Darius moved to sit down on the couch while he told Gunner to relax. The large lad appeared to be restless in his new environment and proceeded to explore the huge chamber and all its decorations.
Darius left him to it while he removed the Digital Tablet from his Inventory and turned it on. Once the tab came on, Darius quickly understood that it had to have been pre-owned, and likely by a little girl at that.
The reason for this conclusion was the over-saturation of the color pink within the tablet's software. Pink theme, pink-ish wallpaper, and pink buttons.
Fortunately for Darius, they hadn't bothered to password lock their device, probably due to being too young to know any better.
Whatever the case, Darius easily navigated the menus and factory reset the entire device. If this item had belonged to an adult, he would have carefully perused all pictures, documents, and music to ascertain the culture and style of Gravitas more intimately.
However, since it belonged to a child or teenager, he was not interested in finding out. This was not a pragmatic choice at all, but one fueled by his own emotions and personal beliefs.
Well, the beauty of being his own man was the fact that Darius did not need to justify or explain his actions to anyone but himself, especially since he hardly surrounded himself with equals who would slow him down.
After waiting for the tablet to clean itself out, Darius went through the initial set-up and registered it under his name. Darius then checked the about page in the settings to see the specs of this tablet and was surprised to find that it had 400 TB of space despite its small size.
He chuckled over the default apps and basic themes. The style of this Gravitas tablet was similar to Earth back in the early 2000s. Darius, who was born in the 2060s, only knew of those things from history books and pop culture.
After playing around with a few features, he switched off the tablet and rummaged in his Inventory once more. He pulled out the steel spear he had upgraded from the iron one a few days ago.
[Steel Spear - Weapon
Durability: 100/100
Quality: Perfect
Damage: 12-17
Description: A sharp and balanced spear made of high-grade steel and the best possible craftsmanship. Created through pure Transmutation.]
Seeing that there was still a lot of daylight left, Darius decided to bring Gunner with him as they refined their teamwork in battle, but not before Darius also inspected what Gunner's only skill was.
[Engage - Level 1 Skill
Cost: None
Description: As a Vanguard, you must be able to stand at the forefront of battle and pave the way for your allies. This skill aggroes all enemies within 5 meters of the user.]
Darius nodded, this was exactly what he wanted. A Branded Servant who could attract enemy attention away while he dished out the necessary damage.
Making sure everything was set, Darius exited his room with Gunner in tow. On his way out, he saw Shanks talking to Derek while patting his son on the shoulder.
Both father and son were smiling about something, yet were shocked when they saw Darius appear, especially since he was accompanied by a stranger. Seeing them, Darius approached the duo and greeted them.
"Good day, Sir Shanks and Friend Derek. How are you today?"
Shanks replied for the duo. "Good day, Master Darius. All's well on the farm and we thank the Gods for that."
Shanks' eyes fell on Gunner as it seemed like he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure how to put it. Darius chuckled and introduced his servant.
"This here is Gunner. He is a powerful half-giant warrior working for my house and my personal guard. He only arrived recently thanks to my family's tracking and refuses to leave my side." Darius introduced him while making sure to complain with a sigh.
Once they heard this, the duo relaxed and even shared a knowing look. Shanks was very familiar with the methods of the noble houses while Derek was intuitive. The duo instantly understood more of Darius' supposed background and why he was here.
In their minds, Darius had to be a runaway scion who had set out to explore the world and play around with his magic under the guise of 'experiments'. Otherwise, why the hell would a noble lad like him be all the way out here?!
Now that he had been 'found', it was likely he wouldn't be staying much longer with them. This relieved Shanks and Derek because, unlike Portia, they were wary of the troubles that could come with housing a noble scion for long.
For one, if something happened to Darius and his noble family found out that they had been housing him, it would be extremely troublesome to resolve that issue.
If they couldn't find the actual culprits, it was practically guaranteed that the homestead would have to become a scapegoat, yet they couldn't outright sack Darius either.
Him leaving on his own was the best possible outcome!
Shanks grinned. "No worries, Lord Darius. Friend Gunner can stay for as long as you will be with us, no problem."
Darius nodded gratefully, but grumbled under his breath. "Not like that will be much longer anyway."
His grumble was done in a murmur, but he purposefully said it loud enough that both Shanks and Derek would be able to hear it. Both male members of the Torniam family practically lit up as they bid farewell to Darius, their shoulders visibly much lighter.
Darius watched them leave with their smiles. His eyes flashed into serpentine slits for a split-second but returned to normal in the very next instant.
Gunner, who had been looking at Darius the whole time, flinched slightly but did not comment on it, instead his intense gaze returned as his eyes narrowed.
Gunner had never seen such a phenomenon in his life, but his intuition told him that in the split-second Darius' eyes had morphed, he had been looking at a source of evil and malevolence that should rival even the demons of Armadon.
Darius and Gunner walked through the pathways established in between the large forest trees that led to the same Lost River bridge he had visited twice this past week.
On the way, Gunner kept observing their surroundings with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, his alertness out to the max. Darius was pleased by Gunner's behaviors, as he had not needed to tell the other anything beforehand.
Then again, for someone who had likely been captured as a slave, it was natural to act wary in these kinds of places. Darius himself was calm as he walked along, confident in his perception and Mind Power.
