“Chi-Hyun,” squatting with his barbell like every other day, Chi-Woo asked, “What does it mean for a person’s physical ability level to be rank C?”

Chi-Hyun, who was training with him, snorted.

“…A rank C is a rank C,” Chi-Hyun answered and let out a long sigh. “Why are you suddenly asking me that?”

“Just ‘cause. I was curious.”

“Hm.” Chi-Hyun glanced at his brother. Besides mental fortitude, all of Chi-Woo’s physical abilities were rank D on average. It seemed that his brother was simply curious rather than whining about when his abilities were going to increase in rank. Then there was no reason for him to not give Chi-Woo an answer.

“A growth system is a form of absolute measure. It’s a standard that’s applied to all without exception, and the one who decided on the standard is, of course, the Celestial Realm.” Chi-Hyun sat back down and continued after taking a deep breath, “For example, we can rank a magician according to different standards.”

“Like what…from 1 to 9?”

“That’s the most common ranking system, but let’s say rank F to rank S to match Liber’s system.”

“Okay.”

“Imagine that a magician is trying to go from rank F to E. Thus, they asked the magician council about it and got a response saying that they needed to know at least 15 spells out of the 30 spells an E rank was expected to know.” In other words, the magician needed to learn 15 spells to become an E rank. This was no different from Liber’s growth system.

“Ah, that’s why it’s absolute…”

“Yes, the standard that the growth systems expect you to reach to rise in rank is absolutely fixed.”

“Does that mean different species would have completely different starting ranks?”

“Yes. A species especially gifted in strength can be born at rank B.”

“Then what about us…?”

“We are humans, more specifically earthlings,” Chi-Hyun responded, “We can rank up our physical abilities with training, but there’s a limit for us, like all species. Our maximum limit is considerably low.”

“Maximum limit?”

Chi-Hyun got up and slowly breathed. Then he put down the barbell and wiped his sweat away. “No matter how much one works or how talented and gifted they are, there’s no changing the fact that they are human, and there’s a bar they cannot exceed....