At every N+ rank, the level progress is stuck at 1% until the MC obtains some exponentially increasing amount of resource points. This would not be problematic if the author simply stated that the MC's level of 'knowledge' increases in the meantime (knowledge is power etc.), but apparently the author doesn't realize the fact until 500+ chapters in. Also, the author 'conveniently' ignores available sources of energy for upgrades if they were to speed up the plot; nuclear power is NEVER used between the transition from oil to energy crystals even though it is far more accessible than the latter. Thus, we get the MC floffing around and not increasing his power while he is still aware of some ominous unknown threat.