章節 130: Not Doing Anything Crazy

The scene of a young man with medium-length, ruffled black hair, a maroon scarf and white-ish grey light armour, holding a silvery longsword and elegantly cutting apart a leaf into hundreds if not thousands of uniform pieces had been imprinted on Ais' mind for more than 1,000 years.

Ever since she had been barely four years old, the young girl had been entranced by the occasional glimpses of her father's swordsmanship. She had sat in her mother's gentle embrace, with stars twinkling in her eyes, excitement written all over her face. After some time, her father had even calmly taught her how to wield a sword - albeit, only a beautifully carved wooden practice sword.

But after 992 years of oppressive darkness and isolation, most of those memories had turned extremely vague. When she had joined the Loki Familia eight years ago and picked up a sword again - for the first time in what had felt like an eternity - to embark on her path of revenge, her only references had been fragmented shards of shadowy recollections that she had endlessly tried to imitate and live up to.

She had become known as the Sword Princess after just a handful of years because her refined swordsmanship, although it had been very rudimentary, had still impressed the adventurers and deities that had seen it. In an age where combat skills had markedly regressed, she had appeared like a sparkling diamond in the mud that took the world by storm. And although outsiders didn't know about this, she had even managed to increase the grade of her Swordsman Development Ability without a Status update once.

Still, she hadn't even been close to satisfied with her progress. At this point, she had been nigh infinitely far away from reaching the apex of mastery that her father had reached. Although she had been able to vaguely follow some of the movements, due to the ridiculous amount of stats that she had built up, her attack speed hadn't been a result of her proficiency, but rather one of pure strength.

42 days ago, Isaac had appeared in this world, out of nowhere. Needless to say, her entire life had been turned upside down, almost to the point where people would easily believe that she had a happy twin sister. But one thing that hadn't changed was her ambition, her craving for more strength. After all, how else was she ever going to get her revenge, and to save her mother? Still, the intense pressure that she had felt before had lessened a lot. She wasn't single-mindedly chasing after only one goal anymore. At some point, she had realized that there was more to life than just revenge. Her previous years with the Loki Familia had already partially taught her that, but she had now fully come to accept it.

During these past weeks, next to her indistinct memories, a new kind of swordsmanship had settled into her head. It was methodical, perfectly calculated and flawless. It made ideal use of every single movement to bring about only the most exemplary results. It was Isaac's swordsmanship.

Compared to what she had been able to remember of her father's sword strikes, what she had the opportunity to observe from him wasn't fragmented, and had allowed her to take many, many steps forward. Once again, she had made rapid improvements which vastly surpassed those that she had made in the years prior. Her Swordsman Development Ability's grade had advanced to D-grade eight days ago.

Every minute that she had been able to spare in between spending time with her beloved and taking care of some matters, she had always been in her usual training courtyard in the Twilight manor, constantly polishing her mastery of the sword and striving for further heights.

Then, when she had become a goddess via the system, her memories, which had degraded over those countless years spent in solitude, without even having been able to move, had gotten fully restored. When she had been alone, she would often get lost in recollections of her small but happy family, and the few friends that had visited them. Melancholic but happy smiles had appeared on her face far more often than before - they had been pretty much nonexistent.

Something else that had gotten restored were the scenes of her father practising his swordsmanship, as well as his performances and instructions. Even a time that she hadn't wanted to recall, when he had pushed his body and soul past any and every limit, had become clear as day. This had brought her both joy as well as sadness. Still, it had enabled her to take further steps to catch up to her father's understanding of and control over the sword.

For more than a week, she had been even more excessive with her private training. She had exhausted herself both physically and mentally to the point where, despite her high stats and Level, she had still needed to sleep for four to five hours every day to stay in shape. Of course, she had also gotten plenty of rest when she had been with Isaac, but the mental exhaustion simply hadn't been able to be fully accounted for in any other way.

One day ago, she had finally managed to raise the grade of her Swordsman Development Ability to SSS - the pinnacle that most sentient beings would absolutely never reach in their lifetime. But even then, she had felt like something had been missing. She had still not been able to perfectly emulate her father's movements, or to fully understand them. Sure, she had been able to produce the same results, but she had been far more open to counters during her attacks and had made countless wasteful movements.

