01.06 - My Next Life as a Loser: All Routes Lead to Doom!

You heard me right.

Level 3.

At this point, you might legitimately ask what kind of lunatic would throw away his one precious resource, without any chance to replenish it in sight, and lose all his Classes, Skills, and Stats along with the points spent to acquire them?

But truth was stranger than fiction, and the gods of this world had apparently never heard of synergies or rules being applied to the letter of the law, not its spirit.

What blunder of cosmic proportion had they committed to allow me to remain calm in the face of certain doom?

It was the wording of an E Tier blessing, of all things:

//========= Carved in Stone - E Tier ============

Immune to everything that steals or reduces Classes, Skills, or Stats and their respective Points. Leveling up Classes, Skills, or Stats requires 5 times the regular amount of Points.

//========================================

What was so unbelievably broken about this seeming shitty blessing?

It was that little part: ‘steals or reduces’.

If you thought back on my encounter with the divine and answered that “‘the loss of a Level REDUCES your spent Class, Skill and Stats points back down to their values before those Levels were gained, taking away everything you unlocked with them,’” you would be technically correct, the best kind of correct.

The required Experience to reach the next Level grew exponentially.

Every soul gained ten Class, Skill, and Stat points on each Level up.

The loss of a Level reduced your spent Class, Skill and Stats points back down to their values before those Levels were gained. Or it would, if not for the effect of ‘Carved in Stone’.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I broke the system.

By using its own rules against it.

All it took were a few months in a void, enough patience to read all the rules, and the ability to connect the dots by acquiring one A, one B, two C, and two E tier blessings.

I spent the whole way back home excitedly humming along to some tunes I half remembered from my days back on earth, while trying to figure out which Classes and Skills I should unlock first, once I could finally get some Experience points.

Then the day of my fourteenth birthday arrived.

After a rude awakening by Tia, who almost crushed me in human form after I refused to get out of bed, I slowly made my way down to the living room.

“Happy birthday.” Dawn was the first to congratulate me with a heartfelt hug.

Her gift was a cute, but still somewhat skillful painting.

I took a closer look. “You, me, Alfred, and Tia in the garden?”

“A ‘Dragon Race,’” she said with a big smile.

Didn’t think she’d still remember that.

“Thank you,” I hugged her again. “I’ll treasure it.”

Alfred presented a wrapped gift to me.

“From the lady and me,” he said.

Right, as if my ‘mother’ had any part in it.

As I opened it, I was met with new leather gloves, and a shiny, genuine short sword for the days to come.

As for my ‘father’, he apparently sent a note for the occasion.

Its contents left my ‘mother’ in a great mood for the following days.

It included a letter of introduction to Lichthafen’s Officer school, promising a full stipend and on site accommodation in their dorms.

I was against it, but did not speak up. At least for now.

Alfred was reliable, sure, but I was afraid what could happen to Dawn once Tia and I were gone and Aurora had to find a different target for her occasional episodes.

Then the day of the Evaluation Ceremony arrived.

The whole family, including Alfred and Tia, had dressed unusually fancy for the occasion. The fashion in this new world was weird. It was a mix of western and eastern clothing styles, combined with some entirely foreign elements. Triangle shaped hats, gloves with curtains… strange stuff, at least to me.

The city hall was a large building with a humongous central dome in the middle of the central hall. There was a big stage with a semi transparent sphere at the center.

Our seats were located almost in front of the stage. Looking at the people around us, the seating seemed to be ordered in terms of social status. With nobility, mages, clerics, and knights sitting in the front, businessmen and rich merchants seated behind them, and the regular folk down to the average worker sitting or sometimes standing far in the back of the hall.

The order of appraisal was reversed.

It started with the common folk, usually with Levels in the fives to tens and Classes, Skills, and Stats to roughly match it, with a few outliers.

I only checked a few of them, mostly when the reaction of the crowd and the shine of the sphere indicated someone above average.

The sphere seemed to react to a weighted sum of potential, but I wasn’t entirely sure of my deduction.

Slowly but surely, the common folk were done and the more interesting candidates were called for evaluation.

At this point, I had figured that I would be called towards the very end.

As the ceremony came closer and closer to the finale, more juicy Skills and Classes crossed my field of view. Suffice to say, their current Level was way above mine, triggering ‘Know Your Enemy’s penalty condition of losing 5% of my total Experience Points each and every time.

My own Level was in free fall.

Two.

One.

Zero.

At this point, the only thing between me and my non-existent will to hold back on collecting additional intel was my almost exhausted Energy.

Then it was finally my turn.

I left my seat and slowly walked on stage, pushed my open palms against each other, slightly bowed my head, and recited the same ritualistic lines as all children who came before me.

“Das was unten ist, ist wie das, was oben ist, und das was oben ist, ist wie das was unten ist.”

(That which is below, is like that which is above, and that which is above, is like that which is below.)

After a nod from the master of ceremonies, I slowly walked toward the center of the stage.

A few hushes were heard. Then the room around me slowly fell into silence as I extended my hands towards the sphere.