Beginner's Guide to the World of "He Who Fights With Monsters"

Enter the World of He Who Fights With Monsters by Travis Deverell, AKA Shirtaloon

He Who Fights With Monsters is a litRPG that is being published in a serialized fashion. It is still ongoing and has been adapted into a fantastic audiobook series. Its world is filled with the complex RPG mechanics you'd expect from a lot of modern isekai series, like stats, abilities, racial passives and ranks.

But if you are here, you likely already know this and are looking to learn more about the world to better understand it. I hope this guide to He Who Fights With Monsters (HWFWM) is helpful to you and increases your enjoyment of the series.

Guide to HWFWM Mechanics and Lore

• Ranks: Iron to Diamond (and Beyond)
• Essences and Confluence Essences
• The Races of Pallimustus
• Racial Gift Evolution
• The Gods of Pallimustus

Spoiler Warning

I will avoid spoilers at all costs. No character names or story examples will be used, if I can help it. This guide assumes you have read the first book already and are looking for a greater understanding of the world.

Be Warned: There may be spoilers in terms of mechanics not yet discovered by Jason Asano in Book 1.

Ranks: Iron to Diamond (and Beyond)

Rank is actually fairly conventional. It follows an Iron to Diamond format that you'll likely be familiar with if you've played online games like League of Legends or Overwatch. However, the ranks up through Diamond are the basic ranks; they're what the general public knows about. There are also two more ranks above Diamond, as we'll see below.

0. Normal/No Rank

Life Span: Average
Physical Attributes: Average

Anyone who doesn't have a full set of essences will begin at Normal rank (or no rank). These are average people, for the most part. They have a normal life span, but they may have a few powers and abilities.

1. Iron Rank

Life Span: Slightly increased
Physical Attributes: Slightly enhanced with magic

Iron rank is the first real step to becoming something more than human. It begins when a person uses three essences and a confluence essence is formed. This gives the user access to up to 20 abilities, though only four are guaranteed to begin with. If all 20 ability slots are filled and the abilities are trained to a sufficient level, the user can move on to Bronze rank.

At Iron rank, the user will begin to experience physical and spiritual improvements that can enhance their senses and slightly increase their life span. This is because the essence user's body becomes less biological and more magical at each rank.

2. Bronze Rank

Life Span: 100 years
Physical Attributes: Enhanced with magic

At Bronze rank, essence users have all of their essence abilities unlocked and should be familiar with them. Their body becomes more magical, and they can expect a longer life span, reaching past the high end of an average person from our world; 100 years or more is nearly guaranteed. Bronze rank ends once the user reaches the maximum level in all of their abilities.

3. Silver Rank

Life Span: 200 years
Physical Attributes: Significantly enhanced with magic

Silver rank is where the user truly becomes something outside of the normal scope of humanity. Their life span can reach 200 years. Their body will be significantly enhanced: Most of their wounds will heal passively, their senses will be sharpened to a supernatural level, and they will develop entirely new senses.

Many adventurers will not move past Silver rank. The time required to do so varies wildly, but even full-time adventurers may take decades to move past Silver. In fact, many users get sidelined by wealth, family or positions of power at Silver rank and enjoy the massive perks they have obtained rather than advancing further.

4. Gold Rank

Life Span: 500 years
Physical Attributes: More magical than biological; breathing and eating are no longer required.

Within Gold rank, we start to see a lot of wealthy essence users who have forced their way into the rank by using monster cores, which they typically purchase with the fortunes they've made through commerce and craft. Some priests of various churches obtain this rank by using god-given essences as well.

The adventurers gain the most from Gold rank, though. A lot of their biological functions are no longer needed; for example, breathing and eating can be done if the user desires, but they're not necessary. Gold rankers can expect to live hundreds of years and often become the leaders of great houses.

This rank cannot be reached simply by leveling one's abilities. It requires an essence revelation.

5. Diamond Rank

Life Span: Near-immortal
Physical Attributes: Almost entirely magical; some can reconstitute their bodies after death.

Diamond rank is the peak of mortality. Diamond rankers will not die of old age. Their bodies are almost entirely made of magic and will rebuild themselves from near-death experiences. Even death is not certain, as it's said that a lot of Diamond-ranked adventurers will come back from the dead, given enough time.

Diamond rank signifies an understanding of the natural and supernatural worlds that most people can never obtain. Not everyone is cut out for this rank, and, even given unlimited time and resources, not everyone can achieve it.

