章 25: Level 2

At every Level, one's stats were capped at 1500 each, which was the peak of the SSS-rank. Any more than that and the body wouldn't be able to withstand it without ranking up into a higher level. If one forced themselves to surpass this by even a single point, one's body would burst and death was the only available outcome.

Thankfully, Isaac didn't have to worry about this, as his system dispersed all excelia gained past that point. So after his next update, he would reach SSS-1500 in all his maxed stats without having to fear for his life.

Amongst adventurers, this wasn't common knowledge, however, as most people would never exceed S-999, no matter how hard they tried. Contrary to popular belief, this wasn't because they were prevented from growing any stronger than this. Rather, this was an artificial cap the dungeon introduced. After one had grown strong enough to kill wyverns, they were only able to gain a certain amount of excelia before they wouldn't even gain a single point no matter how many years they continued their wyvern slaughter. They couldn't subdue minotaurs either, as there was a huge gap of 600 stat points between them and the wyverns - an insurmountable difference.

Therefore, the only option for adventurers was to rank up and increase their Level. This would multiply the stats they had gained during their previous Level by 150%. By doing so, they would now be able to bridge a huge part of the aforementioned gap.

Thanks to all of this, only the gods knew of the actual maximum of a stat. As none of their children ever showed any hope of getting there, though, most of them never mentioned it.

Still, this only made the dungeon seem more suspicious in Isaac's eyes. Without having been purposefully designed in a way which would limit the potential stat growth in each Level, there was simply almost no way this could have occurred naturally. Yet another dungeon related mystery to explore later, huh?

While on the way to the surface, Isaac continued slaying minotaurs and Ligerfangs. Twelve kills later, he finally reached today's goal.

[ Post-update Endurance stat has reached the maximum. No further Endurance-related excelia can be gained until your Level increases. ]

[ All stats have reached the post-update maximum.

Quest 'Reach the Level 1 stat limit.' completed. 1000 AP rewarded. ]

When he left the dungeon, Isaac made sure to blur his existence again, contrary to what he had done in the morning. As no-one had tracked him within the dungeon, besides a few sorry fools, whoever was curious about his whereabouts would just think he was still in the dungeon if he didn't show himself.

After getting some food from a street vendor, by slightly unblurring himself for a short while, Isaac relaxedly ate it while on the way to the Pantheon. As he had nothing else to do, he just waited in front of the entrance for his students to show up, while observing the crowd and thinking about his future plans.

Maybe because they had been careful to not be late and make their teacher wait, the group arrived a whole thirty minutes early, which made Isaac chuckle to himself amusedly.

Once the group had entered the building, Isaac focussed his gaze on someone who had attracted his attention moments prior: the chienthrope woman following his students. To anyone who didn't pay close attention, she would just seem like a normal passerby, but her well-hidden glances in the direction of his students didn't escape him at all. He also instantly recognized the young woman.

Her name was Lulune Louie and she was a member of the Hermes Familia. While she didn't play one of the major roles in the DanMachi novels, she was still a relatively important and distinctive character. Having identified the party shadowing his students, a knowing smile played about Isaac's lips.

'It seems like Ouranos is just as careful as I expected.'

Even a minor detail like the fast increase of magic stone and drop items sales of continually higher quality by a single adventurer was reported to him quickly. Most gods would have thought it beneath them to investigate such an exclusively positive, although irregular, development. But Ouranos immediately tried to get to the bottom of it, as it wasn't something that was supposed to happen in that grand plan of his. The overall increase of magic stones and drop item sales wasn't a problem, the sudden intrusion of an unknown, new variable was.

Of course, Ouranos wasn't foolish enough to send someone to squish that new variable in the bud. Rather, he would evaluate it carefully and try to use it for his benefit by adjusting his own plans before even thinking about taking such a drastic action. That was why he had hired the Hermes Familia to scout out everything related to this irregularity that they could. While Hermes couldn't really be called one of Ouranos' subordinates, they were most certainly rather close and more or less in the same camp.

