Lupia looked torn between sighing and staring at me incredulously as whispers broke out among the adventurers.

“Did’cha ‘ear tha’?” “A griffin? Easily?!” “How strong is he?”

At the last one my ears pricked up and I called over “Excuse me, how do they define the rankings?”

Instead of one of them answering, Lupia spoke up. “In principle they’re split by the total amount of health and mana you have, collectively known as ‘points’.”

“Oh, so you do know how to increase your health and mana pools?”

She gave me a strange look. “…yeah, most people do. You must do, what with your ability.”

I turned and gave Tear a long, somewhat judging look.

“What?” the catgirl asked, confused, and a little defensively.

“Oh, just making a mental note to double check all information you give me.”

“What?” now even more confused.

“Anyhoo~,” I turned back to Lupia, “you were saying?”

“E rank, the lowest rank, begins at a total of 100 so every adult who joins is at least an E rank. D 200, C 300, B 400, A 500, S 600, SS 700, and SSS 800, but SSS rank adventurers are the stuff of legends. It’s similar for SS ranked; even our kingdom only has one SS ranked - the High Paladin of the Church.” She paused, getting back on track. “If you have enough points you can take a rank-up test where your ability to complete quests of the next rank is tested.” The wolfkin lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone this, but the rank-up tests are usually a bit harder than the average quest of that rank.”

“Just to make sure the examinee is actually capable?” I replied in the same lowered tone.

“Exactly.” She returned her voice to normal level. “When you register with the Adventurers Guild, your health and mana are measured and you’re assigned a rank two below that of what your points would usually merit, then you have to prove you are qualified to receive that rank. It’s not usually that difficult to get to your correct rank though.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. Though, you did say ‘in principle’…?”

“Yes. In reality very few of the adventurers above the bottom few ranks have the points to justify being where they are. Instead they qualify to be allowed to take a rank-up test in one of two other ways: have a letter of recommendation from a senior member of staff or high rank adventurer, or prove your capabilities by defeating monsters and completing quests. That’s also how adventurers who don’t want to reveal their health and mana for whatever reason can rank up.”

I nodded again, even more questions adding themselves to the list. I voiced the first one “How does that line up with monsters-loads of them have massively higher health, even ignoring their innate magical abilities?”

“Monsters can’t manipulate their lifeforce like us civilised races can, and their use of mana is limited to those ‘innate magical abilities’. They have no ability to make weapons or equipment, which we can. They also aren't as smart as us so we can fight them using tactics.”

I took a glance round at the dead wolves that were being collected by Janet into her item box. “Seemed to me they were quite tactically adept.”

“Exception, not rule,” she said, shaking her head. “Wolf-type monsters are smarter than the average monster and have better teamwork.”

By now Liz and Thora had wandered over to join us. Seeing the dwarf sparked another few ideas, and I asked “What about priests? How are their points measured; they don’t use mana or lifeforce.” I could tell while Thora had been fighting earlier; he was using his lifeforce and some other source of energy to augment his mace.

Instead of Lupia, Thora answered. “Tha divine power gifted tae us by our patron deities in return for our faith-” he trailed off and started again. “It would be blasphemous for tha Adventurers Guild tae measure tha level of divine power accumulated in a priest’s holy focus. Only the Church is authorised by the gods to do that. As such only my adventuring prowess an’ points affect my rank in the Guild, not my faith in the Goddess of Justice.”

“Oh, you worship Justice?” Liz asked in surprise. “I thought you worshipped Law.”

“No.” The coldly monosyllabic answer clearly expressed the dwarven priest’s intent to cut that particular direction of discussion short.

Both Liz and Lupia seemed taken aback at the distaste in his voice, but I was more interested in what he had been taking about before, inquiring “So what’s your focus? Can I see it?”

“Laddie, it’s rude to ask to see a holy focus and ye ain’t likely to find a cleric or priest who’ll show ye theirs,” Thora replied, speaking with a grave tone and fixing me with a serious look.

“Sorry for being rude, I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s fine,” the priest waved a calloused hand, a sly glint appearing in his eyes, “but ye can repay me by sating ma curiosity; what rank would ya be if ye were an adventurer, points-wise? We’re guessing S a’ least.”

I smirked slightly internally. “You’d not be wrong with that statement.”

