The World Turned Into A Game After I Woke Up

by Srtyi

On that fateful day, a voice in the sky told everyone on Earth that the world they called home has just been part of some sort of simulation. The next thing everyone knew, the world was rife with monsters and dungeons and resurrecting immortal devas! I spent eleven years in that world as a deva, crawling and clawing my way through the dirt trying to make a name for myself. I want

1. 1

THE WORLD TURNED INTO A GAME AFTER I WOKE UP

On that fateful day, a voice in the sky told everyone on Earth that the world they called home has just been part of some sort of simulation.

The next thing everyone knew, the world was rife with monsters and dungeons and resurrecting immortal devas!

I spent eleven years in that world as a deva, crawling and clawing my way through the dirt trying to make a name for myself. I wanted another chance at this, I made so many mistakes, I could have done so much better.

But after all that wishing for a new beginning ended in a very bad ending… I was finally given that chance. I just had to be tortured by some smartass…

But I'm going to make the most out of this! I'll become the strongest deva out there! And this time, I'll have my revenge!

---

Chapter 1: Prologue

The voice came out of nowhere.

"Ah! Ah! Can you hear me? The test is over."

It wasn't a language anyone from anywhere in the world spoke, but it reverberated clearly throughout the planet. People's heads could only gravitate towards the sky, where the never-before heard words had come from.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary in the sky.

Depending on the region, it was raining, or snowing, or the sun was shining brightly, or the moon lit up the night sky.

But for the first time ever, a rather lazy voice echoed through that very ordinary sky.

---

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Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Test 1455?

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Waves thundered against the base of the Cliff below.

"Damn it all! I can't believe I have to go into the Sea of Reset just like this," I sighed as my eyes stared over the ninety-degree cliffside.

Black, not blue, waves crashed powerfully against the bottom of the cliff.

"This is all because of that rotten bastard. I have no idea what sort of rotten heart he had to do this to me. Just you wait! I'll chase you to the ends of Hell to get my revenge…"

But with all my angry talk of revenge, I sighed deeply as I gazed at the Sea of Reset below.

If you drop into the Sea of Reset, everything resets to the beginning.

Everything that I worked my ass off for eight years would reset and return to level 0.

I had no other choice but to erase eight years of blood, sweat, and tears and return to when I was level zero and work my way back up. Even though I changed to a deva three years earlier, it would take me eleven years in all to catch up to that bastard. No, more like it was impossible…

"Whew… still, this is the only solution I have, right? As long I have even a sliver of chance to make this work."

It was irritating and maddening that this was the only way.

"Oh God, please. To the beginning! For the love of God, to the beginning! To that crappy day of July 12, 2023! Yeah, right. As if some crappy God would listen to my prayers…"

I scoffed at my now dismal future and threw my body into the Sea of Reset, dreaming of returning to that first day.

————–

"Huh? What the hell was that about?"

I jumped out of bed as if I had been struck by a bolt of lightning, confused at where I was.

I was sure I had jumped into the Sea of Reset. Like, just now?!

If you jump into the Sea of Reset, all of your skills, stats, and even your inventory items are set to zero, and you start again.

In other words, I should have returned to the time when I became a deva.

Furthermore, after resetting, regardless of where you started at level Zero, you are taken to a spawn point in a lake in Minnesota, USA.

Once you awake after resetting, the first thing you're supposed to do is take a drink from the lake. However, no matter how many times I looked around at my surroundings there was no such lake. Forget the lake, there was not even a single drop of water!

Confused at what was going on, I unconsciously spat out the words, "Status menu!"

Nothing happened.

"Huh? What? Skill tree menu!"

Nothing continued to happen.

"What is this? I know resetting means restarting from the beginning, but for everything to be erased? More than that, where the heck am I?"

Unable to understand this situation, I looked around and noticed a calendar on the wall.

"July 17, 2022?"

That was the date clearly marked on the calendar on the wall.

Even more unable to understand or believe what was going on, I looked around again and discovered the phone on the desk.

"July…17…2022…7:20 AM…"

I stared at the words and numbers on the phone's screen, shaking. The trembling of my lips soon spread to my entire body.

The day I jumped into the Sea of Reset was exactly April 15, 2034.

The day the world changed was July 17, 2023, exactly eleven years before. But the date on the calendar and phone showed that it was exactly a year before the change.

Shaking, I looked around at the room once more and slowly started to remember where I was.

The rooftop room on the top of a small four-story building. The room where I experienced the world's evolution.

"This is where I lived for three years before the world changed!"

Slowly, I walked out of the room.

It was just after seven AM, but the sun was already shining brightly and its warmth embraced my shaking body and calmed me down.

In the back of my mind, I couldn't believe this was happening; maybe the calendar and phone were wrong. But at the same time, I felt that if this were real and became ecstatic and soon my body started trembling again.

Trying to keep my shaking body still, I raced down the stairs to the street below.

I needed more proof. More definite proof. That calendar and phone weren't enough to make me believe this was real.

I came down from the fourth to the first floor and went to into the 24-hour convenience store next door.

In 2034, there were no 24-hour convenience stores.

The fact that my eyes could be deceiving me crossed my mind.

The bell above the door rang as I entered.

The second I entered the store, I asked the girl behind the counter. "What year is it?"

"What?"

"I'm asking what year is it right now!" I shouted in confusion.

We had greeted each other a few times before, since the store was right outside where I lived, but her face drained of color at my shouting before she slowly answered, "It…it's 2022."

"Today's date is July 17, 2022?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's really July 17, 2022! It says so on that digital clock there!"

She pointed at the digital clock, which said in bright red LED lights that it was in fact July 17, 2022, 7:25 AM. Exactly five minutes had passed since I checked the time.

"Huh…"

—

I stumbled out from the store and went back up to my rooftop apartment.

As I trudged back up the four floors, my vision began to widen.

The sun I barely noticed before was steadily rising from the east.

I was able to take in the view around me. Among the huge buildings, there was no evidence of rubble or craters or the like.

There weren't any orcs or goblins roaming the earth, nor were there drake-like monsters in the sky.

Cars were running normally and the streets were clear of traffic. In other words, it was peaceful.

"Ah…"

Tears streamed from my eyes seeing the peaceful surroundings. I could now believe it.

"I'm back. It's 2022! Not 2034!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. I may have jumped into the Sea of Reset, but I came back in time! Back one year before the world changed!

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Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Test 1455? Part Two

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Once I returned to my room, I turned on my used television set. There weren't any news stories of monsters or reports of hunting fields on TV.

As I flipped through the channels, there was nothing that could explain what had happened to me.

Could I be dreaming?… No. There was no way this was a dream.

I could remember everything clearly. Those nearly tangible memories were still in my head.

If it were a dream, there was no way I could clearly remember everything.

"If it isn't a dream…just what happened here? I know I jumped into the Sea of Reset. It's not that special of an action. There are a lot of people that have jumped in other than me…"

Besides the act of jumping into the Sea of Reset, there was nothing really special about it. Anyone who could use the reset jumped in.

There were even people waiting nearby as I jumped off the cliff, crying to God to turn back time.

"There's no way…did my prayer to return to the beginning come true?"

There was nothing else special other than that.

"How could that wish come true?"

Anyone can dream of winning the lotto, but it would still be a dream. No, it was more of an illusion that would never become reality. But it did.

I began to worry. But soon that worry turned to euphoria.

My heart raced as I grew more and more satisfied with my situation. Because now I had a chance to be ten, no, eleven steps ahead of everyone else.

I already gone through that Hell on Earth for eleven years.

I alone had already experienced what no one else could ever imagine. But that euphoria was competing with the uneasiness that came with not knowing why this had happened in the first place.

Not knowing why the Sea of Reset sent me to the past made me tremble with worry.

It felt like someone would come out of nowhere and tell me that this was all a nightmare.

I was afraid to even attempt to do anything.

I felt I would awaken from this dream if I stubbed my toe against the wall, trying to move. I couldn't bring myself to do anything.

I felt like I was a piece of fragile glass.

And like that, one, two, three days passed while I tried to come up with some sort of answer to this predicament. I realized that not even spending an eternity worrying about this would do me any help.

They say time heals all wounds. Soon the bruises that the worry left on my body disappeared.

The thought that no dream would last one, two or three days eased my worries and fears altogether.

"OK. I don't know why I came back in time. I don't know how it happened, either. No matter how long or how many times I think about, I won't come up with an answer. There is one thing I do know. If I don't utilize this chance, I will royally screw this up. I would be a complete idiot!"

I balled my fists tightly.

I rose from my bed, sat down at my desk, and started to write down everything I could remember.

I only drank water for three days straight, but I didn't have the time to feel hunger or fatigue.

I remember it was Korean Standard Time, 9AM, 7/17/2023. I remember it exactly. How could I forget…the day the world seemed to have ended.

That day was like any other… except for the voice that echoed through the heavens.

-Ah, ah! Can you all hear me? Inhabitants of world 1455! The test is now over…-

On that day, I was getting ready for work at a small factory near the Uijeongbu suburbs that I had worked at for just about two years and had just gotten into my uniform.

But when the voice spoke, I and everyone in the factory came out and lifted our heads towards the sky. And it wasn't just the people in the factory.

People in the buildings surrounding the factory; the truck drivers making their rounds stopped their trucks; everyone came out to look at the sky.

-I won't explain again so listen carefully.

At first I thought someone was speaking through a megaphone nearby, but the voice sounded too clear and reverberated everywhere.

It also spoke in a language I had never heard before, but I realized that I could fully understand it.

-The World number 1455 that you all live in…no, you call it Earth. Earth's test has completed. It will now move on to the next stage, the Otadolon.

I didn't know then, but everyone on Earth was staring at the sky, without a clue as to what was going on.

-Anyway, first off. You will all now use the Genenian language to communicate. What is Genenian, you ask? It's the language you all are hearing right now. You will all now be able to use it naturally.

-Second, once you enter the Otadolon stage, you will be prohibited from having children. Ah, but not to worry. Current fetuses will be acknowledged!

-Third, when you enter the Otadolon Stage, you can use the token of knowledge to obtain immortality. Of course, if you don't use it, you will remain mortal. That will be your choice. Don't use the token of knowledge and die a natural death, or use it to ascend as a deva and live an immortal. Those unborn will be born with a token so do not worry.

-Well, that's about it. It's up to you to figure out the rest of it. You will all be granted a token of knowledge. Oh, one more important thing. You can only use the token of knowledge at the Don Gate. Where is the Don Gate? You will have to find it yourselves.

At that moment, everyone on Earth, without exception, received a token of knowledge on their wrist.

Even infants just born a second ago received one, as well!

Then all 6500 recognized languages turned to one single language.

We were able to speak, read, and write Genenian as if it were our mother tongue all along.

"Phew…now that I think about it again, it really doesn't make sense."

I had stopped writing and read it over once more before heaving a big sigh.

I wrote down what I had experienced myself, but it was still hard to believe. I could only sigh at the fact that it was all true.

The being we called the Scientist (Well, at first we called him God, but we called him the Scientist later on because he referred to the world as a test, and we felt it was more accurate. Really, we felt that by calling him God, we were worshipping him, and calling him a Scientist seemed better) had explained less than one percent about the new world.

The most important thing the Scientist told us about was the token of knowledge. We could neither steal it nor lose it, and it could only be used at the Don Gate.

Only one token could be used at one Don Gate, and the Gate would disappear and reappear at another random location.

There was only one requirement to using a token and that was age. You had to be at least nineteen, an adult, to use a Don Gate.

At first only a few Don Gates appeared, but as time went on, more and more started to appear. However, there were still not enough for everyone to use. After ten years, only two billion or so people were able to become devas.

Those that used a Don Gate were no longer human. Rather, they looked like avatars from a VR game. Perfect, never-dying, never-aging avatars.

A Don Gate was about two meters wide and three meters tall, barely, and using a token at one felt like you were physically leaving your current body and entering a new one.

It didn't matter if you were a youth in your twenties, or an elder over eighty. You would look the same, but the condition of your new body was perfect.

To be exact, it was like taking a durable, strong, but empty shell of a body, and putting your appearance over it.

Those with terminal stage cancer or diagnosed with AIDS would use their tokens at the gate, and be completely cured, without exception.

Those that became devas would keep their stats, skills, and inventory items.

Fields and dungeons had formed all around, filled with orcs, kobolds, ogres, and trolls.

Killing monsters leveled you up and granted you bonus stats that you could put into strength or stamina, making you stronger or tougher, respectively.

"Should this much be enough? Now what? Would anyone believe this were I to show them?"

No. No one would believe it. Even I think I'm crazy, and I'm the one who wrote it all down. No one would ever believe it.

"But it will happen. Even if it doesn't, it's fine. It'll end with just me being crazy. I have to properly prepare myself. I survived for eleven years after the change. I know way more than anyone else."

I clenched both my fists, and looked through my notes in front of me.

"In order to be prepared for the future…the most important thing is the Don Gate!"

The Don Gate was the priority!

I had to use my token at the gate! I had to be the first one to do so!

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Chapter 4: Chapter 3: Test 1455? Part Three

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Before my return, there was a piece of information that just about everyone knew. A special piece of information… about the first person to become a deva.

The first person to use a Don Gate was granted a title, "Humanity's First Evolver", along with 100 stat points.

To have a total of 100 points was an enormous amount. But it wasn't for just one stat, but all stats.

Normally, when you gained a level, you were granted 10 bonus stat points.

You could use those points however you want for 5 stat categories: strength, stamina, intelligence, willpower, and agility.

But the first person to use a Don Gate received 100 points for all five stats: 100 for strength, 100 for stamina, 100 for intelligence, 100 for willpower, and 100 for agility for a total of 500 points. That was equivalent to 50 levels!

Just being the first to become a deva meant you were 50 levels ahead of everyone else!

"It's a complete scam. Such an advantage available at the beginning."

Of course, back then, it wasn't that crucial of information. It had to happen for people to know about it. Everyone knew about it because it never happened again. But now this information was precious. I wouldn't sell it for a billion dollars!

And so, I had written down everything I knew and everything I needed to be ahead of everyone else.

This time it would be different. This time I would emerge as the victor, not the loser.

When I jumped into the Sea of Reset, it was because I was a complete loser.

When you use a token of knowledge at a Don Gate, you were no longer a human, but rather a character from a VR game, an avatar-like deva.

When you become a deva, it doesn't matter if you die from a monster, from falling, or from drowning at sea; you don't really die because you can resurrect yourself. But there was a penalty system to that.

The first time you die, you lose 2 points from each of your stats. This effect was semi-permanent. Of course, there was a way to recover those lost points, but it was at a heavy cost. It wasn't also easily accessible, especially to a normal guy like me. I never even came across it.

Anyway, when you use a token at a Don Gate, you start at level 0 with all your stats at 20. But once you die, your entire stat line drops by 2 points; when you resurrect, your stats are at 18.

You also lose the 10 points you gained when you leveled up. In other words, dying meant you lost an entire level.

Hypothetically, if you were to die 10 times without increasing any of your stats, and die another time, your stats would be at -2.

At that point, when you leveled up and gain 10 stat points, those points would only serve to cancel out your current -2 points, putting you at 0 stat points in all. It was for this reason that everyone feared the death penalty the most.

Back then I hunted like my life depended on it, and managed to reach level 576.

That was my level right before I jumped into the Sea of Reset.

With that level, I was considered to be mid-low tier. But the reason I was a loser was that I had died 154 times!

Leveling up to 576, I had gained a total of 5760 points. When I became a deva, I gained an additional 20 points each, a total of 100. So in all, I had 5860 points, but dying 154 times meant I had thrown away a total of 1540 points.

So while I was level 576, I only had the stat points of a level 422 person. On top of that, I was a fire mage and my stats were allocated accordingly.

And so, after my 100th death, my already low strength and agility had dropped down to negative.

All of the stat points that I gained by leveling automatically went to my negative skills to bring them back up to zero. For a while, my main stats remained stagnant.

It didn't matter if I was a fire mage or any other job; I was already in that sticky situation and there was no way out of it.

The only thing that I could was to hunt monsters at or below level 576. But hunting in itself was hard enough.

I couldn't just enter a party to hunt, as my damage output was too low and I would just become a burden to the rest of the party members.

Even using items and buffs to compensate for this penalty was not efficient enough.

And so, even after using my token to become a deva and grinding to level 576 for eight years, I ended up jumping into the Sea of Reset!

"Grr…" I ground my teeth thinking of that bastard!

"Son of a bitch! Just you wait. I don't know why you forced me into that position, but it will be different this time! I will crush your bones to dust!"

I may have died 154 times, but 132 of those times happened at level 576. I died 132 times at level 576. Back to back!

The times I died at first seemed almost wasteful. But that was because I was inexperienced and didn't know much about the monsters I was hunting.

There was no exchanging of information with one another. You had to pay for any small amount of data.

Info became power, authority, and money. People who had it never just gave it out to those looking for handouts.

Back then, there wasn't even much data about the Sea of Reset.

The Sea of Reset had only been discovered for about a year. At that level, people usually had a death count of 30 when they used the Sea of Reset.

There were also plenty of people with an average of 40 deaths that used the Sea.

I was helpless when I first died, but I accepted and learned from those mistakes and worked even harder. Which is why the other 22 times I died happened when I was a noob.

If I recall correctly, from level 300 to 576 I had only died about 10 times. That's how hard I worked. But then I met that bastard.

"Lee Gi Chan! Son of a bitch!"

It was all Lee Gi Chan's fault.

The bastard that killed me 132 times! The bastard that tied me up and killed me over and over, the bastard that had his familiar shadow me to my respawn points to kill, was him!

The shadowy familiar was incredibly stealthy and had high magic resistance, and since I was a fire mage with limited range and only had items that would boost my magic damage, it made it very difficult for me to properly counterattack.

And like that, he killed me 132 times before freeing me. Freed me as if he was going out of his way to help me.

I had no idea who he was. I had no information about him.

At first, he came up to me as if he were finding out who I was. He didn't approach me with any hostile intent. But like he just flipped a switch, he just ruined me.

He left me no choice but to jump into the Sea of Reset!

"I don't know who you are, but I will have my revenge. I will do everything in my power to bury you. I will drag you to Hell!"

Of course, none of this has happened yet…

I don't know why I had returned to the past, and to dream of revenge about something that hadn't really happened yet seemed a bit much. But the grief I received was too much.

The fact that we were under the same sky and sun pissed me off so much!

It was obvious that he had authority. He had over a hundred people under his command, some of which were quite strong, so strong that I couldn't even look at them.

But I would become stronger than him and absolutely bury him. Because I knew the future!

I will be stronger than him by tenfold! A hundredfold! A thousand fold! I know I will become so strong, that no one will be able to contest me!

I had just wandered around, not taking advantage of all those great changes the Scientist had given us, but this it would be different.

I knew it all now. All those experiences had been engraved into my bones.

"I have one year left. One year to carefully prepare myself! And I'll have to go there right away. To the place the first Don Gate appeared and become the first to be reborn!" I wrote in big letters on the front cover of my notebook.

It was the first thing I had to do to become the victor.

I had to find my way to a one-hundred-meter tall Beguru tree in the Bakassi Peninsula, an area under territorial dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon.

And so began my preparation for the great change to happen in one year…

——-

The first thing I did was to call my workplace, to tell them I wouldn't be able to work for them anymore.

"What are you saying all of a sudden? You've been doing so well so far, so why now? Has it been tough on you? This job is always hard in the beginning, but once you build up enough experience and skills, your pay will also go up. Look at Mr. Seo. He's doing very well."

My sudden request had taken my boss quite aback.

The factory I worked at was small, with only fourteen employees.

The work was hard and made it difficult to find additional help. No matter how hard we tried to employ more workers, we could never fill up the positions. Still, I faithfully stayed and worked for two years.

"I'm sorry. Some personal issues came up and I won't be able to come in anymore. You won't need to pay me this month's wages. I have to go now."

"Hey! Hey! Jiwon! Lee Jiwon!"

I hung up the phone even while he called my name.

The money I had already saved up to now was enough.

It didn't matter if I didn't receive this month's paycheck. Rather, paychecks and wages didn't matter at all to me anymore.

Something more important than money was waiting for me.

I grew up as an orphan, and after spending my childhood at an orphanage, I went straight into the military after high school.

I didn't study well while l lived at the orphanage. I thought that as an orphan, I didn't have much of a right or privilege to study, and ended up mixing in with a bad crowd. After I became an adult, I found out that I didn't have much to offer society.

All I had of use was my somewhat healthy body.

And so, when I was drafted into the military, I naturally joined up with the Army. Under the orphanage director's advice, I volunteered to be the acting NCO when I became a corporal and worked my way up to the rank of sergeant.

And so, I spent eight years in the army, before being discharged with the rank of staff sergeant.

It wasn't like I had any special talents. I made it my goal to stay in the army for as long as I could, but I wasn't really a favorite of my superiors, and the chance of a promotion was next to dismal. Tired of walking on eggshells, I sort of naturally let myself be discharged as a staff sergeant.

By that time, I was already twenty-nine, and all I knew how to do was what the army taught me.

The pay I received while in the army ended up just stacking up in my account, but wasn't really enough for me to start my own business. I ended up working at the factory, which was why I had plenty of money in my account.

Once I had finished with the factory, the thought that I no longer had any physical ties with anyone felt bittersweet. That's how constricted I felt human relationships were.

"Whatever. I don't have anything more to do with that place now." I chased away any weak feelings. "I have one year from now. I have to try no matter the outcome."

———————

Everything had gone according to plan. Using most of the money had saved up, I made a reconnaissance trip to the Beguru tree in the Bakassi Peninsula, where the first ascension took place.

Because the land was under territorial dispute, there were many problems down the road, but I didn't have to pinch pennies. I bought a car, a gun, and a guide to take me where I needed to go efficiently.

"So this is it."

The Beguru tree was larger than I had imagined.

I observed the surroundings. This place would either become my path to victory or my biggest crutch. I absorbed everything my eyes took in.

After I returned from the tree, my lifestyle remained the same.

After a restful sleep, I would lightly exercise and eat at a protein-filled meal and nap. After that, I would work on my stamina and train at the local hapkido and kendo dojos.

I may have leisurely spent eight years in the army, but now I was relentless in learning Special Forces combat and had no trouble in training myself.

And on July 1st, 2023, I was on a plane heading towards the Beguru tree I had scouted out.

———————

When I arrived at the tree, I set up a tent nearby to live out the remaining days.

There were sixteen days left from now until that fateful day when the terrible change would happen. As the days passed, worry began to creep up on me.

Over the past year, all of my human relationships fell away. Rather, I got rid of them.

I had thoroughly isolated myself, and wondered how I would spend my life if the change wasn't going to happen.

Just coming halfway here, I had spent fifty million won. Most of it went towards transportation and hiring seven heavily armed bodyguards for a week.

This last part of the trip cost another thirty-five million won. I didn't work for a whole year. If…if… on the 17th, nothing happened…

"Haha. Is suicide all I have left?"

The thought kept circling in my head. I kept thinking what I would do if it didn't happen. It would just end up with me being insane…

It would just end with me having thrown a fit for the past year…

—————–

Finally, the fateful day arrived.

It was July 17th, 2013 in Korea. And I heard it.

Ah! Can you all hear me? Inhabitants of Test World 1455. The test is now over.

In the back of my mind, I wished I really was insane, but I really heard it again.

The annoyed, demon-like voice… coming from the empty sky!

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Chapter 5: Chapter 4: The Luckiest Man, Part One

Translator: – – Editor: – –

As soon as the Scientist's voice in the sky grew silent, the air in front the Beguru tree began to shimmer.

As a precaution, I had given the nearby tribe all of my money, food, and drinking water and asked them to clear the area.

I told them it was for ecological research purposes.

The object coming from the ground began to take a dome-like shape.

There wasn't anyone around me, but I was sure everyone on Earth was shaking in fear and confusion. I knew I was.

As the shimmering in the air dissipated, the area looked as if the Temple of Athena Nike had shrunk down to the size of an altar, usable by one person. I slowly approached the newly appeared Don Gate.

I had, of course, seen many gates before, and even used one before. This one looked just like the rest. But this time, this gate was completely different to me now.

"This…is…the first Don Gate!"

There was no way that the information was wrong. The first deva had already been born in the past and that information no longer had any worth to it, so anybody could learn it.

But the sliver of doubt never left me. I was always worried what I would do if the Don Gate never appeared. I needed it to become mankind's first to evolve!

I couldn't give up on the 500 stat points. Once I laid my eyes on the Don Gate, all of my doubts vanished.

"I feel kind of bad. That person won't be able to gain fame like he did in the past."

Mankind's first deva wasn't the strongest by far, but he was definitely strong enough for his name to carry weight.

He was known as the "Black Clawed Panther."

There was not a person that didn't know his name, and he was strong enough that the top 0.1% didn't hesitate to let him into their ranks.

He was famous for wielding twin swords, and with his stats upgrades, a nimble assassin. But there was no way he was in the top 0.1% for that alone.

He was exceptionally adept with poisons! Among his arsenal were bleeding poisons, neurotoxins, paralytic poisons, and cursing poisons!

It was his frightening ability to use twelve different types of poison in tandem with his powerful body and his sword skills that earned him the nickname Black Clawed Panther!

The poison he seemed to prefer was the cursing poison, which would leave weakening effects for certain attributes like attack and movement speed, physical and magical resistance, and random status attributes. Because he could also stack these effects on his opponent, it seemed to me that he wasn't really picky about his fight style.

But the thought that I would never meet the Black Clawed Panther made me feel a little sorry for him.

"I can't get weak now. It's not like I'm going to concede this chance to him. I could never do that. I can't give up here. It's not like I'll ever encounter him."

I may have felt slightly guilty, but I knew I was not going to give this up.

I gathered my thoughts and stretched out my left wrist, which had the token of knowledge embedded in it, towards the Don Gate. As soon as I did, my body was embraced in a flash of light.

Chimes rang in my head.

The token of knowledge will now be accepted.

As the message faded, the light began to pull me towards the Don Gate.

The clothes I was wearing couldn't enter the gate with me, and were peeled right off of me as my bare body entered the gate.

