Leveling Up by Executing Monsters

Chapter 123: Chapter 123: How Did the Progress Go Backward?

Lloyd clearly had no intention of doing as the Attendant wished and coming every day.

’I’m a hardworking, ambitious young man. How can I get addicted to a den of debauchery like this?’

Besides, he was convinced this place was no charity. ’Exchanging materials just for playing games? And they’re encouraging me to come back often?’

’So... what’s the price?’

In any case, he wouldn’t be coming often, so his hard-earned points had to be spent where they counted most.

"That’s enough for today. I’ll save my points for now."

Lloyd told the Attendant and prepared to leave.

But the Attendant, still hoping to get him to come every day, quickly asked:

"Were you satisfied with today’s gameplay? Would you like me to recommend some more exciting options? Or perhaps... I could make an exception and let you go to the third floor ahead of schedule?"

’Huh? Is he getting desperate?’

Lloyd clearly sensed the change in the man’s tone. He was probably not human, and his expression remained as professional and calm as ever, but Lloyd could still feel an undercurrent of urgency.

It was like a gym manager trying to get you to sign up for a membership.

So Lloyd decided to play along and asked:

"An exception? And what’s the rule if you don’t make an exception?"

"Normally, you need to either become a Tier Five Transcender or win fifty victories on the second floor before you can proceed to the third... But since you’ve set a new record and earned valuable points, you have a one-time opportunity for an exception."

"No, thank you. I think the second floor is fine."

"Very well. In that case, I hope to see you again tomorrow."

The Attendant spoke and stepped aside, revealing a black wooden door behind him.

’Your "tomorrow" might be a long way off...’

Lloyd grumbled internally and left without a backward glance.

His vision blurred, and he found himself back in the empty room. His Short Sword lay quietly at his feet.

After reattaching his Short Sword, Lloyd walked out of the room. He saw the little kitten rolling over like a furball, then pawing at his pant leg, demanding to be picked up.

Lloyd scooped the little kitten into his arms, gave it a gentle rub, and asked:

"Are you okay? Did you see anyone else while you were here?"

"MEOOW MEOOW MEOOW!"

The little kitten waved its tiny paws.

’Is this game just not very popular in Radiant City? Or does every player have their own unique entrance?’

’And do the other players’ entry points also have a slacker with "???" for Attributes?’

Lloyd pondered this as he went downstairs.

His second visit to the Dream Theater had only made the place feel even more mysterious.

Next, Lloyd went home first to drop off the little kitten and let it get some exercise on its own, then headed to the club’s basement.

He walked into the lounge, took the ’Nerve Endings’ he had swiped out of his pocket and put them in the safe, then flopped onto the recliner to go over the day’s events in his head.

’Panel!’

He first checked his current status.

[User: Lloyd]

[Status: Normal]

[Madness Value: 150/5000, Max: 10000]

[Rationality: 100]

[Spiritual Power: 100]

[Inspiration: 60]

[Cognition: 100]

[System: Twist LV2, Veto LV1]

[Mastered Skills: High-Efficient Learning; Probe; Divination LV4; Dizziness Resistance LV4; Extraordinary Swordsmanship LV1; Twisted Realm LV5; Aggressive Speech LV3; Blessing Distortion LV1; Orbital Control (Twist) LV2]

[Unparsed Fragment: Unknown Fragment of unknown composition*1, Current analysis progress 9%]

[Unread Books: "Book of Truth · Volume 1", Current reading progress 7.8%]

All his Attributes had finally broken 100, achieving a beautiful, well-rounded balance. His long-term efforts had yielded gratifying results, and the sense of accomplishment was immense.

’I really am an outstanding young man: self-reliant, ever-striving, independent, mature, steady, reserved, humble, and positive!’

After a moment of self-congratulation, Lloyd turned his attention to the fragment and book he hadn’t finished.

The fragment’s analysis progress was normal. He had "checked in" again when his [Cognition] was at 90, so the current progress made sense.

But why had his progress on the "Book of Truth" actually regressed by 0.2%?

Lloyd found this very strange. He quickly checked on the Ancient Book sleeping deep in his memory, which was still slowly rotating.

There was no change in its appearance.

He then reviewed the knowledge in his mind...

No change there, either. Nothing was suddenly missing or added.

’So why did the progress go backward?’

As Lloyd mulled it over, he suddenly recalled the situation when he fought the zombies today.

’Could it be...’

He reread the skill description for [Blessing Distortion] and noticed a key detail:

"If a consciousness seed is consumed, the original effect of the Seed of Distortion will also be applied."

Lloyd instantly understood why his own performance today had surprised him so much.

First, his [Spiritual Power] had surpassed 100. Although no notification or change had appeared on the panel, he could clearly feel that he had grown stronger. It felt like a quantitative change had triggered a qualitative one, providing a hidden boost to all his skills.

