"I leave on a couple of deep dive dungeon runs, and you decide to do all sorts of crazy stuff while I'm gone," Diana said, gripping Ian in a death hug the moment she ran into Claire's office. "The fallout hitting Peerless is exactly what I was hoping for after learning what they did to you and some other people I know. The only thing that can make it better is if their adventurers keep leaving until they have nobody left."

Ian gently returned her hug for a second before she released him and went to take a seat on the sofa. After making sure the door was shut properly, he walked over to join her and Claire.

"We were actually looking to set up a meeting with Worg's Fang in the next couple of days," Claire said, giving Diana a knowing smile.

"Oh? What does my siblings' little party have that you're interested in?" she replied, lifting an eyebrow.

"Honestly, we are looking to make a contract with them to run raids with us in the future," Ian said, taking a seat on the other side of the sofa.

Diana gave him a sideways look, her glance making it very clear she thought he was joking.

"Seriously," Ian said with a small chuckle. "I got a new skill at the last milestone that allows me to transfer a special buff to a set number of allied parties. It is a leveled skill, and I poured the ten thousand points into getting it to level two, and I can now support two allied parties."

"What does this buff do?" Diana asked slowly as she looked at him with suspicion.

"Promise not to say anything about it outside of this room?" Ian asked with a smirk.

"Who am I gonna talk to?" Diana scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Everyone I hang out with is like a hundred years old. Some of them are literally over a hundred years old. Those old bags would probably think I was misunderstanding something because I am too 'young and inexperienced' to really know any better. They may look young, but they're actually crotchety old geezers."

"They most certainly are," Claire muttered, receiving a knowing smirk from Diana.

Ian chuckled at the resignation in Claire's voice before turning back to Diana.

"My skill is called United We Stand, and it allows my party to receive 45% of my status points as a buff. The secondary effect allows 22.5% of my stats to go to allied parties I designate. I've already added Restless Hands, and I was hoping to add Worg's Fang now that I can add a second."

Diana just stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before blinking and shaking her head. She opened her mouth to speak before closing it again while tilting her head to the side.

"Ian…what are your stats at right now?" she asked after a moment.

Ian shrugged, "I'm currently above fourteen thousand in each with strength being my highest with over sixteen thousand."

Diana whistled, "So, you are sitting at the same level in each stat as a specialist's build that is more than twice your level would have in just their specific stat."

Ian looked over at Claire, who nodded.

"That's about right," Claire responded. "With the way he's boosting his primary party, it won't be long before we're all monsters in our own right. Even I can do serious damage in melee right now, and I'm a caster."

"And each of your allies will become stronger as you get stronger," Diana added. "I'm honestly a little jealous, though I am technically a reserve member of Worg's Fang. Once you all get high enough, maybe I can sub in for a couple of runs and see what the buff is like."

"Actually, you should end up getting the buff as well," Ian said. "Glade Runner and both of our crafters are reserve members in our party, and they are all covered under the higher-end buff."

"So, each party would be able to have their normal six, plus six additional reserves," Diana said excitedly. "That would allow you to cover quite a few people, though they wouldn't be able to run the same dungeons at the same time—which isn't really a big deal until your party gets up beyond the beginnings of the ultra-tier. Unfortunately, everyone must use the special dungeons as there aren't enough adventurers in those ranges for the dungeon curator to justify permanent ones."

"It could happen in time," Ian said, giving her a smile. "We're going to do what we can to create more opportunities for newbies to get good gear. Though we should probably find a couple more crafters who want to level and get them in our party before we get too high. The more people we have who can create quality gear at affordable prices, the better off this generation of adventurers will be."

Diana gave Ian a warm smile before looking over to Claire. "It looks like he finally found something to drive him, huh?"

"It's a good goal," Claire said with a smile of her own. "If I remember the stories correctly, your father tried to do the same thing with my parents back when they all started diving together."

"Yeah, but our parents didn't have the right personalities or skill sets for it. Let's face it, with the exception of Aunt Mavis, every member of their party was difficult to get along with. Their venture was doomed long before it even began."

Claire let out a belly laugh. "Understatement much? My mother treats everyone like a video game character she has to help get from point A to point B, and my father literally knows everything…about everyone."

"True, and my father's ego knows no bounds. He's started to mellow a bit now that there are a couple of mages who have finally surpassed him in level. I just can't believe our top adventurers are all still stuck only a couple hundred levels higher than they were when they stopped."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Give us a couple of years, and we should be well on our way to catching up to you," Claire said. "Though, we really do need to find a couple more crafters to fill out our ranks, and we need to pick them up as close to level one hundred as possible."

Diana was about to reply when she blinked as a realization hit her. "There is a reason they need to be close to level one hundred other than them not having wasted SP on non-crafting skills, isn't there? With the way you level, it wouldn't be hard to level them up compared to higher-level ones, but it goes deeper than that, doesn't it?

"Well," Ian said before pausing a moment. He really didn't want to tell her about how his bonus extended to his party members, he just didn't know her well enough yet. "Let's just say that I have additional bonuses that will make every single level count. This will allow them to craft items well above their level range if we can help supply the materials."

Diana nodded as she seemed to be lost in thought. After a moment, she looked over to Ian, "I know someone who might fit the bill. He wanted to be mage, but he ended up with a skill that allowed him to craft spell stones."

"That actually sounds really cool."

