Unchosen Champion

User_ID

[Alpha_Tester_ID_000000000]

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Power Level	[ERROR: Drift Detected] (##,###)
Class Designation	Revenant \\\\ Mistwalker - Abyssal Harbinger - Wanderer \\\\ [DEBUG: Multi]
Mana Affinity	[ERROR: Instability Detected]
Aptitude Rank	Icon of Humanity

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Body	5,000 [Tap to Expand]
Mind	12,000 [Tap to Expand]
Core	Stage 3

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Mastered Abilities

[Tap to Expand]

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Achievements

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Coop sighed at all the rough edges. For something meant to be so simple, it was surprisingly hard to process the information flowing through mana and have it displayed the way he wanted. There were too many variables between the individuals it was meant to organize.

How was he supposed to scale an entire level system with such a broad range? He had borrowed a lot of ideas from the previous system, tapping into some of the exact measurements through the faction itself and tweaking them for his purpose, but he still couldn't get it to properly gauge his own status. His other testers had significantly fewer errors, making him the outlier, which was all the more frustrating. More than anything, he wanted to admire his own gains and visualize his continued progression.

"What a pain." He mumbled into the ocean breeze.

The main 'system' was simply a personal status window. Coop was trying to keep things as uncomplicated as possible so that someone like him, seeing everything for the first time, would still understand what it was displaying. Other more dynamic features would mostly be delegated to the guilds that were in charge of specific tasks. For example, the Adventurer Guild could use the status system as a foundation to designate appropriate quests, guide expeditions, and assign rewards. Since they would be responsible for the surface, it was the kind of communication network that would keep them organized. It would be similar to how they had been using the faction interface before the Eradication Protocol, but built from the ground up for their purposes.

They had several pools of experience to tap into when it came to implementing different functions. Grandmaster Artisans like Balor, Garod, and Erasimus Doomthread had their own opinions when it came to material quality and how to measure them. The former Prison Warden turned Warmaiden, Eleza, had implemented an entire merit tracking system that could independently gauge intent when she was in charge of Empress City's dungeon. Even people like Derek had developed robust ladder systems for the parties delving into the mana well.

Then, there were all the residents of Ghost Reef that had begun to bypass the system and tap into mana with their own strategies during the assimilation. Gibson, Madison, and Charlie were essentially programming mana in basic ways that had evolved into the current status system. In the end, it made sense to open the testing to all members of the Lighthouse. The rest of the Lighthouse system would be a collaborative effort. Coop was just laying the foundation, as he had done for the sanctuary that had become Ghost Reef. If all went well, branches that formed from the basic start could provide everything from an interface for their chasm teleportation network, to outlining specific guidance for individual development, to use in the burgeoning mana-tech projects.

Coop had tried to give their status system a more precise power system than the previous. Rather than the arbitrary 'levels' that were calculated by a manufactured experience count, the new power level system was more a measurement of personal mana itself. Mana was the foundation of power as they understood it, and unlike the previous system, they had no reason to obfuscate that fact from their members. The idea was to empower those within the Lighthouse as much as possible. Muddling in their understanding of strength would work against their goals.

Power level was essentially combining most of what had been encompassed within class levels, profession levels, and attributes in the previous system, then adding on almost everything they could think of that might impact combat potency. It was split into two measurements. One was a permanent, base power level, that showed up as an error for Coop. The other was the current dynamic power level that could at least give Coop a five-digit prediction. Splitting it in this way would account for the entire range of someone's combat strength. For example, temporary buffs, personal domains, consumables, and equipped gear could all dynamically change someone's power level and would therefore be reflected in the dynamic number.

It was no longer possible to 'allocate' stats. Instead, they developed on their own, through the actions of the user and were accounted for in the base power level. Training would be properly reflected in stats, whether it was tied with kills or not. Monster kills might earn automatic rewards from the faction instead, depending on funds and incentives.

Coop was a bit sad they would lose the moments of satisfaction that came from specifically assigning the attributes, so one of things that he was still working on was a method to have the growing stats prompt the user to acknowledge them. All he needed was an interface element and they would get a visual celebration to affirm their progress. Something similar was in the works for power level increases. Even if they could figure out how to do the spotlights that the previous system had applied, Coop was hoping to keep the automatic commendations private, but still satisfying.

