Chapter 22

I made my way away from the Loki familia quickly, wrapped in Formhide. The interaction hadn't been terrible, but it also hadn't been exactly what I had hoped for. I just shrugged it off and continued my way up toward the surface. As I did so, I heard Regulus speak in my mind.

"Why withhold the information about the Spirit Queen at first?" He asked, clearly slightly confused.

"She doesn't exist in this world," I replied simply as I made my way past a group of monsters that never even realized I was there.

"Hmm," Regulus hummed, seeming to come to a realization, "So that feeling during the summoning was me crossing over to a new world,"

"Probably, since this is a different world with different gods from the one you came from," I said, trying to explain in a simple manner.

"Yet you wield powers from my homeworld and presumably this one. How did you manage that?" He asked, genuinely curious.

"You know of Otherworlders?" I asked, coming up with a plausible explanation for how I arrived at this world from what I understood of the Tensura power system.

"Of course," Regulus replied.

"I'm an Otherworlder that was summoned to your homeworld, but after a while, I found that I got pulled to this world, possibly through a summoning, but I don't know," I said, thinking the explanation was unlikely but fairly plausible.

Regulus seemed to buy it, so I dropped the topic and just focused on getting back to Babel quickly. I had a feeling that I was close to maxing my stats if I hadn't done it already. As soon as I knew what areas to improve in, I would come down one more time to train for a bit before completing a feat that would level me up. Then, once I am level two, I will start to focus on the middle floors and finding the Xenos. I was broken from my thoughts when I noticed that I had entered the first floor, so I quickly made my way down the large, newbie-friendly hallway back to the stairs.

After a moment, I was out of the dungeon and back on the stairs up and out of Babel. Looking around, I could see that the morning crowds had just arrived. Both adventurers and ordinary people flocked to Babel to either shop, head into the dungeon, or do both. I quickly used Clean Wash to get everything off me before I made my way up to Fortuna's shop. There, I found her unlocking the door to open the shop, so I dropped Formhide and approached. She saw me in the reflection of the door before I could sneak up on her and smiled.

"I assume you want your status updated?" She said, with a questioning bob of her head.

"Yes, please," I said as I entered the shop after her.

"Sometimes I feel like you only view me as a way to get stronger," She said sarcastically.

I wanted to laugh and tell her it wasn't true, but I found that her remark hit uncomfortably close to home. I just shrugged it off since I knew it to be true and wasn't really ashamed of that fact. Sure, I like Fortuna, and we could defiantly be good friends if she weren't a goddess, but in the end, all adventurers are using their god to get stronger. I decided to force a laugh in the end so as to not make her uncomfortable by staying silent or exposing my deeper thoughts. She smiled as I laughed at her "joke" and grabbed a piece of paper before sticking it to my back.

The next thing I heard was a bang as Fortuna fell over backward from shock. I looked back to find her flat on her butt, staring at the paper in her hands. She turned to face me with a look of shock before handing the paper to me. I grabbed the paper and quickly scanned it before doing it twice more in quick succession to make sure I knew what areas to improve in before my next dungeon dive. 'Maybe I can level up today actually,' I thought as I placed the paper in my pocket.

-

[Galahad

Lv. 1

STR: C-641>>>S-999

END: D-564>>>S-999

DEX: D-534>>>S-941

AGI: C-603>>>S-952

MAG: C-652>>>S-999

- Magic -

Magicule Manipulation

- Skills -

Tensura]

-

"Of course, it is dexterity and agility that are trying to drag me down," I said, unable to hide my wide smile as I thought about the contents of the paper.

"Do you know what this means?" Fortuna asked with an equal mix of excitement and nervousness.

"What?" I asked, pretty sure I knew what she was about to say.

"You're going to absolutely shatter the Sword Princess's record," She said, "This will boost the reputation of our familia massively and allow us to basically have our pick of the best recruits,"

"When is the next Denatus?" I asked suddenly, catching Fortuna off guard slightly.

"In a little less than a month, why?" She asked.

"Well, I am going to max out my stats before leveling up right now," I said, not surprising Fortuna in the slightest, "But when the next Denatus comes, we'll just say that it took a month and a half for me to level up instead of a week or two,"

This statement gained a surprised look from Fortuna before she seemed to understand where I was coming from, "You don't want the record to be completely unbelievably," she concluded.

I nodded, "Most people probably won't believe even a month and a half, but that will be more believable and will be able to draw many interested people toward the familia than a two-week record,"

(A/N: I think he's only been in the world about a week or two, but I don't know for sure)

Fortuna nodded and wished me luck as I headed out of the shop. As I headed back down into the dungeon, I thought about the best ways to maximize my gain of agility and dexterity. Agility was obvious, I just need to fight an Orc or a Silverback and just let it get very close to hitting me while I dodge every blow by a hair. That would be easy enough, but to get my dexterity up, I might need to parry attacks or use my spear more. These thoughts lingered in my mind as I headed down to the base of Babel just in time to see the Loki Familia expedition exiting the dungeon to the applause of some of the surrounding adventurers.

I saw Finn give a small wave to the people who were clapping before turning and gazing into the crowd. I don't know how he did it, but I tried to stealthily maneuver through the crowd without the use of Formhide since there were too many people that I could bump into while invisible, he spotted me. I just gave a small wave and a nod before I pushed through the crowd and walked toward the dungeon entrance. I noticed a few of the familia's members follow his gaze and recognize me as I disappeared into the dungeon.

I did hear Tiona say, "Well, he certainly cleans up well," before I descended too deep to hear them, even with the aid of Magic sense.

Once I was in the dungeon, I rushed down to the 12th floor once more and tossed a single bag of bait out. Soon, a bunch of monsters came running. Not as many as before, but still a decent amount. Instead of meeting them head-on and killing them, I used all my senses and speed to dodge and block attacks as quickly and efficiently as I could. I dodged Silverbacks trying to beat me into the ground with their fists while an Orc swung a petrified tree at me. Sonic Bats screeched at me while Imps and Hard Armors dove at me and tried to break my bones. I continued dodging and parrying until I was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that dexterity and agility were maxed out.

With that done, I released a wave of electricity that stunned all the monsters before removing my spear from my storage and ripping the stunned monsters apart. As I was killing the monsters, I saw my way to level up, standing about 100 paces away from me. I watched as the big orange lizard move its head to regard me standing off in the distance. It must have felt that it was safe from detection since the fog was extremely thick in this area of the floor. It began to silently move toward me, completely unaware that I already knew of its existence.

I quickly considered how to level up during this fight since I had killed level-two adventurers in the past and didn't even get the choice to level up. There was a chance that they were different due to their exhaustion from casting magic and that they were new-level twos. However, I didn't want to take the chance, so I wanted to make this fight as difficult as possible while still being winnable.

So I stored my spear and shirt in my storage before raising my fists, ready to beat the Infant Dragon to death with my bare hands.

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I already have a skill that the MC is 100% going to gain from leveling up but comment on what development ability and curse the MC should get (For example: MC can inflict wounds that bleed heavily or can't be healed by normal means, etc.)

Note: He might not get a curse this level up, but he will get one eventually.