Before heading out into the Gray Stone Hollows, they had one quick errand take care of in the Crimson Courtyards. Hazel had already raided the miniboss loot chest, and so she knew there wasn’t anything incredible up there, but there were still two pieces of equipment to be claimed. She’d not done so right away so that Mia could make the decision—both because she would know which was the better choice, and because the loot belonged to her. Even the armor Hazel had equipped now would be returned to her companion; they were on loan.

After Mia scanned and made her choice, she passed them over, and Hazel ended up with two more pieces of equipment: a pair of bracers and a pair of boots. Neither were impressive, nor would they be sticking around in Hazel’s kit for long, being both commons and not especially suited to her class.

From there, they exited the Crimson Courtyard for the last time, entering back into the kinder majority of the dungeon. They got to hunting, setting off in a random direction. They had no guarantees they would be making their way back to the surface any time soon, but Mia seemed hopeful.

Only another hour in, Hazel received a system notification. The box appeared in her vision, obscuring most of her sight. She hoped such a thing wouldn’t happen in the middle of a fight. That could possibly be deadly.

Hazel had known the notification was incoming, having been tracking the quest’s progress, and so had Mia. Hazel intended to keep her in the loop. Not only did she trust Mia implicitly at this point—the succubus almost sacrificing herself for Hazel had done wonders for any reservations—but her advice was also invaluable.

“You got it, then?” Mia asked.

“Yep. F-Grade inventory module.” Hazel tilted her head. “What’s the difference between the grades, anyway? And what’s up with the grade system? Like, in general?”

“What do you mean?”

“How high does it go? What’s it mean, relatively speaking? Do the grades match up to levels somehow? And what’s the highest level you can reach?” Hazel shrugged. She had a bunch of other questions, but she also didn’t want to flood Mia with them. She would ask them as they became relevant.

“Hm. Some of those questions are hard to answer,” Mia said. “Like what max level is. And how far the grades go. The thing is, someone like me simply wouldn’t know.”

“Someone like you?” Hazel said. “I thought you were, like, a noble lady or something?” With that in mind, she would have assumed Mia was one of the more informed people Hazel could talk to.

“Of a relatively unimportant region,” Mia said. “Which only grants me the awareness to realize how ignorant I am on the global stage.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve never seen anything above C-Grade,” Mia said. “And yes, they line up to levels in a general sense—but not absolutely. They’re organized separately for a reason, though I couldn’t say what that reason is. For example, a person’s average peak stat would upgrade a division every ten levels. So a level ten would have a E-Grade main stat, a twenty a D-Grade, and a thirty a C-Grade—and so on.”

“So on to what? What’s the peak?”

“I’ve heard of B-Grade,” Mia said. “But you’d probably have to go off planet for anything higher. And again, it’s more than possible for all of that to be rumors and hear-say. I’m simply not aware of what happens at such incredible ranks. Someone with B-Grade strength could probably uproot mountains.”

There were several casually dropped phrases there that had Hazel stunned speechless. She found her voice. “Sorry, did you say off planet?” That was the most astounding reveal, of course, but there were more. “And ripping up mountains? People get that strong?”

“Maybe? Again, let me reiterate—we’re not in a part of the world, or universe, that would know. The eminent forces on our planet tend to be secretive about information relating to higher levels of power. The strongest person you’ll ever see, likely, is in the twenties.”

Hazel’s head started spinning. She didn’t even know where to start with all of that. She guessed based on how she’d been transported through dimensions, she shouldn’t be surprised she’d ended up in a place where other planets were a thing. Still, she hadn’t expected them to be, what, linked somehow? It was a lot to take in.

In a way, Hazel figured it was a good thing. If she decided to reveal her unusual origin—coming from Earth—then Mia knowing about other planets meant it wouldn’t sound a tenth as strange. Plus it implied that inter-planetary travel was possible, massively increasing the likelihood of one day returning home.

For now, she focused on the more immediately relevant stuff. She was almost scared to question Mia over the rest. She needed a second to let it digest.

“But I’m already level four after just a day,” Hazel said. “So how is it possible level twenties is the highest I’ll ever see?”

“The first five levels are the formation stage,” Mia said. “It defines your class and gives you your starter skills. Progress drastically slows down from that point. There’s more slowdowns at ten, twenty, thirty, and so on. Hitting five might take a few days or a week for a dedicated adventurer—like you, trapped in an underground dungeon, with strong skills to aid your progress. But it might take a year from that point to hit ten, and a decade to hit twenty. This is assuming you live to that point. Obviously, when doggedly pursuing progress, fatality rates are high.”

“And thirty? Forty? Higher?” Hazel asked. “Sorry—nobody really reaches that high of level, like you said. So you wouldn’t know.” She shook her head. “Wow. I had no idea. Just need a moment.”

