Can't Fall behind

After getting the new masks, the duo cleared two D Class dungeons then camped for the day.

Noah waited until Alice slept to get up and go clear dungeons. Along the way, he thought about his current strength.

'I'm not improving as fast anymore. Most of my skills are max level and my attributes haven't changed since I got the Levitation Staff.'

His Sword Mastery had stopped levelling up after it quickly reached level 14 of D Class. He had consulted the system and found that he had reached the limit of the skill with the amount of training he had in it. Now he had reached a bottleneck.

He had only learned two more skills since he had left PurpleCloud Town and had already gotten them to level 5.

[Lv.5 Bulk Up]

E Class

A buffing skill that increased strength by 20 and physique by 20

Cast time: 1 minute

cooldown: 10 minutes

[Lv.5 Blind]

E Class

Lower the targets ability to sense by casting a -25 Sense for 20 seconds debuff onto them.

Cast time: 5 seconds

Cooldown: 2 minutes

He noticed that compared to earth he was actually able to learn things a lot faster here because of his talents, this had removed the difficulty in growing training. Skills would level up rapidly and things that might take him days to calculate on earth were done in minutes here. He could learn all the skills he had in his inventory and turn into this complete jack of all trades. Soon with his talents, he would be able to master everything if he wanted to.

However, he decided against that. He found out from the system that the number of skills a person could learn was limited. Although the number was high, in the end, it was limited. He didn't know how many skills he would learn in the future so he decided to be choosy.

Now he was focusing on two other skills, Secret of the Four Seasons: Winter Style and Death's Dance. Both skills were different, they both were '++' class.

He had asked the system about it and found that a '+" represented a 'Variant' of the skill while a '++' represented a 'Unique' skill.

Variants were skills that had somehow changed from the original skill. His skill Flash Step was a variant as it transported him through space instead of using extreme speed. His talents Blessed Mind and Genius Martial Combat Body were both variants, however, he didn't know how they were different as he didn't know what the non-variant versions did.

Unique skills were skills that had turned completely unique to the person who had them. The only person in the entire Eternal Battlefield could have it like his talent Guardian of Love was unique to him, as it was connected to Alice. Where only he was Alice's guardian.

His skills Secret of the Four Seasons: Winter Style and Death's Dance were both like that. Winter Style was an inheritance skill that only the one successor could learn, which meant only he had the skill. Death's Dance was a skill that he created, it seemed like he had gotten lucky here.

He looked at both skills.

[Lv.1 Secret of the Four Seasons: Winter Style] (Secret Skill)

D++ Class

The fourth part of the Four Seasons Ancient Inheritance. Created 10,000 years ago it was the last section of the four-part inheritance to be completed. Only one person may inherit the skill and is marked with a 'snowflake' to show they are the successor of the Winter Style.

The skill combines the use of natural energy and physical training to gain transcendent abilities. The Winter Style, based on winter, signifies coldness and death. Out of the four parts, Winter Style was made for killing your opponent swiftly and painlessly as possible.

Currently has been trained to 'Intermediate Proficiency'.

Active Skill: [Cold Mind]

Enter a state of Emotionless and focus. The mind loses all extra thoughts and increases the body's combat strength to a maximum. Movements have a faster reaction time. The perception of time is slowed by 4 times.

[Lv.2 Death's Dance]

D++ Class

You pass by your enemies like a shadow taking their heads with you. Your movements are elegant and swift seemingly like a dance. Each attack you make injures heavily and leads to death. This skill is specially customised to the owner bringing out of his potential.

It has two parts to it, one that buffs the owner, the other that allows the owner to see weaknesses. The skill when activated continuously drains mana from the body until it is deactivated.

Effect 1: [Murderous Blade Dance]

A self-buff skill made for fast killing. You fill with murderous intent boosting your attributes immensely.

Strength +30, Agility +50, Sense +30

Effect 2: [Critical Hit Eyes]

A special skill that allows you to see the weakness of the world. You see all in black and white except spots of weakness. These spots are highlighted in red. The deeper the red the more fatal the weakness.

Skill Cooldown: 19 minutes

Both skills were strong and had much potential for growth. For Winter Style, he had already tripled the amount of training he did on earth and was now training an hour in the morning in the Eternal Battlefield as he waited for Alice to wake up.

However, the skill hadn't changed much. His attributes allowed him to use Cold Mind as he pleased now but the skill hadn't levelled up. He would need to increase proficiency to level it up which would take time. It took him 8 years to reach intermediate proficiency, on earth it would have taken longer, but in the Eternal Battlefield, he estimated he could do it with two years.

Death's Dance was slow at levelling up. After reaching level 2 it gave a higher self-buff for Murderous Blade Dance. He was using it in all of his battles yet it had only reached level 2. He was trying to get a better understanding of it as a skill, only finding out that it was extremely complicated for him to understand it. The concept of being able to see into the weak point of all living things was too hard to grasp and made it into a D++ skill.

While Alice was making great progress Noah was slowing down. He noticed that he was starting to reach a limit. His attributes had stagnated for a while as he hadn't changed equipment as no good equipment was dropping. As a support type, he was now being pushed back in strong D Class dungeons.

Even after using Mana Screen, Defence Up, Strength Boost and Bulk Up to defend Alice, the attacks of the Dungeon Lord had still injured her. The attacks were so strong that these low Class skills weren't able to hold up. Mana Screen would break like paper under the attacks of the Dungeon Lord so he needed to supply a large amount of mana to strengthen it. The amount of mana needed didn't increase proportionally, making its use inefficient in D Class dungeons.

He now started debuffing the Dungeon Lord. It was a lot more effective protecting Alice. Blind did really well with Alice's assassin like fighting style. Gravitational Staff's Gravitational Zone was amazing at restricting Dungeon Lords. Roots of Binding would cost too much mana to bind Dungeon Lords but worked well on normal monsters.

One of the skills he had been actively searching for was a healing skill. No monster until now had used one. They only had self-healing skills, which they didn't drop either. He needed one to heal Alice while she was in combat. As his protective support had gotten weaker Alice would get cuts and wounds in battles, so he needed a way for her to heal during combat as well.

"If this keeps up I'll probably fall behind. I need to speed up. The best way is doing stronger dungeons."

He didn't want to fall behind. In a way, he felt like he was holding himself back. He thought he was trying his hardest, but he was instinctively staying on a close level of strength to Alice. Since they were partners he didn't want a large gap between strength to form.

Noah resolved himself to take more risks, He decided to go into C Class dungeons. After getting the Gravitational Staff and Blind he had a high chance of killing the Dungeon Lord.

C Class Dungeons were rare compared to D Class. The closes one he knew of was the dungeon that dropped the D Class gun design he had been told about.

On his Levitation Staff, he flew faster towards the dungeon.