NOVEL SIMPLE Do You Think You’re Some Kind Of Protagonist? – Chapter 200
Doyle turns away from Jim’s new group as they rest. They’ll take some time before moving onto the next floor so for the moment he can focus on other stuff. Most important of which is a question for Ally which had percolated to the top of his mind. ‘Hey Ally, even the wolfkin has mostly caught up to them. Though that likely has more to do with having started in a more martial society. Why aren’t I gaining levels?’
Ally looks up from a screen and shrugs, ‘Remember, you gain levels for doing things beyond your norm. I know I talked about how patterns are the answer to a smith from cranking out nails until they’re super high level. That however is a system based restriction to fix a system based problem.
‘In reality someone could become a godly smith at making nails even without the system. All it would take is to constantly try and improve on the nails they are making and there are so many things to improve on that would transfer to other stuff. A nail that can pierce through wood from a world tree would work just as well if used as the head of an arrow.
‘On the other hand, just cranking out nails like a machine isn’t going to do you much good. With that in mind, floors are the nails to your machine. So far despite all the tricks and twists you’ve incorporated, none of it has really gone beyond what a dungeon of your type can naturally do so you aren’t getting level experience from that. This leaves experience gained from delvers.
‘Which, I admit, you’ve had more than a few die. They aren’t worth much at all though. They’re the greens a picky child has to eat to grow up strong, but they won’t inherently make you stronger than others. So far everyone has been stuck in your lower floors which while dangerous in their own ways, don’t really stretch them.
‘Of course, if you were still a human with human experience scaling you would have gained a good number of levels. You're not a human though and to gain levels with any speed from eating your food is kind of silly. Like a wolf killing a normal rabbit, you’re just doing normal wolf stuff.
‘You should however gain a level soon because of Jim and his party. That boss fight likely gave you a healthy bump, but more importantly, they’re moving onto your new floors. Those new floors will be where the levels will be at.’
Doyle’s core dims while he thinks about what he just learned before nodding. ‘Let me guess, since bosses are a sort of checkpoint in my growth as a dungeon, I don’t really get much experience from people delving in the floors before my deepest boss.’
Ally shrugs again, ‘Eh, sort of? It isn’t quite that cut and dry. If you didn’t mind waiting a year you would likely gain a level even if no one ever left the first floor. That guy making nails, even if he is just cranking them out like a machine will get levels from doing so. On the other hand if he went on to make, I don’t know, butter knives or some such? He would be gaining a lot more experience even if the difficulty didn’t exactly go up all that much.
‘To a certain extent, novelty is the best way to gain levels, both personal and in skills. That guy would likely gain a lot more from trying to make a large variety of nails over just moving onto making the same spoon over and over. You can see that in the delvers. It has been a while and yet this is the first time someone managed to beat the boss fairly.
‘They aren’t slacking off. Their skills are getting higher and paths are being invested in. There is just one little thing that a proper level will do over all else. The tyranny of stats!’
Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Tyranny of stats? Sure, levels can really crank them out, but it should be that big of a difference. After all, if the average strength is ten, twenty can’t be all that much crazier, can it?’
Ally laughs, ‘By now some of your stats should be gaining ten a level. So no, going from ten to twenty isn’t too big of a change. Barring things like with humans and getting enough constitution to slowly regenerate stuff, any one point isn’t crazy. But that is just it, a single point together with a bunch of other single points can add up to a lot.
‘I blame your lack of reference for why you haven’t noticed. If you still had a human body the increase in strength would be more visceral. Every single one of the founders, even the mages, are likely stronger than the strongest human before the system came. That even makes sense when you look at how many people it took them to beat the boss floor last time.
‘You don’t suddenly require half as many people out of nowhere. Sure, skill will make up for some of that, but look at the Barrais. They likely haven’t yet reached the limit of their pre-system skills. That and consider the wolfkin. It isn’t like he would magically catch up in so little time. His race just naturally has more strength and so can already party with them equally. Give everyone ten levels though and he will be weaker than all the fighters.
‘Magic, Qi, and so on all allow for a twisted form of equality. Without it, no human would ever be stronger than a bear at a similar stage of life and health. With it and even the smallest ant could in theory be stronger than a planet sized dragon. Physical matter doesn’t work like that. Even the least magical melee fighter is using some form of supernatural energy to empower themselves.
