Three days later, Leon and Jeanne found time to visit Tsubaki's workshop and pick up their custom gear.
Inside, Leon ran his fingers over the restored armor, turning it this way and that. "This craftsmanship is unreal. I can't even tell where the damage was. It looks brand new."
Tsubaki leaned against the wall with her arms crossed and snorted. "Save the flattery. You could talk until you're blue in the face and I still wouldn't knock a single valis off the price."
"..."
Across the room, Jeanne had already suited up in her new set. She adjusted the fit at each joint, rolling her shoulders and testing her range of motion.
"How does it feel, Miss d'Arc?" Tsubaki watched with a craftsman's scrutiny.
Jeanne clenched her fist, marveling at the gauntlet's featherlight grip, breathable and seamless, as though it weighed nothing at all. "It's incredible. No discomfort whatsoever. Your skill is remarkable, Miss Collbrande."
Tsubaki straightened with pride, her laugh ringing through the workshop. "Smithing's a beautiful thing, isn't it? But compared to Lady Hephaestus, I've still got a long road ahead."
"The goddess Hephaestus..." From Leon's briefings, Jeanne knew of the forge goddess whose craft was legendary even among the heavens. Stripped of her divine power in the mortal world, Hephaestus could still produce works with her Realm of the Gods technique that no mortal smith could hope to match.
Jeanne tested the balance of her primary and secondary weapons next, and found both equally satisfying.
Seeing her pleased, Leon settled the remaining balance without haggling, then picked up a bottle of maintenance oil and a whetstone for upkeep. With that, they bid Tsubaki farewell and headed back to the hideout.
...
Over the following days, while waiting for his staff to be completed, Leon threw himself back into Jeanne's grueling training regimen.
"Why are you tensing up? Relax. Let your body go loose. You can only move freely when you're relaxed, and your transitions will be smoother too."
"I told you not to raise your shoulders. What are you bracing for? Drop your center of gravity. Keep your base stable."
"Distance! Watch your distance! In close combat you have to control spacing. Use the reach of a polearm to suppress shorter weapons. You're training staff technique, not knife fighting!"
The Holy Maiden's relentless instruction dragged Leon back to high school, cowering under the vice principal's shadow.
"Teacher Jeanne," he whined, stretching the word out. "All you need is a pair of glasses and the intimidation factor would be off the charts."
"You... what nonsense are you thinking about! Focus!" Her cheeks flushed pink, and her voice climbed half an octave.
...
A week slipped by in the blink of an eye.
For Leon, those seven days could be summed up in one phrase: pain with a side of progress. His daily routine consisted of getting thrashed by Jeanne, or being on his way to get thrashed by Jeanne.
Even cooking and housework had fallen mostly to her, since accumulated fatigue left him barely functional. He was reduced to a kitchen assistant at best.
If not for his skills turning him into the perfect punching bag, and Jeanne's impeccable control over her strikes, he'd have been back at Airmid's clinic racking up another bill.
Looking back on the week's ordeal, Leon sat at the stone table, pulled up his status panel, and exhaled with satisfaction. "It was hell, but the gains speak for themselves."
...
Name: Leon Hart
Strength: G223 → G273 (S923) +50
Endurance: G266 → F355 (S966) +89
Dexterity: G278 → F348 (S978) +70
Agility: G258 → F329 (S958) +71
Magic: E411 → E491 (S989) +80
...
Through his own sweat and effort, amplified by Scholar's Heart, and driven forward by Jeanne's relentless coaching, his Basic Abilities had improved across the board.
Strength up 50. Endurance up 89. Dexterity up 70. Agility up 71. Magic up 80.
A total of 360 points. He hadn't earned any Excelia along the way, which stung a little, but only a little.
Watching those numbers fill out was deeply satisfying. It scratched an itch he hadn't known he had.
Not so long ago, when he couldn't afford to unlock his potential, no amount of effort would budge his stats by even a single point. Those suffocating days were finally behind him.
The contrast with how things felt now tugged the corners of his mouth upward all on their own.
He raised a fist and admired the definition slowly forming along his arm. "Getting stronger really does feel amazing."
Across the stone table, Jeanne sat with her legs crossed at the ankle, cradling a teacup in both hands and sipping quietly. Poised, elegant. The self-satisfied look on his face drew a flat stare and the faintest roll of her eyes. "Is it really that exciting?" she murmured into her cup. "Narcissist."
"Ugh..." His inflated expression crumbled on the spot. He deflated and slumped face-first onto the table.
He wasn't the only one who'd gotten stronger this week.
