I really need to plan this out

That night----

As the hustle and bustle of the city finally subsided with the arrival of night, Leo returned to the Twilight Manor under the cover of darkness.

He perfectly avoided all the noise directed at him, and quietly returned to his home base when the gates were no longer blocked by people or gods, concealing his achievements and fame.

After saying goodbye to Lefiya and parting ways, Leo did not immediately return to his room. Instead, he unusually took the initiative to go to the top floor of the Central Tower and enter Loki's Divine Room.

He had come to Loki to ask for a recommendation for a reliable blacksmith's kin, but to his surprise, the Chief God was muttering to himself in his room, cursing someone, suddenly lit up and waved to him with great interest.

"Don't say anything! Update your stats first!"

So Leo put aside his own affairs, took off his clothes, and let Loki, who had taken out the golden needles, drip blood onto his back to begin the first update of his ability values after the upgrade.

As the inscription on the back appeared, the Divine Script seemed to come alive, floating on the back. Soon, this ability value update was over.

Leo Eligos--

Lv.2

Strength: 10 → E496

Durability:10→E437

Dexterity: 10 → D529

Agility: 10 → D581

Demonic Power: 10 → C656

Mage: 1

Looking at the newly generated ability values, Loki remained silent for a very long time.

After a long silence, Loki finally spoke, seemingly wistfully.

"Well, although I had roughly anticipated that even if you leveled up, your growth rate wouldn't slow down much, seeing this result still leaves me speechless."

Total proficiency across all abilities increased by approximately 2700!

This seems to be less than the increase when Leo first updated his stats, but back then it took Leo ten days to increase his total proficiency in all stats by more than 3,000.

What about now?

It's only been a few days since Leo was upgraded?

All things considered, it should only take about five days, right?

They almost caught up with the same rate of improvement in just half the time they did back then. What does this tell us?

This explains why the already absurdly slow growth rate not only didn't slow down after Lv.2, but actually accelerated! What's the underlying principle behind this?

Loki scratched his head, feeling as if his normally fairly sharp brain had suddenly gone awry.

Family members, does anyone know this?

Having lived for billions of years, what kind of outrageous things haven't I seen?

She had never seen anything so outrageous before!

"This is perfectly normal."

In contrast, Leo, looking at the translated ability values in his hand, threw out a sentence without turning his head.

"I'm already in the middle level now. The frequency of monster appearances, battles, and encounters with danger and injury is much higher there than in the upper level. Fighting in that place is much more difficult and stressful than fighting in the upper level. After dealing with it, I naturally improve much faster than I did in the upper level."

At least when conquering the upper levels, Leo could take a break from time to time, and he had to personally explore and encounter monsters. However, when conquering the middle levels, he didn't need to find monsters at all. He could just take a few steps and a large number of monsters would suddenly appear and attack him. He had very little time to rest, and sometimes he didn't even have time to rest after fighting all day.

If it weren't for the elixir that could replenish his stamina, with such a high frequency and pace of combat, even if Leo were already at Lv.3, he would probably be exhausted.

Therefore, after reaching the middle level, Leo had to ask Lefiya for a elixir almost every now and then. He drank the elixir like water every day to maintain enough strength to keep fighting.

Other adventurers, even if they formed a small team and could take turns resting, wouldn't dare to play like this. It would be quite normal for them to need to find a place to rest and recover their health after a while, or even retreat to the 12th Floor to recuperate.

But Leo didn't. He gritted his teeth and persevered, which worried Lefiya a lot, and she tried to persuade him many times.

As a result, Leo uses his basic abilities extremely frequently, defeats many monsters, and gains a surge in experience points, which are then reflected in his ability stats, naturally leading to this rapid growth rate.

"I understand the logic, but when others level up, they also explore more floors and fight more frequently, so why don't they grow faster than before they leveled up?"

Loki spoke softly.

It is common knowledge that the higher the level, the more difficult it becomes to improve one's abilities.

Leo, however, did the opposite, which really makes no sense.

Fortunately, having witnessed Leo's absurd growth time and time again, Loki has now genuinely gotten used to it.

Loki could only take a big gulp of wine and say this.

"At this rate of growth, you'll probably reach Lv.3 before the next expedition even begins, right?"

Upon hearing this, Leo's attention was immediately drawn away from the parchment in his hand.

"What?" Leo asked, quite surprised. "Has the date for the next expedition been set?"

"Oh, not yet," Loki said straightforwardly. "But Finn and the others already have an idea, and they should start preparing soon."

"Judging by the time, the next expedition of the clan should begin in about half a month at most, right?"

Well, it's not too late.

Leo listened to Loki's words and seemed to be deep in thought.

In Orario, typically, an exploration-oriented clan that specializes in training adventurers for exploring Dungeon must embark on an expedition periodically once its faction level reaches a certain point.

This is not only for the development of the clan and for conquering Dungeon, but also an obligation explicitly stipulated by the guild.

As the governing body of the city and Dungeon, the Guild constantly requires its exploration-oriented members to expand the Dungeon. After all, the Dungeon contain unknown resources, unknown areas, and unknown discoveries. Once these are discovered and expanded, they will not only promote the development of Orario, but also help to alleviate the suffering of the Lower World from the ravages of monsters.

Conquering Dungeon, vanquishing monsters, and liberating the inhabitants of the Lower World from their threat is not only the ultimate goal of the guild's founding, but also the shared aspiration of all life in the Lower World.

This desire has existed since ancient times, before Orario was built, before the Babel Tower appeared, and before monsters could pour out of the great hole leading to the surface with impunity and wreak havoc on the entire Lower World.

