Episode 6. A New Hunting Style (1)
‘Nothing again today….’
Cheon Gyeongu let out a sigh and turned off the holographic display.
Today, too, the auction site didn’t have the skill gem Cheon Gyeongu wanted.
‘I need to get one quickly.’
There were almost no useful skills among D-rank ones.
He had to purchase based on the future potential that would appear after evolution, but that wasn’t easy.
Of course, whether they were useless was purely by Cheon Gyeongu’s standards.
‘I can’t just buy anything with my entire blood-like fortune of 200 million won.’
The power to evolve beyond a skill’s own limit proficiency. The Hexagram Constellation.
To annihilate Albababa and CGTV, the strongest guilds within Face Chronicle, Cheon Gyeongu selected and selected various skill gems.
‘I wish I at least had a trap skill.’
Cheon Gyeongu drew up a grand picture.
He would raise his Hexagram Constellation connection rate to nearly 100% within five years.
If that happened, Black and White would possess an absurd attack power of 47,243.
If he obtained weapon-related passive skills like
Additionally, if he evolved the skill gem of a musket attack skill through the Hexagram Constellation, he could truly deal hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of damage in a single blow.
‘Perfect for a single-target nuke, isn’t it.’
But to kill hundreds or thousands of users alone, attack power alone wasn’t enough.
What he had obtained for that purpose were
Going forward, Cheon Gyeongu had to fill most of his skills with defense, stealth, support, evasion, aggro, and such skills.
‘But it’s so frustrating right now. I don’t have a finishing blow, and I don’t have aggro in group battles.’
So what was important to him right now was a powerful finishing blow and aggro.
‘Hmm….’
But there were no D-rank skill gems that passed Cheon Gyeongu’s strict standards.
Among D-ranks, solo skill gems had all but vanished without a trace.
‘I’ll have to keep an eye on the auction house a bit longer.’
Cheon Gyeongu also thought about the additional
Numerous things passed through his mind.
Or perhaps
‘I’ll have to think about this a bit more carefully.’
Cheon Gyeongu stopped thinking and logged into the game.
The 4th Zone that Ted saw was a mess.
The skills fired here and there by 550 Moonlight Hunter Roans were powerful enough to change the terrain.
‘It’s a miracle we won.’
Due to the effects of the terrain destruction, monsters weren’t spawning.
‘I should check the stationary clouds and move hunting grounds.’
―Quest―
Quest Difficulty: E
Raiden has requested an investigation of the stationary clouds in the 4th Zone of the Ssauron Plains.
A quest he had forgotten.
Ted looked around the sky thoroughly.
Perhaps because he had always lived desperately focused on leveling up, looking at the sky felt unfamiliar.
But when he looked at ease, the sky of Face Chronicle was truly beautiful.
‘So that’s it?’
Among the countless clouds, there was a single fluffy cloud standing still.
Ted watched it carefully.
The eyesight stat he had raised previously had done its job.
A value that should have taken half a day of watching to rise quickly filled to 100%.
At that moment, a brief image flashed through Ted’s mind.
A skeleton with yellow-glowing eyes.
No, looking closely, it was an Archlich wearing a golden crown.
It was commanding countless undead troops with a single arm.
Ted met eyes with the being in the image.
The brief image disappeared there.
‘Huh, what the hell is this?’
Thinking about it, he recalled a story he had heard from Cheon Siu before.
The scheme prepared by the Partuk Guild to swallow the Ssauron Countdom.
It was mere speculation, but that suspicious cloud seemed related to it.
‘A monster? No, if I had to classify it, maybe it’s on the NPC side….’
Having seen countless monsters for over a decade, Ted could intuitively guess the level of the
At least 450. At most, a level close to 480.
It wasn’t on the level of the Haeryong Samsin he had caught, but it was a powerful being.
If he fought it with his current frail body, he would lose every time.
‘Let’s not get unnecessarily involved and have bad luck.’
Feeling somehow uneasy, Ted moved elsewhere.
* * *
Not far from the Ssauron Countdom, there was a hunting ground called the
Spirits were very tricky monsters.
Not only did they take only quarter damage from physical attacks, but they also took magic damage selectively based on attribute.
Instead, if there was an advantage, it was that they gave more experience than monsters of the same level.
So Ted chose this place.
Because in front of a +19 Black and White, physical resistance meant nothing.
‘I need to start rehearsing from here.’
Ted’s goal wasn’t these trivial hunting grounds.
After reaching level 200 and obtaining special achievements, supernatural abilities, and skill gems that would raise his survivability, he planned to head to the
Middle Zone.
A place where monsters from level 400 up to boss monsters in the 800s appeared in groups.
It was also where he had hunted the Inferno Imugi in the past.
It was out of the question for now, but the situation would change once he made his 2nd job advancement.
Because the moment he made his 2nd advancement, the proficiency of the passive
The attack power increase per 1% proficiency was 2%.
At level 200, Ted’s Hexagram Constellation connection rate reached 20%.
That alone gave him an attack power of 9,447.
With the 2nd advancement on top of that,
With that, his predictable attack power exceeded 20,783.
He couldn’t quite grasp how significant this number was.
‘If I get a decent musket skill gem with Ssauron Coins and slot it in, with any luck even a Junior Balrog would be a one-shot.’
Truly, leveling up would become like a bomb going off.
‘To do that, what I need to do now is….’
Refine his combat style here, at the Temple of Spirits, in preparation for that time.
The Temple of Spirits happened to be a place where spirits roamed in groups.
Their behavior style was very similar to those in the Middle Zone.
Ted hesitated briefly before casting a skill.
“
Goblin Summon.
It consumed 50 mana to summon three goblins and allowed him to use them as summons for 30 minutes.
The cooldown was a moderate 1 hour.
Kkiiiek!
