The news that the "Sword Princess" of the Loki Familia had reached LV6 spread like wildfire throughout all of Orario.
LV6 adventurers were a rarity; there was only one known LV7 in all of Orario, and even LV6 adventurers were few enough to count on two hands.
Currently, only the Freya Familia and the Loki Familia are known to have LV6 adventurers.
Every time an adventurer advanced to LV6, it was a monumental event for the Guild, warranting a special announcement.
When this announcement was posted, all the adventurers who saw it were abuzz with discussions, filled with admiration and awe, and rarely jealousy.
After all, human nature is such that people first react with jealousy when a genius emerges. However, when the genius's growth reaches an unattainable level, to the point that even their shadow cannot be seen, ordinary people are left with nothing but reverence.
Ais's advancement to LV6 was a cause for great celebration within the Loki Familia, signifying new strength for the group. Almost every member was extraordinarily excited, especially Ais's little admirer, Lefiya.
However, the three leaders of the Familia and the goddess Loki did not share this view.
In the office of the Loki Familia's leader:
The three leaders of the Familia, the goddess Loki, and Ais herself were present.
Judging by the setup, it was a tribunal, and the subject of the "inquiry" was naturally Ais's mysterious advancement to LV6.
"Can't you tell us?"
Riveria, who had the closest relationship with Ais and was almost like a mother to her, sighed.
A look of hesitation flickered in Ais's eyes, but she eventually shook her head firmly.
"I promised someone I wouldn't say."
The three leaders exchanged glances.
Finn appeared thoughtful, Riveria slightly furrowed her brows, and the dwarf shield warrior Gareth laughed heartily and reassured her, "It's alright. It's not that big of a deal. The important thing is that Ais has reached LV6. She can help share the burden in our next expedition."
Finn seemed to understand and nodded in agreement.
"Gareth is right. Ais, you must be tired. Go and rest."
"Sorry," Ais felt a bit guilty facing the elders who had watched her grow up, given her simple nature.
"Don't worry about it, Ais. If you have any problems, just tell us. Remember, we always have your back," Riveria said, showing a rare gentle smile and patting Ais's head, exuding motherly affection.
Ais's body trembled, and she instinctively leaned into Riveria's embrace.
"Thank you, Riveria," came Ais's muffled voice from within Riveria's arms.
After Ais left, the atmosphere in the office turned serious.
"Ais is completely incapable of lying. If she had advanced by killing a floor boss, she would have told us. There are other factors at play," Riveria said sternly, reverting to her usual calm and wise elven mage demeanor.
"Loki, is there anything unusual about Ais's 'status'?"
Finn asked after pondering for a moment, turning to Loki.
"Nothing unusual. It's the most normal advancement," Loki replied, her eyes still narrowed in that inscrutable expression.
"No, being completely normal is the biggest anomaly," Finn said, adopting his classic commander pose behind the desk.
"Indeed, achieving a feat sufficient for advancement without killing a floor boss is highly abnormal," Riveria agreed.
"Riveria, have you heard of any potions or items that can allow someone to advance without any side effects?"
Finn asked, though his expression showed hesitation as if he didn't believe such a thing could exist.
Orario is full of wonders, and there might be skills or items that could temporarily boost one's level, but advancing without any side effects seemed impossible.
It should be, but for some reason, a certain person's image flashed through Finn's mind.
"Don't be ridiculous. You know it's impossible for such a thing to exist," Riveria, well-versed in knowledge, replied.
"Under normal circumstances, the amount of power an ordinary person can contain as a 'vessel' is limited. That's why they need to break through their limits by achieving 'feats' to make their 'vessel' larger. However, this is under normal circumstances. Don't forget, that child has the blood of a celestial spirit..."
Loki's sudden statement strengthened Finn's suspicions.
"So, the issue lies with that man?"
Finn couldn't help but bite his thumb.
"Are you talking about... that man named Gudao?"
Riveria immediately understood the meaning behind Finn's words after years of working together.
"No, I'm more inclined to believe it's the work of the Queen of the Land of Shadow," Finn replied.
Indeed, the powerful Queen of the Land of Shadow had left a lasting impression on them.
At this moment, Gareth, who had been silently listening to their discussion, suddenly spoke up: "Regardless of who did it, it's clear the other party has no ill intentions. Finn, aren't you being a bit too cautious? This isn't like you. Normally, only those annoying elves would be this verbose."
Gareth's words instantly silenced the office.
"Hahaha~!"
Loki suddenly slapped the sofa beside her and laughed heartily.
