Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

“Achievement Points… Why do I have these? And 100,000 at that?”

Achievement Points.

Given for activity in the Battle Net game, they were a kind of honor score that increased as you completed the challenge tasks of each mission.

“And it’s just useless points.”

Literally, ‘honor points.’

Achievement Points were a measure of how much of a Battle Net enthusiast you were, neither more nor less.

“It’s odd. They shouldn’t exist at this time.”

Seong Jihan closed the status window.

While the Achievement Points were one thing, what bothered him was the differences from the past.

“Then there might be other differences.”

“Inventory.”

The inventory window floated above the broken Yoon Sejin’s face.

Naturally, the storage space was completely empty.

However,

“…What’s this?”

In the last slot of the inventory, there was a small piece of paper.

[Achievement Points Exchange Voucher]

[Rank: EX]

[Non Exchangeable]

-Reward given to the ‘Last Survivor’ who chose to retry.

-Earns the qualification to exchange Achievement Points.

“Achievement Points Exchange Voucher?” Achievement Points, the pointless honor score.

There was a voucher that could be exchanged for it.

Seong Jihan’s eyes gleamed.

“And it’s ranked… EX.”

A rank beyond the norm.

It was a rank that only one person had possessed even in the previous life.

But to have an EX rank come out of an item.

“I should try using it.”

He didn’t know what could be exchanged for those useless Achievement Points.

With the voucher being an EX rank, it wouldn’t just give something ordinary in return.

He definitely had to use this.

[“Using the ‘Achievement Points Exchange Voucher.'”]

[“An ‘Achievement Shop’ is added to the system window.”]

“It was worthy enough to be added to the system?”

“Changing the interface… Is it really an EX-rank item?”

Seong Jihan was secretly surprised and immediately opened the Achievement Shop.

[Achievement Shop LV.1]

-Achievement Shop Uprank – 20,000P

-Status Window Expansion LV.1 – 10,000P

-Class Slot Addition LV.1 – 10,000P

“They’re selling things like this…?”

Seong Jihan widened his eyes.

What the Achievement Shop sold were items that could completely change the foundation of a player.

“They might not be useful right now.”

Status window expansion or class slot addition.

These weren’t necessary at the moment, but if he reached a higher level in the future, they would become important variables that could change rankings.

“Still, I don’t need to buy anything right now. I should upgrade the shop level.”

Seong Jihan pressed the button to uprank the shop level.

[Achievement Shop has been upgraded to LV.2.]

[“Inventory Expansion” item has been added.]

“I don’t need this right now either.”

[Achievement Shop has been upgraded to LV.3.]

[“Title Slot Addition” item has been added.]

“I don’t need titles yet either.”

Seong Jihan suppressed his excitement.

“These things will only be useful when I reach at least the Gold League.”

Gold League.

A world that surpasses the Bronze and Silver Leagues…

As a Level 2 player in the Bronze League, it was a world far out of his reach.

The Achievement Shop would give him wings, but at the very least, he needed to know how to walk before they became useful.

“I shouldn’t expect much from the early stages in the Achievement Shop.”

With that thought in mind, Seong Jihan looked at his remaining Achievement Points.

“Fifty thousand.”

With the remaining fifty thousand, he could either purchase all the newly added items or invest forty thousand points to uprank the shop.

One of the two options.

“Let’s upgrade the shop.”

Without much hesitation, Seong Jihan chose the latter option. Since purchasing all the newly added items wouldn’t be helpful right now, he decided to see what the LV.4 shop had to offer.

[Achievement Shop has been upgraded to LV.4.]

[“Emergency Restoration” item has been added.]

“‘Emergency Restoration’…?”

Seong Jihan opened the Achievement Shop and read the description for the Emergency Restoration item.

[Emergency Restoration (Item)]

-Repairs incomplete items to their pristine state.

A short one-line description.

But upon reading it, Seong Jihan’s eyes lit up like never before.

“An item that’s immediately useful has appeared.” If he could restore items, he could significantly reduce the trial and error in the early stages.

Thump, thump.

With determined steps, Seong Jihan walked into Yoon Sejin’s house.

“Surely it was here.” Passing through three rooms, he entered the innermost space of the spacious penthouse.

Next to the black door was a fingerprint scanner. Seong Jihan placed his finger on the device.

[Recognition complete. Family member.]

With a short mechanical sound, the door opened.

“Family, huh?” Seong Jihan smirked and chuckled wryly. His relationship with Yoon Sejin, who used to be the landlord, was now worse than strangers’, yet the machine still recognized him as family.

Seong Jihan entered the room. There, he found the Battle Net connector, the device Yoon Sejin used to play Battle Net.

It appeared like a racing car seat from the outside, but its size was enough to fill a large room.

“So, the temporary storage was here.” Seong Jihan sat in the Battle Net connector and pressed the button on the left corner.

Suddenly, in front of him, the inventory of the Battle Net connector that Sword King Yoon Sejin had used appeared.

“Indeed. He sold everything.” Since a player’s inventory had a limit of 10 slots, many players stored items in the temporary storage provided by the Battle Net connector.

Even for someone like the Sword King, there should have been many items left in this temporary storage. However, before he went to Japan, it seemed like he had completely organized the storage. He probably disposed of everything in the Battle Net market.

“However… as expected, this is still here.”

He might have sold things for GP (Game Points) and fled to Japan, but even he couldn’t bear to dispose of items that didn’t sell. Seong Jihan took out an item from the corner of his inventory.

[Dongbangsak’s Damaged Brush]

Rank: A

A brush that’s too damaged to use.

