Hellmode ~A Hardcore Gamer Becomes Peerless in Another World with Retro Game Settings~

Cecile and Shea finished their lunch and went to the room.

There Allen told them in simple terms what his current situation was.

He needed an immense number of Sacred Beads to create an Angel S summon.

"Hold on, Sacred Beads aren't something you can obtain so easily. I feel like that's even more Sacred Beads than we know exist out there!"

Cecile was flabbergasted hearing that.

Going to every kingdom and taking their Sacred Beads might not be enough to create an Angel S summon.

(That's true. Though well, the rest is still sealed, so I won't be able to summon the Angel S for a while anyway.)

Allen needed to clear the seal on Dragon S and Wraith S summons before summoning an Angel S summon. There were so many things to do Allen could not stop being excited about it.

'Please try to avoid turning me into a card again.'

Merus came out from the card again, grumbling and complaining as he lied down on the couch again.

He did not get tired as a summon, but he still seemed to prefer being in a comfortable position.

""...""

Just seeing Merus' buddha-like position was enough for Cecile and Shea to understand a lot.

"So we need Sacred Beads. Actually, what exactly are the Sacred Beasts?"

Allen decided he would write down all his next objectives on the Grimoire.

He started by asking Merus about the Sacred Beasts.

'Sacred Beasts are animals or people that gained an immense power through one way or another.'

"That's quite a broad definition, huh."

'It just means there's various ways of becoming one. The main one is to become a servant of the Gods.'

"How is that any different from Divine Beasts then?"

There were a similar type of animals like that, known as Divine Beasts.

'Divine Beasts? I guess you can think of Sacred Beasts as Divine Beasts that haven't fully developed yet.'

(So an animal becomes a Sacred Beasts, and Sacred Beasts become Divine Beasts.)

"Huh? Then what about the Beast God Garm?"

"Garm? I heard he used to be a simple beast once as well."

Now that they mentioned Garm, Shea was also curious about the conversation.

Luck was still a child and he said Garm used to be a beast, but Shea did not seem to mind.

Legend said that a beast kept by the beastman one day gained power and became the Beast God. Garm himself had corroborated that story.

But it was not a direct transformation, but first he became a Sacred Beast, then gained even more power and became the Beast God Garm.

(Oh right, the beastmen royals can communicate with the Beast God. But I see, even animals can eventually become gods. I guess that's why the Arbiter God also looks like an animal?)

Allen had heard many times that the beastmen royals and the Beast God had a secret connection. Something about an ancestor of them sharing a bloodline with the Beast God.

There were religions about a god and a person having a child in Allen's past life, but that seemed to be something that actually happened in this world.

The descendants of them became the Albahar family.

That was also why Garm would sometimes step in to help his great grandchildren.

The Arbiter God Pharnemes also looked like a horse, so maybe that was another god that came from an animal. The last time Allen saw the Arbiter God, it was eating and resting in the stable.

"So are there Divine Beads just like Sacred Beads?"

'To get them you'd essentially need to storm the Divine Realm, there's no other way.'

At least that confirmed their existence.

He instantly decided he wanted to obtain Divine Beads, showing just how fearless he was.

A teardrop was a way to obtain a Sacred Bead, though they could also be obtained just like Magic Stones, by defeating a Sacred Beast.

Tears and other bodily fluids could be healed and recovered by the Sacred Beast infinitely, but if the Sacred Beast died, there were no more Sacred Beads to be obtained.

Merus had told Allen that after Clebeur gave him the first Sacred Bead.

Allen transcribed everything Merus said into his Grimoire.

(Interesting, I'll have to add that to the Ranking of Power.)

Allen wanted power, so he had started writing a list ranking the power of various beings.

He wanted to know who was stronger than who in this world.

Ranking of Power (first part):

-God of Creation, God of Darkness

-Higher Gods (Beast God, God of Harvest)

-Gods (like the Four Great Gods), Spirit God, Divine Beasts

-Demi-Gods

-Sacred Beasts, Demon Great Generals, maybe Kingship Merus too

-Demon Generals

There were obviously smaller differences between the same rank, with some having features that favored them against certain others, but at least Merus' descriptions divided them like that.

Merus had also said that he had no idea just how powerful the Demon King was now.

But usually Demon Kings were weaker than Sacred Beasts.

Demon Great Generals were around the same as Sacred Beasts.

Having it all laid out in a list like that made Allen realize he was still relatively weak.

(Well, I know about Divine Beads too now, so time to experiment.)

Many Skills and summons were Sealed, but there were Skills he could experiment with.

Allen entered his full experimentation mode.

Noticing that, Merus closed his eyes, finally feeling free and released.

First off, [Grimoire Expansion] had reached Level 8, a Skill he was very familiar with.

That probably meant that he could store more summons now.

His available slots had gone from 80 to 90.

Now he could use ten more summons at the same time.

He was planning on sending multiple summons together with Allen's Army when they went on missions, so the more slots he had the better.

(Now I need to figure out how to unseal the other Skills.)

'The Skill you tried to use is Sealed and can't be activated. You need a higher Level and all S Rank summons unlocked.'

(Woah?! It gave me a hint!!)

He did not know how many more Levels he needed before he could use the other two Skills.

He also did not know how to unseal the other summons.

But the Grimoire had given him a promising first hint.

