When Bell awoke in the morning, he saw that his goddess was still out cold from last night, so he made sure she was tucked in well before leaving the familia home. He decided to do his side quest to date Eina since he needed armor anyway. The only hang-up was that he didn't really have any nicer clothes to wear. He had trust in the system though. It had yet to give him an unbeatable quest.

Arriving at the guild, he saw Eina actually waiting by the entrance. First girl was wearing what looked like a more casual version of her guild uniform the other day. A white button-up blouse and brown dress pants. Nothing fancy, but she looked beautiful nonetheless.

"Eina! You look beautiful today." He called, getting the attention of the half-elf.

Eina turned to him with a blush on her face and shock in her eyes. The comment had completely taken her off guard, but she regained her composure rather quickly. "Ah, Bell. So you came!"

"Of course I came. It's not like I would leave such a beautiful woman waiting." Bell said after a moment of looking at the dialog options. The blush coming from the elf indicated he made the right choice.

"I.. yes. Let's go get you some armor. I know some of the less expensive shops you should be able to visit Babel." She said, composing herself. While Eina was recovering from Bell's shameless flirting, she led him to Babel. Rather than descending the stairs in the center of the room, she led him to the side where state of the art elevators brought them to the eighth floor.

Being led into a shop, Bell saw all sorts of arms and armor of varying qualities. He was about to examine everything to see their stats compared to their price before Eina began to explain to him, "This is the eighth floor of babel. The Hephaestus familia owns the entirety of the fifth through eighth floors, but this floor is where their novice smiths sell their products to newer adventurers."

Bell couldn't help but wonder if they really were marketing to new adventurers. There wasn't a single thing in this store cheaper than 4,500 valis. Though he supposed new adventurers from more established, larger familias would be able to cover the costs easily enough. Lacking such a support network, Bell needed to make every val count. So Bell thoroughly checked every piece of armor in the store, and he unintentionally drew the confusion of Eina and the anger of the shopkeeper.

"You got a problem with my stuff boy? Everything here is made by greenhorns, so ya ain't gonna find anything perfect." The grumpy old man snapped, surprising Bell.

"Oh, sorry, I was just comparing the price per AR. I'm not looking for perfection." He said, trying to placate the shopkeep. Unfortunately, there were no dialog options to guide him in conversation, so it came out sounding rather awkward.

"AR?" Eina asked, wondering what the boy could possibly mean. The shopkeeper also leaned over, wanting to know what the newbie adventurer meant.

"AR stands for armor rating." He explained as if the two others should already know what that meant before picking up a random vambrace, "For example, this has an AR of fifteen and it costs 5,000 valis making the price per AR roughly 330."

Eina was shocked, and she saw the shopkeeper's eyes practically pop out of his head at Bell's explanation. "Say boy, why don't ya come work fer the Hephaestus familia. Ye could make a lot more with a skill like that here than ye could riskin yer neck in the dungeon."

Bell didn't respond for a good minute or so. The shopkeeper's question did prompt an additional side quest. Earn 1,000,000 valis. The introduction of the quest made him think accepting the deal was something he was supposed to do, but there was no way he was going to give up adventuring in exchange. Then, there was also Eina to consider. He was still technically on a date with her, so talking about a new job was probably no good.

"I'll have to think about that. Could I give you an answer later?" He asked after mulling over his options. He didn't want to completely close off this route, but at the same time, he wanted to return to his date with Eina.

"Sure thing, kid. You know where te find me. And I tell yah what, I'll give ya half off on any one thing, so think hard on it." The shopkeeper said. Bell mentally jumped for joy at that. Now, he wouldn't be completely broke after buying some armor. He would only be mostly broke! Not wanting to keep Eina waiting much longer, he decided on a chest piece with an AR of forty-five, costing 5,000 valis after his discount.

"That was pretty impressive Bell. How do you know what the armor value is though? Is it a skill?" Eina asked as they walked out of the shop.

"It's part of my HUD, or Heads Up Display. It keeps me aware of my surroundings, active quests, and status." He explained. He didn't want to come off as a braggart, but Eina seemed amazed by the explanation.

"Status? Can you look at your status without an update? And what do you mean by quests and surroundings?" She asked enthusiastically with a sparkle in her eyes.

"By status, I meant the state of my body. For example, I can tell how long I have until I need to eat or drink and how much health I have." He explained.

"Health?" She asked.

"Yeah. For example, if a goblin from the first floor were to bite me, I would lose one twentieth of my health. Meaning I would have to be hit by a goblin twenty times before I died." He explained to an awe inspired Eina. He did notice how seriously she took adventurer's safety, so it was no surprise his HUD would seem like an amazing ability to her.

"In that case Bell, you better come back to me everyday with no less than eighty percent health." She giggled. Bell was glad that she was so impressed, but her demand of eighty percent health remaining took the breath right out of him. If he followed that rule, he would never be able to play on the higher difficulties without going no hit.

