Thanks to acquiring a blade even just a simple iron one, Neme's speed at slaying dungeon monsters had increased explosively compared to before.
Rather than needing to engage with and muscle his way through fights, he could simply swing the blade in his hand, following it up with a power punch and boom dungeon monster down.
In ten minutes he managed to acquire as many mana crystals as he'd obtained fighting with his fists before after more than a half hour.
This speed of acquiring skill points was fast for sure however the gain rate of a single point per kill was sadly low.
Even at his peak, the slaying of Goblin and Kobolds could only manage to reach perhaps a hundred perhaps slightly more, though that gain rate wasnt enough.
Even if Neme didnt require sleeping that simply would mean at most by time he reached the deadline he'd be able to raise all his stats to the cap giving him the best growth possible, however Neme knew in his heart this was unrealistic.
He was affect by fatigue, even now after only a few hours of fighting he was completly bushed ready to ascend leaving the dungeon behind heading to find a dealer or blackmarket where he could sell his paltry Goblin fangs, and Kobold nails.
Going by what he could remember from the books if he'd just been able to register with the guild, then he'd have easily ten thousand valis sitting pretty in his pocket right about now.
Sadly he wasnt a guild adventurer, and so at most assuming he didnt get completly ripped off the best he could hope for was a few thousand valis, enough to get a roof over his head and some semi decent food in his belly.
Having slain yet another goblin and grabbing up the mana stone, Neme became puzzled.
Looking down he could see the golf ball sized stone still sitting in his palm.
Tilting his head slightly as he looked at it.
Rolling the stone around and around in his palm
"Seems i've hit the growth limit for this floor then."
This was the only theory he could reach with the data he had on hand.
He was a new arrival in Orario that was sure, but even still in the hours he'd spent underground he'd been slaying an almost countless number of Kobolds and Goblins.
Just to confirm his theory Neme hunted down and terminated a Kobold.
With a deft flick of his sword the creature fell to the ground before disolving away into nothingness leaving behind a near identical one to the other still residing in his pocket.
Bending down to pick it up, Neme flashed a smile seeing it likewise did not get absorbed into his hand.
The first came from a Goblin, and now Kobold had failed to be absorbed.
So the conclusion was reached, either he'd reached the cap of what he could earn as experience on this floor, or... there was a timelimit imposed to prevent him from hunting endlessly.
But rather than test this theory with a trip to the 2nd floor, Neme instead decided to leave for now, sate his aching belly and gather up some new supplies along with finding a base upon which he could station himself for future dives.
Seeing him emerge from the dungeon, many of the adventurers lingering around the entrance looked surprised.
Neme didnt fault them, afterall he probably looked like hell.
Going into the dungeon with only regular clothing, no armor, and the only visible weapon was a sword slung at his belt, but not a proper blade even only a short blade, only slightly better than diving with a dagger.
But what most likely drew their eyes more, was the fact that his clothes were torn almost entirly to shreds.
His shirt through no fault of its own, might as well consider itself a mesh shirt with all the rips and tears, across the arms, chest and back.
From most of these clotted wounds could be seen blanketing the surface of his skin below.
As he passed by them, Neme caught wind of a few whispers about himself.
"Whoa check that guy out, looks like he barely managed to survive."
"You think his party abandoned him down there?"
"No way, look dude, he doesnt have a Falna!"
"Seriously a civilian went down there and survived!"
Word of mouth spread and before he'd left the vicinity of the tower, Neme had become something of a folk legend.
Those without falna entering the dungeon was just a means of performing suicide in many's eyes, and yet here was a young man whod not only entered the dungeon perhaps with this intent, but had, had a life and death fight and managed to pull out a win, or escape from the scrap itself.
Now that he'd had a trial by fire, no doubt he'd go running to any god or goddess he could find to join a Familia and take his revenge upon the dungeon.
Neme on the other hand could only chuckle upon hearing these verbalized thoughts.
Walking like a zombie, Neme left the tower and headed deep into district six, the outer section of this district house a market area under the control of the Ganesha familia but it also secretly held Orario's black market.
(A/N: Imagine Orario is a big pie cut into eight pieces, then marking district 1-8 clockwise.)
Walking along Neme took in the sights trying to increase his pace even a little only to have to grunt in pain after trying to push his body even just a little bit further.
Instead to distract himself from the pain he pulled up his status to review the day's success.
[Status]
Name: Nemesis (Neme)
Level: 1
Strength: G 250
Endurance: H 100
Dexterity: H 100
Agility: G 293
Magic: I 0
Skill:
Magic:
Curses: 167:19:58:12
Unused Stat Points: 0
Seeing the results of just a few hours hard work, Neme could only whistle in approval.
Even though he was only a level one, not even Bell the protagonist saw stat growth of this magnitude after only a few hours of his work.
The other joyous part was that with the boost of his strength and agility he was becoming an str/agi type swordsman just like the hero of a story he loved beyond all others.
A story where the hero went beyond those who obstructed him, beyond the system that bound him, beyond even the gods themselves.
Seeing himself in a similar position he could only resolve in his heart to strive to live up to that young mans own shadow perhaps surpass it if he could.
But for now, even as a genius newbie, first he needed to acquire some money, money after all more than gods made the world go round.
Catching whiffs of the smells wafted over to him by the stall vendors made his stomach want to tear itself apart, but unless they were willing to take a floor 1 mana stone as trade he had nothing really to offer them.
Instead he walked with purpose through the market area, before ducking into an alleyway before reaching the free market.
This was his destination, the black market.
It was sort of the worst kept secret of Orario, everyone knew it existed and no one tried to quash it, afterall the 'black market' wasnt that kind of black market, sure they bout and sold dungeon goods just like the guild but this was just a commoner sales point afterall.
Unless you have a falna you cannot join the guild, so if you were willing to accept stones or dungeon drops as barter for goods, you'd need a method to exchange those good for valis.
Mana stones could simply be used as a power, or fuel source, but monster drops?
Unless you were an alchemist, or blacksmith you could only sell them, except would you really trust a random adventurer to sell them for you?
That's just asking to get ripped off as they demand a cut just to take the goods off your hands, either that or worse yet you'd hand over your item and they would simply make off taking your goods and leaving you with nothing.
Casino chip scams sprang to mind as he thought of things.
And so this black market came into being, created by retired adventurers who lived a standard commoner lifestyle now but regularly visited the guild to deposit the collections, giving a flat rate of conversion for dungeon goods, making themselves a small tax profit, while providing a much needed service to the commoners.