Ed's gentle smile took on a hint of obsequiousness:
"Hehe, could you tell me about the power system of this world?"
At this point, Ed didn't care much about Seraphina's opinion of him anymore. She might wonder why he knew nothing, but so what?
Anyway, they're already allies bound together by shared interests, so I can ask them whatever I want, and I'll always pay for it.
Seraphina rolled her eyes and retorted:
"Are you some recently resurrected antique? You know absolutely nothing..."
"Tell me more."
Ed completely ignored the contempt in Seraphina's tone for illiteracy and made a gesture of rubbing his hands together as if he were being taught a lesson.
"Well, actually the complete power system collapsed after the outbreak of the Demonic Tide. Based on my travel experience in the years after the outbreak of the Demonic Tide, the individuals who survived can do whatever they want, whether it's fusion, replacement, or compatibility with strange things. In short, things like 'knights' and 'mages' no longer exist."
"So telling you this knowledge is useless. Now, a century after the Demonic Tide, almost everyone has their own path, and it's unique and cannot be replicated."
Ed, who was listening attentively, wrote down the last two sentences in his mind.
Everyone has their own power system; in other words, everyone can customize their role, and the possible combinations are infinite.
Is there any group more suited to this concept than gamers?
No way!
When Ed saw players dismantling a single Vine Bandage Pack and sharing it among three or four people, and when he saw that some people had spontaneously developed the "parasitic summoning" combat style, he knew that the natives of the World of Disorder had less than one percent of the potential they had for this chaotic world.
For players, this is truly an unexplored blue ocean.
Exploring unknown territories always comes at the cost of life, but coincidentally, Ed happened to have a group of undead under his command.
After confirming this setting Ed asked in a different direction:
"You mentioned before that you were at the Initial Tier, but I always felt that the difference in strength between us was extraordinary..."
When faced with this question, Seraphina seemed ready to say something vulgar...
But considering that Ed seemed genuinely clueless, she suppressed the vague feeling of being looked down upon and began to explain:
"Make one thing clear: the Low Tier of dragons and the Low Tier of humans are not the same thing."
"For humans and most intelligent life forms, the power of an individual can be roughly divided into ' Low Tier,' ' Middle Tier,' and ' High Tier,' which is the default classification method used by many races over the past countless years."
"Although there is no specific evaluation method, intelligent races that live in groups generally use a challenge-based approach to certify themselves in the face of Demonic Tide."
What are the forms of challenge?
"It means finding an individual who is generally recognized as being at the target level to challenge. Generally speaking, as long as you don't lose too badly, you'll be accepted."
Ed understood. Before the Demonic Tide erupted, the best way for a Low Tier mage to advance to Middle Tier was to find a universally acknowledged weak Middle Tier mage and fight them. As long as he won, drew, or narrowly lost as Seraphina had said, he would be recognized as Middle Tier...
What a simple testing method. He had thought the world would have a strict system for dividing power, but now it seems he was overthinking it.
Before the outbreak of the Demonic Tide, this world seemed to have not yet progressed from qualitative to quantitative analysis; it could only make rough hierarchical divisions, and the power levels were still at a rudimentary stage of simply stacking boxes...
Okay, that's not entirely unacceptable.
Just as Ed was lost in thought, pondering how to assess everyone's ranks after the Demonic Tide erupted, Seraphina continued:
"Besides that, there are also ' Transcendent Tier ' individuals. Generally speaking, those who are virtually unbeatable within a race and whose strength is comparable to the strongest individuals of other races are recognized as Transcendent Tier. Each race has at least one, and at most... I don't think there are more than ten."
Ed nodded and pointed to himself:
"Then what rank do you think I am?"
" Low Tier."
Seraphina didn't hesitate at all, which made Ed feel a little embarrassed, like someone had pointed at his nose and said, "One look at her and you're a noob," but he had no way to retaliate.
"What is your rank?"
" Low Tier."
Seraphina, equally without hesitation, then added:
" The Low Tier of the dragon race are equivalent to the High Tier of humans."
This is a bit like bullying someone...
Ed thought to himself that no wonder Seraphina was putting so much pressure on him. The difference in strength between the two of them was even a whole Middle Tier difference. Unless he could summon Xiao Huohuo to possess him, Ed felt that he had no chance of winning at all.
"That's quite a unique way of dividing things..."
Ed hesitated for a moment, then finally expressed his acceptance of the fact by complaining.
"There's nothing we can do about it."
Seraphina sighed:
"From the moment a dragon hatches from its egg, it is already considered a relatively weak High Tier by other races."
"Therefore, for the dragon race, our Initial Tier Middle Tier, and High Tier all correspond to the High Tier of other races, because the ' Transcendent Tier ' concept is universally applicable to every race."
Now Ed completely understood. Simply put, everyone's level cap was about the same, but dragons were not only more durable, but also had starting accounts, were born with a bunch of innate skills, and had an incredibly long lifespan...
Indeed, the world is unfair, in every world.
After silently classifying Seraphina into the 60-70 range according to the level 100 standard, Ed indicated that he was fine and began to digest the knowledge he had just gained and the life force of the wooden house monster he had stolen on the battlefield.
With Ed's mind connecting with Seraphina, trading between players officially entered the online era.
After seeing Seraphina off, Ed entered a secret room in an old castle.
This is a huge room without windows, located just below the hall where the player awoke.
According to Ed's observation, this place was a basement before the castle was Shattered, but he actually had to pass through two areas of Gravity Reversal to get here, and his current location Supreme than the highest point of the castle.
The players were unaware of the room's existence, or perhaps they could see the castle fragment from the ground, but because it had been designated a "restricted area," they had no way to reach it.
Pushing open the rotten oak door, a chilling coldness swept over Ed, making him feel as if he had entered a cold storage room in a slaughterhouse.
Before him were twenty human bodies suspended in the air by iron hooks.