If before it may have taken all of my energy to fix the holes in the minotaurs hide it now only took a quarter instead. The reason for this was that I wasn't just throwing cursed energy at the target with a vague will of what I wanted to happen but infusing my will in the energy in a precise manner before using it thus getting a much higher efficiency out of the technique. My new favorite thing though was my new cursed flames. They burned black and were highly destructive with a sort of "aliveness" to them that reminded me of an attack dog.-
In my hands the flames were as well behaved as a loving companion but the moment they touched something that wasn't me they latched on and consumed it relentlessly. I could command the flames to release whatever they got ahold of which was why the church hadn't been burnt down on accident but it was VERY hard. In a way it seemed almost like the flames were reluctant to give up any form of "food" they found. If nothing else this just told me that teaming up was out the window entirely when I delved.-
Could you even imagine what would happen if my own teammate got touched by my flames while we delved? It was simply for the best if i delved alone instead since I wouldn't need to hold back then. Admittedly this made my future in the dungeon just that much harder but there was nothing for it really and I now needed to put in extra effort to keep up and exceed those that needed a team to delve deep. Anyways by the time Hestia got home I had fixed and refined my entire stock of hides and was in the process of turning them into the flexible parts of armor for Bell.-
I was shaping three fused kobold hides into a pair of flexible but tough pants when the small goddess entered the room.
"Did you do something with your hair? You seem different for some reason?" she said while looking me up and down with a confused expression.
"Well I almost died and made a serious breakthrough in my control and use of cursed energy so maybe that's what you are feeling?" I suggested casually and she freaked out.
"What do you mean you almost died!?" she exclaimed in shock and Bell was not much different since I hadn't told him either.
"Oh well some really strong adventurers had apparently gotten a little careless and scared a minotaur up to floor five where I was. I killed it after I broke through with my energy in the heat of the moment and then I got the meet those adventurers, they were interesting people. Speaking of do you mind updating me since I am dying to find out how much my stats grew since my last update?" I asked with a cheeky grin.-
"You! How dare you play with my feelings !" Hestia yelled angrily and began to beat on my chest but i just wrapped my arms around her tightly.
"Relax, it'll take more than death to kill me." I said with a smile.
"That's not how that works!" she said with a upset huff.
Name: Alexander Drake
Level:1+(can level up)
Strength:320(F)-> 745(B)
Endurance:402(E)-> 863(A)
Agility:295(G)-> 714(B)
Dexterity:276(G)-> 697(C)
Magic:814(A)-> 999(S)-> 1500(SS)-> 2270(X)
Spells: Hell's forge(Innate technique): Can use anything from a living being and reshape or refine it per ones will.(Incantation: Hell's forge)(Extension: Hell fire)
Skills: Heavenly restriction: In exchange for the ability to wield mana and magic one gains access to cursed energy and cursed techniques.
Blessing of black: Permanently increases cursed energy efficiency, amount and control. Magic will always start at G rank after leveling up.
"What!?" Hestia exclaimed after my update was over.
"I knew it!" I said with a wide grin as I looked over my new status sheet.
I was pleasantly surprised with my new skill that would give me a massive edge anytime I leveled up in the future since I had assumed the enlightenment of black flash to be a single time thing but clearly I was mistaken. The biggest thing though was that I finally knew for a fact that S rank wasn't the limit one could achieve. In fact I had shot to more than twice that supposed limit to a whopping two thousand two hundred and seventy in my magic stat dictated as X rank. Incredibly that didn't even feel like the limit yet as I had a gut feeling that I could go even further.
I was fairly certain that when my body finished adapting to my new stats I would have the magic of a level two despite only being level one. Or I could totally ignore all of the benefits of waiting and level up now since I apparently qualified for it. Fuck that! I was going to polish the shit out of my stats until I couldn't anymore and only then level up. I had a gut feeling that anything less would force my path to godhood to an abrupt end in the future. I was possibly insane but I did not do things by half if I had any say in the matter.-
I wasn't all that surprised to find that my flames had shown up either as an extension of my innate technique though the name was rather suggestive. Obviously it just made sense that hells forge would operate using hell fire but what exactly hell fire was might be a bit of a problem. Sure it could just be a name and not mean anything but if it was infact hell fire then i couldn't go showing it off randomly or some god was likely to recognize what it was and might throw a huge fit about it.-
My only gripe with my update was that all the "liquid" I had collected had been used and I hadn't even hit A rank in all my other stats beyond magic and endurance. Yeah I know I was just being petty but that was the smoke of a level two and several level one monsters after all. I was thankful to learn that the stuff could let me breeze past the "limits" that a normal person might struggle with though. Actually i suppose it was more along the lines that I didn't breeze past them so much as forced my way through.
Thinking about it that is probably not really a good thing huh? I mean most limits exist for a reason right? So going past them likely comes with some risk to ones self if that was true. As I learned the next day I was very much correct, limit breaking came at a cost. To be specific it came at the cost of what I hatefully refer to as "Vessel sickness" or basically a flu hyped up to twelve as your vessel struggles to contain power beyond what it should, It was loads of fun can't you tell?