Dongbangsak’s damaged brush, which had survived through countless battles. Even though it was severely damaged, it had an A-rank rating. However, it was unsellable due to its lack of usefulness.

But…

“I know the use of this.” Of course he did. Dongbangsak’s brush was the item that turned him into the Unrivaled Martial Saint.

“Emergency Restoration.”

He immediately used the Emergency Restoration he obtained from the Achievement Shop.

[“Dongbangsak’s Damaged Brush” is being restored…]

[“Dongbangsak’s Damaged Brush” has been restored and transformed into “Dongbangsak’s Brush.”]

For a moment, light danced around Dongbangsak’s Brush, and small red and blue gems emerged in the little grooves at the center of the brush handle.

[Dongbangsak’s Brush]

Rank: SS

Dongbangsak’s brush, which survived through countless battles.

It connects you to the Unrivaled Martial Saint.

“Really… it worked.”

Dongbangsak’s Brush, which created a connection to the Unrivaled War Saint. Seong Jihan confirmed that the item had been fully restored and raised the brush, displaying the status window.

Strength, Agility, Stamina, Mana.

On the ability window filled with base stats of 5, he brought the brush tip closer.

Zzzzt!

Then, sparks flew from the brush’s bristles.

Starting from above the text of the Strength stat on the status window, characters began to be engraved onto the window.

The flames that started at the tip of the brush quickly spread across the entirety of Dongbangsak’s Brush. Despite his fingers turning red from the heat, Seong Jihan continued to draw the characters on the brush without raising an eyebrow.

After a total of 10 strokes, Seong Jihan lifted the brush from the status window.

Phew…

“But… eventually, this brush I just acquired turned to dust and disappeared. Over the three stats that were on the status window, two characters covered them both.”

“Unrivaled Power.”

Power, Agility, and Stamina all disappeared, replaced by the new stat.

[“Acquired ‘Unique Stat’ Achievement.”]

[“Obtained 10,000 Achievement Points.”]

Power: 5

Mana: 5

Seeing that Power had flipped the abilities on the status window, Seong Jihan smiled confidently.

“It’s done.”

Although he hadn’t acquired the Nameless Divine Technique yet, with just Power alone, he could easily dominate the Bronze League.

“The tutorial for the Battle Net League will commence soon.”

“When all preparations are complete, please respond to the summon.”

“You will be forcibly summoned after 5 minutes.”

At that moment, the tutorial summon message for the Battle Net League appeared.

Seong Jihan briefly glanced at Yoon Sejin’s Battle Net connector. Until now, most players had connected to Battle Net using connectors.

“This Battle Net model reduces pain by 99%, right?”

This Battle Net connector almost eliminated pain. There was a time when using it to connect was considered essential, but…

Without hesitation, Seong Jihan disconnected from the connector.

“I won’t use the things that Yoon Sejin used.”

Soon after, he accepted the tutorial participation.

Then, his body flickered white and disappeared from there.

* * *

Bronze League – Gangnam 1 Area.

Among Korea’s many league areas, this place was the most special.

“Implicitly, the average ability is 9, and a Gift rank of A or higher is required to participate.”

This was the ant hell where Korea’s prominent corporations and guilds dispatched their most exceptional talents. A fierce battle arena where promising talents engaged in intense clashes to become the best players.

This was Gangnam 1.

As a result, with an average ability score of 5 and a Gift rank of F in the past, Seong Jihan couldn’t survive here.

“I was foolish back then. I reached level 2 after drinking one of Sae-jin’s EXP potions that I thought was whiskey”

When he heard Sae-jin say he would naturalize as a Japanese citizen, he’d accidentally drunk an XP potion. You could say that was indeed a sin. To make things worse, he became level 2 in Sae-jin’s house. Eventually, Seong Jihan was assigned to Gangnam 1 Area.

League participation was something he hadn’t even considered. The outcome was simple.

” I died by getting stabbed by a sword within 10 seconds and got eliminated… What a futile life,” Seong Jihan thought, gazing at the message window.

[Welcome to the tutorial.]

[The tutorial mission is survival.]

Thump! Thump!

The sound of drums echoed from all directions. Light returned to the previously darkened field of view.

“Is this the Colosseum?”

The Bronze-exclusive survival map, the Colosseum.

A place where 100 players and numerous monsters appeared together. A battlefield where they fought endlessly until half of the players survived.

Seong Jihan looked around. Among the crowd of monsters, he saw players equipped with splendid gear.

“At that level, they might be B-rank. They look quite impressive.”

Although they were all Level 2 like Seong Jihan, they were promising individuals classified by various corporations and guilds, borrowing B-rank equipment. They possessed specs far superior to Seong Jihan, who was currently wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt.

Yet, Seong Jihan remained completely unfazed.

“I need to warm up a bit.”

He had no intention of losing to them. As long as he had the Power stat, it was a done deal. They might have classified him as B-rank if he didn’t have the Power stat, but he was already beyond that level.

“Still, if I stand out too much, I’ll feel sorry for the rising stars… ”

Weren’t they also the forces that would support the future of Korea? There was no need to traumatize them by slaughtering them all. He should engage with them on a level playing field.

As Seong Jihan thought this, something appeared before him.

“The Achievement window has been activated.”

“A limited quest has been added.”

A new quest that hadn’t been there before had been added.

[Limited Quest]

*Achieve 1st place in the tutorial.

Reward: 1,000 Achievement Points]

1,000 Achievement Points.

Seong Jihan’s expression changed upon seeing this.

“As expected, for the rising stars, a Spartan education is the best.” Seong Jihan, who had achieved 7th place in the global player rankings.

And now, he was being offered 1,000 Achievement Points.

“This is a massacre.”

He was truly convinced.