Bezzias was intrigued by Nero's question. He was already turning around to help the boy back on his feet but Altia was fast enough to get to him first.

"Why do you say that, assistant Nero?"

His outburst had already drawn attention from some students around.

"My Arbitrium--"

"Say no more. Follow me."

The door didn't react to Nero's device. In hindsight, it was obvious that should happen. He was level zero, the door wasn't projected for people like him! But it also revealed another issue. The kid's device was in diagnosis mode for some reason. Bezzias could only see one way that could've happened. Tinkwezilsky had turned it on to check his level cap and the device health but forgot to turn it off. It was inconsequential and would even speed up the procedures but such slip was unbefitting of a master gadgeteer. Thankfully the kid kept his discretion and he led them into the elevator. The doors opened when he called the carriage.

"Professor, what is this?" Altia asked.

"It is a vehicle that can take you between the floors. Since it mostly elevates people, we call it an elevator."

"Why can't the doors in this place open the normal way?" Nero groaned.

They entered the elevator and Bezzias pressed the button for the fourth floor. He smiled a bit when he saw that Nero jumped when the doors closed. Maybe he had a traumatic experience in a Dungeon. Not at home, Bezzias did his homework. [Armsmaster] Byron and [Magus] Rhynne, two of the strongest Adventurers of the country. Truly the guildmaster was level two hundred and sixty-five, but she wasn't born here. The stranglehold the leonals have on everyone with power joining the Knights was what maintained that clan in power for so long. The other nations even started to imitate them.

Maybe they hope to turn this tide was right by his side. If Bezzias theories are confirmed, it would mean a shift in the paradigm of the world. Would anyone dare say the strongest person was a level zero? Impossible if you didn't understand how the Arbitrium worked.

They arrived at their destination floor. Bezzias led them to the lab where they would conduct the experiment. As the door opened, he found two other researchers were there, wishing to put their hands and paws on a piece of the pie. Bezzias kept the frown from forming in his face but if the cost of the experiment was to have the gnome and the squiig here, so be it.

----------------------------------------

Nero opened a broad smile when he saw the occupants of the room. Glom and Tinkwezilsky were there, messing with some really expensive-looking instruments. The squiig wore a gray uniform and the gnome was black like Bezzias.

"Glom! What is up? I didn't know you worked for the Lyceum!"

The diminutive gadgeteer had his own platform with instruments and tools designed for his size. His briefcase-laboratory was there too. He waved back.

"Nero! Good to see you too boy. How was the Dungeon treating you? Altia! Or Mrs. Nero now! Congratulations on your marriage!"

"It is good to see you too, Glom!" Altia answered with a smile. "And Nero is fine, we were consistently farming the creepy crawlers on our last delve before the wedding."

Nero was about to brag how he killed the goblin but Altia's eyes said 'no'.

"That's good. Too bad that Dungeon is yellow-rated or you could try the boss," Glom chirped a peal of laughter.

"Tinkwezilsky, did you leave assistant Nero's device on diagnosis mode on purpose?" Bezzias asked.

The gnome jumped at the question, then looked guilty. "I think I did. That knight colonel was pestering me so much and harassing everyone, I forgot. Did it bother you, Nero?"

He seemed really contrite. Nero shook his head. "No. It gave me a wealth of information, I learned a lot about the nature of the Arbitrium and its functions. I'd like if you not only allowed mine to remain like that but also switch Altia's to diagnosis mode."

He knew he'd scored big when the three gearheads smiled together. It was Bezzias that spoke first.

"That is amazing. What did you discover about the Arbitrium?"

"The way Accolades select which Attribute to improve. It all depends on what Attributes you exercise the most. For one delve, I kept running around and killing only rats. I didn't even stop to pick up the drops. I was able to earn accolades in Agility, then Strength, then Agility, Strength, and Endurance."

"Five Accolades in a single delve?" Tinkwezilsky gasped. "That's amazing."

"It was a rather long one. Eight days."

"Nice. But say no more," Tinkwezilsky raised a hand. "We need you to sign our research agreement. Please let me explain," when he saw Nero was about to speak. "The Lyceum has an Ethics committee, that approves all research projects. Those that involve people, we need to get the written agreement of the subjects. Now, this agreement here involves seven basic things.