It wasn't wide or large inside the gate. It was true that it was simple, with not a single piece of furniture inside.

The only special thing you could say about it was that it was flawlessly white all around. In front of me a hologram appeared and spoke.

-Human Lee Jiwon of World 1455 has used their token of knowledge. Congratulations! You are the first of World 1455 to use a token of knowledge!

-Your transformation into a deva will now begin. The process will take 600 seconds.

-During your transformation you will feel some discomfort. This is part of the process, so please bear with it.

As the voice spoke, the silvery material of the token melted like it was dissolving in water and began enveloping my body.

It started from my left wrist and almost violently spread all around my body, to my elbows and shoulders. The area in front of me turned into a hologram screen.

Deva transformation is 9% complete.

Deva transformation is 21% complete.

Deva transformation is 34% complete.

As the percentage on the hologram rose, so did the pain. I gasped despite myself.

The small card tattoo on my wrist was secreting an unbelievable amount of silvery liquid that was covering my eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and anus. Even my pores were clogged with the stuff!

Soon, my eyes were submerged in the liquid and I couldn't see in front of me anymore.

It hurt so much that I thought my eyeballs were going to burst from the pressure.

"Eugh…guh…gurg!"

The liquid began rushing into my mouth without resistance and I lost the ability to breathe as it kept entering my body. I collapsed onto the floor from the pain and started to spasm.

No longer able to breathe, I couldn't even make grunts of pain.

All I could do was pray that the pain would go away faster.

It was my second time, but there was no way anyone could get used to this. All I could do was hope that the 600 seconds would end soon.

-Deva transformation is now complete.

"Cough! Ugh, guh." I stayed lying on the floor on my stomach, coughing violently.

"Huff, huff, damn, this nearly killed me a second time!"

Panting, I flipped over and looked down at my new deva body. To be honest, it didn't feel like anything had changed.

It was the same body I had had for thirty years, with no visible difference from yesterday or today. The only thing different showing that I was now a deva was the token had disappeared from my left wrist.

Once you used a Don Gate, you would never truly die. Even if a blade cut off your neck or sliced off your arm, you would only lose health points.

But if you lost enough health points, a cut throat or arm could kill you. It's just that you wouldn't truly die, and instead resurrect.

You would resurrect in a perfectly fine body, like a video game avatar. That was a deva!

"Status check!" I unconsciously called for the stat check menu to open.

If there was someone nearby watching me, they would have definitely thought I was crazy, but I didn't care.

It would become natural later on. A small rectangular holo-screen promptly appeared in front of my eyes.

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 0 Death count: 0

Title: None

HP: 10000/10000 MP: 2000/2000

Strength: 20 Agility: 20 Vitality: 20

Willpower: 20 Intelligence: 20

Residual stat points: 0

Fatigue: 0

Job: None

Physical attack: 60 Physical Defense: 20

Magical attack: 60 Magical Defense: 20]

It was the same status menu I had seen for eight years. Of course, the information displayed now was much simpler.

1 point in vitality granted 500 in HP, which meant 20 points gave me 10,000 HP. 1 point in INT granted 100 in MP, which meant 20 points gave me 2,000 MP.

1 point in strength increased ATT by 3, 1 vitality point increased DEF by 1, 1 INT point increased MATT by 3, and 1 willpower point increased MDEF by 1, which means my ATT and MATT were at 60, and my DEF and MDEF were at 20.

Anyone who became a deva obtained a stat menu that looked like this.

As I was checking my stats, a voice came from the Don Gate.

You are the first of World 1455 to become a deva. You will be granted an additional 200 points to each stat!

You have been granted a Title for being to the first to become a deva. You will receive an additional 10 skill points!

Your deva transformation is now complete.

Good luck out there in the Otadonol Stage!

As soon as the voice stopped speaking, I was flung out of the Don Gate without ceremony.

The Don Gate vanished with the same bright light it arrived with.

Because the gate disappeared after each use and reappeared at another random location, many fights broke out for the right to use the gate.

But the last few messages shocked me far more than seeing the gate disappear in front of me.

It shook me so much that I couldn't move. Not because of a physical shock, but a mental one.

"That…that conman! That Panther bastard conned us all!"

I was absolutely sure that the rumor we all heard said the first deva received 100 additional stat points. Even that much was a significant amount!

You would be not one or two steps ahead, but ten steps ahead of everyone else! In the beginning, no one really had items to use, and your stats and skills would already be so much higher that you couldn't be compared to anyone else.

This was why I invested so much for this past year to become the first deva!

It was more important than anything else I could have done. But now I found out that it was not 100 points, but 200! There was no way I could have expected this!

"And I got 10 skill points as well?!? Title check!"

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Chapter 6: Chapter 5: The Luckiest Man, Part Two

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[Title: Earth's First Deva

Title granted to the first deva of Earth's Otadonal stage.

Rank: Unique

Grants 10 bonus skill points]

Stat points were important, sure, but skill points were worth more. You needed skill points to learn and use skills!

Normally, when you became a deva, you started with 10 basic skill points, and you gained an additional skill point for every 50 levels you gained.

If you were level 500, you would have 20 in all, including the 10 points you started off with.

Obviously, you needed skill points to learn skills!

Most skills required 1 skill point, but rare or unique skills would require 2 or 3 skill points, sometimes more.

You could also gain skills that could temporarily boost your stats. There were also skills that could raise your critical chance, critical damage output, or anything that could alter the flow of a battle. With such a high demand for skills, it was no wonder that skill points were in short supply.

You had to choose the skills you learned carefully!

If you were a mage, for example, there were different types of magic you could learn: fire, ice, wind, earth, and lightning. Choosing one and focusing on that single skill tree was the wisest choice.

If you mixed up the types of magic you learned, you wouldn't be able to progress higher in the skill tree and were unable to receive the synergy effect that you would get from choosing only one type.

"Open skill menu!"

[Skill tree

Unused skill points: 20

Passive skill: none

Active skill: none]

"I have 20 skill points. 20 points at level 0!"

I was honestly happier about this than the 200 stat points I received.

The fact that I could obtain one more skill than anyone else made me happy. And I was actually thankful to the Black Claw Panther for keeping all this to himself.

It felt like receiving a gift and finding another inside.

Ding ding! The alert went off in my head.

You may now participate in a hidden event.

The alert woke me up from my little celebration of having 200 stat points and 10 skill points.

"Huh? There's more to this?"

Everything I had now was cheating. I was actually cheating at this point!

[-Who Will Be the Fastest Deva of All!

All inhabitants have completed the test stage and have entered the Otadonal stage. Find the person holding the record of the fastest deva transformation!

Participation requirements: Must be an inhabitant of a world in the Otadonal stage.

Description: Only one winner out of all current inhabitants. The person to become a deva the fastest will be the only one to receive the event's rewards. Beat this person's record to receive the rewards.

Current 1st place record: 3 hours 27 minutes 41.9755 second

Lee Jiwon's record: 2.1777 seconds]

[- Congratulations. You now hold the fastest record in the "Fastest deva" event. You may choose one of the following buffs and will continue to receive the effects until your record is broken.

1. Skill cooldown reduced by 30%

2. Critical chance raised by 5%, critical damage raised by 200%

3. Receive 2 additional stat points upon leveling up. (When the record is beaten and the effect is removed, you will lose all bonus stat points. If there are no available unused stat points, points will be removed from the highest stat.)

4. Drain 3.5% of enemies HP

5. Luck boost. X 1 (X equals the luck of the current luckiest inhabitant.]

"Oh my…!"

I could only gasp as I read the message screen in front of me.

"What is it with these overpowered options?"

I gaped as I looked over every single option.

They weren't really permanent effects, sure, and there was still a chance they could be removed, but after comparing my record with the previous one, I wasn't worried.

"As long as they don't go back in time like me!… But what should I pick?"

They were all so appealing and the inflexibility nearly made me stress out with indecisiveness.

"Still, Option 3's additional 2 stat points isn't worth it, huh?"

Sure, it didn't look like anyone could break my record anytime soon, but Option 3 just seemed wasteful.

"Why is it just one? I should be able to pick three; no, even two would be great. Ahhhh!"

Unconsciously, I felt my eyes drift to Option 2.

The 5% increase in crit rate and 200% increase in crit damage would be like receiving the effects of a rank 8 or above accessory for free!

"But…maybe I should go with Option 5."

The choices I eyed first were 1, 2, and 4.

I would feel the effects right away. But luck was more tempting.

The difference in number 5 and the other choices was that I wouldn't have to specially plan out or cater to it. I would always be one point higher than whoever had the highest luck. I wouldn't have to do anything special; I would always be the luckiest person!

The stat menu didn't have a Luck counter. You couldn't increase your luck through points; rather, you had the choice of using items to boost your overall luck.

Since using those items to boost luck by a few points didn't really have a visible effect, I and most other devas didn't care about luck.

It usually required all your time and focus to get an item with active effects, and luck items were costly just because they had luck attributes added to them. This made luck items a luxury, and usually a waste.

Of course, the real reason was that no one really had the funds to buy them.

"Well… that just means luck is that important, right?"

To us mid-class devas, slightly increasing Luck didn't yield direct results and we didn't care about it. But there were others; those that had taste of real luck and cultishly sought after luck items and spent their resources and stats towards increasing their luck.

Luck items that would show up on the marketplace were the favorites of the wealthy and powerful, and luck items that actually had a use or were laced with luck caused a fervor at marketplace auctions.

To be honest, I called those events a load of crap… although, it was really because I was jealous that I would never be able to participate, and could only look on, like a street urchin at a fruit stall.

A lucky person compared to a normal person could have any of the following happen: hit with more critical hits even though their critical chance was the same; looting from the same monster could yield an extra golden ring; opening the same random chest could yield higher rank items or more golden rings; or you might be able to learn a higher ranked skill or random skill. Luck meant that all your worldly desires could just fall into your lap at any time.

It was easy to overlook it if it didn't provide any visible effects, but luck was ultimately the force that would create your most advantageous environment anywhere!

"If I were only getting 10 or 20 points, I would have picked something else, but Option 5 is telling me that I will always be the luckiest guy, right?"

No matter how many times I thought it over, Option 5 was the choice!

"I choose Option 5!"

[- You have chosen: 5. Luck boost. X 1(X equals the luck of the current luckiest inhabitant.)

You will receive this effect until someone else breaks your record.]

"Stat check!"

I opened my stats menu as soon as the message disappeared.

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 0 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 110000/110000 MP: 22000/22000

Strength: 220 Agility: 220 Vitality: 220

Willpower: 220 Intelligence: 220

Residual stat points: 0

Fatigue: 0

Special Effects: Luck Boost ( x 1)

Physical attack: 660 Physical Defense: 220

Magical attack: 660 Magical Defense: 220]

"Ohh… I don't believe it… This can't be a level 0 stat menu…"

It was so beautiful, it was like my eyes had turned to stone. I mean, if this were a level 100 stat menu, it would be just average, but this was made up of all free points!

This, this had yielded far better results then I had expected. The first part of my plan had gone perfectly!

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Chapter 7: Chapter 6: The Luckiest Man, Part Three

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"The Black Clawed Panther didn't change into a deva as fast as I have, so he probably didn't participate in the hidden event."

From my knowledge, it took the Panther more than a day to become a deva.

"But he couldn't become the strongest? Even with all those extra points?"

Even without the hidden event, being the first deva meant he had a total of 1000 points. That gave him a 100 level head start!

He even started off with not 10 skill points, but 20 from the Title! He had 20 skill points at level 0 while everyone else needed to get to level 500 for that many!

Well, I had no reason to scorn or scold him. He hd been strong enough in his own right.

His specs were still second to none. He had still managed to garner respect anywhere he went.

He was an assassin that could slay his targets in an instant and specialized in a small variety of poisons, rather than dabbling in many. He was a nightmare for archers and mages who had low vitality. But…

"This would have been enough for him to reach the top… does that mean the road to the top is that much of a battle?"

In my past life, there was a sect that I and my fellow low-tier people could only look up at with disdain, called themselves the Heavenly Sect.

Those belonging to the Heavenly Sect received the utmost hospitality everywhere they went and they accepted it as if it were the natural order. Of course, I never had the chance to meet one.

We existed in worlds apart.

I gathered my wandering thoughts once more.

"Alright. Let's start here. I'm off to a great start! I just need to keep this up!"

—————————–

Store 72 Visit: Part One

After checking and confirming this and that, I realized I was still naked and put on the clothes that had fallen on the ground. I then picked up my bag that was left to the side and took out my notes.

"The first part has ended perfectly. It can't get better than this."

I circled the part with the first deva with satisfaction and shifted my attention to the part below.

"So it looks like the next part are the dungeons? Monsters won't begin to appear until there's a certain number of devas, anyway. Back then, it took eight months before monsters began to appear."

If it went the way my notes indicated, it would be a while before monsters would appear.

I would have to wait eight more months before I could start to level up.

Was this a brief chance to prepare? The world around me had begun its alteration.

The Genenian spoken and written language was all the evidence needed to prove the voice in the sky right.

I didn't need my token or a Don Gate anymore.

"There's a bonus for being the first to find a dungeon, right? Even though I've never found one first myself…"

Being the first to find a dungeon was like winning the lotto; you received bonus stat points if you were the first!

Obtaining stat points in other ways rather than leveling was a surefire way of increasing the distance between you and others. It was the reason that tens and hundreds of thousands of devas wandered around looking for dungeons.

There was no assurance of when or if one could find a dungeon, but the sweet fruit of temptation of being the first to find one was that much greater.

Sure you could try to catch up to others by grinding levels on monsters, but you could never beat the advantage of bonus stat points!

And so, many people set out to find dungeons. As a result, it became known that dungeons had a high chance of appearing in dangerous places, like towering mountains or scorching deserts.

There were two large classifications of monsters: field monsters and dungeon monsters.

The most evident difference between these two types was that field monsters would also fight amongst themselves, and had their own territory.

The stronger the monster, the larger its territory, and sometimes elite and boss types would also spawn.

The biggest problem with field monsters is that when they hunted other monsters or killed humans and devas, they themselves would increase in level. It was because of this that orcs found in fields would be stronger than orcs found in dungeons.

Every so often, some poor fellow would die from carelessly trying to fight one of these levelled-up monsters outside.

Dungeon monsters… were different.

Dungeon monsters somehow knew that they were on the same side, and would not level up when they killed a deva that had entered the dungeon.

The more obvious difference was the amount of experience and reward gained.

A dungeon orc will yield twice as many experience points, item drops, and gold ring drops than a field orc of the same level. In addition, the amount of time and effort it took to hunt in a dungeon was far more efficient than farming in the fields.

The guilds that would appear in the future would be ranked according to the amount of dungeons they acquired.

The strength of a guild would be determined by the number and rank of dungeons they controlled. These dungeons would also provide funds for the guild.

The guilds would be able to control who entered their dungeons and how much to charge for each entrance.

And of course, the guild owning the dungeon would monopolize the dungeon's boss and its loot!

"Honestly, I won't be able to occupy or maintain a dungeon on my own, let alone make money off it. But as long as I'm strong enough, such a thing shouldn't get in my way."

Back then, there were small commando parties, parties strong enough to overpower larger guilds.

These guys were so strong that they could just walk into any guild-controlled dungeon and do whatever they wanted.

They would even kill the dungeon's boss. They were just that strong!

Besides these guys, there was an entity known as the Liberation League. Led by a man named Lagus, aka Demon Lord, the league was made up of people who couldn't afford to pay the guilds for access to their dungeons.

Rumored to be of Indian heritage, Lagus was a telekinesis user.

He had probably acquired telekinesis through a random skill and had focused on training just that skill.

I had heard that having invested all of his natural skill points into telekinesis, he was able to move tens and hundreds of tons all at once, and counter any attack up to over one hundred meters away from him. I never saw it myself.

"It'll be tough to monopolize and maintain a dungeon myself, even with or without the help of a commando party. I would have to consistently pay attention to it, and there would likely be many that wished to forcibly take it over. I just need to gather more strength, and be strong enough that dungeon-owning guilds won't matter to me. I just have to be the first to find dungeons. Multiple ones, at that. I can't let anyone else get those bonuses!"

I had written down the locations of the dungeons that I knew of in my notes.

I wrote down the locations of the dungeons that I used often ,and of the dungeons that I only knew about through rumors.

It was key that I found these dungeons before anyone else!

"OK. I don't have time to waste. It's obvious I won't be able to find all the dungeons myself. But I have to find the most that I can as soon as possible. As long as I find the ones that I know of, it will be enough!"

Back then, I had never been to this area of Africa before.

There were numerous high level dungeons in Africa, as well as dangerous fields of monsters.

In my past life, I was never strong enough to join raids, or wasteland pioneer groups.

It was a foolish choice to even think about looking for dungeons here, especially without any sort of information.

It was enough to get by using the knowledge of the dungeons that I had been to. I didn't know of any high-tier dungeons, but the low and mid-tier ones that I knew of would suffice.

"I suppose the first would be Bukhansan?"

The dungeon that I went to first and used the most frequently should be the priority.

"Alright. First stop is Seoul. The store should have opened in Seoul by now, right? Seoul is one of the bigger cities. Let's buy my skills there first. I'll definitely need tracking skills if I'm going dungeon hunting."

I walked towards the motorcycle I had parked on the other side of the Beguru tree.

Since Nigeria was closer to here than Cameroon, I decided to take the same way back to Korea.

I would have to ride to Port Harcourt International, take a connecting flight out of Nnamdi Azikiwe International to Germany, before taking one more flight back to Korea.

"I wonder if it's a good thing that society continues to function after all that commotion. I will not become a lost child in the middle of Africa."

It would be another eight months before field monsters appeared and threw nations and society into chaos, but there was a chance that another deva could appear tomorrow or the day after.

Nations may have shrunk or altogether ceased to function, but society would continue to exist, thanks to the first few guilds forming and maintaining order. It was thanks to them I had managed to live for another three years before becoming a deva!

"It's true that humans are resilient and can easily adapt," I mused to myself.

When I arrived at the almost embarrassingly small international airport of Port Harcourt, I found the flight flying out to the capital.

Even though something extraordinary just happened, the airports and planes were still in working order. I would arrive at Incheon International in twenty hours!

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Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Store 72 Visit, Part Two

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"This is the end, I tell you."

"The world is actually going to end!"

"Shouldn't we be fleeing to a different planet or something? Is staying on Earth really a good idea?"

"This has to be a giant hidden camera prank, right?"

"If it was a prank, how do you explain the token of knowledge on your left wrist?"

"Someone must have drawn it on as a joke."

"Someone pranked every single human being on Earth? That thing won't even come off!"

"Shit! What kind of crap is this? What the hell is Genenian or a token of knowledge or a Don Gate?"

The response in Nigeria and Germany was about the same, but at Incheon, it seemed especially chaotic.

Everyone was busy arguing about their tokens or about devas.

I didn't have time to argue with the rest and quickly made my back to base; the rooftop room at Insu-dong of Gangbuk-gu.

"Phew…it's only been one day but I'm already mentally exhausted. Stat check!"

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 0 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 110000/110000 MP: 22000/22000

Strength: 220 Agility: 220 Vitality: 220

Willpower: 220 Intelligence: 220

Residual stat points: 0

Fatigue: 7

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1)

Physical attack: 660 Physical Defense: 220

Magical attack: 660 Magical Defense: 220]

My body was feeling light, but there was no helping the mental exhaustion I felt now. The stat menu showed that my fatigue had risen to 7.

"My fatigue is 7…I should learn the berserker skill as well."

Fatigue was another important element.

If you allowed your fatigue to accumulate past 70 points, your attack, defense, and other general abilities would begin to decay. If you let it go past 90, your abilities would decay to the point that it was obvious.

But if you had the berserker skill, your attack, defense, and other abilities actually increased as your fatigue went up, with a cooldown time of seven days.

Even with a seven-day cooldown, this skill was seen as essential. It wasn't like you could hunt or fight at all the times you wanted to!

"Still, it gets better the more I look at it."

Just looking at it was enough to make my mental exhaustion fly away. A small smile kept forming at the corners of my lips.

"Let's just wash up and get plenty of rest today. Tomorrow, I'll go to the store first thing. It should still be at the same spot, right?" I asked myself.

NPC stores had suddenly formed in all the world's biggest cities.

Simply called Stores, they looked like Mongolian yurts or circus tents from the outside. About thrice the size of yurts and slightly smaller than a circus tent, these stores didn't actually carry any wares.

The twist was that while it looked like not even a hundred people could fit in there from the outside, the inside was different. These dull-looking stores were bigger than most apartment buildings!

From the outside, the store looked to be just below stories tall, but when you entered, the store also reached two stories underground, and four stories above!

I once heard from a manager of one of these stores that the stores were magically built to fit in any city and to have more room on the inside than it seemed from the outside.

At the second basement floor, there was a public marketplace where people could buy and sell rare items from one another. As for the first basement level, there was an exchange store.

At the exchange store, you could sell whatever item you wanted without having to look for a buyer. The exchange store would instead take a small fee and pay you the rest of the funds.

The fee was three percent of the selling price, but it was tough to find buyers or sellers in a timely manner, and so the exchange store was usually packed.

On the first floor, there was a bank where you could store your golden rings and items. Of course, there was a fee you had to pay to use those services.

On the second floor were shops selling potions, weapons, armor, and accessories. The third floor had a store selling skills, and the fourth floor served as a traveler's inn.

——————-

The next morning, I washed up and had breakfast in front of the TV.

I may have become a deva, but I still had to eat to keep living.

Not eating or resting sharply increased fatigue, causing abilities to decay.

I had to make sure I ate and rested properly. My current abilities as a deva were actually easy for a normal person to spot.

"There still isn't any news about devas?"

It took a whole day to travel across Nigeria and Germany, so it had been two days since.

Someone should have found a new Don Gate and become a deva by now. But there was only a panel of astronomers discussing the voice in the sky on news.

"Well, it doesn't matter. Even if another deva appeared, monsters won't spawn yet so leveling is out of the question for now. Let's just go to the store as planned."

If I recalled correctly, the store was right next to the Gangnam Severance Hospital.

I left my rooftop room and took a taxi to the hospital. It was quite a distance, but I had no need to pinch pennies. Soon, all currency would lose its value anyway.

Golden rings would become the new currency used all around.

—

I got off in front of the hospital and leisurely walked down the street.

After about ten minutes, I came across an opening and in the middle of that opening was a flabby, yurt-like tent that looked like it absolutely did not belong there.

"I think I'm an idiot," I said to myself as I stared at the store.

I didn't think about it before I got in the taxi. I realized that I had not a single golden ring on me.

The only type of currency the store received was golden rings.

Obviously, I wasn't going to be able to buy anything with the won and dollars I had left from my trip to Africa.

The thought finally came to me as I laid eyes on the store.

"Whew. Still, since I came all the way here, why don't I take a look around?"

It felt like a waste to just turn my feet around after making my way all the way here.

Back then, I had come and gone into stores frequently that I didn't really feel inspired to go in. Still, this was the first Store I'd seen since my return, and so I began to walk towards the front entrance.

"Not being able to get a tracking skill is going to suck. I really could have used it…"

The difference of having and not having a tracking skill when it came to dungeon seeking was like heaven and earth. There was no way to get a golden ring in a world without monsters.

I lifted the unnaturally large flap of the tent and went inside.

As I stepped inside, I was greeted with a view so large; it couldn't make sense from the outside.

From the outside, it looked to be about three hundred square meters, but the inside was unbelievably wide.

There were seven sets of stairs that went up to the second floor. This place would be filled with people in the near future.

There was a gasp from nearby.

"What?" I flinched as the voice invaded my recollection of the past.

"I wonder who this is! You must be a deva! But isn't that weird? There hasn't been news that a deva entered a store yet. No…no way! Are you the first?!"

In my past life, I had spent most of my time in Seoul and used this store quite often. But the manager standing before me was not the manager from back then.

Back then, the manager was a three meter tall fat man in his fifties named Igor. Now, the manager was a young man not even a meter tall.

I would have had no idea this guy that barely reached my chest was the manager were it not for his name tag that read Anton.

"No way…for me to be this lucky! Marie! Marie! Come quickly! There's a deva here. He came to my store first!"

Seemingly very elated about something, Anton shouted in a high pitched voice and began to dance on the spot.

Nearby, a teenage girl with a name tag reading Marie, dressed in a chambermaid's outfit, came gliding towards us. Anton produced a square object from his body and started fiddling with it.

"Manager Ji. Please calm yourself. You aren't being dignified."

"Do you think I care about dignity right now? Look at this."

Beaming, he passed on his iPad-looking device over to Marie, as if he were a schoolboy boasting to his older sister.

"I really am the first. In all of Earth, a deva entered my store first! This is the best! Ahahaha. I wonder how many points this is! A few more and even the head clan will have to acknowledge me! Hehehe! Oh, what a lucky charm!"

Anton left the iPad-looking device to Marie and started hugging me, calling me his lucky charm. I grew increasingly confused at this unexpected reaction. "Oi! Get off! Get off of me!"

"Hehehe! Nope! Never! You're my lucky charm!… Huh?"

In the middle of laughing and clinging to my thigh, Anton suddenly grew solemn and looked up at me.

"You! You!! You!!!" The sudden change in Anton's demeanor stiffened me up. "There's no way…you! Are you Earth's first deva?!"

"Well, yeah…"

He was just an NPC. There was no need to lie to him.

"Gasp! I thought you were just a golden egg…It turns out you're a goose. A golden goose! Puhaha! It was already great that a deva came to my store first! But you're the first deva! How many points…how many more points do this mean? Ahahahaha!"

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Chapter 9: Chapter 8: Store 72 Visit, Part Three

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Anton's inquisitive scowl quickly turned into a grin and he lifted his arms in a hurrah and nearly shouted the sky away.

"Good. Good! It's your first time here? Follow me! I, the manager, will personally give you the tour. Heeheehee. Oh, and my name is Anton. You see my name tag, right? And what's your name? Wait, let's get some tea first. Marie, you know the tea I always leave out for later? Prepare two cups of that."

"Yes. Right away." At Anton's command, Marie left in the opposite direction.

