Jump 307: Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

Jump #307: Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
>Two of Cups: A great concordance or pledge of fidelity.
Appropriate, since I've chosen to work alongside the hero and help him as much as I can, rather than replacing him outright.
>Location: Foresta
>Drawback: Benjamin (0)
I don't mind not being the main character, honestly.
>No Nose? Who Knows? (+50)
As though any of you are surprised by THIS one. I'll just try to keep my face hidden behind armor for now.
>Pixelated (+50)
Everything looks very... snazzy. Wait, no, I meant SNES-y.
>Can You Spare 2 GP For A Cup Of Coffee? (+50)
...ugh, I think I'll let Benjamin talk to people and just follow his lead.
>Stoic Monsters (+100)
Doesn't mean much, just keep hitting them until they die. It'll just be trickier to know how much it takes to grind them into the dirt.
>More Battlefields (+200)
The first step in making the world more formidible. There used to be twenty battlefields. Now there are significantly more.
>Deeper Battlefields (x4) (+400)
30 groups of enemies to wade through instead of ten! ...not really a big surprise.
>Extra Encounters (x10) (+500)
More monsters in the dungeons, too. This world's been pretty badly overrun, hasn't it?
>The Video Game Atlas Was Wrong (+200)
Welp, half the meta-knowledge I had is useless now. Oh well, we'll have to deal with it.
>Total: (+1550)
That is an awful lot of monsters, though at least they're not being made stronger or smarter.. Let's see what I can do to make it worthwhile.

>Sword Expertise (1350)
Sure, I've learned enough over the years from wielding swords, but it doesn't hurt to have the innate ability from the jump to strike twice as fast.
>Excalibur (1250, Sword Expertise)
If I'm going to have swords, better to go big. With the hordes of monsters, we'll need that. (Wait, does Ben get one too?)
>A Bit Of Safety (1100)
Yeah no, this is a gauntlet, we're not going to play around with instant death effects.
>White Magic Specialization (800)
It'll probably help to have a little extra healing on our side. I'm not so much a knight, more a paladin, I suppose. Benjamin keeps all the spotlight.
>Heal (Free, White Magic)
Being able to fix multiple status effects at once from the outset is a SUPER handy thing. (Or to inflict them.)
>Mass Blaster (600)
Being able to use my abilities to reliably hit everyone with full effect... even MORE handy.
>Beyond 41 (200)
>Beyond All Ceilings (0)
Now, these? These are what makes the number of monsters in the world being multiplied fivefold worthwhile. I'm not going to hog all of the experience for myself, especially considering the challenges everyone will be facing at the end of the road we're on, but it's safe to say that we are going to be WAY past level 41 by the time we get to Doom Castle and face down the Dark King.

Despite the odds being what they are, I'm pretty damned confident that once we get past the speedbump at the beginning (well, more like climb the mountain of the first several levels), things will be relatively smooth sailing. It doesn't hurt that you aren't forced to face down all the monsters in a battlefield before you leave it.

Not sure what I'll really do with most of this, because quite frankly aside from being able to apply softcap to my allies, I've basically got all of this covered already and then some. And... let's face it, any jumper worth their salt would have found two or three ways to apply that to their allies this far in.

Still, nice gauntlet, I liked it.