Once the Director of Military Finance broke the ice and showed them the way to interact with a ranking Elite who wasn’t picking factions, more of the politicians began to come over with similar ideas.
They didn’t try to sell him on joining them, or push their particular niche. Instead, they just discussed current events, which Karl was missing out on at the front lines. Or they praised the work that others were doing if it related to the topic at hand, and made sure that Karl would at least recognize their faces if he saw them again.
“You know, I’ve had a question for a while now. Why did they call these ranks Prince, King and Overlord? Isn’t that a bit too presumptuous? It’s not like I’m going to become King of the Golden Dragon Nation the next time I advance.” Karl commented.
One of the reporters spit out his drink as he began to laugh, while the government ministers managed a bit more decorum.
“It’s actually borrowed from older times, and not created for the Elites. You see, in the magical kingdoms, as well as most of the beast nations, a King Rank Beast or Mage can hold a territory. Normally, that’s only a few square kilometres, but it is their undisputed territory.
A Prince is not quite there, but they lord it over the other beasts in their territory if it doesn’t have a stronger leader.
But the Overlords are the ones with the power to force Kings to work together.
It’s been translated through a few languages, so it might not be perfect, but it works well enough for the time being.
There is a whole progression for the Divine Beasts, but we don’t have most of them on this continent. There isn’t enough food here to support them, they need the continents with more magic, so we rarely see anything above Overlord.
But if you are more widely travelled, you will find territories controlled by or even populated by stronger beasts.
You won’t see many humans there, we’re just not a powerful enough species to survive that, but Overlord is only halfway through the rankings in this world.” Director Jones explained.
“I recall that the Archbishop was above the Overlords, at the Totem Rank.” Karl replied.
An aging mage at the Ascended Rank, who Karl recognized as one of the producers for the news station, nodded politely as he approached.
“Yes, he’s a Totem Rank Cleric. A rank above the Overlords. The Mountain Giants also have Totem Rank leaders, while the Divine Beast Nation goes one rank further and has a Mythical Rank Black Dragon leading them.
That’s why they rarely attack us.
It might be a servant of the God of Death, but the Black Dragons understand that you need to keep a healthy population if you want the deaths to continue at a steady rate into the future.”
That was both depressing and remarkably pragmatic. Karl hadn’t realized that the Black Dragons were into things like sustainable populations.
Of course, they were also known to decimate entire regions, indiscriminately killing one in ten and then moving on. So, perhaps he had just misunderstood their nature.
It didn’t take the others long to get back to their favourite topic of the day, though.
“So, is there any sign of when the rest of your beasts will advance?” One of the businessmen asked.
“I would say that a second one should be at Royal Rank within the week, but the other two aren’t giving any clear signs.” Karl explained, for about the tenth time that night.
The man smiled. “This class of yours is like dropping a nuke in combat. You’re one Elite, but when you show up, it will be five Royal Rank threats at once.
The Giants can prepare for a single strong Elite, the same way that we prepare for a Royal Rank Giant. But when the beasts come out, it’s just an overwhelming change in the state of the battle.”
Karl nodded. “There are advantages to sending a particularly strong Royal Rank leader with a team of Commanders to deal with a threat.
We’re not exactly overloaded with strong Elites, so it’s better not to take risks when we don’t have to.”
Director Jones looked excited, as this was getting back to his area of expertise, though he was only actually in charge of supplies, not troop deployments.
“You have ideas on how best to send out the teams?” He asked.
“It’s just a thought that I had about the ability to deal with threats. You see, if you send a leader at the high end of a Rank along with a team one rank below them, you have the best chance of dealing with a surprise threat above the estimated level.
So, if you send a strong Ascended leader with an Awakened team, they’re safer overall without changing the composition. Then, when they reach Ascended, send them with a strong Commander until they’re further up the Rank and take over a team of a rank below them, or they have formed a solid team of their own.
Teams that know each other are still the best, but for random groups, leaders at the top, and not the bottom, of their Rank makes the most sense.
If we keep doing it that way, they will all have experience fighting at their own rank with a stronger leader, so when they take up a team leadership position, they will already be trained for the threats that they are there to protect the team against.” Karl detailed his thought, while the few Elites and Mages among them looked impressed.
The Producer tapped his chin as he thought. “You know, that’s how most stable groups are already. Either the leader is at the peak of their Rank, or they’ve got skills that make them surprisingly effective in combat, like the Spellblades, Magical Knights, or Elites with rare classes like your Beast Master.”
Karl nodded. His team was mostly made of people who would be well suited to leadership positions, but they were better together. They had been working together for quite a while now, or like Morgana, they just fit so naturally into their role that there was no friction or overlap in what their skills should be doing.
With her new skills, Karl couldn’t think of an Ascended team that wouldn’t happily steal his Dana away to lead them. Once she had mastered a movement skill like the other Knights were using, she would be incredibly deadly in combat, supporting her Golems.
There was a chance that she already knew one. The skills she had gotten were [Disruption Blade] and [Windwalker Combat Style], which was a bit ambiguous. It might include movement skills as well as combat skills, given the name.
They hadn’t needed to actually test the new skills yet, and even with the book, it might take a few days to get used to thinking differently, so you could fight in close combat as a mage.
The others had all gotten skills that were more similar to their existing abilities.
Except maybe Ophelia. Her new transformation was a Dire Bear, which was basically an overgrown Warbear. Karl was looking forward to seeing how that thing looked in combat while enraged.
In his mind, it would be like the cartoon superhero Smash, a nerdy gamer kid who got huge and blue when he was angry. Only she would be massive and furry when she raged.