Because he was aware that she didn't pose any danger and was just one more pair of prying eyes, of which there were plenty around, Isaac didn't startle Lulune and allowed her to do her job. She didn't even enter the Pantheon to continue her scouting mission, as the Guild prided itself on its privacy, especially when it came to the training areas adventurers were able to rent. Ouranos wouldn't feel the need to go against his own organization's values just to look into a small matter. If his actions were found out, people would lose the trust they had in the impartiality of the Guild, after all. Trust was easy to lose but hard to gain, it was a valuable resource.

Going completely unnoticed, Isaac entered the Pantheon and followed his students and Yolanda, who was leading them to their rented training area. As soon as she had left and his students had set down their respective backpacks, he undid his blurred state and knocked on the door, which attracted their attention.

"How did you get in here?!"

The one who was the most startled was Jakk, as he took pride in his good presence detection skills. Still, he hadn't noticed Isaac at all until he made himself known, which made cold sweat trickle down the hume bunny youth's back uncontrollably. Kalin and Mina, however, quickly recovered from their momentary shock and welcomed Isaac enthusiastically, clearly relieved that he was okay.

Before they started today's training, Isaac made them all sit down in a circle to exchange information about what had happened, so they would all be on the same page.

Starting off with his own experiences, Isaac reported about the ambush he had encountered in the dungeon and that it had been easy to deal with. Nonetheless, this just proved that their cautious methods were working, as danger was diverted away from the weaker members of the party.

When she heard that her lord had been attacked, Mina's normally peaceful demeanor was replaced by an ominous, enraged aura. Still, as the perpetrators had already been punished, she calmed down relatively quickly and was just relieved that Isaac came back unharmed.

Kalin hit the ground in anger when he heard about the reasons for the ambush. Although he wouldn't have been of much use, he wished he had been there at the time, mostly because he wanted to give such lowly people, who would go so far as to kill someone for their own selfish desires, a good beating.

Contrary to the less experienced two, Jakk had fully expected Isaac to return to them bearing this kind of news, so he didn't react much, besides nodding in approval when he heard about the deaths of the attackers.

Now that she finally had a chance, Mina reported yesterday's strange encounter to her lord. She did her best to describe the two suspect people, which Isaac instantly recognized. A man wearing a feathered hat and a blue-haired bespectacled beauty? This duo was just way too recognizable.

After praising Mina for relaying this information, he also informed his students that they had likely been tailed the entire morning and described Lulune in detail, so they could recognize her the next time they saw her. Before their expressions of shock at not having detected such a thing at all could even set in, he quickly explained to them that the party who was spying on them, which also included the ones Mina had met yesterday, didn't mean any harm so far. Therefore, there was no need to get agitated. They could just ignore them and go about their business as usual. No matter what, once one got stronger and attracted attention, prying eyes would follow them everywhere, no matter how hard one tried to avoid it.

Once his students had reported on their daily dungeon progress, Isaac reminded them to not expose their deepest secrets when out in public, under any circumstances. Averin's existence had to be closely guarded, for now. Additionally, they shouldn't mention anything weird that he, Isaac, was capable of. Like appearing and disappearing at his leisure, for example.

The last point on his agenda today was that Isaac would get Loki to rank him up to Level 2 after he returned to the Twilight Manor later. This revelation gave rise to another wave of surprise amongst his students. Mina was the one who was least affected, as she was purely happy for her lord. Kalin, however, was astonished at this ridiculous rank up speed, but after thinking about Isaac's offer, his confidence in doing something similar in the future made him giddy with excitement.

Jakk, on the other hand, was shell-shocked. He had always thought of himself as an outstanding genius. Maybe not the best of the best, but pretty close to the top. Although he had been aware of Isaac's fast growth before, he had subconsciously forced himself to ignore the reality of the situation, to avoid growing discouraged. It had taken Jakk two years to reach Level 2, which was already considered to be really impressive. And now there was Isaac, who took only 8 days…

The bunny boy's rueful sighs didn't escape Isaac, but as he had expected this reaction, he had come prepared. To prevent Jakk from feeling like nothing he did was worth the effort, Isaac decided to rekindle his motivation by explaining how exactly excelia gain worked.