Tear nudged me from my side. “Hey didn't you tell me-”

“Shush!” I whispered back. “They don't need to exact numbers!”

“Hmm?” Liz hummed curiously.

“Nothing.” I tousled Tear’s hair, ignoring her attempts to stop me and addressed the group. “Anyway, what method do you use to increase your mana and health?”

“Don’t you already know?” Liz asked.

“My method is a little irregular so it would be good to know how other people do it.”

“Well ok then.” She took a breath. “We use meditation techniques to draw in and absorb the ambient mana for boosting the growth of our lifeforce and mana, though the techniques’ effectiveness tend to be quite low due to there not being many mana rich areas like mana springs available for us to use. The kingdom controls access to most of them.

“There are three main types of mediation technique: one that prioritises mana, one that prioritises health, and one that increases both but at a slower rate. Most adventurers tend to choose the one that gives them the most benefit for how they prefer to fight. I'm an archer so I increase both; health for lifeforce boosting my body to enable me to use a bow with a heavier draw, and mana for boosting my arrows.

“The health gain technique is generally the most popular because it doesn’t rely on any equipment. Archery is ok; arrows aren’t too bad to buy or make yourself so there’s a decent following of the mixed technique, but magic foci are typically too expensive for someone just starting out so there aren’t that many mage adventurers. Most of us either choose to be a physical fighter or a ranger. I recall you asked about summoners in the town hall? The cost of equipment and rituals for summoning far outweighs any magic foci. I can’t think of any starting adventurer I’ve met or even heard of being a summoner.”

Liz then explained the technique. Roughly speaking it was performed by pushing your mana and lifeforce out to the edges and extremities of your body, leaving as close to nothing in the mana and lifeforce pools as you could get, wait and allow the ambient mana to fill them instead, then bring your energies back in to mix and assimilate the raw mana into them. I decided I'd give it a go tonight.

“The technique I just taught you is the most basic technique for concentrating ambient mana, not one specialised for converting absorbed mana into either health or your own mana. You can receive or buy other meditation techniques from various organisations like the Church or the Adventurers Guild, but they, uhh, aren’t mine to share, sorry,” she grimaced.

While we were discussing, the rest of the adventurers had got everything organised and came over to join us.

“How does that compare to the method you use?” Vyra inquired curiously, having caught much of the conversation.

“I don’t know,” I shook my head, “I’m not from around here and I’m not sure my technique can be replicated here - I haven’t seen the resources required for it.”

“Where are you from? Are there more as strong as you?” he asked warily.

“Ah, I’d rather not say, sorry,” I replied rubbing the back of my head sheepishly, “though I will say there aren’t many like me.”

“You said you used ‘resources’; does that mean you boosted your pools with external aids?! You do know that lowers the cap on your pools right?” Lupia queried with a note of concern.

“Really? Why’s that? And what’s the natural cap?”

“Something to do with the impurities or irregularities in them or something, and I’m not sure… 400 or something?” she said, her voice lilting upwards at the end, uncertain.

“500.” Stated Janet with confidence.

Vyra nodded in confirmation. “That’s right. But I don’t know of anyone who’s got that high.”

“Hmm…” Well, that’s something to think about though it was certainly a relief that I didn’t seem to be handicapped right from the start.

“What kinda resources did ya use?” Thora asked, but Lupia cut me off before I could reply.

“It’d be best not to tell us that Lyte,” she said seriously. “To get as strong as Lyte is, even if they might become limited, I know of too many people who would have no problem killing to get that information. They wouldn’t stop at just torturing us either, they’d hold our families against us. I for one do not want that threat over my head.”

Yikes. “I wasn’t going to tell anyway. Besides, like I said, I haven’t seen any of the resources here that make it possible, so...” That was true, though not the entire truth. I wasn’t exactly going to paint a target on my back by mentioning that I had literally thousands of Heart Crystals and Fallen Stars in my world storage, much less reveal the technique to refine them.

“That’s good. Now, I’d appreciate it if everyone were to forget this conversation ever happened. If it leaks, some more… unscrupulous people might not believe us if we say Lyte didn’t tell us. Everyone understand?”

That was double yikes, and it was a good thing everyone unanimously agreed on that, including Dranner.

“It appears as though I should keep quiet when it comes to some of what I know and can make,” I remarked mostly to myself, not expecting Lupia to answer.

“Yes Lyte, please do.”