Along with the old interview article, the players of Stunning Life were analyzing this upheaval in a different way.
-So you're saying the tutorial really is supposed to be impossible to clear?
-For starters, shaking off the swarm of rats by running seems to be officially impossible according to the devs
-Then is there some kind of hidden piece in the tutorial?
They speculated that rather than running 500 meters to shake them off, there must have been some other hidden piece.
-Seems there's a way other than running
-Like a space the swarm of rats can't enter?
-A hidden piece in a 50-year-old game tutorial, holy shit lol
└It's Stunning Life, so it's possible
└Besides, Stage 2 itself is basically a hidden piece when you think about it
-So how did they get past Stage 2? If not by running away?
-Was there a way to kill the rat swarm?
-Tutorial rat swarms register 0 damage when hit by players anyway, so you can't kill them. They aren't even classified as monsters to begin with;;
-Maybe there was a method like burning them instead of fighting
-You have no tools during the tutorial, can't use background skills, and you're just bare-handed. How would you even start a fire?
-Those rat bastards are all crazy. Even if you set them on fire, they'd still bite you
└lol tru
└Right lol
└Rat swarm flame edition lol
└They'd just gain bonus fire damage lol
-I'm so fucking curious about the main scenario too
-What the hell even comes out in the main scenario???
-Person who got the Tutorial Legend achievement, please tell us what the main scenario is, I'm begging you
-Come on and explain it yourself
-Holding my breath until they show up
-At least post a YouTube video, please. I'll be waiting to like and subscribe
Among the countless posts, there were also a tremendous number of scouting posts from clubs trying to recruit Seo Minjun.
-To the person with the above achievement, please contact the 'Stunning Stars' club. We guarantee the best treatment in the industry
-We are 'Kaysla,' a top-tier domestic club. We will pay a signing bonus immediately upon achievement verification. Please contact us.
-Hello, person with the above achievement ㅠㅠ You probably won't be interested in a new club like ours... but we'll offer you unprecedented treatment. We are the Fast Heroes club..
And there were players suspected of being Seo Minjun.
-Look at these clubs wasting their energy lol. They must already be a ranked player with a club
-100%
-I predict it's Peter, who was 3rd in the North American rankings.. He got destroyed by Fernandez and deleted his account, but it seems he made a new one.
└Possible
└This doesn't make sense unless it's an established player
└Actually, it doesn't make sense even if they were a former ranked player lol
Stunning Life has a one-account-per-person limit. So if you want to start over, you have to delete your existing account.
However, the procedure is extremely complicated, taking several months, and costs an enormous amount of money, so very few people do so.
Among existing players, you could obviously count them on one hand.
So the pool of candidates itself wasn't large.
-It's one of the four: Peter, Hwang Uiryeong, Alfonso, or Mohammed.
└Take Hwang Uiryeong off the list. This isn't an achievement a 7th place nobody could get even if they reincarnated
└True lol
└Even if he reincarnated, impossible lol
└Isn't Alfonso the most likely?
-Since it was a server-wide announcement, it's way more likely to be a foreign player. The club bastards are wasting their time.
└That's why they're spamming recruitment posts in English on foreign communities too lol
└They sure are hardworking lol
-I'm so curious who it is
-Please come out and explain
-Stream for us, at least be human about it
***
"Oppa, I heard someone made a legend in the tutorial today. Did you know?"
Seo Jeongin, having returned home, asked from the entrance while taking off her shoes.
"You're talking about the Legend of the Tutorial? That was me."
He stated the fact calmly, but Seo Jeongin didn't believe him.
"Stop joking."
"It's true."
"I actually wondered at first, you know? Since you're the one who broke Usain Bolt's record, after all. But Stage 1 isn't cleared by running, right?"
"It is cleared by running, though?"
Seo Minjun said.
"I ran 500 meters and got teleported to Stage 2."
"Come on. Doesn't that rat swarm chase you at like 100 meters in 9 seconds without getting tired? No matter how amazing you are, how do you run 500 meters at that speed. Are you a quadruped?"
"It's true."
"You live to tease me."
"She doesn't believe me."
Seo Minjun entered the Stunning Life website on his phone, logged into his account, and showed her his profile.
[Seo Minjun Lv.1]
▶Background: Fallen Heavy Infantryman
▶Achievements: Tutorial Pioneer, Legend of the Tutorial
"Huh······?"
Only then did Seo Jeongin's eyes widen twofold.
"See. It has the achievements, right?"
"D......did you really do it, oppa?"
"I told you so."
"What's the Tutorial Pioneer?"
"It reduces status abnormality duration and gives all stats +30, apparently."
"30!"
Seo Jeongin's eyes doubled in size.
"Did you say 30!?"
There were quite a few achievements and items with stat boost options, but she had never seen one to this degree.
"What on earth happened?"
Seo Minjun explained in detail what had happened in Tutorial Stages 1, 2, 3, and the boss battle.
Running 500 meters while avoiding the swarm of rats.
Long jumping to avoid the great flood.
Hurdle running through a jungle wildfire.
Two spear throws to the nape of the monster alligator.
"······Wait, what the······."
Seo Jeongin had an expression as if she had just heard an urban legend.
"What's the monster alligator?"
"I don't know. Up to Stage 3 was tough, but that guy was pretty easy."
When Seo Minjun described its appearance, Seo Jeongin screamed.
"That's Crocutus!"
It's the most powerful field monster in the beginner village.
And it's impossible to deal damage with skills like Spear Throw.
Why?
Because Crocutus axes them away before they hit.
That is precisely why the skill 'Spear Throw' is trash. The damage amplification effect itself is excellent, but due to the limitations of the skill's activation mechanism—it only triggers 'on hit'—and its slow projectile speed, it's difficult to actually enjoy the payoff.
