The environment inside the passage was starkly different from the cave paths they had walked earlier.
The rock walls here were smoother and flatter, as if polished by some immense power, forming a regular, slightly arched shape that extended into the depths.
Sparseness notwithstanding, stable luminescent crystals were embedded along the walls, emitting a soft, milky-white light that illuminated the passage sufficiently without being overly bright.
The air was dry and clean, practically devoid of the usual damp, stale smell of dungeons, while the temperature remained comfortably cool.
This special passage connecting different dungeon layers was an extremely rare safe zone within the dungeon system.
Because this area induced intense discomfort, repulsion, and even fear in the vast majority of magical beasts, they rarely crossed through such passages, let alone stayed inside them for long.
This provided adventurers venturing into the deeper layers with a rare buffer zone where they could temporarily catch their breath and regroup.
Stepping into this safe area, Greg's taut nerves finally relaxed a little.
Only now did he have the leeway to check the system notifications that had been flashing continuously in the corner of his vision during the recent battle.
With a light thought, the translucent system interface expanded before his eyes.
A series of messages was clearly displayed:
【Acquired Skill: Sowing LV1】
【Acquired Skill: Sowing LV1】
【Acquired Skill: Sowing LV1】
【Sowing Level Increased to LV2】
【Acquired 880 Experience Points】
【Acquired 88 Bonus Experience Points】
【Level Increased to LV21】
“The experience yield is pretty good, and I broke through Level 20...”
Greg felt a sense of relief as his eyes skimmed over the experience gains and level-up notifications.
Gaining four levels at once pushed him past Level 20—a significant milestone affecting skill proficiency—which meant he now had the chance to raise some of his current skills to higher proficiency levels.
This was definitely good news.
However, when his gaze fell upon the new skill that had appeared three times in a row and leveled up to LV2, his expression slowly froze.
“Sowing...? What kind of trash skill is this again?”
With a sense of foreboding, he expanded the detailed description of the skill with a thought.
【Sowing LV2 Effect: Increases the probability of impregnating females by 60%. (This effect ignores racial boundaries.】
Greg: “...”
He stared at that line of text for a full five seconds before closing his eyes tightly in silence.
Dammit... are you treating me like a damn Goblin!?
A wave of absurdity, utter annoyance, and an overwhelming urge to vent welled up in his chest. He felt his mind almost break over this ridiculous skill.
I killed over a dozen Goblins, including an elite Shaman, and this is what drops?!
Couldn't it drop one of the Goblin Shaman's signature offensive spells instead?
Like Shadow Bolt, Corrosion, Bloodlust... or even the lowest-tier Ear-Splitting Screech!
What kind of cursed skill is Sowing?!
Is it implying I should follow the Infinite Offspring route, settling down in the dungeon to raise a giant family?
And am I supposed to completely lose my mind and cross species lines too?
Greg took several deep breaths, barely suppressing the urge to scream at the empty air.
He repeatedly comforted himself mentally: Forget it, forget it. At least my level increased, and that's a tangible benefit.
As for this terrible skill... I'll pretend it doesn't exist. There's no scenario where I'd ever need to use it anyway.
Forcibly banishing the appalling description of Sowing LV2 from his mind, Greg closed the system panel.
After walking for a little while longer, however, he suddenly felt something was off with the atmosphere.
He quietly glanced back at Silvia, who was following behind him with her head lowered in a daze, then sensed the unusual silence within his own shadow.
It was far too quiet inside the passage.
Especially after the intense battle earlier, this stillness felt a bit... awkward.
Silvia hadn't spoken since they entered the passage, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. That was understandable, given that she had just survived a life-threatening crisis.
What Greg found unfamiliar, however, was that even Nightmare—who usually blurted out sarcastic comments in his head or teased him just to see his reaction—was unusually silent this time.
From the moment he started checking the system until now, the black cat hadn't made a single sound.
This double silence made Greg feel somewhat out of place.
He hesitated for a moment before initiating a prompt in his mind:
“Hey, Hajimi, why are you suddenly so quiet? Trying to play deep and brooding?”
After a few seconds, Nightmare's ethereal voice echoed lazily, carrying a hint of feigned innocence:
“Didst thou not request earlier that I keep silent and refrain from disturbing thee at will?”
“Cut the crap.”
Greg exposed her without hesitation:
“When has a bad cat like you ever actually listened to me? Before, when I wanted to relieve myself by the underground river and asked you to step away for a bit, didn't you insist on staying in my shadow while claiming, ‘I have zero interest in that glowing, ugly thing of thine,’ leaving me standing awkwardly by the river for half an hour?!”
“Heh...” Nightmare seemed to let out a soft chuckle, not denying it. “It appears thou art truly coming to understand my way of doing things better and better.”
Greg was right.
Nightmare's unusual silence had nothing to do with any of Greg's previous requests.
However, the true reason was indeed closely tied to Greg himself—so much so that it caused even this knowledgeable ancient deity to feel a rare sense of confusion and... curiosity.
She had noticed the power Greg used during the battle earlier.
Bracers of Darkness, and... Dark Pulse.
In Nightmare's long memory and understanding, every spell's manifestation and power evolved as its user's proficiency increased.
Moreover, Supreme-tier magic not only possessed initial power far exceeding normal magic, but its proficiency cap was also far higher than that of spells from other tiers.
In this world, the proficiency cap for Basic magic was usually LV5, Low-tier magic was LV6, Mid-tier magic was LV7, and High-tier magic was LV8.
Only Supreme-tier magic could reach an astonishing proficiency cap of LV9.
This meant that mastering a single Supreme-tier magic spell and cultivating it to a high realm often required a genius to devote an entire lifetime of effort and dedication.
Thus, an implicit rule existed: no matter how stunningly gifted a living creature was, over the course of an entire lifetime, they could only truly master a single Supreme-tier magic spell.
This was an invisible limitation imposed by the laws of the world on an individual's capacity.
Rate on N.U.
