felt a tiny twinge of annoyance.
That had been a regular hit. The crit he was so proud of hadn’t procced. His plan to totally blow Ginny’s mind had fizzled.
“Let’s move, keep up!”
Pedro led the party on a cocky rampage through the tall grass.
Second hare. Third. Fourth.
-27!
-26!
-27!
Pedro dropped one hare per swing, cutting through them like butter. Level 1 mobs couldn’t take a single hit from him. But the huge crit number he’d been waiting for refused to show up. It totally killed the vibe of his little flex.
Which, honestly, was totally normal.
Under these data rules, 12% crit chance wasn’t high to begin with. If your luck was even a little bad, going a dozen or more mobs without a single crit was well within the system’s probability calculations.
Pedro refused to let it go, kept swinging. Finally, after mowing down over ten Longhorn Hares in a row, luck turned his way.
He gripped his longsword with both hands, aimed at a hare that had just poked its head up, and brought the blade down in a brutal overhead chop.
CLANG
A deep, sharp sound rang out, and a bright crimson flash streaked along the blade.
-54!
A huge, eye-popping deep-red number burst from the monster’s head.
Crit hit!
The unlucky Longhorn Hare dropped instantly, dissolving into motes of light.
The three party members stared, jaws on the floor.
“Oh my god, Pedro! You’re so OP!” Ginny gasped, covering her mouth in shock, her eyes full of pure awe.
“That’s a level 5 Warrior’s crit damage? That’s insane!” Chuck’s face was red with astonishment too. His white-tier iron sword dealt a measly few points per swing. Next to Pedro, he was basically an ant looking up at a mountain. Only now did he really get how big the gap between them was.
Peri, desperate to suck up to Pedro, shook the comms device on her wrist excitedly.
“Pedro, I caught the exact second you landed that crit!” She was practically glowing to impress him. “I’m posting this to the class chat right now so everyone can see what real DPS looks like!”
A few seconds later, the screenshot popped up in the class group.
The already busy chat exploded into total chaos.
“54 damage! Are my eyes glitching?”
“When I fight mobs my numbers barely hit double digits. Lord Pedro just hit 54 in one swing!”
“This is crazy! Even without the crit, he’s hitting 27 on every normal attack. Warrior class with a B-rank talent and good gear? Early game is just easy mode!”
A flood of shocked reactions and shameless bootlicking scrolled through the chat at light speed. Every single classmate was blown away by that flashy damage number.
Watching his party’s worshipful stares and the endless stream of compliments pouring into the chat, Pedro’s ego was completely and totally fed. He casually rested his longsword on his shoulder and soaked up all the attention. With this crowd as his audience, the call to come play babysitter today felt like the smartest move he’d ever made.