The Golden Experience Point [Part 1]

Chapter 8: "Plans For the Former Mountain Cat Bandit Group"

Rare was over the moon. She did it. At this moment in time, she was the only player in the game to discover the [Subordinate] skill.

In order to get it, you needed a whopping 390 XP, nearly four times the starting XP. No sane player would use all that XP on crap like [Summon] and [Discipline]. And she only realized it after the fact, but the skills that she learned all happened to be only the exact ones that she needed.

[Subordinate] required [Discipline] and [Contract].

[Contract] required [Summon] and [Bind Soul].

[Bind Soul] required [Necromancy] and [Control].

[Discipline], [Summon], and [Necromancy] were all prerequisites, but getting [Mental Magic] first was truly the hand of fate. Or wait, conversely, if she had gotten the three trash skills first, once she got [Control], she would still have discovered the same skills anyway.

She was lucky. She really felt like she had used up all the fortune she'd ever have just now. But well, she did spend a lot of time thinking about it. This wasn't only due to luck, it was also a result of her own resourcefulness. Rare's adventure was only just begi—

Ack, right as she thought that, she remembered that she hadn't actually learned [Subordinate] yet. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. After buying it, next was to check its effects.

[Tame the target, making them your follower. If the target successfully resists, [Subordinate] fails. Souls contracted via [Summon: Contract] cannot resist. Undead created via [Necromancy: Bind Soul] cannot resist. Targets under the influence of [Mental Magic: Control] have reduced resistance to [Subordinate]. Experience is shared with all followers. You may now choose to summon a follower when using [Summon]. If a follower dies, they cannot be summoned for one hour.]

Truly an ultimate skill that incorporated all the previous skills required to unlock it.

With perfect timing, just as she finished verifying the skill details, she received a notification for a system message.

<<Deferred action will now resume. [Kerry] can be tamed.>>

Apparently, Kerry's request earlier had been paused. If the required skills and conditions were not met, then stuff could be deferred. It would probably be silly to assume that the deferment would last indefinitely, though; there was probably a time limit, but it seemed like the system waited throughout their preparing meals and cleaning up and whatnot.

She could tame Kerry now. She apparently didn't even need to use the skill; maybe when the target actively wanted to be tamed, there was no need to cast [Subordinate] since they wouldn't resist.

As soon as the tame went through, Kerry's head shot up and she looked at me.

"I apologize, that took a long time. I believe you already understand, but you just now became my follower. I have become your leader, in more than just name."

"Yes, Boss! Thank you so much!"

She checked, and Kerry's stats and skills could now be viewed in the same way she could view her own. Kerry's XP had dropped to zero, but that made sense since it was now shared with Rare's. The reason why Rare's XP had increased was probably because all of Kerry's unused XP had been consolidated with Rare's when the tame occurred.

Kerry's build was focused on melee combat, and this was reflected in both her available skills and how much XP had been used to raise her stats. Or rather, more XP had been spent on just her stats than all the XP Rare had earned. If there had been an actual fight, it would have been impossible for someone who had just finished creating their character to have ever won.