"My name is Jiwon."

"Good! I will especially remember your name. If you have any questions about Store number 72, ask ol' manager Anton. I will personally see to your needs. Now, let's start with Sub-basement Two!"

Anton grabbed my hand and moved forward.

"Here we have the public auction marketplace that connects with all one hundred and seven Stores. Once quite a few high-grade items have been amassed, the 107 Stores will invite the wealthier devas. Of course, money won't be our only requirement. Here on Basement One, we have the exchange shop, where devas can easily buy and sell items. It's quite simple to use!"

The child-like manager Anton dragged me through all the floors, explaining all the way.

I supposed he really was the manager, as all the other employees bowed to him as he walked past and stayed out of our way.

I already knew most of what he told me, but I stayed with him without complaint in case there was something I didn't know.

"Kehehe. You see? It's a great honor that a manager such as me personally gave you the tour. But you don't have to thank me. You chose Store 72 out of the 107 to be the first Store ever visited!"

After taking me all the way from Sub-basement Two to Floor Four, Anton took me by the hand and led me to his private office on the fifth floor.

In my past life, I had never set foot here. I never even knew there was a fifth floor…

He led me to a single desk standing in the middle of the room, where Marie the maid poured us tea.

"Drink up. This is a very expensive tea. Even I drink it sparingly."

As I drank Anton's tea, I asked a single question. "So, all sales require golden rings, right?"

"Of course. What will you use if you don't have golden rings? You're not thinking Earth currency, are you? No. No. Exchanges of goods and services must use golden rings. It's already established like that."

"Tsk." I already knew that but after hearing that answer confirm it, I was left without words.

I had the most skill points than anyone else, but I had no way to use them for eight months.

"Wait a moment. There was something about rewarding the planet's first shopper during my training…"

Anton produced a book thicker than an encyclopedia out of somewhere.

It didn't look like he took it out of his inventory, so the fact that he could take out a book that big from his person was interesting, to say the least. But after all that had happened, I just thought it must be natural for him and moved on.

"Hmm…"

After flipping here and there through his book, Anton began intently reading through a page. As he had mentioned a reward, I sat there and waited, slurping at my tea.

After waiting for about ten minutes, I began wondering if it were time for me to go. That was until the maid grabbed the giant book out of frustration and flipped to another page.

"Ugh. Manager, it's here on page 455! I told you that this was very important! Of the dispatched stores, the first store to receive a deva is to provide them with a reward. Failure to comply means the store will have to pay a fine. It says so right here! If we forget to reward him, the fine will be so great that selling the store wouldn't be enough to cover it!"

"Ah, that's right. It was on page 455. Thank you, Marie! I can't do without Marie! Marie is the best!" Anton said to Marie with a grin. This must have happened a lot between them, as Marie just silently took her place behind him.

"Let's see here. Over here. Special reward rule. Listen carefully. Of the dispatched Stores, the first Store to receive a deva is to provide them with a reward. The deva may choose whatever they want from the Store's stock. However, the deva has only ten minutes to decide."

"Excuse me?" I could only ask in shock at what Anton just said.

"What? Did you already forget? Are you dumb? Anyway, listen carefully. Whatever this Store is selling, you can take as a reward. You do have ten minutes, though. Choose wisely. Because you only have one chance. No exchanges, either. Don't ask me what a good choice is because I can't tell you. Of course, I'm very grateful you made my Store the first to receive a deva. And since you're the first deva, I got a load of points. But I'm not allowed to make a recommendation as to what you should take. If I did help you and someone found out, I would take on a huge, huge fine. That's why I can't…help…help…"

Anton talked and danced to himself for a while, but I couldn't pay attention to him. Anton just told me that I could take whatever I wanted from the Store for free!

The most valuable items of the store were among the weapons, armor, accessories and skills.

Weapons, armors and accessories sold were ranked from 1-6.

Rank 7 equips could only be rarely obtained from bosses, while ranks 8-9 were next to impossible to obtain.

No amount of money could get you a rank 8 item.

Usually, you would exchange for items of the same rank, but when you took an item to the market, you ended up attracting a massive crowd. Furthermore, there was a limit of rank 6 equips you could buy at the Store.

Obtaining a rank 6 item would obviously be an advantage. But I knew better.

If I had to pick one thing, it had to be this. And if it was free, then all the more reason to.

[Skill: Unrivaled]

That skill required 20 skill points!

A monster tamer had discovered this skill while allocating his 27 leftover skill points after unlocking tames of certain monsters and beasts.

Unlike items, if you were not high enough level, you were unable to learn certain skills, or even be made aware of them.

For example, if your INT was too low, certain spells in your skill tree would be locked to you, and you wouldn't be able to see them.

And so, skill shops had a chance to carry certain hidden skills.

Who in their right mind would spend 20 of their remaining skill points to find out what certain skills being sold in shops do? This was why it took five whole years for people to know what the Unrivaled skill did!

I had 20 skill points to use. It was the right fit. But there was another important reason that I didn't need to think twice about this.

The cost to learn this skill was 2.4 billion golden rings. 2.4 billion golden rings was an insane amount, and no normal person could ever dream of having that much.

In my past life, my entire inventory, including golden rings, was valued at around 50 million. I had no way of obtaining that skill.

That tamer was the leader of a large and fairly rich guild and the tamer himself, was wealthy. The tamer only found that skill while trying to unlock and upgrade all of his monsters and beasts. There was no way this skill could have been discovered naturally by anyone.

There was a limit of 114 people. Only 114 people could learn the Unrivaled skill!

Once 114 people learned the skill, no one else would be able to learn it. That is, as long as no one managed to kill one of the 114 holding the skill.

"Which is why I'm saying. I can't help…"

"Stop! Enough! I can really pick whatever one I want? Since it's free, I don't need golden rings, right?"

"Of course. This is a special rule established before Earth transformed. You just can't get help from anyone and you only have ten minutes."

"Perfect! Then I'm ready to start now."

"You don't need to think about it? Now? The timer will tick once you start."

I wanted to tell him that I had finished thinking while he was busy blabbering on, but I bit my tongue.

"Yeah? OK. You have exactly ten minutes. I'll be counting. After ten minutes, it'll vanish into thin air, so pick whatever. Theeen, start!"

As soon as Anton said start, I burst open the fifth floor office door and ran down to the third floor skill shop.

"Welcome to Store 72's skill shop!"

"Show me your skills!"

I ignored the greeting of the employee, Slengy, and checked the skill right away.

[Physical tree, Magic tree, General tree, Random skill (not applicable)]

From the message screen that appeared in front of me, I chose the General tree!

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Chapter 10: Chapter 9: Store 72 Visit, Part Four

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[General Skill Tree]

HP boost (3/3), (passive)

MP boost (3/3), (passive)

STR boost (3/3), (passive)

INT boost (3/3), (passive)

VIT boost (3/3), (passive)

WIL boost (3/3), (passive)

AGI boost (3/3), (passive)

:

:

Vision boost (3/3), (passive)

Movement speed boost (3/3), (passive)

Attack speed boost (3/3), (passive)

Decrease skill cooldown time (3/3), (passive)

Decrease skill MP cost (3/3), (passive)

DEF boost (3/3), (passive)

MDEF boost (3/3), (passive)

Curse resist boost (3/3), (passive)

Poison resist boost (3/3), (passive)

Critical damage boost (3/3), (passive)

Critical rate boost (3/3), (passive)

Burning Man (1/1), (active)

Taunt (3/3), (active)

:

:

Increase Accessory Slot (1/1), (passive)

Boost Equipped item Effects (3/3), (active)

Recovery Death penalty (1/1), (active)

:

:

Clicking on the General Skill tab showed a myriad assortment of different skills.

Learning all these skills would give anyone so much help, but the shortage of skill points made it imperative to choose only the ones that were the most beneficial.

The (3/3) indicated that a skill maxed out at 3 levels, while (1/1) indicated that a skill maxed out at level 1.

I already knew about the skills in the first section and scrolled past, but the skills below that I'd never heard of caught my eye.

"There were these kinds of skills, too?"

I selected the Increase Accessory Slot skill.

[Increase accessory slot (1/1), (passive)

Opens up a new slot on an accessory. Usable only on rings and bracelets.

Skill points required: 1

Golden rings required: 7,875,000,000]

Due to the special reward rule, 0 golden rings are required.

"What!"

The description was simple enough, but that was a lot of information.

To be able to open up a new slot on an accessory…

Amulets had one slot, earrings and bracelets had two, and a belt had eight.

It was as helpful as the amount of slots you had.

Increasing eight slots to nine didn't seem that helpful at first, but increasing the number of slots by equipping another ring or too was instrumental!

This was like cheating, to be honest!

"This price is damn scary, too. It costs nearly 7.9 billion…"

The cost made it hard for me to imagine that there was someone with this skill during my past life.

All these skills that I had never seen before were revealed before me because right now, they were free and I had 20 skill points to use.

I clicked on the other skills below.

[Boost Equipped Item Effects (3/3), (active)

Boosts the effects of a selected item. After a cooldown time of 1 month, a new item can be chosen to take the effect of the skill.

Level 1 – Boost the effect of one item by 5%

Level 2 – Boost the effects of two items by 7% each

Level 3 – Boost the effects of three items by 10% each

Required skill points: 1

Required golden rings: 1,940,000,000]

Due to the special reward rule, 0 golden rings are required.

[Recover Death Penalty (1/1), (active)

Recover penalty received upon death. Usable once every 10 days. Usage limited by 5.

Required skill points: 2

Required golden rings: 3,000,000,000]

Due to the special reward rule, 0 golden rings are required.

"Whoa…"

I practically drooled over these skills. During my previous life, I had never even heard of these general skills!

This death penalty recovery enticed me the most. If I had this, I would never have to be afraid of dying ever again!

I could hunt in dangerous areas, and challenge stronger people without fear.

"No. I still need to check out that skill. Search for skill: Unrivaled."

I didn't see it below on the list, so I decided to search for it instead.

[Searched: Unrivaled]

Unrivaled (1/1), (passive)

The skill showed up on a new menu. I clicked it right away.

[Unrivaled (1/1), (passive)

This is a skill designed to give one an advantage over others. Unrivaled is a skill available to only 114 people. Once all 114 'Unrivaled' skills have been acquired, this skill will not be available to anyone else unless a previous holder removes it.

Acquiring Unrivaled increases all stats by 1000 points each. This skill grants another 10 stat points upon leveling up. (This effect is not retroactive.)

Immune to all status depreciation

Decrease damage received by deities by 50%

Required skill points: 20

Required golden rings: 2,430,000,000]

Due to the special reward rule, 0 golden rings are required.

[Unrivaled comes with 3 options to choose from.

The first Unrivaled: Increase damage and accuracy against deities by 25%

77th Unrivaled: Decrease incoming damage received by deities by 50%

The last Unrivaled: Increase damage and accuracy against deities by 15% and decrease incoming damage received by deities by 15%

"…!!!"

I stood there, mouth wide open, staring at the godly effects of the 'Unrivaled' skill.

I may have known the 'Unrivaled' skill existed, but a normal deva like me could never learn what the valuable info about the skill was. I couldn't help but be shocked looking at it all for the first time.

"This… all looks great, but if I think about, it's a pretty risky choice, isn't it?"

It cost more than 2.4 billion golden rings, and required all 20 of my skill points!

I was able to receive 20 skill points at level 0 for becoming the first deva, but anyone one else would have to save for 500 levels to get to that point, and they would even have to save up 2.4 billion golden rings to even hope to buy this skill!

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Chapter 11: Chapter 10: Store 72 Visit, Part Five

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Resetting all the skills you learned up until level 500 just to get back your 20 skill points so you could learn the Unrivaled skill was a waste. You wouldn't have any other skills to use and would still have to fight others in that condition.

Since the skill's effects weren't retroactive, learning the 'Unrivaled' skill at level 500 wouldn't net you the additional stat points until level 501.

That barely made a difference compared to levels 0-500.

"Learning 'Unrivaled' at level 500 means I would have level up to 1000 to have just 10 skill points to use. I mean, I would still get 1000 points each towards my stats. That means 5000 points total at just level 500. Phew…now that I think about it, that's a lot. But it still burns a lot of skill points."

Still, it was good. There was no doubt about it.

Not only would I get 1000 extra points, I also got status immunity, which would make hunting monsters easier, and not getting debuffs against fighting other devas.

This was the best part. To me, who spent eight years as a deva, these buffs made me happier than the extra 1000 stat points.

Being able to trap my enemies in a Slow hell, constantly burning them with fire magic, and all the while lowering their accuracy made me immune to them anyway.

"But the main attraction is… what I can do to deities, isn't it?"

Deities were different than devas. There was a chance of becoming a deity instead of a deva, even though one would use a normal Don Gate. Only 114 people could become deities.

A mere deva like me could never get within arm's distance of a deity.

They knew they were in a different class than devas, and carried themselves as such.

They weren't enemies, however. Monsters were enemies, because they yielded experience and items when you killed them. Deities and devas would gain neither when they tried to kill one another.

Deities and devas had the same experience of being human once. But deities knew they were a level above devas, and didn't interact with them.

It was like devas were the common folk, and deities were nobility.

"Well…it's not like I've ever met a deity."

I had also never heard anything good about a deity.

I heard rumors that deities would think of devas as toe jam, or that they would kill devas for no reason, or that they would kill steal monsters a deva was hunting.

"Does 'Unrivaled' mean that I would be unrivaled against deities?"

That's the thought I had reading the skill's description.

I've never met a deity before, but I didn't have a good opinion of them after all the stuff I'd heard about them.

"Ok, let's learn it."

After thinking about it more and more, I knew I had to learn it. It was better than all the rumors I heard about it.

I had the chance to learn the 'Unrivaled' skill at level 0. Furthermore, I would gain 20 stat points every time I leveled up.

Different from other devas, I would be gaining 10 more stat points per level than them, meaning that at level 500, I'd have 5000 stat points. I had no reason to not learn it!

It would mean that I won't have any usable skill points to learn other skills for a while. Still, learning 'Unrivaled' at level 0 was a steal!

"It's… like I was destined to learn the 'Unrivaled' skill."

I wondered what would happened if someone else became the first deva and got the extra 10 skill points. I wondered if that person was the first to visit a Store. Could they discover the 'Unrivaled' skill as I had? No, would they choose to buy a skill, rather than buying an item?

I was sure that the Black Clawed Panther hadn't done that.

The Panther didn't learn the Unrivaled skill. Someone had to have the past knowledge that I had to make this happen.

"OK. This is it. Select Unrivaled."

[You have obtained the skill Unrivaled.]

"Stat check! Skill check!"

I opened my stat and skill menus right away!

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 0 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 610000/610000 MP: 122000/122000

Strength: 1220 Agility: 1220 Vitality: 1220

Willpower: 1220 Intelligence: 1220

Residual stat points: 0

Fatigue: 0

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1), immune from all status effects

Physical attack: 3660 Physical Defense: 1220

Magical attack: 3660 Magical Defense: 1220]

[Skill menu

Residual skill points: 0

Passive skills: 1 skill in effect

Unrivaled (1/1) – MAX

Active skills: None.]

As I looked over my stats and skills in awe, Anton cried out in surprise, "Ack! Just what in the world are you? How did you know about Unrivaled…?"

Anton grabbed the collar of the employee standing next to me and yelled at him, "Sleng! Did you tell him about it? That we have that skill?"

"No, Mr. Manager! I would never! I didn't even say anything to him. He looked through the general skills and researched the Unrivaled skill himself!"

"What? How does that make sense? How could he know about the skill and look it up?"

"It's the truth. If you don't believe me, you can scan my memories and see for yourself."

"Ugh…"

As soon as he heard memories, he unclenched his fists from the employee's collar.

Everything in Store 72 was recorded, so if Sleng was lying, he would be found out in an instant. But to mention that himself…

"Lee Jiwon. How do you know about the 'Unrivaled' skill?"

"Do I have to tell you that much?"

"Tsk! Fine! Grr! I just gave away that expensive skill for free!…"

I ignored the sulking Anton and looked back at the general skill tab.

[General skill tree (not applicable).]

Not a single skill showed up on the menu. I didn't have any skill points or any golden rings to spend, so that much was obvious.

"I could have used a scanning skill."

I already gained a lot in this single visit. One scanning skill didn't compare to all this.

It was a very good thing that I didn't turn back around after I realized that I didn't have a single golden ring to spend inside the Store.

"I wonder…this was all luck, too…"

My eyes kept looking over at the luck effect on my stat menu…

Dungeon Seeking: Part 1

"Tsk. I'm grateful you came to my store first instead of the other 107 but that skill is such as loss. It was worth so much."

"Thank you very much. We hope you come back to our Store 72."

I turned around and left the store, leaving the grumbling Anton and the brightly bowing maid behind.

I came this morning thinking I was only going to buy a scan skill but leaving with the amazing 'Unrivaled' put a huge grin on my face.

"It's 10 in the morning. Looks like my next stop is looking for the Bukhansan dungeon."

Now that I had the 'Unrivaled' skill at level 0, I had become unexpectedly powerful.

To be honest, I was strong enough to not have to find a dungeon.

I already had 1220 points on all of my stats at a measly level 0.

Altogether, that meant I had 6100 stat points. I was practically level 600.

I mean, sure, the points weren't focused on a few and instead, were spread out evenly. The best part, though, was that all these points were bonuses. These points weren't given equally to anyone else; just me.

"Anyway…in which direction should I choose to go with?"

In my previous life, I was a fire mage. That and ice mages were the most common jobs around.

Fire magic was the safest choice and had decent damage, making it a popular choice for devas with no special backgrounds.

Up until this morning, I was thinking about being a fire mage again since I already knew enough about it.

I spent 8 years as a fire mage and leveled up to 576 and stumbled all the way, but I know I didn't screw up it up too much.

I made up my body and configured my skills to be optimized for fire magic.

It as a popular job, but there were still famous fire mages out there. Rather, if you were good enough, you were sufficiently famous.

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Chapter 12: Chapter 11: Dungeon Seeking, Part Two

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"Becoming a fire mage seems like a waste now. No, it is a waste. Stat check!"

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 0 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 610000/610000 MP: 122000/122000

Strength: 1220 Agility: 1220 Vitality: 1220

Willpower: 1220 Intelligence: 1220

Residual stat points: 0

Fatigue: 0

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1), immune from all status effects

Physical attack: 3660 Physical Defense: 1220

Magical attack: 3660 Magical Defense: 1220]

I stopped by a bench on the way to Bukhansan and took out my notes. I reread the fire mage skill guide I had written down.

"I did not know that I could have learned the Unrivaled skill when I wrote this. Actually, I never expected to get the 200 stat points as the first deva."

There were many changes to the plans I made. They were all good changes, but the problem was that they were all too good!

The fire mage path was not a bad path, for sure. It had better damage compared to the other elemental mage paths and came with burning damage, as well. Later down the skill tree, there was a ranged skill you could learn that rained fire on your enemies so hot that it could chase demons back to Hell…

Even though I thought that, it seemed like a waste of points just to become a ranged type.

In the future, I would be gaining 20 stat points every time I leveled up. I was going to get twice the points from level 1 on!

"The answer has to be melee, right?"

What was one thing that devas feared the most? It was the death penalty!

You lost 2 points to all your stat points every time you died, adding up to 10 points in total.

A simple death meant you lost a whole level that you worked so hard for.

The restorative item that helped you recover those lost points was only dropped by boss monsters. Normal and elite monsters didn't drop it.

Random chests found in dungeons sometimes carried rank 1-10 restorative items, but the spawn chance was too low.

As a result, you couldn't find the items on the market.

The items were so rare, there was never a set price on them and they always fluctuated. I remember that a rank 1 recovery item was selling for 500,000 golden rings. Everyone believed that it was better to buy other items at that price to compensate for the penalty. Soon, people came to believe that recovering from the death penalty was just impossible.

Unless you were exceedingly wealthy, of course!

That was why fighter jobs were so rare. They were the most dangerous and always so close to death. It was also why successful fighters received a lot of recognition.

The roses of all fighters were the tankers.

Any guild that didn't have a main tanker as a part of their ranks was considered low rank. The tank role was irreplaceable during boss raids.

"Well. I do have that choice, but the skill point shortage from the Unrivaled skill is going to be rough."

One of the differences between melee and ranged jobs was the utilization of skills.

Fighters had a number of skills under their belts, but they were more known for their ability to fight with their weapons.

They also fought with skills that would boost their attack or provide support.

Ranged jobs, on the other hand, largely fought with only skills.

Jobs like mages, clerics, and conjurers used skills as their main way of attacking. Even archers used skills, rather than just their arrows.

"I've already used the extra 10 points the title gave me, but they definitely weren't a waste. At this point, I'll be behind other devas in terms of skills. Was that why they were all melee?"

I hadn't thought about it too much during my previous life, but now that I think about it, the guys that had the Unrivaled skill were all fighters.

They had probably lost more skill points than I had.

They probably had to switch to fighter jobs to make up for that loss!

"The status immunities mean that they would have to be hit with a lot of debuff attacks for debuffs to work. They would be next to useless trying to fight from the rear lines. That means that learning Unrivaled forces you to go melee. None of them switched without a reason."

After looking through my notes for a long time, I made a large X over the fire mage section.

It was an unexpected variable, but a favorable one nonetheless.

"Fine. I'll go melee, too! My situation may be better than the rest of them, but that doesn't mean I need to take some other route. And I'm pretty confident I'll do well as a fighter. Heck, this seems better, doesn't it?"

After reconfirming my decision, my heart felt lighter.

"Since I've decided to be a fighter…I'll go with dual-wielding. I wanted to be one in my past life, but with my abilities then, I couldn't even dream about it."

After becoming a deva, you didn't choose a path. There was no path description on your stat menu.

The equipment, skills, and position you used decided whether you would be a fire mage, ice mage, two-handed sword dealer, two-handed sword tanker, shield tanker, mace wielder, archer, ranger, martial artist, assassin, shield and sword tanker, beast tamer, summoner, alchemist, healer, buffer, or sorcerer.

The weapon I liked the most was the two-handed spear.

It had the most damage out of all melee type weapons and while it was slower than a one-handed sword, it was faster than the two-handed sword and the two-handed mace.

It also had decent range, after the whip, scythe, and chain sword, which I also liked.

"I can also defend pretty well with it, too…"

It didn't do as well as a shield and sword combo, or a two-handed sword, but it definitely did better than a two-handed mace or chain sword.

"I really like the spear's flip skill, too."

Back then, there was a pretty famous spearman that favored using the flip skill.

He was a spearman and a sub-tanker that was envied by other spearmen.

"Well, there won't be any monsters spawning or golden rings and items dropping any time soon. Let's just be happy with a well laid out plan."

Under the crossed out X, I wrote down "spearman".

"Done. Let's get going…"

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Chapter 13: Chapter 12: Dungeon Seeking, Part Three

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I brushed off my pants and grabbed a taxi to head to Bukhan Mountain.

The driver must have heard about what was going on with the world, so how could he continue to work like this? Could he feed his family if he stopped working? I listened to his stories as we made our way to the entrance of the mountain.

I could have given him some advice, but I didn't know if he would believe me. Besides, if people started coming out, bragging that they had become immortal devas, society would quickly crumble.

There would still be nations and societies that could hold themselves together, but sooner or later there would be others that would fall into chaos. Third world places like Africa would be the first to fall.

Korea seemed to still be standing.

To be exact, the nation of South Korea would end up collapsing. In its place, corporations took over and set up guilds all around to reestablish order.

Seoul ended up being controlled by the Sunbin Group.

Sunbin Group was the largest corporation in South Korea and controlled everything from Seoul to Incheon, including Gyeongi.

Sunbin commanded 37 first response commando teams and used them to herd field monsters to Gyeongi, creating a safe haven for humans to live in.

It was hard to keep the haven completely safe from boss monsters, but it was due to the efforts of Sunbin that normal people like me were able to continue living.

As the group grew stronger, its influence reached all the way to Daejun. During that time, I also worked for Sunbin from time to time, just enough to make a living. They treated us well enough, anyway.

Over at Busan, the YungGong Group, owner of the YungGong guild, didn't protect non-devas and instead treated them as slaves. Compared to that, I lived like a lord.

Like that, I was lucky to find a Don Gate nearby and after three years, became a deva.

After that, I set out to hunt monsters and went with parties to hunt in dungeons. Soon, I had adapted to my new lifestyle.

"If only if I hadn't met that ass, Lee Gangchan, everything would have been OK."

It was like that when I met Lee Gangchan, and how I ended up with this new life now.

"Wait…shouldn't I be thankful to him? If it weren't for that bastard, I would never have jumped into the Sea of Reset. No, I'm still pissed! Just you wait, Lee Gangchan! I will destroy you for sure!"

Making sure Lee Gangchan was still my target for revenge; I continued walking up Bukhansan towards the peak.

—

I used this trail from time to time when I still lived at my rooftop apartment. In my past life, I used this trail often to use the dungeon.

"Still, I'm not tired at all."

Right now, my strength, agility and vitality were all at 1220 points. They were higher than my stats when I was level 576!

Sure, I was a fire mage back then, and had invested more points into my INT and WIL, but I was now level 0 with stats higher than level 576. The fact that my physical prowess was being influenced by the higher STR, AGI, and VIT really encouraged me.

"Should I run a bit?"

I sprinted up the steep peak trail as if I were running on flat terrain.

I ran the hour and a half course in thirty minutes without breaking a sweat.

"Good. This must be why people raise their physical stats!"

The feeling I was getting from my higher physical stats was way different than the feeling I got from raising my INT and WIL as a mage.

It was fun being able to move my body easily and how I wanted it to.

"Now, let's check out this dungeon."

The entrance of the dungeon was located at the very peak of the mountain. I had come here to this dungeon so often that I knew exactly where the entrance was.

"Wait, what?"

Unfortunately, there was no sign of an unopened dungeon. There was no opening either, which would have indicated that someone had already found it.

