The Only Thing I Can Upgrade is Strength chapter 192

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After I got back to level -17, things were looking up… sort of. I went to see Sage Norwood to tell him about it. “… and my attribute points remained at… +0.”

“Hmm…” he nodded slowly, “Interesting. Though that could have problematic implications as well. It is possible you won’t gain bonus attribute points until after level -10, where your bonus points from being an otherworlder would come in. However, you might have lost those with all that experimenting. I’m sorry if that is the case.”

I shrugged, “I mean, honestly just not having the negatives is fine. Complaining about how much Strength I have would be quite disingenuous. I’ve noticed my Strength growth has slowed down over the past year, too.”

“Oh? How much has it been?”

“…. More than 100. But that’s down from sometimes multiple Strength points per day by maybe a factor of 10. Not that I’m worried about it, I just thought I’d bring it up.”

“That’s good to know. It might be limited by your level… let me know if there are any other changes.”

I nodded. A lot had changed with me during the last  year… but also not a lot. I was the same person, more or less. The most useful change is I had managed to consolidate my Analyze Strength, Dexterity, and the rest into Analyze Attribute. It could still take some time to evaluate mental attributes and Luck, but I could do it. Sage Norwood… was over six hundred in all of them except Willpower, which I hadn’t been able to gauge. Intelligence was close to eight hundred. That meant, even with bonus attribute points from being an otherworlder… he had to have base attributes of over 400 to 500 and be at least level 30. That included a 20% increase to three attributes from having an advanced class. It was likely he was higher than level 30 but even if he was level 60, among the highest adventurers in the world, that was only 300 more bonus points, just 75 to distribute between the four. Maybe he left Willpower alone, but I doubted it. Regardless, he had definitely put a lot of effort into training. Even his physical attributes were… fine. He was old, after all, so an 80 Strength wasn’t that bad… and he kept his Constitution and Toughness up near 200.

As for myself… I had worked on the abilities I would be using and learning new things. My growth could have been better over the course of a year, but it wasn’t bad either. Besides, I didn’t have a class to help… or hinder.

—–

“Stop!” Halette called out. “There’s a dip there…” she bent down to look at the floor, carefully brushing her fingers over it. “It looks sort of like what we encountered… before we took our hiatus from adventuring.”

“You can say before I was dumb and got my leg stomped off,” Kasner commented. “It’s okay. I was over it even before I got my leg grown back. As much as you can be, anyway.” Kasner gripped his staff tightly, “If they try that same sort of thing, I can handle it.”

“It looks pretty similar but- Alhorn, you could light up the floor more carefully?” He did so, and I didn’t see anything, but Halette shook her head. “Llyr, can you whack the floor right next to the wall there? You don’t need to break through the brick, just hit it loudly. Ah, don’t step past me though.”

“Sure thing,” I stepped forward next to her, then bent down to swing my mace at the floor. There was a thud… and that was it. Well, maybe some sound of some brick crumbling. It was fairly breakable, but with walls several feet thick it hardly made a difference if I could crack a single layer of bricks.

“Hmm, I thought so. Just in case, hit the middle of the hallway.” I did so, and she nodded once more, “Now the left side. Great. The sides… are hollow. I’d bet they fall away once we get in there. We’ll have… about half the space to fight in.”

“Should we go around?” Kantrilla asked. “Do you think there will be a boss?”

“Can’t be sure. Alhorn, quickly light up as far as you can for a moment.”

Alhorn stretched out his hand, and a wave of light flowed down the corridor in front of him. A square of light inside a square of darkness stretched out, stopping a couple hundred feet away. “Doesn’t seem to be any obvious side passages or anything. I can’t go much further easily… do you need more?”

Halette shook her head, “Don’t waste the mana. Anyway, there will almost certainly be a boss. They’ll charge down a narrow path, ready to take us out. What do you guys think?”

Alhorn shrugged, “It’s not a great place to fight… but we can handle it. Assuming there are no other traps.”

“Not in the first section of hall, anyway.”

Kantrilla thought for a few moments, “If we don’t go, then it’s more likely someone else will stumble into the trap. If we clear it out the dungeon might decide that it’s not worth having this. Then again, it might get worse.”

“There seem to be limits to what dungeons can do,” Kasner pondered, “This likely took a lot of effort… if a dungeon can be said to require effort. I think we should do it. I don’t mind a bit less space… as long as it means the enemy has less space too. I can just freeze less space that way, and at least slow it down.”

“Then, what should be our plan?” Halette asked.

The basic idea we came up with was to take down whatever enemy- or enemies- came as quickly as possible. A narrow area would actually make it easier for Alhorn and I to stop an enemy… and though I wasn’t going to throw myself in front of a charging minotaur, especially not a boss, I could easily step under it and take out its legs. That was if we didn’t kill it while it was at range, and if it didn’t already fall to Kasner’s ice.

“Just one more thing then,” Halette frowned, “I can’t be sure that the middle won’t fall out too. Llyr, do you think you can break the floor on one of the sides without expending too much effort?”

“Can I? Of course. I just wish I’d brought a big hammer.” I still had my mace, which was fairly heavy… but it wasn’t made for breaking bricks. “How thick do you think it is?”

“A couple feet… maybe three. Maybe just one, if it’s what I think it is.”

“Great.” I took a stance and prepared to rage. That would bring my Strength up over 700… not the highest I’d ever hit, but pretty close. It was hard to get mad at a pile of bricks, but being amped up in general was good enough. My blood pumped quickly, and I felt it in my palm as I held onto my mace. Then I swung down, doing a full powered Bash as well. A chunk of floor broke apart… and it revealed nothing below. However, with Alhorn’s light filling up the gaps I could see that it went down to the next level… but we could also see the central path was quite solidly attached to the rest of the dungeon, even crossing over walls going in other directions.

“Okay, the middle path at least doesn’t seem to be a trap,” Halette said, “Let’s get ready. Carlos, you stay out here for a bit. Llyr, just in case maybe you stay by the wall that will drop down here and break us a way out.”

“Okay. If I’m gonna be doing this more… please have Carlos carry a big maul for me.”

“Noted. Now we should get going, before any minotaurs wander in behind us.”

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