As they came to the entrance of the Dungeon, Riveria turned to Adrian and Ais, telling them.
"Before we enter the Dungeon, I have a few things to say to both of you. 1st is that you can't venture too far off from me, 2nd is that you must listen to what I say, 3rd is that you must be careful and not relax your vigilance."
"Okay Riveria."
"Okay."
Adrian and Ais replied, as they began to enter the dungeon.
After they entered the Dungeon, Adrian and Ais drew out their weapons, as they continued to walk, encountering a group of 10 goblins.
Adrian and Ais dashed at the goblins, with Adrian holding one of his swords in his right hand, and having the other sheathed.
Adrian stabbed one of the goblins before slashing 2 at once. He kicked behind him, sending a goblin that was about to attack him from behind, twisting around as he kept into the air, slashing it and killing it.
Ais killed 2 through stabbing in this time, before Adrian quickly slashed and stabbed the remaining 4.
After they died the goblins turned into black smoke, with a magic stone and a small dagger dropping from the ones Adrian killed, with a magic stone and a small fang dropping from the ones Ais killed.
When Riveria saw the Item Drops, she swore.
"Shit! How is this possible? Every goblin that was killed dropped a Drop Item, and the ones Adrian killed all dropped a Goblin Dagger!"
"Riveria, why are you swearing?"
"It's because you are really lucky, a Goblin Dagger is usually only dropped once a week, while you have already dropped 8 of them."
After they talked for a while and continued walking, they encountered more goblins, with some kobolds mixed in them.
As Adrian and Ais continued to fight the monsters, Riveria saw Adrian enter a kind of trance, as his eyes became empty.
Adrian slashed, stabbed, blocked, and parried continuously and subconsciously, with his movements beginning to become more fluid. Adrian and Ais were quickly killing all the monsters, with the Dungeon creating many more monsters from the walls continuously.
"Adrian, Ais! Come back to me quickly! We've encountered an abnormal situation."
Ais heard this and came to Riveria, with Adrian seeming to not hear Riveria calling him.
Adrian continued to attack using the sword, beginning to move like dancing, as he elegantly killed the goblins and kobolds, with their number only slightly decreasing, before another is created.
Riveria noticed this and began to think that the Dungeon is trying to hone Adrian as absurd as it sounds. Riveria also noticed that Adrian is rapidly improving his swordsmanship, as he has entered a state that is like an epiphany that she read about when she was still in the Elf forest.
"Has he entered an epiphany? Guess that I will have to wait until it ends, however there are hundreds of drop items on the ground near Adrian. I've got to make sure that Adrian doesn't get badly injured when he makes a mistake."
Riveria and Ais continued to watch Adrian kill the monsters, becoming increasingly entranced by his figure and how elegantly he moves in the horde of monsters.
Riveria then noticed that around every minute a Jack Bird would be spawned from the Dungeon, moving straight into the path of Adrian's sword, dying and dropping what appeared to be diamond eggs.
In Adrian's mind, he is thinking about how he can get stronger without increasing his stats other than getting more skilled in swordsmanship or other weapons and getting better equipment.
'I should first train my senses by only using one of them while blocking the others off, forcing me to adapt and use one of my senses to fight monsters in the dungeon. It will also allow me to know if the falna works by increasing the excelia gained depending on the difficulty or threat in different situations, or the gap in strength between me and what I am fighting with.'
Adrian noticed that his sword has many cracks in it, about to break. He smashed it sideways at one of the kobolds, causing it to shatter and send all the parts of the sword flying, impaling most of the monsters in the vicinity.
He pulled out his spare sword, continuing to slash and stab the monsters around him. He dropped and slid along the ground picking up one of the Goblin Daggers as he continued to gracefully move around the monsters enclosing him.
Adrian took out a roll of steel thread, tying the Goblin Dagger to it while continuing to kill the monsters.
Adrian then began to throw and wave the Goblin Dagger around, easily cutting all the monsters surrounding him as his eyes regained their luster. Adrian began to heavily breathe as he noticed all the Drop Items on the ground, along with the monsters stopped spawning.
Riveria went up to Adrian, grabbed his ear and started lecturing him.
"You can't do that next time! Do you know how dangerous the situation you were just in was? …"
As the lecture ended after about 5 minutes, Adrian began to use his Universal Storage to put the thousands of drop items into it.
Ais, Riveria, and Adrian continued to go deeper into the dungeon, encountering many more monsters. Riveria continued to watch Ais and Adrian, seeing how they fight and found some interesting things.
