Kaito's expression stiffened, a faint crease forming between his brows. Confusion clearly showed on his face.
The glowing red text on the panel before him didn't disappear, nor did it glitch or fade it stayed there, as if silently confirming its existence.
[Asura]
This was the first time he had ever seen such a difficulty level appear in a class advancement quest.
Even with all the experience from his previous life, Kaito had never heard of anything like this. The person who had obtained the Magic Swordsman class in that lifetime had never mentioned any Asura Level difficulty in their records or interviews. Not once. And let alone that person even the other god-level players, the ones who had stood at the very peak of Glory, had never spoken of such a thing.
If something this unusual had existed, there would have been at least some rumor, some hint, or at the very least a discussion thread buried in the forums. Information like that never stayed hidden for long. The Glory community back then had been vast millions of players, hundreds of guilds, all exchanging every discovery they could find.
And yet, this level had never been mentioned anywhere. Not even once.
Which could only mean one thing: this Asura Level was something completely new, something that hadn't existed in his previous life at all.
A deep frown appeared on Kaito's face. He stared at the red words for a while, then lifted his gaze toward the woman sitting across from him.
When his eyes met hers, he found her already watching him with a faint smile on her lips. Her calm blue eyes seemed to glimmer with amusement, as though she could read exactly what he was thinking.
For a brief moment, neither of them spoke. The silence was heavy yet strangely peaceful, filled only by the faint sound of the wind brushing against the windows.
Then, the woman chuckled softly. It was a quiet, almost knowing sound.
"I know what you're thinking," she said gently, her voice carrying that same calm confidence as before.
Kaito didn't respond immediately, but his eyes slightly narrowed. He wasn't trying to hide his curiosity it was too obvious anyway.
The woman smiled again, the corners of her lips curving with a hint of slyness.
"As I told you before," she continued, "our lineage is not like any other. It's a special lineage, one that stands apart from the rest. And because of that, everything connected to it is also different. That includes the advancement itself."
Her tone was calm and composed, but every word carried quiet certainty, as if she was stating a simple truth rather than explaining something mysterious.
She rose gracefully from her seat, her long blue hair flowing gently behind her as she walked past the table. With her hands clasped neatly behind her back, she stopped near the large window behind Kaito. The afternoon sunlight filtered in through the glass, outlining her figure with a faint golden glow.
For a few seconds, she stood there silently, gazing outside at the garden beyond the window. Her voice, when she finally spoke again, was soft but firm.
"And if I were you," she said, her calm tone carrying an unmistakable note of confidence, "I would definitely choose the Asura Level."
After hearing the woman's words, Kaito's confusion only deepened.
Her calm confidence made it sound as if choosing the Asura Level was the most natural thing to do, but for Kaito, it raised more questions than answers. This was something entirely new something that had never appeared before, not even once in his previous life.
His thoughts began to swirl.
"Why did this appear for me?" he wondered silently.
He began replaying everything that had happened since he first met the woman in South Glade Town. He remembered the quests she had given him each one far more challenging than normal and how he had completed every single one of them on his first try. Not only that, he had always gone beyond what was asked, achieving exceptional ratings on every task.
Could that be the reason?
Maybe because he had completed all of her quests perfectly, the system had unlocked something special something that didn't exist before. That explanation made the most sense to him.
But then, another possibility came to mind.
He was the first player to reach the city stage. The woman had even mentioned earlier that she was surprised to see him arrive so soon. Perhaps his early arrival had triggered some kind of special condition or hidden system event.
"Could it be because I reached Astralis City first?" he thought, frowning slightly. "Maybe the system changed the advancement quest because of that…"
The idea wasn't impossible. Glory's system had always been alive in a way adaptive and ever-changing. There were many events and features that only appeared for the first person to achieve something.
The more Kaito thought about it, the more it seemed possible. Still, part of him felt uneasy. He couldn't be sure.
For a brief moment, he even considered leaving the mansion and returning later, thinking that perhaps the system would reset and the Asura Level might disappear. If this was just a temporary condition triggered by his early arrival or performance, maybe things would return to normal once he re-entered.
But there was no guarantee.
And then, there was the woman herself.
If she already knew about the Asura Level, then perhaps it wasn't a glitch or a random event at all. There was a chance she had deliberately triggered it for him.
Kaito's eyes shifted to her again.
As far as he knew, the distinction between NPCs and players in Glory was thinner than in any other game. Even though players and NPCs had different methods of advancement, the essence behind it was still the same.
Whether you were a player or an NPC, when you reached the threshold for advancement, you had to enter a test field subspace.
These subspaces were special dimensional zones attached to the Glory Plane, similar to dungeon subspaces. Once inside, both players and NPCs had to undergo trials designed to push their bodies and minds to their absolute limits. The purpose of these trials was the same to help them break through their current bottlenecks and unlock their full potential.
In the end, whether player or NPC, everyone had to rely on their own strength to advance.
Even in his previous life some players including Kaito thought that, though Glory was called a game, it had long stopped feeling like one. At that time for many, it felt more like a different world one where they truly existed in new bodies, living new lives.
As during the advancement trials, when their bodies and minds were pushed to the absolute limit, the sensations they experienced were far too real to dismiss as mere illusion. Many players even believed that their bodies were truly breaking through their limits and evolving with each challenge, even though it was only their in-game bodies undergoing that transformation.
Because of this, some began to believe that the world of Glory wasn't just a virtual construct but another reality entirely one they had been transported into. Of course, most dismissed such thoughts as the fantasies of imaginative players, yet no one could completely deny them either, for the feelings and sensations they experienced inside were far too vivid to be false.
And the only major difference lay in how failure was handled.
For players, thanks to the Main God System that governed Glory, the process was regulated. When a player failed their advancement quest, the system automatically enforced a cooldown period before they could attempt it again. This ensured that players wouldn't damage their characters permanently or lose balance in their progression.
But for NPCs, it was very different.
They didn't have the system's protection or structure. Once they failed, there was no set cooldown or automatic recovery. They had to wait for their bodies to fully heal, or for their energy to return to its peak state, before attempting their advancement again. Sometimes that could take weeks, months, or even years depending on the severity of their failure.
Because of that, advancement among NPCs was considered far more dangerous and unpredictable.
In a sense, the players had it easier they had limits, yes, but also safety. NPCs, on the other hand, lived with real consequences.
Knowing this, Kaito was not surprised as to why the woman knew about the Asura level.