DanMachi World, Hestia Familia.
As soon as his consciousness returned from the Mist Plaza, Lynn felt a soft sensation from his left arm.
Looking to the left, he saw the still-sleeping girl tightly hugging his arm.
Perhaps she was dreaming about something, as she would let out a silly giggle from time to time.
"Lili, time to get up and work."
Pulling his arm out with practiced ease, Lynn called out to the Palum Girl while putting on his clothes.
Ever since their first experience a couple of days ago, the recovered Lili had developed a taste for it, sneaking into Lynn's room every night to battle until the early hours of the morning.
Once or twice was fine, but if she skipped work every day because of this, Lynn, who advocated for equality between men and women, would not show any mercy.
Seeing Lili mumble a response in a daze and then fall back into a dream, the already dressed Lynn leaned over.
"Hestia is back!"
"Goddess Hestia?!"
The originally sleeping Lili snapped her eyes open, lunged up, and grabbed her clothes from the floor to put them on.
"Master Lynn! Please help Lili stall for time, Lili will be ready in a second!"
"I refuse."
"Eh?"
"Don't be in such a hurry. Hestia is still at the Hephaestus Familia."
"...?"
A question mark slowly rose above Lili's head.
Looking at the black-haired youth with a mischievous grin in front of her, she finally realized what had happened.
"Really, Master Lynn. You shouldn't scare Lili like that."
"I'm just helping you prepare mentally."
"Hestia will be back in a day or two anyway. You didn't think we could keep our business a secret forever, did you?"
"This... let's keep it a secret for as long as we can."
Lili naturally knew that such a thing couldn't be hidden from Hestia, but she wasn't mentally prepared to face her yet.
"Master Lynn, if Goddess Hestia returns, please..."
"Lynn! I'm back!"
Before Lili could finish her sentence, Hestia's voice came from downstairs, accompanied by the sound of a door closing.
"Eek?!"
Seemingly not expecting such a coincidence, Lili froze for a moment and then instantly panicked.
Hurriedly putting on the rest of her clothes, she pushed open the room door and ran outside.
"Master Lynn, I'll leave Goddess Hestia to you! Lili is going back to her room to hide!"
Actually, there was no need to hide.
Watching Lili run off in the blink of an eye, Lynn shook his head slightly and walked toward the nearby stairs.
Just as he reached the first-floor hall, Lynn saw Hestia carrying a large box on her back and holding several bags in her hands, walking toward him.
"Lynn, I missed you so much! Did you miss me these past few days?"
"I did, but not much."
"Eh! How can you say that!"
Hestia puffed out her cheeks.
"I've had a lot to do these past two days; I didn't have the spare energy to think about you."
Lynn spoke the truth.
Working in the morning, working at night, and occasionally squeezing in time to attend meetings at the Mist Plaza.
With such a schedule, he really didn't have much time to think about Hestia.
"Speaking of which, my weapon should be finished by now, right?"
"Mhm! It's done!"
Hestia, who originally wanted to keep questioning him, had her attention diverted by Lynn's words.
Setting down the box she was carrying on her back, Hestia took out a tachi from it and handed it to Lynn.
The tachi was encased in a pitch-black scabbard, the surface of which was engraved with a large amount of Sacred Script.
The moment Lynn grabbed the scabbard, the Sacred Script emitted a faint glow, resonating with the God's blessing printed on Lynn's back.
Gripping the hilt and drawing the tachi, the same style of Sacred Script could be found on the blade itself.
"Looks pretty good."
After examining it carefully for a moment, Lynn sheathed the tachi back into its scabbard.
"What is this weapon called?"
"Raikiri. Hephaestus said it's a blade that can even cut through lightning."
"That's a good name."
Lynn hung Raikiri at his waist.
With a new weapon in hand, it was only natural to go to the Dungeon to test how it felt.
However, before heading to the Dungeon, he had one more thing to do.
"Hestia, help me update my blessing."
"Sure."
Hestia nodded.
Following Lynn back to the room, she took out a needle and pricked her finger.
As divine blood radiating with fluctuations of divine power fell, the blessing on Lynn's back rippled.
"Eh? This is... Lynn, did you find yourself in your sleep again?"
