WHAT THE FUCK
IS HIS LEVEL?!
Like seriously, what the fuck is wrong with the author? It's almost like someone told him that he "doesn't need to rely on the litrpg elements to draw an audience anymore, you got an audience, just keep doing the brutalistic, survival story you've already been doing, just without stupid LeVeLS and SkiLLZZZZ that only served as a handicap!"
They could've done that AFTER showing whether or not he leveled up past the ceiling - ya'know, a major fucking plot point in the finale of "season 1"?
This is genuinely a good story, but because it established itself around "rankings" so strongly, it cannot just fucking go ahead and ignore it and pretend it's a story steeped in realism all of a sudden. This is so fucking ass.