novelThe Luckiest Man, Part Three
| ← Ch.006 | Ch.008 → |
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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!"
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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!
| ← Ch. 006 | Ch. 008 → |