By the time his explanation finished, Jakk's bad mood was a thing of the past. His path forward was clear as day: improving his skills. Anyone could replicate Isaac's feats if their skills reached his level. Adventurers normally only had such low excelia gain because they focussed on fighting monsters with similar or lower stats than them. This entire world's system, which put more emphasis on the stats and skills displayed in one's Status, while making one's actual combat skills an afterthought, was deeply flawed. Obviously, Isaac wouldn't let his students walk such an inefficient path.

Because Jakk had gone into the dungeon for a few hours after dinner the past few days, he had been able to accumulate his own share of excelia, so his growth wasn't stagnating, even though he was taking care of the newbies.

Nothing else of note happened during today's training. Shortly before Yolanda came to notify them about the time they had rented the training area for having passed, Isaac blurred his existence again after warning his students in advance. Nonetheless, he still got to chuckle at their baffled faces, when he simply disappeared from their field of view as if he hadn't been there in the first place.

When he returned to the Twilight Manor, Isaac had already informed Ais, who had been practicing her swordsmanship at home today, of his upcoming plans via the system. Both of them took some time to take a shower and a bath respectively, before they met up and made their way to Loki's study. All the way there, they were holding hands, as there was not really any reason to abstain from doing so anymore, when everyone had pretty much already heard about their relationship. This earned the two a few knowing smiles from their fellow familia members when they were walking down the hallways.

Currently, Loki was sitting on one of her sofas and relaxedly drinking a few glasses of wine while reading a book and giggling to herself. She was so engrossed in it that it took her a while to notice that she had company. When she looked up from her book, though, she almost spit out the expensive wine she had been drinking.

Her eyes widened in disbelief as she looked at the hand holding couple and unrealistic fears started to well up in her mind. Was Isaac here to ask for Ais' hand in marriage or something? Had they already progressed to such a degree? It had only been a few days! Could the lovely and pure Ais have already been defiled, with her own goddess none the wiser?!

Very quickly, though, Loki realized that all her fears had been simply irrational. Just because Ais and Isaac were holding hands, that didn't mean much besides that they liked each other. Additionally, Isaac would have given off a completely different feeling if he was here for a more serious issue. Therefore, she decided to first hear the two out before jumping to any conclusions.

"Good evening, Loki. I'm here for the usual update. Oh, and please rank me up to Level 2 after that."

Loki would have been lying if she said she hadn't been at least a little bit relieved after hearing these words. The surprise she should have felt at one of her familia members only taking a little more than a week to reach Level 2 had already faded a few days ago, as she had been expecting it for some time. In fact, Isaac could have ranked up well before today, he had just been accumulating more excelia. Therefore, Loki was quite excited to see which state he had managed to reach. With that in mind, she wasted no time and motioned to one of the sofas.

"Alright. Off with your shirt, then."

Although this wasn't the first time Ais had seen Isaac's bare upper body, she had become a lot more aware of him since then, so she wasn't able to hide the deep blush on her cheeks at all. She quickly noticed that Isaac's body had lost almost every single gram of fat over the course of the past few days. His muscles got a lot more durable as well, even though his lithe form didn't change at all. Even Loki would have reacted in an impressed manner, if she hadn't already been privy to this sight a few times before.

Once Isaac had lain down on his usual spot on the sofa, Loki got on top of him and dripped a drop of her blood onto his back.

"What the hell?!"

The moment she laid her eyes upon his now updated stats, Loki almost fell off the sofa. Were her eyes playing tricks on her?! This lunatic had somehow managed to perfectly max out his stats. Had he been off by even a single point, she would have been showered in blood by now!

"Don't scare me like that!"

After hitting Isaac's shoulder lightly in an effort to voice her complaints in a physical way, she continued her work and started initiating the rank up. At the same time, Isaac quickly explained what had lead to Loki's shock to the worried Ais via the system. He also made it a point to emphasize that he hadn't been in any danger. Right when the two finished their quick conversation, Loki asked Isaac an important question.

"There are two Development Abilities that you can choose from. Swordsman and Huntsman, both are at the I-rank. Which one would you like to choose? Do you want me to give you a quick rundown of the two of them?"

To not arouse too much suspicion, Isaac gladly accepted Loki's offer, while he took a look at the Swordsman Development Ability himself via the system, just to see if his goddess' explanation was missing anything.