Her father's swordsmanship, the 'Breeze Style', had been free and unfettered, but also mysterious. With a swing that seemed casual, he had been able to exhibit incredible strength and destructive power, but also accuracy and finesse. By now, Ais had become certain that, while her father had been physically stronger than she had been at this point, what he had exhibited in front of her hadn't made use of the majority of his power or agility. Only 'that time' had she truly seen him go all out, and even beyond that. Then why was it that she, with superior physical stats, had still been unable to reproduce what her father had achieved?

At first, she had thought of making use of her Magic to support her swordsmanship, breaking past the 'wall' that she had perceived in this way. Still, she had always been doing that. She had constantly reinforced her strikes with the wind, and had even used the air to form blades of their own to assist her attacks. None of it had brought her any closer to her goal. To be honest, she had gotten frustrated many times. However, she hadn't given up.

'It's fundamentally impossible.'

Upon brainstorming about it for many hours on end, Ais finally realized why she hadn't been able to bridge that gap, why she still couldn't replicate those movements at all, no matter how hard she had tried. Even if she surpassed her father's speed, so what? She was still moving far less ideally and leaving too many openings. The reason for it had revealed itself to her when she had compared her father's swordsmanship to Isaac's. The latter's represented the pinnacle of human perfection, while the former's… was something more. It was inherently not possible to recreate those movements with a human body.

A bright smile played across her lips once she comprehended this.

'The answer is… magic.'

While the usual way that she used her Ariel Magic wasn't that helpful here, she had also obtained the Mana Cultivation - Foundation Establishment Development Ability when she had become a deity, just like Isaac. Admittedly, she still didn't grasp or understand it fully, but a hazy feeling as if she could somehow influence the mana all around her with her will had still been present all this time. She had experimented with it as well and had realized that she could further increase the output of her Ariel with this, but had never used it in any other way. Now, she knew how to proceed.

With a peaceful expression, she repeated a simple sword swing thousands upon thousands of times, relatively slowly. At the same time, she tried to move the air around her sword at the same time as she swung it, in a supportive way, to further increase the speed.

It was 1 a.m. when she began, and for two hours, she failed countless times. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead, but she was still as unperturbed as before. She had been training for untold hours during all those years, so a bit of repetition, even hundreds of thousands of the same exact movements, weren't enough to bother her.

Finally, for a fleeting moment, she managed to accomplish what she had tried and failed to do so many times. She had visualized the wind pushing the sword and accelerating it, and for a split second, things didn't go wrong. All previous times, either nothing had happened, or the wind had hindered her strike instead of aiding it. But this time, for a third of the very straightforward move, her weapon had sped up by a fraction.

She stood there blankly for a few seconds, trying to process what had happened. It had felt like the sword had led her, rather than the other way around. But due to her being the one in control of the mana, she had still been the one indirectly leading her movements… even though it hadn't felt like it. It was a peculiar sensation.

Taking a deep breath, she refocused on what she had been immersed in prior. Now that she had found the correct path, she only needed to walk a little bit further!

It took her merely a minute to succeed in slightly but positively influencing her sword again. She had done it once before, so accomplishing it again wasn't too difficult. The road to improvement, however, was.

Two hours and close to half a million tries, this was how long it took her. During that time, she slowly but surely increased her proficiency in manipulating mana, and around twenty minutes in, she managed to minutely influence her sword swings just like she had before, every single time. From there, it could only go uphill.

With a look of utmost concentration on her face, she swung her sword for the umpteenth time. Even though her movements weren't particularly fast, her sword suddenly rapidly accelerated right when her strike began. Such a thing should have required a more forceful wrist twist as well as a different posture, but it still occurred. The speed of the sword was three times higher than it should be.

'Too fast!'

Shocked, Ais found it difficult to keep a hold of her sword and stumbled forward half a step when her plain strike concluded. Fascination sparkled in her eyes as she looked upon her weapon and recalled what she had just experienced. It had felt both terrifying as well as liberating, odd but welcome.

Only after a few minutes did she stop relishing in the sensation and take a look at the system notifications that had appeared.