(Hmm, the only other Skill I got that isn't sealed would be the [Growth] Skill. Growth huh…at least I finally have a Skill that I can Level Up with Skill Experience.)

He had finally obtained another Skill like [Awakening] that could Level Up with Skill Experience.

(I wonder if this means my summons will grow somehow. I guess I'll try it out on Denka first. Oh wait, I need to take out the Mana Recovery Ring to see how much mana it costs.)

The Skill's name suggested it would make a summon grow somehow.

He called the Insect H summon he always used to try out new experiments.

Then he took off the Mana Regeneration Ring and activated the [Growth] Skill.

There was no change whatsoever on the Insect H summon.

(I don't see anything different…hm?)

There was no change, so he checked the Grimoire for any logs.

'[Growth] was used. Insect H has turned into Grown H.'

(Huh, there is an entry. And what does Grown H even mean? I just spent 2 mana, is that all? Ohhh!!)

Allen continued looking through the Grimoire, wanting to know what had changed. Then he realized there was an additional page.

[Species] Insect

[Rank] H

[Growth] H

[Name] Denka

[Strength] 3

[Mana] 0

[Attack] 2

[Endurance] 5

[Agility] 5

[Intelligence] 1

[Luck] 2

[Blessings] Endurance 1 + 1, Agility 1 + 1

[Special Skill] Hop

[Awakened Skill] Form a Flock

(There's 2 + 2 extra stats, essentially double. Does Growth increase the Blessings then?)

The Blessing was double that of a regular Insect H summon.

He wondered if it was simply a Skill to enhance Blessings, so he decided to use it again.

But unlike the first time, there was no new page inside the Grimoire.

He turned back and noticed a new log entry.

'[Growth]'s Skill Level is too low to assign Growth G to Insect H.'

Apparently there was a limit to how much [Growth] could be used, depending on its Level.

So now Allen tried to use [Growth] on an Insect G summon.

'[Growth]'s Skill Level is too low to assign Growth G to Insect G.'

That meant that [Growth]'s usage on higher rank summons was also capped by its Level.

At Level 1, it could only be used on H Rank summons.

So he could not assign Growth G to a G Rank summon yet.

He decided to summon a second Insect H summon instead.

That worked without issue.

He was able to assign Growth H to the second Insect H.

There did not seem to be a limit to how summons took it.

Allen decided to repeatedly use [Create] and [Delete], with [Growth] in between, until it reached Skill Level 2.

Now he was able to assign Growth G to the Insect H summon.

[Species] Insect

[Rank] H

[Growth] G

[Name] Denka

[Strength] 7

[Mana] 0

[Attack] 8

[Endurance] 10

[Agility] 10

[Intelligence] 6

[Luck] 7

[Blessings] Endurance 2 + 2, Agility 2 + 2

[Special Skill] Hop

[Awakened Skill] Form a Flock

(That took 5 mana. But the summon's stats also went up this time.)

Allen was starting to understand the abilities of the [Growth] Skill.

He spent one more hour trying various things, raising [Growth]'s Level to 4, and making sure his conjectures were correct.

[Growth] Skill in a nutshell: 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

-Skill Level 2 needed to grant Growth G, 1000 Skill Experience points needed

-Skill Level 4 needed to grant Growth E, 10'000 Skill Experience points needed

-Skill Level 9 needed to grant Growth S (extrapolated), 10'000'000'000 Skill Experience Points needed

-Mana cost of a Growth Rank is equal to that of a summon of the same rank

-The number of Magic Stones necessary is also equal to that of a summon's

-[Growth] can be used on any new summon as long as an empty slot for it is available

-The Skill Level determines how high Growth Rank can go

-A Grown summon's Blessings have twice the stats of a summon of the same rank

-[Growth] assigns stats similar to the next rank when used further on a summon

-The actual stats seem to be somewhat random within those limits

(Th-this is amazing. I finally might be able to use all the summons that were useless until now!!)

Allen was starting to understand how incredible the [Growth] Skill was.

There were many summons he had never used again after his Summoner Level went up.

The only reason for that was that higher ranking summons had way better stats overall.

Some summons had very useful Special Skills, but their Blessings and stats were so inferior that Allen never picked them.

But now that he had [Growth], he could bring any summon below B Rank up to similar stats to A Rank summons.

This greatly enhanced his chances in battle.

[Growth] also increased the Blessings many times over, so Allen's stats would also remain high.

(I wonder if Kabeo's Self-Destruct will have a bigger blast radius too if I grow him. Hm, and Merus can eventually get even stronger too.)

The Stone E summon's Awakened Skill [Self-Destruct] scaled with Endurance.

Allen was already thinking of how to use that in battle as his eyes shifted towards Merus.

'What? I haven't said or done anything!'

Allen had just thought of something as he looked at Merus.

Meanwhile Merus glared back at Allen, like a worker that was just asked to work over-time during his vacations.

"If I use [Growth] on Merus, his Blessings will double, and his stats will be equal to S Rank summons too."

He could almost touch the new possibilities hidden in Merus, who lay like a reclined buddha.

On top of that there were still the two Sealed Skills, and the S Rank summons.

[Growth] had immeasurable potential hidden in it already.

Just thinking of what the Sealed Skills might be made Allen's heart flutter.