[ Swordsman (I): Improves comprehension speed of sword related skills and abilities by 10%. Increases all stats by 5% when equipped with a sword. ]

Most likely, he had been presented with this choice because he had exclusively been wielding a sword while killing his enemies. He had already somewhat expected this, so it wasn't a tough choice to make. Huntsman would be a lot more useful for his future plans, especially if he stacked Development abilities of this kind.

After Loki's explanation, he quickly informed her of his choice and the rank up process concluded. Within an instant, his strength, which had already increased just moments prior, was increased by 50% yet again, which made a happy sigh escape his mouth.

[ You have ranked up to Level 2.

Quest 'Rank up to Level 2.' completed. 500 AP rewarded. ]

Once he put his shirt back on and Loki had handed him his Status sheet, Isaac took a look at his Status in the system as well. He made it a point for the system to, from now on, also include the total of each of the stats if they were converted into Level 1, as it made it easier to compare his stats with monsters' and the Status' of others.

[ Name: Isaac Blackshaw ]

[ Familia: Loki Familia ]

[ Affiliation: None ]

[ Race: Human ]

[ Level: 2 ]

[ Age: Unable to measure ]

[ Charisma: 14 ]

[ Stats ]

[ Strength: I-0 (2250) ]

[ Endurance: I-0 (2250) ]

[ Dexterity: I-0 (2250) ]

[ Agility: I-0 (2250) ]

[ Magic: I-0 (2250) ]

[ Magic ]

[ None ]

[ Skills ]

[ None ]

[ Development Abilities ]

[ Huntsman: I ]

[ Can be chosen from when ranking up: Swordsman ]

Upon seeing the many 2250's in his Status, Isaac's eyes beamed with self-satisfaction for a moment. It really had been a good choice to postpone his rank up. If his Level's currently gained stats were always multiplied by 1.5, he would quickly rack up an astonishing stat total, that could put most First Class adventurers to shame. Another thing of note was that every stat point gained in a Level would always be the equivalent of two stat points gained during a previous Level. This made adventurers of a higher Level nigh untouchable to anyone below, once they had some time to accumulate enough stats.

Isaac couldn't help but smile wryly as he thought about how ridiculously strong the denizens of this world could possibly get. Thankfully, most people found it harder and harder to advance to higher Levels the stronger they got. Part of this, besides most people simply not being able to exceed their perceived limits, was that monsters usually ranked up into higher Levels with a lot more stats than the average adventurer. After all, most adventurers ranked up shortly after they reached the 500 stat point requirement, whereas monsters of a higher Level would always have 900 stat points in all of their previous Levels. This accumulated to quite a staggering difference with increasing Levels.

"Before you leave, there are a few things I want to talk to you about."

These words of Loki quickly stopped Ais and Isaac, who had already planned to leave, in their tracks and they sat down on a sofa opposite of their goddess, waiting for her to continue.

"Starting from when one of our adventurers reaches Level 2, we require them to donate 5% of their earnings to the familia, to feed everyone and so it can be used for the familia's expenses. Is that okay with you?"

Honestly speaking, Loki was a little bit worried whether or not Isaac would accept this condition. Normally, as Level 1 adventurers wouldn't make too much money anyway, they would be sponsored by the valis the stronger familia members earned. As it took a long time, multiple years even, for someone to advance to a higher Level, they would grow to appreciate the concern they were shown in their starting days and happily agree to donate some of their income. As Isaac hadn't been a part of the familia for long, however, Loki wasn't sure whether or not he would already realize how important of a system this was.

"No problem at all. I'll be doing so from now on, then."

Naturally, Loki's worries were unnecessary. Isaac hadn't planned to just live off his familia without giving anything in return anyway. In fact, he had been quite surprised that such a taxation system hadn't been introduced at the very beginning, right after he joined. But seeing how the Loki Familia mainly consisted of high Level adventurers, it was no wonder that the pitiful amount of valis they could gain from their weaker members wouldn't be worth the trouble. It was a smarter choice to build up some gratitude in those early stages in exchange.