Should anything ambush them, Darius was prepared to blink away in a split second before any attack could hit him. Then, it would meet the angry assault of Gunner as well as the bombardment of spells from the Magus, equaling a very sad fate.
Darius branched off into the forest around 3 kilometers into their walk as he sensed something strange. Once under the boughs of the trees, he had heard a stomping sound as well as felt that something shook the earth.
Gunner's eyes narrowed as he rushed forward before Darius could and placed his ears to the earth to pinpoint the origin of the sound. Darius was silent, allowing his Branded Servant to do as he wished.
Gunner soon rose and turned to Darius. "This should be the territory of a large beast. Not sure about the exact breed, but we should prepare for a tough fight."
Darius nodded and gestured forward. "Proceed, Gunner. Take the lead and begin the fight, I will be right behind you and assist if needed."
Gunner assented and rushed forward like a juggernaut, smashing through trees and rock alike as he entered a small clearing near a cave. Just in front of the cave, a large Ogre was trying to smash its way inside by using a large makeshift club.
Darius blinked right behind Gunner and watched as the large lad walloped the Ogre right in the small of its back, stunning the ogre and sending it crashing into the wall before it.
Darius used that time to Analyze the monster before him.
[Detected target is of an Enemy affiliation. Displaying details accordingly.]
[Name: Single-headed Ogre
Race: Ogre
Class: Warrior
Subclass: None
HP: 121/125
MP: 14/14
Level: 8
Strength: 13
Agility: 6
Endurance: 10
Intellect: 1
Charisma: 1
Luck: 1
Abilities: Stomp, Consume, Grapple
Weapons: Wooden Club]
Darius saw that this enemy was similar to the Blue Troll in many aspects, which wasn't surprising since Trolls and Ogres shared many traits. Darius did notice it had better stats than the former, but not by much.
However, what disappointed him was the fact that the monster was lower leveled than him. This meant that he would likely be leaving this battle with only 1 experience point as consolation, assuming he would get any at all.
As a consolation, Darius was hoping that Gunner would receive enough experience to shoot up the Ranks.
Before Darius could follow up with a casting of Sparks, the voice of Caesar suddenly sounded in his head as the world around him seemed to come to a complete standstill.
{Hello, Darius Stone! It is I, Caesar, your friendly helper during your journey in the wonderful world of Faust!}
{As you've been informed during your grace period, there are certain moments when you'll be given the opportunity to talk to me or I will descend to contact you.}
{The former can occur due to something you have accomplished that pleases my mistress, while the latter will mostly happen in instances where I will have to educate you about a crucial feature going forward.}
{Today, I'm here to explain the exp share mechanic of the Supreme System!}
{Your acquisition of the System Brand should never have happened, but it seems your luck is truly not bad, Darius Stone! Had it been up to me, you should have ended up with a rotten banana instead!}
{Well, that is beside the point. The System Brand allows you to brand compatible targets to act as your servants in battle, although you can naturally use them outside of it as well. These beings will be completely loyal to you and will possess the same means of growth as you, albeit with some detriments.}
{The esteemed Goddess is looking forward to seeing how the plans you have put in motion will turn out. As such, she has instructed me to share a bit more about this special item you have been granted.}
{It might interest you to know that you are actually able to brand a target no matter their stage. However, you should be warned that once branded, they will be forcefully reset to level 1 in all instances. Still, they will benefit from higher starting stats the higher their previous levels!}
{As you have already learned, you can only have a single servant at your current stage. You're able to release your Branded Servants at any time, although that will result in their deaths. As a Journeyman, your limit will double to two and there will be more as you climb the stages!}
{Now that I've shared that information, I shall address my initial objective in coming here, how experience is shared between master and Branded Servants!}
{Your relationship with your servant when in combat is that of party members, just like it has been the case of your games back on Earth. As such, you will directly share experience for every kill, split equally regardless of your wishes! Yay!}
{However, that is not the only important thing to note. In the case where there are level discrepancies, the experience modifier will be calculated by using the differences in levels of all involved parties. The formula used will be the difference between you and the enemy compared to the difference in the average level of your Branded Servant and the enemy.)
{To give a practical example, take your current battle! The Ogre is level 8 while you are level 11 making for 3 levels of difference. Since this is the first fight of your Branded Servant, he is at level 1 thereby 7 levels below the enemy.}
{The difference between your 3 levels of difference and his 7 levels of differs, results in the final experience modifier being 4 levels worth of XP!}
Darius was silent as he listened to Caesar, but the more the intelligent entity spoke, the more Darius' smile widened until it became quite twisted. He wanted to shout aloud in euphoria, as he had not heard a more foolish and abusable mechanic in his life!
The sheer loopholes! The benefits of exploiting them! The wealth of nefarious ideas running through his mind! Should he complete any of them, his path to becoming a Supreme would be smooth as silk!
However, Darius' joy bled away the next moment as his sharp mind noticed one big flaw in all this. With such an open-ended mechanic that even a toddler would understand how to abuse, how could Vena, a Goddess of Games as well as Caesar not notice this?
Exactly what had Darius missed in his calculations that made the one watching him unbothered by the many 'mistakes' he had encountered so far?
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