Central Plaza of Orario, Babel.
Before the sun had fully risen, quite a few adventurers had already begun to appear one after another in the central plaza in front of Babel. Some were waiting for teammates, others were discussing plans, and then they walked together into the tower, heading toward the Dungeon.
Leon arrived at this time as well, his figure blending into the flow of adventurers, completely inconspicuous.
"I might have come a bit too early today..."
Looking at the sky that hadn't quite brightened yet, Leon couldn't help but rub his nose.
Compared to his usual schedule recently, Leon had indeed arrived earlier than usual today. There was no helping it; after updating his status for the first time yesterday—achieving an exaggerated increase of over 3,000 total proficiency points in his basic abilities—Leon was eager to immediately test exactly how much of a difference existed between his current self and his previous self.
For this reason, Leon hadn't slept very soundly last night. He rose much earlier than usual today; when he left, Ais hadn't even begun her sword practice in the courtyard yet.
He didn't need to wait for teammates here, so he walked straight into Babel, entering the Dungeon through the massive pit in the center of the first-floor hall and arriving at the all-too-familiar 1st Floor.
Because it was still early, there weren't many people in the Dungeon. After Leon walked a short distance forward, no other fellow adventurers appeared nearby, returning him to his usual solitary state.
At this time, the monsters spawning in the Dungeon hadn't yet been cleared by the massive tide of adventurers, so Leon quickly encountered an enemy.
"Gah!"
A short monster with the body of a human and the head of a dog howled as it appeared in the corridor ahead, lunging toward Leon without a second thought.
It was a Kobold, a creature with which Leon shared a long-standing history.
The creature was just as it had been before—as soon as it saw an adventurer, it acted as if it had spotted a sworn enemy, pouncing immediately with startling aggression.
Facing this scene, under normal circumstances, Leon would have already swiftly raised the small shield equipped on his left hand, preparing to deflect the enemy's attack.
But today, he did not do so.
"So slow..."
Watching the fierce Kobold lunging at him, this was the first thought that entered Leon's mind.
In his field of vision, the Kobold he used to treat with absolute seriousness was now, for some reason, moving at a pathetically slow pace, giving him enough leisure to stand still and think.
That past feeling of facing a formidable foe had vanished, as if his body could no longer perceive a sense of crisis. This caused Leon's reaction to actually become somewhat sluggish.
Only when the Kobold pounced directly in front of Leon, extending its sharp claws toward his throat, did Leon finally snap out of it and react.
Then—he drew his sword.
Clang!
Accompanied by the sharp ring of a blade unsheathing, a flash of sword light streaked across the air, slashing toward the Kobold that was inches away.
The speed was breathtakingly fast.
Squelch!
The small straight sword, moving like a complete afterimage, severed the Kobold's neck before it could even react. Its head was sent flying high into the air, still wearing the fierce expression it had held just before it thought it would land a hit on its enemy.
Boom!
Maintaining its posture of lunging at Leon, the headless Kobold exploded into ash in mid-air, vanishing without a trace.
A shard of Magic Stone fell, passing by the head of the Kobold that was also disintegrating into ash. It struck the ground with a crisp sound, rolled a few times, and came to a stop.
Everything happened so abruptly, and returned to silence just as suddenly.
"This..."
Maintaining his sword-swinging posture, Leon stood frozen in place. It took a long while for him to come back to his senses, looking at his hands in utter shock.
He opened and closed his palms, and only after a moment did he finally accept reality.
"I dealt with it that easily?"
Compared to the cautious approach of the past, that battle just now was so effortless it barely felt like a fight at all.
"Is this my current strength?"
Leon murmured in a low voice, then continued walking forward.
Before long, Leon encountered a second monster—a Goblin.
"Ga-ga!"
Like the Kobold, the Goblin pounced the moment it spotted Leon.
This time, however, Leon didn't choose to wait in place for the attack. Instead, he dashed forward before the Goblin could even act.
Whoosh!
The whistling sound of wind rushed past. Leon's figure blurred with an incredible speed he hadn't possessed yesterday, arriving in front of the Goblin in the blink of an eye.
Squelch!
The blade of the small straight sword turned into a swift flash once more, instantly bisecting the Goblin before it could react.
The poor Goblin had only just begun to respond when it directly disintegrated into ash, leaving behind a lone Magic Stone shard lying on the ground.
Leon's body glided forward for a distance before he slowly came to a halt.
