A nerfed Dingir in Final Fantasy 9 Chapter 4: Scarcity of monster drops, a Final Fantasy IX + Manhwa/Korean Comics/만화 Crossover fanfic

Mark's character stats (start of chapter 3)

Character class: Wizard Knight

Level: 5, 186xp until next level up.

HP: 50 / 108

MP: 315 / 315

Strength: 25

Speed: 18

Spirit: 27

Magic: 44

Weapon:

Armour:

Footwear: Leather shoes

Accessory:

Skills: None

Magic: Poison, Regen

Trance: Balmung strike

Items:

Gil: 0

A nerfed Dingir in Final Fantasy 9, seriously?

CHAPTER THREE

Scarcity of monster drops

Mark awoke in a stone cell, it was cold, damp, and rather unpleasant. "Damn it, Beatrix..." he muttered, slowly rising, his head was pounding, his HP had recovered slightly, but it was still pretty low. His MP had recovered to full though. As his eyes focused, a screen popped up, showing his level ups and status increase like after his battle with the Fang, thankfully it had not appeared before his eyes with each kill, whatever this system was, it had a practicality to it. He pressed the confirm button, it vanished, but another screen appeared in its place.

Congratulations, you have reached level 5, you are now able to select one white magic and one black magic skill that confirms to your character's alignment and level. Please select confirm to see options.

"Wait...I thought we got skills and magic from our equipment..." Mark mused, how much had Hironobu changed the game system when he sent him to this world?

"Game Alert: While this is true for the game, your character class does not exist, as such, adjustments needed to be made. A wizard knight has a very limited skill set, unable to use elemental magic or auto-magic. Every five levels, you will gain a new black and white spell until you have unlocked all wizard knight options. Some equipment can teach you additional spells, but most will be skills relating to the knight class, a green light next to item's screen name will confirm what is learnable."

"Hmm...Learning cure would be great, I wonder how much a silk shirt goes for?" he mused, tapping the screen. Two smaller ones replaced it, one for each main magic type.

Black Magic (please select one of the following)

* Sleep

Puts single/multiple targets to sleep for five minutes or less.

* Slow

Slows down target's movements and reactions for battle.

* Stop

Stops targets from taking any action for one minute or less.

White Magic (please select one of the following)

* Scan

Scan enemy to determine HP, MP, and weaknesses.

* Panacea

Removes Venom and Poison.

* Stona

Removes Petrify and Gradual Petrify.

"All low level skills, but they'll definitely prove useful." For black magic in particular it was a difficult choice, as it would be a major change to his current fighting method within the world, being able to slow an enemy would be great, but if the difference in level was too great, he would still be killed, stop was a good choice, but without turn based combat, it had a time limiter to it, and not a long one. "Sleep lasts longer, so I can use it to flee as well as kill while their down, and I can sneak about with it too." He could learn the others once he levelled up some more anyway.

Next there was the white magic, scan could go on the back burner, he could see names and levels already, and given that his only offensive spell used poison, it was better to learn Panacea and protect himself, for all he knew he could accidentally poison himself, and he wouldn't have to waste Gil early on with antidotes if he learnt it.

He still had no Gil, he probably should have checked those four dead guys, but he never got the chance before being KO'd. Now had he been properly arrested and charged, or was he being held until all the facts were confirmed? At least he saved on a hotel or inn for the night.

Now back to the spells. He pressed Sleep and Panacea.

"Game Alert: You have learnt Sleep and Panacea." All the game menus vanished.

Getting up, Mark inspected the cell, about twelve feet by eight feet. His cloak, bag, and weapons had been taken, assuming they released him, they'd hopefully give them back. There was no beds or seats, so he leaned against the wall in a slouch, and waited.

(Three hours later...)

"Your name?" asked a voice, startling him, he looked up, it was Steiner of all people, accompanied by two of his Pluto Knights, both were level 6, with Steiner being level 20. That made sense, how could a long serving knight be a level 1, only in a game, also his iron armour was in pristine condition, the rusty joke wouldn't be seeing much use here.

"Mark," he replied.

"Well Mark," said Steiner, "thanks to the testimony of Private Claire, you won't be charged for murder, however we will be taking a statement from you regarding the events of the previous night. Follow me." He turned to leave, expecting compliance, Steiner spoke with a surprising soft yet deep voice, perhaps it was because unlike a certain thief, Mark had yet to provoke him into shouting.

"Of course," he followed a short distance behind, with the two Pluto Knights pulling up the rear. He was taken to an interrogation room, though it was more like the variety one would see on TV, a table with a chair on either side, the stone block rim dimly lit by a lantern. Steiner gestured for him to take a seat, he did so.

"Alright," Steiner pulled out a pen and paper, "First, your full name, city of origin, and occupation."

'Oh crap!' thought Mark, though he kept it from showing on his face, time for some quick thinking, he was a city boy and a writer, now what equivalents existed here that wouldn't worry the Alexandrian's. "My full name is Mark Green, I'm from Treno originally, though I travel around a lot, it's been a while since I've been back." he replied. "As for occupation, back in Treno I was a scribe, but after losing that job, I starting travelling from place to place, selling items I managed to bulk purchase cheap."

Steiner jotted it down, "you didn't have many items in your sack, though it was the rare storage type some merchants use." he noted. "Did something happen?"