"Apparently the tradeoff for the skill is that he cannot cast magic on his own without them," Diana said with a sad sigh. "While he loved the challenge, it was so hard to gather the gems and materials needed that he decided to purchase prestige and retry for a different inherent. Unfortunately, he got the same one all three times he tried before finally giving up. Once I hit it big, I offered him a job in my clan's accounting division, and he has been there ever since."

Claire and Ian looked at each other and smiled. Someone whose inherent was so ingrained in them would be perfect, especially if he could get them to prestige again.

"Would it be possible to get your assistance setting up a meeting with him?" Ian asked. "We'd like him to prestige one more time if possible, and level again in the hopes that he maintains his crafting skill."

"Your party is getting some sort of stacking bonus for every level they get, aren't they?" Diana asked. "And it's big enough that it would make even someone like me want to reset if I knew about it, isn't it?"

Ian sighed before giving her a smile.

"You can trust her, Ian," Claire said with a giggle. "She's the only one in their family besides their dad who knows who my parents are. If she can keep that secret, she can keep yours. We all have a lot to keep quiet about."

"Well, Claire trusts you completely, and our main party is already full, so I'll tell you under the condition that it doesn't leave this room." Diana nodded and gave him her complete attention. "Everyone in my party gets my SP bonus when they level, but it isn't retroactive."

"So, everyone is getting double the normal SP per level?"

"Triple," Ian replied, getting a wide-eyed gaze of confusion from Diana. "My original inherent skill is a variant of prestige. I keep half of my base stats every time it becomes available, which appears to be every new major milestone. It also lets me keep my skills and increases my SP bonus by an additional ten every time I get to prestige."

"That's crazy," she said, looking to Claire who just nodded at her in agreement. "The next milestone for you is when you reach the high-tier, at which point you will probably far surpass anyone around your level. Especially if you are focusing on bolstering your stats as much as possible. Imagine if you cycled people through to get them the SP bonus."

"And there is the pitfall of the entire thing," Claire said with a sigh before spinning in her chair. "After testing, I found that if you leave the party, you get a notification saying you will not be able to earn more SP until you have reached the level that you were supposed to be at to properly earn that amount of SP with Ian. Mine told me that I needed to reach level 3052 to earn additional SP when I tested it last night."

Ian's eyebrows rose at that bit of information; she hadn't told him she'd tested it, but it didn't surprise him that she was trying things on her own to find the best way to benefit from the skill. He knew there had to be pitfalls to his skill, but hadn't had a chance to find them as of yet.

"That's a shame," Diana said. "But I guess that's how the system will stop you from just rotating in new party members constantly and giving tons of people the benefits."

"Very much so. I tested it so we would know for certain in case anyone asked about it. It is one of the reasons I'm fully in support of filling the other positions with crafters. Ian wants to boost them up and open their services to lower-level adventurers.

"With his inherent skill, Jimmy can produce an entire leather armor set in under an hour. Then it can be further enchanted by Ruth in about the same amount of time. They said they'd happily make the whole set for a hundred dollars if the materials were provided."

"What level range is the armor set?" Diana asked, obviously curious.

"The initial set they showed me scales up to level nine hundred or so. Much like the armor set your brother wears."

"An armor set that cost me nearly fifty thousand dollars and cannot be enchanted."

"Exactly," Ian said. "It's a plan based on the notes gifted to me by the Faeorcen adventurer who visited."

Ian spent the next twenty minutes explaining the issues the Faeorcen had with working together, and how Selenia's father had proposed a hypothetical plan to properly utilize individuals with awakening challenges to benefit larger groups of individuals in reaching greater heights. Much like the Faeorcen, most of the human adventurers who advanced to the middle-tier and beyond seemed to be more focused on their own leveling instead of helping their fellow adventurers, leading to very similar issues holding everyone back.

"And it's completely understandable," Ian said with a shrug. "Without the equipment and support, most of our adventurers are barely squeaking by. It doesn't help that we don't have a lot of decent armor and weapons that aren't dungeon drops. To put it in video game terminology, we are selling trash-tier gear, which makes us excited to get common-tier item drops. Even the new spear I got is easily replaceable with any spear I can get to drop in the dungeon at this level. It doesn't have any enchantments, nor can it be further empowered.

"I only took a few courses on weapon development, but we still haven't figured out how to properly transfer essence stones into the weapon and armor outside of the crafting skills. We're paying a ton of money for items that only get stronger due to the natural mana saturation of the material. If we can increase access to quality gear, then more people will feel safe diving their own level range in dungeons."

"I agree," Diana said with a sad sigh, leaning back into the sofa. "Unfortunately, many of the old heads are set in the mindset that progress should be entirely in the hands of the individual. Even the clans are only about getting levels…except for Threshold, who all but worship mana."

"We've had good luck with them so far," Ian said, giving her a smile when she looked at him like he was crazy. "One of their parties saved me from being killed in the dungeon by a group from Serenity." He thought back on the event before remembering Point's threat to Chet. "They are pretty intense, though."

"Cultists are like that," Diana said with a giggle. "Anyways, my siblings are in. Their entire party already looks up to you like a hero. They'll jump at this opportunity with absolutely zero hesitation."

"We figured they would," Claire said.

"Yeah, I'll text them and tell them to join you as an allied party. Are you guys going to be in the cafeteria tonight? We're all supposed to eat dinner together tonight after they finish with their dungeon run."

"Oh, we'll definitely be there," Ian said, giving her a grin. "We did our dungeon run this morning, so we were all planning to meet up there in about half an hour anyways to hang out and maybe grab a beer."

"Then let's go!" Diana said, jumping to her feet.

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