By this point, Leon had confirmed it: he had indeed become stronger. And not just a little—he had become much, much stronger.
"Whether it's reaction speed, movement speed, or even the power behind my strikes, it's completely different from yesterday."
Leon silently felt the difference between the two.
"Yesterday, in terms of physical fitness alone, I was purely at an ordinary human level. I couldn't compare at all to those naturally gifted Dwarves, Beastmen, or Amazons."
"But today, in terms of physical fitness, I'm afraid I've completely exceeded the realm of an elite athlete. Even Dwarves, Beastmen, and Amazons—unless their stats have increased to a certain degree—simply cannot compare to me right now."
"If the 'me' of today fought the 'me' of yesterday, I suspect it would only take one move to knock my old self down."
While this couldn't be called a total transformation yet—after all, Leon had only increased his basic abilities and hadn't "leveled up"—it was significant. The gap between levels was the greatest hurdle; only after a Level Up could one truly claim to have undergone a metamorphosis.
However, today's performance clearly allowed Leon to feel what was meant by "power." If yesterday he was still just an ordinary person, today he had finally taken a solid step onto the path called "Transcendent."
"If it were the current me facing those previous crises, I should be able to resolve them very easily, right?"
Thinking back to the life-or-death situation on the 4th Floor during his first Dungeon entry, and the time he was surrounded by a legion of Killer Ants on the 7th Floor, Leon felt that if it were the current him, he probably wouldn't end up covered in wounds. He might not even need to use magic to deal with those numerous Kobolds and Killer Ants.
However, the current him also had a problem.
"I've become stronger, but because it happened so suddenly, the power is a bit hard to control."
Leon frowned.
Just now, Leon had actually intended to swing his sword to sever the Goblin's neck, decapitating it just as he had with the previous Kobold. The neck is a fragile part that requires little effort to cut; it delivers a fatal wound to the enemy while conserving stamina and reducing exhaustion. Therefore, Leon frequently aimed for the monster's neck to ensure a one-hit kill.
But just now, because his speed had surged, he misjudged the distance between himself and the enemy. His striking power was also poorly gauged. Not only did he fail to hit the enemy's neck squarely, but he also couldn't control his momentum, running past the target for a distance. This was undoubtedly a manifestation of a "mind-body disconnect."
His brain, spirit, and muscle memory hadn't yet caught up with his rapidly increased strength, leading to erratic rhythms and mistakes during combat. This state of mind-body disconnect required a period of adaptation.
"I didn't expect to run into the problem of mind-body disconnect before even leveling up."
Leon scratched his head.
Generally speaking, a mind-body disconnect only occurred in adventurers after they had leveled up, because the strength after a Level Up was simply too different from before. They usually needed to adapt to find a new combat rhythm and perfectly utilize their vastly increased power.
As for the strength gained during daily status updates, it usually didn't cause such issues. After all, it was just a few basic abilities showing progress. Even if all stats increased by one rank in a single update, the boost wouldn't be large enough to cause a disconnect.
Yet Leon, without even leveling up, had encountered this problem.
There was no helping it; his increase this time was truly a bit too large. Even if it didn't match the boost from a Level Up, it was far beyond what a one or two-rank increase in basic abilities could provide.
His weakest stat, "Endurance," had increased by four ranks. Closely following were "Strength" and "Dexterity," each increasing by five ranks. Even "Agility" had jumped by six ranks. With such a massive leap, it would be strange if there wasn't a disconnect between mind and body.
Furthermore, he had jumped directly from a state of All Stats at I0 to his current level; it was almost equivalent to an evolution. Using the combat methods of an ordinary person's body to control his current body was bound to cause issues.
"I need to adapt properly."
With this thought in mind, Leon began a "steamrolling" journey the likes of which he had never experienced before.
In the past, with all stats at I0, he had to fight seriously even against the lowest-level monsters on the 1st Floor. But now, he didn't even need to use his brain. Whenever he encountered a monster, he simply charged up and slashed, and that generally solved the problem.
This was true not only for the monsters on the 1st Floor, but also for those on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and even the 5th Floor. They couldn't even withstand a single move from him. Sometimes they couldn't even react before Leon charged in and killed them with one strike, turning them to ash on the spot.
Leon continued to enjoy the pleasure of steamrolling monsters while simultaneously adapting to his current strength.
Before long, he arrived at the deepest level he had reached to date—the 7th Floor.
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