Falna

The Loki Familia's falna engraved on Ais' back.

The Falna (神の恩恵(ファルナ) Kami no Onkei(Faruna)) is the grace, sometimes called blessing, given by Gods and Goddesses to their familia members.

Information

The Gods gave falna to adventurers to bring forth heroes, and the first God to give out a falna was Ouranos. Those with a falna gain a superhuman physical prowess upon being bestowed with it and can gather excelia to raise their status and grow even stronger. Inanimate objects can seemingly be given a falna, as Mikoto's skill considered the Hestia Knife to be part of the familia.

The falna is represented as something known as Status (ステイタス Suteitasu), which is the falna itself set as various parameters. It is made up of basic abilities, development abilities, magic, skills, and the overall level. It manifests itself physically in a form similar to a tattoo as a mass of text with all its characteristics detailed, as well as the corresponding familia's emblem.

In order to protect its valuable contents, Gods have developed a method by which they are able to hide their familia members' statuses, only revealing them for updates. However, since it is all written in hieroglyphs, the language of the Gods, very few mortals are actually able to read it. Only the respective patron God can unveil and update a person's status. Nonetheless, there exist items which allow others to do so, even if they aren't Gods themselves.

Beyond the abilities shown in a person's status, merely possessing a falna grants a few enhancements; namely, heightened senses, longevity, and augmented endurance. This series of effects are further increased with each rank up one achieves. The improvement is also shown to be proportional rather than put everyone at the same level. Beast Humans are known for possessing better senses than most people, and those with falna have been accordingly demonstrated to boast better senses than other people with falna.

It is possible to attain superhuman power without a falna, even to the point of being comparable to people of a high level, most prominently shown with the heroes of Ancient Times. However, those with falna gain access to better magic, skills, and such, and so they ultimately excel as the definitive better ones.

A familia's God is responsible for the upgraded <Skills> that adventurers possess. Therefore a God's return to heaven, would result in the 'sealing' of their children's <Status>.

Parameters

Level (レベル Reberu): The level shows the rank of a person. It is the most important part of the status, since even a difference of just one level represents a significant power gap. A person's status is considered classified information, but due to its importance, in Orario it is mandatory that an adventurer's level be reported to the Guild.

Most dependents around the world are Level 1, and currently the highest rank worldwide is Level 7, held by a total of only five: Ottar, Finn, Riveria, Gareth, and Leon. However, the Osiris, Zeus, and Hera Familias are known to have had at least one Level 7 each in the past, with the latter two also having a Level 8 and a Level 9 respectively. Outside of Orario, few people make it past Level 1, and Level 3 is considered excellent.

Basic Abilities (基本アビリティ Kihon Abiritī): The Basic Abilities are Strength (力 Chikara), Endurance (耐久 Taikyū), Dexterity (器用 Kiyō), Agility (敏捷 Binshō), and Magic (魔力 Maryoku). Each one is shown with a rank and a number from 0-999. 0-99 is I, 100-199 is H, 200-299 is G, 300-399 is F, 400-499 is E, 500-599 is D, 600-699 is C, 700-799 is B, 800-899 is A, and 900-999 is S. However, it is very difficult for anyone to maximize their status as each individual has their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, an Elf mage can reach S rank in their magic stat, but since it is difficult for them to raise their strength and endurance stats they cannot increase them significantly.

Though, regardless of which are one's limits, it is still a quite arduous task for anyone to max out their status. When adventurers rank up, their last status usually has Cs and Ds, and Bs at best. Almost no one reaches the highest rank, S, and doing so even in just one stat is an achievement worth celebrating. It is normally impossible to go past S rank, though Bell and Alfia have done this through Liaris Freese and unknown means respectively, having had statuses in the SS and SSS ranks. Though their ranges have not been specifically stated, they are assumed to be 1000-1199 for SS and 1200+ for SSS.

Even after a rank up, statuses from past levels serve as an invisible base.

Basic abilities can be raised through excelia gained from training and battles. They reset to I0 at every rank up, although those gained before each rank up will remain as an invisible base. As such, they can play a decisive role in a battle between opponents of the same level. Because of it some Gods even postpone ranking up certain dependents to raise their basic abilities.

Loki however noted that the effort and time it takes to instead max out a stat, not to mention the great boost granted to all of one's abilities, makes it better to just rank up most of time. This has led to it being a practice performed only by strong familias, and even then just with particularly important dependents. Stats of the current level nonetheless are also quite important; for example, Argana and Bache were superior in terms of status to Tione and Tiona due to having ranked up a bit before them.

Development Abilities (発展アビリティ Hatten Abiritī): See Development Abilities.

Skill (スキル Sukiru): See Skills.

Magic (魔法 Mahō): See Magic.

Curses (呪詛(カース) Juso(Kāsu)): See Curse.

Improvement

Ais receiving a status update.

To improve their statuses in any form, dependents need to gather excelia (経験値(エクセリア) Keiken-chi(Ekuseria)). Excelia is experience points and can be obtained through actions, such as by fighting monsters or brewing potions. There are two types of excelia. The regular type is used by Gods to improve upon their followers' status other than level. Examples of this are unlocking certain development abilities that can be chosen to be obtained when ranking up, or to raise an adventurer's basic abilities.

The second type is called high-rank excelia (上位の経験値(エクセリア) Joui no Keiken-chi(Ekuseria)) and is used by Gods to rank up their followers after enough has been accumulated. High-rank excelia is gained by accomplishing things that even the Gods would be impressed with, such as defeating stronger opponents.