This meant the boost wasn’t from the system but was a result of his own efforts. Other Extraordinary Beings should be able to achieve similar growth.

Then, he had activated [Extraordinary Swordsmanship], which gave the little bird puppet the destructive effect of a ’blade.’ That, combined with his enhanced Spiritual Power, resulted in the spectacular scene of a cartoon zombie being sliced in half at the waist.

As for why the puppet was judged to be a ’cold weapon,’ Lloyd suspected the focus wasn’t the puppet itself, but the slingshot, which definitely fell into the category of cold weapons.

As for how a single puppet managed to slice all the zombies in half at the waist, Lloyd believed it was the effect of [Blessing Distortion].

The skill had somehow treated his reading progress on the "Book of Truth" as a ’consciousness seed.’ This fulfilled the skill’s activation requirement, creating a Twist that applied the effect of [Extraordinary Swordsmanship] to every single zombie, as if he had performed a Horizontal Slash.

There had been over twenty cartoon zombies in the field at the time, and his corresponding reading progress had dropped by 0.2%. The math checked out.

As for why the distorted effect manifested as Swordsmanship...

It was a mysterious and wonderful Fusion Skill, after all. Was it really so strange for the effect to be a bit shocking?

Besides, strictly speaking, a soft, squishy puppet causing the same damage as a blade... wasn’t that a form of [Twist] in itself?

Now that he understood why he had become stronger, Lloyd accepted it with a clear conscience.

As for the lost 0.2% reading progress, he wasn’t too bothered. It wasn’t much, and he hadn’t noticed any significant difference. He could just reread that part to make it up later.

Reviewing old material to gain new insights—a principle every diligent and studious young man understood.

Finally, Lloyd turned his attention to [Cognition].

Both [Rationality] and [Spiritual Power] had produced noticeable changes after breaking 100, but [Cognition] had not...

’Perhaps it will improve my learning efficiency?’

He would find out tomorrow after borrowing some books from the library.

......

And so, Lloyd spent a few peaceful days, falling back into the rhythm of his routine.

Every day he would meet with Weiya, make small talk, work, earn money, and study. Then he would go home to spend time with his older sister, before hiding under the covers to chat with Weiya remotely.

They talked about everything, yet both were too reserved to steer the conversation in the one direction it probably should have gone...

Meanwhile, Evelor’s magazine had entered a stable but slow period, and she just had to wait patiently for word-of-mouth to build. This reduced her workload and stress considerably, allowing her life to return to a more normal pace.

Lloyd didn’t get up to anything unusual these past few days. He simply tested the changes brought by 100 points of [Cognition] and confirmed his earlier theory: his learning efficiency had indeed increased.

If before, the effect of his learning was simply a good memory—being able to recall anything he read—now, his comprehension was stronger. He could now grasp the actual meaning behind knowledge that he previously couldn’t understand and had to learn by rote.

This change was most apparent when studying Orbits. Previously, he could only brute-force memorize the patterns, designs, and layouts without understanding their principles. Now, he could comprehend the operating principles behind them and even make optimizations and improvements.

This was a huge boost for miniaturizing and creating portable Orbits. After just a few days of practice, he could already shrink the [Intense Concentration] Orbit down to the size of a desk. Compared to its previous size, which took up nearly an entire office, the improvement was significant.

He was still a ways off from his goal of shrinking it to the size of a music box, however. He had to keep working.

Besides that, 100 points of [Cognition] brought another change: the Madness Value he gained from analyzing the Unknown Fragment every three days increased to 3000.

This was naturally a good thing for Lloyd. The reward for his ’Three-Day Check-in’ had gotten bigger.

But for an ordinary person without a panel to manage it... the implications were terrifying.

Additionally, his analysis progress on the fragment had reached 10%, and some knowledge about the [Manifestation] system had in-explicably appeared in his mind.

It all seemed to be rather basic, covering things like the principles of [Manifestation], how to cultivate one’s own [Manifestation], and how to interfere with another person’s [Manifestation].

Lloyd felt this was the kind of knowledge one could probably find in a library. Not in Radiant City, of course, but there was likely plenty of it in the City of Illusion.

He thought this because the knowledge seemed incredibly basic; he’d understood it without much effort.

Unfortunately, it was useless to him. This was all content one would only encounter after stepping into the [Manifestation] system and completing the corresponding [Enlightenment].

Of course, Lloyd wasn’t considering starting a new system right now, so he just filed the information away as general knowledge and didn’t think much of it.

The one small disappointment was that his reading progress on the "Book of Truth" hadn’t increased. The book remained quiet in the depths of his memory, feeling somewhat unreachable. Lloyd could only leave it be for now.

And just like that, he finally reached the long-awaited payday.

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