The grind begins (Notice)

Before Kai could even realise what was going on, he and the rest of the group had been returned to the exact same location they had been before challenging the second trial.

The snow was still falling, their footsteps were still fresh, it was like no time had passed at all.

Inhaling deeply, Kai let out a sigh and shook his head.

"Well, that could have gone worse."

Cecilia choked slightly, then chuckled and lightly slapped his shoulder.

"I can't believe you gave that answer for what's my mother's name. I was honestly going to kill you, but I was sure that the Spirit was going to get to you first."

Kai started laughing as he took a cautionary step backwards, just in case Cecilia decided to hit him again.

It was a strange feeling. Kai hadn't experienced this type of thing with Noelle or Sofia, but he had also spent less time with them.

And yet, Kai-

"You two keep acting like my parents."

Froze. His face paled as he slowly turned towards the origin of the voice. Petunia was standing there, her arms crossed as she stared blankly at both Kai and Cecilia.

Kai swallowed.

"Uh... What do you mean by that?"

Petunia sighed and rolled her eyes.

"I mean, that you're acting the exact same as my parents. The way you talk, the way you act, all the same."

Kai felt his face slowly start to heat up. He wanted to glance over at Cecilia and see what her expression was like, but that probably would have made him blush even more.

But were they really acting like that though? Kai didn't think so, he didn't think that there was anything out of the ordinary going on.

After remaining silent for a few moments, Kai thought of the perfect way to get out of the awkward situation.

Change the subject.

"Moving on, pass me all of the potions you have stored."

Quickly nodding in the approval of the subject change, Cecilia took out all of the potions she had stored at the same time Kai took out their brand new satchel. Then, he stored them all inside the item so that they would be able to benefit from the properties of the satchel.

Sighing to himself, Kai dismissed the item and looked upwards, at the rest of the mountain they had to climb.

There was a long way to go until the next trial, which would happen at roughly half way up the mountain, so Kai had some time to do other things he wished to accomplish.

But for now, he was going to wallow in self pity.

"You know, even though we have these handy little earrings, I get the feeling that they probably won't be able to protect us from the cold the higher up we get."

Turning around, he saw Cecilia giving him a weak smile.

"Maybe we'll get lucky and get another few items? Possibly... maybe."

However, the next moment, that weak smile turned even weaker when she noticed the way Kai was staring at her, and the way there was a strange grin growing on his face.

"Yes, items, and what better way would there be to get items then multitasking that job with getting you to level ten."

Cecilia's smile disappeared as her shoulders sagged in defeat.

****

"I know you're not exactly doing anything, but you could at least put in a little more effort. Like, what would you do if that beast randomly attacked you?"

Cecilia remained crouched behind her rock ad Esurient went about fighting an incredibly weakened wolf looking creature. It was the complete opposite of Umbra appearance wise.

It's body was pure white, like it had been dipped in the radiance of a star. It also had two heads, rather than one, and three tails extended from its backside.

It was missing an eye, and two of those said tails, which it's power seemed to originate from, and one of its legs was broken, courtesy of Kai managing to land a solid kick on it using Mana Surge.

It had been roughly three days after completing the second trial, and the group had spent majority of that time leisurely strolling up the mountain and relaxing. Kai decided it would be good for Cecilia to not push herself too much before he had her start 'fighting' any creatures that they would find on their ascent.

Of course, Kai himself did not slack on his training, the only problem with that fact was that he didn't have a swordsmanship teacher any more, so he wasn't exactly sure whether he was doing the movements right or if he was making a fool of himself.

Still, no matter what, he wasn't going to be as bad as Cecilia.

Turning back to Esurient and the white wolf, Kai managed to just catch the end of their fight as Esurient managed to plunge themselves into the wolf's eye, finally killing it.

And for the first time, he received no XP for something that Esurient had killed.

Of course, that was because he had transfered the sentient blade to Cecilia after he had sufficiently weakened the wolf.

And the best part was, the beast was level 70, meaning Cecilia should've reached at least level ten just by killing that one creature alone.

"Now." Kai grinned happily as he clapped his hands together. "What level are you now? And did you end up getting an item."