"Huh? You can even tell that?"
"I think anyone who isn't blind could tell."
Looking at the exaggerated status panel in front of her, Hestia squinted and complained.
"Forget it, I'm used to it anyway."
Transcribing the updated ability values, Hestia handed the sheet to Lynn.
"See for yourself."
[YukimuraLynn—LV.1]
[Strength: SS1036→SSS1167]
[Endurance: SS1017→SSS1196]
[Dexterity: SS1079→SSS1131]
[Agility: SS1051→SSS1143]
[Magic: G206→SSS1106]
[Magic: Current Propulsion, State of Selflessness]
[Skills: Unity, Hymn of Courage, Mind's Eye]
[State of Selflessness: Enhancement Magic; provides a correction to all abilities after activation. ]
[Mind's Eye: Greatly enhances the sixth sense, providing early warnings when danger approaches. ]
"Huh?"
Looking at the newly appeared Magic and the significantly increased Magic stat, even Lynn himself let out a sound of surprise this time.
Because he shared the memories of Prince of Tennis Lynn, he had anticipated from the start that his four basic attributes would increase and that Mind's Eye would appear in the skill column.
But for the State of Selflessness to turn into Magic and appear in the Magic column was beyond his expectations.
Everyone usually just jokes about it, but are you really playing Tennis with superpowers?
"Oh, right, Lynn."
Just as Lynn was secretly complaining about the state of the Prince of Tennis world, Hestia's voice rang out again.
"Your deeds are already sufficient; you're just about ready to level up."
"Then let's level up," Lynn replied.
After grinding all his attributes to SSS-rank, his growth rate had already begun to decline.
Rather than wasting time continuing to grind attribute values, it was better to break through the bottleneck and reach LV.2.
As for the fact that he had accumulated enough deeds, Lynn wasn't particularly surprised.
Setting aside his performance of slaughtering a large number of LV.2 monsters in the Dungeon after receiving his blessing.
Just the fact that Prince of Tennis Lynn had trained to achieve Minds Eye with a mortal body was enough to fulfill the deeds required to break through from LV.1 to LV.2.
"Hestia, what development abilities are available to choose from?"
"Hearth, Swordsman, Hunter, Magic, Abnormal Resistance... Huh? There's also Tennis?"
Hestia, who was checking the blessing, rubbed her eyes, a look of confusion appearing on her face.
What the hell is Tennis?
Among the six development abilities available, she had heard of the other five more or less.
But this Tennis was something Hestia was hearing about for the first time despite being in Orario for so long.
"Let's go with Swordsman."
Lynn's voice rang out.
Although he hadn't expected such a bizarre development ability as Tennis to appear, he knew which one suited him better.
First was Hearth; this non-combat development ability was kicked out of the options along with Tennis.
Of the remaining four abilities, Hunter was of the least help to Lynn.
The ones that could effectively improve his strength were only Swordsman, Magic, and Abnormal Resistance.
Considering Demon Slayer Lynn's plan, Lynn also kicked Abnormal Resistance out of the options.
Once he got the demon king potion, the things Lynn would lack the least would be recovery ability and Abnormal Resistance.
As for the remaining Swordsman and Magic, after reconsidering several times, Lynn still chose Swordsman.
In terms of practical combat effects, these two tags basically provided the same boost to him.
But considering that a Slice-of-Life Lynn who couldn't use Magic might appear in the future, choosing Swordsman was more appropriate; he could just take Magic during the next level up.
"All done!"
After Lynn made his decision, Hestia quickly began the level-up ritual.
Past accumulations turned into a hammer, shattering the bottleneck known as the limit.
With the help of the level-up ritual, Lynn's capacity expanded, and he broke through to LV.2.
"So, it's over just like that."
Getting the signal from Hestia, Lynn stood up and clenched his fists a couple of times.
Perhaps because the essence of the blessing system is a leap in the level of life.
He didn't experience any obvious sensation of 'power surging from within' after leveling up.
But not having an obvious feeling didn't matter, as long as it was certain his level had broken through from LV.1 to LV.2.
Next, by sharing this power with Demon Slayer Lynn, he could wait for the other's good news.
...