"Gareth is right. Being overly cautious can make you timid."
"Who are you calling verbose, you barbaric dwarf!"
Riveria immediately glared at Gareth with a cold expression and an angry look on her face.
Watching the almost daily conflict between the elf and the dwarf, Finn could only shake his head helplessly.
After some playful banter, Finn, as the captain, made an official decision: "Since the other party has no ill intentions, it is very important to maintain a good relationship with them. Besides, it seems he has a good impression of Ais..."
"No way! I would never allow anyone to take Ais-tan away!"
Loki immediately shouted, looking like a lovestruck old man.
"Loki, I didn't mean to give Ais away..."
Finn explained, looking speechless.
"I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear it! Ais-tan is mine, and no one can take her away!"
Loki began to act unreasonably.
"Give it up, Finn. When Loki is like this, no one can persuade her," Riveria said, both amused and exasperated, watching their goddess throw a tantrum.
Thus, from a distance, the members of the Loki Familia could hear various noisy sounds coming from the captain's office.
Today, the Loki Familia was as lively as ever.
...
At this time, the culprit who had caused quite a stir within the Loki Familia, Nguyen Ryou, was setting out for the dungeon.
Recently, his life had become regular again.
Every day, he would head to the dungeon, kill monsters, and collect some rare ingredients that could only be found there.
Since equipping the "Giant—Goliath" Mystic Code, Ryou's efficiency and safety in killing monsters have greatly improved.
Previously, although he had combat power comparable to an LV5 adventurer, he couldn't sustain it for long. Once the magic generated by his Noble Phantasm couldn't keep up with the consumption, his strength would significantly decrease.
Now, with the Mystic Code, things were much better. He could safely endure damage, and the damage could be converted into magic, further enhancing his strength.
In gaming terms, his sustainability had greatly increased.
Thus, Ryou descended below the thirtieth floor in one go, where the monsters gradually turned into undead skeleton types.
From the thirty-first floor onwards, ordinary skeleton soldiers were the most common. The further down he went, the more he encountered skeleton warriors wielding weapons, and occasionally, skeleton archers hiding in the distance with bone bows for sneak attacks.
What Ryou hated the most were these skeleton archers. These guys had no shame, only knowing how to ambush, and their bone arrows came with a weakening effect that could continuously stack.
For him, who relied on taking damage to convert it into life recovery and enhance his attack power, they were practically his nemesis.
Ryou even suffered a great loss at their hands.
Once, he became overconfident and advanced rashly, getting surrounded by skeleton shield warriors, with a dozen skeleton archers on the periphery.
Bone arrows rained down instantly.
At first, Ryou didn't pay much attention since the skeleton archers' attacks barely broke his defense.
But after a while, he felt like he had caught a cold, with his limbs feeling weak and dizzy, drastically lowering his combat power.
Even worse, as the weakening effect stacked, his defense significantly dropped. Whereas the skeleton shield warriors could barely scratch his skin before, they could now easily make deep cuts.
Ryou hurriedly exchanged a bottle of purification potion from the system, drank it while enduring the skeletons' attacks, and narrowly escaped danger.
He had almost become a laughingstock among the transmigrators, nearly dying not at the hands of a boss but at the hands of a bunch of small fry.
After this lesson, Ryou dared not be careless again. He quickly spent a full fifty thousand energy points in exchange for a purple necklace, the "Tear of the Saint."
This necklace increased his durability by two points, enhanced his resistance to curse-type negative effects by 50%, and boosted his resistance to abnormal statuses by 20%. In total, it increased his resistance to curse-type effects by a full 70%!
Having a lot of energy points/money allowed one to act with impunity!
The previously significant threat posed by the skeleton archers was greatly reduced. The only cost was a significant reduction in his energy points, leaving him with just over seventy thousand left.
Originally, he had been close to amassing enough to buy a pair of gloves worth 150,000 energy points that he had his eye on. Now, he had to slowly save up again.
At the same time, Ryou also learned from the system that his equipment was almost ineffective against Noble Phantasms. Applying a phrase from Type-Moon Series: "Mystery becomes nullified before a higher mystery."
However, the system not allowing Ryou to purchase Noble Phantasms revealed this point. If one could achieve the effects of a Noble Phantasm just by buying equipment, what would be the point of pulling?
It seemed that even the lowest-ranked E-class Noble Phantasms were of a higher grade than equipment.
With the "Tear of the Saint," Ryou embarked on a monotonous monster-grinding journey to quickly gather enough energy points.
