If you really want to stretch the term "work around" you could always do a method such as using two integers in conjunction with each other then manually adding the math elsewhere in the code:
For the level 1 it would be 0, 1.
For level 255 it would be 0, 255.
For level 256 it would be 1, 1.
For level 510 it would be 1, 255.
For level 511 it would be 2, 1.
For level 555 like you want it would be 2, 45.
Etc.. Etc...
This would involve a lot of screwing around, but you could more or less create a pseudo-leveling system and attempt to work it into the other calculations.