"I'm sure it was here…"

I was dumbfounded that I couldn't see the dungeon, but I was so sure that it was supposed to be here. The low-grade dungeon that was so helpful for beginners…

The Sunbin Guild made this dungeon freely available to its devas. This area around Bukhansan dungeon was always busy, filled with newbies carrying sacks of items to sell. I was sure it was here.

"Am I remembering wrong? No! I'm positive it's here. What changed?"

Just to make sure, I searched all over the area of the peak…

—

With my stronger body, I climbed all over the trees and searched around for over two hours, to no avail.

I dropped to the ground, drained.

"I know it was here. There has to be a reason it's not."

I took out my notebook from my backpack.

First possibility, the dungeon hadn't formed yet.

"It's possible. Monsters took eight months to spawn."

Second possibility, the dungeon's spawn location had changed.

"Hmm…that could be possible, too."

In the past, the Seoul's Store manager was a giant, three meter tall fat man named Igor. But today, it was a small child named Anton.

"Hah… the first possibility isn't too bad, but the second one means crap."

If the dungeons were going to spawn in eight months, I still had other dungeon locations written down, and I still had the chance to be the first to find a dungeon. But if the dungeons' spawn location had changed, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

I sighed deeply. I wasn't so bad off that I needed the dungeon bonuses.

I had already become strong enough that I could ignore the dungeons altogether. However, I already had a spare period of eight months and I didn't need to get all the free bonuses, making it unnecessary to find a dungeon.

I wished I had a scan skill.

If I had a scan skill, I could easily locate a dungeon entrance. But that meant discarding a skill worth 2.4 billion over a skill worth only a few thousand golden rings.

I was not going to find even a crack that indicated an unopened dungeon without completely focusing on it.

I managed to come here because I remembered the exact location, but if you don't know an unopened dungeon's location, you might miss it; even if it was right under your nose. Actually, most people did miss it completely.

"Fine. Nothing is set in stone. The dungeon could not have spawned yet, or its location could have changed. Or… I just couldn't find it. There's nothing else to do now. Let's look carefully, one more time. It's too much of a waste to give up now."

I had flown through the trees and only glanced over the area, but now, I decided to dig around more carefully, as if I was looking for Waldo.

—————–

"Phew…is this my limit?"

The peak was too large to be able to properly comb through. I barely covered five percent before the sun began to set.

"Let's turn back for now and come back. I can't just let it go like this."

The peak trail was dangerous to trek in the dark, but for the present me, it was nothing. It was actually easier than going up; I practically slid down the trail.

I took a taxi back towards my neighborhood. Before I went back home, I decided to treat myself to some meat and went inside a BBQ restaurant.

I had to be careful about my deva status. The changes were pretty obvious.

"Welcome."

The numerous stores were operating like normal, and there were still plenty of customers inside.

"How many in your group?"

"Just me."

"You'll still have to order for two…"

"I'll have seven orders of pork belly."

"Excuse me? I thought you were alone."

"Yes, it's just me. Don't worry about it."

A good thing about becoming a deva was that no matter how much I ate, I didn't need to diet. Also, as my body's condition went up, so did my metabolism, and I could eat so much more and feel full for a long time.

"Yes. I understand."

As I sat down and waited while the food was being prepped, I looked at the TV and noticed the news was on. It was a live press conference of the President and his Parliament members.

[The state is analyzing the situation scientifically and is discussing various directions in-depth. It is our sincere hope that this situation will be socially perceived as anxiety and misgivings, and that it will stop at its source, and that all of you will be able to lead everyday lives once more. The state will not hesitate to use its public authority to ensure that society continues to operate in an utmost stable manner. If necessary, we will do our utmost to maintain order via martial law. In addition, prices will remain at their current state and those that hoard goods will be punished. Businesses and factories will continue to produce their goods and consumers will be able to quickly purchase the goods they wish from marts and markets. The Diet will also enact legislation as soon as it is needed, if necessary, for social stability. Again, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of you for your continued economic activity and everyday life.]

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Chapter 14: Chapter 13: Dungeon Seeking Part Four

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The TV showed the President reading off his announcement with the Diet members behind him, all with serious looks on their faces.

"Bullshit…"

I could only swear at what I was looking at.

I already knew what they were up to at this point.

It was obvious to me that they were using the military and police to search for and seal off a don gate so that they can use it for themselves.

While some of the top members were hesitating about the change, a don gate was discovered with reports from nearby citizens. 14 legislators and 3 cabinet ministers got into fist fights to try to be the first to use the gate. They even had the local police chase out the other Diet members and ministers. I remember watching the scene of all of them shouting and screaming at each other on TV.

Of course, this was all after the President became a deva.

After all that spiel they spat about how they'll put the nation's security first, they all soon disappeared. Soon, that shameful scene of their greedy and ambitious selves was caught on camera. But they didn't care that they were being filmed. All they cared about was trying to make themselves and their associates more powerful and used their public power to get their way.

They restricted the don gate's areas and made it a dangerous place and passed laws that it was illegal to use and required the populace to report any and all don gate related activities. They used all of their political strength to make sure they had the monopoly of the don gates.

In the end, the Sunbin Group and a few sincere Diet members came together to help the citizens and altogether forced the President and his fellow corrupt officials out of Seoul. They fled to Busan to join the YungGong Group and took over Gyeongsang Province, where they remained, busily filling their own plate.

"Ugh. This guy has his token now and he's obviously trying to use a don gate. Why does that gate belong to him and where's he keeping it?"

"I know. There's a guy a claiming he used a don gate on T-tube."

"Wasn't he lying?"

"I don't know. He claims it's true and that he used to have terminal stage cancer but when he became a deva, the cancer was gone. He said his body felt like he was back in his 20s."

"I saw that, too. He had a doctor confirm and had a x-ray picture of him with cancer."

"Anyone could fake that."

"I care more that I haven't been fired from my company yet than all this. All this crap is going on and I'm more worried that the price of baby formula is going to go up."

"That's true. I already have enough problems on my plate and I don't have time to worry about this crap."

"I'm sure the President and the Diet will come up with something after all their babbling."

"You're right. Let's finish up and go home. Tomorrow's another day."

I quietly listened to their conversation as I grilled and ate. They wouldn't be able to accept it if I told them the truth. In the end, only time will tell.

"Seeing the President and all those high officials reminded me of some dark days. Just you all wait."

I was a little glad that I was going to have bastards to bully after I got stronger.

I later went back home to rest.

The next morning, I was at my rooftop room.

"Let's try the Seorak Mountain today."

Last night, I had the thought of checking out another dungeon spawn before rechecking Bukhan Mountain.

If there wasn't a dungeon there either, then I could confirm that there was some sort of change.

I took a bus to Sokcho and from there, took a taxi to Seorak Mountain.

I decided to go straight up to the peak, rather than take the hiking trail. I had to quickly see for myself with my own two eyes.

"Ugh! It's not here either."

The low-grade dungeon of Seorak Peak was nowhere to be found.

I didn't use this dungeon as much as the Bukhan one but I came here often enough to know where the exact location was. But the dungeon I remembered wasn't here.

"This is…really discouraging."

I plopped down and stared down the mountain.

A bunch of thought went through my head. I didn't want to hastily make a decision, but I had no one else to consult.

"Ah! Wait…should I just ask Anton?"

In my past life, I never really talked to the Store manager and never really held a conversation with the Store's employees.

Besides, managers usually only interacted with stronger players. But this time, I managed to create ties with Anton, as flimsy as they seemed.

I had nowhere else to turn; he was my only chance.

I practically flew down Seorak Mountain and took the bus back to Seoul. I immediately made by way to Gangnam Severance hospital, where Store 72 was located.

Dungeon Seeking, Part Five

The out-of-place, pitiful-looking Store came into sight. I entered right away.

"Huh?"

There was something different with Store 72.

Inside, there were two men and a woman, but they didn't have name tags. That meant that they weren't employees, but rather, devas that came to shop. But, I guess it wasn't surprising that new devas had appeared.

It had already been three days and there should be more than a few devas by now. But the fact that I recognized one of them took me off guard.

It was the woman, to be exact. Well, I knew of her, but she didn't know me. She was one of the greatest devas of South Korea. She was one of the 114 that had the Unrivaled skill!

As I stood there, shocked, she noticed me and came towards me without any ill intent. In fact, she smiled as she talked to me.

"Oh my. Are you a new deva, too? We thought we were pretty quick, but you don't seem far behind."

Crazy Calf, Song Hyein!

There was a different reason why I knew who Song Hyein was.

Besides the fact that she was one of the 114 'Unrivaled,' she was also a main player of the Sunbin Guild. She had also had a rank 8 Curtain of Rage in her possession.

She was a tiny 160 cm at barely 50 kg, but she was also Sunbin Guild's Second Platoon's main tanker.

No one would have ever guessed that she was a tanker based on her appearance, but people called her tanking abilities (whether it was Party Plays, raids, or PVP, tankers had the duty to take on damage for their allies) crazy on the battlefield.

Even in front of boss monsters that were way out of her league, she would hold her ground. Soon, she had an enormous following of epigones, and her abilities were even known in other countries.

Backed by the Sunbin guild and her rank 8 Curtain of Rage, she became the Atlas of South Korea!

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Chapter 15: Chapter 14: Dungeon Seeking, Part Six

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"Hello?"

I couldn't just keep ignoring her greetings and replied, "Yes. It's a pleasure to meet you." I had to hide that I knew who she was.

"We've only become devas for a day now. When did you become a deva?"

"It hasn't been long for me, either."

I was obviously the first deva, but I couldn't just tell her that, nor did I need to. It would only make her wary of me. I had to constantly watch what I said.

"Ah, I see. Anyway, this place seems quite unwelcoming. No one really answers our questions, and if they do, it's all one-word answers. Oh yeah, is this your first time to Store 72?"

"No, it's my second visit."

"So, you've been here before us. Then, you probably already know."

Not a single person was unwelcoming to me. The problem was that they were too overbearing.

I never had anyone like the Manager cling to me like that.

"Well…"

"Oh, we haven't introduced ourselves yet. I'm Song Hyein, 27 years old. The guys behind me are just some helpers of mine."

"I'm Lee Jiwon, 30 years old."

"It's almost like our encounter was fated, and we probably have more to learn as devas. By chance, how do you feel about exchanging information with each other, should either of us need to?"

"Um…I'm sorry. That will be difficult."

I turned down her offer without a second thought. I mean, I understood why she asked. Neither of us had been devas for long, and they had no idea where to go from now.

She may have been South Korea's Unrivaled tanker, but that was before. Right now, she was a new deva.

Even the Sunbin Guild had a hard time back then. We all did. The normal reaction was to combine forces, but I was busy.

Twenty-four hours a day wasn't enough for me to do everything in my head. More importantly, I had to take advantage of anything helpful. I didn't even think about sharing it with anyone else.

"Ah…" She seemed taken aback at my curt response.

"Oh? Deva Lee Jiwon, you're back?" Marie approached us with broom in hand while we were talking.

She was always in the background, like when I had tea with Anton. I knew from the beginning that she was not a normal maid.

I moved past Song Hyein and greeted Marie. "Hello, Miss Marie."

"You've already taken Store 72's foundation…I should be scared. I wonder what you'll take this time."

"No…that's…"

"Fufu. It's a joke. With the points deva Lee Jiwon gave us, we can give you 10, no, 100 of our most prized stock."

"Ahaha!" I could only awkwardly laugh. "I'm actually here to speak to Manager Anton."

I'm sure I could have asked Marie about dungeons, but I felt that she would never tell me even if I asked a hundred different ways. That's what my gut told me.

"The manager's taking his break right now. Hmm…" Marie shook her head in thought. "That's fine. deva Lee Jiwon has that right. Follow me, please."

"Wait a second!" Song Hyein interrupted as soon as Marie finished her sentence. "What is going on here? Don't you think your treatment of him and us is too different? You've ignored all of my questions and all your employees have been unreceptive this whole time, but don't you think you're treating this Lee Jiwon guy too well? I don't mean treat him any less, but treat us fairly!"

"Fufufu." Marie slightly smiled and gave a small laugh at Song Hyein's demand. "Did you want special treatment?"

Instead of Song Hyein, a 40-something man behind her relied with a scowl."I don't mean special treatment, but treat us fairly."

"Fairly, you say…I don't know. You want fair treatment in an Earth in the Otadonol stage. Let me give you a piece of advice. This is advice that even deva Lee Jiwon knows."

Marie glanced at me before looking back Song Hyein.

"If you want to be treated fairly, become stronger. Fairness and even ground isn't a right for the weak, but given by the strong."

"…" Song Hyein didn't reply to Marie.

"Now then, deva Lee Jiwon. Let us go."

"Yes. After you." I bowed slightly to Song Hyein, who just stood there, and followed Marie.

—

Store 72's manager, Anton, and his maid, Marie, were not beings of this Earth.

In my previous life, there was little known about these beings. We just called them NPCs. They were definitely alien to us, even though they looked like us.

"Miss."

The always supportive Chief Kim Sungryul called out to Song Hyein in a worried tone.

"Leave it. She's not wrong. I've done the same to others before. Conglomerate life is even worse. If you don't have power or underlings, you will find yourself in a position lower than mudfish. That's our life. I just didn't expect to hear that from a stranger."

Chief Kim Sungryul had supported Song Hyein for ten years and knew what she was thinking just from the tone of her voice.

Song Hyein and her two executive secretaries had become Sunbin Group's devas the day before.

Her parents and grandparents always told her off, but could never beat her stubbornness.

As Sunbin Group's heir, she became its first deva and spent that whole day experimenting with her newfound abilities. When she received the report that a strange tent had appeared in the middle of Seoul but no one could enter it, she arrived to enter herself three hours ago.

Normal people were not allowed to enter, but as a deva, Song Hyein was allowed entrance.

She dismissed the rest of her people and searched around the store with her executive secretaries for three hours.

They found the skill shop, item shop, public marketplace, and the exchange shop. They found everything except civility. Not a single trace of hospitality. Everyone just looked at them idly, with arms crossed.

"His name was Lee Jiwon…30 years old. Do you think that's enough?"

"I'll look into it right away."

As long as they knew a name and age, the Sunbin group could find out where one's parents lived, their job, and where they lived as long as they were in Korea. They could even find out what someone else looked like.

"OK. Let's go. There's nothing else to find out here."

They needed golden rings.

It wasn't just Seoul's Store, but all the Stores in the big cities. Any functioning Store was the same. They all wanted one thing if you wanted to do business with them… golden rings.

"It's all good. Just finding out about Lee Jiwon seems like a huge catch. But the power Marie talked about… it's only been three days. In three days, he has enough power that even she acknowledged him. I wonder what that is."

While everyone else would be overwhelmed with the limited information and would not know how to respond to the uncertain future, the Sunbin group would be prepared.

While everyone else refused to accept such an unbelievable event, the Sunbin group knew that it was stupid to ignore all the events that were happening right before their eyes, and so they prepared.

Even though some within the group argued that it was useless, the Sunbin group secured a Don Gate not an hour later and devoted all their power to it…

————–

I followed Marie to the fifth floor.

There were two guard-like beings blocking the stairs from the fourth to the fifth floor, but they did not stop Marie or me from entering. We walked towards a door that reading "Manager's Office."

"Mr. Manager. Deva Lee Jiwon, who came by yesterday, is here."

"Uh huh. Come in!"

From inside the door, Anton called us in as if he already knew what had happened outside.

"Go on in."

"Yes. Thank you, Miss Marie."

"You are most welcome."

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Chapter 16: Chapter 15: Dungeon Seeking, Part Seven

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I went in after saying goodbye to Marie. Inside, Anton was leaning back on a chair too many sizes bigger than him.

"Bring tea for two, Marie."

"Of course, Mr. Manager. Shall I bring the tea from yesterday?"

"No! There's not that much left. Today, we'll have Pirim tea instead!"

"Yes. Right away." Marie closed the door behind her and left Anton and me alone in his office.

"You sit here. So, what brings you here after yesterday? There's no way to get golden rings yet, so you don't have anything to buy here. Other devas came by, too. Three of them, to be exact. I have a good feeling this time. I think I found a good site. To be honest, this place was losing popularity, but I didn't have the funds to afford another site and ended up here, but I've been lucky so far! My Store was first to be visited by a deva out of all the other Stores! The best part was that deva was the first deva. Kakaka! It's proof that Molina, who protects my family, is looking after me. Anyway…"

"…"

"Mr. Manager, I've brought the tea."

"Yeah. Come in, Marie."

There was one thing I was sure. This Anton guy talked a lot. He had not stopped talking since I sat down.

If Marie hadn't brought the tea that moment, he probably would have gone on for another ten minutes. But I didn't interrupt him.

I came here looking for information about dungeons, and Anton might slip up and tell me something he shouldn't.

I just sipped at the tea

"Oh yeah. What brings you here today?" Anton finally asked as we drank our tea.

"I came because I was curious about something."

"Curious? About what?"

"Do you know anything about dungeons?"

"Dungeons? Sure I do."

"How much do you know about them?"

I knew I wasn't that much of a conversationalist. But I knew how to lead the conversation with Anton.

What I mean is that Anton was a chatterbox. A chatterbox that would never close.

Rather than asking directly someone as gossipy as him, slightly beating around the bush would make it more likely that Anton the chatterbox would spill something on his own. I was just waiting for the right moment.

"How much do I know? Are you dumb? Dungeons are your treasure chest. You devas will be constantly going in and out of them soon. You will have to hunt monsters and build up experience to level up so you can grow stronger. Of course, you'll find plenty of items and golden rings along the way. If you're lucky, you can find a random box that will give you some unbelievable treasures. If you find any materials or items you don't need, you bring those to us. We'll give you golden rings for those. Of course, what you sell is up to you. You can even trade with others."

After he finished his sentence, he sat up from his chair and leaned over his desk to bring his face closer to mine.

"I'll tell you this especially, because it's you. There's nothing to be afraid of attempting a dungeon. There's nothing better than dungeons that will make you guys stronger. If you hesitate about dungeons, sooner or later, something far scarier can come to make your life hell."

Anton told me as if it were some great secret, throwing his light demeanor away and putting on a serious tone.

"Anyway, why are you asking about dungeons suddenly? It's not the time for monsters to spawn…gasp! What? You couldn't have found a dungeon already, have you?"

"That's…"

Thunk.

Anton suddenly sprang from his chair that he was pushing so close to desk and shouted.

"That can't be! It hasn't been three days since the Otadonol stage and you're telling me that you've found a dungeon already? Even though field monsters haven't spawned yet?"

"No…"

"You're Earth's first deva. You learned the Unrivaled skill at level 0. And you're telling me you found a dungeon three days after the Otadonol stage started? How lucky are you? Are you sure you're a native of Earth that entered the Otadonol stage?"

Anton didn't wait for me to reply and got all excited by himself.

"Wow! In all my years, I've never met a guy luckier than you. How can anyone get this lucky? All else aside, dungeons are supposed to be hidden by a protective spell before field monsters spawn. The only way to check for an entrance of a dungeon is to break that protective spell, so how exactly did you find it? Even if the shield was weakened, you shouldn't be able to feel or see it, so how did you know the shield was there? Did you just attack randomly and the shield happened to be fight in front of you and the shield just happened to break under your attack? That would be your only chance of finding a dungeon."

"!!!"

Sure, I led the conversation on purpose. But he took the bait perfectly.

"Mr. Manager!"

As soon as Anton finished speaking, Marie called to him hurriedly, to try to stop him from saying any more.

"Huh, what?"

"You can't just say things about dungeons like that."

"But, Marie, this guy already found a dun…"

Anton looked at my direction as pleaded to Marie.

"Didn't you tell me you found a dungeon?"

"I didn't find one yet."

"Damn it! You con!"

Anton shouted as his face grew beet red.

"Ok, I may have baited you into telling me something, but I didn't con you."

"That's called conning!"

"I guess you can feel that way, but I didn't say that I found a dungeon. If you really feel that way, then I'm sorry."

If it was just me and Anton in the room, I probably would have denied it to the end. But Marie was behind Anton the entire time, so I confessed and apologized.

If I had continued to deny it with Marie there, I had a strong feeling that I would no longer be able to use Seoul's Store 72 in the future.

"Curses! You scammed me. Because of you, I'm about to be broke. You idiot! Ahhh! What will I do, Marie? Ahhh!"

Anton was still red after my apology. His eyes even began to well with tears and cried into Marie's embrace.

Marie spoke to me as she held Anton in her two arms.

"Deva Lee Jiwon."

"Yes, Miss Marie."

"From what I see, you led the conversation in order to get information from Mr. Anton who hasn't been a manager long enough to know what his current situation is. Am I wrong?"

"Hmm… I won't deny it."

She sighed…

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Chapter 17: Chapter 16: Dungeon Seeking, Part Eight

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Marie gave a soft sigh at my confession. Based on Marie's and Anton's reactions, there was something else that I didn't know about.

"Marie! Do something! Are you just going to let it go like that? Scold this jerk some more!"

"Calm down, Mr. Manager. We can't take back what we've already said. It's only illegal to tell devas the locations of dungeons. You didn't tell deva Lee Jiwon where a dungeon was, so you won't lose your entire fortune, and you won't have to serve the five hundred-year sentence."

"Ah? Really?"

"Yes. You don't have to worry about a thing. Has Marie ever lied to you, Mr. Manager?"

"No. Marie has never lied to me. Hehe!"

Anton seemed to calm down and regain his smile at Marie's words. He released himself from Marie's embrace and sat back down on his chair to glare at me.

"You rotten jerk! Do you have any idea what could have happened to me because of you?"

From their conversation, it seemed that if either of them were to tell a deva a dungeon's exact location, they would lose all of their money and spend five hundred years in prison.

"I'm sorry."

"You can't just end this with a single sorry!"

"Calm down, Mr. Manager. Nothing will happen since you didn't tell him where a dungeon is located. And since deva Lee Jiwon has already apologized, don't you think accepting it with a large heart would make you a cooler man?"

"Ohh… still, Marie, because of this guy…"

"A real man also knows to accept apologies. You must also be calculating if you want to be a great manager."

Marie looked at me after she spoke to Anton.

"Are you truly sorry, deva Lee Jiwon?"

"Yes…"

"Good. Then accept his apology. Of course, there's no way to tell if a verbal apology or forgiveness is sincere, right? Fufu."

Somehow, Marie's smile sent a shiver down my spine. "R…right?"

"Since Master Lee Jiwon doesn't have any golden rings in his possession, we should talk about the future. Since the insult of nearly making Manager Anton a criminal was great, he should first only use Store 72. Even if he is somewhere far and if there is another store in his vicinity. Second, he will work to become Earth's strongest, without rest. Manager may be happy that Master Lee Jiwon came to Store 72 first, if Master Lee Jiwon becomes much stronger than he is now, it would help the Store much more than a hundred million other devas visiting the store. Can you do this much for us?"

"Of course I can."

"I believe that Master Lee Jiwon will keep his promise, no matter what."

I was almost afraid to reject Marie with that smile on her face.

Beneath that pretty smile of hers, something told me that if I didn't keep my promise, something really bad might happen to me.

"Mr. Manager, Master Lee Jiwon promised even this much. Please don't be angry anymore."

"Hmph! Fine. I'll let it go for Marie. If you pull anything like this again, I'll have Marie punish you properly!"

"I understand. I'll be more careful from now on."

"Mr. Manager, since Master Lee Jiwon will be here more often, why don't you give him Store 72's VIP card?"

"VIP card?"

"Yes. The more Master Lee Jiwon's name becomes known, Store 72 can reap even more from it."

"You're right. Wait just a sec."

Anton produced a small card from his person at Marie's suggestion.

"Here. This is my Store 72's most valuable VIP card. You get a twenty percent discount at this Store, and you won't owe any fees when you use the marketplace on the basement first floor. There are only three of these per Store."

"Oh ho~"

I, of course, didn't know about this in my past life.

"I only have three of these precious things, so you better be grateful."

"Of course I am. Thank you, my friend!" Of course I was grateful!

"Friend? Sure! OK, friend!"

—

After that, I exchanged a few more words with Anton before leaving his office.

"Thank you for today, Miss Marie."

"It was nothing. I'll be content with Master Lee Jiwon keeping his promise. If you don't…stat menu open!"

[Name: Marie Grandel

Level: 2177 Death count: 84(84)

Title: Anton Family's Faithful Vassal

:

:

]

"!!!!"

Stat menus aren't usually visible to anyone else. But, I could only see one thing. She was level 2177!

In my past life, I was painfully mid-tier. I wasn't part of a large guild, and couldn't learn anything about the max levels.

I did manage to hear rumors here and there that devas over level 1000 were like gods.

Level 1000 was that strong, and no one had ever heard anything about level 2000.

Under the death count, it said that she had died 84 times, but the (84) indicated that she recovered her 84 death penalties. It basically meant that she never died.

She smirked. "Then, I look forward to your business with Store 72, Master Lee Jiwon."

That smile on her face seemed to make the air around us colder.

——

With my newfound friendship with Anton, I exited the Store and went outside.

"Looks like Song Hyein left already."

There was no trace of her inside or outside.

"I definitely did not expect to meet her only three days after I changed."

I guess you could say it felt like meeting a celebrity for the first time. Song Hyein was one of South Korea's strongest and had the backing of the Sunbin Guild. Sunbin Guild enabled her voice to be heard all around the world.

"I feel like I'll probably run into her again… think I managed to grow that much?"

I felt proud of myself that I didn't let myself get caught too off guard and managed to hold a conversation with someone that great.

"Ah. I don't have time to waste. I should hurry…"

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Chapter 18: Chapter 17: Dungeon Seeking, Part Nine

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I took a taxi towards Bukhan Mountain's front entrance and practically flew straight for the mountain's peak.

It only took me about twenty minutes to climb the two-hour hiking trail and reach the top.

"Hmm. I'm sure it was around here…"

I was standing in front of where I remembered the entrance of the dungeon was.

As Anton said, I didn't feel or see anything around me. I was sure that even with a scanner skill I wouldn't be able to find anything.

"The durability must be low, but that just means the spell is stronger in other places."

I gathered power into my fist and punched out in front of me.

I definitely felt my fist hit something. I gathered more strength and began pummeling the area around the dungeon's entrance.