"First, your name won't appear on any of our published papers. Your identity will be preserved although certain individuals that know of our relationship and of your unique condition will be aware it is about you."

Nero thought of Valanaagornif. That's one person that would profit from disclosing Nero's secrets. It made him wary of oversharing.

"Second, you can rescind your consent at any time. We will cease any further research.

"Third, you will be regarded as an assistant researcher of the Lyceum until you rescind the agreement. We will work to protect you and you, your wife, and your children will have free tuition here. Your room and boarding during your stay with us will be funded by the Lyceum. Tenured professor Bezzias here took on that responsibility out of his own pockets though.

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"Fourth, you will be informed of all our discoveries first. We are partners.

"Fifth, we will not intentionally induce harm or pain upon your person. In the case it happens unwittingly, we will stop whatever activities we are doing immediately, and give you time to recover.

"Sixth, our procedures have been tested and approved on other subjects, our control group before we apply them to you.

"Seventh, anything you tell us will be protected by confidentiality. You can feel safe with us and be assured that no remark, quip, or intuition is too stupid, too silly, or too obvious it can't be spoken. We are men of science here.

"That's all. The agreement has the terms in legalese, but this is the core of it."

Altia took a step forward. "Can I read it?"

"Of course," The gnome handed her a sheaf of paper.

Altia sat down and began to read. And read. She would flip the pages back and forth, double-checking the references. It seemed the real agreement was a labyrinth of clauses, a Faustian contract. She took an hour to study the whole contract. She flipped back to the front page and raised her head.

"Can we make changes to this? I do not like the amount of information that is being disclosed. For example, I don't want anything about our particular Status, like Attributes, Classes, and Skills published. You will also make no mention of Accolades or Anima crystals. We don't need to let people worry my husband can potentially gain five Attributes in a single delve, although this was an extremely stupid risk he took and for which he reflected enough."

"There's room at the end of the contract. You can cross the wording you want to remove and add what you need at the end," Tinkwezilsky answered. "Then I'll send the draft to our clerk and he will make five copies of the agreement for us to sign, one for each of us."

"But we can all sign the draft so we don't have to waste the day. What Mrs. Altia added is well within our capabilities and won't hurt our research goals."

"I agree," The gnome nodded.

They took rounds signing the draft after Altia did her modifications. Once all five signatures were on the paper, Tinkwezilsky called for a clerk and sent the agreement to make copies. They sat at a table, or in Glom's case, on the table, and Bezzias started.

"Well, Nero. Let me tell you about the purpose of our research. Have you heard of limiters?"

"Yes, the thing that keeps people from dying outside a dungeon," The ape-kin replied.

"Indeed. The limiter is a function of the Arbitrium that cuts some of the power of the Attributes so the energy expenditure becomes equal to the absorption rate. Inside a Dungeon, this limiter is deactivated and the Adventurer can enjoy their full range of abilities."

"Why not keep the limiter engaged when delving in a low-rank Dungeon then, instead of killing the person?" Nero asked.

"Unfortunately, the original project of the Arbitrium is lost to time," Bezzias confessed. "We can make more of them but modifications of core functions are nearly impossible to make. Sometimes we can add one thing or another, like your shield there, or some display enhancements but we can't do anything to the limiter."

"Well, when I enter a Dungeon, I get a message with the Dungeon's name, its rank and that an error occurred, 'limiter not engaged' I think. Dunno."

"The device calls it 'safety protocols'. The exact message is 'Disarming safety protocols... error. Safety protocols were not engaged'," Tinkwezilsky corrected.

"But Limiter is easier on the tongue," Glom quipped.

Bezzias took some paper and wrote some numbers and calculations as he explained. "Now, the limiter is turned on when the Delver hits level six. From that point on, ten percent of all Stats above one will be deactivated. A Dexterity of twenty-one, for example, will become nineteen. Published research showed it is rounded up, actually. So a Dexterity of twelve will become ten. Two points will be lost. From then, every five levels will see this percent increase by one and the threshold increase by one every twenty levels. At level two hundred, the threshold will be eleven and the limiter will deactivate half of the Attributes above this threshold. A Strength of one hundred will become fifty-five.

