(Heartfelt thanks to "Lone Wanderer's Resentment" for the 1,088 reward, and to "awalon," "Pokémon," "ct80642470," "Wufeng Haotian," and "Dongman Xin Fan" for their rewards!)
"Whoosh—!"
The wind swept through the enormous cavern once more, slowly blowing away the pile of ashes left behind by Goliath's body.
Standing before the Magic Stone taller than himself, Noah let out a deep breath and murmured.
"Now, it depends on whether this works."
Actually, Noah had never been particularly interested in Goliath.
Unlike ordinary adventurers, Noah neither wanted to earn money by obtaining dungeon resources such as Magic Stones and drop items, nor did he want to gain fame by defeating powerful monsters. He simply wanted to train his abilities and become stronger.
Under those circumstances, rather than painstakingly defeating a powerful Floor Master, Noah would have been better off continuing to lure monster hordes over for training. That would have been far more efficient.
Of course, defeating a Floor Master granted many times more experience than defeating ordinary monsters.
If Noah's training method had not been so extreme, then perhaps defeating a Floor Master would have brought him greater growth instead.
Before this, Noah had always felt that it was better to lure in more monsters for training than to defeat a Floor Master.
However, after learning that the condition for leveling up was accomplishing a great feat—such as defeating an opponent stronger than oneself—Noah had set his sights on Goliath.
The reason he had accepted Finn's invitation to travel together despite knowing Finn wanted to test him was, first, because Noah did not believe Finn could know the true extent of his strength, and second, because of Goliath.
An opponent stronger than himself?
Did that mean someone stronger than Noah when he used even his Authorities and fought at his true full