As Ryan said so, he looked at the metallic system window floating in front of him.

  [Gregor has leveled up!]

  “And congratulations on leveling up, Gregor!”

  Ryan pulled out his phone as well as Gregor’s status window, quickly jotting down the updated stat information.

  “Alright, 0.36 total growth, that’s great!” he pointed out, pushing his phone back into his pocket, where it was protected by a layer of metal. Silvia had specifically made sure to prepare it like this so that he could carry his phone around. It had come in useful in Ryan’s first dungeon, so he liked having it close.

  Once the sub-golems collected the coins dropped by the giant rabbits, it was time to move on to the next group. If things were like this, then Gregor should be able to level up fast, and with that, Ryan’s next level-up was going to be close as well.

  The next group of monsters was some giant goats again. The rabbits and goats were the most common monsters there, so this definitely wasn’t a surprise. After Gregor properly deployed the cannons, this time setting up all three at once, he really started showing off his real talent.

  He set up one cannon and pre-aimed it, then set up the next and the next. Once Ryan gave the signal to start the attack, the first cannon was soon fired, and while it cooled down for a moment and all the parts moved back into place, Gregor ran over to cannon number two. Repeating the process until all three cannons were fired, Gregor then returned to the first one, loaded it back up, and shot another bullet. For the rest of the battle, he kept on doing this exact cycle, loading, shooting, and then moving on to the next.

  With the help of the backline support, the fight against the giant goats was over pretty quickly. Their monsters, riddled with bullet holes, were slowed down considerably, and due to the fact they were not only startled but also focusing more on Gregor than Maximus, the knight was able to take advantage of the confusion and take the monsters down.

  That way, throughout a few more encounters, Gregor leveled up to level 3. And before long, finally, something else happened too.

  At the same time as Gregor, Ryan leveled up once again. He had finally reached level 10. When the body of the group’s last monster hit the ground, Ryan’s level rolled over.

  [You have leveled up!]

  [You have learned the skill -Spirit Seal Recovery-]

  “Yes!” Ryan practically yelled, though he immediately pressed his hand in front of his mouth. Though he probably didn’t have to be all that quiet. The cannons that Gregor built were surprisingly quiet, but they were still fairly loud, all things considered.

  “Runar!” he said, turning in his uncle’s direction. Or, rather, the direction where he should have been lingering, just out of view. Ryan, with a grin, pushed up his thumb, and just a moment later, Runar rushed through the thicket. Waving his pen, he drew a rune in the air and created a barrier around Ryan and the spirits.

  “Level 10?” Runar asked, just making sure, and Ryan immediately nodded.

  “Yup! Finally, I can get those fuckers off my back … I’ll head straight to the Awakened Center to have my level updated.” With a relieved sigh, Ryan pulled up his status window, checking out how much his stats had grown. And they grew by a whopping 0.40 total! All of his stats were above 1 now, even his spirituality, which has always been sort of lagging behind.

  “Sure, do that. What’s the skill you got?” Runar asked curiously, seemingly also relieved that the Bluesky guys would stop bothering them for a while.

  Ryan looked at the skill’s name. He hadn’t even registered it properly until now. “It, uh, it wasn’t on the list you gave me. It’s called ‘Spirit Seal Recovery.’”

  Runar frowned. “Excuse me? What do you mean, ‘Seal Recovery’?”

  “I don’t know; don’t ask me. You know more about all of this than I do,” Ryan retorted. “Hold on; I’ll pull it up for a second.”

  [Spirit Seal Recovery]

  [Level - 1] [Proficiency - 0%]

  [Allows for the temporary relief on the seals placed on the spirits]

  [Effect - 2/10 Scale]

  [Cost - 1 MP per 1 Minute per Spirit]

  Ryan read the skill out loud, though he was a bit confused. “Wait, wasn’t this effect the same one as in the ‘Spirit Enlargement’ skill on the list you gave me?”

  Runar silently averted his gaze, trying to think about what all of this meant. He was muttering to himself, and his eyes darted around.

  “I …” he finally let out, “I don’t know what’s going on … Can you try the skill out?”