This time, he didn't return to the surface. Instead, he resupplied food on the safe 18th floor and, after a brief rest, dove back below the 30th floor.
With the skeleton archers no longer a threat, Ryou's efficiency in grinding monsters soared. He directly used the experience he had learned in online games.
Exploiting the skeleton-type monsters' sluggish movements and fear of fire, Ryou tanked the skeleton archers' attacks, gathering over a hundred skeleton warriors into a large space.
He then continuously drew "F" in the air with his finger, releasing large amounts of magical fire and implementing a "burn, burn, burn! Burn them all to death!" strategy.
Ten minutes later, the sound of items dropping filled the air! Over a hundred magic stones and materials littered the ground.
If other adventurers saw his insane grinding method, it would surely cause a sensation.
The deeper one went, the more crucial teamwork became.
Unless there was an overwhelming level difference, adventurers typically operated in small teams.
The standard monster-grinding method concluded by adventurers involved the vanguard holding off the monster horde, assassin or archer-type adventurers maneuvering or luring monsters, or killing any that slipped through, while the mage, protected, chanted powerful magic to deliver fatal blows to the monsters.
However, Ryou handled all the processes alone: luring, holding off, and finally using large-scale magic to annihilate the monsters.
With his crazy grinding method, Ryou soon found that the dungeon's monster respawn rate couldn't keep up with him.
Helpless, Ryou had to keep moving downward.
The difficulty of the dungeon increased significantly every ten to twelve floors. Unless Ryou descended to the 40th floor in one go, the monsters on the 30th floor wouldn't suffice for his grinding needs.
When Ryou reached the 38th floor, an unexpected monster blocked his path.
He had just killed another large batch of skeleton monsters and, noticing the dungeon hadn't respawned yet, unconsciously moved downward.
Suddenly, he entered a vast, open space. It was like the bottom of a massive canyon, with only a faintly visible narrow crack overhead. The canyon walls on both sides were ashen white, like stone walls made of piled-up ashes.
Boom!
Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently, and a massive black stone mountain rose from the ground.
Ryou instantly realized he had accidentally entered the floor boss's room!
He saw the conical stone mountain suddenly split open in the middle, and two gigantic skeletal arms stretched out, tearing the stone mountain in half.
It was a giant skeleton with its lower body embedded in the ground and its upper body exposed. It had ominously black bones and horns on its head. In its chest, a magic stone larger than a person was embedded.
Amazingly, it was already as tall as the seventeenth-floor boss, the giant Goliath, despite only revealing its upper body.
This was the Monster Rex of the 37th Floor, Udaeus!
Should he retreat?
This thought flashed through Ryou's mind for a moment.
The skeleton-type monsters on the thirtieth floor averaged at level 4, so as the boss of this area, Udaeus would be two levels higher, at level 6!
This was a level he couldn't contend with at the moment.
"Let's give it a try first!"
Ryou's eyes sparkled with excitement as he looked at Udaeus's massive figure.
Udaeus was a very unique floor boss. It had a wide attack range, strong attack power, decent long-range attacks, and, like other skeleton-type monsters, strong resistance to piercing and slashing attacks but a weakness to blunt attacks.
But these weren't the main issues. Its greatest weakness was that it couldn't move!
Anyone who has played games knows that immobile bosses are the easiest to deal with.
No matter how high or abnormal its attack power, as long as it couldn't move, the attacker could easily withdraw from its attack range, regroup, and launch another assault, while the boss could only stand there like a target waiting to be hit.
If it were any other floor boss, Ryou might have turned and left, but facing a stationary boss like Udaeus, he decided to give it a shot!
Roar!
At this moment, Udaeus had just crawled out from the stone mountain and was howling at the sky.
Ryou pushed off the ground with force, causing it to crack, and shot forward like an arrow. His legs unknowingly emitted a bloody magical glow, indicating he had used "Mana Burst."
Ryou went all out from the beginning to deal with Udaeus.
Udaeus immediately noticed this tiny creature daring to challenge it, and a gigantic hand descended fiercely toward Ryou's head.
Boom!
The giant hand struck down, causing a small-scale earthquake and filling the air with dust, obscuring the view.
Whoosh!
The dust suddenly bulged out, and a figure leaped out like lightning—it was Nguyen Ryou.
Taking advantage of Udaeus not retracting its hand, Ryou climbed up along the wide bone arm, which was large enough for a carriage to drive on.
The red light in Udaeus's eye sockets suddenly intensified. It retracted its arm while mercilessly striking Ryou with the other.
