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One night, many days after the second live stream…

Crim was already used to her remote schoolwork, so she had finished everything for the night, though her friends had also logged out of Destiny Unchain Online already. She sat on a couch in the living room and opened various windows in her HUD before staring at them for a while.

They showed her stats, a map showing the state of the game world, the progress on the defense outpost she had ordered to build with the points they amassed so far, and other such information. Crim’s face looked slightly troubled as she scrolled through.

“Crim, it’s really late, why are you still awake?”

Suddenly a voice called out to her from behind the couch. Someone who had supposedly logged out many hours prior was standing there.

“Ah, Frey. I could be asking the same, why did you log in when you have school tomorrow?”
“Sigh… At least you have it easy, not having to commute at all.”
“Hahah…sorry.”

Seeing Frey sigh with exhaustion, Crim gave a short apology before patting the couch next to her, indicating to him to sit with her.

“Actually, I’m glad you’re here, there’s something I wanted to show you.” Saying that, Crim flipped the switch to make her stats window visible to other players and moved it to the side so Frey could look at it.
“Look here, on my Base Stats.”
“Hm? Let me see…”

Saying that, Frey looked at Crim’s stat window with more curiosity, and there…

The most impressive part was that she had already maxed out MND and MAG, so they were shown in blue now.

“This…when did you get this done?”
“Ahahah… After everyone went to sleep, you know?”

Crim’s Skill Points had already reached the maximum total of 1200, so now she was decreasing the points of Skills she did not need to give more points to those she wanted.

She had always been practicing her magic before going to bed every night, which was how she maxed out those two Base Stats, as well as Shadow Magic and Darkness Magic, making her a master at them.

“But anyway, that’s not really the issue. The thing is over here.” Saying that, Crim pointed at the last entry. Usually, there were only four Base Stats, but a fifth one had appeared there.

Tapping on it brought up another smaller window with more details about it.

There was also a warning written in bright red letters.

“So the rate at which you get points is the main cost…”
“Yeah, it sounds bad, right?”

Frey nodded in response to Crim, then both frowned a bit. The rate being halved was not an easy pill to swallow, as it was not as simple as putting in twice the amount of time into training.

For Crim, the main drive for a player to increase their stats came from seeing the yellow numbers go up one after another.

At the same time, if the rate at which they went up was slowed down, then it would lead to a player doubting if they were really doing the right thing, chipping away at their motivation.

On top of that, if there was a hypothetical spell with a 2% chance of increasing MND and MAG by 1, and it was used 100 times, the probability that the stats would actually increase by 1 was only 87%

But if Magic Enhance was activated and the base chance was halved, then the probability of 100 casts increasing the stat by 1 would drop to 63%. In other words, the probability that the stat would not increase was much higher. The increased burden on the player to gain points after that was far too heavy.

On top of that, it would limit a player’s resources as well. If raising one’s max MP became harder, the number of times a spell could be used would go down and introduce more issues than simply spending twice as much time training. Depending on the stats affected, It could take months for a player to regain the stats they had before activating the Skill.

But…

“Still, I guess I don’t have an option but to do it.”
“Yeah… It’ll probably become necessary in the future.”

Crim muttered with a gloomy voice, and Frey gave a similarly bleak reply.

Considering the mechanics of the game, being fully reliant on Skills, every player could choose the type of build that suited their playstyle the best, but the total number of Skill Points one could allocate was a pretty harsh limiter.

Now Magic Enhance could merge two Base Stats into a single one, meaning that once maxed out, it would provide the same benefits as having the previous stats maxed out while freeing up 100 points to be allocated elsewhere.

That alone was a great benefit at the highest levels of play. Freeing up 100 Skill Points was far more desirable than the rarest of equipment.

And even if Crim currently was one of the top players without needing to activate it, with time others would activate it and slowly eke out an advantage over her, and then it would become the norm for everyone else.

“The problem is that if I activate it, I’ll become really weak for a while.”
“Yeah…that definitely hurts considering our guild only has a handful of members.”
“Mhm… Also, it won’t be long before you and…maybe Hinagiku also get to this point.”

Hearing that, Frey nodded pensively.

Considering both used rather specialized Skills, they also gained points at a faster pace.

And when it came to the members of Lua Cheia, it was no exaggeration to say they were all superior players. But they had a disadvantage in numbers, and if just one of them could not perform on a battlefield, they had no one who could serve as fallback.

“Luckily it doesn’t seem like there’s other guilds who’re interested in these areas… Though a few days ago there was that announcement about S.SABAKUS.SOS.SO Band taking over the Dragonbone Desert.”

Frey brought up his own map showing the availability of land nearby, groaning a little as he informed Crim of that.

