Dominic watched with a grin on his face as the adorable humanoid wolf struggled against his mind chains.

  It truly looked like a demihuman, the child of a wolf and a human. He wasn’t sure if such a thing existed in this world, mixed races, but he did have a very close wolf god friend, so watching the wolfkin child struggle in the shackles he had created reminded him of that wolf god friend’s adorable young son. It made him feel a paternal affection, as if he were trying to suppress the tantrum of an unruly child.

  Gabrielle interrupted at that moment, breaking Dominic’s focus.

  Mister Dominic, there’s currently no way your disciple can defeat that monster, even if he tried for millions of years.

  ?(??︿?)?

  Dominic blinked. “What do you mean, Gabrielle?” It’d been a while since he checked on Calvin’s status, but the kid was surely on par for anything an S-Rank dungeon could throw at him. “Let me see his stats.”

  Here you go! But I’m afraid it’s not close to enough.

  Disciple Calvin’s Status Screen:

  Level: 160

  Specializations:

  Blood Instinct [Lvl 89]

  I am One of You [Lvl 93]

  Beast Tamer [Lvl 73]

  Pure Mana [Lvl 10]

  [Expand into other Miscellaneous Specializations?]

  Titles:

  Follow Your Instinct [Rare, B Grade]

  Primal, Beastly, Insane [Epic, B Grade]

  Relentless Attacker [Rare, B Grade]

  Daredungeon [Rare, B Grade]

  Dungeon Survivor [Epic, B Grade]

  Divine Acceptance [Rare, B Grade]

  Ten Thousand Cuts [Epic, A Grade]

  They’re living beings too, man! [Epic, S Grade]

  Relfow Affinity [Rare, A Grade]

  The Peak [Epic, S Grade]

  Companions:

  Relfow Sub-Boss Alpha [S-Rank, Lvl 160]

  Relfow Sub-Boss Beta [S-Rank, Lvl 160]

  Relfow Sub-Boss Gamma [S-Rank, Lvl 160]

  Relfow Sub-Boss Delta [S-Rank, Lvl 160]

  Relfow Minion [S-Rank, Lvl 160] "Wolfey"

  Relfow Minion [S-Rank, Lvl 160] "Doggy"

  [100+ more ... EXPAND?]

  Dominic grinned, proud all over again as he looked over each of his disciple’s accomplishments. “You can’t tell me any other S-Ranker on the planet can top that list.”

  Wellll, I might not have examined the proper bosses when I was coding the dungeons, so some of them are a bit too brokenly powerful. For example, this boss—he should be SS rank, but he evolved himself into the SSS rank, probably by killing his own minions and coming to some sort of self-induced enlightenment.

  Your disciple, at his current state, even if he tried for millions of years and earned multiple unique EX-grade titles, won’t be able to defeat this monster. Not unless he breaks through the S Rank barrier and reaches at least the SS Rank.

  (っ- ? - ?)

  Dominic blinked again. “Right. So, what do I tell him?”

  He couldn’t just say, ‘Disciple, you’re too weak, let’s leave.’ Well, it was an option, something his master would totally do, but Dominic had a lot more emotional intelligence than his master. He needed to lay out the fact that some things were too strong to just try and brute force through gently to his disciple—teach why retreating was sometimes important—not make him feel demotivated.

  He would have to give him a plan for the future as soon as he tells him what he was trying was currently impossible, in order to make sure the boy doesn’t feel insecure.

  The easiest way to break through the SS Class barrier—and the SSS Class Barrier—is by experiencing things that you never had the chance to before. Things you’ve always wanted. For the King of Nohl, it was successfully becoming the Rampage King and building a kingdom from his own strength. For Calvin, I suspect it might be the experiences he missed out on as an orphan—things he never got to have or do.

  ( ?? ^ ?? )?

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Doing such things will allow him to break through the mental barriers put forth by the System, and then he can simply grind as usual!

  Dominic nodded. That made sense. Giving his disciple a direction and the truth of the situation would be a good combination of carrot and stick.

  He looked at Calvin and said, “There’s no way you can defeat that monster in your current state, Calvin.”

  Calvin turned toward him, confusion lingering in his eyes. "Why would you say so, master? I think I can beat it with a healthy amount of grinding, no? It will probably take a few tens of thousands of tries, but… Unless you think I’m… just too weak?”

  "You’re definitely not weak," Dominic suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the very thought of that prospect. “If this willpower and determination to grow is weak, then a solid amount of the gods would have to blush and hide themselves away for their ‘weakness’.” He stroked his chin, “That boss monster is just broken—it seemed to have exploited the world’s rules, that’s all.”

  "What if I buff him?" Hannah spoke up. "I have other abilities besides healing. I could—"

  Dominic shook his head. "I'm sorry. Your abilities are nowhere close to strong enough. It’s not a matter of simple power. Even your strongest combined abilities, it could withstand forever.”

  Calvin nodded with realization. “Ah. I see.”

  Dominic nodded along. "Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll teach you to make a subspace as promised. Then, you can bring your pets along, and we’ll find a way to break past your SS Class and SSS Class mental barriers. We came to this dungeon to get you to S Class. That purpose has been fulfilled. Let’s make this your next quest—to be able to defeat an SSS Class monster. It’s likely the strongest limit of this world, I think."

  Calvin paused, seemingly pondering his master’s words. Before the boy could say anything in reply, however, Dominic's eyes widened.