The many guilds of the Lighthouse would create their own systems for professions themselves, and instead of gaining power, the whole profession system would be segregated from combat focused measurements. They would concentrate on the factors that made sense for becoming an artisan of whichever profession they represented. That meant anyone could develop any profession, and wouldn't be limited to just one. Proficiency and expertise would be rewarded with higher ranks and the Lighthouse itself would recognize mastery. If someone had an interest in a specific job, they could register with a guild and receive a system that guided them through the process of getting started.

Coop was still struggling with the class designations, not wanting to lose what the previous system had shown them. The problem was that, with the way his system was reading things, paths actually evolved the classes, making it more complicated than a single permanent appointment. On the one hand, that gave people more flexibility than they had before, but on the other, it was confusing for those who had already progressed through the path system, like himself. They might need to build an entire sub-class system just to accommodate the evolving nature of their skills.

Through quests, they could even guide the development of new paths at appropriate times, but it would be yet another massive project that might be best delegated to currently non-existent combat guilds. It was an idea that was being actively promoted by Ledwidge and certain battle-junkies that had been grinding as much as Coop during the assimilation.

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Mana affinity was sort of a test of aptitude. It was almost like the natural style or way of defining the inclinations of the user. Everyone seemed to be born with one, but it could change and evolve depending on their experiences. That seemed to be the reason they could unlock further affinities as they developed their builds in the previous system. It was crazy that he couldn't even get his own mana affinity to display properly. The whole thing was basically running on mana that was identical to his own, but things got blurry after he continued to advance without any system at all.

"What's up with that?" He whispered, wondering where to even start.

Aptitude rank basically delineated tiers of proficiency, combining them with the boss rank designations that had appeared throughout the assimilation. If mana affinity was the flavor of someone's skills, aptitude rank was their mastery with mana itself.

The attribute section was where the incremental progress would be found. Body was all physical stats, with even more nuance than the previous set revealed, and Mind was all magic type stats. He had added half a dozen finer measurements than just Strength and Agility so that more specific training was possible. Not only would it allow people to address specific weaknesses, but it would also give more opportunities for the tangible rewards that came from perceptible progression.

Core was basically a measurement of potential mana control. Over the years, Coop had been diligently practicing with his aura, eventually developing his own mana core the way he had seen in the most advanced monsters. It wasn't exactly a physical organ, but instead a structural way to organize the mana under their authority. It didn't seem to exactly correlate with aptitude rank, meaning someone could lack a core and still reach the highest ranks, but they would be fundamentally weaker than someone with a more advanced core and that would be reflected in the power level of each example.

The core went up in tiers as they gained more control, with stage three representing the solidified aura that Coop could wield with his mana pool. It was still an extremely new field of study, and it wasn't clear what the limits would be, but it seemed like it would open up a whole new avenue of progression for the members of the Lighthouse, and was exactly the sort of thing the previous system had deliberately excluded. None of the alien residents could provide their wisdom and were instead just as new to the concepts as the rest of humanity. Ironically, it seemed like Coop had actually dragged cultivation into the system when he was specifically anti-cultivation, but if that's what it took to see his power level go up, he could deal with it.

Instead of choosing skills, abilities were created by the user. Once one was mastered, the system would provide a name the same way it designated classes. While it meant that anyone could practice enough and teach themselves new skills, it wasn't so easy in actuality.

The school systems that were developing within Ghost Reef were delving into several different methods to ease people into learning the practical skills surrounding mana. Coop's first skills were Retribution and Salvation, but without the original system he never would have been able to cast them on his own. There needed to be introductory skills that anyone could get started with before they innovated on their own.

While that meant that members of the Lighthouse might be a bit slower to get started compared to those in the previous system, they would have a better foundation to customize their builds as they developed. It was all the more reason to maintain the sanctuary that Ghost Reef had become. It would enable them to flourish beyond what the old system would have allowed.

And finally, Achievements took the same role as titles had in the previous system. They were almost exactly the same, even providing some tangible benefits where possible through the faction itself. The one difference was that they weren't as exclusive as they had been before, otherwise Coop would end up collecting them all for himself. Others could repeat achievements to earn the rewards and prove they were worthy even if they came from later generations.

Then, on top of simply recording and displaying stats, the system could also compare the overall 'base power level' with other members. In other words, Coop had rebuilt some leaderboards, but a simple comparison no longer really made sense, since not everyone was at the same starting point, so there were further subcategories that would help break up the masses.