We took a brief dip in the hot springs, but everyone was too exhausted to play around. In the end, we all nearly collapsed in my bed in a heap. It was only a little later that I summoned up the strength to check through the statuses and see what advancements we had made during that battle.
Slave Master reached 28, True Hero reached 10, Basic Magician reached 23, and Dark Priest reached 13. Lydia’s Thief skyrocketed to 15 and even swordsman went up to 43. Miki’s spiritualist was 41 and her Basic Magician was 24. Celeste’s Master Wind Magician was 20, and her Magic Singer was 13. Terra’s Earth Manipulator didn’t change, but her Mineral Appraiser was now 15. As for Shao, she had Shadow Knight at 28, and Pugilist at 15.
Simply put, everyone had made great progress. Every job involved an increase in status, so as far as their top-level jobs, they were all about as powerful as anyone at that level could be. That meant that overall, the power of my party was around 50. Although, I was probably the weakest link with my White Mage only at level 30.
Every level contributed to increasing your status, even in jobs you don’t keep equipped. However, every job also had not only the skill-related reinforcements but its own bonus just for having that job equipped.
Each level involved a greater boost in status, so someone with two jobs at level 2 is not necessarily equal to someone with one job at level 3. The easiest way to determine someone’s strength is to see what their highest job is first, and then consider how many other jobs they have levels in. This is where the tier system comes into play because you can assume a mage like me has at least three jobs, with one of them up to level 50. Normally, that would be the requirement to reach White Mage.
This is why the girls weren’t overwhelmed even though I nerfed them into lower-level jobs. It wasn’t like their gains in their main levels went away when I switched their job. They might not have access to all of the skills they were used to, although if they were familiar enough with a skill, they could force it into functioning. All they lacked was the particular boosts that a certain job might grant them. For example, a magician job would give someone a boost in mana absorption and use.
However, if you equip a different job with a similar type, that boost probably won’t get noticed. For example, when an Adept Magician becomes a Master Magician, although their job changed from level 50 to level 1, they aren’t any weaker. In fact, despite being level 1, they should still be stronger. That’s because the boost from the final tier Master Magician to mana is much greater than the boost of an adept.
That might not be the best example, because a magician would lose access to some of their skills when they got a new job, but the general assumption is that they wouldn’t have unlocked that job unless they already had a mastery over many of those skills. Technically, wind control is all you need to do any wind technique, but it’d take a master to have the control to pull off said techniques. In that way, the skill system is a crutch, with the inevitable goal to gain pure control over your skills so that you don’t need to activate the aids.
While going over this concept in my mind and thinking about how I wanted to advance myself and the girls, I nodded off to sleep. The girls had all passed out before me.