Middle Floors and Liliruca Arde
Leaving the Hephaestus Familia home, Nox went to the plaza in front of Babel to see if he could find his chosen supporter. He was not that optimistic since it was a late start when compared to other adventurers as such, he was not expecting to find Lili.
But, contrary to his expectations, he was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar white robed figure with a huge backpack, sitting on the edge of the plaza's fountain.
'Maybe she didn't find an adventurer to cheat today!' Nox theorized as he approached her with a line straight up copied from the series.
"Supporter-san, Supporter-san! Are you looking for an adventurer?"
"Huh!?" Lili was surprised but soon recovered a composure.
"Do you want to hire me, adventurer-sama?" She asked with a "hopeful" tone.
'Hopeful to scam and rob me is more like it . . .' Nox thought as he answered.
"Yup! The name is Nox Lyros, just call me Nox!"
"Okay Nox sama! I'm Lili!" She said as she got up.
Lili was disguised as a chienthrope child with gold eyes and dark brown hair along with ears and a tail of the same color. Nox used the opportunity to quickly analyze her magic and storing it in his Arcana skill.
"Shall we?" Nox asked as he pointed to Babel and getting a positive answer they both began heading to the dungeon.
"So Lili! What's your rate?" Nox inquired.
"Wouldn't it be more convenient to settle things with a split? It's easy since there are only two of us." Lili countered.
"Oh! I don't usually sell the stuff I get in the dungeon so it's better for me to pay you upfront." Nox explained.
Lili then sited an exaggerated price but Nox just went along with it.
'Just wait little pallum . . . Soon, as my waifu, all that is yours will also be mine, so this is just an investment. You'll have to be a couple of years older though . . .' He thought.
At first Lili was wondering if she could get anything good out of Nox since he seemed like your general run of the mill adventurer besides the fact he was quite handsome. But soon she realized how wrong she was as Nox tore through the upper floors of the dungeon like wet tissue paper.
Nox had decided to test himself in the thirteenth and fourteenth floors today at most and no deeper.
The reason he decided to bring a supporter was so that he could focus solely on battling the monsters that appeared a lot more often. He cast Fairy's Blessing on both himself and Lili surprising her with his care and strode forth onto the unknown.
Returning to his previous tactics of caution and preemptive barrages of magic when facing groups of monsters helped Nox deal with the first two of the middle floors more comfortably but the number of monsters was certainly incomparable to before as was their strength.
Against the groups of Almiraj, quick uses of Enflame took care of them fairly easily if Nox felt he was starting to get overwhelmed. Against the fire using Hellhounds, he used Winter's Breath instead. Those were the only types of monsters he faced.
Closely managing his remaining Mind, Nox decided to return to the upper floors and rest for a bit. Even with his enhanced Mind recovery, it was getting difficult to maintain his combat strength at his peak if he didn't take a rest.
Returning to the twelfth floor, Nox disposed of an Infant Dragon that was unlucky enough to spawn just as he returned and sat down on a large stone as he took out his lunch, offering some to Lili who was surprised.
Not only at the offer but also at Nox's strength and courteous attitude towards her in spite of it. It made her feel slightly bad to be trying to scam her but she steeled herself thinking that in the end all adventures are the same and undeserving of kindness.
Nox then asked Lili for all the magic stones and drop items they had collected so far.
"Why do you want to see them, Nox-sama?" Lili asked with a puzzled expression and tone as she took out all the spoils.
"For this! Open: Item Box." And having activated his spell opening a portal to his storage, Nox unceremoniously dumped all the spoils inside and said "Close: Item Box." closing the open portal.
"Cool right?" He asked.
Lili was quick to express her admiration and Nox even explained his Item Box to her while thinking.
'Hehehe! The guiltier you feel when you try to betray and rob me, the deeper you'll fall for yours truly! Muahahaha!' Though Nox evilly as he concocted a plan to seduce the young girl near him.
Good thing the FBI weren't a thing considering that Lili was a little too young for now. Then again, Nox was only a year older than her so there was nothing for the FBI to complain about anyway.
"Nox-sama!" Called out Lili.
"Hm? What?" Nox asked.
"Are you a Level 2 adventurer?" She inquired.
"Nope still level one!" He answered with a bright smile.
'See how trusting I am! Wallow in guilt at you actions!' Nox thought.
Lili then repeatedly praised his power as a level one calling him the most talented adventurer ever. She was just trying to flatter him and didn't yet realize that comment was the pure truth. After their short break, Nox and Lili went back to the middle floors until it was time to return home.
The rest of the day played out like usual with Nox spending the night trying to figure out how to improve his Spirit Boon and alternating between that and improving his Arcana Ring into something even better. It certainly seemed his obsession with that spell hadn't quite ended.
Nox had used it quite a bit today so he was trying to see if the experience allowed him to grasp any new insights but no such luck. He had also used Spirit's Boon since it was a buff he had no reason not to take advantage of.
The days started to blend together. The middle floors were a lot tougher on Nox than he expected so he ended up spending less time in the dungeon to compensate since he still required a mental rest from constant high intensity battle.
He used his newfound free time to hang out with the Hermes Familia and even managed to convince Asfi to go on a sort of date but more of a chill evening with a close friend type of deal. He had also taken Lili out making her feel even more guilty at her attitude towards Nox.
His training with Tsubaki went well but since it had more to do with physical labour rather than magic like Item making, it wasn't going quite as fast. It was still a monstrous rate of improvement that surprised Tsubaki and Hephaestus who often came and gave advice.
Nox had already maxed Hephaestus' affection but she was alway being to shy and dismissing him he he asked her out. He got closer to Tsubaki though and they often went for drinks together, something that made the red haired goddess quite jealous.
The end of the week was nearing, Nox skill in smithing still had a long way to go but he could already forge decent equipment even if nothing spectacular.
As for his status . . . Frequent forays into the middle floors even if he only went to the first two resulted in a massive increase in power.
After all, regardless of his actual power, Nox was still a level one so the monsters of the middle floors gave him plenty of high quality excelia and it showed in his status. His ability to go to the middle floors despite being a level one boggled the mind of Loki and no one but the two of them and Lili knew what he was doing.
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Name: Nox Lyros
Race: High Human
Gender: Male
Level: 1
Abilities:
STR: SSS-3458
END: SSS-2896
DEX: SSS-3041
AGI: SSS-3569
MAG: SSS-4682
. . .
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Lili had asked for a couple of days off and Nox was happy to oblige surprising her with his kindness once more. In truth, since he had already fulfilled the conditions required for the development abilities he wanted, Nox was thinking of making a solo run beyond the thirteenth floor to quickly gather the required excelia to see if he could reach an upper limit before leveling up.
Nox had excused himself from all training and hanging out, and prepared to spend the next two days going at it in the dungeon making full use of his ability to act without sleep to grind his stats to the maximum level he could possibly achieve.
He was looking for a Level up soon and even though he hadn't learned taming yet, he decided to leave it for later.
The next two days would be full of carnage but tonight . . . It was time to turn Spirit's Boon into the new Mana Veins.
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