Amusingly enough, Ais had never really paid attention to these monetary matters and completely forgotten about them. Ever since she had joined the familia, Riveria had been taking care of her and handled these matters in her stead. Ais never had to waste time micromanaging her income.

"I'm happy to hear you say that!"

A wide smile spread across Loki's face when she heard his response. Although she had been somewhat aware of it already, she hadn't really paid Isaac's intelligence much mind before. It was clear now that her expectations for him, while already very high, had still been too low. But there was no use ruminating about that, so she continued with the next topic she wanted to inform him about.

"Now, let's continue. I had planned to let you join the next expedition to the deep floors, which will set off in a little more than a week, to familiarize yourself with them. That is, if you reached Level 2 before then. But as you just did that, I'd like for you to join the expedition in the role of a supporter and report to Riveria about the matter tomorrow at the latest. I think it will be a valuable experience. What do you say?"

Back when she had noticed that Isaac's growth didn't slow down at all, Loki had already hurried to Riveria to inform her of this decision. The lower and deep floors were extremely dangerous, mainly because of the endless flood of monsters. With the rapid pace Isaac was developing, it would be good for him to calmly study what lay ahead for a bit and get a feel for the threat level, before he got himself into a situation that was out of his control.

Seeing Loki's somewhat uncharacteristic warm and caring smile, Isaac realized for the first time just how deeply she cared for the ones she called her children - the members of her familia. She may be a trickster goddess, but she wouldn't even think of harming those she decided to add to her 'family'.

With positive thoughts like these, Isaac showed a genuine smile in response, before he agreed to this matter as well. Loki was right, this would be a valuable experience for him, although it wasn't entirely needed. The only problem was that he now had to hurry up his AP gathering plans. Until now, he had only gathered 6889 out of the 10.000 he would have to accumulate to upgrade his body's blood to ichor, which was the first step of his next plans. So far, he had been taking it slowly, as there was no deadline he had to meet. He could just accumulate AP naturally over time. Today, this changed.

While Isaac was carefully brooding over his next moves, Ais' eyes were sparkling excitedly when she thought about how he would be accompanying her on the next expedition. She had been kind of distraught at the thought of being apart for so long, even though they could always just talk to each other via the system. Now, she didn't have to worry about that anymore.

What she didn't realize was that her reaction made Loki's smile grow even wider. The mischievous goddess hadn't only wanted to help Isaac gain experience, she had also wanted to avoid Ais growing distracted during the expedition because she was thinking about the man left behind on the surface. Such a thing could potentially lead to injuries, especially because this sensation, this yearning, was still entirely new to Ais. Therefore, the situation had to be handled with care.

After a few minutes of small talk, the three of them left Loki's study to head towards the canteen for dinner. During their walk there, Isaac secretly informed Ais about his decision to visit the dungeon later to farm some AP. He wouldn't be in any danger whatsoever, as he would be focussing on Level 1 monsters to exploit the Achievements feature of his system for easy AP. Once he had given his body a quick examination after his rank up, Isaac had also noticed that he needed significantly less sleep. Just six hours every two days would be more than enough for his body's metabolism to function unimpeded. As for exhaustion of the mind, that was entirely irrelevant for him.

Ais didn't discourage him from his decision. She already knew about his ability to blur his existence after he had demonstrated it to her when they had been alone together one of the previous days. Because of this, there was no way for him to be detected should he decide to enter or leave the Twilight Manor - or any place for that matter - at his leisure. Ignoring the security concern this posed, the only reason Ais didn't venture off into the dungeon during the night on her own was that she wasn't able to perfectly recover from her accumulated exhaustion, which was why Riveria forbid her to excessively dungeon delve. Because of this, Riveria would automatically be notified of Ais' departure by the magical formations encompassing the familia's home. However, if Isaac sneaked out secretly, there would be no way for him to get caught. He didn't even need to worry about the recovery part.

Right when everyone had gathered for dinner, Loki looked at Isaac with her trademark mischievous smile, before she stood up with her cutlery in hand. An unpleasant feeling of déjà vu washed over Isaac's mind like a tidal wave, making his face scrunch up unpleasantly. This, however, only spurred Loki on even further.

"Everyone, I have an announcement to make! Our newest member, Isaac, has just ranked up to Level 2!"