After a full day of dungeon exploration, even Liang Yue was quite curious about how much his stats had improved.
Back in the basement of the abandoned church, he removed the gray-brown cloak draped over his shoulders, revealing his left hand bound by the limiter, and took off his upper garments.
He lay face down on the somewhat soft bed.
"I'll trouble you, Lady Hestia."
"This is exactly what I'm supposed to do!"
Hestia slipped off the cuffs covering her hands, revealing her slender, snow-white fingers. Because of their height difference, she had to straddle his back.
When updating her child's falna, her expression turned completely serious. She pricked her finger with a needle, letting a drop of divine blood fall onto Liang Yue's back, and gently traced her fingertip over it.
A gentle glow began to radiate.
The updated status appeared before her. Once the light faded, she grabbed a blank sheet of paper prepared earlier and pressed it against his back, transferring the stats.
"All done!"
Hestia slid off his legs and sat on the edge of the bed, carefully reading through the changes.
There was no change to Magic, as he had yet to learn any spells.
But the rest of his stats had soared dramatically—so much so that she couldn't hide her surprise.
After just one trip into the Dungeon, every stat had improved across the board, even reaching a rank of H. She blinked mischievously and teased,
"Liang Yue-kun, your stats rose way too fast. Could it be that you've got someone you want to protect, so you're super motivated down there?"
"Of course."
Faced with this kind of teasing, Liang Yue answered without the slightest change in expression, taking the gray sheet from her hands and looking it over.
Liang Yue
Lv. 1
STR: H131 | END: H120 | DEX: H117 | AGI: H108 | MAG: I0
Development Ability: —
Magic: —
Skill: Inner · Ghost Swordsmanship
Stats only reflect one's strength at the current level, and are reset each time you level up—more akin to proficiency.
After glancing over them, Liang Yue knew that to raise his Magic stat, he would have to learn a skill from the Sword Soul template that consumed MP.
Whether such a skill would be classified as magic remained unknown.
But the status changes weren't what he cared about most. To be precise, what mattered was the level of the Sword Soul Template itself.
Slaying monsters granted him EXP, and in the process his body naturally grew stronger.
Ultimately, his real strength would be determined by the profession level of "Sword Soul."
If he kept acquiring more skills without raising his adventurer level due to lack of great deeds, could he become a Lv. 1 "stat monster" capable of defeating stronger foes?
The thought did spark curiosity, but he wasn't deliberately aiming for it.
After setting the status sheet aside, he looked at the expectant Hestia beside him and smiled sincerely.
"Lady Hestia, it's exactly because I have someone I want to protect… that I'll never run out of motivation!"
"Foul play!!"
Hestia quickly turned her face away. She had only been teasing him, yet he had answered so directly.
Her heartbeat sped up, and her porcelain-like cheeks flushed faintly red.
Surely… the person he wanted to protect wasn't that Wallen-someone girl? If she thought about it logically, who else could it be?
It wasn't that she felt flustered, just that she hadn't prepared herself for this situation. Asking outright "Is it me?" was far from easy.
With her hands pressed to the bed, she stared ahead. Her tight white dress perfectly outlined her figure, while her fair, shapely legs swayed gently, making her black twin-tails bounce along.
From Liang Yue's point of view, her elegant curves were in full view. The blue ribbon tied across her chest was knotted into a bow.
Her legs were slender and fair, the skin exceptionally smooth—not the overly thin "pale and frail" ideal of his past life, but perfectly proportioned.
Her petite bare feet could be held in one hand, nails neatly trimmed, toes plump and rounded with a faint rosy tint—like a rare, sweet variety of grape.
Exquisite.
Though he wanted to ignore the difference in gender and regard Hestia purely as a goddess to be respected and admired, her occasional teasing made that rather difficult.
Even though his focus now was solely on growing stronger, he had to keep reminding himself he had no "strange fetishes," firmly pushing away any thought of playing with those jade-like feet.
With effort, he tore his gaze away and said seriously,
"Lady Hestia, let's get some rest. Tomorrow will be another day full of hope!"
"Alright~"
Having worked all day at Hephaestus's weapon shop, and with her stomach full from dinner, drowsiness was already creeping over Hestia.
Of course, before sleeping, she didn't forget to drag Liang Yue to brush his teeth and wash up.
Once all the hygiene was taken care of, Hestia picked up a blanket from the bed and headed to the sofa. Just before closing her eyes, she clenched her little fist,
"Liang Yue-kun, while you're working hard, make sure to stay safe too! If something were to happen to you… as your goddess, I'd be heartbroken."
Thanks to yesterday's Dungeon experience, Liang Yue was more cautious when choosing his lunch for the day.
Since the Hostess of Fertility didn't offer bento service, he settled for another decent restaurant, spending 550 valis for a lunch that looked and tasted good.
Once all his preparations for the expedition were complete, he headed toward the Dungeon.
His lucky victory over the Minotaur on the 17th floor hadn't given him the illusion that he was strong enough to challenge the Middle Floors.
Whether it was War Shadows or swarms of Killer Ants, they would be extremely difficult to handle.
Without absolute confidence, he would never gamble with his life. So, he returned to the area he had reached yesterday.
"I'll hone my combat skills on the 5th floor first. If all goes well, I'll push to the 7th floor today—ideally raising my Sword Soul profession to Lv. 10."
"Step by step, steadily improving."
The deeper floors offered more EXP. He estimated that tomorrow his profession could reach Lv. 15.
Once he had more skills under his belt, he could consider heading for the deepest point reachable by a Lv. 1 adventurer—the final area of the Upper Floors.
The 12th floor.
As for weapons, he had no need to change or upgrade for now. The short sword gifted by Hestia had held up well through yesterday's battles, still sharp enough to slice through Lizardmen with ease.
Each kill fed EXP into the Sword Soul Template's progress bar, and right now, Liang Yue's condition was perfect.
Everything… was moving in a better direction!
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