Level Eater-Chapter 222

While confirming everyone was safe, a point to cross to the next floor appeared about ten meters down the pathway from where they were.

After glancing at it once to confirm what it was, they immediately began sorting through the treasures.

"Well then, everyone send everything to my [Infinite Item Field]. Meanwhile, I'll return the items I'm holding."

After gathering all the treasures together and returning the held items, Tatsuro began creating a rough list.

First, he grouped obvious items like gold and silver by number and quantity.

Then for items where they couldn't identify the metal, object, or type of item, they brought them out little by little for Leah and Cardina to analyze.

After spending considerable time and effort examining everything, the results were:

Large quantities of platinum, gold, silver, copper, iron, light silver, and other materials they already had, along with various coins of different values.

There were also lots of jewels, rare metals and substances they'd never seen before, plant materials and tree trunks, and numerous monster materials, and according to Leah, they were all suitable for equipment crafting, which got her excited.

As for useful items, there were silver-rimmed round glasses that could activate Level 2 [Far-Sight] with magic or spirit/Ki energy.

A mirror that, while too crude to use normally, would turn red when reflecting someone telling lies.

A glass pen tip suspended by a string from an inverted L-shaped fitting attached to a large gold plate.

This was an automatic memo device that would write words spoken while channeling magic power onto paper placed on the plate.

Twelve rings that could store and let others use up to Level 3 elemental magic. One ring that could store up to Level 6 elemental magic.

Then there were stones that could create fire, water-producing jars, and hemp sacks that produced wheat when magic power was channeled into them.

While there were various other miscellaneous items, the most unique among them was what Leah called the [Reversal Ring].

It looked like a Mobius strip gently twisted with black and white sides, and it supposedly reversed martial arts and magic arts professions.

This would apparently reverse values like spirit/ki energy, magic power, physical strength, and magical power as well.

To explain more specifically, it could be activated once per day with a maximum duration of one hour.

After reversal, skill handling would randomly select an opposite skill adapted to the highest level among one's martial or magic skills.

And if someone possessed both martial arts body enhancement and magic arts magic power increase, they would be converted while maintaining their levels, but everything else would become unusable.

So for example, if someone was a Level 10 fire magic user with Level 5 magic power increase, they would become an instant warrior with Level 10 martial arts skill randomly selected from available skills—let's say hand-to-hand combat in this case—and Level 5 body enhancement. The reverse would also be true.

Ai was the most excited about this. She had always wanted to try using magic.

And indeed, if it worked, it could be quite useful.

Because if Ai with her enormous spirit energy used it, she would become a magic user with enormous magic power.

So right away, after getting everyone's permission, Ai put on the ring and tried to activate it.

The black and white sides reversed—but it was forcibly canceled and immediately returned to normal.

"Eh!? What's going on!?"

"Ah... It seems even this isn't allowed by Ai-san's [Valkyrie] skill."

"Geez, what a stubborn skill."

"Well, it's ridiculously powerful in exchange, so let's put up with it."

"Uu... okay..."

So it was decided that Tatsuro, who could use it as effectively as Ai, would wear it.

This was because Cardina and Jeanne couldn't wear rings in the first place, and it would have limited effect for Nana and Athena.

As for Leah, it would be meaningless since she had neither martial arts nor magic skills.

But since Tatsuro could hold unlimited weapons, any martial arts skill assigned wouldn't be a problem.

If used now, it would convert to approximately Level 12 martial arts skills, and while not as much as Ai, his magic power would convert to spirit energy that was extraordinary by normal standards, making him quite capable as an instant warrior.

"Spirit techniques would be impossible, of course. But with practice, you could probably manage things like spirit energy slashes."

"Well, I'd be inferior to professionals. And it seems I'd only get two skills. The best way would be to use it briefly and switch back quickly."

"That's so nice~"

"Yes, yes—"

"—mmph"

When Tatsuro pressed his lips against Ai's pouting mouth, she became happy with a pleased expression.

Drawing her closer and patting her head, her eyes grew dreamy and she seemed to forget all about the ring.

Among other unique items, there were equipment pieces they could use here and dragon materials.

The dragon materials, in particular, included not just scales, claws, fangs, and meat from one dragon, but materials from multiple types of dragons all at once.

"There are quite a lot of dragon materials. I wonder if eating this meat will increase our dragon power, Tatsuro."

"I think so. There's meat from eight different dragons, with levels from lowest to highest being 14, 28, 29, 33, 54, 57, 59, and 64."

When checking with Dispel magic, the levels were fairly easy to determine since they were corpses, so Tatsuro arranged them from lowest to highest.

Conveniently, the lower-level meat pieces were larger, making for a visually pleasing arrangement.

As for size, the largest Level 14 piece was about three meters.

The next largest Level 28 was just over two meters. Level 29 was just under two meters. Level 33 was slightly over one meter. Level 54 was about fifty centimeters. Level 57 was about thirty centimeters. Level 59 was twenty-five centimeters.

And the highest Level 64 was just a ten-centimeter piece of meat.

By the way, the effect of the [Dragon Eater] title was that eating dragon meat would grant dragon power.

However, it only worked if the meat was from a dragon stronger than the ones eaten before.

So if they were going to eat these, they should start from the lower levels to gain more dragon power.

"Hmm... Due to my frugal nature, I want to eat Level 2 dragon meat next."

"Well, we might not have many chances to meet dragons, but since we have this opportunity..."