[ The Development Ability 'Swordsman (SSS)' has advanced to the Development Ability 'Supreme Swordsman (I)'. ]

[ Supreme Swordsman (I): Improves comprehension speed of sword related skills and abilities by 36%. Increases all stats by 18% when equipped with a sword. ]

Although she was incredibly happy about having broken past the 'wall' that had stopped her, Ais soon smiled wryly.

'Not good enough. I'm not even close.'

Still, she didn't get disheartened. Before, she hadn't even been able to grasp where exactly the difference between her and her father had lain, but finally, she was able to vaguely approximate the heights that her father's swordsmanship mastery had reached a millennium ago. This was already astounding progress, one that less than a handful of mortals would ever be able to make. Well, she was technically a goddess now…

'In any case, I'll take a short break.'

She was completely drenched in sweat and really needed to catch her breath for a while, so she decided to focus on that for a few minutes. Right as she sat down on a nearby bench, Isaac's congratulatory words arrived via the system, causing her smile to brighten.

-----

Early in the afternoon, the Loki Familia's Executives and above had already made their way to the 67th floor. Under the protection of the newly advanced Finn, Gareth and Riveria - the three Level 7's - Bete, Tiona and Tione didn't have to worry much. They could constantly approach and surpass their limits, and the group would still be able to continue for one or two more floors. Only due to Isaac's impeccable information about what obstacles to prepare themselves for did they have such a smooth ride. Still, Ais hadn't been pressured at all and was honestly bored out of her mind. Her mentors had taken care of any and all real problems, so she hadn't even needed to intervene at all.

Sporting a serious expression, she approached Finn who was currently not needed to uphold the frontline and was surveying the battles instead, occasionally shouting orders.

"Finn."

Glancing at her for a moment, the Pallum soon showed a resigned smile and sighed. No communication was necessary, because he already knew what she wanted. He had seen her grow up for the past eight years, and that unusually expressive look on her face made it all the easier for him to figure out her thoughts.

"You want to go, right? Then do it, we'll only hold you back. Let's meet back at the Safety Point on the 63rd floor at around 6 p.m., okay? Stay safe, and don't do anything crazy."

With a grateful look in her eyes, the golden-haired beauty nodded, then she abruptly vanished from the spot that she had been at. She had teleported.

Immediately, she found herself on the 74th floor, close to where Isaac had entered it seven hours ago. He had already told her all the information about all of the monsters in the thematic zones that he had researched, as well as what to look out for while fighting their Monster Rexes. But because she honestly wasn't interested in facing all kinds of monsters like Isaac was, she simply chose to go to a place where she could finally earn significant amounts of excelia again.

'If Isaac's theory is correct, then there should be multiple Monster Rexes on all floors that house one.'

First of all, she decided to seek out a regular Young Behemoth, so she shot into the distance at her maximum speed, in the opposite direction that Isaac had headed in when he had been here. No monsters could even make her pause for a moment and all of the ones that were unlucky enough to be situated directly in her path simply exploded upon contact.

'As expected, he was correct.'

Just like what her beloved had experienced, around ten to fifteen minutes after she had set off, she could clearly detect the presence of a massive monster slumbering peacefully in the ocean of mist. The distance that she had traversed was many times that of the diameter of the continent that Orario was located on - if Monster Rexes on the floors above were also this distant from one another, then it was no wonder that adventurers had believed for there to be only one of each for so long. Heck, even if they were significantly closer, they could have easily missed them all.

"Awaken, Tempest."

Without pausing her steps, she surrounded herself with her trusted Magic, which formed a wind barrier and vastly increased, amongst other things, her attack power, then she sped towards the head of the Young Behemoth below.

Before the beast could even fully open its eyes, it already got assaulted by pain, then about a second later, it grew motionless and quiet. A bloody hole twenty meters in width and height had been dug straight through its temple, its brain, its shoulder and its heart. Now situated on the other side of its body stood a disappointed Sword Princess with gales of violent wind swirling around her, forcing the poisonous mist all around many tens of meters away.

"Too weak…"

As she was muttering to herself, an unfamiliar system notification appeared in her field of view.

[ Post-update Magic stat has reached the maximum. No further Magic-related excelia can be gained until your Level increases. ]

'I ranked up prematurely before, but this time, I'll do it right!'