6. Transcendent

Life Span: Immortal
Physical Attributes: Godlike

While Diamond rankers may be ageless and near-immortal, Transcendent rankers are literally godlike. Some readers view Transcendent rank as being part of a whole different system, but, from context, it seems like Diamond rank is a requirement for achieving Transcendent.

7. Astral Being

Life Span: Immortal
Physical Attributes: Godlike

If Transcendent is the god rank, then what could possibly be above that? Astral Being (or Builder) is the highest known rank, and it's a mysterious one. The circumstances for advancing from Transcendent to Astral Being are unclear, and it's possible that the Astral Beings have simply always existed. If these final ranks are indeed part of the same system as Iron to Diamond, then Diamond rank is likely a prerequisite for Astral Being as well.

Essences and Confluence Essences

Essences are a type of magical item that can be found in areas with sufficient ambient magic. For the general public, they are highly sought-after because essences are the first step to magical abilities.

How Users Get Abilities From Essences

Using an essence (and conducting the appropriate ritual) will cause the essence to become a part of the user and grant them access to its abilities. The abilities the user gets are seemingly random, but they can be steered somewhat by Awakening Stones.

Example: The Fire essence will immediately grant the user a fire ability, like "Cast Fireball" or "Resistance to Fire."

The essence will always bond to one of the four main stats of Recovery, Spirit, Power and Speed. Increased proficiency with abilities belonging to that essence will increase the bonded stat.

Unlocking Confluence Essences

Once a person has used three essences, they will unlock a fourth that is not of their choosing. This is called a confluence essence. It is a reflection of how the first three essences will work together.

Example: Farrah Hurin has the Fire, Potent and Earth essences. Her confluence essence (which she did not get to choose) is Volcano, which gives her access to abilities like "Lava Cannon" or "Magma Golem."

Essence Rarity

Essences have different levels of rarity. For example, Farrah's Fire essence is considered common, while Jason's Sin essence is legendary. Here is the full list of rarities:

• Common
• Uncommon
• Rare
• Epic
• Legendary

Are Rare Essences Better?

A rarer essence is not necessarily stronger. Typically, rarer essences seem to be more specific or have a complicated mechanism of action. The more common ones tend to be basic and broad in application.

Example: Let's look at Farrah Hurin again. Fire and Earth are common, while Potent is epic. The basic elements are easy to get, but it's her Potent essence that allows her to enhance them further. Farrah ends up with an extremely high damage output because of this.

Example 2: Jason Asano uses Blood and Dark, which are uncommon, and Sin, which is legendary; in fact, Sin is so rare that most adventurers aren't aware it exists. However, Jason is not as obviously powerful as Farrah, based on his essences. Instead, he has many utility and adaptive abilities. (Note that this isn't from essence choice alone, though.)

To sum it up: The strength of a user's essences is based more on combination than rarity.

What Essences Are There?

There are too many essences to list here. For a complete list of essences, I recommend referring to the He Who Fights With Monsters Wiki.

The Races of Pallimustus

The world of Pallimustus has a diverse set of races. Each race has different physical attributes and racial gifts. HWFWM Book 1 introduces us to humans, elves and leonids, but there many more to come. Below is a list of known races (as of Book 10) and their standard racial gifts.

Racial Gift Evolution

Racial gifts can be transformed by something called gift evolution. This can happen in a few different ways.

• Intense Repetition: Gift evolutions can be triggered through intense repetition, such as with crafting specialists who use their abilities over and over while creating goods. Adventurers who rely on the same handful of abilities may also trigger gift evolution via repetition.
• Near-Death Experiences: Traumatic near-death experiences may make racial gifts evolve in a way that will help the user survive similar encounters in the future. For example, the human gift called "Human Ambition" increases the growth of essence abilities. Under certain pressures, it can transform into "Hero's Drive," which will grant an additional mana and stamina recovery when the user is outnumbered, along with few other perks.

The Gods of Pallimustus

As far as we know, we haven't met all of the gods of Pallimustus yet, but we have encountered quite a few. These gods tend to interact much more closely with their followers that the gods from Jason's homeworld. Some even grant essences to their followers in exchange for service, but these gifts can also be taken away.

Here is a list of the gods we have discovered so far (up through He Who Fights With Monsters Book 10).

Enjoy Following Jason Asano on His Journey

I hope this guide will enrich your reading of this litRPG series as you advance beyond Book 1. I cannot wait to read the upcoming books, discover more about Pallimustus, meet new races and gods, explore powerful essence combos, and see which ranks Jason manages to attain. Happy reading!