Thinking about my level progression, I thought about the way in which my stats had been changing during this time and the class that I would take in the future. Although I could not see them, or even know if something like stats even existed in this world, I was aware that the way in which I was getting stronger was not uniform.

While I definitely felt that my physical abilities had improved, it was only slightly compared to my ability to control mana as well as the amount of mana in my body, with both going up at a discernible rate. At this moment I couldn't be sure if this is a subconscious decision on my part, if it’s a result of me focusing mainly on using magic, the result of my abilities such as [Soul Devourer], the influence of something else, or simply the disposition of my body.

Regardless of the reason, It was very clear that my progression was leading me to the path of becoming a mage, and with the benefit of being able to gain a new magic skill every time I leveled up if I wanted to, I didn’t really have much against going for such a build at the moment. After all, I doubt there would be many mages who would have the proper opportunity to go down their magic skill trees. WIthout the opportunity to pick a skill every time you leveled up, I was sure that it would take a ridiculous amount of effort just to reach Tier 5 skills. 

Deciding to get Ailya’s input on the matter, I asked her;

“Ailya, during the time we’ve been in this labyrinth, what would you say you’ve felt your body get better at? Physical strength or mana?”

At my question, Ailya pondered seriously as she closed her eyes before opening them and staring at me as she answered:

“I would say that I definitely feel like I’ve gotten physically stronger and faster, and my mana capacity has also increased a bit. However, I feel like my ability to control mana is what has truly taken a leap.”

With this answer I was able to cross out our abilities as the reason for the increase in mana. And since I was using my magic quite a bit, it might also be how we use our skills and abilities that affect our growth. After all, AIlya exclusively on her knife to fight enemies, and she was able to kill more than me. Since she also picked the [Fencing] skill, it was probable that Ailya wasn’t progressing in a path to becoming a pure Mage. This did not mean that it would be wrong for her to continue learning magic, since she could still very well becoming a hybrid build focusing on swordplay while using light/faith magic to aid her in combat.

With these thoughts, I decided that until we could get better information on how stats worked as well as the usual builds of other adventurers, I would plan around with me becoming a mage while AIlya became something akin to a paladin.

Ending that train of thought, I began to think about the last thing I learned from the three. Which was the way xp acquisition worked and why I was feeling a bit optimistic about the future. Since I had taken a glimpse with [Veritas] while we were fighting, I was able to learn some very important facts about monsters and the way increasing levels worked in this world.

The first thing I noticed about monsters, was that unlike normal animals, they had a unique mana flow along with a monster core that was located next to their heart. It seemed that all monsters had this strange mana flowing in them, even if they weren’t capable of using it. As a result, when the monsters were killed, I was able to see this unique mana leave the bodies of the dead monsters and flow into the body of whoever had killed them. And in this way, the soul of said person would become enriched and their level rise thanks to this ‘xp’. 

At the same time, I was very much aware that the monsters also possessed a soul. However, the soul of these monsters were not sucked up by the three, instead, they went either to Ailya or me, depending on who was closer unless one of us directly killed them. It was due to this that me and Ailya were able to earn extra xp and gain large amounts of vitality, since only the two of us were benefiting from the souls of these monsters. At the same time, with monster souls being more powerful than those of tiny insects or birds, I was able to increase the Tier of my [Soul Devourer] ability in this rather short period of time.

Observing this was also very useful in answering one of the questions I had. The question being if only those with the [Soul Devourer] ability were able to gain xp from normal animals. Since I gave Ailya the ability before having her test out my hypothesis, I was only able to answer it at the moment. Since the mana given from monsters, and as a result their xp, was different from animals, I was able to deduce that normal people just weren’t able to absorb the xp from the soul of non-monster beings.

This meant that Ailya and I had an inherent advantage towards leveling as compared to everyone else, as we not only gained the strength from the unique mana of monsters, but also directly from their souls. This gave a bit more confidence since we would be able to progress at a rate faster than others and might even be able to catch up to the old man faster than I thought. It might also be beneficiary for us to team up with others, since we could always benefit from the souls of the monsters they killed, essentially netting us free xp just for being present.