I Can Make Everything Level UP

After thinking for a few days, Billy didn't arrive to any new conclusion. To learn an endurance-based passive skill, he will have to punish his body. It was obvious… But could he do that at home? No, he didn't want to let his kids see his father looking beaten down. Other people would think that he was weird, and some rumors would begin to spread. He will have to take a few days inside a dungeon to do that. Still, at least Billy had an interesting idea when he was thinking about the passive of speed. He didn't find the answer to learn that, but he thought that it would be pretty awesome if he could learn some evasive skill or one that would make him move many times faster in a single moment. It wouldn't be the same as Icarus, thought. Since he could control acceleration.

"The only problem is: how the hell I do that?"

Billy recalled that say where he fought the dragons. He jumped toward them, and the boost that he got when he kicked the ground was insane. In the blink of an eye, he almost flew toward them three times faster than he was. He was practically two times faster than his magic car. Still, he used mana and stamina for that. A lot… So, he would need a more effective way to achieve the same result. Billy decided to start with the basics: by strengthening his legs, he would be able to kick the ground with the same strength as he did it before.

"I guess this will take some time to develop, so I should train the other skills while I keep doing this," Billy nodded to himself.

That was Billy's original plan… Keep the weights at all times and get stronger. However, the floor of his house was mostly made of wood, so the moment he stepped inside… He broke it.

"What was that noise?" Kate asked when she returned from work and then saw Billy inside a hole on the floor. "What are you doing? Did you lose your mind? Of course that is going to happen if you enter the house while wearing weights."

"Sorry… I forgot it," Billy said while forcing a smile.

"The weights increased again, why did you do that?" Natalie asked.

"I am planning to do something new, so this is a test," Billy replied. "By the way, I think I found a way to increase your strength pretty fast. It will be a bit painful, but I am sure it will come in handy to you."

Natalie decided to do that without even asking for details. While Billy was happy for her Absolute trust, he wished that she could be a bit more reasonable. Otherwise, she might be tricked by someone saying that Billy passed to them a message. In any case, Natalie had more willpower than Billy, so she learned the skill even faster.

After strengthening his lower half for a month, Billy began to notice some differences. While that hadn't turned into a skill set, Billy could kick the ground and then dash forward. It was like a very large step. He could cross forty meters in a single instant, but it seemed that it wasn't enough since he didn't learn any new skills…

Billy kept training his lower body for another week, but then he had a certain idea. He increased his weights again until he barely could move a single finger. This time, he was pretty certain that his mind wasn't trying to mess with him by using tricks… he truly could hear his bones cracking. Still, he didn't take those off. Billy just used Regen to counter the effects of the damage caused by the weights. Since he couldn't enter his home, Billy ended up sleeping in the garden for three days in order not to damage the floor again. Still, once again, his hard work paid off.

You learned the skill Toughness.

Toughness: passively increases your Endurance by five points per level.

Billy sighed in relief when he saw that. He would have felt more than a little bit depressive if he hadn't learned that after all that crap. Sleeping in the cold and unable to move due to the weights… He even felt the stares of the servants wondering why someone so rich was sleeping outside. He even had heard some whispers that he had messed up somehow and his wives were mad at him. Power really comes with a price…

"I guess I have earned at least one week off after this…" Billy thought.

Although he declared that to himself, in the end, he only got a single day off and returned to his training regime. He was bored, after all. In any case, he confirmed that with his usual training, Brute Strength and Toughness were leveling up.

After Billy made his full recovery, he decided to level up a bit on his dungeon, and thanks to that, he found his parents and siblings looking rather troubled at the entrance early in the morning. That is what happens when you don't take a break in the dungeon business.

"What is wrong?" Billy asked.

"Nothing, the kids are just a bit troubled that we still are on the fourth floor after three weeks," Drew said. "The depressing atmosphere inside the dungeon is also starting to get us."

"Well, that is normal, this is just your second dungeon, right?" Billy asked. "And this is the most difficult of the state after all. As for the atmosphere, you can always take a break at my house, you know. Things will be a lot easier if you just use it for two or three hours a day."

"We aren't going to clear it if we do that," Samuel said.

"What is going to happen if you don't clear it?" Billy asked. "Absolutely nothing. You are too focused on being competitive. Instead of that, you should strive to improve yourself every day."