It seems that Adrian should be a battle junkie, always wanting to have a fulfilling fight and also seems to want to push himself as much as he can. Adrian fights gracefully, but there is also a hint of suppressed beast-like style of fighting by using only his instincts.
He is good at using most weapons, but prefers using a sword. He is extremely lucky, always getting the rarest Drop Item every time he kills a monster, also encountering dozens of Jack Birds, being able to kill all of them.
Ais fights like she is out for revenge against all the monsters, fighting recklessly and getting injured from time to time. Ais is also very lucky, getting a Drop Item about 50% of the time she kills a monster, however is mostly the least valuable Drop Item, sometime being the rarest one, encountering 5 Jack Birds and also killing them all.
Adrian is covered in blood, as he continues to slash the monsters in two. After about 5 more minutes, they reached the entrance to the 2nd floor, deciding to continue on the 1st floor and moving to the 2nd tomorrow.
"Adrian, how is the remaining sword holding up? Ais how is your's holding up as well? Do you both have the energy remaining to continue fighting?"
"The remaining sword is about to break, however I have lots of Goblin Daggers that can be used, enough that I shouldn't be able to use them for all up."
"My sword is almost broken. Can I have one of the daggers?"
Adrian handed Ais a dagger, before continuing to kill the goblins and kobolds.
Adrian and Ais continued to fight monsters, getting more fatigued from the intense fighting that they began to feel that they have reached their limits.
Ais stopped fighting monsters about an hour ago, with Adrian getting attacked by a horde of monsters.
Adrian threw a dagger behind him, impaling a goblin in the eye, before rapidly slashing 7 monsters in front of him in the blink of an eye.
Adrian noticed a kobold sneak attacking him, as he moved to the right to evade, he felt his leg muscle stiffen. Adrian swore in his heart, before swinging his arm to the left, sending out a red and black coloured lightning, killing the kobold and the other monsters around it.
Adrian continued to rapidly send out heavenly tribulation lightning around him, killing all the monsters in the area.
"Riveria. I have reached my limit for today. Let's go back."
Riveria heard this while she was standing with Ais, and came back to her senses as she saw Adrian looking like the lord of lightning, as he sent out the heavenly tribulation lightning, killing all the monsters around him.
"Didn't you tell Loki that limits are meant to be surpassed? Did you lie about that?"
"It's not a lie, it's just that I don't feel that the stakes are high enough to allow me to get into the right mindset. I believe that there are 3 prerequisites to allow someone to surpass their limits, an extremely strong will, a firm and great enough dream, and high stakes, for example protecting someone important to you, making you know that you only have one chance to succeed."
"That's reasonable. Pick up the Drop Items and let's return to the surface. After we return to the surface, give all the magic stones to the Guild, and take the Drop Items to the mansion before counting them, and taking it to the Hephaestus Familia."
"Riveria, do you think that we can get our falna updated today?"
"Adrian, you and Ais should be able to get your falna updated today, however let's get you some money."
Riveria then took them to the Guild, where they unloaded all the magic stones, with a total of about 30,000 of them, which when they were sold, gave Adrian and Ais about 5,000,000 valis each, shocking Riveria and the Guild staff.
Adrian and Ais were then taken back to the mansion by Riveria, who then took Adrian and Ais to where Finn does his work, finding him.
"Finn, look at how many drop items Adrian and Ais got, there are probably billions of valis worth of drop items just from Jack Birds. We will leave it for you to figure out how to deal with them, while I take both of them to get their falna updated."
Adrian then followed Riveria's instructions to dump all of the drop items in his Universal Storage on the ground, creating a massive mound of drop items, with half of the room being completely full of drop items.
While Finn was stunned, Riveria grabbed Adrian and Ais before running out of the room and going to find Loki.
"Riveria! You don't really expect me to do all this by myself! Come back here!"
They heard Finn yelling while they were running to Loki, who updated their falna, doing Adrian's first.
"What is even happening?! Is it even possible to have a status increase this much?! What did you all do today?!"
Loki shouted in disbelief, before composing herself and showing Adrian his status.
******
Adrian Yggdrasil
Race: High Human
Level: Level 1
Strength: S974
Endurance: SS1021
Dexterity: S930
Agility: S950
Magic: A870
******
"Goddess Loki, do you think that stats would increase faster if someone made it more difficult for themselves, like putting effects on themself like paralysis, poison, dulling senses or wearing weighted clothes, or sealing their senses like wearing a blindfold and earplugs?"
"Why are you asking this? But if I had to say, it should work."
"Because the stronger adventurers like Riveria, Finn, and Gareth would need to go to deeper floors to actually increase their stats even a little bit, which if they put handicaps on themselves, they should be able to increase their stats more even on the higher floors."
