Selecting a pink giant toad, Damien exerted force under his feet, and his entire body shot out like an arrow released from a bow.
Descending from above, Damien crashed down like a meteor, delivering a flying kick to the pink giant toad.
A familiar scene unfolded before Damien's eyes once again.
As his foot connected with the toad's head, he felt no resistance whatsoever, his entire body piercing through the creature as if diving into water.
The ground shattered, countless rocks flying in all directions. Damien stood at the center of a massive crater, drenched in blood, his clothes stained with sticky chunks of flesh and innards.
Behind him lay the obliterated remains of the giant toad.
Feeling the slimy sensation on his body, Damien shuddered. "I didn't even use magic. Is my physical body really this strong?"
"No, that's not right."
Damien glanced at his status panel, focusing on the new skills, particularly the passive ones.
Ignoring the magic-based passives for now, the physical ones... Lancer, Knight, Swordsman, Crusader, Dragon Knight, Martial Artist, Fighter, Thief... combined, even at just level 1, provided over a 100% boost.
And that 100% was on top of Damien having converted all his magicules into experience points to enhance his body.
"A body reinforced by magicules as the foundation."
"Add to that the class passives and the Martial Artist's enhancements, and my attributes have been boosted by at least 300%."
With such physical enhancements, Damien's body, already at an A-rank level, was practically indistinguishable from a Special A-rank.
In the Cardinal World, existence value didn't always correlate directly with combat strength.
The Storm Dragon, with its 80 million existence value, wasn't necessarily stronger than an True Demon Lord.
But Damien was different now.
With magicules fused into his flesh and blood, he had already surpassed nearly all monsters.
"I underestimated my own strength."
Damien cast a water-element spell to clean himself, finally feeling a bit more at ease.
Like Ogerpon, Damien was in a sorry state, but as their eyes met, they burst into laughter in unison.
"Alright, just a bit longer, and we'll head back for a bath."
Damien didn't return immediately, instead continuing to hunt giant toads.
This time, he was less reckless, using the basic Fireball spell to attack nearby toads from a distance.
After slaying his 50th giant toad, Damien finally heard the sound of his magicule value increasing.
"Fifty toads, each giving 2 experience points, that's 100 points."
At level 15, fighting level 5 monsters naturally came with an experience penalty, so he only gained 2 points per toad.
But what truly shocked Damien wasn't this... it was the conversion rate between experience points and magicules.
Magicules converted to experience points at a 1:10 ratio.
But the reverse, experience points to magicules, was a staggering 100:1.
This massive disparity left Damien dumbfounded.
He pondered for a long time before arriving at a possible explanation: "The experience points in the Konosubaverse are low-tier energy. Converting low-tier to high-tier energy naturally comes with a huge ratio."
"The earlier conversion of magicules to experience points likely faced some kind of interference."
It was like a bad signal reception... magicules suffered some loss during the conversion process.
"If that's the case, then experience points aren't as cost-effective as I thought."
"Even if I reached max level, that's only 1 million experience points."
"Converted, that's just 10,000 magicules."
To reach max level in the Konosubaverse, Damien couldn't even imagine how many monsters he'd need to defeat or how much experience-rich food he'd have to consume.
"Whatever, even if it's only 10,000, it's still magicules."
"It's better than nothing."
Damien shook his head, pushing aside his swirling thoughts, and called to Ogerpon, "Let's go, we're heading back."
Halfway back, a dazzling beam of light descended from the sky, landing not far from Axel City.
The familiar sight sparked a realization in Damien, "Could it be that Advocate of Gender Equality and the Useless Goddess get Isekai'd?"
His thoughts on Kazuma...
Damien didn't dislike him.
For a guy with no cheat powers, dragging along a bunch of problematic teammates and still managing to defeat the Demon King?
Honestly, that was pretty impressive.
Of course, Damien had no intention of interacting with the original Konosuba crew.
His sole focus was on getting stronger.
He had no time to waste on Konosuba's comedic daily antics.
"Let Aqua and Kazuma toil at the construction site for half a month first."
Without hesitation, Damien grabbed Ogerpon and headed in the opposite direction of Aqua and Kazuma.
Getting tangled up with those two now? Damien was genuinely worried he'd get dragged into their mess.
Even with the gratitude for his original cheat, Damien didn't dare get too close to her.
The two returned to the inn, where they took a bath.
The townsfolk along the way didn't pay much attention to their blood-soaked, disheveled appearance.
Adventurers, after all, were expected to look rough.
Unbeknownst to them, across the stream, a blonde girl clad in Crusader armor was trembling with flushed cheeks, utterly shocked by the scene.
The girl named Darkness clenched her fists tightly. "That man, he doesn't even spare his own familiar!"
Suddenly, Damien, on his way to the inn, shivered.
Damien scratched his head, puzzled. "For some reason, I feel like something creepy is watching me."
Damien glanced around but found nothing amiss.
He didn't bother using any detection skills... it wasn't necessary.
In a place like Axel, nothing could harm them.
"No need to worry about it."
"If someone dares to make a move against us." Damien scoffed, "I'll show them the true might of one-shotting a giant toad!"
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
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