"What a weird choice of words," Uhtred could only grumble as the system prompt simply remained there, staring at him heedlessly.

He refocused on the content of the message.

So, a Sponsor?

Even though he’d hoped to get some level of response from Ascendant Favoured One, he had never expected something of this caliber. The Ascendant had unhesitatingly triggered this "First Priority" thing.

What is that anyways? Calling first dibs because he’s the first on my channel?

Ascendant Favoured One still remained awfully quiet. Normally, at this point he would’ve sent a string of messages trying to make Uhtred choose "yes." But instead he was just quiet, as if wanting to give Uhtred some space to decide for himself.

Ahh. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? Uhtred thought wryly. But now he had more questions.

"Hey, what’s the benefit of this Sponsor thing? From all that you’ve told me, and from what I’ve seen so far, ’you guys’ are severely limited in what you can offer," Uhtred asked directly. "Or does being my Sponsor remove those restrictions you mentioned?"

Ascendant Favoured One’s message came in immediately, though with a more calm and less dismissive choice of words this time.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: If you choose me as your sponsor, there are major benefits to be had. Your growth rate will skyrocket because I will provide lots of resources, cultivation manuals, and multiversal tokens for you to spend.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: It will spearhead your charge up the path of ascension, putting you at the peak of your world relatively fast. The resources you’ll gain will put you so far ahead that your only real competition will be other Pathfinders with sponsors.

"Oh? So there are others getting the same offer right now?" Uhtred raised a brow in question.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: I wouldn’t really know. Getting into one Pathfinder’s stream before they hit Level 10 is hard enough already, requiring a shit-ton of luck from us Sponsors, that finding two is practically impossible...

> Ascendant Favoured_One: Although, there have been cases where some sponsors have been that lucky... But even then, the System forbids us from passing messages between streams. If I were on another Pathfinder’s channel right now, I couldn’t tell you a thing about them.

"Protection of anonymity..." Uhtred said, nodding. He could see how it would be a problem if information about him was being passed to someone else somewhere in the world or vice versa.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: You’re the one who should know if there are other Pathfinders anyway.Check your world ranking panel. It usually opens for Pathfinders right from the onset.

"World ranking panel? There was no notice for—" Uhtred had not even finished speaking when a new blue panel popped up in his field of view.

"You’ve gotta be kidding me..."

[World Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: ???

Level: 8

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: King Alexei

Level: 5

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Notice: Name field requires input. You can use your true name or an alias]

[Insert now?]

"This damn System..." Uhtred muttered under his breath. His eyes scanned the contents of the list and stopped at the second ranked individual.

King Alexei? Who the hell is this guy? Uhtred couldn’t help but let out a light snort. He wasn’t particularly surprised. For a globally visible panel like this there was sure to be people who’d take on weird, gaudy aliases.

However, "King" was still a haughty name to give oneself.

Anyway, this guy has filled out his name already, which means he already knows about this panel, which therefore means he already has a sponsor... or at least a potential one who told him about it, Uhtred analyzed.

He then looked next at the prompt asking him for a name and thought about it. He definitely couldn’t use his real name, he wasn’t about to publicize to everyone that the number one leveler on planet Earth was called Uhtred. But then again, he also couldn’t think of any cool-sounding name on the spot.

Meh. I’ll just use a simple nickname.

Uhtred mentally willed his response, and the spot at the top of the list updated instantly.

[World Ranking]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Red

Level: 8

Territory Owned: Nil

Dungeons Owned: Nil

That looks better... Uhtred nodded. He glanced at the other categories: Territory and... Dungeons?

​So there are dungeons on Earth now too?

"Man... how did the System expect me to find this panel out on my own in the first place..."

> Ascendant Favoured_One: Keke. It’s because you’re a Pathfinder. You’ve seen the list, right? How many other people are there? 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Just me and one other person..." Uhtred muttered.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: Oh? So there really is someone else? It seems your world is actually decent then. In fact, more than decent. Usually, races with weaker base strength like you humans don’t have Pathfinder level talents at all, let alone two.

"What exactly are these Pathfinders?" Uhtred finally asked the question he’d wanted to for a while now. And Ascendant Favoured One seemed very eager to explain.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: Pathfinders are individuals whose cores are determined to be Unique Grade or above by the System during integration. You and that other individual are at least Unique grade, and that is why the System provided some benefits like early access to the channel function right from the start.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: I don’t want to stroke your ego, but think of it as a minimum guarantee system. Your talent grade is high enough that even on the grand scale of the entire multiverse, the System has enough confidence that you will reach great heights.

> Ascendant Favoured_One: For everyone else, the channel function unlocks only after they reach Level 10. The same goes for other functions like the ranking panel and the multiversal store...

"Oh..." Uhtred rubbed his chin in realization. "That’s also why the System never provided me with notices about these functions either. It wanted me to figure it out on my own?"

> Ascendant Favoured_One: Exactly right.

"But wait... You’ve just gone against the System’s intention by telling me all this. Isn’t that against the rules or something?"