"Well, I guess that I can see if we can get some of that for the executives."
"Loki, can you also see if you can let me learn blacksmithing, mixing, alchemy, and also sacred text? I've got millions of valis even without selling all the item drops, so I can pay for having someone teach me if you can get a better one for paying for it."
"I can get that sorted for you, however I will only allow you to begin to learn after completing 3 requirements which are; get all of your stats to SSS, still go to the dungeon at least 2 times a week, and reach the 12th floor, which is the end of the Upper Floors."
Loki and Adrian began to talk, Adrian put back on his shirt.
"Loki, do you allow me to seal 4 of my 5 senses when in the dungeon to try and get a skill after training each of my senses until I feel that I can't improve them more?"
"I will only allow you to after you can defeat a level 1 with the same circumstances."
Loki thought for a while before giving him a requirement to do so.
After this, Ais also came in and got her falna updated.
******
Ais Wallenstein
Race: Human
Level: 1
Strength: E430
Endurance: F398
Dexterity: E480
Agility: D502
Magic: I0
Skill:
[Avenger]
- massively increases attack power when fighting monsters
- massively increases attack power when fighting dragon-like beings
******
After this was done, Adrian began to plan about how to let the familia get excelia faster, configuring in his mind the most effective potions that will greatly decrease and inhibit the strength of even stronger adventurers, how to make gravity bracelets, how to limit senses better, etc.
Adrian also began to plan how to let the members of the familia get stronger with being able to make grimoires for magic, if there is anything that will allow them to get skills even if they aren't that strong, how to increase the speed of the grade increase of the development abilities, and just increase their proficiency with weapons.
As it became about an hour before dinner time, Finn had finished sorting out all the item drops, with the total amount of valis that it can be sold for being more than 10 billion valis, as they encountered around 200 Jack Birds, who 180 of them were killed by Adrian, dropping their rarest drop item that is only seen maybe once in a hundred years, the Jack Bird's Diamond Egg which is usually sold for about 50 million valis each, with the remaining items totalling more than 1 billion valis, but less than 2 billion valis.
Riveria took Adrian and Ais to sell them at various places, telling them to pay them by tomorrow, however making sure to get the money for the Jack Bird Item Drops, splitting them between Adrian and Ais, giving Adrian 8 billion valis and giving Ais around 90 million valis, however she took them to put it in a bank, giving them 100,000 valis as pocket money.
"Riveria! Why do you only give me 100,000 valis?! You are bullying me!"
"Right!"
"It's because you aren't strong enough to deal with the ruffians who will try and steal your money from you."
When Adrian and Ais were arguing with Riveria, she smiled and replied to them.
They went back to the mansion, before eating and going to bed.
In bed Adrian began to start planning how to train his senses in the most efficient way, before he settled on using his luck to have the dungeon only spawn 1 goblin for him to fight, while sealing one of his senses which will start with sight.
******
After this, time passed quickly and a week has gone by. When going to the dungeon, Adrian and Ais have been accompanied by a member of the familia, with it mostly being Riveria, with Gareth or Finn doing the other times.
At this time, Adrian and Ais have been steadily moving through the dungeon, being able to reach the 7th floor after Riveria agreed to it. In this time Adrian and Ais have gotten at least 50 million valis just from magic stones, and more than 100 million from Drop Items, only encountering Jack Birds around 5 times each time they delve into the dungeon, as they only spawn on the 1st floor.
On the 7th floor, Adrian and Ais are fighting a group of Killer Ants, as Adrian cuts off the head of the one in front of him.
Ais stabbed one of the Killer Ants in the eye, pushing the dagger through, killing it from piercing its brain.
As they continued to kill the Killer Ants, Riveria noticed that Adrian is slowing himself down to not surpass Ais too much.
'Why is he limiting himself? We've got to figure out a way to allow them to stay together, but also allow Adrian to not have such ease. If there really isn't any way, I guess that we will have to seperate them.'
Adrian, cut out 20 slashes in a second by cutting the resistance from the air itself and using his lightning to accelerate his speed, allowing him to continue to slash at his maximum speed, with Ais only able to do about 5 slashes in a second.
Adrian and Ais quickly destroyed all the Killer Ants in the area, and continued to explore the floor, killing all monsters that are in the area.
Adrian felt a bad feeling suddenly that made him feel like he was in a cellar.
"Riveria! Ais! Out now! Somethings wrong!"
As soon as Adrian finished saying this, various pits appeared in the surrounding, trying to send them all into different areas. Adrian began to fall as he quickly grabbed Ais, falling down one of the pits, with Riveria falling down another one.