Soon, three goblins popped out of thin air.
They were low-level, repetitive-action monsters.
They seemed to have completely forgotten that Ted had immediately driven them away with
“Now I’m going to name you. You are Ilkkik. You are Dukkik. You are Samkkik.”
Ted had truly named them as easily as naming chicks!
Even so, the goblins nodded as if pleased.
“Now, here, put these on.”
Ted gave items to the three goblins.
They were junk items obtained from the battle with the Junior Balrog.
Kkiik! Kkiik!
The three goblins could arm themselves with light chainmail and shields.
Ted didn’t give them weapons.
Even if they participated in battle, the three weren’t much help. Since they were level 30.
The goblins’ purpose was strictly aggro.
“When battle begins, Ilkkik, you go left. Dukkik, you go right. Samkkik, you lure them to the opposite side of me and run away.”
With Ted’s light instructions finished, battle began.
The first opponent was the intermediate fire spirit
A monster in the level 180s shaped like a dragonfly with fire all over its body, it fired Fireballs from its mouth and tail.
Fifteen Fireflies popped out at once.
The goblins, understanding Ted’s orders, led the Fireflies and ran.
‘Are they doing well?’
Bang—! Bang—!
Ted watched the goblins’ movements with his eyes and calmly fired bullets with his musket.
But a problem arose.
The fast-footed goblins had run too far outside the range where they could maintain aggro.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!”
It seemed… they hadn’t properly understood the concept of aggro.
Soon, twenty Fireflies whose aggro had been broken turned to Ted.
“What are you looking at. Fu—”
Twenty round eyeballs!
It was truly a crisis.
Ted, displaying his concentration, barely survived with 10% of his HP remaining.
Bonk!
Ted gave light flicks to the goblins who soon returned.
Kkiik.
Kkiiik.
The goblins protested as if saying it was somehow difficult.
“You went too far. You have to lure them at a reasonable distance.”
After pointing out a few more things, Ted and the goblins dove into the next hunt.
This time, fifteen Fireflies charged at Ted and the goblins.
But this time, the goblins pulled aggro from too close and died burning in the Fireflies’ attacks.
Though equipped with junk items, they couldn’t withstand two hits.
*Sigh*… “Let’s try again.”
After the one-hour cooldown, Ted summoned them again.
“No, you have to run while provoking them.”
“If you run away because you don’t want to die, you’ll die by my hand?”
And so Ted explained the concept and methods of aggro to them numerous times throughout the day.
But the goblins couldn’t understand.
No, they seemed to understand to some degree, but it was far from satisfactory for Ted.
‘Man, these guys are useless.’
At that point, Ted exchanged doubt for certainty.
Traps were indeed the best for aggro.
Goblins were absolutely not the answer.
In the battle against the Moonlight Hunter, he had been forced to slot the skill gem in a hurry.
But at this level, it couldn’t be used for aggro.
The goblins inside the skill gem consumed 10% of the experience points.
Yet they couldn’t provide him with benefits commensurate to that.
‘To become a ranker in the shortest time possible, I have to cherish every single grain of EXP like that.’
Ted steeled his resolve.
A skill gem slotted in was destroyed when removed.
Furthermore, he had to pay a blacksmith to remove it.
So for the time being, he would leave it in the slot but not use it.
Just as Ted was thinking that.
On top of a small stone altar in the temple, a Firefly of a different size than any before appeared.
It was a boss monster.
Ted, still in his thinking posture, simply raised his musket and casually fired a bullet at it.
In a single attack, the boss monster, Funeral Pyre Firefly’s HP hit rock bottom.
It burned up in flames and disappeared.
But an unexpected message popped up.
‘What. Already?’
He hadn’t known at all, but the goblins’ level had been 30.
In that situation, they ate 10% of the EXP from level 180s monsters that level 155 Ted hunted.
If a level 30 needed 100 EXP to level up, the 10% from a level 180s monster was close to 200 EXP.
So when he finished hunting thousands of Fireflies all day, the goblins had already reached level 100.
And it seemed the level at which a D-rank summoning-type skill gem evolved into C-rank happened to be 100.
‘You sure ate a ton of my precious, blood-like EXP!’
He was about to throw them away anyway; what good was evolution?
Ted watched the evolution with a sigh.
‘…What, are Goblin Shamans coming out? Or maybe Orcs or something?’
Truthfully, he didn’t have high expectations for Goblin Shamans or Orcs.
Because he hadn’t forgotten his standards.
Soon, light burst from the goblins’ bodies.
Magnificent light gradually transformed the goblins’ bodies.
The goblins grew slightly larger.
Eventually, the light faded.
Three silver-colored goblins stood there, no longer green.
Active (Mana Cost: 50 / Cooldown: 1 hour)
Summons three Silver Goblins. Duration: 30 minutes
‘What is this.’
Ted pouted.
He hadn’t been entirely without hope.
Goblins suddenly evolving into Ogres!
Then couldn’t Ogres evolve into Basilisks, Basilisks into Imugi, and Imugi into Dragons!
…Such was his absurd expectation.
But what actually came out were merely silver-plated goblins.
‘Well, I wasn’t expecting anything anyway.’
Letting out a sigh, Ted checked the Silver Goblin’s skill list.
―Silver Goblins synchronize with the summoner’s stats and follow his actions.
When leveling up, proficiency rises. However, actions vary depending on the state of training.
For every 10% increase in proficiency, stat synchronization rises by 2%.
‘Huh?’
But the moment he saw the status window, Ted’s eyes spun round and round.
Where his gaze stopped was,
‘Synchronizing with my stats? And as much as 10%?’
This part.
Because Ted currently possessed a body connected to the Hexagram Constellation engraved on his weapon.
‘This might just be….’
A terrifying thought rose in Ted’s mind.