As my fists collided with something, I felt a repelling force go through my body all the way to my heels.

After about ten hits, I heard a different sound.

[Low-grade Dungeon 47 has been discovered.

Congratulations, You have discovered a low-grade dungeon! You will be given your bonus!

All stats will be increased by 5 points.]

"Oh!"

As soon as the message appeared before me, I felt a wave of relief flow over me.

It wasn't much compared to the stat points I already had, but the important part was that they were all bonuses.

These points weren't distributed fairly to other people, but were mine only. If I could amass even just a little by little now, I would have an overwhelming advantage over everyone else.

Once the invisible wall broke, a four-meter tall, five-meter-wide cavernous entrance stood in its place.

It was the dungeon I had used so often in my past life. It original name was low-grade dungeon 47, but to the ones that used it, it was known as the Bukhan Mountain Dungeon… and it was standing right before me.

Ding dong!

As I stood there, happy that I finally found the dungeon, another message came up.

[Otadonol Earth has been notified that a new low-grade dungeon has been found. You will be granted one point for locating a dungeon. You will be granted a bonus after 10 points. Please explore Earth to discover more dungeons.

Low-grade dungeon : 1 point

Mid-grade dungeon : 2 points

High-grade dungeon : 3 points

Dungeon Seeker will be added to your special.]

"Huh. What's this?"

I knew that finding a dungeon first netted a bonus, it was why I put finding a dungeon first as one of my priorities. But I had no idea that the dungeon seeker special was a thing.

"Was this why everyone else tried so hard to find dungeons and ignored everything else?"

While everyone knew about the bonuses the dungeon gave out, there were others that were almost obsessed with finding dungeons. They were the expedition and pioneer groups.

These groups were made up of elite guild members and people they seemed to favor.

These guys were the ones that made the monster-teeming Africa and Amazon rainforests somewhat habitable.

"Doesn't this make the competition fierce? It's easy to say, but I would have to find ten low grades just to get all ten points…"

I took a second to calculate it all.

"If I take all the dungeons I know of in South Korea, that's 1 mid-tier and 4 low-tiers. There's a mid-tier in North Korea, but that's going to be a little hard at the moment, so I'll pass on that. I remember there being a mid-tier at Mt. Fuji in Japan…"

I knew exactly where the five dungeons of South Korea were.

One mid-tier, and four low-tier. That was six points in all. On the other hand, I've never been to Mt. Fuji's dungeon, and didn't know where it would be. I still knew of one other mid-tier dungeon in that area.

"Phew…OK. Let's find South Korea's five dungeons first. Then I'll go to Japan. I'll find that other mid-tier and look for Mt. Fuji's."

Now that I thought about it, I felt regret.

Even though I couldn't join professional hunting parties, I had many chances to join expedition parties that went to other countries in search of items and experience.

That was how I got to the mid-tier dungeon in Hokkaido. Still, I joined only a few of those gatherings.

"Phew…I shouldn't blame myself now. It's all going to be different now…"

Low-tier Dungeon 47 I

"Wait, would there even be monsters in this dungeon?"

There weren't monsters out in the fields yet. It was thanks to this that society continued to function as normal.

If monsters spawned on the first day, things would have been chaotic and too many people would have died.

"Eh, I guess I'll find out…"

It was only low-tier dungeon 47, also known as Bukhan Mountain Dungeon, designed for newbies of levels 0-100. With my stats, I was confident that I could kill any monster in this dungeon with my bare hands.

"Open stat menu!"

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 0 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 612500/612500 MP: 122500/122500

Strength: 1225 Agility: 1225 Vitality: 1225

Willpower: 1225 Intelligence: 1225

Residual stat points: 0

Fatigue: 0

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1), immune from all status effects, Dungeon Seeker 1 point

Physical attack: 3675 Physical Defense: 1225

Magical attack: 3675 Magical Defense: 1225]

"Hahaha!"

A smile grew on my face as I looked over my stats. This was my first time entering a dungeon since my return, but I didn't feel nervous, and instead felt quite confident.

I didn't have a weapon or a piece of armor, or even a single skill, but that didn't faze me.

My base stats were already high enough that I didn't really feel a difference with the 5 point bonus.

"Still, a penny saved is a penny earned. A low-tier dungeon will still net me 25 points total. That's like 2.5 levels! A mid-tier nets me 7 points each and a high-tier is 10 points each, so I shouldn't ignore those. I should get all 10 points in Dungeon Seeking to find out what the bonus is."

I closed my stat menu and walked inside the entrance of the dungeon. I hoped there were monsters inside…

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Chapter 19: Chapter 18: Low-Tier Dungeon 47

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The dungeon looked different on the inside than it did from the outside.

Like the Stores that appeared on Earth, dungeons were magically designed. Some were bigger on the inside than on the outside, while others were smaller on the inside and bigger on the outside.

In other words, you could never judge what a dungeon was capable of unless you went inside.

[Weak Orc grunt]

[Weak Orc archer]

[Weak Orc soldier]

I smirked.

As I entered the dungeon, I noticed that the monsters were those that I had fought and encountered in the past. It brought a smile to my face.

In the past, I hesitated so much that it took me a week before I went hunting monsters. After I became a deva, I didn't have a single golden ring on me, so I couldn't buy any skills with my ten skill points. I had to fight them with my bare hands!

All I had then was a kitchen knife, but even then, I wasn't a match against them and for a while, I felt like I had nowhere to turn. Finally, Sunbin Group came forward and gave out small loans to new devas to start. I borrowed twenty thousand rings, learned Fire Bolt, and finally managed to start hunting.

Most devas had a repertoire similar to what I had.

Guns and explosives could provide quite a bit of help when hunting, but that only worked in the beginning.

A Fire Bolt cost less than three thousand golden rings and was better than a rifle in the long run because there were maintenance costs and ammo costs to take into account. Soon or later, skills would end up being more cost efficient and stronger than most modern weapons.

Anyway, these were the first monsters I'd encountered since my return and I didn't feel afraid or threatened. In fact, I felt a glad to see them.

As I walked towards the orcs, the orcs turned and noticed me. As soon as we locked eyes, they sprinted towards me.

5 orcs – 3 weak grunts, 1 weak archer, and 1 weak soldier – thundered towards me.

The weak orc archers on the first floor didn't fire arrows, even though they were archers. Actually, it was more like they couldn't. Even they were archers; all of the arrows they carried were broken in half.

"I have no items, no skills. Looks like it's just my two fists."

I swung my fists accurately at the heads of the grunts that were at the front of the group.

My fists were fueled by 1225 STR and VIT made contact with the orcs' face before the orcs could reach me.

Pow!

It only took one hit. All it took was one hit to crack open a weak orc grunt's head!

The orc's body continued forward after being clotheslined, but I dodged past and moved towards another one.

The other orcs weren't phased that their comrade had fallen with one hit, and continued their charge.

I knew the damage one punch could do so I had no reason to back down either.

This was only the first floor of a low-grade dungeon. I could just keep charging forward and attack. I didn't need to chase after anything.

A bow twanged.

I deftly dodged an arrow shot from the right by the orc archer. While the archer was floundering at his missed attack, I swung my left fist at him and struck his temple.

Even the weak orc archer fell to one hit.

The orc's body bounced off my fist and spun once, before rolling onto the floor wo meters away.

I could easily see the orcs' attacks. It was extremely refreshing to feel my body move where and how I wanted it to.

I had never experienced hand-to-hand combat like this before.

After failing with my kitchen knife and learning Fire Bolt with the money I borrowed from the Sunbin Guild, I never went back to close combat.

Of course, there were melee monsters that got too close that I couldn't avoid. I died without being able to counterattack, so I couldn't really call that close combat.

"This is pretty nice."

My fists were covered in orc blood by now, but I didn't feel grossed out or anything. I was reveling in the adrenaline that I hadn't felt in a long time.

"That's right. Come on."

The remaining three orcs didn't miss a beat and continued their charge. I closed the distance between us and slipped into the middle of them.

During the year before the world changed, I didn't waste a single day of boxing and Hapkido training.

I felt my physical force rise as my 1225 STR, VIT, and all my training combined.

As soon as I slipped into the triangle of orcs, I planted my fists into their faces. Bone crunched and broke.

An orc grunt got pushed back and crumpled to the floor, without even a reaction. At that moment, the orc soldier swung a sword that looked like a sorry excuse for metal skewer at my back.

I couldn't see the attack but I could feel it clearly. I ducked my head and felt the sword swing pass my head.

I already knew that with my high DEF, the metal skewer would just bounce off me and wouldn't even leave as much as a scratch. But to be hit by a weak orc on the first floor wouldn't do well for my pride.

I grinned.

Thinking these thoughts in the middle of a fight didn't make sense, but I smiled regardless. The fact that I had wandering thoughts meant that I was confident that I had this fight in the bag.

As soon as I ducked, I spun around 180 degrees and swung an uppercut at the orc who was unbalanced by his attack.

I hit the orc soldier in the head so hard it practically came off his neck and his body flew back over a meter away.

At that moment, the remaining orc grunt swung his fist at the side of my head. I tilted my head to the other side to dodge and grabbed the orc's arm as it swung past my soldier and judo-flipped him over my head.

The orc's arm audibly cracked as his body came crashing down.

As the orc floundered in pain, I kicked his head to finish him off.

With one kick, the orc grunt's body slid across the floor over two meters away.

I finished all five of the orcs with one hit each. The whole fight didn't even take a minute. I stood in place and looked down at my hands.

"I'm… strong now!"

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Chapter 20: Chapter 19: Low-Tier Dungeon, Part III

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This was only the first floor of a low-grade dungeon. They were the weakest monsters; created to be fodder for beginners.

They were monsters that I hunted many, many times during my past life, but now, the experience was different.

[You have leveled up.]

As I was trying to come to terms with this new feeling, a message popped up, telling me that I had just gained a level.

"Awesome," I said in self-satisfaction.

"Seems like a waste to stop now, now that I have a taste."

My body was itching for more action, and I had too much adrenaline running through my body for me to stop now.

"Alright, then. I'll go all the way to the third floor and get the first boss."

It didn't matter how much the Sunbin Guild appeased and considered other devas; the fact that the guild had the dungeon's bosses on lock was a different story, even when the bosses were the lowest of the low.

The Bukhan Mountain low-grade dungeon had only one rule people had to follow in order to use it; the bosses could only be defeated by the Sunbin Guild!

There really was no reason to curse or blame the Sunbin Guild. Other guilds did the same with the dungeons they monopolized.

It didn't matter how strong the bosses were; they were actually taken care of by guilds quite well. Larger guilds even had guards keeping an eye on the bosses at all times.

"I should go. I'll need to hurry if I want to kill a boss monster today."

Each floor of a low-grade dungeon could be big enough for just over a thousand people to hunt in.

I had to hurry if I was going to cross three floors in Bukhan Mountain's dungeon and kill a boss by the end of the day.

"Oh, that's right. I shouldn't forget about the golden rings."

I picked up the golden rings that appeared in place of the dead orcs' bodies. Most times, one golden ring would drop without items and weak orc grunts usually dropped two golden rings.

"It's better than nothing."

I put the golden rings that I hadn't seen in a long time into my pocket.

"I should save up as much as I can and buy an inventory box as soon as possible. That way I won't get mugged by thieves and have to carry all this around with me all the time."

Inventory boxes weren't just given out in the beginning. You had to buy them.

A person could have up to three inventory boxes in their possession. There were five different sizes of inventory boxes one could obtain: 10 slots, 20 slots, 30 slots, 50 slots, and 100 slots.

It was possible to have three 100–slot boxes, giving you 300 slots to work with. The problem was that a 100-slot box was crazy expensive.

"If I recall correctly, a 100-slot box cost a billion golden rings."

In my past life, someone like me couldn't even dream of owning a 100-slot box. Heck, even a 50-slot box was way out of my reach.

Back then, I had 1 20-slot box and 2 10-slot boxes, which gave me only 40 slots of inventory.

I had the money to switch my 10-slots to 30-slots, but my inventory was constantly filled with items and I never had the time to get out of the 40 slots.

"40 slots of inventory was way too frustrating. Let's get out of that rut now."

There were general items that had to be equipped, consumable items, and random material loot that monsters dropped in hunts. All these added up quickly and were too much for 40 slots.

I always thought that, at a minimum, the three boxes should all add up to 100 slots.

I began to make my forward after putting the golden rings into my pocket.

Even though it was a low-grade dungeon, the Bukhan Mountain dungeon was actually quite large.

The first floor of this dungeon was larger than those of other dungeons, and two thousand devas could hunt simultaneously without any problems. The second floor was similar.

I made it my mission today to clear the third floor. In my past life, I came so many times to hunt in this dungeon, but never made it to the third floor. That floor was where boss monsters spawned.

I've never actually been there, but boss raids were news stations' favorite stories to cover, and I saw plenty of videos of raids on air.

Unlike the first and second floors, the third floor was built to be narrower than the other two. Once you go went down to the third floor, there was a room filled with elite monsters. You had to clear that room before you could enter the boss room.

There was also a safe zone between the rooms where you could safely rest up before moving on.

"I hunted so many times in this dungeon, but I don't think I could ever have dreamed about entering the boss room. This time, there's no one controlling anything here, so I'm going to try to kill that boss."

I continued forward, with confidence exuding from me.

—————–

I sprinted down the path leading to the second floor.

I had hunted in the dungeon so many times before that I knew the paths like the back of my hand and moved forward without hesitation.

I only hunted the monsters that were in my direct path. I didn't need to stop for anything. All I needed was one hit to kill them

As I finished off a swarm of orcs, another group appeared, noticed me, and charged towards my position.

I saw them rushing me and took a nearly dead orc grunt straggler by the foot, spun him around and threw him like a shot put.

"Arrrgh!" Seven orcs crashed down like bowling pins. I threw the orc so hard that the orcs that were hit died instantly.

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

"Strike!"

I picked up the golden rings that appeared as the bodies of the orcs disappeared.

"A penny saved is a penny earned." I couldn't afford to miss even a single golden ring right now!

"Hehehe!" I was having as much fun hunting the orcs as I would at an amusement park.

I wanted to hunt all the orcs in every nook and cranny of this floor, but my plan was to reach the third floor as soon as possible, and leave the farther orcs alone. I only attacked the orcs that were directly on the path to the second floor.

I took the most direct path to the second floor, but it still took me eighty minutes to cross it. That was just how big the dungeon was.

"Let's see here. I've gained six levels so far."

I only hunted casually, but the level-up messages from before showed up three times.

"Well, it doesn't look like I have to allocate my stat points quite yet. Well, I'll need to get to the safe zone to even have a drink of water, so I should quickly clear the second floor and make it to the third floor."

I didn't bring any food or water with me when I came to the dungeon, so I had to be quick.

[Orc archer straggler]

[Orc solider straggler]

[Regular orc archer]

[Regular orc soldier]

As I entered the second floor, I saw orcs different from those on the first floor. These orcs were physically bigger and didn't have "Weak" in front of their names.

"But that doesn't matter to me!"

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Chapter 21: Chapter 20: Low-Grade Dungeon 47, Part IV

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I began to tremble in excitement of the impending fight. I wondered if I could take out the regular archer and soldier with one hit, too.

I sprinted towards the orcs.

There were eight orcs in all: two regular orc archers, one regular orc soldier, three orc archer stragglers, and two orc soldier stragglers. They must have sensed me coming towards them and turned to look at me.

The two regular archers nocked their arrows, drew back their bows and fired.

The small, wooden arrows were the first to greet me. The crude arrows made a beeline towards me but I reached out with my left arm and swatted them away. They hit the stone floor impotently.

"Heh."

If those arrows were fired at full strength, I would have been forced to a stop or at least felt a repelling force and taken damage. These arrows, however, only felt as strong as a puppy's playful bite.

That just meant that I didn't receive any damage whatsoever and made me laugh at the absurdity of it.

Before the orc archers could reload their bows, I quickly moved in front of the regular orc soldier.

The regular orc soldier had a somewhat decent looking sword, obviously better than that metal skewer the weak soldiers carried. The orc raised his sword over his head as I moved in front of him and slashed at my head.

At the same moment, I leapt up from the ground and crashed my right knee into the orc's face.

My knee came into contact with the orc's face at full momentum, and the orc's head split open with a sickening crack.

The full inertia behind my knee kick caused maximum damage.

Another orc appeared behind the collapsing body and stabbed at my chest.

Laughably more afraid of the tetanus than the damage the sword would inflict on me, I jumped back two paces.

The orc stabbed into thin air, leaving him in an awkward position, and I charged back at him.

If I were fighting against higher leveled monsters or beasts or even magic, I would have taken a different approach. But, as this was one of the lower level dungeons, the monsters here had a long enough delay after they missed an attack.

While the orc just stood there awkwardly, I closed the gap between us and threw my elbow into his face.

The orc soldier crumpled onto the floor at the hit. A stronger regular orc soldier still couldn't take one hit!

There wasn't anything spectacular after that. I flicked away at second set of arrows like annoying flies with my wrist.

I finished off the orc archer stragglers and soldier stragglers like I did the two regular orc soldiers.

It took less than thirty seconds to wipe the floor with six orcs. All that were left were the two regular orc archers.

The two orc archers could do nothing but fire arrows and did so relentlessly, but could not stop my advancing.

One punch and a kick were enough to wipe them both out.

[You have leveled up.]

I heard the congratulatory ring of the level-up message.

"Have I always had an innate ability in melee combat? Was being a fire mage in my past life a mistake?"

After the successful fight, my mind began to wander.

The first floor of Bukhan Mountain dungeon was for levels 0~50 and the second was for levels 50-100 to hunt. Right now, I had 1235 points in each of my stats.

By STR alone, I was considered level 123.5!

If I were level 100, I would have a total of 1000 stat points. I would have to evenly allocate those points into STR, VIT, and AGI, which would come out to barely 350 each.

But I had 1235 points in each stat, so it was obvious that I would do this well right now.

"That's right. I shouldn't regret anything now. This is the obvious result. Huh?"

While I was gathering my thoughts, I noticed that among the fading bodies, an item had appeared instead of a golden ring.

"Oh. It's VIT recovery item."

It was an item that I used frequently in the past.

"Item check!"

[Low-grade Health Potion (1 count)

Recovers 10,000 points of Health over 60 seconds upon use.]

"This was useful to me in the past, but now it doesn't seem that great."

Right now, my HP was over six hundred thousand points. Since it restored 10k points over 60 seconds, that meant it was only 170 points per second. It wasn't wrong to say that 10000 HP was a small amount to me now…

On average, devas that hunted here would have their VIT at around 200-300. Their HP would be around 100k to 150k and at that level, a low-grade potion would be one of the most important items. It was even more important if one were to solo play without a healer.

"Well, there's nothing better than this when you're thirsty."

I picked up the potion and made my way towards the third floor entrance.

—————–

I confirmed that the rest of the orcs on the second floor fell to one hit. It wasn't bad, as I was leveling up more with the hunting I did on the second floor, but I still had to quickly get to the boss room.

I felt that in my condition, I could easily face the boss on my own.

The sounds of crushed orcs followed me as I continued nonstop towards the third floor entrance.

I didn't go out of my way to look for more orcs, but I did not spare any of them that got in my way. I only stopped to pick up the golden rings the orc soldiers dropped.

[You have leveled up.]

"Huh?"

Another different item appeared in place of a golden ring.

"Oh. It's a weapon!"

It wasn't a common item like the low-grade potion, but a weapon!

"Item check!"

[Orc soldier's crude sword (1 count)

A sword used by orc soldiers. Made of low quality iron, it isn't very durable and craftsmanship is poor.

Decreases attack speed by 10%

Penetration increase by 3

Increase STR by 10

Durability 17/45

Weapon damage: 100]

"Heheheh!" I actually welcomed the sight of the weapon.

This weapon was so bad that not even beginners bothered to use it.

The bad part about the weapon was the low durability and its quick decay rate. Even if you repaired it, the repair cost would outweigh the overall value of the weapon, it was that bad.

Beginners that would pick up the orc's weapon would use it until it broke and tossed it.

It was sellable in the marketplace, but could only be sold at 20 golden rings per 1 durability point.

The sword I just picked up had a durability of 17, meaning I could sell it to another deva for 340 golden rings.

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Chapter 22: Chapter 21: Low-Tier Dungeon 47, Part V

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The sword attack increased physical damage by 100, which was about a 33 point increase in STR. It also had a STR increase of 10, making it a 43 point increase in STR altogether. That was like gaining another 4 levels, just by equipping the sword.

"Well, it's better than nothing."

I slung the sword on my side by my belt.

Punching and kicking the monsters on the second floor would be more than enough, using the sword on them would just be a waste.

I was going to save the sword for the third floor boss monster.

[You have leveled up.]

After two hours, I finally made it to the third floor entrance. The level up message appeared after I cleared the area of monsters.

"Perfect. That was exactly what I needed."

I gained six levels on the first floor and four levels on the second floor.

I was far from tired and had leveled up so easily that I was tempted to keep hunting.

"Whew… this would have normally been my limit."

Of the three floors of the Bukhan Mountain dungeon, the Sunbin guild allowed beginner devas to freely use the first and second floors without charge. The third floor was a different story, however.

Even for a dungeon of this level, the boss was still a boss.

No matter how much the Sunbin guild catered and took care of beginner devas, the boss was always off limits.

Having exclusive claim to a dungeon's boss made a guild stronger. Sure, you could get decent drops from normal monsters, but they were nothing compared to boss drops.

I heard that in the very beginning, the guild allowed access up to the elite monster room. When they found out that someone had snuck into the boss room and stolen the kill, the guild completely closed off the third floor.

When I first became a deva, the third floor was already closed off and I could only come down to here. I hadn't wanted to needlessly make the Sunbin Guild an enemy.

"Even though I ground away in the Bukhan Mountain dungeon for a long time, I'm feeling a whole different sense of inspiration, now that I'm about to enter the third floor for the first time!"

Even with all those dungeons I had covered in the past, I had never killed a boss before. I never even got to participate in a boss part, either.

The thought of me being about to solo a boss fight started to get me slightly excited.

"Alright. Let's see what the third floor looks like…"

—-

I went down to the third floor with confidence in my steps.

[Elite orc guardian]

[Elite orc soldier]

[Elite orc archer]

[Elite orc champion]

Unlike the first and second floors, the third floor was only about as a big as a school field. I could see all of it in one glance.

There was a small door on the other side of the room; the path to it was blocked entirely by monsters. Through that door was the boss room, and the elite monster room was basically the first gateway to it.

There were twelve of them in all. There were 5 elite guardians, 3 elite soldiers, 3 elite archers and 1 elite champion guarding the door to the boss room.

There may have been only twelve of them, but the atmosphere of the room was completely different than that of the other two floors.

The elite orc champion was about half a size bigger than the other orcs and carried a massive two-handed sword. This guy was definitely on a different level than the other orcs. I could feel the intimidating aura it exuded just by looking at it.

"Heh."

Still, I didn't feel afraid or the need to withdraw.

"The first and second floors were just too easy. All the monsters should be at this level."

I took off the crude orc soldier's sword and laid it down on the ground.

The sword was increasing my STR by 10 and my damage by 100, increasing my base damage to 3675 and added another 130 damage (with the 100 increase in damage and the 30 damage increase from the 10 point STR increase), making my total damage output at 3805. It definitely made me significantly stronger, but I decided to keep it for the boss.

I cracked my knuckles to warm up my hands and took one step towards the orcs, with a grin growing at the corner of my lips.

As I slowly walked towards the group of orcs, the orcs finally took notice of me at drew their weapons and took up fighting stances.

The elite guardians drew their spears, the elite soldiers drew their one-handed swords, the elite archers nocked their bows, and the elite champion drew its giant sword before taking positions and marching towards me.

The orcs on the first and second floors charged at me without a thought, but the elite orcs were different.

"So I guess you guys are elite, huh?"

If they weren't going to come to me, I would go to them. I charged forward.

As soon as I moved, the elite archers quickly drew back their bows and fired.

There arrows were different from the flimsy wooden arrows used on the second floor. These arrows were definitely stronger and well-made and the sound they made as they cut through the air was different.

I managed to deflect an arrow that was flying straight at my head, but I had to take other two arrows, one to the body and one to the thigh.

They only managed to break the skin.

I may have taken a little damage, but it wasn't so much that I had to take special care to not get hit.

If that was all the damage I was going to take, then this wasn't going to be a problem!

I didn't stop the archers' attacks and sped up towards the spear-wielding orc guardians.

The orc guardian that was at the very front thrust his spear at my chest. I didn't dodge his attack instead grabbing the spear by the other end of the blade.

I lifted the spear with all my strength. The orc guardian was holding on tightly to the spear so he went up into the air, too.

"Heh. Welcome to my special amusement park."

I lifted the spear further over my head and carried the orc behind me. Then, like casting a fishing line, I threw the orc at three archers.

"Nice shot!" I complimented myself.

The orc guardian crashed right into the archers. The throw was so accurate that I thought that I should have gone to a bowling alley instead of doing boxing and hapkido.

The three archers collapsed while trying to re-nock arrows.

At the same time, the orc guardian's spear that I was holding vanished from my hands.

The spear wasn't a weapon that was dropped and that I equipped. It still technically belonged to the now-dead orc guardian, and vanished like it never existed.

I wasn't surprised as this was part of the normal system.

At that moment, the other four orc guardians thrust their spears at me in tandem.

I grabbed the two spears that were aimed for my head, but had no choice but to take the other two spears to the body.

I definitely felt more force and pain from the spears than I did from the arrows. It meant that I had taken significantly more damage from the spears.

I looked down. The two spearheads had dug into my body about a fifth of the way each.

"Health and fatigue check."

[HP : 601594/612500

Fatigue : 11]

Credits

Translator: HunterW3

Editor: RED aka Aelryinth

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Chapter 23: Chapter 22: Low-Tier Dungeon 47, Part VI

Translator: – – Editor: – –

I opened up a menu to check on my HP and fatigue levels. I had lost less than 10,000 health points.

"Hehe!"