Even though the ancient people repeatedly rebelled and made sacrifices, creating heroes who brought miracles, and under their leadership, they finally succeeded in reclaiming most of the land above ground, and built the Babel Tower and Orario above the entrance to the Dungeon to prevent the monsters from surging out again, this wish has never disappeared.

After all, people don't know what threats still exist in the Dungeon, or when the monsters will once again surge onto the surface and turn the world into Purgatory.

Moreover, the surface is not without threats. Those monsters that once surged onto the surface have successfully multiplied and given rise to various monster races around the world. Even though their abilities have greatly decreased with each generation of reproduction, their threat level is not comparable to that of the monsters native to the Dungeon. For ordinary people, they are still deadly.

In particular, the three great monster kings who once posed a heavy threat to the earth were far more terrifying than any of the floor masters. Even the heroes of ancient times failed to defeat them, and most of them perished in their jaws. Thus, the so-called three great adventurer commissions appeared in the Lower World, and the content of these three adventurer commissions was to defeat these three great monster kings.

The two great clans that once ruled over all of Orario successfully resolved two adventurer requests and defeated the two great monster kings. However, they were nearly wiped out by the last and strongest monster king. Only after that did the Loki Familia and Freya Familia rise to prominence.

Therefore, conquering Dungeon and defeating the final monster king are the common desires of all life in the Lower World.

Orario holds a unique position in the world as the front line of suppressing Dungeon and a fortress against monster invasions. Therefore, as its governing body, the guild needs to ensure that the exploration-type Familias who conquer Dungeon deliver commensurate results, whether for the development of the city or for the common aspirations of the Lower World.

Exploration-oriented families enjoy various privileges in Orario as a result; for example, the taxes they need to pay to the guild are much less than those of business-oriented families.

Since they enjoy privileges, they must fulfill corresponding obligations.

Expeditions are one of these obligations.

Any exploration-oriented clan that reaches faction level D must participate in an expedition within the time frame specified by the guild and produce tangible results.

This achievement could be increasing the number of floors the clan can currently reach, discovering new resources or minerals, mapping unexplored areas, defeating floor bosses, or even discovering previously undiscovered Dungeon secrets. The key is that you can't "return empty-handed."

As for the timing of each expedition, the guild has some requirements, but these requirements aren't too strict and mainly depend on the situation.

For clans that have suffered significant losses in combat power for some reason, the guild's requirements will be relatively lenient. On the other hand, for clans with strong combat power, the guild will constantly urge them to go on expeditions. However, for the strongest clans in the city, such as the Loki Familia, who are active on the front lines of conquest and are constantly exploring areas that adventurers have not yet reached, the guild will not keep urging them out of caution.

After all, the Loki Familia is heading to an extremely deep area, and one wrong move could lead to the annihilation of the entire Familia's elite forces. If the strongest corner of the city is lost there, causing a serious loss of Orario's high-end combat power, the guild will have nowhere to cry.

However, even so, the guild would not stand idly by and watch the Loki Familia not go on expeditions. Unless there were special circumstances, the guild would start urging them every one or two months.

Of course, even if they didn't urge them, the Loki Familia certainly wouldn't stay away from expeditions forever.

Exploring unknown territories is also something Loki Familia seeks. If the Familia wants to develop, it needs to obtain resources and wealth from the Dungeon. Not to mention, the first-level adventurers in the Familia also need sufficiently powerful opponents and challenges if they want to grow stronger.

The last expedition of the Loki Familia took place shortly before Leo received the Falna.

Now, Leo has already reached Lv.2, and about a month has passed since he received the Falna.

Judging by the timeline, Loki Familia should indeed embark on another expedition.

"Those guys are itching to get deeper into the Dungeon now, aren't they?" Loki said gleefully. "After all, you've provoked them so much. If they don't go on an expedition, they'll just be stuck in the shallows. How can that possibly satisfy them?"

Because the deeper the floor, the farther it is from the surface, and the farther the distance, the more time it takes to travel. So, if it's just a day trip, even a first-level adventurer with fast foot speed can only go to the middle or lower levels at most, and it's impossible to reach the deep levels.

Therefore, characters like Ais, Tiona, Tione, and Bete Loga can only grind monsters around level 20, and the experience points they gain are pitiful.

Normally, it wouldn't matter; every little bit helps, and with persistence, one can still achieve some growth.

But now, spurred on by Leo, they are unlikely to be satisfied with this meager growth.

At this moment, they were all naturally looking forward to the expedition.

Only an expedition can satisfy their current needs.

"I didn't provoke them."

Leo really wanted to refute that.

"Oh."

Loki said nothing, just rolled his eyes, and continued drinking, ignoring him.

Seeing this, Leo also touched his nose dejectedly, and then fell into deep thought.

"Half a month?"

It's not that we can't try.

If possible, Leo would certainly like to join the elite troops of his clan on the expedition.

If you can go to the lower, deeper, or even ultra-deep levels to defeat the powerful monsters there, then it's considered a group battle. The experience points will be evenly distributed, and you can gain a large amount of experience points, or even high-level experience points for great achievements.

To travel to such deep realms with the elite forces of a clan, one must be at least a Level 3, Level 2 adventurer.

The Loki Familia operates similarly: during expeditions, all members of level 3 and above are selected to participate, while only level 2 members remain at the Familia's base to guard the territory.

Of course, rare healers like Lefiya, even at level 2, would be brought along.

Unfortunately, Leo is not.

He wanted to join his clan on the expedition, but he needed to reach at least level 3.

There are still two weeks left----

"I need to make a proper plan."

39

Leo thought this to himself.