Does Magic Level 99999 All Attributes Break Lore?

I always laugh a little when someone waves a stat sheet and screams that lore is broken — context matters more than digits. If 99999 is a meaningless label slapped on a character, then sure, it ruins tension; but if it’s woven into the story with consequences, rituals, or unique drawbacks, it can actually enrich the world.

Think of it like saying someone has a doctorate: the title alone doesn’t tell you their subject, credibility, or how they use it. In fiction, the number should have social and metaphysical baggage. Make it rare, make the journey costly, or make the scale itself a secret language of power that normal folks can’t interpret. When creators do that, an absurd level becomes a dramatic milestone instead of a cheating trick. I tend to enjoy huge numbers when they come with character fallout or lore twist — otherwise I just roll my eyes and imagine a much more interesting explanation.

Totally get why the sight of a character or item tagged with 'magic level 99999' makes people wince — it's a dramatic number that screams 'end of challenge.' I tend to think of it like a loud hot pink neon sign in a story: it can look tacky if there's no thought behind it, but it can also be a clever device if the world supports that scale.

Mechanically, huge flat numbers do risk collapsing tension. If a single stat tweak turns a mid-tier villain into a cosmic juggernaut, all prior threats feel trivial. Games like 'Skyrim' or tabletop systems such as 'Dungeons & Dragons' deal with escalation by giving enemies new abilities, resistances, or mechanics rather than just inflating HP and damage. Narratively, pieces like 'One Punch Man' use absurd power to satirize the genre; the point isn't to keep mystery but to subvert it. So whether 99999 breaks lore depends on how the setting defines power: is it strictly numeric, or is power relational and contextual?

I prefer when writers avoid lazy inflation and instead handle astronomical levels with worldbuilding tricks. Introduce currency of power (different scales for gods vs mortals), make such levels rare and socially meaningful, or attach costs — rituals, corruption, time, lost memories — so achieving 99999 isn't just a stat boost but a narrative event. Another neat route is to keep numbers high but make them relative: maybe the system uses exponential scaling where 99999 is meaningful to mathematicians but for everyone else it's inscrutable. Examples that work include 'Overlord' where levels mean something because of the underlying mechanics and societal consequences, and 'Final Fantasy' entries that give lore reasons for limit breaks. When numbers go wild, anchoring them with metaphysical rules, political fallout, or in-world reason keeps immersion intact. Personally, I get excited by big numbers when they come with trade-offs or lore that makes them feel earned, otherwise it's just flashy arithmetic and I lose the emotional stakes.