"I'll do my best Eina." He laughed off, giving a less committal answer.

"As long as you don't die on me." She said, seemingly knowing he wasn't going to follow the eighty percent rule.

"You don't need to worry about that Eina." He laughed off. It's not like death even mattered to him in the first place. If he ever died, he would just be brought back to his last save point. While the save load penalty was annoying, it wasn't that big of a deal.

"You said you also wanted to get some potions? They sell them here at Babel, but they're a bit pricey compared to what you would pay buying directly from the Dian Cecht familia outside." She said, leading him back towards the elevator.

It didn't take the two long to make their way outside of babel and into Dian Cecht's shop. It was situated just outside after all. Inside, the two were met by a very cute woman with long silver hair and purple eyes. A potential harem member?

"Welcome, sir and ma'am. Do you need any help today?" The woman asked. Before Bell could even read all of the dialog options, Eina answered.

"Hello Armid, I'm here with a new adventurer to make sure he's properly prepared." She said. The now named Armid gave Bell a quick look up and down before leaving the counter and heading into the back of the store. Moments later, she returned with a fairly large wooden box.

"Most of our quality assured products are out of the price range of starting adventurers. However, we do keep stock of potions made by the newer members of our familia and sell them for a discount if that works for you, sir." She said with a customer service charm. After Armid opened the box, Bell investigated the potions to find shades of red, green, and blue indicative of health, stamina, and magic potions.

"What's the discounted price if you don't mind me asking?" Bell asked as he inspected each potion. He knew beginner potion makers made these, but some of the effects were ridiculous. One maroon potion restored both health and mana by a ridiculous ninety percent over the course of thirty seconds, but it would also cause terrible diarrhea and stomach pains for the next 24 hour period. Another dark red potion had an instant increase in health by a moderate flat number, though it would dehydrate the user.

"These potions cost 3,000 valis each." She said with a slightly nervous smile. It looked to Bell like she was expecting for him to shout at her or argue, but he knew better. Not only would raising an issue not reduce the price, but it would also make him look bad in front of Eina and potentially cut off the route for another harem member. So, for now, he could afford two potions. If he were to fight on the lower floors on easy difficulty, he could do with a stamina potion to stay in the fight longer and earn more valis, or he could ramp up the difficulty in which case health potions would be needed for safety. He was going to speak to that shopkeeper about a potential job for more valis anyway, so the choice wasn't that hard.

"In that case, I'll take these two." He said, holding up two reddish potions and handing over 6,000 valis with a smile. The two he chose had minimal detrimental effects and health restoration of a flat number since his health pool wasn't big enough to justify percentage based healing yet.

"Very well, sir. Thank you very much for your patronage." She said with a relaxed smile. She was so cute. Bell would definitely be returning later, but for now, he left with Eina, who led him back to Babel.

"I suppose you're going back into the dungeon today?" She asked with a wistful smile. Bell simply nodded to her question and watched as she giggled. "Then remember, I want to see you back with no less than eighty percent of your health tonight."

He did want to see Eina again tonight and in relatively good health to keep her happy, so he agreed. He wasn't going to tell her he was saving right now. In all likelihood, there was a good chance he would die and take the respawn penalty since he planned to fight on the Brutal or possibly even Hell difficulty. Bidding her farewell, he entered the dungeon. First things first, he still needed to complete the bestiary on kobolds before he kicked up the difficulty, so he spent roughly a half hour just hunting the dog-like monsters.

After finally hunting down enough kobolds to complete the bestiary he noticed that rather than giving him an attack bonus against them, they received an attack debuff against him. Odd. Perhaps each monster had a different completion reward. Ignoring that for the moment, Bell went to the difficulty settings and chose Brutal. It didn't take Bell long to find his first practice target for the new difficulty setting. A lone goblin. Normally they would spawn in groups of at least three, but this lone wolf was perfect for testing.

Sprinting towards the goblin Bell made a lunging attack with his dagger hitting the goblin directly in the head. Disappointingly the knife seemingly refused to sink into its target, merely grazing off of it's head, leaving a large gash. Above the Goblin's head, it's health bar indicated it had only lost a fourth of its total health. The goblin immediately retaliated by slashing at his leg. A sharp stinging sensation hit him as he saw his health deplete by fifteen percent! Bell despaired as he realised just how hard the brutal difficulty would be.

With three quick strikes Bell finished off the solo goblin. After beating the goblin he saw the magic stone and a goblin fang drop to the ground. Well, the increased drop rate from his luck stat was a small consolation for how he was about to be ganked by the very same kobolds and goblins he was massacring just the other day. Bell ended up deciding to keep the difficulty where it was. He needed to increase his stats for today so Brutal it was. It just annoyed him that he would have to treat each encounter with a goblin patrol as if he was fighting a mini-boss. Tedious, but doable.