I had so many more health points now than when I was a fire mage, and I only had 11 points in fatigue after so many hours of hunting today. All that and the fact that I had lost less then ten thousand health points was funny to me.

"Arrgh!"

I pushed back on the two spears I was holding on to. The orcs that were holding on to the other ends of the spears rolled back three meters from the force of the push.

As those two orcs were rolling back, I grabbed the two spears that had been stabbed into my body and pulled them out. I rushed in at the other two orcs that were just standing there, dumbfounded, and threw two punches at their heads.

"That's for stabbing me."

The elite orc guardians still needed two or three more punches to die.

As one orc fell down to the ground dead, I rushed and drop-kicked the other that was still struggling to get up in the head.

I didn't check to see if the orc whose head just split open like a melon was fully dead and rushed the last orc guardian and kicked its head like it was soccer ball.

It died instantly from the kick.

Of the twelve elite orcs, I had killed five guardians and three archers in less than three minutes.

All that were left were the three elite soldiers and the one elite champion. Just four left! I felt it at that moment.

"I've been reborn a predator!"

It was true that my current abilities were too high for the Bukhan Mountain dungeon. Not just high, I was massively overpowered for this place.

The monsters were obviously no match for me now. Even back then, there were plenty of monsters that I could kill in one attack.

Regardless, I had never felt anything like this before. This elevated feeling that I could do anything. The feeling that I could conquer anything in my way coursed all through my body.

It felt like a slumbering beast had just awoken inside me. The beast finally cracked through the hard shell that was encasing it; a shell that I had no idea existed in me all this time.

I finally noticed the three soldiers and the orc champion that were kind of just standing there, seemingly out of place.

"Chaaaa!!!!!" I shouted a war cry from all the excitement and energy that was building up inside me, and charged into the middle of the elite orcs.

As if I were a hungry wolf in the midst of a flock of frightened sheep, I grabbed an orc soldier by its collar and pummeled its face with my fist.

The other orc soldiers and the orc champion didn't miss a beat, and swung their blades into my sides and back. Their attacks cut deep into me.

I felt a slight pain and pushback from their attacks, but they still weren't enough to stop me. It was probably more work and loss for me to try to evade their attacks than to just take the damage.

As long as I avoided getting attacked in the face, neck, and groin, I was going to be fine!

It was a barbaric mud fight, between just my attacks and four monsters, but regardless, I had no reason to avoid their attacks.

"That's it. This is the least you all should do!"

Pow! Wham! Slump. Crash!

The orc champion at least fought with some skill.

It had the three orc soldiers fight in front of it and it attacked from the back while looking for openings.

The champion's attacks actually had enough force behind them that I was occasionally slightly lifted off the ground. I definitely felt more pain from its attacks than from the soldiers.

"But that's still not enough to stop me! I'm just saving the best for last! Just you wait! Hahaha!"

I ignored the champion's attacks and focused on the orc soldiers. These guys seemed to have a bit more defense than the rest, but they still fell with four hits.

"Haha! And then there was one!"

The remaining elite orc champion held his greatsword to his chest and watched me. It wasn't enough to make me feel threatened.

He shifted with a chink of armor. "Rahhhh!" The sole orc champion snorted strongly in anger. With a war cry, he gripped his greatsword and charged at me.

"Chaaa!" At that sight, I replied with my own shout of final determination and met his charge.

We were about ten meters apart, but the distance closed in an instant.

As soon as we were close enough, the orc spun at his hip and swung his greatsword at my waist, attempting to slice me in half.

I saw his attack coming. I charged in a little closer and pushed off with the ball of my foot to jump into the air over the orc. I rolled forward in midair once and landed behind him.

The orc champion's attack missed and sliced the air in front of him with a whistling sound.

I stood straight up and spun around to face the orc.

The orc champion must have put in all his power into his attack, as he stood there for a split second longer than he should have. He left his back defenseless to me.

"Chaaa!"

I sprinted the short distance and jumped onto the orc's back and pushed. The orc fell straight onto the floor on his face, with me hanging onto his back.

The orc snorted and growled with his face planted on the floor, but I had no thoughts of letting him up from that position.

I began pummeling the back of the orc's head and neck.

With every hit, the orc struggled more and more to get out of that position, but I was pushing down with all my strength.

I had full mount over his back so he couldn't fully use his arms.

The orc tried with all his might, but my STR and VIT were considerably higher that his, so it was to no avail. I kept pounding my punches on the back of the orc's head and neck.

The orc champion grunted in rage, but with his face pressed against the floor, all I could hear were his snorting exhalations of breath.

It took four focused hits to the weak part of the back of the orc's head and neck for the orc to finally die.

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

Once the fight was over, the level up alert message showed up five times in a row!

"Nice!" No matter how many times I heard it, the level up sound was always sweet to hear. But that wasn't the only sweet thing.

"Item!" Two items had appeared in place of the elite orc champion's body. "Item check!"

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Translator: HunterW3

Editor: RED aka Aelryinth

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Chapter 24: Chapter 23: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part I

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Foreword:

Thanks to everyone who's been reading along! Just some comments for you…

The novel display here on novelupdates is… rather lacking. All chapter were unloaded with bolded, underlined, and italicized parts to divide up the story and make for easy reading.

They were all cleaned off when we posted here. I would like to apologize, as we put all them in to make the story a more enjoyable read (for instance, all 'menu' items are in italics in the TL's we did), but they're gone.

Likewise, the author/editor credit was supposed to be automatic. Oh, technical error.

We've been doing this for three weeks only, so no massive book release planned. We will release at two/day, every day, however!

Thanks for your support!

RED and Hunter W

Chapter 23: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part I

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

[Orc Champion's Armor (Rank 2)

Armor worn by an orc champion. It was made with crude craftsmanship, but seems to provide sufficient defense.

Decrease movement speed by 7%

Increase chance to avoid critical hits by 35%

Increase VIT by 20

Durability : 49/200

Increase DEF by 200, increase MDEF by 9]

[Orc Champion's Unexpectedly Strong Greatsword (Rank 3)

Greatsword wielded by an orc champion. Crafted by orc craftsmen and forged with the majority of the orcs' steel. Although crafted with poor-grade steels and shoddy craftsmanship, the weapon itself came out better than expected.

Attack speed decrease by 25%

Penetration increase by 47

Critical change increase by 1.7%, critical damage increase by 112%

STR increase by 40

Requirements: minimum of 400 STR to equip

Durability : 317/750

Damage : Increase by 45]

"Wow. I was expecting a Rank 2 at the most, but I got a Rank 3, too!"

Item Ranks went up to 10. The higher the Rank, the better the item, making Rank 10 items the best items. In my past life, Rank 10 items were so rare, only a few ever existed.

The same went for Rank 8 and Rank 9 items. Rank 7 items were the highest anyone could ever expect to reasonably find.

Rank 3 items, like the one I just found, were used by devas around levels 200-300 and were in no way insufficient.

If you couldn't find Rank 4 items, you had to keep using Rank 3 items. Because they were found by devas quite often, Rank three items were sold and bought at fairly decent prices consistently.

Furthermore, the more Rank 3 items you had in your possession, the more you could be recognized as a decent player. Rank 3 items could be dismantled and turned into a special kind of Dust.

Rank 3 weapons yielded 20-30 Rank 3 Dust, armor yielded 10-20, and accessories yielded 30-40. You could then use the Dust in crafting. The Dust increased the chance of creating Rank 4 items.

No matter how useless a Rank 3 item seemed, it could always be sold!

"To think that I just got a Rank 3 item from the lowest leveled Bukhan dungeon. And I got it from an elite monster. I haven't even see the boss yet!"

Even better, this Rank 3 weapon boasted a pretty decent ability. Heck, that Penetration ability alone would have made it good enough for a Rank 3 deva!

"It increases penetration by a whopping 47 points. This rank-3 item could be like Rank 4 or 5."

Penetration was an ability you did not need when facing normal monsters or low-level devas.

When facing those opponents, they would be weak enough that they would receive all damage inflicted. But when you were facing opponents with high defense and high physical resistance, penetration became important in winning the fight.

When you looked at a weapon, you need to look at its three most important stats.

First, its critical chance and critical damage. Second, its damage. Third, its Penetration level. You needed those three things to decide how good a weapon was.

The orc champion greatsword I just got had a crit chance and damage that was kind of low for a Rank 3, but its other stats made up for it.

The level 47 Penetration it had was going to make a huge difference in the upcoming boss fight.

"It's a shame it's not a spear, but I don't have the time and freedom to complain about that. And I shouldn't forget to take everything else."

I picked up the additional 75 golden rings the champion dropped and went around picking up the golden rings that the elite orcs had dropped. Being elite orcs, they dropped about 10-20 golden rings each.

I went back to the entrance of the third floor to pick up the orc soldier's sword that I had dropped earlier. I then confidently made my way across the elite monster room towards the safe room!

First Boss Monster Hunting, Part II

As I left the elite monster room and entered the safe room, I heard an alarm go off.

[You have arrived a safe room. Your health and mana will restore at double the normal rate, and your fatigue level will decrease at double the normal rate.]

"Whoa. So this is what the safe room looks like."

Finally coming into the safe room this first time, I noticed that it was about the same size as the elite monster room.

There was enough room for about two hundred people to comfortably rest up here.

On one side, there was a pool of water so clean that one could mistake it for the fountain of youth. I scooped up some water with my hand and had a drink to quench my thirst.

In my past life, I had seen plenty of videos of boss raids and of parties resting and planning before their raids here in the safe room.

It definitely felt different from just watching the videos and actually being here. In the middle of the room, there were a group of precious stones on the floor that I had always been curious about, and I moved towards them.

"So these are the teleport stones that will send you back to the surface after killing the boss."

The low-grade Bukhan Mountain dungeon had three floors, each of its first two floors was big enough to hold two thousand hunting devas.

It took me an hour and half to two hours to traverse the first and second floors, even though I took the most direct route and ran all the way. If I took my time hunting or just walked all the way here, it would have taken me hours or the entire day.

Low-grade dungeons usually took that long, but mid-grade and high-grade boss raids could take anywhere from a couple days to a few weeks, and sometimes even a whole month!

These bosses weren't going to die in one hit like the other monsters, and you had to fight monsters of similar levels strategically in order to save your strength before the boss fight. After a boss fight, you most likely would have already expended most of your energy and retracing your steps back to the entrance was going to be even more tiring.

To make up for these cases, there were safe rooms before all boss rooms, and in those safe rooms were teleport stones. After a successful boss fight, these stones would light up in flames and for three hours, anyone in the safe room could teleport back to the dungeon's entrance.

Of course, I had never used them myself. Everything I knew came from the videos I had watched.

I approached a large rock and promptly plopped down on it. I put on the orc champion's armor that I was carrying in my arms.

A message appeared as I finished putting on the armor: [You have equipped Orc Champion's Armor (rank 2). Do you wish to toggle on the armor's outer appearance?]

"No." I had no intention of letting this ugly piece of armor be seen by other people.

The armor covering my body slowly faded away.

I laid the orc soldier's sword down next to me and picked up the Rank 3 greatsword in my hands, gripping the handle tight.

[You have equipped Orc Champion's Unexpectedly Strong Greatsword (rank 3) as your primary weapon.]

You could decide whether or not armors and accessories were visible to others, but not with weapons. Weapons were set to be consistently visible.

"Stat menu and equipment menu open!"

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 15 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 622,500/622,500 MP: 122,500/122,500

Strength: 1,265 Agility: 1,225 Vitality: 1,225

Willpower: 1,225 Intelligence: 1,225

Residual Stat points: 300

Fatigue: 4

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1), immune from all status effects, Dungeon Seeker 1 point

Physical attack: 4,245 Physical Defense: 1,345

Magical attack: 3,675 Magical Defense: 1,234]

[Equipment Menu

Weapon: Orc Champion's Unexpectedly Strong Greatsword (rank 3)

Armor: Orc Champion's Armor (rank 2)

Accessories: None.]

By the time I finished checking this and that, my health was completely restored and my fatigue had gone down from 13 to 4.

"Nice. This is perfect!"

A smile grew at the corners of my mouth at the sight of my stat and equipment menu, and I just couldn't hold in my glee at that point!

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Chapter 25: Chapter 24: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part III

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Translator: HunterW3

Editor: RED

Who was currently the strongest on Earth?

I wasn't being vain, but it was obviously me. But I knew that there was no assurance that I would remain the strongest in the future!

There were the lucky 114 deities with their unfair advantage and the remaining 113 devas that would learn the 'Unrivaled' skill.

There were going to be devas from not just South Korea's Sunbin guild, but from all around the world. Japan's Nayuta guild, China's Chunlong guild, and other large guilds from Europe, America, and Brazil were going to have some of the best devas as their guild leaders.

There was the "Demon Lord", Arman Lagus, who began in an insignificant environment as I had and would lead the liberation forces to free dungeons from the control of large guilds. There was also the "Mercenary Lord", Madun Yatekin, who led a mercenary force of twenty-five thousand devas.

There were more powerful players than there were fingers on my hands. Right now, I did not know if I was going to be stronger than any of them.

"But with my stat menu like this and with the equipment I just picked up, it definitely isn't impossible. There are still eight more months until some serious change happens. I just have to find better items to gain more ground. I can definitely get stronger than anyone else!"

My situation right now was definitely cheating, and I had a backup plan that could make me even more of a cheater. It had to do with the fact that I was Unrivaled at level 0.

The future 113 Unrivaled would have to wait to level 500 to learn the skill and would then gain the 20 stat points per level up. On the other hand, I gained the 20 stat points at level 0.

A magistrate of the Heavenly Sect was a normal deva with 10,000 total stat points at level 1000. An Unrivaled who learned the skill at level 500 would have 15,000 total stat points at level 1000.

I, on the other hand, would have 20,000 stat points at level 1000!

I might have fewer skills to use than other devas for the time being, but I was going to have 10 more skill points than the other devas who were going to learn the Unrivaled skill at level 500.

"Well, none of this really matters. If I have the chance to have ten thousand more stat points than other devas, then it's worth the penalty. Alright. Let's just continue like this. I'm doing fine."

I gathered my thoughts after thinking about this and that.

"Then where should I invest my unused 300 stat points?" I believed that even if I saved the unused points, I would still be able to take on the boss on my own.

I was also confident as I'd watched plenty of videos covering the raids of the Bukhan Mountain dungeon's boss.

"Still, I suppose it's a good idea to use all that I can. It's not like anything bad will happen if I don't save my points. Since I'm planning on a melee class, I shouldn't put any on INT and WIL. My VIT is definitely high enough so all that's left are the already high STR and AGI. Hmm…"

I contemplated between strength and agility.

"Let's go with agility."

Since I didn't have that much freedom with my points, I decided to go with supporting my physical damage, accuracy, and critical damage.

I needed high strength and vitality so as to not get pushed back by my opponents. There was no doubt about where to spend them.

But if my agility was just as high as my strength, then I would truly become a force to be reckoned with.

Agility affected evasion rate, attack and movement speed, and critical rate. With a high enough agility, one could attack accurately at greater distances with ranged weapons, such as bows and crossbows. In other words, agility affected everything little by little.

Most melee tanks ignored AGI in favor of increasing STR and VIT, but I didn't have to do that as my STR and VIT were already high enough.

I decided to invest the rest of my points into agility.

"One last time before I go fight the boss…Stat Menu open!"

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 15 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 622,500/622,500 MP: 122,500/122,500

Strength: 1,265 Agility: 1,525 Vitality: 1,225

Willpower: 1,225 Intelligence: 1,225

Residual Stat points: 0

Fatigue: 0

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1), immune to all status effects, Dungeon Seeker 1 point

Physical attack: 4,245 Physical Defense: 1,345

Magical attack: 3,675 Magical Defense: 1,234]

"Heh."

There wasn't much change in the Stat Menu after putting the 300 stat points into agility, but I felt the change in my body.

"Perfect. Stats don't lie. Fatigue's at 0 now. Let's begin!"

I gripped the handle of the greatsword and walked towards the door to the boss room!

—————

Ding dong! A message alert sounded as I entered.

[You have entered dungeon 47's boss room: Legendary Red Orc Champion.]

This raid is recommended for parties of at least 4 participants.

There is a maximum of 8 participants, and for every participant over 4 the boss's stats will increase by 30%.]

"Huh."

There was a recommended number and a limit of participants for all boss raids.

The number was always different according to the difficulty of the fight, even when comparing two low-grade dungeons.

On average, low-grade dungeons would need about 4-8 combatants, and mid-grade would need about 10-20. I had once seen a high-grade dungeon limit the number of combatants to 50.

The higher the limit was, the stronger the boss was.

All dungeons allowed parties to go over the recommended number, but as far as I knew, no party ever voluntarily went over.

For every additional party member, the boss's stats went up. How much they went up was different by dungeon. At the very least, the stats would go up by 10%, but even that much made raids that much more difficult. Soon, everyone knew that keeping to the recommended number of party members was important.

"A four-man, huh…a four-man should be enough for me…"

Despite the fact that it was four-man raid, I was still confident. I closed the message window and walked forward.

—

There was a snort from up ahead. "Who dares disturb my slumber! Snort!"

This was definitely a boss. It was over three meters tall and bulging with muscles. In between its sparse black hairs, it had spiky red hair poking out from behind its ears.

"Snort. You come here! Snort! To be sacrificed to the Legendary Red Orc Champion! Snort! Get on your knees. Then I shall kill you painlessly. Snort!"

"Hehehe. I'm sorry about this, but I have no intention of kneeling."

It may have been an orc, but I was still able to talk to it in Genenian.

"Snort. Then all that's left for you is a painful demise. Snort. DIE!"

It jumped up, driving its three meter tall muscular body into the air, and swung its giant blade at me as it came down!

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Chapter 26: Chapter 25: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part IV

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

I raised my greatsword over my head to block the attack.

The two swords collided in the air with a giant crash.

I managed to perfectly block the attack and didn't take any damage, but the force of the attack pushed me back two paces.

This definitely was a boss. The boss was probably stronger than all of the other dungeon's monsters combined, the elite monsters included.

"Grrr. You managed to block my attack! Grrr. It's been a while since I've fought someone as strong as you.!"

"I could say the same to you. Rahh!"

I didn't have any skills pertaining to greatswords, so it wasn't going to matter how I used it.

However, I had a year's experience in hapkido and kendo. The training might be a lot different from using a greatsword, but it was going to be enough!

My physical stats were all over 1200, and the synergy of my stats was more than compensating for the lack of skills.

I swung my sword at the Legendary Red Orc Champion's midline, but the boss deftly blocked it with his sword's backend. He followed up with a counterattack again aimed at my head.

I moved my sword back up above my head to block the attack in the same fashion as before.

The orc was over three meters tall and mainly swung down to attack me. He was as strong as he was big, and every attack I blocked shook me to the core.

I no longer got pushed back like before, but the greatsword was beginning to take the brunt of the force. We attacked and blocked a few more times, but neither of us managed to damage the other.

Normally, there would be at least a total of four players in this battle, like the message before stated. There would be someone like me tanking the attacks, and two damage dealers attacking the boss. The remaining party member would be focused on healing the tanker or providing buffs to the entire party.

The raid videos I had watched showed the same tactics, and generally, that was the norm. Trying to fight the boss on my own was indeed tough!

Right now, I was performing perfect blocks, so I wasn't taking any damage so far.

The boss was much bigger, but I felt that there wasn't that much of a strength difference between us. I was definitely more agile, and was managing to counterattack right away after every block.

I was managing to perfectly tank the Legendary Champion's attacks, and also deal some damage every time I could, but it wasn't enough.

I was doing well, for a tanker. But I didn't have anyone else to deal more damage to the boss and I knew that if this fight continued like this, it was going to last hours.

"Tsk. Do I have no other choice?"

The fight must have gone on for about ten minutes by now.

If I focused on tanking, I wouldn't take any damage but I wouldn't be able to kill the boss like this.

If this I were in a four-man party, things would be different, but I was alone and couldn't ask anyone for help.

"Looks like I can only attack."

The only way I was going to beat the boss in solo play was inflicting as much damage as I could.

It was obvious that the only outcome from just tanking the boss's attacks was a race to see who was going to fall first from over-fatigue.

"Whew…is this going to be a messy dogfight? Fine! I knew it wasn't going to be easy the second I decided to solo a boss. I'll fight even if you knock out all of my teeth. I'll beat you down with just my stats!

"Grr. DIE! Grr!"

I switched my fighting style from defending to attacking. I trusted my defense and health points.

Erk!

I didn't block the oncoming attack aimed at my side and dodged, but couldn't completely evade the long reach of the giant blade.

I felt more pain than any that I had felt in the dungeon.

I felt that the blade had sliced kind of deep, but I didn't flinch and rushed in close to the boss.

I stabbed my greatsword into the orc's right calf.

"Grrrrrr!" The Red Orc snarled at the pain!

"I'm not done yet!"

I pulled the blade out from its calf and repeatedly stabbed there.

Was it thanks to the agility that I had raised by 300 points?

The greatsword decreased my attack speed by 25%, but my attacks felt faster than when I was using my bare fists before.

I focused on a single area between his calf and thigh.

After about six attacks, the Red Orc turned and punched my chest with his left fist.

I focused on one side of the orc because I didn't want to orc to use his giant sword he was holding in his right hand. The blade inflicted the most damage.

But I didn't think he was going to punch me with his left hand like that!

I rolled backwards three times from the force of the attack with a cough and splutter, but got back up right away. I briefly checked the status of my health and fatigue.

[HP : 557,600/622,500

Fatigue : 11]

"Phew. This thing really is a boss."

I had easily wiped the floor with the monsters in the first two floors and the elite monsters in the room before.

With my overwhelming strength in comparison, I was able to just attack with no regards for my health. But this guy's strength was pretty damn close to mine!

Still, my agility was way higher and I managed to connect more hits than he did.

"I can see now why a boss of a low-grade dungeon needed at least four-man party!"

But I knew I had no choice but to keep attacking. I held my greatsword in front of me and rushed back in.

"Grrrrrr!"

The orc had grown enraged at my attacks and rushed at me with steaming breath billowing out his nose.

I dodged the attacks I could evade, took the hits that I couldn't, and countered.

The boss was much slower than me and managed to get off three attacks. I managed to evade one, and another one I couldn't completely dodge but managed to roll with the attack to lessen the damage. I couldn't dodge the orc's last attack and took it full brunt.

In return, for every one of the orc's attack, I put in two or three hits. I knew that this was the only way to solo this boss.

Slash! Guh! Grrrrr!

The dogfight went on for another ten minutes.

The orc swung his giant sword in an overhead arc, and I raised my lower left arm to block it.

Had my defense and vitality been lower than the orc's ATT, the attack would have crushed my left arm and me, but my left arm held the attack. But I still took significant damage.

I heard my bone grinding against the giant blade and blood began pouring from the wound. The pain was tremendous.

I had to return the favor. I ignored the blood pouring out and lifted my greatsword with my right hand, stabbing at the orc's now-defenseless body!

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Chapter 27: Chapter 26: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part V

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

"Grr! Rahh! I'll tear you apart, limb from limb. Grr! Rage Slam!"

Enraged, the orc raised his giant blade once more and slashed down. The power of this attack was obviously greater than that of the other attacks and I rolled backwards to evade it.

The blade came crashing down to where I was standing and left a fifty-centimeter deep crater.

"Hoo~… good thing I dodged, but it looks like this guy knows how to use skills, as well. If only I had just one attack or movement speed on me, this fight would be so much easier…"

The best thing for me in this situation would have been ice magic.

I was already using my much higher AGI to inflict more damage than he was doing to me.

If there was ice magic put into the mix and slowing down the orc as well, the fight would be so much easier for me. I would be able to dodge the orc's attacks gracefully, instead taking his blows head-on.

"But the problem here is that I can't get any skills right now."

"Grr. You bastard, you're like a fly! Rahh. Enraging Consumption!"

Missing his attack again must have enraged him even more, and caused him to activate another skill.

The orc's black eyes flashed a bright red color and his body oozed a red haze.

"Phew…looks like I managed to lower his health to more than half."

I had watched enough raid videos of the Bukhan Mountain dungeon's boss that I knew what the Red Orc Champion's attack patterns were.

The orc used the Enraging Consumption skill only when his health points dropped below fifty percent. The skill increased his attack and movement speed, and his physical attack power, while decreasing his physical defense.

"Grrrrr!" The Red Orc Champion, the red haze surrounding his body, charged in. Rather than retreating, I met his charge head-on.

Crash!

We came into contact with each other in the middle of the room with a resounding boom. From there, we were putting everything we had into trying to push the other away.

"Ugh. That buff of yours made you way too strong."

"Snor! Grrraah!"

Draaaag.

I felt a repulsion stronger that was much stronger than before. I was being pushed back in terms of strength, and I was slowly shoved backwards, my feet sliding on the floor.

I couldn't just let him push me like that, and I head-butted the orc's chest. It must have had some effect, as the orc seemed to be pushing less.

I head-butted the orc's chest a few times more until the orc gave up and retreated.

"That's right. Let's do this until only one of us is left standing!"

I lifted my greatsword and charged once more at the orc. The orc retaliated and swung his blade at me, but I didn't dodge the attack and let it hit my shoulders.

I winced at the burning pain in my shoulder, but I kept going and slashed with the intent to cut him to pieces.

"Snort! Grrahh!!!!" The bastard must have felt some pain as well, as he roared out. Consumed in rage, the orc didn't dodge my attack either and swung his blade in retaliation.

Pow! Pow! Clang!

Another dogfight started. I knew that all I could do was to continue fighting, and did not retreat.

I kept attacking the orc without dodging or blocking, hitting the orc harder each time he hit me.

If I didn't have room to swing my sword, I stomped on the orc's foot and head-butted the orc in the chest.

When our swords locked into each other, I bit into the orc's wrist. I fought so hard that I felt like I wasn't me anymore.

During my past eight years as a deva, I had never hunted or fought with this kind of ferocity before.

In my school days, I may have run around with other orphan kids and gotten into trouble, but I had never gotten into brawls like this.

I bit and tore at the orc, wondering if I always had this capability of violence and boldness inside of me all along.

