"Which route should we take?"
"Hmm… the path straight ahead of us leads to the next town, while the path to the right would go to the Endless Forest after crossing the mountains."
Dan replied as he had been to the Endless Forest before, back when he was invited by one of his party members to visit.
As it was almost night time, Kio didn't want to endanger the girls by travelling in the dark.
"I think we should stop here for the night and continue onward tomorrow morning. What do you guys think?"
"Yea, that's a good idea. The other guys over there are probably thinking the same thing."
Dan pointed towards the adventurers as he said that.
As they saw some adventurers setting up a campfire and tents, Kio and Dan also did the same.
Kio took this chance to check out his status, to see if anything changed since they had been fighting throughout the day.
Name: Kio Nakai
Age: 22
Level: 7
Class: Assassin
Skills: [Inspect Lvl 2], [Universal Language Translation Lvl --], [Minimap Lvl --], [Stealth Walk Lvl 1], [Haste Lvl 1], [Steal Lvl 1], [Shadow Walk Lvl 1]
Skill Points: 6
***
"Huh?"
"What's wrong?"
"Ah, nothing much. Dan, how do you normally level up your skills?"
"What do you mean? Don't skills level up on their own naturally?"
"..."
"Did something happen?"
"Ah, nothing much. I just noticed that I gained a few levels from earlier, but I was surprised at how quickly I leveled up."
"Oh? Right, since that asshole from your world had the [Inspect] skill, I guess you also have it too."
"Yea."
"So? What level are you now?"
"7."
"Wow. Level 7 in a day, that's pretty quick for a beginner adventurer."
"Is that normal?"
"It's pretty uncommon, but there are a few cases where people level fast with a strong class. Normally, you would only gain a level or two after fighting many monsters and wild beasts for a day."
"Then..."
"Well, I'm guessing you leveled up quickly because of those zombies we fought earlier. Some of them were probably adventurers at a higher level, causing you to level up faster."
"I see… Then, wouldn't I catch up to your level pretty quickly this way? And it doesn't look like you gained any levels."
"Hahaha. You wish. It's a lot easier gaining levels early on, but it becomes exponentially harder to raise it past level 30, and it might even stop there."
"Why is that?"
"Well, you need your advanced class to reach beyond that, which is why level 30 is the boundary between average and high-class adventurers."
"How do you even get an advanced class then?"
"I'm not exactly sure. It's a mystery to everyone, because after reaching level 30, some people would automatically gain their advanced class."
"I thought it would've been easier to get the advanced class, since you mentioned everyone in your former party had it…"
"Hahaha. My party was one of the best in the continent, reaching A-ranked in a few years."
"Is there a difference between the advanced classes then? Based on the class names, wouldn't yours normally become an Advanced Swordsman or something?"
"Although my party members tried to look into that many years ago, we didn't discover many details regarding that. The one thing we did confirm was that classes like Sage and Weapon Master received better skills than classes like Advanced Scout and Advanced Archer."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I can't tell you too much about my skills, but instead of receiving a small upgrade to my swordsmanship, one of the skills I received as a Weapon Master was [Weapon Control]. Compared to this powerful skill I gained, my friends received auxiliary skills that slightly powered up their attacks or other skills."
"..."
"Don't think too deeply about it. Just having any sort of advanced class is great. Besides, you will also be able to level up past 30, allowing you to take a step into the realm of high-class adventurers."
"Yea, I guess I shouldn't think too far ahead. I need to focus on laying the foundations of my swordsmanship and gaining one level at a time."
"Yep. That's the best way to do it."
When Kio took a look at his status earlier, he also briefly checked everyone else's status as well.
Dan remained at level 55, while Kaori, Miyu, Luna, and Mary all reached level 7 too.
'I guess our experience points are shared while we're in the same party. I wonder if this happens in a regular party too.'
For some reason, Riko was also level 7.
'Is it because she's in our party and her body is in my Inventory?'
Since nobody could answer that question, he decided to just ignore it, since it's not a bad thing to have her level up.
By sharing experience, Riko would get a head start once she gets revived.
Although Kio wanted to ask Kaori if she had skill points too, he decided to leave it for later once she received a class.
For now, he decided to try using his skill points, but he had to carefully pick which skill would be best for him to level up.
Even though he had 5 skills to choose from, he had only used 2 of them so far, so it wasn't too hard for him to select.
'Raise [Haste] with one skill point!'
Even though it seemed a bit silly to say this in his mind, as he checked his status again, he noticed his [Haste] skill did indeed level up.
Next, he tried using it, to see if there's a difference from level 1 and 2.
He could feel his legs got slightly stronger, but he couldn't figure out exactly how much stronger it became.
Walking to a nearby tree, he decided to try kicking it with his heel, causing a small crack on it and slightly hurting his foot in the process.
'Ow, this wasn't such a good idea, but I needed to test it somehow…'
He then decided to level up his [Haste] more, but as he checked his status, it stopped at level 5.
He was confused from being unable to use his last skill point, so he decided to inspect the skill.
[Haste Lv 5] - Vastly increases the leg strength of the user, improving his/her dashing and jumping abilities. Unable to level anymore until user acquires advanced class.
'Dammit. So there's a restriction to the levels too…'
Since he couldn't level it anymore, he decided to just hold onto his last 2 skill points for now, at least until he tests out his other skills later.
Kio then used [Haste] again and repeated his action from before.
*Boom*
This time, many cracks formed at the spot where he had kicked, and an abundance of leaves and small insects fell off the tree due to the impact.
As soon as the others heard the loud noise, they all looked over to see what just happened.
The sight of all the leaves falling around Kio had surprised a few of them, but Dan had a calm face as he called out to him.
"Hey, keep your skill testing at a moderate level. The elves are gonna hate you if you needlessly destroy the trees."
"Ahaha… My bad, I just wanted to know how much stronger I am now."
Kio tried to be vague as he replied to Dan.
"Hey Dan, what's the highest level a skill can reach?"
"Hmm… I'm not sure. Even my highest leveled skill is only 8 at the moment, but I think I've heard somebody reached level 9 in the past."
"I see…"
Hearing Dan's words, Kio couldn't wait to get an advanced class to level up his skills some more.
As he walked back to his group, he took out some cup noodles and passed one to everyone.
"How do you eat this?"
As Dan asked that question, Mary and Luna also wanted to know, since it didn't look edible after they opened the lid.
"Can you light the campfire? We need to boil some water first."
"Sure."
Dan took out a fiery red stone from his Item Box and held it above the campfire.
A moment later, a small flame came out of the stone, lighting the campfire.
"Wow. What is that, a fire stone?"
This time, it was Kio, Kaori, and Miyu's turn to be surprised, since they haven't seen something like this before.
As he recalled, there were also a few of these red colored stones in his Inventory, but he also has some different colored ones too.
"Yep. This one is a fire stone. Although its output is pretty weak, it's primarily used for cooking. But if you leave the fire on, the stone will quickly get used up, as each one only lasts for about an hour."
"Cool. What other kinds of stones are there?"
"There's a water stone, wind stone, and light stone, which are commonly sold in stores. Then there are a few uncommon ones that I know of, such as sand stone, ice stone, and darkness stone."
"Interesting. I'm guessing the other ones are uncommon because their uses are pretty limited."
"Yep. Now tell me how do you eat this thing. The water is already boiling."
"Alright."
As he taught them what to do, they all had a great time chatting as they waited for the noodles to cook.
Ren and his group weren't sitting too far away.
He had been glancing over at their direction for quite some time, staring at Luna's mesmerizing beauty.