‘And the system is what limits that. You know those cultivation stories? The ones where a person can go and sit in a cave for hundreds of years only to come out astronomically stronger? That is what systemless qi and magic can do.
‘Though I think at this point we might have strayed a little from the original question. So yeah, you will gain levels soon enough and so will the people in the town. If there was one final thing I would add, it would be part of the problem is being on a new world. Anywhere else and there would be a range of threats, both for you and the delvers. As it is, you're both kind of bootstrapping off of one another.’
Doyle turns towards a display showing Jim and his party. ‘Going by that, I can’t imagine how slow some of the other places must be developing.’
Ally laughs, ‘Only places like the settlement upstream are developing slower. You think you’re special or some kind of protagonist? Sure, the founders are quite stable for their levels, but part of how the system spaces out these things is to have places paired with a source of early growth. Whether that is a dungeon or some special danger zone is up to chance.
‘If anything, the levels here are growing the slowest of any active place because you aren’t a normal dungeon. Every floor provides a stable experience without any kind of nonsense gotcha. A normal dungeon would inevitably have something overtuned, whether that is a specific monster ending up with too much path support or something else.
‘Though remember, slow and steady wins the race! Yes, the strength of everyone in your town is growing slower than other places. However, their and more importantly your strength will compound. Maybe you only have a few levels now and not too many stats, but each of your levels might be worth twice a normal dungeon's level.
‘The same is true for your world’s current generation as well. Even on a safe world there isn’t really a chance for someone to slowly grow. They need early stats and levels just not to die despite any so-called safety. Just think about it from the perspective of the common cold. Sure, people die from it, but most generally don’t consider it a threat.
‘Now consider those with a compromised immune system. The common cold suddenly becomes a very deadly issue. A person who doesn’t raise their constitution enough early on will be just like the person with a compromised immune system. After all, the common cold is going to be on the level of an adult with a half decent constitution score and there is magic to give the cold a boost to overcome that.
Doyle makes the sound of drawing a breath through your teeth. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. A disease capable of affecting someone with twice a normal human’s constitution is going to absolutely ravage someone without that advantage. Though it can’t be that straightforward. Otherwise kids wouldn’t exactly be able to survive being a baby.’
Ally nods, ‘One important fact about life, the stronger something is, the harder it is to make more of itself. So the common cold will be better tuned, but rarely will you find a devastating plague because someone with thousands in their con score sneezed.
‘Plus, ironically some of the strongest diseases are completely useless against your average office worker. After all, another thing that is generally true is that stronger things need more energy to survive. A disease that is so strong it can be caught by high level beings would nearly instantly starve if it tried to infect said office worker.
‘As luck would have it, that also means that said office worker won’t be passing it on to someone else stronger than them. Of course, that doesn’t always mean the office worker will survive the experience. A magical disease might manage to suck the life right out of them in its death throes.’
Doyle sits there for a moment in silence. ‘So if they are so quick to die, how are there such things in the first place?’
Ally rubs the back of her neck, ‘Well, magic is magic. Various reasons to have such things hanging around are numerous. Weapons research, the disease being able to hibernate, and so much more. Sometimes, these diseases even manage to just spontaneously form out of thin air or they were normal sicknesses that suddenly decided to play with the big dogs.’
Ally stops and turns towards the screen monitoring the party. ‘Huh, looks like they decided to not rest all that long. Since they’re about to head into the next floor, how about I try something? Before getting chosen I of course read a bunch of books on how to help a young dungeon grow. Of course upon finding out you were already awake I had basically gone and thrown all that knowledge to the side.
‘I wasn’t completely wrong there as most of it was based around having to prod a dungeon into doing simple things like making hallways at least tall enough for your average human. One thing though still sticks out and I really should have tried this. It just fell to the side as well because I hadn’t really considered your situation. Most of the time an awakened dungeon comes from some centuries old wizard trying to cheat death and they already know enough about fighting.
‘Now, they’re about to start fighting and I’m going to analyze the battle so you can hopefully learn from it. I noticed you aren’t exactly a bleeding heart, but it is clear that wherever you lived in your world, you were free from most physical threats.
‘Over the years I have watched more than just a few dungeon raids and delves. Now, I might not be some genius fighter, but with all the knowledge about how such things go, I should at least be able to help figure out any problems within your dungeon.’
Doyle bobs his core and settles in to have the fight narrated to him or some such.
