Classes & Levelling

One of the System's most important elements, and one that's certainly among the most visible parts of it, its existence having irreversibly reshaped most of human civilization. It is the modern descendant of what was once a system of mana usage clearances, allowing - for example - the higher level combat magic to only be used by the soldiers. The System ended up expanding that during one of its updates.   The result of it is a reality-warping framework that actively aids System-enabled entities to grow stronger by correcting and straightening said growth. This, in the end, forms the central piece of the System's influence over Mankind as a whole.

Humans, in the end, can progress in any number of directions. Attempting to accomodate for every person separately would have caused a complete chaos - while the System could do that, it would led the whole thing into becoming incredibly hard to navigate by the humans. As a result, it had to be made simpler. This is what gave birth to the Character Classes.   To describe them in the simplest words: they are a list of character archetypes that streamline the process of System-assisted human growth. What exactly that is and how exactly it works is a bit more complicated thing.

Classes are typically choosen during the rite of passage into adulthood at the age between 14 and 18 (depending on the culture and religion in question). If no class is chosen, the System will automatically assign you one that fits your skillset the most at your 21th birthday. Such 'initial' classes (sometimes also referred to as the First Step classes) are relatively weak, and even their full list is rather limited in numbers.   You can expect relatively basic character archetypes, for example the more militant classes include warrior, mage, rogue and cleric. The First Step classes are for amateurs, trainees, people who are merely starting their road to greatness. Depending on the preparations they receive in childhood, it's not uncommon for sufficiently hard-working geniuses (or people chosen by gods with something in mind) to immediately skip that level.   Once one hits level 25, the System will perform the first class adjustment, granting you a more personalized class. This is where amateurs and trainees stop being such and become decently trained professionals. Warrior conscripted into a regular military will have their class adjusted to Soldier - or, if they are living in an area where that's common, they become a martial artist. Mage that decided to dabble in necromancy will become a necromancer. Etc.   This depends on both the skills you've learned along the way and on the local cultural or religious differences. For example, clerics of the Church of the Highmost and the Temple of the Seven might level up with similar skills, but will obtain different classes at the end of the road.   You typically maintain that class until level 75, which is where the second class adjustment happens. However, many cultures out there recognizes level 50 as another notable milestone, as past level 50 the amount of skill growth from training decreases sharply, forcing you to learn through more practical experience. As a result, Second Step is between level 25 and 50, while Third Step is between levels 50 and 75 and Fourth Step between levels 75 and 100.   The second class adjustment is something rather special, in that only a very small percentage of people achieve that. At level 75 training stops to improve your skills (though it still influences attribute growth), and even the practical experience begins to improve your skills less and less. At this point you're recognized by the System as demigodhood candidate (sometimes referred to as 'Aspirant'), and you might receive a Fourth Step class, sometimes called an aspirant class.   However, if you stick to the skills of your class, there is a possibility of skipping this class adjustment. Also, from now on, further levelling requires not just practical experience, but also achievements - your top skills will at this point be on the field far surpassing anything that entities unconnected to the System are capable of, with any further improvement requiring truly great feats to motivate the System into improving your further.   Once you hit level 100, you enter the Fifth Step and - typically - become a demigod, thus exiting the earlier model of progression. This is fully skippable, however to continuously amass achievements past that point is extremely hard, and non-demigods practically speaking do not reach past level 120. This is accompanied by third class adjustment. Unlike all others thus far, here you're finally becoming an individual in the eyes of the System.   The result of that is your title as a demigod becoming your personalized character class. It's also worth noting that it's relatively common for people to skip at least some levels of the Fourth Step when becoming a demigod. The reason for that is simple - your liberation from the restriction of your character class. If you had several non-class skills on a higher level, they'll be counted here. So, if including those skills would elevate you to level 100, you'll be allowed to become a demigod even if your character level is actually lower than that.   Sixth Step is past level 150, and that's a realm of gods and demon lords. When you reach it, you stop being mortal irreversibly. It's technically possible to achieve that status without waiting for your level to grow that far, but it requires assistance from pre-existing gods (it sometimes happen, especially when a pantheon needs to fill out its ranks).

Changing classes is possible, but quite rare and almost always involves the gods. The most common case of that is a cleric of one of them deciding to change their faith - if their decision is an honest one (and the target god accepts such conversions), you might succeed in that without losing your hard-earned levels, though in most cases they'll be at least some loss (or, sometimes, gain) depending on the skills you have.   There are also cases of class switches - quite common in fact - among the First Step classes. You're merely starting there, and as such, the rules are more flexible.

The 'Class Progression' section mentions levels a lot. But what exactly are those? In the shortest words, a way of measuring how powerful you are and how good are you at your class. It's measured on the basis of your Skills. What exactly are the Skills?   There is a long list of personal skills that the System measures. Swords, Axes, Blunt Weapons, Polearms, Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, Light Armour, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Archery - and that's not even a full list of combat skills. Every class will have a number of those set up as their class skills, meaning that improving on those fields will lead to raise of your level. For example, a knight will benefit from getting more experience in melee weapons and heavy armors, but not in crafting-oriented skills.   High enough skill levels in crafting/magic/combat is also necessary to execute appropriate crafting recipes, spells and martial arts. A person can check their skills list in their status window.

There is more to levelling. Each person also has a list of Character Attributes - such as Strength, Intelligence and Endurance. They are a description of how strong their body is - and, in most cases, how superhuman it got. This is only possible thanks to magic and System using it to passively augment your very existence. The attributes are automatically enhanced each time one levels up, depending on what they did in the meantime.   The exact math behind it is a bit uncertain, however what is known is that using your strength between say, level 25 and 26, will lead to a larger strength increase once you finally hit the next level. This means that even at the high character level, training your body or mind is important and will make you stronger. It also means that training the skills that aren't your class skills will still at least somewhat influence your strength.   The 'starting' attributes depend heavily on your species. This means that a level 50 high dragon will be MUCH stronger than a level 50 human, and that's without involving all the other factors involved in it.   LIST OF ATTRIBUTES:
Strength - Governs your physical strength. Expect the raise in it to make you appear visibly bulkier, although there are exceptions (this manifests to a varied degree between species and genders).
Endurance - Enhances your body's resistance to impact and strength of your System Protection. The more of it you have, the more beating you can take. Tends to at least some degree make you appear bulkier too.
Agility - Decides how flexible your body is, how easily you can move it around and how good your control over it is. It doesn't govern the accuracy in melee and ranged combat (as that's what skills are for).
Intelligence - Your ability to think quickly and arrive at correct conclusions. Improved mental processing ability and typically more detailed imagination leads to improved magical casting capabilities, but there is more to that.
Willpower - Ability to think under pressure, to maintain clear mind while in trouble or in pain and to resist (or perform) mental attacks. It's useful in a lot of things, in general. It's also useful in theurgy, as you need strong willpower to withstand being a conduit of divine powers.
Charisma - Capability of influencing other people with your looks and honeyed words, while also making you more agreeable by many supernatural entities.