"I hope it can make me stronger."
"I hope it can make me safer."
"And I hope, too, that it can carry me through every hardship, fly me up out of the underground, straight to the clouds."
When he'd used the Grimoire, Leo had voiced these very hopes.
These were the truest thoughts drawn out under the Grimoire's effect, answers made in the subconscious that couldn't be faked.
In the end, also under the Grimoire's guidance, these hopes of Leo's turned into a budding possibility, giving birth to the flight magic Comet Chase.
This Magic, able to keep accelerating, would without question make Leo stronger.
This Magic, able to keep providing protection, would without question make Leo safer.
To break through every hardship, fly up out of the underground, straight to the clouds, this most essential wish also made this Magic into a one-of-a-kind flight magic.
Flight, acceleration, protection: this Magic, possessing all three effects at once, would do far more in real combat than it looked like on the surface.
Finn and the others were dimly catching onto this, and so they exchanged a glance.
"The acceleration side of it we did just get to see, and it really is strong."
Recalling the sight of Leo turning into a comet streaking across the vast sky and vanishing before his eyes in an instant, Finn had to admit that Leo's speed in that state really was fast, fast enough that even he probably couldn't keep up.
He wasn't, after all, an Agility-specialized adventurer, but a technique-type with outstanding Dexterity. In all of Loki Familia, Bete alone specialized in Agility, with very high basic ability values reaching S at nearly every Level, plus speed-boosting Skills, so his fleetness of foot was unmatched by anyone in the whole of Loki Familia.
The speed Leo burst out with from the very start was already no less than Bete's at full tilt, to say nothing of his being able to keep accelerating as time went on. As long as the Mind could keep sustaining the Magic's activation, then sooner or later Leo would possess a speed no one could match, one that even that fastest Lv.6 in the city from Freya Familia couldn't catch.
This acceleration effect was nothing short of astonishing, and paired with flight, it would absolutely make Leo a genuine racing star on the battlefield, one no one could stop.
Only...
"And what about the protection side of it?"
Finn took an interest in this question.
"Very strong."
To which Leo answered cleanly.
"How strong?"
Finn raised an eyebrow again, asking with great interest.
"Let me think..."
Leo mused for a moment, then gave this answer.
"If I'd had this Magic back at Lv.2, then a full-power punch from Goliath probably wouldn't even break through the protection."
The moment those words came out, the whole place went quiet.
Everyone lost their voices in unison and fell into silence.
What Leo meant was easy enough to understand: that this Magic could let him, at Lv.2, ignore the attacks of a Lv.4 Floor Boss, and completely block Goliath's strength.
This was an astonishing effect of complete protection that held even across a gap of two Levels.
This actually wasn't hard to understand either.
Comet Chase was, in the end, Magic, and since it was Magic, the strength of its effect was determined by the level of the Magic value.
With Leo's Magic value, which could reach SSS at every Level, however weak his Magic was, it couldn't be weak by much.
On top of that, with Star Soul Eternal's triple amplification, which both strengthened magic effects, raised the function of Mage, and highly enhanced the Magic value, layer upon layer of amplification meant that Leo's Comet Chase was naturally only a notch weaker than the magical firepower that could receive the boost of the Magic Attack Development Ability.
In other words, if you said the Lv.3 Leo possessed magical firepower on par with a Lv.5, then once the Lv.3 him activated the Magic Comet Chase, the result would surely be that both speed and protection could reach a level comparable to a Lv.5's.
Now that he was already Lv.4, then once he activated Comet Chase, even if speed and protection didn't reach a Lv.6's level, they definitely wouldn't fall far short of it.
The result was that the moment he activated the Magic, his initial flight speed could be mentioned in the same breath as Lv.5 Agility-specialist Bete's, and accelerating continuously thereafter as time passed, his speed would sooner or later edge out Bete's, while on the defensive side the effect could reach the point where a Lv.5-level attack wouldn't break through it at all.
With protection like that, even facing the female-form monster's pollen bomb again, he could come away unscathed, couldn't he?
And Leo also had a set of First-Class armor, the Giant's Battle Garb.
Stacked together, Leo's defensive power now had reached a truly astonishing strength.
