Whether it was the world of Warcraft, the Nasuverse, or most of those other worlds that appeared before Earthlings as novels (web novels excluded), anime, or games, very few ever had a clear system of power rankings.
They would not, like in web novels, arrange a whole ladder of realms such as Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Divine Transformation, Void Refinement… nor would they, like in games, assign every person an exact level.
This wasn't strange. After all, whether it was magic or any other kind of power, its first purpose wasn't combat.
Compared to fighting, these forces beyond common sense had countless other applications.
Moreover, no battle was ever decided solely by strength.
Even the most powerful mage could die from a rusty dagger; even the mightiest warrior could have his head cut off by a petty thief in his sleep.
Too many factors determined victory or defeat, power, luck, equipment, mood, allies… anyone who thought strength alone made them invincible was clearly out of their mind.
Besides, reality wasn't an online game. There was no way to measure every stat of a person's ability with precision.
True growth didn't advance step by step like climbing stairs. Levels, in the rigid sense, were meaningless.
But to say there were no distinctions at all, wasn't true either.
At the very least, there was a difference between mortals, those who transcended mortals, and the gods.
Take, for example, the difference between an ordinary person and a Legend.
The term "Legend" came from the DND world, but in truth, it applied in many others.
The distinction existed because humans had limits, or rather, physical structures had limits.
Humans were only a type of creature. Their bodies were made of skin, muscles, bones, and other biological tissues. The strength of the body depended on these tissues.
Though people could train to gain more muscle, practice to master more skills, and study to accumulate more knowledge, the genetic ceiling remained.
Humans could not grow without end. Their upper limit was set. Even in other worlds, this limit still applied.
A Legend was one who broke through the limits of flesh, the limits of mortals, by using the power of spirit to nourish the body, or by breaking through the limits of thought, replacing the rules of reality with the laws of their own will.
That was what it meant to be Legendary.
A warrior, a mage, a ranger, a rogue, if they could not break through to the Legendary realm, then they could only grow within mortal limits, and once they hit that ceiling, there would be no further breakthroughs.
But once someone became a Legend, it was as if they stepped into a whole new world, with new vistas laid before their eyes.
Still, being Legendary was only a state of existence. It didn't mean Legends always won against non-Legends in battle.
A Legendary mage was still made of flesh and blood; a Legendary warrior was not invulnerable to blades.
In the Nasuverse, only the greatest heroes in history, those who had achieved feats beyond human capacity, could be called Legends.
Even many Heroic Spirits hadn't necessarily reached that level while alive, though as Heroic Spirits, most possessed Legendary abilities (though bounded by their supply of magical energy).
Likewise, mages of the Grand rank (of the Clock Tower, not to be confused with Caster-class Servants) and most of the Dead Apostle Ancestors ranked among the Legendary.
But "Legend" was just one way to define transcendence. As long as one surpassed the human limit, one was Legendary, the ceiling was unimaginably high.
Beyond this, there was another ranking system, one based not on achievement, but on divinity.
This was the system of divine ranks.
It ran parallel to the classification of Legends.
In this framework, any being without divinity, Legend or not, was still mortal.
Those who had a trace of divinity and could wield authority because of it were called Quasi-Powers (demigods).
Like Cenarius and the Wild Gods in World of Warcraft; like most nymphs in the Nasuverse; like the children of gods and mortals such as Heracles, these were beings of the demigod level.
Though they carried divine nature, they were still bound by mortal flesh, or their divinity had not fully sublimated.
Without a true divine spark, they could not be considered full gods.
Above them were the beings of Demipower (Minor Deities).
Despite the "half" in the name, these were essentially fully ascended gods.
Only at this stage did beings attain true immortality. In Warcraft, the Dragon Aspects and Titan Keepers belonged here.
They possessed divinity and ruled over aspects of reality, though they could not reshape the world on a grand scale.
In the Nasuverse, figures like Medusa's elder sisters, Euryale and Stheno, however weak they might seem, were beings of Minor Divinity.
They no longer relied on mortal flesh; their essence lay in their divine spark itself.
From this view, even Heroic Spirits surpassed mortals more than Greek demigods did, since they too were freed from flesh. But their spiritual rank had not risen as high as divinity.
Above Minor Divinity lay the true gods, complete deities who held absolute dominion over the rules of their divine office, far stronger than the tier below.
Though further divided into weak, intermediate, greater, and overgods, such details need not be elaborated here. The Twelve Olympians, at the very least, were all intermediate gods.
But even true gods varied in strength across worlds.
In DND, gods above the Minor tier could establish divine realms. Within their realm, they controlled nearly everything, achieving near invincibility.
In the Nasuverse, such rules did not exist. Mount Olympus, for example, offered its gods little more than home-field advantage.
In A Certain Magical Index, however, Magic Gods could overlap phases with reality.
A phase was essentially a god's domain, merged with the world yet able to alter it. What was once invincibility inside a divine realm extended into the real world.
Even so, across worlds, no divine system was inherently superior, rank to rank, gods were equal.
Since divine rank and Legendary status were parallel systems, Legends were not necessarily weaker than gods. A powerful enough Legend could indeed rival a god.
Especially in the Nasuverse, where no divine realms existed, Minor Deities that were mighty in other worlds could seem weak.
Take the Gorgon Sisters, though they bore divinity and authority, even mortal heroes often troubled them greatly.
Still, once divine power reached the level of the Olympian main gods, it surpassed what ordinary Legends could contend with.
Even Alaric, master of every school of magic, found the magic resistance born of godly power a formidable obstacle.
To rival gods through study alone, even for Alaric, would demand a long journey.
So, was there no shortcut?
There was.
As the saying went: to defeat magic, one must use magic.
Against gods, there was only one way, make yourself into one as well.
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