Time Skip - Dungeon

At his words, Hephaestus sighed. Indeed, Haru had mentioned he had entered the Dungeon, so updating his status was only natural.

By making him lie on the bed without a shirt and with his back uncovered, Hephaestus did not hesitate to sit on top of him for the second time, and although the environment was rather serious, Haru still struggled to get used to this feeling.

'If I were a pervert, wouldn't I be enjoying this?'

As strange questions assailed Haru's mind, Hephaestus spilled a drop of blood on Haru's back, revealing his falna that after a second opened up to her, showing her the differences compared to before. Seeing the number of numbers changing though, Hephaestus was visibly surprised. However, Haru could not see it as he had chosen not to peek and end up in a strange situation for the second time.

After the numbers finally stopped, Hephaestus lost no time and immediately used the sheet to check the differences from before, and once she got it, indicating everything that had changed since before, she looked at him indicating the status she possessed in her hands

"Now... I want you to explain. This speed, you have already brought your skill [Swordsman] from I to H, and your parameters have jumped from being mostly H to G? What kind of dangers you had faced to achieve such an outcome.."

Being able to see her wearing a worried expression, Haru looked towards the floor. He certainly could not say with an open heart that what he had done was not dangerous. An adventurer soloing the Dungeon would have to keep their strength considering the securing of a returning route, but in his case, all he had to do was concentrate on getting as far as possible, the return would not have been a problem thanks to the instant update of his status.

"I stayed within the limits that my advisor set. I managed to reach the middle of the 4th floor, but feeling my strength completely drained, I stopped there for the day, since it was better to return from this than to risking death for nothing."

Not being allowed to reach the 5th floor, Haru had thought going further would be counterproductive, which is why he chose to come back since there was nothing more to do. At his words, however, Hephaestus sighed.

"If you can handle it this well on your own, a party might only complicate things..."

That's what Hephaestus thought. If Haru had managed to face all the monsters of the first four floors, returning without blinking an eye, then the presence of a party would not only slow him down, but also greatly diminish the Valis that he could earn, Hephaestus could almost see the road of a solitaire form in front of Haru, and she didn't know if it could be good, but growth-wise, certainly going alone greatly increased the risk, however, his parameters would increase much faster than the average adventurer.

Nodding to her words, Haru would have wanted to answer. The only problem was that Hephaestus seemed to have forgotten that while she was talking, she was still on top of him.

Pointing it out to her, Haru could hear and feel Hephaestus jolt for a moment as, without hesitation, she rose from his back.

"I-I apologize... noticing the changes in your status made me forget to stand up.."

Saying these words while looking elsewhere, her cheeks had once again taken on a red complexion, but Haru shook his head. If he had to be sincere, Hephaestus' weight on his lower back was relaxing, but he could feel like taking advantage of her if he didn't make her aware of this...Later, Hephaestus showed Haru his status. Noticing that his [Swordsman] here also seemed to have passed from I to H, but the skill did not have the SSS rank, Haru sighed. From today, his goal would be to become stronger and similarly assume as much knowledge as possible about the [Blacksmith] development ability so that he could obtain it. 5 months was a long time for an ability, but he had chosen to devote himself to this task, in addition to becoming stronger and improving his ability [Swordsman].

Only from a single rank up, he had managed to obtain enough to reverse the outcome of the fights, and he was already beginning to understand the existence of balance. Without it, his second technique would not be possibly executed, since it seemed rather focused on counterattacking, not on the attack itself.

After discussing for a while the next actions that both will take, Haru declared he would be able to obtain the ability [Blacksmith] even in a single month from that moment. It was meant to be a joke, yet Hephaestus teased him back, saying that if he had managed to obtain the development ability in less than a month she would be amazed, so Haru silently changed his time limit from five months to one month.

He wouldn't have the confidence to shrink the time limit to such an extent, but he was convinced that with the secondary effect of the skill, unlocking and improving abilities would be much easier.

But deciding to leave this for another day, it was time for Haru to return home. Saluting Hephaestus courteously, he did not hesitate to leave the room while the latter now alone, could tidy up some thoughts she had in her head...

