The Absolute Speed of a Certain Comic 131

Title: Reaching the Limit of Level 1

Loki extracted some blood, writing and drawing on Hoshiharu’s back, causing ripples like waves of water. The old Ability Values gradually faded, and the new ones were updated.

...

Nangou Hoshiharu Level 1

Power: B (732) → A (896)
Endurance: D (557) → C (663)
Dexterity: A (822) → S (967)
Agility: S (909) → SS (1051)
Magic Power: F (339) → E (411)

Magic:

Skill: 【Ten Years of Sharpening a Sword】

...

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Are you asking me?”

Hoshiharu took the parchment, ignoring Loki’s incredulous expression, and looked at his new Ability Values.

Several of his Ability Values, except for magic, had reached the initial stages of mastery.

Compared to when he first arrived in Orario, his physical strength had tripled. Although his magical power had increased the least, it had actually doubled from its initial value, which could be considered significant progress.

Since he trained on the middle floors every day, he faced monsters far stronger than him. Each battle was like walking on a tightrope; if he wasn’t careful, he could have died twenty times over.

And the skill 【Ten Years of Sharpening a Sword】 played a key role in all of this.

This was an abnormal situation that only he could achieve, with no chance of repeating it.

Even his Agility stat broke past 999 for the first time, reaching an unprecedented SS level.

Hoshiharu was well aware of this.

It might be because he possessed a power like <<Absolute Speed>>. As he continuously used it, his agility surpassed common sense, reaching a point where ordinary reasoning no longer applied.

“However, my strength and endurance only increased a little each time.”

“Are you saying your improvement is small?”

“It’s small compared to the other aspects.”

“That’s quite unsatisfying.”

Loki rolled her eyes. “If an ordinary adventurer could achieve progress like yours, they would laugh out loud in their dreams.”

“But as a vessel, a person always has tendencies. You can understand this by imagining yourself as a barrel. The staves of the barrel are of varying heights, right?”

In other words, there are things you excel at and things you don’t.

Hoshiharu was clearly more proficient in speed. His talent in agility could be described as extraordinary, followed by dexterity. Due to his intuition, he was excellent at dodging. His talent in strength was also good, but his endurance was only average.

“And one more thing.”

Loki shook her head and said, “You’ve almost reached your limit.”

“Limit?”

“Yes, every vessel has its limit.”

Loki sucked on her finger as she explained, “There’s a period of rapid growth in the early stages of leveling. That’s because it’s easy to pour water into an empty bottle, but every vessel has a limit. The closer you get to that limit, the more proficiency you gain, but the harder it is to increase. You might still be able to gain a few hundred points in proficiency now, but when you approach the limit, you might only increase by a few dozen points over several days.”

“Once you reach your limit, you can start leveling up. Although you can level up now, I recommend you train more and refine your vessel to its limit.”

“I recall that leveling up seems to have conditions, right?”

“That’s correct, with enough regular Excelia and a certain amount of advanced Excelia, you can perform the level-up ceremony by combining the two.”

There’s also a difference in Excelia.

Simply put, what you normally gain from killing monsters and leveling up can only be considered regular Excelia. Leveling up not only requires accumulating enough regular Excelia, but also a certain amount of advanced Excelia.

The so-called “advanced Excelia” refers to “great achievements.”

Accumulating great achievements is related to the strength of your opponents and the difficulty of the situation. The stronger the opponents you defeat, or the greater the challenges you overcome, the more great achievements you accumulate, which are advanced Excelia.

When an adventurer gathers enough of both types of Excelia, they can level up.

Loki looked at Hoshiharu’s back.

As the deity who granted him Falna, Loki could clearly see what kind of Excelia Hoshiharu had accumulated.

“Mhm, the great deeds are already done. Let’s say they’ve been achieved hundreds of times!”

Loki seemed surprised.

The amount of advanced Excelia Hoshiharu had gathered was enormous, even several times more than regular Excelia.

After all, running to the middle floors every day as a Level 1 and facing monsters far stronger than himself, Hoshiharu had achieved great feats hundreds of times.

Now, he was truly ready to level up.

But according to Loki’s intention, it was clear that Hoshiharu should train himself to the current limit before expanding his vessel to that limit, so the benefits of leveling up could be maximized.

“I see.”

Hoshiharu nodded in understanding.

“By the way, there’s also the matter of the expedition...”

“You should ask Finn about that. He’s fully in charge of the expedition.”

“Fine.”

After leaving Loki’s room, Hoshiharu walked to the sky corridor.

The Twilight Mansion towers were not only connected on the ground but also in the air through stone corridors.

There were corridors between every two adjacent stone towers, and each tower’s peak had corridors connecting to the central tower. The fourteen combined sky corridors were like evenly slicing a heptagon.

Finn’s office was in the northern tower.

As the expedition drew near, he had become very busy lately. From the window, Hoshiharu could see the magic stone lights still shining.

“Come in.”

Walking to the office and knocking on the door, Finn’s always calm voice immediately came from the door.

“It’s you; you’re coming to me late, what’s up?”

Finn seemed surprised to see Hoshiharu push open the door.

It was a very spacious room, with large bookshelves placed by the walls, a warm stove burning slowly, magic stone chandeliers emitting light indistinguishable from daylight, and the red carpet was so soft it didn’t look like ordinary luxury.

Finn sat behind his long custom-made desk with a banner depicting a clown behind him.

“I want to join the expedition in five days.”

Hoshiharu entered the room and spoke directly to Finn.

That’s right.

He wanted to join the expedition.

The Loki Familia expedition would undoubtedly reach the depths below Floor 50. The farthest the Loki Familia had explored so far was Floor 58, where there were many monsters above Level 4.

As long as he could follow them on the expedition, even if it was just a side journey, his strength would surely increase significantly.

“...Although no one has come to ask me, I really didn’t expect you at Level 1 to say that.”

Finn sighed as if he had a headache.

“Give me a reason. I just want to go this far. There’s no point in changing my mind.”