  “Of course. The mana cost is super low, and it doesn’t even have a cooldown like the Spirit Enlargement skill was supposed to have, so,” Ryan said, looking at Maximus, “want to give it a try first?”

  Immediately, the knight nodded. He held his sword tightly, and Ryan took a deep breath and activated the new skill. Maximus started giving off a soft red glow, as though he was about to fall apart into the red wisps that appeared whenever he moved into and out of his domain. But instead of flowing toward Ryan, they simply moved slightly outward as Maximus doubled in size.

  As Ryan had thought, this was the same Spirit Enlargement skill, just with a different name and description. Instead of being one-tenth scale, Maximus was now two-tenths scale, now around forty-five centimeters tall. If the skill progressed like the original Spirit Enlargement skill, then every ten levels, the scale would increase by 1. There should even be a ten percent boost in stats for every increase, which was amazing on top of the increased weight and reach that obviously came with the increased size. That effect wasn’t mentioned in the description of the original skill either, being just something like a side effect. That being the case, Ryan opened Maximus’s status to check, but what he saw was … confusing.

  [Maximus]

  [Knight | Level - 10]

  [AP - 128 (Temp)]

  [Stats]

  -[Aura - 2.76 (Temp)]

  -[Strength - 2.98 (Temp)]

  -[Stamina - 2.70 (Temp)]

  -[Resistance - 2.98 (Temp)]

  -[Physicality - 2.74 (Temp)]

  “Double …” Ryan muttered quietly, and the confused Runar, who was still stuck in stunned contemplation, snapped his head toward Ryan.

  “What? Yeah, he doubled in size. Is there anything else weird?”

  “His stats … they’re supposed to just be ten percent higher, but they’re double. Double. Runar, they’re fucking doub—”

  “I get it; calm down.” Runar tapped his foot on the ground, starting to anxiously bite a fingernail. “Alright, we’ll figure this out. This is weird, but there has to be a reason why the skill is so different.”

  Ryan stared at his uncle. His gut was telling him something.

  “Runar. You know what’s going on. Or, at least, you have a better idea than I do. I’ve conceded on trying to learn more about your abilities and level and whatnot, but I’m not going to let you hide things about my class. So, tell me what’s going on.”

  “… Fine.” Runar sighed loudly. “This is just speculation. I’m not really the most knowledgeable about the intricacies of the Spirit Keeper class, either. Learning about it always felt … weird to me. I’ve been looking into it a bit more since you awakened, but—”

  “Just say it, man. What do you think is going on? Like, how the hell am I giving Maximus that kind of boost with just one MP per minute?”

  “… Because you’re not boosting him. As the skill says, you’re temporarily releasing a seal. Seals are complicated, there’s a lot of different types, but generally, if you know how they work, you can release them. And it looks like what the skill is doing is placing one MP’s worth of mana in a very precise spot of a seal, interrupting the flow and allowing the spirit’s real power to shine through while that is the case,” Runar explained, but Ryan was still confused.

  “What do you mean? The spirits are sealed?”

  “That’s one of the theories, at least, which I think was just confirmed by your own class. Initially, we just thought that the spirits simply never had the ability to form their own bodies in the first place. But instead, it seems as though that ability, together with a lot of their strengths and powers, was sealed away. And the Spirit Keeper is the one that allows them to overcome that seal.”

  Ryan looked over at the spirits. Gaia, Maximus, and Gregor were looking up at him, but none of them seemed to know anything about this either. Rather, they seemed shocked to hear this as well.

  “Who, or what, or whatever … just how did they get sealed?”

  “How would I know? Clearly, we didn’t even know that the spirits were sealed to begin with. I think that maybe whatever sealed the spirits away also did something to the Spirit Keeper class, and then when …” Runar started, though he stopped mid-sentence. Ryan was starting to realize something too.

  “Do you think that … my dad knew about this? That he tried to release whatever influence was on the Spirit Keeper class, and then … things went wrong? Or maybe they went right, and he gave up the class and his connection to the system to—”

  “Please,” Runar interrupted his nephew. “Just … let’s not think about that right now. I’ll try to look into some things. But I will keep you updated, alright?”

