"What are you doing?"
In front of East Flower Capital, by the open ground outside the city walls.
Diallo had negotiated the price of traveling with a merchant caravan. When she turned around, she saw Chu Ke squatting there, holding a kettle of boiling water and pouring it over something.
"Me?" Chu Ke did not turn around, continuing to pour boiling water over his anthill. "I'm leveling up."
Unassigned Points +7893
This anthill was a big haul.
"Leveling up?" Diallo curiously leaned her head closer. Her fluffy golden hair bunched together, making her look like a giant golden jellyfish.
In this world, every profession began at level zero. To raise one's profession level, one had to study the corresponding knowledge or challenge monsters of a similar or higher level. Different professions had different leveling requirements, though they generally fell into those two categories. Upon fulfilling the requirements, one would gain profession EXP.
Once EXP filled the level bar, leveling up granted the host corresponding attribute bonuses. Sometimes, it could even spark inspiration, allowing one to create or comprehend additional skills.
Take Diallo herself, for instance. A paladin leveled up by "eliminating evil." In her understanding, doing good deeds, maintaining an upright character, and destroying monsters that disrupted order could all help her level up.
"You can use Appraisal to see my information so thoroughly, so your level must be pretty high." Diallo was still curious. "Could the Proof of the King's leveling method really be pouring boiling water on ants?"
"Simply put, it's killing living things. Whether kings wage war or dump goods commercially, don't they ultimately leave the people destitute?" Chu Ke came up with an excuse.
It was a word game. His cheat really did require "killing living things," while the latter half was merely an explanation of a king's actions. Put together, it was rather misleading.
Chu Ke was actually quite conflicted over attribute points.
If he ignored the fact that he was the Demon King, what he really wanted was the kind of thrilling hero's adventure filled with sweat and friendship!
That brought up the question of attributes. If his attributes were too high, there would be no fun at all in the journey to defeat the Demon King. He might as well go back to his main body and sleep. But if his stats were too low, and these heroes happened to discover his identity as the Demon King along the way, causing him to crash and burn in some gutter, his main body would definitely laugh at him mercilessly.
Chu Ke knew better than anyone what kind of terrible person he was. His main body just seemed unwilling to admit it.
But so far, the only hero he had seen was the undeveloped paladin before him. What stats would be just right?
Fortunately, the appearance of the high-level Great Mage Vega gave Chu Ke an idea. Vega's highest stat was magic power, an astonishing thirteen thousand points.
And that was merely the stat line of a relatively late-stage profession on the "mage" class tree, not some so-called "graduation stats."
Then, whether he was a hero or the Demon King, all his stats should reasonably be two or three times higher than that, right? Great. His current goal was to raise Strength to one hundred thousand first! Chu Ke nodded confidently and continued pouring boiling water on the ants.
The limits of Chu Ke's thinking seemed to have kept him from realizing one thing: magic power, like HP, was not a base stat. It was a derived stat boosted from base data according to the formulas of different professions.
"Time to set off?" Diallo was reliable when it came to this sort of thing, and she quickly arranged everything concerning the route.
"OK." Seeing that his unassigned points had surpassed ten thousand, Chu Ke put away the kettle in satisfaction and climbed into the carriage beside him.
Vega had already been waiting in the carriage for quite some time. When she saw Chu Ke board, she shifted over, deliberately moving away from him.
Vega herself did not know why, but whenever she saw Chu Ke talking to Diallo, she felt annoyed.
The wasteland, Demon King City.
Within the magnificent hall lay a hand-sewn red carpet. At its far end stood a golden throne towering five meters high.
The decor here was completely unlike the gloomy place people imagined. The castle's furnishings alone made it more like a royal city than the residence of any human royal family.
Before the throne, two tall figures stood facing one another.
"Plague and Domination didn't come?" The demon wearing a fierce knight's helmet, his body seemingly cast from molten lava, asked the other.
His voice was unexpectedly steady, the mature, uncle-like kind that could fool little girls.
The other figure was made of gray mist, with a strangely textured black crown tilted atop his head. Every breath he took expelled sparks mixed with gray fog.
He shook his head. "They are still guarding the border, continuing to carry out the last wishes of the previous Demon King."
"According to the humans' prophecy, our new king should have been born a few days ago. Yet I have not found any trace of him."
"It's simple." War took a step forward, crossing the visual boundary between subject and sovereign before the throne.
Almost at the same moment, a massive gray-mist scythe blocked War's path. "I advise you to put away those petty thoughts."
"Every generation of Demon King has grown stronger. The previous Demon King was even said to be the strongest life-form in three thousand years, with every attribute aside from magic power exceeding a thousand."
"Are you trying to die?"
"Hmph, a mere thousand points. Give me a little more time, and I can reach that too." War was disdainful, but the flicker of fear in his eyes betrayed him. It was an ember left behind by the previous Demon King's rule. "Death, don't pretend to be some loyal subject either. The fact that you did not guard the border and appeared here alongside me is already treasonous."
This time, Death said nothing, but he did not withdraw the scythe.
"..." War fell silent for a moment. "I understand. Next, I'll go to Lake of Truth and kill the hero in advance."
"By the way, what exactly is the Hero's Sword?" Chu Ke asked curiously.
"Hm? Are you the summoned kind of hero?" Diallo asked.
After all, no native of this world was unaware of the Hero's Sword's story.
When Chu Ke nodded, Diallo's eyes lit up. "Then in exchange, you have to tell me what your world is like too!"
"The legendary Hero's Sword was forged by the first hero using the divine power of the Goddesses. It has two effects in total."
"First: recognizing its master. Only someone of noble character, wholly devoted to eliminating the Demon King and preserving peace, and supported by the people can draw it."
Chu Ke nodded. Fine, pass. There was absolutely no way he could draw it.
"Second: the hero's power. This legendary sword can collect the power of every previous hero. As generations have passed, the power contained within it has grown stronger and stronger."
"By our generation, it contains the power of a full twenty generations of heroes."
Chu Ke's eyes widened slightly.
Inwardly, he crossed out his plan of having one hundred thousand points in each attribute and silently changed it to one million points per attribute.
Please, everyone!!! Onegai! The fan group has been set up. To prevent people from maliciously blowing up the group, there's a one-fan-point entry requirement. Please understand!