Everyone, Finn included, all arrived at one and the same thought.
"The function of this flight magic is probably no worse than Ais's wind Magic."
This was a startling thing.
As everyone knew, Ais's Ariel was a very abnormal Magic.
For all that it was merely an enchantment Magic of the ultra-short chant grade, it not only had an all-purpose power combining offense and defense, but also gave Ais a strength formidable enough to stand against a Floor Boss single-handed. This already went beyond the bounds of enchantment Magic; never mind the ultra-short chant type, even an ultra-long chant type enchantment Magic might not have so great an effect.
Thanks to this Magic, Ais, originally just a Lv.5, became the city's strongest female swordsman, with strength enough to span Levels, standing on the same peak as a slew of Lv.6s.
Now, the effect Leo's Comet Chase showed was already no less than Ais's Ariel, even stronger.
At the very least, on the acceleration side, Leo's Magic was definitely stronger than Ais's, and the same went for protection.
The only place where Comet Chase was weaker than Ariel was the one matter of attack.
Unlike the offense-and-defense Ariel, Leo's Comet Chase showed nothing at all on the attack-power side, not like Ais, who could wrap wind around her body and weapon to strengthen her own attack power.
This was, after all, a flight magic, not an enchantment Magic, and couldn't manage an across-the-board reinforcement.
But would Leo be short on attack power?
Quite the opposite, attack power was the one thing he was least short of.
With his magical firepower, which now surpassed even Lefiya's, he didn't need any further strengthening at all to crush a Lv.5 or even a Lv.6 monster in one strike.
With the Magic Comet Chase in hand, Leo no longer needed to worry about having no one to protect him, and even less about being unable to open up distance from an enemy. He could fully transform into a flying gun emplacement on the battlefield, racing back and forth like a fighter plane, unleashing magic bombardment to his heart's content, with no fear at all of being closed in on, nor of being attacked.
And the moment things turned bad, he could rely on the protection of the starlight to barge straight through anything, fly out of the battlefield, and escape danger.
Able to fight and able to retreat, able to do melee and able to do ranged: you could say that with this Magic in hand, Leo's strength, whether in melee or in Magic, would take a qualitative leap.
It was precisely for this reason that Leo had been in such a good mood this morning.
If this newly gained second Magic had been just an attack Magic, then he absolutely wouldn't have been this pleased.
For someone like him who wasn't short on firepower, one more attack Magic was just one more means of attack, and the boost to his strength would have been genuinely limited.
But Comet Chase was different, not only able to make him a flying mobile gun emplacement, but also able to play a role in melee.
With it, he was sure to take a solid step forward on this path of the Magic Swordsman.
This was something he himself could think of, and so, naturally, could everyone else.
Ais, who'd been standing quietly in the crowd gazing at Leo, fell silent inside.
He's gotten stronger again.
A complicated look came into Ais's eyes.
"...I keep getting this feeling that the me right now is already no match for Leo."
Raul, too, hid off to one side, muttering dejectedly.
"You stopped being his match a long time ago, didn't you?" The catgirl Anakitty patted him on the shoulder. "Back at Lv.2 he could already take on a Floor Boss solo, and here you are at Lv.4 with no way to take one on alone."
Speaking of which, the core members of the Second Army exchanged helpless looks too.
They knew that at Lv.2 Leo could already take on a Floor Boss solo, doing what they themselves couldn't even at Lv.4, but back then they could still console themselves that this was because Leo's magical firepower had already gone clean past the bounds of Lv.4, and that with the help of some methods and strategies he'd managed it, which didn't mean his strength had surpassed theirs.
But now, they could no longer console themselves that way.
Both being Lv.4, though Leo had only risen up recently, his magical firepower was strong to begin with, and now he had this Magic combining flight, acceleration, and protection in one. Ask yourself: within the same Level, who could still be his match?
He could definitely manage cross-Level challenges now. Even if a whole slew of Lv.5 first-class adventurers made their move, they might not be able to do anything to him.
This person had already taken on the bearing of a true powerhouse, had taken on the strength to break into the ranks of the first class.
At the thought, no small number of people grew complicated in their feelings.
