Sorcerer multiclass and metamagic

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is a bug or just misunderstanding of the rules, but lets go.

I have a player who is a sorcerer lv 8 and he just added multiclass to Ranger lv1.

Once he did upgrade his character to level 9, his sheet started showing spell slot lv 5 (which in my understanding should not be there). I thought it could be related to Metamagic upcasting, but then in the players book it states that the sorcerer needs at least sorcerer lv 9 to use it, as tablebelow:

Here is the link for the character sheet for verification

https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/12705286

Can someone please help me with this?

Thanks a lot!

That's the correct behavior for a character using the 5.5e rules.

The rules for multiclass spellcasting say that you determine your available spell slots by adding together all your levels in "full caster" classes and half your levels in "half caster" classes (rounding up) to get a sort of "effective spellcaster level", and you get the same set of spell slots that you would get if you were a single-class full caster of that level. Since Sorcerer is a full caster class, and Ranger is a half caster class, this character's effective casting level is equal to the 8 levels of Sorcerer, plus half of the 1 level of Ranger (rounded up, so still 1) for a total level of 9. This is the level when a full caster would get a level 5 spell slot, so this character gets one.

This character would not have access to any level 5 spells yet (because the set of spells you can prepare is determined by each class individually, and neither class has access to level 5 spells yet) but they can use this level 5 spell slot to upcast lower-level spells from either class.

The Sorcerer ability to create spell slots from Sorcery Points is dependent on Sorcerer level specifically, so this character can't create a level 5 slot that way until they actually have 9 levels in the Sorcerer class.