Chapter 56: Comparison To Other Mages
According to most of them, the monsters were dangerous but manageable as long as everyone worked together.
Alex frowned. That was nothing like what he had experienced.
Even monsters at the same level possessed overwhelming physical strength in Hell Difficulty, making direct fights almost impossible without exceptional spells like Battle Instinct and Body Reinforcement, or extreme physical conditioning like Yulia’s where she had repeatably broken her bones to get stronger.
’So monsters of the same level aren’t actually equal strong,’ he concluded.
The conclusion fit everything he had seen so far. Levels weren’t the only thing that determined strength, and training clearly increased stats as well.
The monsters in Hell Difficulty weren’t simply higher level. They were fundamentally stronger than their counterparts in Normal Difficulty.
Being thrown into Hell Difficulty was an incredibly unfair situation, especially since he hadn’t chosen it himself. Still, there was no point wasting time thinking about it. What had happened had happened.
Alex continued scrolling through Dwitter, using the short time he had before calling his sister. Since he couldn’t change the past, gathering information was the best use of his time.
Among the countless posts flooding his screen, he noticed several Ascendants discussing strange topics like [Relativity of Ranks] and [Beast Monarchs].
The names sounded important, but none of the discussions explained them properly.
Most people were simply arguing with each other, so Alex ignored those topics and focused on information that actually concerned him.
He found out about [Class Evolutions]. After reading it carefully, he moved to the next topic.
Information about [Hard Difficulty] was surprisingly difficult to gather. Many people claimed they had returned from Hard Difficulty, but their stories were wildly different, and it was obvious that plenty of them were lying.
Unlike Easy and Normal Difficulty, there was no reliable way to verify their claims.
The information from Easy and Normal Difficulty was much easier to trust. Thousands of people had already returned, and many of them had uploaded videos showing their abilities gained from Classes and Levels.
Their experiences matched well enough that false claims were quickly exposed.
There were also people claiming they had cleared [Hell Difficulty], but Alex knew they were lying. He was the first person to return from Hell Difficulty, and likely the only one for now.
As he continued scrolling, Alex noticed another pattern. Ordinary people were panicking over missing relatives and wondering whether another summoning would happen, but the Ascendants were noticeably more relaxed.
Many of them were chatting casually, showing off their Skills, or arguing about Classes as though they were discussing a new game.
’What are they so relaxed about?’ he clicked his tongue at their stupid attitude. They were letting a little power get to their head.
He continued scrolling. One topic in particular appeared everywhere.
It was the Mage Class.
Apparently, only around ten percent of the people who had returned were Mages. Most Mages were still trapped inside the Land of Origin, while Warriors and Priests made up nearly sixty-five percent of those who had successfully returned.
The reason wasn’t difficult to understand. Warriors could level up easily because Aura strengthened their bodies and was simple to learn.
As long as they fought monsters, gaining experience wasn’t particularly difficult.
Priests had it almost as easy. They only needed to heal injuries or remove fatigue from combatants, and the system counted their contribution during battles.
Even without directly fighting, they could level up alongside their teammates. Rogues had a harder time. Only those lucky enough to obtain Skills from Reward Boxes seemed to have returned consistently.
Without those Skills, many of them struggled to contribute enough during battles. The Mages had it the worst. Even those who received Spells from Reward Boxes often couldn’t use the Spell at all.
According to teammates who made it back, Mages needed dozens of seconds to a minute to cast one Spell, making them easy targets during combat.
Alex quietly compared those stories with his own experience. His high Mind attribute, combined with the ability to reinforce his mind, allowed him to process mana much faster than ordinary people.
His casting speed wasn’t something a normal Mage could compare to.
As he continued reading, one post had gathered an enormous amount of attention. A Mage named James had uploaded a video demonstrating what he claimed was a Level 2 Spell. Curious, Alex opened it.
A tiny flame floated above James’s fingertip before disappearing. It was barely larger than a candle flame, yet the comments below had already exploded.
[That’s a Level 2 Fire Bullet Spell?]
[Hahaha! Mages are so weak!]
[Shut up. Do you even know how difficult casting a Spell is?]
[These muscleheads don’t know anything. Sir James, don’t pay attention to them.]
Warriors and other Classes were openly mocking the Mage, while the few returned Mages defended him.
The argument grew more heated with every passing second, with neither side willing to back down.
Alex closed the comments with a frown.
’What are these people doing? Do they really think all of this is some kind of game?’ he wondered.
Instead of preparing for what lay ahead, they were wasting time arguing online.
It seemed that the people from Easy and Normal Difficulty believed the apocalypse wasn’t particularly dangerous.
They had been protected by friendly locals or had only encountered weak monsters, so many of them assumed things would continue that way. Alex, however, couldn’t share that optimism.
The Guide had clearly said that Earth’s survival depended on the performance of the summoned humans.
Alex still didn’t know how that performance would be measured, but he doubted humanity would pass if people became satisfied after reaching only Level 10.
If they stopped pushing themselves now, they would eventually pay the price.
His thoughts returned to James’s video. That tiny flame looked nothing like Alex’s own Fire Bullet.
Either James had somehow found a way to use Fire Bullet without compressing an enormous amount of fire-element mana, or he was simply lying about the Spell being Fire Bullet, let alone a Level 2 version.
Alex checked the time on his phone. He still had two minutes before he needed to call his sister. That gave him enough time to do one more thing.
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