  "Oh, apparently you guys do have an EX-Rank being that exists, albeit deeply sealed. That's amazing. This world is slightly better than I thought.”

  “How far away is an EX-Rank from becoming a demigod?” Calvin asked curiously.

  Dominic hummed under his breath. “With some guidance and help to leave this world, an EX-Rank is practically one step away from becoming a demigod.”

  At this, Calvin raised his eyebrows, looking suitably impressed.

  Dominic nodded. "Now that you understand, let’s begin."

  They found a quiet spot in the dungeon near the entrance to begin the subspace training. Honestly, Calvin was relieved. He still felt uneasy standing near the boss door—a feeling his master seemed to understand, since he led them back to the dungeon’s entrance before beginning.

  Though it might have been more of a formality—a way to make it feel like they were starting something new—it worked. Calvin’s focus shifted from the nagging sense of incompletion that was the undefeatable boss monster to learning how to create a subspace.

  He was deeply curious. How would he learn to do this? From what his master described, it sounded like something only gods should be able to do—creating an entire world. Sure, it was called a subspace, but it was essentially a tiny world.

  Calvin was supposed to create a world to house his pets.

  He’d initially wanted to take his Relfow along with them to the entrance of the dungeon, but then had decided against it for two simple reasons.

  One, the more minor reason, was that the hundreds of Relfows wouldn’t fit through the dungeon’s corridors smoothly unless they were ordered to form an orderly line and Calvin manually helped them do so, but then they’d be so cramped and not have room to scamper and play while they waited.

  The other reason was the volatility of the subspace creation process. What if accidentally harmed one of his pets by losing control of his mana while practicing?

  Even if Hannah could heal them, Calvin couldn’t bear the thought of harming one of his own pets, so he readily agreed to leave them to wander through the dungeon on their own until he was ready.

  “Alright, Calvin,” his master began. “Let’s start training you with your subspace. It’s going to be painful, torturous, and probably very grindy, but I know you can do it.”

  Calvin nodded. He could do it. Yes, I can do it. Definitely. This whole trip was too much of an opportunity to even consider hesitating. He would seize every moment he possibly could, no matter how hard it was.

  No amount of physical or magical pain could be worse than resigning himself back to the life the rest of the world wanted him to live. Worthless, rejected, and disregarded. No. That isn’t me.

  He would do this. He would force the world to acknowledge him, whatever it took.

  “Creating a subspace is quite the twisted and tricky concept to comprehend, but the fundamentals are simple enough. Keep expanding your mana, the intensity of the energy within it, while contracting the size of the mana itself as infinitesimally small as possible. It’ll eventually overcome the boundaries of time and space and continuity and all those shenanigans.”

  Calvin blinked. If the man had told him to stack fireballs on top of each other until they formed a building it would have been more sensible. “Uh…” he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, me neither,” his master said airily. “Something about black holes, maybe? But eh, theory is boring, better to just do the thing. Unless it’s undiscovered things, like the Soul Eaters. Exploring the unknown…” he seemed to drift off into a happy memory for a moment, then shook his head and smiled down at Calvin. “One thing at a time. To begin, you’ve unlocked the ability to use mana, right? Pure Mana, if I’m correct? You can only form a fireball with it right now?”

  Calvin nodded. Using his Pure Mana to form a fireball was the only way he could currently wield it.

  “Then, form a fireball. Make one appear above your hand.”

  That was easy enough. Calvin raised his arm and with a single thought, a fireball appeared above his palm.

  “Alright, now compress it.”

  “Compress it?”

  “Yeah. Keep trying to compress it and add more energy into it until you can barely see the fireball. Making it the size of your fingernail should do.”

  Calvin stared at his master silently. He understood the instruction—as in, the individual words that his master had strung together—but had no clue how to make the fireball smaller. There was no scale on the spell, either he did it or didn’t do it. There was no bigger or smaller option.

  His master slapped his forehead in realization. “Right, right... new mana user. Basically, you need to constrict the flow of mana into the fireball. Can you feel the connection? The mana pathway?”

  Calvin focused. It took a few seconds, but he could vaguely feel a soft drain from the core of his stomach to his hand. He looked up to his master and nodded fervently.

  “That’s probably the mana being drained,” his master continued. “Now, constrict it, but also push more mana into it, like forcing a needle through a small hole. That’s not the best example, but do you get what I'm trying to say? I do have better examples, but none of the ones I know will make sense to you.”

  Calvin tried to follow his master’s instructions, trying to press down on the path, and—

  Pain. Pain burnt through him, making him groan and collapse into his knees.

  It was excruciating. His body screamed at him not to go further, this was a dead end, against the natural order of the world.

  But Calvin was a stubborn bastard. Since when did he let the natural order of the world boss him around? If he could put himself through so much to tame his lovely army, he could go a little further to ensure they had a safe place to travel with him.

  Gritting his teeth, he grunted and continued.

  Every time he tried to compress the mana pathway, a sharp pain shot through his stomach, as though he was stabbing himself repeatedly.

  “Yeah, it’ll hurt,” his master acknowledged, observing his pained expression with a mix of sympathy and… schadenfreude? “That’s the problem with this. Once you’ve created the hyperdense mana, the rest will be easy, but getting there…”

  Calvin could only grunt in response, nodding slightly.

  “You'll have to get used to it.”