So usually non-mage types hunt Crocutus with arrows. Because arrows have twice the projectile speed of spear throws, it can't axe them away.
But the fact that he threw a spear and hit that monster in the neck······.
"You mean you threw the spear at arrow speed?"
Seo Jeongin broke out in goosebumps.
She had always known her brother possessed monstrous physical stats that were absurd for a human, but she had never imagined it was to this extent.
'That trash skill that's so slow no one can hit with it, and only activates when it hits—he can actually use that in combat?'
But that wasn't all.
"They said I exceeded 100 meters per second."
"Does projectile speed show up in a message?"
"Yeah. Something popped up saying it was a Transcendent Cast because it exceeded 100 m/s."
"Transcendent Cast!"
Seo Jeongin's scream grew even louder.
"Is that not allowed?"
"It's not that it's not allowed······it's that it's impossible!"
"······."
"Is it really Transcendent Cast? Did it say that? Transcendent Cast?"
"I told you it did. Why are you making such a fuss over it?"
"No······. Crocutus is amazing enough, but this is······."
So shocked that her brain froze for a moment, Seo Jeongin fumbled over her words before barely calming down.
"Even among ranked players, only the top 1% can barely use Transcendent Cast!"
"Is it that significant? It wasn't very difficult. Are other skills hard?"
"······."
Seo Jeongin's pupils trembled.
'Just how much of a talent freak is he?'
Stunning Life has no grades for backgrounds. There are no grades for classes either.
Just like that, skills have no grades either.
Things like Rare, Unique, Legend.
Because a skill's efficiency changes greatly depending on how the player using it wields it.
You can see that just from Spear Throw. It's a skill others can't even activate because they can't hit with it, but her brother used it effectively.
Skill usage depends heavily on the player's hands.
And the ultimate king of that is Transcendent Cast.
"Transcendent Cast massively increases a skill's power and turns it into an entirely different skill, but the conditions to trigger it are hard to find."
Her face flushed red with excitement as Seo Jeongin chattered away.
"Every skill has the potential for Transcendent Cast, but no one can do it because they don't know the activation command! And even if they find the command, most are so impossibly difficult that no one can replicate them. How do you throw a spear at 100 meters per second?"
In-game, the average person's spear projectile speed is around 20 m/s.
Arrows are 60-70 m/s.
But for Spear Throw to have a projectile speed of 100 m/s. Who on earth could possibly perform such a Transcendent Cast?
Unless they were a world record holder in javelin throwing.
"But well, wouldn't high-level people who invested in strength stats throw it even faster?"
"No."
Seo Jeongin shook her head.
"In-game, stats are just parameters that determine skill power. Investing in strength doesn't improve your avatar's long jump distance, throwing power, or running speed."
"Really?"
"You really don't know anything about this game······. Just because you invest stat points into 'Wisdom' doesn't make you actually wiser. It's exactly the same."
When you think about it, Seo Minjun's athletic ability was like a surgeon's medical knowledge.
An orthopedic surgeon who enters Stunning Life can use that knowledge to set a dislocated player's bone and put it in a cast.
But just because they invested in wisdom stats doesn't mean the bone they set heals faster.
Because wisdom stats affect 'skills' like Healing.
And since Healing is a hundred times more effective than a cast, there are no players who study medicine to become healers in Stunning Life.
For the same reason, no player these days develops their real body's physical fitness just to play the game.
That was also why classical sports couldn't coexist with Stunning Life.
'But at the peak of the world, the story is different.'
Seo Minjun's physicality, which transcended human limits, combined with the superhuman brain that had handled it his entire life, turned out to be an unprecedented talent in Stunning Life.
"Oppa! If this is real, you just hit the jackpot! Your background is trash, but if you're a Transcendent Caster, you might be able to overcome it!"
Seo Jeongin jumped up and down excitedly.
"You're even the first person to clear the entire tutorial! The Tutorial Pioneer achievement is incredible too!"
"Hmm······."
His sister, eight years younger, was just the right age to tease.
'When I told her about the club disbanding earlier, she looked like death. Now her face completely brightened up.'
At that transparent, innocent change in expression, Seo Minjun somehow snickered.
"Jeongin."
"Yeah?"
"Want to start streaming?"
"Huh?"
"You said you make a lot of money doing that."
"If it's you, oppa, it'll be crazy!"
Seo Jeongin hopped.
"You'll rack up subscribers instantly because of today's server-wide announcement! Foreign users will all come looking too!"
"Then work with me, your oppa."
Seo Minjun had thought his atrocious luck would barely let him work as a miner in the game.
'But now it's time to change strategy.'
Very unexpectedly, Seo Minjun's physical abilities worked here too. And very effectively at that.
"Let's do game streaming."
Seo Minjun was now thinking of giving it a try.
It was the field most distant from his past 28 years as a traditional, classical physical athlete, but he now felt confident.
Moreover, he had a reliable ally.
"You edit my videos and be my manager."
Seo Jeongin had majored in multimedia in university, so she knew how to edit videos.
Moreover, she had briefly been a streamer herself, and had done part-time video editing for another famous Stunning Life streamer while also working as their manager.
From Seo Minjun's perspective, at this point where he barely knew anything about games, she was the most convenient and trustworthy experienced manager he could ask for.
"Then I'll pay you a salary."
"R-really······?"
"Yeah."
Earning money while also easing Seo Jeongin's guilt—nothing could be better than that.
"Let's earn a whole lot of money."
He would become a money maniac.
"I lost my job because of this game. I have to squeeze everything I can out of it, that's only fair."