Just over an hour into their first full dive together, Lili for the first time ever set foot onto the seventeeth floor.
This had become Neme's primary hunting ground recently as he could no longer achieve growth on any lower floor than this.
In contrast Lili's skills had seen explosive growth in her first dive as a godless familia member, and yet she couldn't be happier.
In her ten years of working in and around the dungeon she had only managed to earn 1500 total stat points and yet… now in just over one hour with Neme her status had grown by close to 200 points.
A rate of growth that was unheard of save for her senior whose own stat growth she was wholy unaware of.
However seeing her stat growth raise as it was, was one thing but being on the seventeeth floor as a level one was still jarring.
She was placing all of her trust in her companion.
And that trust was not misplaced.
Almost all the monsters thus far had been slain by Neme, or greviously injured such that Lili only needed to deal the killing blow.
And now on the seventeeth floor that was not going to change.
Minotaurs, Hellhounds, and Ligerfangs were the exclusive monsters on this floor.
All except for the Hellhounds were level 2 monsters, while Hellhounds were capable of breathing fire, not magic but similar in nature and no less deadly unless the adventurer had taken proper steps to prepare such as donning Salamander wool which was flame resistant.
Thanks to the unique nature in which his stats grew, Neme's own power was easily able to deal with the monsters located on this floor.
With the 3500+ points he'd farmed from the 13th to 17th floors up till now, his strength, Agility, and Endurance had all reached the traditional growth limits of regular adventurers, adding to that the completely limit broken stats he'd achieved when only a level 1.
His current stats were more than twice that of the minotaurs he was fighting against.
Even when faced with a small number he was not overwhelmed.
And he only became troubled if the dungeon tried to sick and entire parade of minotaurs on him.
Though that being said he still had a good number of days to go before the Loki familia would be returning, and unlike the normal timeline, no one else was endlessly farming this floor.
Its highly possible that when the time came the dungeon would be low on nutrients for this floor and would be incapable of spawning a monster parade.
Which in turn would mean none could be scared away to the higher floors, and would mean Bell would need to find some other source to cause his desire to grow stronger to blossom within him.
Swing.
Zoom
Whoosh
Bang
Swipe after swipe of his hammer was all Lili saw standing behind him.
Him… Neme her partner.
He was like a hero from a storybook.
Most of the time he was dealing with everything entirely by himself, and yet she was benefitting from it.
Being a member of his party, her skill points increased and if she dealt damage her status itself grew all on its own.
It was only a few hours in, and yet… and yet…
She couldn't wait until her status had reached as high as his, reaching a point when she could stand shoulder to shoulder with him, as they stormed the dungeon as a dynamic duo.
For now she would diligently stand back like the supporter she had been before picking up the drop items of the person she now looked at as if he was her new god.
Watching as he heroically took on the worst the dungeon had to offer, all while watching his back and calling out whenever the dungeon tried to trip him up, spawning more forces from his blind spots.
~
The minutes passed and with it so too did the minotaurs.
Dozens then hundreds.
His status growing with each swing of his hammer.
A few times the numbers got to many and he instead unleashed his dual wielding upon them, increasing his effective hit count by 2, allowing him to attack with speed rather than power.
It was around this time that a simple yelp was heard off in the distance.
The source thanks to his enhanced senses was Lili though upon checking she didn't look like she was in trouble if anything she looked comepletly stunned.
And Neme had an idea why that was.
~
For Liliruca this day had been like a dream.
She had found a man who would accept her into his party, into his familia, and grant her power beyond her wildest dreams all without a cost she herself had to pay.
And now.
Now another miracle had happened.
As she was watching Neme fighting her own status kept on creeping higher and higher, that is until her most used stat reached its limit.
Magic which she used near constantly had reached the cap of S 999 rank, and on a whim she tried investing one of her many hundreds of unused skill points onto her magic.
Almost in jest that she could become a legendary figure by Neme's side by achieving what was known as a limit break.
Only to her shock, her magic did rise, and It now read SS 1000
She had become a limit breaker, becoming one of only two, no her new master was most certainly one as well, one of three limit breakers in the entire city.
~
When Neme concluded his fight her rejoined Lili and learned the reason for her yelp and just as he thought she could do It too.
Though it seemed she could only do it with the aid of his familia system.
Her own abilities would only take her so far, and then the system would take over from there.
With that being said he did change his instruction for Lili, seeing her growth was different from his own, he advised her to hold onto her unused skill points for now, only investing them into stats that had already reached their growth limit before then maxing those stats out.
She didn't hesitate the follow his orders and the very next second she couldn't help but dive into his embrace wrapping her small arms around him.
From what he could gather from the tear soaked words being expelled into his stomach.
She has reach EX 1500 a feat never before seen.
Though this did puzzle him some.
1500 not 2000.
So even with his cheat she could not become as strong as he himself, which honestly he was fine with.
He wanted to become the strongest afterall, not be the strongest among the strong.