***Preparation***

“Phew. Finally, my internal energy has fully recovered.”

Death wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Actually, it was pretty dull and mundane. However, the penalty for dying wasn’t light.

/Your character has died. You cannot log in for 24 hours, and your highest stat’s maximum value will be permanently lowered./

Twenty-four hours in DIO was four hours in real life. Players couldn’t log in during this restricted time frame, and the notification above was what Merlin had seen after logging on. Before this, he had been deeply concerned. He knew he’d have to face a penalty, but he didn’t know how severe it was.

/You are a beginner (below Level 3)! Due to the beginner safety system in place, your penalty shall be reduced! Your highest stat area (spiritual power) will be permanently reduced by five points!/

In DIO, the penalty of death was a permanent ceiling reduction of one’s highest stat area. The calculation was done by multiplying one’s level by five. 

In other words, if a user were Level 5, their highest stat would be permanently reduced by 25 points, and it would be 50 points for a Level 10 player. While this may not seem like a significant reduction at first, once someone rose through the levels and reached the upper echelons of DIO, the reductions would be relatively greater and impact one’s highest ability stat.

If a Level 10 user, or a Master, died with 350 points of internal energy, the internal energy points would be reduced from 350 to 300 points. To increase a user’s stat by one point in the 300 to 400 range, it would take triple the number of points to form a three to one ratio. As such, that user would...