"Wait, it means that someone with a level high enough won't have any Attribute beyond the cap," Altia suggested.

"We never had anyone above level two hundred and seventy-three. But some scholars speculate that the limiter has a ceiling of ninety percent," Bezzias said.

"And now we reached this crazy man wild theories," Tinkwezilsky said, "crazy until we met you, Nero."

"I think the limiter exists to fix a flaw on the person's inner energy flows," Bezzias declared with pride. "In fact, my theory states that Levels stem from how flawed the person's energy flow is. The Arbitrium measures this and then assigns the Level based on this measurement upon binding. The bigger the flaw, the bigger the limit it has to put and more energy it requires to calibrate the flow so the person doesn't die."

"That's a really strange thing to say," Altia pointed out. "It means the powerful people are, in fact, the weakest, if your flaw theory is correct."

"It is just a theory," Bezzias humbly agreed. "Our model does not cover for all variables like Classes and the growth of power with levels. But it explains why people can't get Accolades from lower-level monsters."

"Leave it to me," Tinkwezilsky interrupted. "Nero, the diagnosis message when you get an Accolade, what is it?"

"Compatible Anima detected. Energy absorbed above the threshold. Processing upgrade. Weighing Attribute strain," Nero replied.

"Exactly. There are three components there. First, the Anima of the monster must be compatible with the Adventurer. We found around two hundred and fifty-two types of Anima. Second, the energy liberated by the monster's death must be strong enough to go above the absorption threshold of the Adventurer,"

The gnome started to explain but Bezzias, exited, cut in.

"And that is why I devised this theory. The absorption threshold goes up once someone levels, therefore it is wasting more energy."

"And where does Nero fit in all of this?" Altia asked, barely keeping up with the scientist talk.

"He will never have the limiter active. His internal energy flows are so efficient he does not absorb energy. I bet the Essence crystals Nero drops are at full energy."

Nero nodded. "Yes, they are. This is an Essence crystal dropped by a level seven creepy crawler," He put the glowing red gem on the table.

Glom quickly scampered and touched his device to the crystal. "Four hundred and ninety," He read.

"See?" Bezzias elbowed Tinkwezilsky, victorious, "You will only see this amount of Essence in a crystal on rank X Dungeons and beyond."

"Color me surprised," The gnome gasped.

"My model predicted that a person that has no flaw on the internal energy would have a level cap of zero, as the device wouldn't have to compensate."

"The pain when one activates the Arbitrium is due to the energy channels of the body being forcibly cleaned up," Glom added.

"But in this process, they are widened as the clog is removed, and thus require more energy to operate," Bezzias concluded.

"I am sorry," Nero raised his hand. "I didn't understand much. Altia? Is something wrong?"

"Don't you see, Nero?" She was almost bursting into tears, her voice full of emotion. "It means you are not defective or crippled."

"It also means that your path to power will be a slow one," Tinkwezilsky added. "Although any power you obtain, is yours to keep. Eventually, you'll become strong enough to take on any Dungeon."

"And you will always be able to enter any Dungeon," Bezzias said. "Our experiments will test if your absorption rates are really zero or if there's some kind of residual power being funneled into the device."

Nero held Altia's hand. "I understood but before we begin, I'd like to ask you to shed light into some fairy tales we hear about cards."

"Of course. You can ask anything," The bat-kin opened his wings wide to show he was open to questions.

"We heard legends of a type of card rarer than even orange-grade. They say its border is iridescent, rainbow, transparent, and several others wild assumptions. Have you heard of that?"

"Oh, he's talking of unique cards," Glom corrected. "Their borders are black."

"We have one here at the Lyceum," Tinkwezilsky revealed. "A Skill. Nobody can use it though. We can't even read the text, it is all garbled and it changes every time you look at it."

"Interesting. Are there many of them?" Altia asked.

"No. Unique cards, as far as we know, are unique. Once one drops, it won't drop again ever," Bezzias answered.

"And there are only five uniques known worldwide," Glom added. "Our institution is lucky to have one."

"Oh, really?" Nero's enthusiasm was barely contained. "Could I take a look at it? I love cards."

"Of course. There are some security procedures to protect the card from thieves, but we can go there later after we do some preliminary tests. This way, Nero."