Apparently a Novice can’t Increase Their Rank

「Only strong adventurers have aliases. In other words, all strong adventurers have aliases. There’s no way an adventurer who can incapacitate a Raging Ape on his own doesn’t have an alias.」

This is something even a Wizard can do if they learned some basic spells that inflict abnormal status conditions. Even being level six is more than enough.

「Okay, but I really don’t have an alias. Besides, I’m only rank F.」

「F?! You’re lying!」

「It’s the truth. Wanna see? I don’t even know how to raise my rank in the first place.」

I handed Mylia my guild card. She was still not completely buying it when she took my card.

「What’s this?! It says you’re a Novice! You didn’t inform the guild that you’ve changed job class?」

「I did, but the Wizard’s Gem didn’t light up, so I couldn’t change it. I’m a Sage though, so I suppose there was nothing they could do.」

It’s not like being a Novice will cause inconvenience.

「Sage… I’ve never heard of it before. Wait, there are classes with no corresponding gems?」

「Yeah, there sure are. But it’s not like it’ll cause problems for me if I’m treated as a Novice, right?」

I put my guild card away. Her answer destroyed my hopes.

「You can’t rank up when you’re a Novice.」

「…Seriously?」

「Seriously. It’s difficult for those with inferior classes to rank up, but it’s way worse for Novices. As long as your guild card says “Novice” you’re never going up the ranks. If there’s a job class that can only be treated as a Novice, then I can see why someone as strong as you is still an F-rank.」

I see. So that’s why I didn’t rank up despite killing numerous monsters.

「What’s the restriction for?」

「Apparently to reduce fatalities due to adventurers not having the appropriate abilities expected of their ranks.」

「If they can fulfil the same request, that means they have the required abilities. Isn’t the job class unnecessary in determining one’s strength?」

「That’s what I think too. In fact, up until ten years ago, you can rank up regardless of job class. It got changed to what we have now by Cardinal Georgis’ reforms.」

She’s right. Job class doesn’t have anything to do with how strong one is. So even though two people have the same strength, one might get a higher rank just because of their job class? I smell a conspiracy. Maybe this Cardinal Georgis hates those with inferior job classes and Novices.

First, the cathedral where you can change classes has been abandoned. Then advanced classes are known as inferior job classes. There might be something fishy going on.

「Does that mean you had trouble ranking up as well?」

With her alias Flame Spear, my guess is that she’s a Hero. In this world, it’s one of the inferior classes. Heroes have the basic skill Flame Weapon. As the name suggests, it gives a fire-attribute buff to their weapon to increase its power.

If used on a spear, it’ll be clad in flames. It’s a flashy Skill which probably earned her the alias of Flame Spear.

「Yeah, I had a hard time ranking up. It’s one of the reasons I’ve gone solo. I made it all the way up to rank B thanks to my Flame Weapon, but it’ll be tough for inferior classes to go any higher.」

「…I see.」

I was right. Her alias came from using her Flame Weapon skill. It’s one of the weakest offensive Skills that a Hero has, though. Actually, a Hero’s basic Skills are actually weak overall. The only good ones are the passive Skills that automatically strengthens the body when learned. The rest are pretty much garbage.

On the other hand, a Hero’s advanced Skills are extremely powerful. But it didn’t seem like Mylia was using one earlier.

Don’t tell me the people of this world fight without knowing how to use their advanced Skills… No, that’s just utterly ridiculous.

Fighting without advanced Skills is the same as heading into battle without any weapon. Sure, they don’t change classes in the royal capital’s cathedral, but they still have churches here and it’s still possible to change job class through the Coming of Age Ceremony. I find it hard to believe that they don’t know advanced Skills. It’s simply unthinkable.

「You looked like you were having a rough time earlier. You didn’t use Over Guard?

Over Guard is one of a Hero’s most basic defensive Skill.

It auto-activates when blocking an attack with a weapon and momentarily increases defense while only costing a bit of MP. With enough defense in fact, the attack gets deflected back.

It’s basically like a permanent critical counter. There’s not one Hero in BBO that didn’t learn this Skill. But maybe…

「What’s an Over Guard?」she asked, looking puzzled.

Man, this world’s worse than I thought.

But that also means she hasn’t used her Skill Points at all. This might be a good opportunity. She’s probably somewhere between level 15 to 20. Without using advanced Skills, she’d have been killed instantly by the Raging Ape if she weren’t at least level 15. But if she were level 20, she wouldn’t have been overwhelmed by the monster.

I haven’t watched her long enough to accurately gauge her strength, but my guess is she’s level 16. Heroes learn『Combo Attack』when they reach level 17. It’s a powerful Skill that’s considered the best among the class’s basic skillset. The fact that she wasn’t using it means she’s most likely level 16 and below.

A level 16 Hero is more than enough to take down a Raging Ape. Maybe… just maybe, I won’t have to wait for the poison to kill it.