"Level, you say? In that case, couldn't Father's [Level Eater] lower the meat's level?"

"But it's already dead. Can it do that?"

"The description of [Level Eater] said it absorbs all levels... So if dead monster materials still have the concept of levels, maybe it could work?"

"In that case, let's try it!"

"Yeah."

Taking Ai's straightforward suggestion, Tatsuro immediately activated [Level Eater and moved the black sphere that formed in his mouth to the Level 14 dragon meat.

Then—

---------------

Level: 14

Skill: [Decay Prevention]

---------------

"Ah, I got some information."

"Oh! This might, this might work!"

Tatsuro suppressed his excitement and calmly focused on the level portion, absorbing it down to Level 2.

---------------

Level: 2

Skill: [Decay Prevention]

---------------

Successfully achieving this, Tatsuro unconsciously clenched his fist and swallowed the black sphere that had formed in his mouth again.

Though he thought he would gain a lot of experience points since it was dragon level, it felt like he gained less than from weak monsters.

(Come to think of it, someone else probably got the experience points when it was defeated, and once dead, even dragons are worth this little. Still, it's amazing that it retains the concept of levels even after death, and even has skills.)

Since Dispel magic also confirmed it was Level 2 dragon meat, they decided to try eating it right away to verify.

Since it was the food of unknown origin, they thoroughly checked with Dispel magic for poison and whether it was edible.

"Alright. It's safe to eat. Let's grill it right away."

"Oh!"

Since they hadn't eaten since morning and remembered they were hungry, Tatsuro and the others decided to take a meal break together.

However, wanting to know the results quickly for this meat, while Leah and Nana were preparing food, Tatsuro roughly grilled it with fire magic, sprinkled some seasonings, and tried eating it with Ai.

"Mm— *munch munch munch*... ahh"

Tatsuro and Ai savored the dragon meat in their mouths.

"I feel like it tastes better than the Level 1 meat."

"Me too, me too!"

"So, how is it? Did you get dragon power?"

"I didn't hear any announcement, but... let's see."

"Let's see."

Tatsuro and Ai each opened their status screens to check if they had gained dragon power.

The dragon power section had changed from |Dragon Power: 100| to |Dragon Power: 210|.

"Dragon power increased by 110. How about you, Ai?"

"Mine says 210 too! We did it, Tatsuro!"

"Yeah. This method works."

"That's great!"

Then Leah, who had been watching everything while cooking, said something like this:

"Um... If we can take levels from corpse meat, couldn't we increase dragon power more by dividing this meat and using [Level Eater] on it?"

"That's it!"

To put it extremely, by cutting this dragon meat into small pieces and adjusting each one with [Level Eater], they could create dozens of dragon meat portions at once.

Thinking this was a good idea, Tatsuro immediately tried cutting the next lowest Level 28 meat into small pieces and using [Level Eater] on them.

However—

"Huh, that's weird. I can't get any information when I touch the black sphere to it."

"Eh? Then how about the main body?"

"...I can get it from that one. Maybe we need a certain size to get it from corpses?"

So Tatsuro threw the meat pieces and bulk meat into the [Infinite Item Field] to combine them, and after returning it to one mass, he tried dividing it slightly larger this time before using [Level Eater].

But that still didn't work.

However, it felt like he could faintly get information, more than with the smaller meat pieces from before.

So they kept repeating this to determine the minimum size.

"Hmm... Looks like 98.2 centimeters is the limit."

"About one meter, huh? So we can only cut the 28, 29, and 33 ones."

"Yeah. It's a shame we didn't do this with the biggest Level 14 one first. We should have noticed this trick earlier."

"I'm sorry if I had said something sooner..."

"No, that's not your fault, Leah. Rather, thank you for noticing!"

"Indeed. Rather than discussing what's already done, I'd like you to put this in the pot."

"...Right. Let me help you, Nana."

Leah remembered she was in the middle of cooking and resumed work after taking ingredients from Nana.

Meanwhile, Tatsuro also resumed his work.

First, he used the [Infinite Item Field]'s functions to accurately cut the remaining three dragon meats over one meter into 98.2 cubic centimeter pieces.

This resulted in: two blocks and one piece from the Level 28 meat,

Two blocks and one piece from the Level 29 meat,

One block and one piece from the Level 33 meat,

Successfully increasing the dragon power potential by five portions.

Leaving only the one-meter blocks, he stored the remaining meat in the [Infinite Item Field].

Then he used [Level Eater] on the five increased meat portions to create Level 3, Level 4, Level 5, Level 6, and Level 7 meat.

Then, while testing how much they needed to eat for the effect, Tatsuro and Ai carefully ate the meat in the correct order.

"When eating, just a light bite is really enough."

"Yeah. Now we can properly use the leftover pieces too."

After taking time and effort to gradually increase their dragon power, the result was:

Tatsuro and Ai's dragon power had increased to |Dragon Power: 910|.

"It increased quite a bit. Though it seems pretty difficult for non-dragon species to use dragon power, it's better to have it than not. Plus it's convenient that it can be used as both spirit energy and magic power."

"Yeah, with this much we should be able to use it in practice."

"You two~ The food is ready~"

"Ah, coming."

"Okay~"

And since Leah called them at a good time, the two hurried to where the food was waiting to fill their stomachs which were already slightly full from dragon meat, leaving the equipment inspection for later.