Chapter 55: Fifty Cycles

As soon as Raive entered the Red Dungeon, he didn’t waste time.

In a single step, he closed the distance to the flower bed where the monster waited. Then he swung his sword, glowing with bright white light, sending an attack straight down.

"Sword Flash!"

The attack, powered by his stats, dug straight into the ground and sliced the enemy in half. Three meters were more than enough distance to reach the roots.

Just like that, Raive killed the flower bed monster in one strike!

Without missing a beat, he moved to the next tile, repeating the same process—jumping right on top of the target, then unleashing a powerful Sword Flash to cut deep.

In just two minutes, he’d already reached the boss’s tile.

On the plateau, he stood alone, facing the cherry tree, waiting for the enemy to appear.

A few seconds later, the "exit" opened, and the Tree Knight began to emerge from within. Raive didn’t rush, waiting until it was fully outside before making his move.

SLASH!

CLANG!

A slash to test the enemy’s toughness, but it was perfectly blocked. The two swords were identical, so neither broke on impact.

Of course, that strike was just a casual swing.

He was just testing the waters!

"Now, starting from this moment, I’ll be stealing your swordsmanship!"

Clearing it normally wouldn’t do much good. He’d earn stats, sure, but like before, it would mean nothing against truly powerful enemies.

Surely, the challenges they’d face in the future would be far stronger than this, and only with proper training and skills could they face them head-on. That was how he landed on the idea of "learning" the Tree Knight’s sword techniques.

It was a knight, after all, so its swordsmanship was impeccable.

In fact, even with roughly +100 stats worth of speed and strength, Raive still couldn’t land a single hit on the Tree Knight. It wasn’t matching his stats so much as reading what he’d do before he even moved.

Raive absorbed everything from the fight.

How the knight moved, its footwork, how it responded to his attacks, how it swung its sword, the angles—literally everything. He memorized it all without missing a single detail.

And then...

"Time’s up."

At exactly the four-minute mark, he ended the fight.

A single slash cut off the knight’s neck, killing it immediately. It was so fast the knight barely managed to raise its sword before it was too late.

The boss died, and the loot appeared over its corpse. Raive swept it all into a bag he’d brought along, then waited out the last few seconds until the reset.

And then, the entire world turned pure white.

When his senses returned, he was already outside, everyone staring at him, puzzled.

"Brother... Amazing!"

"Y-You really cleared it in five minutes..."

"You were this strong? How come you didn’t show us this much strength before..."

They all had things they wanted to say, but he just smiled and shook his head. "Let Patricia eat the stat-up candies to hit the +100 limit. Then, you guys decide how to split the loot." He said before turning around and running the dungeon again.

He didn’t even wait for their confirmation!

After entering the dungeon, Raive repeated the same process, but much faster and sharper this time. He was rushing to the finish line as if his ass was on fire.

A minute and a half later, he was already at the boss’s tile.

He was thirty seconds faster than before!

"Let’s see how I fare now..."

Raive stood before the entrance again, just as before.

But this time, he had the memory of fighting the knight from his previous clear. Raive analyzed it, identified the important points, and built a seamless flow of swordsmanship from it.

However, he had too little information to work with, so he could only derive three sword stances and five steps.

"From now on, I’ll be forcing you to reveal everything to me!" Raive grinned as the Tree Knight appeared.

And then, the fight began.

Swords clashed, footwork was challenged, even his breathing was tested. It was hard to match breathing specifically, since the enemy wasn’t breathing at all. That part, Raive had to work out on his own.

He would end the fight at exactly the four-minute mark, then collect the loot and return.

Then he’d jump in again to resume his "training."

He spent 20 cycles figuring out all of the Tree Knight’s forms, from basic to advanced.

Then five cycles to understand the footwork.

Another five to work out how the energy flow moved through each part, and finally, a last ten cycles to integrate it all through real battle.

After completing 50 cycles, Raive got out and took a deep breath.

"I’ve finally mastered it..."

Although he’d had a reference, most of his swordsmanship was technically self-taught. As such, he wasn’t sure if it was good or not. But still, he was sure of one thing.

Right now, even with his stats at +266, he was sure he was stronger than when he’d had +531 points of stats. Loading back to the past, even at the cost of half his stats, had been well worth it.

But that wasn’t all either.

Thanks to his fifty clears of the red dungeon, everyone managed to reach the limit of their current stats. Everyone finally got a +100!

Not only that, but everyone’s skills were also raised to the limit, capping out at level 3.

A few even learned Sword Flash as an extra.

Therese, Shymine, and Khamish, to be specific.

The rest didn’t find it appealing, and would rather save their limited "vessels" for a skill that fit them better. Something they might find in a different dungeon.

Raive addressed everyone, then nodded.

"With this, everyone should be strong enough to walk around even alone." He said. "As such, I hereby declare... All of you should form small teams and clear the surrounding dungeons!"

Of course, Raive had already saved at that point.

This way, even if an accident happened, he could load back and warn them beforehand.

None of them objected to Raive’s words, of course.

They, too, needed to gain experience to raise their chances of survival. If they relied on Raive all the time, they’d end up nothing but a burden to him.

Just like that, they formed three teams.

Therese’s team had Sheila, Kenny, and Patricia.

Shymine’s team was just her and Hershey.

And finally, Hazel, heading in alone.

Three teams, technically balanced. Even with weak skills, they could still fight with the Tree Knight’s sword—clumsy, maybe, but still deadly given how high their stats were now.

Just like that, they all got dungeons assigned to them to clear.

And all of them were yellow dungeons and below.

Raive didn’t risk anyone running the Orange dungeon—it was pretty risky even with instructions on how to clear it.

"Alright..." He took a deep breath and turned around.

"Reinhardt." He asked. "Can you use your Reset skill while inside the dungeon too...?"

Right then, inside Raive’s head, a new and more efficient plan was already taking shape.