First Contact

While his rank up had caused quite a commotion, the situation didn't get nearly as out of hand as Isaac had feared. Most of the gathered adventurers just rationalized the astonishingly fast rank up speed by attributing it to Isaac already having high stats before joining the familia. After all, how else could one gather that much excelia in such a short amount of time?

For the ones who were aware of exactly how weak Isaac had been when he joined, the announcement was a wake up call. To say they were astonished would be an understatement. Although most of them knew that he was growing quickly, they hadn't fully comprehended it yet. Now, however, it almost seemed like Isaac was hot on their heels.

After he had eaten dinner and somehow managed to get away from the masses of people wanting to congratulate him with friendly smiles on their faces - a most terrifying situation, I might add - Isaac made sure to leave behind a letter for Jakk to read, so as to clear up any possible confusion. It would have been pretty bad if his roommate grew worried about him when he didn't return home tonight, thought he was in a sticky situation and alerted the entire familia, after all. Once he had made sure time and time again that the bunny boy couldn't possibly miss the letter, as it was placed in a very eye-catching and prominent position, Isaac blurred his existence and relaxedly made his way towards the dungeon.

Amusingly, Isaac's Level 1 monster slaying quest had been on hold at 1999/2000 when he left the dungeon earlier today. As he hadn't seen a need to go out of his way just to get a handful of AP earlier, he couldn't be bothered to change his plans and find that last monster, even if it would have only taken a few seconds. For most people, the slight perfectionistic urge to finish a task they had begun when it was so close to completion would have won out and they would have spent that miniscule amount of time to quench their thirst for perfection. Well, Isaac didn't do this, so he was rewarded with 200 AP the very moment he slew the first monster he came across.

Once he reached 3000 eliminated Level 1 monsters, Isaac would be rewarded with more AP yet again: 300. The entire structure of these achievements and the continually increasing AP rewards for the same amount of work might seem like an easy exploit and to be honest, that's exactly what they were. Isaac could have just instantly achieved anything he wanted without implementing an achievement feature into his system. He could have even forgone the system entirely and gotten everything he ever wanted without a moment of delay. But that wasn't what he was after. He wanted to experience the journey, so he had to set artificial roadblocks in place to prolong it. Still, Isaac wouldn't be mad enough to increase the AP rewards for achievement chains endlessly - that would be entirely unbalanced the longer it continued. But although he was sure he would have decided on a cap, Isaac currently didn't know where it was. Well, there was only one way to find out.

Before he focussed entirely on taking out monsters, Isaac took a minute or two to get used to his vastly increased physical abilities. Even though he had perfect control over his body, it still took him a while to test everything until he was confident he wouldn't be making any mistakes, no matter what happened.

Over the course of the next five hours, there was a certain goal besides just racking up Level 1 monster kills for AP that Isaac was working towards. He had decided he wanted to map out the entirety of each dungeon floor while he had the opportunity. During all of his previous descents, he had only taken paths that led to a single staircase: the one Ais and Lefiya had used when they escorted him to the surface. As he rarely encountered any other adventurers in its vicinity, even though the dungeon's upper floors were seemingly packed to the brim with these fortune seekers, the only conclusion Isaac could come to was that there were multiple paths leading downwards.

To be honest, though, there wasn't much of a reason as to why Isaac wanted to map out the dungeon's floors besides having nothing much else to do. It didn't matter what kind of Level 1 monsters Isaac killed for his monster slaying quest, so he might as well find out more about the structure and overall size of the dungeon while he was at it. That knowledge might come in handy someday, who knows?

Even though the monster spawn rate on the first floor of the dungeon was lower than in the middle floors, because there were currently almost no adventurers in the dungeon, there were still more than enough monsters for Isaac to proceed at a satisfying pace. He still had more than a week's time left, there was no need to operate on full efficiency and lose track of potentially interesting side ventures.

[ You have killed 4000 Level 1 monsters.

Quest 'Kill 4000 Level 1 monsters.' completed. 400 AP rewarded. ]

Now that Isaac had reached Level 2, he was able to move at speeds of around 80 km/h for pretty much as long as he wanted. As he moved in the most efficient manner possible and was able to spur on his body's stamina recovery to insane heights, he could vastly outstrip adventurers with the same stats, that might only be able to keep that speed up for a few minutes. To think adventurers of higher Levels would be even more superhuman… quite the surreal thought, when viewed through the lens of normalcy one would acquire in Isaac's original world. Anyway, by the time the newest achievement rolled around, he had already explored more than 400 kilometers of the windy and interconnected paths of the dungeon's first floor. As expected, he came across a multitude of stairways leading to the second floor, with all of them arranged in no perceivable pattern. For now, at least. If he wanted to discover whether there actually was a pattern or not, he would have to take the following floors' staircases into account as well.

