Infinite Realm

"Over here." 

Sato glanced in the direction of the voice where he saw Fudo and the rest of the team.

Right after he had managed to stabilize Layla's condition to a certain level, he immediately left for the outskirts of the region. Previously, Sato had sent a message to both Katsuo and Fudo, requesting their aid in keeping Layla alive. It was only now that he had made it out, approximately an hour and a half or so. 

"What took you so long?" Fudo grinned as Sato approached them. 

"Don't listen to him. We only arrived less than a minute ago." Seiichi said.

"Is that the victim?" 

"Yeah." Sato nodded. 

"We need to get to a safe spot before we can treat her."

Even though none of them were scared of the monsters in the open, it was best to find a safe spot to heal her so as to avoid unnecessary distractions. Luckily, finding a reclusive spot wasn't so difficult as the team of 6 had previously chanced upon one on their way here. 

It didn't even take a quarter of an hour for the team to get there, after which Sato had Yato and Lu Zhen stand guard while Katsuo and Fudo took care of the patient. As for himself, Xue Yan, and Seiichi, they gathered elsewhere to have a simple meeting.

"So, how did you guys fare?" Sato asked.

"Pretty good, actually." Seiichi answered.

"We managed to make it to the second BOSS after getting used to the dungeon and improving our strength. However, the second BOSS still wasn't something we could take on so easily. While we did manage to exchange a few blows, we didn't get much information on its abilities." Seiichi sighed.

As players progressed, the [Inspect] skill was getting more and more impractical. While it still managed to reveal the name and level of the target, there were limitations to it especially if the target was much stronger than the user by a very significant gap like with what had happened with Layla. In such situations, the player would only be able to get a glimpse of the target's name and other simple details like race. As for the other data like attributes and skills, they were inaccessible. If the target was even higher-leveled, the user might not even be able to spot their name or the skill would fail. 

Since players hardly come into contact with extremely strong individuals, this wasn't much of a problem nor a reason to claim that the skill was becoming inefficacious. That had to do with the fact that the [Inspect] skill didn't display the entire skill set of its target.

Normally, the target of most players when considering this skill were monsters about a level or two, maybe even three, ahead of themselves. If it were in the past, when players were below level 10, the skill would be able to display a lot of information which not only included the target's attribute points and allocation but also the entire skill set of their targets. This aided players in formulating the perfect strategy to take down their opponents without a hitch. However, things had slowly changed after level 10.

Though it still displayed the target's attributes points and allocations, the skills revealed weren't complete. One wouldn't notice this until they engaged in battle with the opponent where they would suddenly be faced with a new kind of attack that was never mentioned in the skill report. Since such an attack wasn't taken into consideration when formulating a battle strategy, most players would fall prey to it and lose their lives. 

It was only after a lot of players had made such complaints on the forums that it was officially recognized by the IR community that the [Inspect] skill was getting less and less effective. It wasn't a glitch pr a bug in the game, but a planned development. This was the only explanation given by the development team to the players.

"The dungeon is supposed to be harder than most dungeons. If you could note down the skills of the monster without stress, then the battle could be said to be half-won."

"True." Seiichi nodded.

While a lot of players complained about the [Inspect] skill no longer revealing the entire skill sets of its target, the true professionals didn't. In most VR games, the [Inspect] skill never even existed as it was classified as a cheat code. Being able to see all your opponent's abilities before the fight began would undoubtedly make the game easier and for these pros, easier wasn't better. They sought to increase their skills and refine them. An easy VR game wouldn't help them achieve that. Some of them had even complained about the skill when the game had begun, claiming that it was ruining the main point of the game.

With the skill becoming less and less useful, Sato realized that it was probably so functional in the early stage because the developers wanted players to have a smooth path to progress. The first 10 levels could be described as baby steps and from there onwards would be when players really dived into the game properly.

"Why I called you both out is to know the progress of the team. How far have you guys improved?" Sato glanced between Xue Yan and Seiichi.

"We did alright if you ask me. While we still can't compare to you yet, we should be among the top players as of now." Seiichi answered.

The current mainstream level of players was between level 14-15. while the dungeon release did bring forth a new rise in momentum for players, the dungeons weren't so easy to conquer. It should be known that those who participated in the contest for the first completion of a dungeon were the best of the best, the trump card teams of the various top guilds and not their average elites or players. Those players were currently between level 15-16 with some closing in on 17. By that logic, the truly strong ones were level 17 and it was quite possible for some hidden figures to be level 18, the same as Sato. 

One reason for them catching up to him was because Sato had been preoccupied as of recent. He had barely fought to his fill before Milo led him to the crash site. From there, he was charged with taking care of Cecilia after which he was on the run from her. Even before then, Sato had spent most of his time refining his blacksmithing skills. So much time had passed and it was enough for those dungeon-raiding addicts to increase their levels and close up the gap.

"So what level are you guys now?" Sato asked.

"I'm level 14, just a bit from 15. Lu Zhen is level 15, the same as Fudo. As for Yato and Katsuo, the black-haired dimwit is level 14 while the giant is level 15. They were the ones with the largest growth spurt in the team." Seiichi sighed.

Seiichi alongside Fudo and Lu Zhen had only experienced a 2 levels increase in strength but Yato and Katsuo were previously level 11, making it an increase of 3 levels and 4 respectively. One of the major reason for this was because the monsters they faced were much stronger than them. Facing a level 15 monster while still level 11 would net them more experience points than a level 13 player.

Apart from that, the absence of a monster like Sato, the difficulty of the dungeon as well as the increased rewards accessible only in the [Temple of Vasiliás] dungeon made it easy for them to make such massive improvements. There was also the effect of the [Warrior] title they got for defeating the Kobold King which gave them a 10% increase in Experience points after defeating a BOSS monster. 

Without Sato in the mix, the team had improved their skills to the point that facing Gatekeeper Baka wasn't an impossible task any longer. Even without Xue Yan, the other 5 would still come out victorious, though with some difficulty.

"That's good."

Though he didn't show it, Sato was sincerely impressed with the progress of his teammates as it meant that they wouldn't need to depend on him always and were close to rivalling top teams.

"And Xue Yan, what about you?" Sato glanced at her with interest.

If the others had made such massive improvements already, though levelling up was hard for her, Xue Yan wouldn't have fallen back so much.

Apart from Sato, she was the one with the highest attack power in the team as well as the main damage dealer. It wasn't an understatement to say that her strength would determine the team's progress in their next dungeon raid so Sato had to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't fall behind.