Chapter 82: Chapter 80: A connecting of pieces

What is the difference between ‘level’ and ‘skill’?

A 'level' is a system’s given value to a person that dictates the measure of their ability. Levels range from one to one-hundred. A level one person is weak. A level one-hundred person is inhumanly strong.

‘Skill’ is someone’s proficiency at a task.

A person can be a level one-hundred fighter but have never touched a blade — if we assume they paid in gold to have other people join their party and ‘carry’ them through the dungeons of the world.

A level five adult with a training sword can spar for a decade and become a master, yet he remains level five because the gods decided that fighting monsters is the only way to get experience-points — fighting other people does not.

What is the difference between these two? If they were to fight, who would win?

In a contest of pure artistic swordsmanship, the latter, the level five, would win. They have a mastery of form and stance that the former could never know.

Yet, in raw, physical combat, in a duel of life and death, the level one-hundred, despite being untested, has access to so many potent abilities that these alone could carry them to victory over their specific foe.

In noble society, it is not uncommon for the members of their bloodlines to be carried through dungeons by teams of experts, so that they may gain power for only the mere price of money. They do not tarnish their hands with dirty work that is viewed as beneath their station, but they will readily reap the rewards of it.