---

From that day on, time passed quickly. Day after day, Haru alternated his days between Dungeon and others when he practised learning the development ability [Blacksmith] while leaving the rest of his time to training.

Regarding the Dungeon, he was no longer gaining many parameters on the first 4 floors as they had become too easy for him. However, Misha had granted him access up to the 7th floor after confirming, much to her surprise, that Haru seemed to have 3 parameters of rank G.

Deciding the next day that he should go to the Dungeon to explore the other three floors, Haru believed that the difference in difficulty could now be felt. Unlike the close-ups, those from 5 to 7th floors have a greater variety of monsters, in addition to the presence of traps and with the speed of the monsters' birth higher than before. Long story short, Haru could again run into some kind of challenge, after not having faced any for 2 days straight.

Crossing the floors without giving too much account to the swarm of goblins and kobolds, Haru headed to the 5th floor. Once there, he noticed that the colour of the walls changed from the previous light blue to light green and the structure of the Dungeon itself that was previously very open, now seemed more closed, allowing less movement.

But this floor was not particularly difficult for Haru. Having trained heavily on his [Swordsman] the day before in fact, he had managed to understand how important the balance was to succeed in the counterattack. The sword behind his back also allowed for a facilitated attack that maintained its strength fully.

Confirmed this, Haru could understand this would be the strategy he would use for a long time. Even though it was slightly harder to use on new enemies as he did not know their nature and their movements yet, it did not mean he would not be able to counterattack in the same way, which is why all the Frog Shooter standing in front of him, had no escape from this power.

But past the fifth floor, it was in the sixth that a challenge could finally be found for Haru. Ignoring the frogs who were not particularly strong, except for their only attack that was to use their long tongue almost like a bullet, shooting it at the opponent, Haru was in a very similar situation to when the Dungeon Lizard attacked him.

There was complete silence in the room he was in, but Haru's attention was able to capture a sound from the distance, which led him to follow its trail all the way to a wall. He did not understand for a few seconds, but quickly flipping through the guide in his mind, he remembered one important detail. On the 6th floor, one could find particularly powerful monsters, called "War Shadow" because of their appearance and the way they are born.

And in fact, his suspicions were accurate. He could see and hear how a monster was forming a crack into the wall from the inside, and immediately afterward a three-fingered hand so black that looked nothing more than a shadow broke the wall, which made him realize he was not wrong in his judgment.

Preparing his sword for the moment it would come out of the wall, Haru heard on his left and right, the same sounds as those coming out of the wall a short distance from him. There was not a single War Shadow, but 3. However, while Haru pondered how much this could test his new strength, at the same time he remembered the main features to which he had to pay attention. Such as their rather sharp 'fingers', or their speed, much higher than that of a goblin or kobold.

Seeing the first of them being having finished crushing the Dungeon wall which still held him tied to it, Haru had an opportunity to observe the monster. Shape-wise, it looked almost human. Yet It had no skin pattern, only the pitch black that made it look a lot like a shadow. Its head was similar to a pointed plus sign, with a big, silver, round part in the middle. But one detail that he did not remember present in the catalog, was the presence of two eyes of a silver colour that, meeting his, had the usual look of pure madness contained within.

Knowing that the monsters were three and were particularly strong, Haru decided to try using his attrition war technique to understand how they responded to the attacks and how easily they could dodge them. Once he gathered enough information, Then he would switch to the counterattack technique.

This could be considered a great advantage for Haru. Since he could analyze any monster that stood in front of him, and once this was complete, the monster could no longer escape his attacks, the only problem was whether the monsters were essentially faster than him, as this would involve several risks, but after the first attacks that he tried against these monsters, this did not seem to be the case.

'Let's see how well you can fight back since you also seem pretty smart not to get too close..'

With these thoughts, Haru switched to the counterattack technique promptly.

---

(Ok so, I skipped the Frog Shooters because tbh they are nothing worth describing for a fight. I want to pass this part fast because after this we'll have a lot to talk about...! Oh join my discord.gg/y8VBZAp)

(Oh btw for the chapter's name, there will be two others. Time Skip - Blacksmith / Time Skip - Training)