But it was too slow. With the boost from Mana Burst, Ryou's speed was now comparable to that of level 5 Ais.
Crack!
Udaeus struck its arm, sending it flying, while Ryou agilely leaped onto Udaeus's shoulder.
This position was almost a blind spot for Udaeus's attacks.
Ryou wouldn't miss this perfect opportunity. He immediately demonstrated the high-speed hand movements he had practiced for months, drawing symbols rapidly in the air.
A flash of magical light was replaced by raging flames, enveloping Udaeus's giant skull.
Even a floor boss couldn't escape the undead monsters' weakness to fire.
Udaeus roared in rage as it burned.
Taking advantage of the situation, Ryou drew two more primordial runes, causing the flames to burn even more fiercely.
Then, magical light shone from Ryou's arm as he punched Udaeus's face hard.
Crack!
The incredibly hard bones of Udaeus's face split open.
At that moment, the red light in Udaeus's eye sockets brightened, and an unusual magical wave emanated.
Sensing danger, Ryou instinctively leaped off its shoulder.
While still in mid-air, he saw a sharp mountain of swords suddenly rise from the ground, thrusting straight at Udaeus's shoulder.
This mountain of swords was pitch-black, forged from an unknown material, and from a distance, it looked like a gigantic obelisk.
Had Ryou moved a moment slower, he would have been skewered like a kebab.
As soon as he landed on the ground, he felt the earth beneath his feet start to shake.
Ryou instinctively pushed off with one foot, leaping to the side.
Just as he left his original spot, a dense cluster of sword mountains shot up from the ground.
It seemed Udaeus didn't want to give him any rest. Every time Ryou paused for even a moment, a large cluster of sword mountains would immediately sprout from the ground, aiming straight at him, barely giving him a chance to catch his breath.
Ryou had no choice but to keep retreating, and in the blink of an eye, he was already thirty to forty meters away from Udaeus.
Just as Ryou was forced back, Udaeus made another move.
A massive black bone sword, inlaid with several blood jades, rose from the ground.
Udaeus grabbed the hilt with one hand and lifted it.
Visible blood-red magic power surged wildly from the bone sword.
Udaeus raised the bone sword high, howling skyward, looking every bit like an invincible demon king!
"Damn it!"
Faced with Udaeus, who had suddenly entered a second phase, Ryou couldn't help but curse.
Most adventurers encountered Udaeus bare-handed, but now, facing Ryou alone, it had summoned the bone sword. His luck was exceptionally "good" today!
Before Ryou could think further, Udaeus raised the bone sword high and slashed down toward his position.
The ground immediately shook violently, with a powerful shockwave spreading from Udaeus toward Ryou. Along the way, the hard stone ground cracked and lifted, and large and small stones flew like bullets in all directions.
Unable to dodge in time, a piece of rubble grazed Ryou's cheek, leaving a deep cut on his face.
Ryou couldn't spare a moment to wipe it; he desperately dodged to the side.
Barely managing to evade Udaeus's earth-splitting sword move, Ryou was now covered in scrapes.
Fortunately, the wounds were not deep, and with the powerful recovery ability of his Mystic Code, the wounds were healing at a visible pace.
In just a short while, Ryou could be fully recovered. However, Udaeus clearly would not give him that chance.
Udaeus's eye sockets flashed red again, and without any visible movement, rows of sword mountains began spreading from its side, forming a path bristling with thorns.
With no other choice, Ryou, exhausted, could only dodge to the side.
Maybe he should retreat...
This thought involuntarily surfaced in Ryou's mind.
But in the heat of battle, such a distraction would come at a heavy price.
In that brief moment of distraction, the sword mountains caught up with him, lifting him into the air. Dozens of sword mountains then shot toward the airborne, defenseless Ryou as if to pierce him with a thousand swords.
In this life-and-death moment, for some reason, a memory flashed in Ryou's mind: the day he, out of jealousy, impulsively said to Scathach, "One day, I want you to admit that I, Nguyen Ryou, am your most outstanding disciple!"
She seemed to laugh then, and that smile... it was so beautiful...
Ryou, covered in blood, was sent flying, crashing heavily to the ground, motionless as if dead.
A large pool of blood quickly formed under him.
At this moment, Udaeus ceased its attack, its jaw moving up and down as if letting out a silent laugh.
PS:
Ryou: Shishou, you know a lot of reader hates your attittude.
Scathach: No matter what I do, the world will forgive me...Why? Because I am beautiful!
Ryou: I see... Shishou needs Srutal Beggs Correction!