Cecilia remained silent for a moment as her eyes slowly moved from left to right, making Kai realise that she was going over her status, so he waited patiently for her to finish.

"Uh... I did not receive an item, as for my current level... level three..."

Kai's smile faltered.

"What?"

Cecilia blushed under his gaze, turning away to save herself some embarrassment.

"It seems that the system does not reward the full amount of XP for a fight I did not participate in, so it granted me a minimal amount."

It made sense, in theory. If there really was thousands and thousands of Subdimensions out there, what was to stop some incredibly high leveled being from leveling up their child to an incredibly high level by having it kill weakened high leveled beast.

Luckily, it seemed that nepotism was not a thing in the Multiverse.

Sighing to himself, Kai held Cecilia's hand and took Esurient back so that he would be able to fight the next creature they encountered.

"It could be worse, two levels per beast means we only have to kill four more."

Now that Kai was on the topic on leveling up Cecilia, what about Petunia?

She was already level twenty-two, meaning she was relatively close to her next class selection, was there any reason to not try to level her up too?

Although Kai still didn't know what her class actually was, nor what any of her skills were, nor how she actually got to that level.

He could find that out at a later time though, for now, he was going to focus on Cecilia.

"Just wondering, what rarity is your thread skill?"

"Uncommon." Cecilia answered simply as she watched Umbra crawl out of Kai's shadow. Knowing what to do, she picked up Petunia, placing the child on the wolf before climbing onto the back of the beast herself. "The Uncommon rarity only makes it so that the Mana Threads I create are a little more durable though, it's not exactly a big upgrade."

Kai shrugged as he started walking beside Umbra, slowly continuing their ascent up the body of the mountain.

"Still, any upgrade is a good upgrade, so could be worse."

Like that, making small talk and slowly beginning to form an idea on how to actually create a cohesive battle unit, the group climbed the mountain. The blizzard around them had already grown thicker than how it was at the base of the mountain, and it was only going to get worse from here on out.

A few hours passed, in which Kai constantly made use of Soul Sense in order to avoid any creatures that were a much higher level than him, or any creatures that had a large amount of stats that worried him. During their climb, he had spotted a creature hiding in the snow that's soul was nearly entirely made up of the gold that represented Luck, so he was very hesitant to challenge anything like that.

Until, finally, Kai laid eyes on a beast so shocking, so surprising, so mind blowing that he just had to stop and stare.

It was common knowledge that everything was a higher level than him. Even when he faced them, the Glacial Goblins had been a higher level, albeit by a small amount.

But for the first time since being subjected to this new life, for the first time since being put in that tutorial...

Kai was faced with a beast that was a lower level than him.

Level 62

*Author Note*

Damn, this was a note I was hoping I would never have to make, but it seems I have to.

I'm burnt out.

It's not like I want to just end the story here, I really do want to finish it, its just that even though I've accumulated roughly 330,000 reads across all platforms, I'd say there's less than 100 consistent readers who have actually made it this far.

And those 100 readers are the reason I won't just give up on the story, I appreciate each and every one of you, and for that, I don't care how long it takes, I will finish this story, although I don't know if you all will actually bother finishing it because with the way I have the story planned in my mind, there's at least another 600 chapters, minimum 😭.

So while I'm not going to outright cancel the story, I am going to take it at a slower pace. The upload schedule will be Monday, Thursday and Saturday.

But do not fret! To make up for it, I'm going to be writing another story. I'm aware that it's the first 50 chapters that made people not want to continue this story, so I want to work on another one that hopefully people will continue to read and engage with.

And that is where this Author Note comes in. The new story in question is gonna be MC gets trapped in their novel, but with a little twist.

However, I want to make sure people will actually like the MC early on, so there will be a poll at the end of this chapter with 2 options.

1. A male MC.

2. A male MC turned female. This is the one I would rather write as I already have a pretty good plot in mind, and I would find it easier to write, plus it would personally be more enjoyable to write.

For now, the schedule will remain the same, and I will hopefully miss less uploads. It'll be about 2 weeks before the new novel first gets published so I can create a stockpile of chapters and let this vote go on.

So, thank you, the few who have actually made it this far. I appreciate all of you, and I would appreciate it if you all vote.

So, thank you

- Kerplunkered