Jeanne had trained at the same intensity, and her rate of growth could only be described as terrifying. Every time he updated her Falna, the numbers on her panel hit him like a truck.
Experiencing the gap in talent firsthand... that's what real despair feels like. His feelings on the matter were complicated.
As someone who had only just received her Falna, Jeanne was in the fastest growth phase of any rank. She was already a master combatant with decades of battlefield experience. It was like a veteran re-rolling a new character with a perfectly optimized build. Rapid progress was expected.
But layered on top of that was Beloved's Crest, the shared skill that amplified Excelia gain, which had been steadily strengthening as the bond between them deepened over the past week.
The combination of both effects produced something extraordinary. Even though Leon had braced himself for it, when he updated her Falna that evening, he found himself staring at the numbers in a daze.
Name: Jeanne d'Arc
Strength: I0 → G299
Endurance: I0 → G284
Dexterity: I0 → F343
Agility: I0 → F355
Magic: I0 → F399
...
Six days. Just six days.
In that sliver of time, Jeanne's Basic Abilities had climbed a combined total of 1,680 points.
Anyone unfamiliar with the context couldn't begin to grasp how absurd that number was.
To put it in perspective: ignoring potential modifiers, maxing out every stat at 999 before ranking up required 4,995 total points. Jeanne had cleared over a third of that in less than a week.
The sheer scale of it was staggering.
Once the reality sank in, Leon looked her dead in the eyes. His voice was quiet and deadly serious. "Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone find out how fast your stats are growing. Understood, Jeanne?"
"Even after you rank up, keep it hidden. Don't worry about the Guild's inquiries."
For someone with Jeanne's deeply rooted sense of honor, this smelled an awful lot like deception. She shifted uncomfortably.
"That doesn't feel... right."
Leon's eyes glinted with amusement, his tone laced with the faintest edge of irony. "Jeanne, your moral standards are a bit too high for this city. A flexible sense of ethics is what keeps people alive in Orario. You'll need to adjust."
He leaned forward.
"You think we're the only ones hiding or misreporting our levels?"
"Then you're underestimating the gods who've been playing this game for longer than anyone can remember. The handful of major familias at the top? Sure, they play by the rules on the surface. They carry the weight of their reputation, they've got their honor to protect, and all those eyes watching keep them honest. Everyone else? They've all got cards tucked up their sleeves."
"It's an open secret. Standard practice. The only ones who take publicly reported stats at face value are the ones too naive to know better."
"Hermes Familia in particular. They've turned it into an art form. We could learn a thing or two from them."
"Hermes Familia?" Another unfamiliar name. And coming from Leon, who rarely praised anyone, the word "art form" was enough to pique her curiosity. She fixed him with an intent look.
He grinned.
"Hermes Familia... now there's a rabbit hole. Their specialty is intelligence gathering, not just within the Labyrinth City, but across the entire continent. That's why they enjoy the same privilege as Ganesha Familia and Demeter Familia: free passage in and out of Orario without Guild authorization."
He raised an eyebrow at her.
"Officially, Hermes Familia is registered as a commercial operation, not an exploration type. But don't let that fool you. Most familias hide one or two members' real levels, and even then they usually only shave off a single rank."
"Hermes Familia? They take it to a whole other level. Every single member, from the captain down to the newest recruit, reports false stats. And they don't just hide one rank. The average gap is one to two full levels."
"What? That's..." The revelation hit Jeanne like a wall. Her eyes went wide. Weren't adventurers supposed to publicly register their level after ranking up? How was this even possible?
Leon leaned closer, his voice dropping to something conspiratorial. "Surprised? Welcome to Orario, Jeanne. The waters run deep."
She took several slow breaths, trying to process the weight of what she'd just heard.
"So that's why you're always so careful about everything..."
It clicked into place now. A trump card was only a trump card because nobody knew it existed. Just like Hermes Familia. Anyone foolish enough to pick a fight with them without solid intelligence would learn a very painful, very thorough lesson. Guaranteed.
After Leon's little "education session," Jeanne puffed out her cheeks in mock displeasure.
"Fine. Then let me ask you something."
"If my situation counts as unusual, what about you? You're the real mystery here."
"Wielding divine authority in a mortal body..."
"Summoning me from another world entirely..."
"All of that..."
Leon chuckled softly and rose, leaning across the table toward her. Under the weight of his gaze, her cheeks flushed pink. He reached out and pressed a single finger gently to her lips.
"Shh."
A teasing smile played at the corner of his mouth.
"A little mystery makes a man more attractive."
The warmth of his fingertip lingered against her lips. Jeanne went rigid, and color flooded her face in an instant.
"You... you're impossible!"