I roared as if a beast inside of me had awoken. The Red Orc Champion replied with a roar of his own.

[HP: 257,789/622,500

Fatigue: 31]

I quickly took another glance at my health and fatigue.

After one whole hour of fighting, I still had plenty of health and fatigue.

"Phew. It's about time to end this fight."

The boss was much tougher than I had initially expected.

I knew now that soloing a four-man boss was not easy, and was not the wisest decision. But I had no intention of backing down now.

I decided to end the fight now, no matter who would be left standing.

"Before that, I should take that low-grade health potion, just in case."

[You have used a low-grade health potion.

Health will be restored by 10,000 points over 60 seconds.]

It was only 10,000 health points and it was going to be over a long 60 seconds, but I took it just in case I needed the extra health. There was also a small chance that I could lose to the orc and I didn't want to bet on that.

"Let's finish this!"

"Grr. Come on! Grr."

I slammed once more into the Red Orc Champion.

——

Twenty minutes later…

"Haah…haah…"

"Snort…Guk…"

There was a crash as the mighty orc fell over, bleeding everywhere.

After more than an hour, the fight had finally ended!

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

:

:

[You have leveled up.]

"Yeeessss! I won! I soloed a boss!"

The level up message alerts came up as the red orc champion fell to the ground. It was only then that I realized that I won the fight.

I collapsed to the floor.

"Wow. 17 levels at once! I guess that makes sense…."

In the raid videos I watched, I noticed that the four participants were always high leveled. I'm sure there were some opposite situations that I didn't know about, but according to what I've heard and watched, the raids were never run by lower-than adequate people.

This was my first boss fight victory, but I knew for sure now. Bosses were not to be underestimated!

"This was a huge mistake. I didn't even have any skills to use in the raid and thinking that I could win just by stats alone was stupid. I can see now why the raid needs at least four people."

[HP: 95,568/622,500

Fatigue: 43]

I opened a window to show my health and fatigue status, and sighed in relief when I saw them. I had managed to survive with a little over 95k health left!

I got up and went over to where the Legendary Red Orc Champion's body was sprawled, even as it faded away.

"Oh. It's an accessory!"

In place of the Red Orc Champion's body were 100,000 golden rings, and a belt. This was, of course, a small amount compared to how much work I had just put into killing the boss.

But there was a bluish light surrounding the belt, telling me 'quality over quantity!'

Rank 1-3 items did not shine with any sort of light like that.

Rank 4-6 items did shine with a bluish light; Rank 7 items shone orange, Rank 8-9 shone red, and Rank 10 items shone purple.

These lights were sometimes known as common, magic, rare, unique, and legendary. Devas called them white items, blue items, orange items, red items, and purple items. Their actual labels were Rank 1 items, Rank 2-9 items, and Rank 10 items.

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Chapter 28: Chapter 27: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part VI

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Foreword: This is RED, and I'm calling shenanigans on some of you who are complaining about his fight and his weapon, because you ain't done the math.

We don't know the effect of AGI on attack speed or dodge percentage. Likely, it's just reflected in his melee defense… that's it! And since he's still getting hit, obviously it isn't high enough!

We know 10 Str =1 damage. So, his 1200 Str is 120 damage.

Equipping that Greatsword gave him 100 damage. That's equal to 1000 more Strength. PLUS…it has higher crit chance, crit damage, and armor penetration, which his normal attacks wouldn't have.

So, basic math: x dmg, 120, at 100% speed; or x damage, 220, Armor Penetration, crit stuff, at 75% speed (or, net 165 dmg kickers).

Doing the math, which weapon would YOU bring to a fight? Righto. The only thing which would skew it is just how high the base damage is. Which, we don't know…but a Greatsword has to be higher than a fist, right?

Now, the boss. No, we don't know the Health of the Boss, other then it's a boss, and health is ridiculous in this game. BUT… we do know it has armor, and regenerates, and normally takes four people to kill.

How many people with greatswords is our MC equal to?

Two. Yes, that's it. Two. Because the greatsword is 100 damage, and half his damage all by itself! His monster stats…are just like adding another greatsword, maybe.

So he's one man, attacking like two people, on a four man boss. He's being carried by high attack skill and more Vit then is proper at his level, and melee def and VIT high enough to mitigate some damage.

Special Note: The reason he's not using a spear or halberd is because he hasn't encountered one yet, and for some reason, spears are Rank 4 weapons, and Greatswords, pretty much the last of the swords to be invented, are rank 2… So they aren't going to drop easily.

Yeah, we're looking for him to start using a spear, too.

Just be aware that having 1000 AGI doesn't necessarily make him 100x faster and harder to hit then a normal person. Pretty sure as far as fighting goes, all it does is buff Melee Defense and some attack speed… and those are right there on his Stat Menu!

On with our story, as our MC scrabbles for his japtem…

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

Just as there was a difference in colors between item Ranks, there was also a difference in the value of the ranks. For example, while there wasn't much of a gap in value between Rank 1, 2 and 3 items, the gap between the values of Rank 3 and 4 items was much larger. The same went for values between Rank 4 – 5, and Rank 6 – 7.

That was why finding an item of at least Rank 4 was pretty encouraging and lucky.

The belt shining with blue light meant that it had a Rank of 4-6.

"I don't expect a Rank 6. I'll be more than satisfied with a Rank 5. It's an accessory at that. They're the most expensive, and hardest to find of all equipment types."

I bent down and picked up the shining blue belt.

"Item check!"

[Red Orc Tribe's Ruby Encrusted Belt (Rank 6)

The red orc tribe's most valued gemstone is the red ruby. The Red Orc tribe believes that they are born from rubies and that they return to the rubies upon death. The nobler and stronger members of the tribe have their master craftsmen select the rubies of the highest quality for their use.

A master craftsman of the Red Orc tribe has crafted this belt with the utmost care.

Attack speed increase by 5%

STR increase by 200

VIT increase by 200

Accuracy increase by 3.7%

Critical chance increase by 2.4%, critical damage increase by 80%

Fire magic resistance increase by 12%

Regenerate Health increased by 50 points

MDEF increase by 150]

"Wow!"

This was the first blue item that I found since my return, and I didn't expect to get a Rank 6 at all. A Rank 5 would have been just as awesome.

Besides, this was a low-grade dungeon. Who would have expected a Rank 6? I stood there, mouth wide open, as I read the Rank 6 tag next to the belt's name.

In my past life, I did get to use a Rank 6 item, even though it was only a piece of armor.

I never got to use, let alone see, Rank 4 or 5 blue accessories. Out of all types of equipment, accessories were the rarest, which made them the most expensive.

A small, common accessory would be much more expensive than a weapon of the same rank.

In my case, when I was trying to find a piece of equipment to raise my fire magic, I had no choice but to choose a weapon over an accessory.

"Should…there be so many abilities on the belt?"

The belt was practically filled to the brim with different abilities.

"The STR and VIT boosts aside, the accuracy and the critical rate are higher than that of my greatsword. A belt is stronger than a greatsword! It even increases my critical damage by 80%!"

The boss I had just fought had a tremendous amount of health, and had a passive ability that slowly regenerated his health when he took damage.

Having high critical rate and critical damage were going to be vital in fighting bosses. Normal physical damage wasn't going to be enough.

It wasn't just against bosses; they were also required when fighting other devas and deities. You needed accuracy, critical rate, critical damage and Penetration, and the higher they were, the better!

"I've seen a few useful belts that increased quite a few stats, but I've never seen a Rank 6 belt stronger than this one."

Needless to say, I'd never seen a belt of a lower Rank with similar stats.

Ding dong!

As I was admiring my new Rank 6 belt, a message alert came on.

[You have just defeated the boss of the 47th low-grade dungeon.

As a reward, you will be presented with 4 random chests to choose from.

These random chests have the chance to yield golden rings, rare items, or nothing at all.]

As the Bukhan Mountain dungeon needed a four-man team to challenge the boss, four random chests appeared. If there were eight members in all, then there would be eight chests.

"Oh! This must be it!"

These random chests had a pretty bad reputation.

The random chests had a chance to have nothing in them at all, or have Rank 8-10 items or other similarly rare treasures.

It was because of these random chests that large guilds did whatever they could to monopolize dungeons and boss raids.

They sought out all low, mid and high-grade dungeons. But mostly, they wanted low-grade dungeons.

When you beat the boss from any dungeon, the random chests you got afterwards were the same as the ones that appeared in any other dungeon.

Beating a boss of a high-grade dungeon didn't mean you got better items from the random chests or that the chests had a higher chance. They were all the same everywhere.

"I already got what's probably the best Rank 6 belt out there, so would expecting another miracle from a random chest be greedy? No! I'm supposed to be luckiest guy on Earth! No one is going to have better luck than me!"

I looked down at the belt.

"I probably only got this belt because my luck is unmatched."

I walked over to the four random chests that had appeared in the boss room and stood in front of the leftmost chest.

"Phew. The belt itself is more than enough. Anything more at this point is just going to add on to it. I don't have to agonize over this. I'm going to just open them all one by one!"

I had never opened a random chest in the past! That was obvious enough since I never even participated in a boss raid. Was that why I was more nervous than when I was fighting the boss?

When I opened the leftmost chest with a click, I was surprised.

"There's nothing in here." There was nothing inside the chest. Not even a single golden ring!

I sighed. " That's ok. I still have three more left to open. Other parties would get only one chest per person, since they would have to fill up spots, but I get three!"

I opened the second and the third chests.

"Huh… did I use up all of my luck already?"

There was nothing in those two chests, either.

"Did I really just get three empty chests in a row?"

Golden rings had the highest chance to appear in random chests. Chests with golden rings appeared more often than duds.

If I had gotten three golden ring chests in a row, I might have gotten pissed off, but getting three duds in a row didn't make me remotely angry. I was more dumbfounded.

I turned to look at the final chest.

"There's no way this one is a dud too, right?"

I nervously opened the remaining random chest.

As soon as I opened it, a different sound boomed out!

————————-

I left the boss room after checking what was in the final chest, and came out to the safe room.

"That was fun!"

The day was tough, but this recent short time as a deva was far more exhilarating than the previous eight years I spent as a deva.

No one could imagine anyone who would solo a dungeon boss of the same level. I mean, if that person was a seriously higher level, it was a different story…

"Looks like I'm healing nicely."

The nearly unprotected arm I used to block the Red Orc's giant blade was healing very nicely. There was almost no visible mark remaining.

There was nothing I could do about the giant blood stains on me, though.

"Vitality really is necessary for fighters…"

There was so much more in investing points into strength, vitality and agility.

A high vitality meant I was fatigued more slowly, and resting worked faster. It also made my body more durable. A more durable body meant injuries and negative status effects won't do as much damage. Of course, I was already immune to all negative status effects…

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Chapter 29: Chapter 28: First Boss Monster Hunting, Part VII

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Foreword

HunterW here. I just want to start off with saying thank you for following this webnovel so far. It's my first time doing this and it's been quite the challenge. I understand many of you want more chapters a day and I'll feel you. I want to upload more a day so I can get paid more XD. Unfortunately, I'm still in college. It's my last year and the workload is definitely piling on. Another thing is that the author uses a very archaic tone and word choice. If you've ever seen medieval Korean dramas, that's basically what I'm dealing with. He uses a lot of old, Korean idioms and I'm a Korean American; I don't see or hear them very often. So, please bear with me; I'm doing the best I can.

To those of you who are unhappy with the MC and how he acts; we're less than 30 chapters in. The story is yet to fully unfold, so please consider sticking around a little longer :). Jiwon's true power is yet to be revealed:

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

Ding ding! Another message alert rang as I left the boss room.

[You have received a blessing for defeating the 47th low-grade dungeon's boss.

Blessing effect:

Granted skill 'Create Safety Crystal' for 30 days. (After 30 days, this skill will be removed.)

The 'Create Safety Crystal' skill does not consume skill points.

Hunt field monsters for 30 days and a Safety Crystal will amass experience points. On the 1st, 10th, and 30th day, the crystal will take form and you will be able to receive the Safety Crystal.

You will be restricted from entering another dungeon for 30 days.]

"Oh! That's right."

I had forgotten about the dungeon blessing.

The dungeon blessing was bestowed on all raid participants that successfully defeated the dungeon boss.

As the message stated, the blessing placed a thirty-day restriction on entering other dungeons, but gave out a crystal that created a safe zone for safer field monster hunting.

This perfect safe zone made it impossible to attack each other while in the zone.

The zone had an area of 327 square meters, which increased the more people used it.

One might think that there was no point to it since devas no longer feared death, but there were other uses to the safety crystal.

The safety crystals were usable in dungeons, as well. It took on average more than a few days of fighting and killing monsters to reach the boss room.

In these dungeons, a large party moved together and rotated the fighting among themselves so others could rest, but sooner or later, everyone would tire out.

The comfort of not having to worry about monsters' attacks provided by a safe zone was absolutely irreplaceable.

Africa's pioneer group and the Amazon Expedition Team counted on safety crystals to get them out of hairy situations where they were surrounded by monsters.

Of course, it took about an hour after use for a safe zone to be set up. Using a crystal in the middle of a fight was just wasteful.

Even non-devas were able to receive the effects of the safe zone created by safety crystals, and many of them sought them out when they could.

"Well, the main reason these crystals are so popular is the Store."

Stores bought all sorts of items that monsters dropped.

It didn't matter if the items were cheap or were just loot materials that monsters dropped; Stores bought them all.

The price of each individual item wasn't much, but Stores still bought them and it became the norm to pick up everything monsters dropped.

The one thing Store employees went absolutely crazy over was safety crystals.

These employees treated normal item sales with nonchalance and aloofness, but when someone came in to sell a safety crystal, they all fill to the brim with smiles and hospitality.

They would even buy safety crystals at a premium price, buying for way more than the normal asking price.

The Store's manager would even come out to shake hands and personally thank the person selling the crystal.

If someone sold a few safety crystals to a Store, the manager would sometimes invite them to auctions, let them use storage for free, or give discounts at shops, and took special care of them.

"These things were pretty expensive."

Safety crystals sold at extremely high prices. No other items sold as high as crystals.

Besides hunting and farming for rare Rank 6 items, the fastest way to earn golden rings was to make as many safety crystals as possible and sell them.

Stores weren't the only buyers of crystals. There were other buyers that would buy crystals at even higher prices than the Stores. Those buyers were large guilds, and the wealthy.

"There were so many parents with children that became devas."

There were countless parents whose children were still minors.

How much would they spend on a safety crystal to keep their children safe? Those parents would spend every penny they had on them!

Reputable guilds whose members had children or family members that hadn't become devas yet set up safe zones to keep them safe. The guilds wanted nothing to happen to them.

One could also say that safety crystals were created for the few devas that set out to hunt the usually avoided field monsters, but didn't possess the blessing.

The biggest difference between field monsters and dungeon monsters is that hunting dungeon monsters yielded twice as much experience, items, and golden rings.

Furthermore, field monsters would fight among each other and whenever a field monster killed another monster or a deva, that monster would gain experience and level up to become even stronger.

A monster that leveled up has its stats go up as well, and attempting to fight that monster while mistaking it for just a normal monster could mean death!

Hunting dungeon monsters rather than field monsters saved time and energy.

Those that have grown stronger from defeating monsters should continue training with field monsters. and beginners should use dungeons to quickly grow. Should you hunt avoided monsters normally avoided, you will be compensated with useful items.' That was what most people said, right?

This was the most plausible theory. But the problem was that it was only theory.

Large guilds that had dungeons in their grasps did almost everything in their power to not lose their dungeons.

Since large guilds and those with influence had monopolies over dungeons, they were the only ones able to receive blessings, and normal people never had the chance to obtain a safety crystal.

The same went for me. That was why the dungeon blessing completely slipped my mind.

"By the way…I may have a dungeon blessing, but how and where am I going to use it?"

There were seven more months left until field monsters were supposed to spawn. That meant that I had no way of proper way to use the blessing, and I wouldn't be able to enter a dungeon for another thirty days.

There wouldn't be field monsters for the time being, so I needed to hunt dungeon monsters to level up, but it looks like I wouldn't be able to do anything for a month!

I sighed. "I hadn't thought about this. I won't be able to enter the dungeons at Seorak Mountain and Jeju Island."

Finding more dungeons took priority over leveling up.

I wanted to take advantage of all the bonuses I could get from the dungeons, and utilize as many of the dungeons as I could!

"Looks like all I can do for a month is nothing else, but find the dungeons."

I found a flat spot on the floor of the safe room and sat down.

The stones in the middle of the room were glowing with a blue light now. The number 177 was written in the middle of the gemstones.

The counter counted down from 180 minutes, after that everyone in the safe room was going to be teleported to the dungeon's entrance.

"OK. Let's rest for three hours for now…"

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Chapter 30: Chapter 29: The Rank 8 Item, Part I

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

I trekked down the mountain after I was teleported to the dungeon's entrance.

The sun had just about fully set, and it was swiftly getting darker.

The clothes I was wearing were in complete tatters, I was caked in dried blood, and I just felt extremely grimy.

I ran quickly ran down the mountain and decided against taking a cab. Instead, I ran back to nearby Insu-dong to get back to my rooftop room as fast as possible.

There were a lot of people who seemed to be shocked at my speed, but I ignored them and headed straight to the rooftop room. Rather than take the stairs to the fourth floor, I decided to wall-jump a couple times to get to the top.

It was only possible because my agility was over 1,500!

————————

"Phew. It's been a long, tiring, but meaningful day."

I defeated a boss monster that I could never have dreamed about in my past life. I did it alone!

That reason alone was enough to celebrate!

"I'll have ten servings of pork belly for dinner tonight. I should wash up first…"

I tossed aside the clothes that were now rags and showered. After my shower, I went back to the table where I had left the five items I had found.

"The orc soldier's sword is only Rank 1, so I should just sell that at the Store…"

The Bukhan Mountain dungeon's boss dropped a hundred thousand golden rings, but selling the weapon was still going to net me another 300 golden rings, so I decided to take it with me.

"I should get the orc champion's armor and greatsword repaired and keep using them."

The orc champion's armor was only Rank 2 and its stats weren't that great ,but it was still better than nothing, so I decided to repair and keep it. The greatsword was going to have to last me until I found a useful spear.

"Hehehe."

Just looking at the shiny, blue belt made me smile!

"Item check!"

[Red Orc Tribe's Ruby Encrusted Belt (Rank 6)

The red orc tribe's most valued gemstone is the red ruby. The Red Orc tribe believes that they are born from rubies and that they return to the rubies upon death. The nobler and stronger members of the tribe have their master craftsmen select the rubies of the highest quality for them.

A master craftsman of the Red Orc tribe has crafted this belt with the utmost care.

Attack speed increase by 5%

STR increase by 200

VIT increase by 200

Accuracy increase by 3.7%

Critical chance increase by 2.4%, critical damage increase by 80%

Fire magic resistance increase by 12%

Regenerate health by 50 points

MDEF increase by 150]

"Hehehe! I'll keep this with me forever! Equip!"

It was awesome the more I looked at it. It was so great that I could probably look at for a whole day and not get tired of it.

[You have equipped Red Orc Tribe's Ruby Encrusted Belt (Rank 6). Would you like it to be visible to others?]

"Of course I would!"

The ruby-encrusted belt looked expensive even at a quick glance. The large, bright red ruby in the middle of the belt just screamed "I'm an expensive item!"

"Ah! That's not right. There's no one out there right now that will recognize the value if I make it visible. Walking around with the belt visible right now will definitely attract some annoyingly unwanted attention. I should make it invisible…"

I switched the belt's settings right away.

"Whew. By the way, this one is…damn."

I looked at the last item on the table.

It was the item from the fourth random chest after I opened the three duds.

The item shone with a red light. This was a unique item, AKA a red item, Rank 8 and was right there right before my eyes.

"Item check!"

[Orb of Vitality (Rank 8)

The Orb of Vitality is one of the 5 Orbs in existence. Once this item comes into your possession, the Orb is bound to you. The Orb collects 1 VIT point a day, starting on the day you obtain the Orb.

There is no limit to how much Vitality the Orb can collect. When you consume the Orb, the Vitality points the Orb collected will be added to your total VIT stat.

Bind on pickup.

The Orb of Vitality will dissolve once consumed. Once consumed, the collected Vitality is transferred to the consumer.

While the Orb is in your possession, Health regenerates by 500 per tick.

Current Vitality collected: 1]

It was definitely a Rank 8 item, because it oozed a red haze. It even said Rank 8 in the item's description!

"But it really is a damn shame."

There were so many other Rank 8 weapons, armor, and accessories, like Song Haein's Overcoat of Rage, Warrant of Tutelage, or her Hestia's Authority. It was such a bummer that I just got an Orb of Vitality.

In the long run, the orb wasn't a bad thing.

If I could hold out for another ten years, until that fateful day before I turned back in time, and kept collecting Vitality points, I could end up with 3650 vitality points, for free!

But what would happen if I had a rank 8 Weapon or Accessory, or even just a piece of armor?

"That would be game, set!"

That was why it was such a shame.

"Phew…should I be thankful that I didn't get four duds in a row? Ha, to think that I would be bummed out over a Rank 8 item."

I had never even touched a Rank 7 item before, and it was funny that I was standing there complaining over a Rank 8 item.

"Oh, well. It's like I said to myself before; getting a Rank 6 belt was a miracle already. Everything else is just an added bonus. Finding a Rank 8 item is a bonus enough. It'll collect a Vitality point once a day, so it'll be worth it the long run. Even though it's going to be a very long run…"

I gripped the Orb of Vitality tight in my hand.

"Let's go buy the pork belly now. I should eat as much as I can when I can. It'll become its weight in gold soon."

Once field monsters spawned, human territories would subsequently shrink and the prices of food would skyrocket.

The general shops in Stores sold food like bread and drinks, but they were expensive.

They were only simple foods to fill one's hunger, but the high price forced people to go out hunting or spend a long time in high-grade dungeons to hunt and make money. The danger of these choices put a great burden on people.

I worked on Sunbin Guild's pig farm and cattle ranch for three years to make enough just to feed myself!

Sunbin Guild was at least humanitarian in its treatment to normal humans, but those living in Busan had to deal with Yung Gong Guild's harsh treatment and borderline slavery. Life was hard for them. Still, people were still able to carry on with their lives.

"Society will crumble into chaos in about three or four months, so I should enjoy the time I have left."

—

I left my room and headed towards the local butcher shop. But I realized I had a problem.

"Oh, that's right. I've been spending quite a bit lately."

After spending about tens of millions of won on my trip to Nigeria and on guides there, I had been continuously spending nonstop.

I knew that all currency was going to become worthless except for golden rings, and I had been pretty much living as a spendthrift.

"All I have left is two hundred and fifty thousand won."

I had four 50,000 won bills, and five 10,000 won bills in my wallet. All I had left was a measly two hundred and fifty thousand won!

I had already emptied out my bank account, and no longer had any place to get more money.

"I still have to go to Japan…"

I was planning on going to Japan after finding all five dungeons in South Korea.

If it were someplace close enough, I could walk, but I had to fly to get to Japan.

I had to use all the time I had left into finding dungeons and couldn't just spend it on transportation.

"Meh! I'm going to eat pork belly today. If I don't eat it today, I won't be able to eat it ever again."

—————–

I spent a hundred and seventy thousand won on ten packs of pork belly, and went to sleep blissfully on a full stomach.

With the personality of my past life, I would have been frugal with the last amount of my allowance. I was unfamiliar with the person that was spending all this money.

But it wasn't like I was being irresponsible or thoughtless. Was it confidence? The change didn't feel bad at all…

Editor remarks: Some more story comments for you all. Some readers already pointed this stuff out in the story below, so I'm just building on them.

Oh, and sorry for not putting in a story break for the forewords. Corrected!

This guy is not an elite gamer. Look at his backstory. There's nothing about gaming there. He's a loser who was in the military, got drummed up, and ended up working a factory job at low pay because it was all he was good at. He's not someone who calculates damage values in his head, balances skill choices, or the like. He's got so few connections that he doesn't even have someone to hold onto his stuff when he resets!

Information is restricted. League of Legends has been out for ages. Imagine trying to get good at that game if you were only allowed to pick one game, ever, and weren't able to access an online information guide about the character, there was no rules guide, you didn't know how to access all the commands, and you could only get info by word of mouth from close friends… who might not play the game yet. You couldn't pick up up a leveling guide except by word of mouth, character builds, skill choices, or the like. You just got to play purple-skin mage guy… and then you were stuck with it, with no real friends to show you how to play, and constantly getting picked on by maxed out other LoL players who cost you days or weeks of hard work if they killed you… which they could do easily. You got to play games against Masters as a Copper Rank, they had all the upgrades, you didn't, they stopped you from getting them, and you generally just got owned.

Gear is pricey, skills are pricey, and there's no internet there listing everything for you, or offering them up on Amazon at a cheaper price. You only find them in live auctions, in the Store, or on the street. That makes it VERY hard to get a good deal, since you never reach the commodity stage. And people only have that area between the Store buying the item and selling it to work with… and most of them aren't going to sit around and shout out that they want to sell something for hours in hope of making money, because they can't program a bot to do it for them! They would actually have to pay someone money, and hope they wouldn't run off with the item, and would do a good job.

Perfectly trustworthy bots and stuff just don't exist here. So people would sell to the Store, and that precious gear you want just disappears inside the system. That's right, it's gone… There's no warehouse stacking up zillions of greatswords and driving their value down to nothing. Nope, they are sold to the Store and gone, presumably recycled back for other monsters to drop. No extras just to give away because they aren't worth anything.

4) So, you work your way up to Silver Rank Purple Mage Guy in LoL, and then some bastard slams you back to Copper grade, and you realize that getting back to Silver from where you are will actually be easier starting over then continuing on.