She could intuit that progression went at least to the A-Grade for stats, but what about higher? S? SSS? Possibly it even diverged into a number-based system, counting from ‘9’ to ‘1’ for further progression. Based on the off-hand mention of further planets to explore, Hazel suspected it might not even stop there: maybe she’d arrived to a multiverse, with paths toward godlike progressions available.

Then again, maybe she was letting her imagination run wild. Mia seemed more informed than most, and even she was clueless on the bigger picture. All of that stuff was for much further down the line. Hazel’s interest had been piqued, but she suspected she wouldn’t be getting any answers for a while.

Though, she couldn’t just let the mention of extra planets slide by. Intimidated or not, she had to ask.

“And those other planets,” Hazel said. “What are they?”

“Shouldn’t we be talking about your quest reward?” Mia asked. “You got an inventory module.”

“Humor me.” She would figure out that new feature in a second.

Mia shrugged. “I know their names, and very minimal information about them. I’ve known no one who’s actually been. Interplanetary travel is something level thirties at a minimum partake in—meaning, nobody on our continent. Probably across the ocean, there’s some. And besides, other planets are no different than faraway countries. Well, besides more drastic geographic and cultural differences. Though some of that is shared everywhere.” She shook her head clear. “But I really think we should focus on the here and now, is my point.”

Reluctantly, Hazel agreed. Mia’s reasoning was sound. Why not question Mia about all the geography and culture of this planet? This was, after all, as alien of a planet to Hazel as the others. They were all not Earth.

Still, her curiosity had certainly been set running wild. But she could tell Mia didn’t want a million questions about the world’s—the universe’s—geography, sociology, and politics. And she likely didn’t have answers to most of it anyways.

“Okay. Inventory module,” Hazel said.

She’d been excited about the upgrade, but in face of everything else she’d just learned, it almost felt unimportant. That feeling quickly faded as she realized she’d just earned spatial storage. That was its own fascinating aspect of this new world, and rather than being faraway and unknown, she had access to it now.

“How’s it work?” Hazel asked. “And, uh, back to the original point—what’s the difference between a F-Grade inventory module and an E-Grade?”

“More space,” Mia said. “That’s it.” She shrugged. “Again, as far as I know. Most people would be authoritative about that claim, but I’m informed enough to be aware that I know next to nothing when it comes to the higher grades.”

“Okay. But between F and E, it’s just space, then. Might change higher up.”

“Yes. To use it, it’s the same as any other system feature. Just try to draw something into your inventory.”

Hazel had figured as much. She fished out a few bronze essence coins—which were actually dwindling after so much consumption of them, but they were also common as dirt, so she didn’t mind—and held them between sticky green fingers. She frowned as she focused on ‘pulling them toward her’.

The stack of coins disappeared.

Hazel blinked. It hadn’t come with a notification. For such a mundane action, that made sense.

“And withdrawing is the same?” Hazel asked.

“It is.”

Shortly, Hazel had withdrawn the small stack of coins.

“Neat.”

“It’s certainly a convenient feature. The crazy part is how early you received yours.” She shook her head. “And you have an active quest for your map module, too. I don’t even have that yet.”

“Those kinds of quests are rare?”

“No. Module upgrades are far and away the most common,” Mia said, “but still not common. No personal quests are common. Especially before even finishing your formation levels.”

“Guess I’m lucky.”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

After having been randomly snatched through worlds with no explanation, she better have some luck to counteract that misfortune.

Hazel extracted the various items she’d stored inside her gooey body and stored them inside her inventory instead. There wasn’t an exact indicator like with health or mana, but she could feel how ‘full’ the storage was. As it stood, she’d only stored less than five percent, having dropped in coins, monster cores, and a few spare potions. But she could see how indiscriminately taking items—like drops from monsters—would fill the space up quickly. Mia had mentioned that she hadn’t brought along spare weapons because it would waste potential storage for bringing earned loot back to the surface, and Hazel understood now. Inventory was a convenient feature, but far from a complete solution to adventuring woes. F-Grade wasn’t all that spacious.

With her experimentation over her newfound module completed, Hazel looked down at the recently defeated monster—the one-hundredth that had completed the quest.

“What’s with the black crystals, by the way?” Hazel asked, peering down at the spider-like creature. The monster was insectoid in shape like many of the encounters they’d faced so far, but unlike that first section of the Gray Stone Hollows, many seemed to be encrusted with black crystalline growths. Focusing her attention toward the material didn’t provide any system information.

“Not sure,” Mia said. “But I haven’t seen anything like it, either.”

“Should we be worried?”

“I don’t see any reason to be. I don’t know what it is, but that’s hardly rare. The dungeon is a place of endless variance.” She frowned down at the spider monster. “But you’re right. I don’t like it. Black crystal growing out of every monster we’ve fought so far—it makes me nervous.”

“Well,” Hazel said. “Whatever it is, it’s not our problem.”

“Uh,” Hazel said. “Never mind. Maybe it is our problem.”