The echo of Hestia’s last sentence slowly faded, leaving a silence that once again filled the basement of the old church.
Natsu sat in silence on the worn-out sofa, digesting the goddess’s words.
Leveling up to Level 2 immediately after receiving his first Falna was something he had never expected.
The youth thought he would have to crawl his way up from the bottom like a typical adventurer.
“So, I’m officially a Level 2 adventurer now?” Natsu asked, making sure he hadn’t misheard.
Hestia shook her head slowly.
She placed Natsu’s first status parchment on the table.
“Not officially, Natsu-kun,” Hestia answered.
She approached Natsu again.
“Your first status merely displayed the accumulated experience locked within your soul.
To truly trigger the level up and make that power permanent, I have to update the Falna on your back one more time.
This process is called a status update.”
Natsu nodded in understanding.
“Then just do it.”
Hestia sat back down behind Natsu.
She took her silver needle, quickly cleaned it, and positioned herself.
“Hold still for a moment.
The update process for a level up might feel a little hotter than before.”
The goddess refocused her attention on Natsu’s broad back.
A drop of her sacred blood touched the young man’s skin once more, activating the reaction from the Falna.
The black hieroglyphic lines instantly lit up with a bright blue glow.
The light pulsed in rhythm with Natsu’s breathing, rearranging the old text and locking his past experiences into a permanent foundation.
Natsu could feel the heat flowing down his spine.
However, for someone with an absolute resistance to fire, the sensation merely felt like a warm, muscle-relaxing massage.
While letting Hestia work on updating his status, Natsu pondered the goddess’s previous explanation regarding the system’s maximum limits.
His sharp mind began piecing together a logical calculation.
“Hestia,” Natsu called out without looking back.
“Since my status limit is 9999 when it’s normally only 999, does that mean it’s ten times harder for me to level up?”
Hestia, who was carefully reading the shifting hieroglyphs on Natsu’s back, smiled faintly.
“That’s right, Natsu-kun,” Hestia said in a serious tone.
Her petite hand gently brushed over a few lines of the arcane letters to ensure they were perfectly aligned.
“In the Falna system, the amount of Excelia you gain depends on the level of difficulty and danger you face.
Because your physical vessel is ten times larger than a normal adventurer’s, the Excelia required to fill that vessel must also be tremendously massive.”
Hestia let out a soft sigh before continuing.
“And most importantly, when you want to level up again later, you have to defeat monsters that are far stronger than your current capacity.
The problem is, with your current base strength, ordinary monsters in the upper floors of the Dungeon won’t pose any danger to you at all.
The system won’t register it as High Excelia.”
Hearing this explanation, a faint smirk laced with anticipation formed on Natsu’s face.
His brain, dominated by combat instincts, immediately found a way around the problem.
If the Falna system only granted High Excelia when he was in danger, then he just needed to put himself in danger.
As a being who held control over the demonic form of E.N.D., Natsu knew perfectly well that the power of his demonic curse operated outside the laws of magic and could suppress it.
Using the power of that curse, Natsu could suppress his dragon slayer magic to its absolute lowest limit and forcefully seal his physical abilities to match a rookie adventurer.
That way, even weak monsters would pose a genuine threat to his body, and the Falna system would register it as a valid life-and-death struggle.
“Interesting,” Natsu remarked in a casual yet confident tone.
“I have an idea.
But I’ll have to go down into the Dungeon to test it out.”
Hestia had no idea what kind of crazy plan the youth was concocting in his head.
However, seeing Natsu’s back radiating an aura of absolute calm, the goddess felt certain that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Hestia quickly grabbed a fresh sheet of blank parchment and pressed it against Natsu’s back.
In an instant, the new hieroglyphic arrangement was perfectly traced onto the paper’s surface.
Once the copy was perfectly printed, Hestia pulled the parchment away and examined the results.
A wide smile instantly adorned the goddess’s face.
“All done, Natsu-kun,” Hestia said, patting Natsu lightly on the shoulder.
“You gained the Development Ability Hunter upon leveling up.”
Natsu turned around and looked at Hestia with a slight frown.
“Hunter, huh.”
“That’s right,” Hestia nodded enthusiastically as she handed the parchment to Natsu.
Even though she knew the youth couldn’t read the world’s alphabet yet, she still wanted him to see his achievement.
“A Development Ability is a special passive skill that only manifests when an adventurer levels up.
This ability represents the most dominant experiences from your past.”
Natsu stared at the lines of text on the parchment.
“This Hunter ability suits you perfectly,” Hestia explained proudly.
“This ability will drastically enhance all your instincts and strength when you fight monsters that you have fought or hunted before.”
Natsu smiled faintly.
That ability sounded incredibly practical.
In the forest where he had been stranded, he often had to fight the same types of monsters over and over again.
Having a skill that made him even stronger when facing familiar enemies would be highly advantageous down in the Dungeon.
“Alright, I’ll read your new status to you now,” Hestia said.
She shifted slightly so she could read the parchment in Natsu’s hands.
Natsu Dragneel
Level 2
Basic Status:
Strength (STR): EX – 0
Endurance (END): EX – 0
Dexterity (DEX): EX – 0
Agility (AGI): EX – 0
Magic (MAG): EX – 0
Magic:
[Karyū no Mahō]
Etherious]
Skills:
[Flames of Emotion]
[Ignis Devorator]
[Dragon King’s Protection]
Development Ability:
Hunter
After finishing reading the status, Hestia suddenly fell silent.
The petite goddess’s brow furrowed deeply.
Her blue eyes stared intently at the alphabetical letters accompanying the zeros in Natsu’s basic status.
Hestia blinked several times, making sure she hadn’t misread.
According to the absolute laws of Gekai, when an adventurer leveled up, all their status numbers would reset to zero to begin a new accumulation.
The rank letter preceding the numbers would also reset to the lowest rank, which was ‘I’.
Natsu’s current status should have been written as I – 0.
The letter ‘I’ indicated the lowest capacity at a new level, which would steadily climb to H, G, F, all the way to S as time passed and Excelia was gained.
However, the parchment in Natsu’s hand displayed something completely different.
“But why, Natsu…” Hestia murmured, unable to hide her confused tone.
“Your status is still EX even though it reset to 0.”
Hestia pointed at the ‘EX – 0’ written on the parchment with a look of disbelief.
Normally, once someone leveled up, their letter rank would drop back to ‘I’ to start hoarding Excelia anew.
Yet, Natsu’s indicators were locked at ‘EX’.
“Normally,” Hestia quickly explained, “when the numbers reset to zero, your letter rank should also drop to ‘I’.
That signifies that you are starting from the bottom again at a new level.
But yours is still EX!
This means your base capacity, even at the absolute zero of Level 2, has already shattered the logic of the gods’ hieroglyphic records!”
Hestia prepared to ramble on, her head spinning from the sheer absurdity of the status.
However, before the goddess could utter another word, Natsu’s light chuckle cut her off.
He didn’t look burdened by the anomaly in his body in the slightest.
To him, the numbers and letters were merely notes on a piece of paper.
They did not define how hard his punches hit or how hot his flames burned.
The youth casually ruffled his pink hair, then looked at Hestia with his signature wide grin.
“Don’t stress over it, Hestia,” Natsu said in an incredibly light and confident tone.
“Whether it’s an I, an S, or an EX, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to use my power to protect our Familia.
So just relax.”
“Like my work?