5) THEN… you get thrown back in time, and can make use of all your foreknowledge. Cue our kiting, fire-casting sniper of a PC. Except now, he's Unrivaled, and he realizes that it is very, very stupid to be a sniping fire caster… and so now instead of Purple Mage Guy in LoL, you pick Cheerful Big Sword Guy for your one and only character! But you've never played CBSG, certainly never read a build guide for one, or gotten tips on how to be one. Just like in LoL, you've got to hop on the learning curve again. You know the game… but you don't know the CHARACTER…

6) Yeah, he practiced hapkido and all that stuff. Mostly that was to keep himself combat ready and mentally sharp. He thought he was going to start over as a fire mage, remember? Why would he practice weapon wielding? All that stuff happened AFTER he got the whole Unrivaled thing going. (Hear that crash? It's all his tightly laid plans going down, down, down) In short… his own uberness cut him off at the knees. And another point: there is no martial art invented by man that has been designed to fight three meter tall superhumanly tough and strong orcs!

7) Monster Stats, same as a level 500, sure. But as numerous people pointed out, he's got NO Stat allocation. In other words, he's got the fighting power of a level 125 melee fighter, approximately, although its improving fast. What he DOES have is probably better melee and magic defense, and he's probably got more VIT than four average people combined.

8) We don't know how the stats translate to reality. Agility seems to reflect his movement speed more than anything. It doesn't seem to have significantly affected his reaction time that much. Also, dodging is melee and missile defense, no more, no less. Since he is getting hit, obviously it isn't all that massive… about at the level of a 125 level character, who the boss is geared to fight. His Int boost probably helped out his ability to memorize and recall information, and maybe figure out new stuff, but obviously he isn't running simulations in his mind, doesn't have multiple thought streams, and doesn't think at superspeed.

Those are probably skills, if anything.

9) As someone else pointed out, high level with no gear is crippling. He's got the damage output of a melee combatant around level 125-175 right now, because they'll have melee skills he doesn't have, and proper Stat allocation.

10) Unlike a game, where you have a straight quest line, campaign, and side quests, real life doesn't come with returns to previous saves if stuff happens and you get off track; nor are your plans in game derailed by stuff that happens there very often, nor do you get multiple playthroughs to pick the most effective course or reverse something happening you didn't want to happen. Our MC made all these great plans, and look how far off track they already are. He's now a tank, not a mage, and he keeps getting derailed by real life.

11) Building on information restriction; there's tons of important, high level stuff he doesn't know, because he never traveled in those circles, never had the money, never had the power/skills, and was just an average player. He's uber now, or potentially so, but in the past? He was the equivalent of a casual LoL player who might be a fan and cheer on the real teams, but just gets owned when brought up against a real player, and really can't get much better. He didn't even know some of those expensive skills existed, because he never had the money free, and the high level people don't share or talk about them.

And it's only going to continue! ?

So, yeah, don't expect him to act like an uber gamer anytime soon. He knows some stuff, but none of it is high level. This isn't RSSG, where you have a truly uber gamer starting over, knowing the game and ALL the tricks. This is a guy who worked hard just to get to mediocre status, and he would never be able to sit up at the Challenger table of LoL in anything resembling normal circumstances, despite his dreams.

(Truth be told, not having information sharing in a society that obviously still managed to hold onto computer tech and the internet just strikes me as crazy and unreal, but w'ever. Part of the story!)

If you want to see a supraintelligent gamer exploiting and knowing everything, and life never derailing his plans, there's other stories for that.

Oh, and thanks for the voting and powerstones!

PS: Man, did I goof up the Str = dmg thing. Yes, dmg = 3x Str (start of Chapter 21, when he's in the dungeon, part V). Thanks for pointing that out to me. So, picking up a Greatsword didn't double his damage like I thought. Oops. On the other hand, it was obviously better then using his hands. So, those penetrating and crit things must be REALLY important, right? And damage obviously isn't flat, there must be a multiplier at work, and it must be bigger for the sword…

Now, let's see our MC gloat over getting his phat lewt, and blow the last of his piggy bank.

RED

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Chapter 31: Chapter 30: The Rank 8 Item, Part II

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

The next morning, I had a full breakfast, washed up and got ready to go out.

"I should go to the Store first and buy 10 slots of inventory."

Beating the Bukhan Mountain dungeon's boss netted me 100,000 golden rings.

Before the fight, I had 2,475 golden rings, so I had a total of 102,475 golden rings in my possession.

I remembered that an inventory with 10 slots cost exactly 100,000 golden rings and decided to buy one from the Store.

I also had the VIP card that Anton gave me, which meant I was going to get a 20% discount and could buy the inventory for only 80,000 golden rings!

I picked up an orc sword in each of my hands.

"This…might not be a good idea to just go like this."

In a few more months, it wouldn't look strange, but if I left carrying two swords right now, people would think that I was some sort of criminal and I'd be dragged down to the police station.

I thought about leaving the greatsword at home, but since I was going to keep using it until I found a spear, I decided to take it with me to get it repaired.

I didn't have a box big enough for the swords and decided to just wrap them up in newspaper.

I barely had 100,000 won left in my wallet, but I still decided to take a taxi to Store 72.

——

The Store still looked out of place in between all those buildings. I lifted the flap and walked inside.

I only saw the Store's employees with their name tags inside. There weren't any other devas like when I met Song Haein.

I walked over to the smithy that was over at one side of the first floor plaza.

"Welcome, Master Lee Jiwon."

"Yes?"

There was a large, mustached man manning the smithy's counter. His unexpected greeting surprised me. The nametag on his chest read Batum.

He surprised me for a second, but I quickly regained my bearings and greeted him back. "Yes, hello! How did you know my name?"

"Oh, come on. Everyone knows that you're a friend of the manager. All of the employees of Store 72 are like manager Anton's family. There is no way I couldn't know."

"Ah…" I immediately understood what Batum was saying.

"Anyway, what brings you here?"

"Ah, yes. I wanted to repair my armor and greatsword. I also would like to sell this one-handed sword."

I handed over the newspaper-wrapped swords, and took off my armor and handed that over as well.

"The Rank 1 orc soldier's crude sword's durability only has 17 points left. The sword itself is useless so there's no point in repairing it. I'll pay you 250 golden rings for its scrap iron value."

"Yes, let's do that."

I could have saved the sword and sold it to another deva for 20 golden rings for each point the sword had in its durability, and gotten 340 instead. But since, I was spending almost everything that I had on a 10-slot inventory anyway, I just sold it.

It was going to be waste of inventory space to hold onto an item that was only worth only 340 rings. I was only going to have 10 slots to use so I had to be careful what I put in each slot.

"The Rank 2 orc champion's armor seems to be in decent shape. It'll cost 400 golden rings to fully repair it. Oh! This greatsword is a Rank 3 and seems to be pretty well-made…"

Batum took his time examining the greatsword, while he just gave the armor a quick glance.

"The balance is good and the iron is well-forged with no air pockets. It'll cost 5,000 golden rings to fully repair it. Do you have your VIP card with you?"

"Yes."

"Then with the 20% discount, your total repair cost comes out to 4,320 golden rings. If we take out the weapon sale, your total comes out to 4,070 golden rings."

Happy with the discount, I took out the 4,070 golden rings out of my pockets.

"Ok, I received your payment of 4,070 golden rings. The repairs should take about ten minutes. Come back to pick up your things then."

Batum took the money and carried the equipment into the smithy.

There was a crashing sound behind me, and someone called out, "Who's there?"

It was a voice that I had heard many times before… Anton!

I came out of the smithy and looked up. I saw Anton looking down and locked eyes with him.

"Lee Jiwon?"

Anton practically jumped down from the fifth to the first floor and walked towards me.

"This…this smell is…" He began to sniff my body like a dog.

"What are you doing?" I pushed Anton away from me, confused at his weird antics.

"You! What did you do in the span of one day to bring me this many points?"

"What are you saying?"

"You just sold or bought something at my shop, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I requested a repair service."

"That's what I'm saying! I was just sitting there in my office when I received an alert that I just got a bunch of points. You're the only deva in my Store, so it has to be from you! What did you do in one day that you brought back that many points?"

"Hehe!" I could see why Anton was so surprised.

"I didn't do much. I only became the first to find a dungeon and the first to beat a dungeon boss," I replied as nonchalantly as I could.

"Whaaaaaaaaat!?!?" Anton's jaw dropped at my answer. He stood there shaking, while pointing his finger at me as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't get it out.

"Am I fulfilling my promise enough? Miss Marie?" I asked Marie, who had come up behind the dumbfounded Anton.

"Of course, Master Lee Jiwon. You have done much more than I expected. It's our manager's first Store, but it seems he's very lucky. It must be because of you, Master Lee Jiwon!"

"It was nothing. You are all helping me out more." Seoul's Store 72 was helping me out much more than they thought I was helping them!

It was thanks to them that I got the Unrivaled skill for free and found out information about dungeons so I could go defeat a boss monster.

"Well, I still have something to buy. I'll say farewell for now."

"Yes. Please, enjoy your time shopping, Master Lee Jiwon!"

It was going to take the repairs ten minutes to finish, so I headed up to the third floor general store to buy an inventory box.

"Welcome, Master Lee Jiwon!" A woman named Sing was working the general store. She knew my name like Batum did, but I wasn't surprised this time.

"Show me your inventory boxes."

"Yes!"

A screen appeared in front of me with a variety of inventory holding items.

[Inventory (no rank)

A virtual backpack used to carry golden rings and items. Limit to 3 per person.

Items such as food, potions, and monster loot can be stacked up to 100 in one slot. Weapons, armor, and other equipment do not stack.

10 slot inventory: 100,000 golden rings

20 slot inventory: 1,000,000 golden rings

30 slot inventory: 10,000,000 golden rings

50 slot inventory: 200,000,000 golden rings

100 slot inventory: 1,000,000,000 golden rings]

They really were expensive. The price between the first three jumped tenfold each time, for a difference of only 10 slots.

From 30 slots to 50 slots was…

"Ugh." The price difference between 50 and 100 slots wasn't ten times, but the price was just insane, anyway.

"This is why the largest box I had was a 20 slot. There's no way I could have afforded a 30 slot." In my past life, I could never break the 30 slot barrier!

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Chapter 32: Chapter 31: The Rank 8 Item, Part III

Translator: – – Editor: – –

After I bought a 10-slot and 20-slot inventory item, I wanted to aim for a 30-slot, but the price jump from a million golden rings to 10 million golden rings was just too high, and made it just about impossible for me to do so.

What normal person carried around ten million golden rings? It was just way too expensive.

I selected the 10-slot inventory item for now.

"The inventory item costs 100,000 golden rings. With the 20% discount of your VIP card, your total today comes out to 80,000 golden rings."

I handed over the 80,000 golden rings.(1)

I opened up my inventory and put in the leftover 18,355 golden rings I had after the smithy visit and from buying the inventory box.

"Whew…I finally bought an inventory. Equipment aside, carrying golden rings was even more uncomfortable. I have an inventory now, so I should buy some potions just in case."

I backed out from the inventory menu and looked up potions.

[Low-grade health potion (Rank 1)

Heals 10,000 points of health over 60 seconds upon use.

55 golden rings]

[Mid-grade health potions (Rank 1)

Heals 50,000 points of health over 60 seconds upon use.

250 golden rings]

[High-grade health potion (Rank 1)

Heals 100,000 points of health over 60 seconds upon use.

450 golden rings]

I selected five high-grade health potions because of my large amount of health.

"The potions cost 2,250 golden rings. With your 20% discount, your total comes out to 1,800 golden rings."

"I want to buy some other things, too. Search for Shining potions!"

[Shining low-grade health potion (Rank 2)

Heals 10,000 health points at once upon use.

300 golden rings]

[Shining mid-grade health potion (Rank 2)

Heals 50,000 health points at once upon use.

1,300 golden rings]

[Shining high-grade health potion (Rank 2)

Heals 100,000 health points at once upon use.

2,500 golden rings]

"Shining potions are much more expensive."

Normally, you could use regular potions just fine, but in emergency or dangerous situations, you had to use Shining potions.

Sure they were expensive, but when you compared the cost to dying, they were well worth it.

"I'll buy two Shining high-grade health potions."

"Yes. Two Shining high-grade health potions cost 5000 golden rings, but with your 20% discount they come out to 4,000 golden rings. Your total today comes out to 5,800 golden rings."

I handed over the 5,800 golden rings and received the seven potion bottles that I just bought.

While the Red Orc Ruby belt healed my health by 50 points per second and the orb healed 500 points per second, it was better to prepare for the worst, and I bought as many potions as I could.

"Is that it for now? Oh, that's right! I need bread and water."

An inventory takes anything you can get from monsters.

You can even put in cell phones, radios, and other similar modern world products. However, large items such as cars and motorcycles can't be put into inventories.

You have to learn subspace magic in order to store those kinds of items.

Earth food can't be put into inventories, either.

Meat, kimchi, rice, cooked meals, and water can't go into inventories. Instead, the only types of food that can be stored in inventories are bread and drinks sold in the Stores.

This made it important to buy bread and drinks from Stores and store them in inventories before dungeon hunting or exploring. Of course, they were also expensive…

"I'll also buy fifty bread and fifty beverages."

One loaf of bread was enough to keep you full for a day. One bottle of beverage was also enough to quench your thirst for a day.

"Bread and beverages cost 100 golden rings each. Fifty bread and fifty beverages, totaling 100 items. It comes out to 10,000 golden rings, but with your 20% discount, your total is 8,000 golden rings."

"Looks like I'm spending all of my golden rings today."

South Korea was about to implode and here I was, making most of my golden rings disappear along with it…

"Still, I can't do without any of these."

I opened my inventory to see I still had 12,555 golden rings left. I took out 8,000 and handed them over to Sing.

"Thank you very much." I bid Sing farewell and left the general store.

"Inventory check!"

[-4555 golden rings

-High grade health potions x5

-Shining high grade potions x2

-Bread x50

-Beverage x50

-Orb of Vitality

-Remaining slots x4]

"Good." With this much, I could last anywhere for a month with no problems.

I went back down to the first floor towards the smithy.

Anton, Marie, and even Batum were standing outside the smithy.

"Lee Jiwon." Anton called out to me with a serious look on his face.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Kekeke." His expression suddenly turned mischievous and cackled.

"What…what is it?" I felt a little out of place with his sudden changes in demeanor.

"You're such a cool guy! You're not overdoing it lately, are you? You really ought to take it slow."

He then took something out.

"This is my present to you. It's Atikun tea. I don't have much of it, so I try to save it as much as I can."

It was the tea that Anton first served when I came to the Store for the first time after I became a deva.

"Heh." I completely understood why Anton was giving this tea to me.

They may not know exactly who I or any other Earthling was personally, but they had the ability to check the points of everyone they came across. Since I had just become the first to find a dungeon and defeat its boss, I had probably just amassed a large number of points.

As I used Anton's Store, Anton would likely receive a large amount of points, as well.

"Are you bribing me?"

"I am not bribing you! This is just a present between friends. Hmph! Let's go, Marie." Anton jumped at my bribe question and walked away, dragging Marie with him.

As they were leaving, Marie turned around and bowed slightly to me. I gave a small bow in return.

Once Anton and Marie disappeared from sight, I turned to Batum.

"Here is your repaired armor and weapon."

"Thank you very much. Item check!"

[Orc Champion's Unexpectedly Strong Greatsword (Rank 3)

Greatsword wielded by an orc champion. Crafted by orc craftsmen and forged with the majority of the orcs' steel. Although crafted with poor-grade steels and shoddy craftsmanship, the weapon itself came out better than expected.

Attack speed decrease by 25%

Penetration increase by 47

Critical change increase by 1.7%, critical damage increase by 112%

STR increase by 40

Requirements: minimum of 400 STR to equip

Durability : 750/750

Damage : Increase by 45]

———————–

[Orc Champion's Armor (Rank 2)

Armor worn by an orc champion. It looks like it was made with crude craftsmanship but seems to provide sufficient defense.

Decrease movement speed by 7%

Chance to avoid critical hits by 35%

Increase VIT by 20

Durability : 200/200

Increase DEF by 200, increase MDEF by 9]

——————–

The durability of the armor and weapon had been restored to full.

"Good! Equip all!"

I equipped the greatsword as my primary weapon, and equipped the armor and set it so that it was invisible to sight.

"Open Stat Menu! Open Equipment Menu!"

—————-

[Name: Lee Jiwon

Level: 32 Death count: 0

Title: Earth's First Deva

HP: 722,500/722,500 MP: 122,500/122,500

Strength: 1,465 Agility: 1,525 Vitality: 1,425

Willpower: 1,225 Intelligence: 1,225

Residual Stat Points: 340

Fatigue: 0

Special Effects: Luck Boost (X 1), immune from all status effects, Dungeon Seeker 1 point

Physical attack: 4,845 Physical Defense: 1,545

Magical attack: 3,675 Magical Defense: 1,234]

[Equipment Menu

Weapon: Orc Champion's Unexpectedly Strong Greatsword (Rank 3)

Armor: Orc Champion's Armor (Rank 2)

Accessories: Red Orc Tribe's Ruby Encrusted Belt (rank 6)]

———–

Equipping the one belt changed my Stat Menu completely.

My critical rate and critical damage stats didn't show on my stat menu, but they were arguably my most important stats, and the belt was probably the best boost to those stats right now.

"Anyway, I really want to hurry and reach level fifty so I can learn at least 1 skill. I still have a month, no, more like twenty-nine days left until I can see another monster. It's going to be tough to learn a new skill," I thought out loud.

I had no choice since the dungeon's blessing was going to prevent me from entering another dungeon for twenty-nine more days!

Editor's Note:

No, we don't know where or how he carried them, either. 80k rings would have filled a large backpack, and probably weighed something near to half a ton. He probably put them in his pants pockets or something, yeah.

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Chapter 33: Chapter 32: Hyungjae Loans, Part I

Translator: – – Editor: – –

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

I stored my orc greatsword in my inventory and came out of the Store.

It was definitely easier not having to carry around all my weapons and golden rings in my hands.

"I still have to go to Jeju Island and Busan, but I don't have enough money."

I could leave the trip to Japan until later, but I still needed to find the rest of the dungeons in Korea. To do that, though, I would need at least another hundred thousand won.

Sure I could utilize my super high STR, AGI and VIT to run around the country to find the dungeons. But that would be stupid and I wasn't not going to use Korea's fine methods of transportation.

"Do I… need to rob a bank, or something?" I muttered to myself as a strong breeze blew around me. As I tried to think of ways to quickly make some cash, a small, business card-like piece of paper flew at me and I instinctively reached out to grab it.

—————-

We specialize in one-day loans. We loan our help like a brother who will never leave your side. Pay us back daily, every three days, every five days, or once a week. Stop worrying and give us a call. Oh Hyungjae is at your side. Call Oh Hyungjae! 010-XXXX-XXXX.

——————

It was a loan flyer you see everywhere.

These loan sharks were just parasites feeding on the misfortunes of their fellow citizens and neighbors.

"Wait… Oh Hyungjae?" That name sounded very familiar.

The flyer was worded to seem like it was five brothers running the stint, but as soon as I read it I knew it was someone's name.

"Where have I heard that name before? I know this name from somewhere." I stared at the flyer for a while.

"Ah. It's that piece of garbage."

I remembered as soon as I connected loan shark with Hyungjae Oh.

"Oh Hyungjae, the human trafficker!"

Seoul became one of the better places to live in after the Otadolon stage. Well, to be more exact, the best place to live was Gyeonggi Province in Seoul, which the Sunbin Guild had control over.

The Chungcheong region of Jeolla Province was the next best place to live in, because of the control disputes between the Sunbin Guild and the Ojin Guild. The absolute worst place to live in was Gyeonsang Province, where the Yung Gong Guild reigned.

Gangwon Province and the area around it basically belonged to the monsters.

Gyeonsang Province was where a man's life was worth about as much as a fly and where the conceited Yung Gong Guild and its associates lived as kings.

Mortals and devas who had the misfortune of living in Gyeongsang Province were rounded up by the Yung Gong Guild and forced to work as slaves, whether by force, threatened, or being held hostage. Every day, the number of these unfortunate souls rose.

Yung Gong Guild members spent a lot of time training in their dungeon. They left the job of clearing their territory of field monsters to regular devas.

As the guild members focused solely on their own gains, they weren't able to keep a close eye on the happenings of Gyeongsang Province, and soon the guild began losing its hold over its territory. Little by little, mortals and devas began escaping and the guild could do nothing to stop them.

All they had to do was treat everyone else better, but the guild had no intention of doing so.

Devas got it worse than the mortals.

While Yung Gong Guild members were off busy training in dungeons, non-guild devas were left with the duty of clearing Gyeonsang's fields of monsters.

Guild members were the only ones who could enter dungeons to get the double experience and the extra items and golden rings. Non-guild devas were absolutely prohibited from entering dungeons and could only hunt field monsters to level up.

The Yung Gong Guild even held mortal families of devas hostage, forcing the devas to field hunt for the guild, all the while taking away any golden rings the devas earned during hunts. The guild also closely monitored what skills the devas would learn.

Their mortal families didn't live comfortably, either.

They lived in Ulsan and Daegu, Gyeongsang's larger and safer cities, and had to slave away at pig farms, cattle ranches, and crop farms.

The Yung Gong Guild had no intention of sharing the fruit of its labors with anyone. It had to have everything for itself. That was the Yung Gong Guild!

The sins and disgrace of the Yung Gong Guild were soon revealed by the devas and mortals that had managed to escape, but Jeolla's Ojin Guild was adamant in taking no action.

The Ojin Guild barely managed to hold on to Jeolla Province and parts of Chungcheong in a territorial dispute with the other guild. Everyone knew that the two held an unofficial alliance that split Chungcheong as long as the Ojin Guild was allowed to hold on to the mid-grade dungeon on Jeju Island.

The reason I still favored the Sunbin Guild after my return was that the Sunbin Guild did not ignore those in need.

There were three guilds with the most influence in South Korea: Sunbin Guild of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province; Yung Gong Guild of Gyeongsang; Ojin Guild of Jeolla.

There were other established guilds in Chungcheong and Jeju Island, but the three guilds were so powerful that none of them ever became worth mentioning.

If the Sunbin Guild had a STR of 1, then the Yung Gong Guild had a STR of 0.6 and the Ojin Guild had a STR of 0.3. People everywhere had the same belief that the Sunbin Guild had to be stronger than the other two guilds.

Although the sense of patriotism had diminished over time, people knew that they were still citizens of South Korea and eventually, with pressure from the Sunbin Guild, the Yung Gong Guild began to accept people like me into their ranks.

It didn't matter if the Yung Gong Guild was one of the three largest guilds of South Korea; in front of the might of the Sunbin Guild, the Yung Gong Guild promised to cease all of its previous inhumane and illegal acts against devas.

"If only it weren't for the guys from Japan."

There was an entity that interfered once the Sunbin Guild put on its pressure and force. That entity was the number one Guild in Japan, the Nayuta Guild.

The Nayuta Guild was rumored to be as strong as, if not stronger than, the Sunbin Guild.

With the Ojin Guild continuing its neutrality, the Sunbin Guild no longer could take on the Yung Gong Guild that now had support from the Nayuta Guild. It knew that trying to take the fight directly to them would be in vain.

The Sunbin Guild's previous acts of force and pressure against the Yung Gong ended after a few fights with the appearance of the Nayuta Guild.

People all around Gyeonggi and Seoul condemned the Yung Gong Guild for accepting a foreign power, but their complaints fell on deaf ears.

Nayuta Guild's intervention didn't spark any large battles between the Sunbin Guild and the Yung Gong Guild, but after four months of confrontations, the status of the Yung Gong Guild's situation began to leak and no one went near Gyeongsang.

Even residents of Ojin Guild's territory avoided Gyeongsang Province.

"Soon, they ran out of people."

There were always people escaping, no matter how hard the guild tried to stop them. With no one setting foot in its territory, the guild members could no longer focus on leveling themselves and had to focus on other things. Soon, a lot of problems surfaced for the Yung Gong Guild.

Even with support from the Nayuta Guild, the four-month long battle against the Sunbin Guild was becoming a final stand for the Yung Gong Guild.

The Yung Gong Guild had to pour all of its manpower and resources into stopping the Sunbin Guild from advancing. As a result, the Yung Gong guild could no longer efficiently monitor the persecuted devas and mortals. Soon, the devas and mortals made a great escape.

The Yung Gong Guild was fighting for its life against the Sunbin Guild and it could do nothing but watch it all happen. The guild didn't have the manpower to recapture the escapees or bring in more prisoners.

After the four-month long battle, the guild no longer had slaves to do all its dirty work and the guild members lost all of their luxuries.

The guild members that used to comfortably train in dungeons now had to run around the fields, clearing field monsters. The families of the guild members that lived in luxury now had to work the farms and ranches.

All the Yung Gong Guild had to do was to change its policy and live like the rest of the mortals and devas. But of course, the guild didn't.

Instead, the guild decided to start kidnapping others.

—

"The piece of garbage that was at the center of it all was Oh Hyungjae."

Back when I hadn't been a Deva for a long time and had a hard time trying to hunt with a kitchen knife, I had taken out a small loan from the Sunbin Guild so that I could learn a skill.

But there was another loaner that loaned out lower amounts at no interest to beginner devas; that loaner was Hyungjae Loans.

"If I hadn't borrowed from the Sunbin Guild and instead borrowed from this guy, I probably would have been dragged to Busan. Ugh… just thinking about it sickens me."

People soon learned of someone that gave out loans to beginner devas with no interest and was very friendly.

But the reason this guy was a real piece of trash was that he placed extremely short deadlines on the loans.

When someone couldn't pay the loan on time, he would start threatening and harassing the loanee.

He would bait the loanee by saying that he knew of jobs that could help the loanee quickly pay the loan back or of a dungeon the loanee could use to earn golden rings and level up at the same time. Once the deadline was up, he would then start harassing the loanee about financial obligations, or start threatening the loanee's family, etc.

He used different ways to harass and threaten, based on his targets.

He thoroughly knew the weaknesses of his targets, so they couldn't freely ask for help from those around them.

This guy and his associates also knew how to avoid suspicion from any potential investigators. If someone with connections intervened, especially from the Sunbin Guild, they would act very friendly towards that person and offer to extend the deadline or increase the amount that person could borrow. It was how they managed to stay in business for so long.

They didn't just kidnap devas; they targeted mortals as well!

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