By now, Isaac had almost mapped out the entirety of the first floor. From what he could glimpse via his 3D map, the entire floor was contained within an overall circular area with an eight kilometer diameter. If the entire area was just flat land, it would be quite easily mapped out and hard to get lost in. Because the entire area was underground and split into nigh innumerable paths, caverns and chambers, which were very labyrinthian in nature and arrangement, it seemed incredibly massive, however. People already found it difficult to find their way out of hedge mazes. Now, if one increased such a standard maze manifold in size, put it underground, gave it suboptimal lighting conditions and populated it with life-threatening monsters, it would be near impossible to not get lost in.

As he was about to finish mapping the first floor, Isaac suddenly came to a halt. There was something… unusual that he came across.

The wall he stood in front of now was a slightly different colour compared to all the other walls he had seen so far. Admittedly, it was almost impossible to tell the difference, especially when taking the current lighting into account, but the difference was as clear as day for Isaac. Additionally, the overall shape of the weirdly coloured wall was way too regular to occur naturally.

Of course, the first thought that popped into Isaac's mind was that this was some sort of manmade doorway. If that was the case, it definitely wasn't something he had expected to see in the dungeon. Where would that door even lead to? Some secret room, containing a treasure? Or a different, sealed-off part of the dungeon itself?

It didn't take long for Isaac to make sure that he had indeed been correct when assuming this to be a doorway. After checking the surroundings for a while, he found a less noticeable, but still off-colour tiny outcrop that seemed to be a hidden lever.

When he pulled it, Isaac was surprised by the sheer lack of sound coming from the opening secret door. It had been fitted in so well with the surrounding rocks, that the slight scratching sound of its movement was barely audible at all. If one stood just ten meters away, one wouldn't be able to hear a thing.

Trying to find out a little bit more about this discovery, Isaac carefully peered into the unknown territory. What came into view was a long corridor made from close to perfectly arranged stone bricks, which led farther than the eye could see. On the walls, there were magic stone lamps placed at regular intervals, while a granite lever, that was most likely responsible for opening the door from the other side, could be found as well.

To be honest, Isaac had no clue what to make of this so far. A manmade labyrinth that connected to the dungeon? Who would even waste time to build such a thing? Its only use would be to hide one's most likely criminal activity from the prying eyes of the Guild. Nevertheless, it was an interesting discovery.

Normally, a person would jump at such an opportunity. Most might even instantly venture into the unknown depths to explore this curious structure and make a name for themselves. Isaac, however, did no such thing. Without ruminating over whether or not he should explore this new path for too long, he closed the secret door again and continued his dungeon mapping project.

There were just too many unknowns. Were there monsters or other enemies in this new labyrinth? If yes, were they the same strength as the monsters of the respective dungeon floor? If he was unlucky, the opponents waiting for him in the labyrinth could obliterate him with little more than a thought. It just wasn't worth the risk. Without knowing what exactly he was looking at, Isaac would rather observe it from the outside and prepare properly before venturing into it. But more importantly, he had already decided to map out the dungeon for now, so he didn't want to get sidetracked before he completed this task he had set out to do. If he always got distracted whenever he encountered something new, he would never finish any of his projects.

Isaac decided to keep a look out for whether such a secret doorway could be found on other floors of the dungeon as well, before asking Ais if she knew anything about this. On second thought, scratch that. Ais definitely wouldn't know about it, as she had been way too focussed on her goal of revenge and her craving for strength before his arrival. Therefore, she wouldn't have paid attention to any stories about a labyrinth connected to the dungeon even if there were any. It would be a smarter idea to just ask Riveria about it. If anyone knew about what was going on besides the ones who built the labyrinth in the first place, it would be her. At least, that was the impression she gave Isaac.

Anyway, there was a new mystery to shelve for now: Why did the dungeon, a seemingly living creature, allow the intrusion of a foreign object like this?

Yet another five hours later, at around 5 a.m., Isaac finally finished his 6000 Level 1 monster slaying quest. He had already gotten 500 AP from the 5000 one and now he had been rewarded with another 600. This brought his total up to 8889. It wasn't much further until the 10.000 he needed for the blood upgrade.

