Neme had been diving into the dungeon alongside Lily recently and from those dives two truths had become known about his power in this world.
Firstly he could grant a falna to one of of his choice, perhaps more but he'd need to be careful about who he grants his falna to.
Since with it not only could he powerlevel the person up to the natural growth limit of the world, but then using the falna's own secret power her power level could be increased even further.
Though not to the ultimate limit of this world, as in the works as well as from his own experiences the true limit for humanity is EX 2000.
Bell the protag is of course one of those, but due to his desire to reach greater heights will force him to level up faster than he should.
Never truly reaching his limit, but instead plot armor granting him skills capable of extending his stats beyond his already limit broken forms.
Then there was the current strongest adventurer in Orario Otar the 'King' there wasn't much said in the lore about his status, but it was clear he would at least wait till S rank before levelling up, however his own mannerisms and thoughts would make one believe that he just like bell wanted to be the strongest, not just in the world at that time, but the strongest ever in history.
For Neme these two were mere stepping stones since he would not level up until his stats truly reached their growth limit, then couple that with the fact his obtained development abilities were derived from the gods themselves, could you imagine how powerful he could become as a max ranker, with skills from Ares, or any of the other martial gods?
Though… just the thought of other gods caused his stomach to flip a little.
As a further test not of Lily's new abilities, but of his own.
Neme whilst diving into the dungeon committed his earned stat points to a single attribute at least at first, the reason?
He wanted to see if the option to level up would appear once one of his stats reach rank D like everyone else now that he'd absorbed a single god or…
If his system would once more expect a new sacrifice to allow him to ascend to ever greater heights of power.
The value of the dungeon drops they managed to harvest on the seventeenth floor easily provided the pair with enough Valis to support their daily activities, while at the same time allowing Lily with her portion to upgrade her own equipment.
Thanks to the new equipment and the stable back before her Lily could actively participate with combat even on the seventeenth floor though when they returned for her to rest, she would return to the dungeon but only to the beginning floors to collect the monster cores to boost up her stat points to accelerate her growth.
~
For Neme his progess seemed to have slowed, which was to be expected.
Monsters were far more numerous on the beginning levels, while also being easily slain in only a few blows.
But Level 2 monsters on the seventeenth floor, Hellhounds, Ligerfang, and Minotaur.
At most they might travel in a pack of three or four but more often than not they were wandering around the floor solo.
Of course you could always cheat in a sense, leaving the main path behind and avoiding the route to the eighteenth floor, which typically is where all adventurers would roam before quickly heading down to the next floor.
But for someone like Neme who had a monster killing quota the fastest route was far from his mind, instead where he headed was a place refered to as the monster pantry.
A location on each dungeon floor that served as its most dangerous location.
As artificial as the dungeon itself was, with monsters being spawned from the floors and walls, this didn't mean that they were without needs of their own.
Sure they might get some sustenance due to killing and consuming an unlucky adventurer, but beyond that the hundreds of monsters would still need to eat something.
And so existed the pantry.
A location that looked more like a river of sewage that would run on the far walls of the floor.
A place where monsters could rest, eat, or even heal their wounds.
A gift from the dungeon mother to her many children.
But for Neme it was a gift of the perfect hunting ground.
A gathering of monster formed a culling field for him and his blades to reap their lives and acquire level 2 monster cores for himself.
The real trouble would come when facing off against the first real challenge.
And that would be the floor boss itself.
Goliath.
A being refered to as the Monster Rex of Floor 17.
A massive giant reaching seven meters in height, and the ultimate test for beginner adventurer parts seeing as how Goliath is a level four being, and the guardian to the eighteenth floor safe zone.
Of course its not like he had to fight Goliath nor would he be freely allowed to either.
Goliath spawned once every seven days, and with the Loki familia having recently descended on their latest expedition the beast would have already been slain, then there were the residents of the 18th floor itself.
Who would regularly clean up goliath to keep the supply lines and pathways into their little village open.
But the alure of a massive level four monster core like goliaths.
Just how many stat points would it earn him?
Just how many time could he slay goliath to collect this reward?
What about the irregular goliath?
When the dungeon empowers the Monster Rex turning it into its mutated version Black Goliath elevating the beast from level four to five.
Would that count as a new monster, and in doing so also granting a reset quota on its obtainable magic core?
As his blade descended upon the neck of yet another Minotaur Neme's blood boiled at the thought of future conflicts against mythical creatures using his already obtained power to achieve that which none before ever had.