  “Alright. Thanks, man,” Ryan responded, turning around toward the spirits. “But in that case … let’s see if this …”

  Right now, with just one of them being affected by the skill, Ryan’s passive mana recovery was higher than the mana used by the skill. However, with two of them, it would be much higher. But since the skill didn’t need to be active constantly, it should be easy enough to deal with. Ryan activated the skill on Gregor and watched as the automaton doubled in size. But while Gregor grew, the machines that he had built stayed the same size.

  “Gregor, do you think you can scale up your blueprints if you build them like this?” Ryan asked, and Gregor immediately nodded in response. In that case, maybe they could prepare larger cannons in advance, and while they would be harder to move, they would also have a lot more firepower.

  But for now, there was one particular benefit to Gregor’s size increase. Not only was he able to move around faster, but with his doubled stats, the speed at which he could manipulate the cannons was faster as well.

  Ryan looked over at Gaia. “Sorry; we’ll test it out with you later, alright? Having you grow to two meters tall all of a sudden might make things a bit more difficult,” he pointed out, but the Golem seemed to understand and didn’t mind it at all. Rather, she just seemed excited that her friends were a bit closer to her size right now.

  Runar stepped away again, clearly still taken aback by this whole situation. Meanwhile, Ryan got moving, trying to find a particular monster. By now, he had learned enough about its habits that he could figure out roughly where it tended to be in there. As long as that didn’t change along with the dungeon’s overall structure, finding the area boss wasn’t going to be hard.

  And it seemed as though Ryan was right; before long, he was able to find the boss monster of the petting zoo: the Moss Sheep. While it had been too strong for them to take on before, with more than double the strength they had back then, there wasn’t any doubt in Ryan’s mind that they could take it now.

  Ryan had Gaia stay farther away and set down the cannons for Gregor. While the artillerist prepared for the start of the battle, Maximus got ready to attack as well. Usually, he and Ryan would have discussed what weapon he was going to use, but this time around, there was only one choice.

  As Maximus grew, his elemental greatsword also grew. It looked like only things that were made of magic like the spirits, which included the sword, grew in size alongside them. All the other weapons were now simply too small for the knight to actually use.

  Once Gregor was prepared, Ryan looked at the Moss Sheep and waited for the right moment. Right now, it was tearing into the flesh of one of the fellow monsters. Somehow, it was always carrying around a different one of the petting-zoo monsters whenever Ryan spotted it there. Obviously, they should disappear when they died, but in this case, the area boss seemed to be able to hunt and kill them without letting that happen.

  “Three, two, one …” Ryan slowly counted down, whispering to Gregor. He was waiting for the right moment to shoot, and having some grasp of the cannons’ accuracy by now, he knew what the best moment to shoot really was.

  Ryan stared at the Moss Sheep as the monster turned its head and body slightly.

  “Now!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chant

  Almost simultaneously, Gregor released two bullets from his cannons, quickly rushing over to the third to shoot a follow-up.

  They shot toward the Moss Sheep in a straight line. One of them hit the side of the Moss Sheep’s head but didn’t seem capable of breaking through its skull, while the second bullet got lost somewhere in the Moss Sheep’s fur. If it had managed to pierce, then it must have at least damaged the sheep’s neck to some degree.

  The third bullet, being fired just a moment later, was lost in its fur completely at an angle where it wouldn’t hit anything. In that short moment between the first two and the third bullet, the Moss Sheep had turned its entire body toward Ryan and Gregor. Just in case, Ryan immediately held his shield in front of him to protect himself and the automaton. The shield was infused with some mana and could now provide some level of stronger protection.

  “Maximus!” Ryan exclaimed, glancing to the left. And just as he thought, the Moss Sheep was much smarter than some of the other petting-zoo animals so far. It was able to understand Ryan to some degree. That was something that he guessed after carefully observing the area boss whenever it came close; it didn’t really act like an animal in a lot of ways but moved with a sort of intention and used its environment in ways that he knew for a fact a Moss Sheep wouldn’t usually be able to do.

