Chương 9: Chapter 8: The Eighth Rook Promoted

Thea's face was filled with a mixture of shock and joy as she had finally done what she had tried to do for so long. This was the day she had finally become a Rook after so much training. As she was promoted to Rook, I then took her away from all the people present to a more secluded place to perform her advancement. The spectators, hearing that Thea had been promoted to Rook, erupted into cheers. The people in the crowd yelled, "Congratulations! You deserve it after putting in so much effort. Good job, Thea."

Thea, still in shock from succeeding, greeted the crowd and was beaming with pride at her promotion. She did this as she followed me, not knowing exactly where I was taking her. After a short walk, we returned to my office. Then, I gave her the EXP buff. Thea suddenly saw new words on her system window and realized that she had truly been promoted and was filled with even more joy. Thea then said in gratitude, "Thank you, Ren." I accepted her thanks, as she deserved the reward.

In the organization, I usually allow others to call me by my actual name, but once we are out, I make everyone call me by my title: King. Though it is an embarrassing title, I quite like Thea calling me by my name. Now that she was promoted, I then explained to her information that is only told to Rooks. As other people were too weak to know this information, it would be worthless to tell them about it. I then said, "Soon, I will put in the paperwork for your promotion.

Now, I will tell you some things you didn't know before. As you know, any skill up to level 9 is Novice, up to level 19 is Beginner, up to level 29 is Intermediate, up to level 39 is Advanced, up to level 49 is Rare, and at level 50 it becomes Epic, but skills can go further up from that. After that, up to level 59 is still Epic, but then skills take a turn to become much harder to advance, as you have to develop your own branch in the skill.

As you go up from level 59, the skill reaches the Unique level, which is a unique skill for every person, which goes up to level 69.

"After that, you go up to level 79, which is the Legendary realm; up to level 89 is the Mythical realm; up to level 99 is the Saint realm. Finally, if you somehow make it up to level 100, you will have something called a God Skill. It is called that because it is a skill that can rival the gods. If you reach this realm, skills don't level up anymore as they have reached the pinnacle of power and have entered the power of the gods.

"As for actual level, there is no limit, as even gods vary in power, but for someone's level to reach that of a god's level of power, you need to reach level 5000 to become one of the weakest gods. After that, it is still a mystery, as gods can vary in power.

"After hearing all of this, do you have any questions?" Thea, after hearing this, was confused as she could not comprehend what she had just heard. The power of a god—this was something she never thought a mortal person in the world could reach. After all, a god is an existence that is the ruler of a world with immeasurable power to do basically anything. Yet, from the words said, it was reachable. Thea then asked, "How close are you to the level of a god, then?

As I can only see your current level, but not your skills." Since she had become a Rook, I decided to tell her, "As you know, my level is close but still very far from a god, as I am still only level 3875. On the other hand, my skills are getting close to the God realm, as my swordsmanship and magic have reached level 99.

There is some strange thing once you reach level 99, though, that prevents you from progressing any further, as I have been stuck at this level for a long time, unable to level it up no matter how much I train in magic or swordsmanship." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Thea, hearing my level, was even more shocked and amazed, saying, "You are that close to the God realm? Then aren't you one of the strongest beings, excluding a god?"

I then told Thea, "I am not sure; after all, who knows if someone is hiding their power who is stronger than me?" Thea then became cautious, too, as she realized that this might be true, as she didn't know about the leveling system, so who knows what other things she didn't know. I then asked her again if she had any more questions, as I wanted to answer everything at the current moment. Thea then shook her head as she couldn't think of anything at the moment.

I then ordered her, "Since you are a Rook now, I will soon send you on a mission, but I will give you some buffer room as you are still new. First, get stronger, as the average level of the current Rooks is level 500, and you are still not even close. For the time being, try to reach level 300 from your current level 298. After that, we'll talk more about it later." Thea then nodded, understanding, and then turned and left to go accomplish the task given.

I had no intention of sending her out just yet, as she was still too weak to send out. I plan to send Thea out when I think she is ready. I then went back to my task, sorting and looking at the current information, as I had to finish my paperwork. In this way, time passed, and I saw many people were getting training to get stronger. Many of the Pawns were promoted to their respective Knight and Bishop sections, giving me more personnel to work with.

As for strong Knights and Bishops, seeing Thea being promoted felt like newfound motivation to have their own try at it. Unfortunately, none of them made the cut and failed. Being promoted to Rook is far more challenging, and I made it that way on purpose. As only Lucy and I were in the base right now, only we could administer the assessment for Rooks. As Lucy was still training Himari, it was left to me to conduct the assessments.

Though, with all the assessments I conducted, no one else was suitable to become a Rook. So the days went by like this as I was strengthening Equilibrium while waiting for war to break out at any time between humans and demons once again. Even more time passed and Himari was growing smoothly, as her highest skill had reached level 18, and Lucy had taken her out to fight evil humans and mindless monsters. Himari had steadily climbed levels and reached level 137.

Though the progress wasn't slow, it wasn't particularly fast. Thea then returned after reaching level 300 and asked me what I wanted her to do now. I then told her, "Since you are still the weakest Rook right now, I will personally train you to raise your skills. With your highest skill only being at level 42, it's still quite low, so I will help you raise them.

I don't expect you to overtake the current seventh-ranked Rook, who is level 450 with the highest skill being level 62, but I still want you to be stronger before sending you out." Thea, understanding this, said, "Then I'm ready; just tell me what I have to do." I then told her, "Since your highest-level skill is Quick Casting, I will help you raise it. From today on, you will train to cast spells faster." I then led her to the training grounds again.

I then told her, "You will start by casting spells all day from now on and try to make them faster every time." Thea then started her training for the day, and under my guidance, she made steady progress. I made her shorten the spell casting by forcing her to memorize the image of the spell in her head to make it even faster compared to casting it in her mind. After a whole day of training, I managed to increase her magic casting by two levels to reach level 44.

This speed is a little bloated due to the skill still being a low level. Once skills reach higher levels, it will become even slower to level up. Thea then practiced every day, while I wasn't always there to look after her as I had my own tasks to finish. Like this, time continued forward, and it had been a year since I recruited Himari, so I went to check up on her. Seeing her now, she had reached level 152 with her highest skill being level 21. This means she is ready to be promoted to a Knight.

I then gave her the EXP boost buff, officially promoting her to Knight. Just then, Sophia came back with news from the human kingdom. Sophia then said, "The demonic continent has come to attack in full force, and the human side has put out a notice for the Hero to return to the Trist Kingdom to help in the war. What do you want us to do now, Ren?"