Regardless of the type, a God can refrain from adding all the excelia a dependent has gathered in a single update for whatever reason they may have, preventing the raise of basic abilities or developing new abilities such as magic or skills. Fortunately, the excelia isn't lost and remains available to be added at any point later on.

While a dependent is only supposed to be able to update their status by going to their patron deity, there is an item called Status Snitch that allows another person to use the collected excelia to raise their stats. However, it is impossible to use it to rank up someone or make them manifest new magics or skills.

Rank Up

A Rank Up (ランクアップ Ranku Appu) is the act of ascending one's status to the next level. Just defeating monsters doesn't lead to a rank up. To rank up, one must have at least a D rank in one basic ability and accumulate enough high-rank excelia that it overflows one's container, thus enabling them to rank up. This is not an automatic process; one's God has to consciously make the decision to rank up a dependent.

Upon ranking up, a person receives a vast increase to all of their basic, development, and all other abilities. The increase in stats is what effectively makes one superior to all those from lower levels, since it is better than any mere status update, no matter of how many hundreds of points it is. For example, a Level 5 Ais with her strength and endurance stats at rank D and her dexterity and agility stats at rank A suffered a crushing defeat against Revis even when using her enchantment magic Ariel, which is praised for its abnormally high potency, the same opponent against whom she maintained a slight but clear advantage in a lengthy battle without resorting to her magic, despite having just become Level 6.

In spite of its benefits, the suddenly gained power also causes a desynchronization between one's mind and body which diminishes their combat ability. Luckily said drawback can be quickly overcome by fighting a strong opponent or a great amount of enemies in order to grow fully accustomed to one's heightened prowess.

It is possible to do consecutive rank ups at once when enough normal and high-rank excelia are collected. To do this, all of the excelia collected are not added immediately in a single status update but in batches to allow rank up procedures to be done consecutively. However, a God may choose to not raise their follower straight to the highest level possible at once and instead have them spend some time in the levels in-between in order for their body to get accustomed to the extreme amount of increase in power. According to Astraea, if Ryuu had received consecutive rank ups at once and went from Level 4 to Level 6 immediately, the desynchronization between her mind and body could have lasted as long as a month.

Excelia Gathering

Hestia once explained to Bell that hard and honest work is the only way to earn excelia, as it is a dependent's seriousness what determines whether or not an experience yields excelia. The severity of an experience also ends up being an important factor. A person gets more excelia facing opponents than training on their own. Training with weaker foes isn't the same as training with someone as strong as or stronger than oneself. Ultimately, training alone also has its limits, as nothing compares to a real fight.

When Bell became Level 2 people assumed he just dealt the killing blow to a Minotaur which had been weakened by the Loki Familia. Hermes however noted the falna couldn't be "fooled" like that, further reinforcing the point that excelia gains are proportional to how much of a challenge something is. However, it is possible to trivialize a task with own's one abilities and still gain a lot of excelia from it, at least high-rank excelia. Seale was a mercenary with an illusory curse, so he could easily kill people while they were distracted. He didn't do much to eliminate his targets, hence his stats were extremely low, yet reached Level 4 thanks to all the high-rank excelia from killing people of a higher level than his.

As one reaches higher levels, obtaining excelia becomes increasingly difficult. This problem becomes even more pronounced starting at Level 5, as containers from that level onward are significantly "wider, longer, and taller" than those from earlier levels. A way to somewhat circumvent this problem is to temporarily stop updating a dependent's status so that all the challenges they face are harder than if they had been steadily growing stronger. This causes them to yield more excelia and therefore makes it easier to max out one's status.

This was best exemplified by Ryuu. Under normal circumstances, she would have already been Level 5 by the time the Great Faction War occurred. But since she spent five years stuck at Level 4, the excelia she collected during that time was far more than if she had actually ascended to Level 5, enough to reach Level 6. Although it's the same principle used to max out stats, trying to replicate her case is a very risky feat, one that not even the Loki Familia would dare attempt, as doing so would drastically increase the risk of members dying.

In addition to all this, living new experiences seems to also be important. Tiona and Tione are equal in terms of combat ability and know each other very well, so there is no better training partner for either. However, since they have fought countless times in the past, they no longer gain much excelia that way, although it is still more effective than going to the Deep Floors.

Since great challenges are needed to gain high-rank excelia, ranking up is hard to do outside of Orario due to the only Dungeon being located there, and Level 3 outside of Orario is considered to be excellent. Although ranking up is generally a hazardous task, those who have gained combat skills before receiving a falna are usually able to do so without difficulty.

Level Gap

Because of the enhancements obtained by ranking up, the current era operates under the principle of quality over quantity. A single person can face and even defeat three people just one level below them. In the Dungeon, Monster Rexes, who overall typically classify just two levels higher than the adventurers who frequent the floors on which they appear, often require the combined efforts of dozens of adventurers to defeat.

The greatest example shown in the franchise was the Battle of Shindo, in which eight first class adventurers overwhelmingly defeated an army of eighty thousand warriors, including countless Level 2s and multiple Level 3s, without receiving any injuries or showing any signs of fatigue after the fight.

However, as definitive as it may seem, there are ways to overcome this barrier. Some abilities allow their users to perform briefly and/or under certain conditions even better than people of higher levels in certain areas, while others permanently increase certain stats of a person beyond their true level. On the other hand, there are exceptionally talented individuals who manifest abilities that can temporarily increase their user's entire status beyond their actual level.

Oomori once explained that individuals of the "class of Alfia and Zald", being that these two possessed abilities described as "cheats", can easily overcome the level gap, as their abilities permanently grant them statuses beyond their real level.

References

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