_____ 2 Days Later _________
Bell sat cross-legged inside their shaky carriage.
It had been some time since he awoke after fainting for half a day.
The first thing he saw when his consciousness returned was the worried face of Goddess Astraea leaning close to him.
Her beauty and charm were enough to have floored Bell, especially since she was leaning so close to him.
After she looked at his opened eyes and slightly lost expression, she leaned even closer to his face.
Bell felt his heart beat harder in his chest, butterflies fluttering around in his stomach.
He felt light headed, testosterone and adrenaline starting to get pumped in his bloodstream.
'Was he about to lose his virginity?'
Bell overthought inwardly while remembering a certain person who was named VirginYoungMaster but graduated after loosing his virginity, changing his name to GotLaidYoungMaster.
'Was he about to join the Got Laid gang?'
Bell puckered his lips towards her in anticipation, feeling more shy than he had felt his whole life.
Then.....he was slapped across the face by Goddess Astraea.
A sharp ringing sound resounded in his ears.
He felt life was really cruel, he thought he was about to get kissed by a women so breathtakingly beautiful that his old 2d waifu's would pale in comparison.
Yet, reality slapped him, literally right across the face.
Bell looked at the worry filled and terrified expression on Goddess Astraea's face as she leaned even more closer and hugged him tight against her.
Literally smothering his face against her 'considerable' assets.
He had to tap on her back to let him go after a moment, or he might have died due to suffocation and insufficient oxygen.
After that, he had to ask for her forgiveness while staying kneeling for two hours straight.
Why was his Goddess so intense?
So that was how it went.
Now coming back to the present.
Bell was sitting cross-legged inside their carriage.
His focus inward as he examined his body, which seemed full of energy, with no internal injuries or pain.
Man, he really loved the adaptation of his wheel.
It had already patched him up by the time he woke up.
But, that fight with the hobgoblin made him understand many things, especially the inherent weakness of [Ittou Shura]. The technique was made for the weak to defeat the strong from Ikki Kurogane's perspective, but he was not Ikki Kurogane, who had no avenues to increase his strength.
Compared to him, Bell had Falna, he could make his body stronger, sturdier and increase his stamina massively through his Falna, so he could bring out exponentially more power from [Ittou Shura] if his base physique kept increasing.
The boost provided by [Ittou Shura] could potentially reach absurd levels, just think—If he had all his parameters at 999 limit and then used [Ittou Shura] without regard for consequences?
Won't he be able to go toe to toe with a peak Level 2 Adventurer?
And that was without even considering his mastery over [Ittou Shura].
As he was now, he could barely use 20% of his converted vitality, 80% getting wasted in conversion.
If he could use all 100% of his converted vitality without any waste, then won't he be able to go toe to toe with a half step or even a newly minted Level 3 Adventurer?
Yet, he knew the severe drawbacks of [Ittou Shura] too—he could maintain [Ittou Shura] for just one minute, if he pushed further, then his body would forcefully be shut down—making him a sitting duck after that minute, who could be literally killed by anyone.
The more stronger his body got, conversely, the more effective [Ittou Shura] would become, but so would the aftereffects and internal injuries suffered by using this technique.
So, he could not depend on [Ittou Shura] all the time, he himself had to get stronger.
This all let Bell to a single conclusion, he had to somehow break through the what was considered the limit for normal adventurers.
999—S Rank
He had to somehow break his parameters through these limits—If he somehow managed to do it, he could not even fathom what kind of monster he would be with limit broken stats and [Ittou Shura], not even counting the wheel in.
But here came the main problem—the original Bell had [Liaris Freese] to break through limits.
Yet, even if the wheel adapted and granted it to him, it would not work.
You ask why?
[Liaris Freese] was a skill that granted the original rapid growth and increased his stats as long as his intense desire, admiration or love for someone (Ais Wallenstein) persisted, acting like a massive experience boost tied directly to his unwavering feelings, making him grow incredibly fast but potentially vulnerable if his core motivations faltered.
Now, here comes the problem, as he was now, he did not admire and sure as hell did not love anyone, nor did he have any intense desires towards someone.
As for Goddess Astraea, what he felt towards her was a tangled mix of emotions, attraction due to her beauty, possessiveness for being his Goddess, and gratitude for accepting him in her Familia.
It had not yet reached the level of any intense desires.
Conclusion was that even if he got [Liaris Freese] from the adaptation of the wheel, it would not work for him.
Thinking deeper.
There were two other people he knew from *Danmachi* who had broken through the limits of S-Rank.
The Silence, Alfia.
The Gluttony, Zald.
The Silence, Alfia, was his own Aunt, but he did not know much about her or which skill of her had helped her break through the limits, the only magic he knew from her was her signature [Silentium Eden].
She was also the one who killed the Leviathan with her own hands.
The Gluttony Zald, used to be a prodigy from his own cheap grandfather's Zeus Familia. His special skill [Dues Ambrosia] was one of a kind, like a mini-cheat. It allowed it's user to eat monster or any other being's flesh and passively added stats proportional to the strength of the being eaten.
This was the skill which allowed Zald to break through the limits of S-Rank by overeating strong monster meat even after reaching the stats limit.
But this same skill was also the cause of his death, since he dared to eat the meat of Behemoth, one of the Three Great Calamities, along with:
The Leviathan.
And
The One Eyed Black Dragon.
After eating Behemoth's meat, he was directly poisoned by it, and died later during the Great Feud.
Bell could possibly get [Dues Ambrosia] by the adaptation of the wheel, and would not even have the worry of getting poisoned due to once again the adaptation of the wheel.
There was just one teeny-tiny problem with this.
To break through his limits, Zald had to eat monster meat of monsters 1 or even 2 Levels above him—now where would he get that level of monster meat?
That too in large quantities.
After all, he did not have a behemoth like the Zeus Familia behind him like Zald did.
So [Dues Ambrosia] was scrapped too.
Another solution was to hover at the S-Rank limit and let the wheel adapt and find a path to break the limits on it's own.
But he did not like the idea of leaving everything in the hands of his cheat.
If someday it was taken away from him, won't he become useless then?
So after brainstorming for a day and a half straight, going through all the fictions in his mind.
He finally had an idea so absurd, so heaven defying that even he himself was rattled.
He had the Wheel.
He had the Falna of a Goddess Of Justice.
So, then what stopped him from getting another Falna!?
Mortals could only have a single Falna.
But he had Adaptation.
Could he not get another Falna??
What would people call him?
Genius!?
Lunatic!?
Mad!?
Fool!?
Whatever they would say,
He just couldn't get this idea outside of his head.