Her Magic stat had exceeded all of her other stats for a long time, and had been the only one that had grown noticeably ever since she had ranked up to Level 6. It didn't surprise her that it was the first one to reach the maximum, especially because she mostly relied upon Ariel in all of her battles. Normally, she wouldn't have had any other option to continue at this point, but the system enabled her to still work on all of her other stats without worry.

With a resolute but nonetheless calm expression, she slit her finger and dripped many tens of drops of blood on the ground, before the wound ultimately healed. A familiar rumbling sound had already permeated this thematic zone of the dungeon by the time she was done, and the surroundings trembled severely. If her control over her body had been lackluster, then she probably would have stumbled to her knees during this 'earthquake'. Instead, she only joyfully looked into the distance, anticipating the black, stronger variant of the Monster Rex that was sure to arrive soon. The cautioning words of Finn had already been completely forgotten - or rather, she didn't feel like she was doing anything too dangerous.

She didn't spare the regular black monsters any attention and instantly obliterated them with a few sword swings. Then, minutes later, a massive black figure finally appeared on the horizon, about one and a half times as tall as the gigantic creature that she had just slain.

Obviously, she didn't wait for the beast to slam into her and charged at it the moment she noticed it. In a fraction of a second, the two clashed, and her all-out attack only left a small wound. She was knocked back tens of meters before she came to a halt. A bit of excitement surfaced on her face, then the air around her changed. Literally.

"Tempest - Avenger. Nizel."

At that moment, she activated her Avenger Skill, further boosting her stats by around 30 percent. She didn't feel any particular hatred for this floor boss, so she felt it hard to pull out even more strength than that, but it was already far more than enough. Accompanying the activation of her Skill, the wind around her turned from an indistinct pleasant green to a dark shade of grey, almost black. It was as if the world had lost its colour and joy. Before she had obtained the system, she would have lost control of at least a part of her rationale at this point. But due to its influence, her mind was akin to a tranquil lake, unsoiled by wrath or turbulence

Not giving her prey any chance to recover, she shot towards it with a speed that tremendously surpassed it and ripped a hole with a diameter of eighty meters through its entire body, leaving it on the brink of death. The dark grey wind around her was far more destructive than before, and even her sword Desperate would only be able to endure this state for a few minutes, despite its Durandal attribute.

"Oops… that was a bit too much."

A hint of embarrassment surfaced on Ais' cheeks as she hastily finished off her foe and looked around in an effort to make sure that nobody had borne witness to her blunder. This was, of course, pointless, but she had felt the need to do it anyway. She had practically killed a mosquito with a flamethrower when a simple smack of her hand would have more than sufficed. Hastily, she disabled the combined and reinforced state of her Ariel Magic and her Avenger Skill, then she slit open her finger again and 'fed' the dungeon a few more drops of her Ichor.

Appearing like an innocent girl ordering another serving of food, she politely spoke a few words.

"Another one, please."

As if it had been further incensed, whether that be due to the additional drops of blood or due to what she had said, the tremors grew even more intense, making it a bit more difficult for Ais to keep her footing.

More than two hours later, around 5:40 p.m., Ais had finally achieved what she had come here to do. She stood in the midst of an enormously vast expanse of black monster remains, tens of which were as big as small mountains. If she hadn't stood atop one of these carcasses, then the tens of meters deep sea of blood on the floor would have submerged her. The dungeon had been shaking unceasingly all this time, and huge waves of blood collided against the bodies of the monsters, which also tumbled around all over the place. Even amidst such an apocalyptic scene, the girl's eyes were shimmering in delight.

[ Post-update Strength stat has reached the maximum. No further Strength-related excelia can be gained until your Level increases. ]

[ All stats have reached the post-update maximum.

Quest 'Reach the Level 6 stat limit.' completed. 6000 AP rewarded. ]

Only after she celebrated for a while did she take a look at the system map and zero in on a particular area on the 63rd floor.

'I'm a bit early, but there is no point in staying here any longer.'

With a mere thought, the Sword Princess disappeared from the area of carnage that had been left in her wake, the dungeon still raging like a maddened mental asylum inmate. Even when she arrived on the Safety Point oh so many kilometers above, she could still slightly make out the tremors.