Chapter 326: Level Sixteen

The topic of what it mean to be ascended was the one on everyone’s mind that day, even in the gym, where everyone was too exhausted to speak most of the time, it was the topic in the locker room.

"I’ve just reached level sixteen, got it with the final dungeon last night." Amber informed the crowd. "And today with my workout, I can feel my power skyrocketing. By the end of the day, I might be the second strongest Rogue in the city."

Second only because nobody was going to manage to catch the former student council president. That man had rolled way too high on his luck stat, and he was one of the few who had already reached level nineteen.

But most were not as envious about his power as they were about his harem. The ladies of the student council still stuck close to him, and they’d managed to recruit a fiery redheaded cleric and four female mages for their team as well.

So, in the end the team was Niall and nine women.

The "Harem Council President" moniker was never going to leave him, Kalli was certain of it. But the mages were getting strong fast with his core team leading the way, while Joanna and Carmen were exceptionally talented tanks.

If Niall had one complaint, it was that everyone still counted his sister as part of his harem.

Other than that one small issue, and the fact that Joanna simply laughed every time that he asked her to silence the rumours, things were going very well for the handsome blonde former President.

That afternoon, Kalli learned just what everyone had been talking about.

She was out feeding the chickens when a System Notification appeared in her vision.

{System Reward} [A Thankless Task] take care of a pet for ninety days straight. Easy Difficulty.

The random reward box appeared in her hand, and Kalli smiled, wondering how many times Esmeralda had gotten this reward. It might only count her cat as a pet, but the necromancer counted most of her undead as pets as well.

Though, she had replaced most, hadn’t she? So it might just be her zombie Crocolisk that made the cut.

Kalli opened the reward box and snickered softly as she saw the reward.

{Battle Undies} Common Grade lacy black lingeries set, adds 20 points to Luck. Unisex.

Sanchez stopped as he heard the Coordinator laughing in the chicken coop, and went to see what was happening, only to see Kalli holding up a set of racy lingerie and laughing like a madwoman.

"Something funny about your underwear?" He asked in a cheerful tone, not wanting to anger the chickens.

"I just got them as a quest reward. They’re unisex."

Sanchez laughed loud enough that people on the street turned to see what the commotion was.

"So, the System really did make them for Reggie, and it wasn’t a mistake? Oh, I’ve got to tell him later. I wonder if all lingerie has luck bonuses on it?"

Kalli shrugged. "I don’t think that anyone has actually asked to buy any. I’ve sold plenty of comfy cotton ones, but nothing fashionable."

Sanchez shrugged. He wasn’t interested enough to buy them himself, and he got the sneaking suspicion that the chickens might attack him if he started to openly flirt with the Coordinator in front of them.

They were already giving him the side eye.

"Well, we can find out what the Rare Grade Lingerie bonus looks like later," he decided on instead.

Kalli winked at him and one of the chickens moved protectively between the two of them, which only made Kalli laugh.

"I will meet you in the Hall in a moment, I just need to grab the eggs."

Once Sanchez was gone, Kalli equipped her new drop, and found that they were actually more comfortable than they looked, and that was definitely magic. There was no way that fancy lace was in any way comfortable on its own.

It also didn’t leave any lines in the bodysuit, but that might be an aspect of the light composite suit itself, as she hadn’t noticed them on anyone else either.

Kalli stepped into the coop to collect the eggs, and found that her movements were much higher than they had been, and a subtle notice was in the corner of her vision.

{Level Up} Level 16

{New Skills Unlocked}

The system had been much less subtle about the mission completion, so she hadn’t noticed that it had been enough to push her that final bit over the experience line to level sixteen. Now, she was experiencing the changes that came with being an Ascended Human, instead of an Awakened one, and the power gap was incredible.

Possibly incredibly wasted as well, as she had maxed out stats and no combat skills.

But that wasn’t the point.

She now knew that there were true and distant levels to the progression of the System, and now that they were becoming available, the heroes were going to have to work harder to get to the change before the world caught up.

That was the Trial objective.

She had thought it was about the city, or humanity as a whole. And in a way it was.

But the most important part of the whole trial was that they needed to have enough Ascended Heroes to deal with whatever sort of Ascended challenges were thrown at Marimgar in the next trial. Now that they had some, they could see the difference, and if they had to deal with a swarm of the insectoid monsters at this level, they would be in real trouble relying on just the city’s guns.

They would likely survive, they had that kind of firepower. But they might not survive intact.

Kalli stepped into the Hall of Heroes, then realized that she had not drawn her ten point mystery box for the day.

Her luck was stacked, and she now had even more from her gear. But she hadn’t been buying the boxes, it had simply slipped her mind with everything else that needed to be done.

The box appeared in her hands, and Kalli activated it.

The small black box spun, shone with different colours that Kalli could only associate with a gacha draw from phone games in her past life, then settled down as a small blue cube that should be a Rare Grade reward.

{Summer Dress of Renewal} A caplet shoulder sundress, Rare Grade. Adds 50 points to healing spells when the wearer is exposed to sunlight. Adds 3 points of mana recovery every 5 seconds.