“At least the Howling Ogre Ridge next to Schwarzwald is still free… And we’re still two weeks away from the next ranked matches, so maybe it’s best if I take care of it while we don’t have to fight yet.”
“Yeah, but I’ll leave the final decision to you, Guild Master.”
“Mhm… I guess we really should start thinking about expanding our guild soon too though.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Just remember to be really careful whenever you’re picking a new recruit.”
“I know.”

Saying that, Crim sighed loudly again. Frey watched her for a bit, and then pushed his glasses back as he tried to come up with ideas.

“Or maybe…you can try asking someone who might know more about it?”
“Is there anyone like that?”
“Yeah, for example…”

◇◇◇

“…And that’s what happened. What do you think, Sorleon?”
“…I was wondering who had called me all of a sudden, and it’s you of all people.”

On the other side of Crim’s conversation stood Sorleon, massaging his temples as if trying to hold back a headache. Crim had followed Frey’s advice and chose Sorleon as someone who might know more to consult about Magic Enhance.

“…Are you really sure about this though? You’re sharing really vital information with your rival.”
“D-Don’t make light of me, Black Demon Lord.”

Crim quickly spoke up before Sorleon could say more, a bold smile on her face.

“I’m certain this information is no news to thine guild.”
“…I’m sorry, it seems I was actually making light of you after all.”

Crim’s proud words did have an impact on Sorleon.

While Lua Cheia was a rather laid back guild, Nord Glacier was constantly fighting. Their live streams were almost always done while fighting a raid boss, or when fighting a different guild that also wanted to defeat a certain raid boss.

But for some reason, two of their strongest members, Sorleon and Reinhard, had been absent from all their most recent broadcasts. Crim had quickly put two and two together, and understood that they had to be busy with that.

“Yes, as you’ve probably already assumed, Reinhard also obtained Magic Enhance like you, as well as the combination of Destruction and Spiritual Magic, which is called Profound Knowledge Magic. I got the combination of VIT and STR, Physical Enhance, as well as the triple combination of One Handed Longsword and One Handed Weapon Masteries with Dual Wielding to produce Swordmaster. We’ve become quite weak after activating all of them, but we’re slowly regaining the stats we lost.”

“…Excuse the tangent, but I can’t help but wonder how many hours you two play for?”

Crim had wondered that about Shao as well, and she expected the playtime counter to look like it had bugged out for them. It was like all the Demon Lords except for her were not fully there when it came to common sense.

It was really strange, as Crim had no choice but to be logged in all the time, and somehow she was still falling behind those two. It was almost like the biggest no-lifers had the ability to bend time itself to progress faster.

“I see… So it’s not just Base Stats that can combine that way, but Magic and Weapon Skills as well.”
“Yeah. I’d say that in one or two months we’ll have recovered all the stats we lost.”
“Sigh… Just thinking about it gives me headaches considering how small my guild is.”

Lua Cheia did not have enough members to be able to continue taking part in big fights while lacking the strongest members. When Crim brought that point up, Sorleon evaded her gaze and looked around awkwardly.

“Actually… We’ve been employing mercenaries whenever we need some extra power.”
“Mercenaries?”
“Yeah. You can sign contracts with them for a fee, and then if you ever need someone to defend you or fill in for someone during ranked matches, they’ll help you out.”
“Ohh, I see… I wasn’t aware of the existence of such features.”

Crim looked a bit into that and saw that such mercenary contracts were mentioned deep within the information about guilds. It was a moment of big realization for Crim.

“The one issue is that you need to vet them and make sure you can trust them. If you hire someone shady, they could easily gather information about your defenses and then sell it to enemy guilds.”
“Yes…that’s a fair point. I’d certainly be afraid of other guilds using such methods to gain inside knowledge.”

If a mercenary did that their reputation would be in shambles, but that did not rule the possibility out, and it was better to be safe.

“In that case I’d like to sign up Nord Glacier as mercenaries to help us if we’re in trouble.”

When Crim said that, Sorleon’s hand froze as his whole body tipped back and fell on a chair, making a loud noise.

“…Hm? Did something happen?”
“It’s nothing, just…why us?”
“I mean… I’d feel at ease with the lot of you around, considering how strong and reliable you are.”

It felt like an obvious decision to Crim, she just tilted her head in confusion as she explained her reasoning. Then in response…

“Pfft…ahahahahah!!”
“Wh-what?! I didn’t say anything that was so funny!!”

Something Crim had said pushed Sorleon into a laughing fit, and all she could do was try to argue while watching him hold his stomach as he continued laughing. Eventually Sorleon was able to pull himself back together, and as he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes, he smiled happily and gave a nod.

“I see… I accept then. Just shoot us a message if you need help and we’ll gladly go assist you as mercenaries.”
“R-right…I appreciate it.”

Crim was still a bit confused by his sudden outburst of laughter, but she was also in a good mood now, knowing she had powerful allies she could count on.