"I was robbed about a week ago on the way here, took all my goods and Gil, I was planning to sell monster drops for a little while to get myself restarted again, but on my first night here, I stumbled across the incident with that young girl, and you know the rest."

"Only in general terms, continue."

"I was heading to an item store to sell the phoenix down, which would have covered at least a night's stay at a local inn, when I heard drunken yelling and things being knocked over, I planned to take an alternate route, but then I heard a girl scream, and expecting the worst, I ran in the direction of the scream, and when I got there, I saw four men pinning a young girl to the ground, one already had his dick out, so it was obvious that they were going to rape her, so I stopped them."

"By killing them?" Steiner prompted.

"Yeah," admitted Mark, with a sour glance. "I know a fair bit about fighting, but I'm not that experienced, if I didn't go for a one hit kill when they were focused on her, then they'd easily have taken me down and carried on attacking that girl without anyone to stop them. I've never killed someone before, but I don't regret it. I hate rapists."

"Claire mentioned you used the spell Poison on the last attacker, do you have some skill with magic?" Steiner asked, magic was very rare among humans, even he could only use sword arts magic, which was closer to a skill than true magic.

"Just a few status magicks that I learned as a kid, I'm not very good at it, and except for a few mist monsters, I've never really had a proper fight before tonight," Mark replied.

"Hmm...Very well." Steiner jotted down a few notes. "We'll have your belongings returned to you soon, however we will be keeping an eye on you, it is the job of us knights to protect this city."

"I understand," he replied, inwardly snorting, as if he could ignore something like that, he wasn't a hero, but not some low life that would ignore someone in such a situation, nerfed or not.

"Should you have difficulty finding work, there are always positions in the Pluto Knights, should you wish to try out," Steiner informed him as he rose to leave. "We don't have many mist monsters here for you to collect drops to sell on, but best of luck."

The door closed shut behind him.

'Not many mist monsters, but the game was full of them...Oh!' A flash of understanding. 'There wouldn't be random encounters, so I have to go to a place full of mist monsters...Like the Evil Forest.' That place would be suicide for him if he tried to solo it before at least level 10, then Mark recalled that he had walked for hours to get to the city, only encountering a single Fang, the soldiers likely handling mist monsters close to the city itself. That would require a lot of walking to find mist monsters to fight, and no guarantee of finding them, he would need to make a few hundred Gil a day just to get by.

Steiner's offer was tempting, but living as a soldier under Queen Brahne's rule did not appeal to him, but it might very well be how he would end up. But first he had to try the monster drop route, it offered the best chance of levelling up before the events of the game began, and if Steiner was a level twenty now, what would the others be like? Level 10 at the absolute very least.

Becoming OP before the start of the game's events seemed unlikely now, but he had to do the best he could over the next two years for sake of getting home to enjoy the rewards of a lifetime effort in becoming a famous author, and pound in the face of the one who sent him here. Being in a fantasy world might end up being awesome, but it hadn't been his choice, and finally just when he had started to actually enjoy being himself, he had been removed from his rewards and lifestyle. Hironobu was going to get a level 100 uppercut when this was all over and done.

(CHAPTER END)

Next Chapter: Too many Goblins!

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter and the somewhat different route of a self insert story. By my estimates, my real life strength as a martial arts expert would put me in the mid-thirties in level by Final Fantasy terms, and with even my real life strength and skills being nerfed, let alone the avatar of Dingir which would easily smash any level 100 concept, as the fictional Dingir within the Grey Faction novels and other series can easily kill demons and has battled Primordials and Gods as equals, you can see why Mark (me) would be cautious and less confident as even the memories of his many martial arts have been hampered by a nerfing fog. But don't worry, little by little, it will be lifted.

Now for a little explanation on the two origins behind Mark's Magic, Asag and Adel.

Dingir/Mark is distantly related to the Seraphim Adel, making him a Nephilim, though many times removed, none the less, after being attacked by demons, he awakened to its purifying power, allowing him to destroy demons with physical contact, like being permanently dunked in holy water, later on he could channel this power through weapons, make holy water for others to use, and created a special 'Seraphim mode' where he burns through his stamina and health to greatly strengthen his power to destroy more powerful demons. This you can see on another of my fanfiction stories, Dingir vs. Asag, which shows one of several battles they had before he stole some of the ancient devil's power. Though it's actually a scene from my book, Grey Faction 2: Mistaken Apostles.

Now for Asag, he is based off an ancient Sumerian demon, one powerful enough to battle the Gods of that period's pantheon, twenty feet tall, four horns, a giant tongue, and scaled skin with rotting worms living inside, Asag is a terrifying creature, one of the oldest recorded Devils, this monster had the power to rot anything to nothingness, capable of destroying nations, this devil was more feared for its appetite than its power as it raped and tortured many women to slake its unspeakable lust. It hated Dingir in particular as he has prevented it from doing so each time Asag was summoned in the modern world.

Mark's magic in the game will be moves that most closely conform to the skill sets of these two, corruption and salvation, which is why non-elemental, and status magic will be a big part of what Mark will learn later on.

Also FYI, the Gil conversion rate goes as follows, using the cost of a cheap room at an Alexandrian inn and occasional mentions in the game to food costs as it's basis.

One night, 100 Gil.

A basic hotel in the real world, one night, £50.

Which would mean there is roughly 50p to every 1 Gil.

As many vendor snacks cost around 5 to 10 Gil, this more or less works out.