As for the vast amounts of goblin, kobold and dungeon lizard magic stones and drop items in his inventory… yeah, that could turn out to be a problem. The sheer number of them was just too massive to exchange it with the Guild all at once, as he had nothing he could store them in while avoiding to arouse suspicion. He really didn't want to expose his inventory to the masses, as he didn't want to be treated like an experimental subject by gangs of entertainment-craving gods, so he could only opt to sprinkle in parts of today's gains over the next couple of days, to slowly convert this huge pile of loot into usable currency.

Still, it was quite likely that he would just accumulate more and more magic stones from now on, so it was probably a good idea to keep ahold of a few more than he needed to keep his magic-stone razor charged. Up until now, Isaac had never made use of the vast amounts of magical energy, mana, that had been gathering in his body with the increase in his Magic stat. He just didn't have the time. It would be a lie to say he wasn't interested in exploring this part of his newly acquired strength sometime in the future, however. And for that, it most likely wouldn't be a bad idea to have magic stones, which were also filled with mana, at hand for some in-depth research. Oh well, it was too early to worry about such things for now.

By the time Isaac had made his way back to the Twilight Manor to take a shower and clean his equipment, he had managed to map out a huge portion of the dungeon's second floor as well. It seemed to be about 1.5 times the size of the floor above. If this trend continued just like this, a single floor would soon reach massive proportions. Taking into account that the furthest point adventurers had reached so far was the 59th floor, that would make the diameter of the circular area the floor was located in more than 196 billion kilometers. If one further took into account that the 59th floor might not even be close to the end of the dungeon…

But yeah, these were all just assumptions. Isaac couldn't be sure of whether the dungeon floors increased in size in this same pattern all the way to the eventual bottom. But if it did, this part of the lower world most likely wasn't a planet. Or if it was, it was a truly massive one, making the Earth, a part of Isaac's original world and his home planet, seem like less than an atom in comparison.

It was very likely, however, that the size of the floors didn't escalate that rapidly, as Isaac knew of at least a handful of floors, mostly the safe floors and some others, that were stated to be way smaller than they should be if they were following this speculated pattern.

A more important discovery, however, was that directly below the secret door connecting to the dungeon's first floor, there was another one connected to the second floor. As he had wanted to confirm its existence immediately, Isaac had started his clean sweep of the next floor at roughly the spot he had expected the next labyrinth entrance to be at. So far, the only thing that could be gleaned from this was that the labyrinth was located somewhere to the east of Babel. If Isaac had some time in the future, he would have to fine-comb that area to check for any entrances to it aboveground.

One thing to lament was that even though Isaac had slain thousands of monsters tonight, he hadn't gained any excelia at all. Most stronger adventurers encountered this problem quite a lot, so they fell back to old and proven methods that people who didn't have a falna used as well: bog-standard training. By simply exerting oneself, it was possible to accumulate stat points over time. Still, in all the time since he had come to this world, Isaac hadn't gained a single stat point this way, so the efficiency was more than horrible. It was definitely not something he ever wanted to bank on.

Just like yesterday, Averin was snoring away in a corner of the bed, blissfully indulging in procrastination. Once he got everything sorted out and it was safe for the bird to reenter the dungeon, Isaac would probably have to whip the lazy rooster into shape again.

At around 6 a.m., it was time for Isaac to head out and attract the attention of his various stalkers again, so his students could have a safe and productive day. If one didn't know he had been up all night slaying monsters, one would have thought he had just woken up and gotten ready for his regular morning training. This was mostly thanks to his vastly decreased need for sleep, which made him seem refreshed even though he had been fighting for about ten hours straight just a little while ago.

When Isaac got to the main courtyard of the manor, he discovered that he hadn't been the only one to sneak out tonight, because he came across a curious scene.

-----

Lefiya was kneeling in one of the courtyard's corners, with a very tired and exhausted look on her face. Her clothes were already quite dirty, so kneeling like this really didn't make much of a difference anymore. Right in front of her stood her mentor, Riveria. She had an annoyed look on her face, crossed arms and heavily creased eyebrows - she seemed like the very epitome of displeasure.

"I thought you knew that you aren't allowed to sneak out at night. And you even went into the dungeon… alone!"

Because she had been raised as a mage by the familia, Lefiya was little more than a one-trick pony. She would be fine if she was in the backline, casting a single spell every now and then. But in close combat or other dangerous situations, she was less than mediocre, mostly because she hadn't gained much stats in the respective attributes and received no corresponding training at all. Even though she was already Level 3, Lefiya's Strength stat was even below Isaac's before he had ranked up…

"Why would you even do that? Do you want to throw your life away just like that?"