Bete, who'd been hiding off in a corner the whole time, clenched his fists without realizing it, and watching Leo standing at the center of the crowd, clicked his tongue openly.
Unwilling as he was to admit it, deep down he still keenly recognized one thing.
It was that this small fry he'd long found an eyesore had caught up.
Leo's strength was probably not far off from his own now.
Bete simply couldn't accept it.
"How could I lose to a small fry?"
A glint of vicious light flashed in his eyes, and without a moment's thought, he turned and left.
The rest were dispersed one after another by Finn and the others too, no longer crowding the courtyard, each going off to do their own thing, only some of them clearly weren't planning to stay home, walking straight out the front gate, looking by all appearances like they were getting ready to head to the Dungeon to keep grinding.
In fact, Leo wasn't planning to keep up his hard training at home either.
"Thinking of going to the Dungeon for some real combat?"
Finn looked at the Leo who'd raised this idea.
"That's right." Leo nodded. "The things the captain's been teaching me lately, I've long had a mind to put into practice, and now that I've gained a new Magic on top of that, all the more reason to test it out myself, see how it works in real combat, and fold it into my existing combat system."
To that end, Leo was also planning to slip down into somewhat deeper floors.
There was no helping it. He was already Lv.4 now, and there wasn't much practical point in continuing to adventure in territory like the Middle Floors.
With his current Level and strength, he could roam all the way to the Lower Floor region even on his own, and if he wanted to find monsters with a bit more heft to them, ones that could actually pose a threat to him for combat training, then he'd have to go at least as far as the Deep Floor region.
The minimum clearing Level for the Deep Floor region was Lv.4, and only roaming a place like that could he find opponents suited to Leo's real combat.
"So you're saying you're planning to stay in the Dungeon for a long stretch this time?"
Finn said thoughtfully.
If it were a same-day round trip, then the travel time alone wouldn't be enough for Leo to reach the Deep Floor region, never mind staying there to explore.
To adventure in the Deep Floor region, he'd inevitably have to spend the night in the Dungeon.
"Right." Leo nodded again, and told Finn his plan. "I'm thinking of using Floor 18 as a base first, moving around the Middle or Lower Floors for a bit, then heading to the Labyrinth Garden on Floor 28, using that as a base to explore downward, and most likely I'll end up lingering on Floor 37."
Floor 37 was the very start of the Deep Floor region, and also the floor best suited for the Leo of now to roam.
There, so long as he didn't run into the Floor Boss Udaeus, Leo shouldn't run into any danger.
True, he was only Lv.4, barely meeting the conditions to explore Floor 37, and adventuring on Floor 37 single-handed would without question carry an enormous risk, but now that he had the Magic Comet Chase, Leo could fully manage to advance and retreat freely on the battlefield.
And that being so, Leo would definitely have to stay in the Dungeon for a stretch, and there was certainly no way to come back the same day.
His intention was to explore the Dungeon for about a week, and unless he ran into some emergency that forced him to return, he wouldn't go back to headquarters in all that time.
In any case, the cleanup matters from the expedition's return were already mostly done, so even with him not home, it was no big deal.
Finn knew, too, that what Leo most lacked now was the chance for real combat practice. Only through real combat, through practice, could everything he'd learned over this period be perfected and turned fully into his own strength and foundation.
The only problem was...
"Slipping down to a place that deep all by yourself, it really doesn't sit easy with me."
Finn felt a concern on this point.
At the very least he'd need to find two teammates, and teammates with enough strength at that.
Someone like Line, just a Lv.2 third-class adventurer, exploring alongside Leo in the Middle Floor region was one thing, but in the Lower Floors or even the Deep Floors, Line would no longer be suited to going along with Leo.
In a place like that, Leo simply wouldn't have the spare capacity to protect Line, and Line herself wouldn't have the ability to protect herself, so for the two of them to adventure together as before would be a difficulty that couldn't be called small.
An adventurer who could go explore the Deep Floor region with Leo would have to be, at worst, a Lv.4 of the Second Army, or a Lv.3 with a special skill like Lefiya.
Hearing this, Ais, who'd kept silent all along, finally raised her head.
"I'll come with you."
Those words, Ais said with extraordinary firmness.
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