  The Moss Sheep glanced to the side where Ryan had looked, but of course, Maximus was coming from the whole other direction. While this area boss seemed smarter than other animals, it definitely wasn’t smart enough to see through these tricks.

  Coming in from the Moss Sheep’s blind spot, Maximus swung the elemental greatsword straight at the Moss Sheep’s head. The blade, cloaked in flames, dug into the boss’s eye, blinding it. The sheep bellowed out in pain as it swung its body at Maximus to throw him back.

  The area boss’s skull now had a large, deep crack in it created by Maximus’s attack, and it was blind in one of its eyes. Just then, another bullet was shot at the boss, through its mouth into its throat, and it let out its pain.

  Its mouth was filled with chunks of gore sticking to its weirdly sharp teeth, though some of those teeth were completely shattered by the bullets. Its throat was now filling with its own blood, distracting it just long enough for one more bullet to hit the sheep’s face, striking straight into its eye. Clearly, Gregor’s stats influenced the accuracy of the cannons considerably.

  Ryan watched as Maximus now cut the front legs of the absolutely massive Moss Sheep, making it fall forward, unable to defend against these attacks. With his regular, swift motions, Maximus was able to position himself underneath the monster’s head as it descended, letting the Moss Sheep’s own weight help him pierce its incredibly thick skull. The water-elemental infusion of the blade made sure that the attack would spread throughout the inside of the boss’s skull even if just a small gap was opened. And just like that, the area boss’s brain was turned into mush, and it went completely limp.

  As Maximus carried the weight of the Moss Sheep, the area boss’s body started disappearing and some messages appeared in front of Ryan’s eyes.

  [You have killed the Level 15 -Giant Beast Boss-]

  [Maximus has leveled up!]

  [The -Knight’s Nemesis- Skill has leveled up]

  [The -Knight’s Attack- Skill has leveled up]

  [Gregor has leveled up!]

  [Gregor has leveled up!]

  [The -Spirit Seal Recovery- Skill has leveled up]

  Ryan saw the system windows and broadly grinned. “Well, this was pretty effective, huh?”

  “You can say that again; that was almost … too fast.” Runar once more appeared from the place where he was hiding out so that he wouldn’t influence everyone’s leveling speed with his mere presence. It seemed like he had managed to calm himself down a bit after the shock of realizing some truths behind spirits’ existence.

  “I was already going to try and go after the Moss Sheep once we got into a proper rhythm with Gregor, so with their stats doubled, it feels kind of obvious that it would be easy. Right?” Ryan pointed out. Runar sighed lightly, nodding.

  “Let’s just hope this doesn’t influence their leveling speed too much. Otherwise, you’re going to have to face some much stronger and far more dangerous enemies soon.”

  Ryan scratched the back of his head. “I mean, we can take it slow and think about things properly for now. We don’t have the stress of having to level up for now. Oh, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to help them. Clearly, Gregor and Maximus like to fight and battle here in the dungeon, and I don’t want to take the opportunity to level up from them, either. But we don’t need to worry about the level-up speed as much anymore. Right?”

  Runar looked at his nephew with a raised eyebrow. “Uhm … yeah, I guess so. Your speed is already pretty fast, anyway.”

  “Right? I don’t think we need to worry too much. Gregor and Maximus both leveled up just now,” Ryan explained, squatting in front of the last few remains of the area boss.

  “Really. Huh.”

  Ryan glanced back at his uncle with a smirk as he grabbed the small statue that had been left behind by the area boss. However, there wasn’t just the statue. As the Moss Sheep’s stomach fell apart, though, a large number of coins flowed out.

  “Do all the area bosses kill the monsters in their own areas?”

  “No, not all of them. A lot of them, though. I guess it’s kind of a theme here. Don’t ask me why,” Runar replied, watching as Gaia’s sub-golems helped out with picking up the hard plastic coins. “But hey, don’t complain too much. I’m sure you’ve gotten, what, a thousand points in this area?”