Riveria's scolding didn't seem like it would come to an end anytime soon. But Lefiya had already expected this when she had set out, so she wasn't angry at her mentor. In fact, she secretly felt a little bit happy about being cared for that much. While it may have been wiser to just stay silent and get the scolding over with, she at least wanted the wise elf to know the reason for her unusual behaviour.

"I just want to get stronger!"

Even though she was very close to tears, because she honestly wasn't a fan of getting scolded, Lefiya had a very resolute look on her face when she interrupted Riveria's monologue.

Yesterday, when Lefiya had heard about Isaac already ranking up to Level 2, she had been shaken to the core. For more than a year, she herself had been stuck at Level 3, with seemingly no way to rank up any time soon. This was mostly because she could only gain excelia when she was part of an expedition, as only then would she be able to reach monsters with high enough stats. But still, she couldn't gain a lot of excelia, as her spells used up an exorbitant amount of mana, so she had to use them sparingly. Because of all of these factors, her growth, which was already heavily tilted towards the Magic stat, was also stunted quite a bit.

Now that the one Ais was closest to was growing with such a mind-blowing speed, Lefiya felt like she would be left behind if she didn't put in extra effort. Sure, for her idol it might not matter if her good friends were vastly weaker than her - but for Lefiya, it did. She had long dreamed about getting stronger and stronger to one day be able to stand next to Ais and truly be of help to her. If she just continued to stay the way she was, she just couldn't see any way of catching up to Ais at all. Therefore, a maddening desire for strength had sprouted inside of her.

Riveria, of course, knew all of this. Lefiya didn't even have to tell her, she was very well aware of it. To be honest, she had expected her protégé to do something along last night's actions the moment she realized Isaac was close to ranking up. She had originally planned to have a talk with Lefiya after dinner, to keep her from doing something dangerous, but the young elf had already sneaked out of the manor at that time. So now, she could only thank the gods that Lefiya had returned unharmed and nothing bad had happened.

Right at that moment, another person entered the main courtyard, attracting the attention of the two elves.

-----

After having listened to the scolding for a few seconds, Isaac decided that now was the time to make his entrance.

He hadn't known that Lefiya had also spent the night in the dungeon. After all, as she hadn't been on the first or second floor, there was simply no chance the two could have come across each other.

Now that he saw her pitiable state, which was obviously caused by his impact on this world, it would be a lie to say that he didn't feel responsible. Every single day since he came here, he had been talking a lot to the adorable elf, who had a propensity to blush quite often while in his presence. The main reason for that was that Lefiya was always around Ais when she had the opportunity. As she always behaved well, Isaac didn't mind her company and had a favourable opinion of her.

'So convenient.'

However, the main reason for what he was about to do was something else. Just a little earlier, he had been thinking about researching the mana in his body and the related Magic stat. And here there was a quite capable magician aiming for more strength. Wouldn't she make the perfect guinea pig to test his theories? There was no need to worry, though, he wouldn't do anything to harm the familia's elf mascot. Still, it would be quite nice to have a mage under his wing.

When Isaac entered the courtyard, Riveria looked at him with a conflicted look on her face. On one hand, she was happy about his fast increase in strength. On the other hand, she almost wanted to admonish him for the unintended consequences brought about by just that. Still, if anyone was at fault here, it was Loki…

While Riveria was lost in thought, Lefiya began to blush and lower her head in shame when she saw who had just discovered her plight. It was just way too embarrassing to have Isaac witness such a sight. Her long ears drooped down in a resigned manner.

Giving the elf currently cosplaying as a tomato no chance to fall further down the rabbit hole of self-loathing, Isaac slightly bent his knees and reached out his right hand to the kneeling girl. He spoke to her with an innocent smile on his face.

"So you want to become stronger? I can help you."

Although her face had grown a shade more red when the young man had offered to help her up, his words that cut right to the heart of Lefiya's current desire made her forget about that almost instantly. If there was one person in this world who would be able to help her grow stronger very quickly, it was the one who had performed the feat of monstrously rapid strength increase that caused her to feel pressured in the first place. Sure, Riveria would be able to help her grow stronger as well, but definitely not as fast. Therefore, there was no reason to deny such an offer, right?

After a few seconds of being lost in thought, Lefiya steeled her heart and got over her embarrassment. There was no use in getting distracted by the petty societal standards of the elves right now and to refuse to take a man's hand, after all.

"Thank you for the offer. Please help me get stronger."

With these words, she grabbed Isaac's hand.