Episode 172

2.

When he spent 10,000 gold, two options appeared before him.

1. Flash Lv2: On attack, has a chance to trigger a flash.

2. Gold Plunder Lv2: On attack, has a chance to plunder gold.

"Oho."

The 3,000-gold level 1 Gear Refinement had just given him a single, random effect with no choice involved.

This was the difference between level 1 and level 2, between 3,000 gold and 10,000 gold.

He thought it was a pretty decent trade-off.

If he got to choose between two refinement effects, then the 10,000-gold option clearly had a higher chance of giving him something good.

Of course, assuming good luck on both sides and considering the total number of refinement effects, it was still slightly better to pull Level 1 effects and upgrade them. That much was unavoidable. But the difference wasn't so great that he could just ignore the more expensive option.

"And both of these are pretty good options."

He needed more data. This was only a single trial.

However, for someone like him, who had already spun the 3,000-gold refinement ten times, this one 10,000-gold sample was a promising result.

"A choice between two effects, and a higher chance of getting a high-tier option… At this rate, gambling on level 2 refinement doesn't seem half bad."

It was more than just "not bad."

If he hadn't already pulled a low-level option, the level 2 refinement would be the obvious choice.

"Hm."

Should he test it a bit more?

His burning academic curiosity clashed with the painful reality that every click cost him 10,000 gold. If he spun it just eleven more times, his stockpiled gold would be gone. He hesitated for a moment.

Then he made his choice.

[Weapon Refinement: Gold Plunder Lv2 has been slotted.]

He decided to slot this option into his second slot for now. Rerolling it felt too wasteful.

Just from the name alone, it screamed "Gold Maker exclusive."

'With the right punching bag, I feel like I could make my investment back from this effect alone.'

For someone like Kim Buja, who never had enough gold, there couldn't be a better option than this, at least by name. It took up one refinement slot, but since he had gotten the second slot for free anyway, he would try it out and keep it if he liked it.

He could afford to make that call because he still had plenty of gold left over.

[Would you like to expand your Refinement Slots?]

▶ Current Refinable Slots: 1 → 2

▶ Required Gold: 1,000G

▶ Success Chance: 80%

▶ Failure Chance: 20%

He just had to open one more slot.

Since the slot he had gained from an achievement was an extra, the cost to open what was effectively his third refinement slot wasn't high.

[You have successfully expanded your Refinement Slots.]

He didn't suffer the cliché of failing the 20% chance and losing a bit of gold.

A smooth success.

Hoping his luck would hold, he selected the part to refine for his third slot.

"Offense is the best defense."

Of course, there were other defensive effects that could help him control battles more effectively. They were attractive in their own way, and some of them seemed very efficient.

Even so, Kim Buja chose Weapon Refinement.

There was no other reason.

His greatest strength was his offense, so naturally, the gains from Weapon Refinement were the largest.

Besides, this was already his third refinement effect. For effects that triggered with a certain probability, it was best to stack them all in one place to see results.

[You have spent 10,000G.]

All that remained was the do-or-die roll for the third slot.

* * *

The Catastrophe was over, but people still couldn't relax.

The Catastrophe Event hadn't been the end of a chapter, but the beginning of a new one.

—I heard even Level 3 dungeons are breaking now.

—Seriously, it's only Level 3 and it's already this brutal.

—What are we gonna do when Level 4 and 5 dungeons start breaking next year?

—That's the end of the world. For real.

—Some countries are already basically coexisting with monsters.

The Dungeon Breaks were endless. The monsters pouring out seemed completely unfamiliar with the concept of rest.

China, which had borne the brunt of the Catastrophe Event, was in especially bad shape. Their response to the subsequent Dungeon Breaks was so poor that people wondered if it was even the same country.

And this was all while the highest-level dungeons breaking were, as people kept saying, only level 3.

Of course, not everyone felt that way.

As the difficulty slowly rose, so too did the players' overall level, a change impossible to miss.

Humanity was adapting to a world with monsters. Their focus shifted from simply hunting monsters in dungeons to researching efficient real-world hunting strategies and optimizing their item builds accordingly.

Thus, the first update gradually integrated itself into the players' daily lives.

And for those players, the hologram offered a gift.

[The first 'Dungeon Break' buff is now being applied.]

▶ EXP gain +20%

▶ All stats +5%

▶ Item drop rate +5%

▶ HP / MP recovery speed +5%

It was an opportunity for smoother growth, designed to help players cope with the increased survival difficulty of the update.

In other words, the system was offering both the disease and the cure.

Naturally, the players welcomed it.

For players in nations already benefiting from the National War buffs, this was an incredible boon.

The complaints about how hard everything had become vanished as if they had never existed.

Each day was still exhausting and busy, but people's attention was now focused on something else: the exhilarating hunting videos from players whose specs had suddenly jumped thanks to the new buff.

And the one who stood out the most was, of course, Fly.

—Anyone see Fly's new video?

—He announced he's going to clear an 8-star dungeon.

—When's he going in?

—Are we going to get a video?

People were tired of watching average videos of parties tackling the same-level dungeons with slightly boosted stats; they craved something new.

In that climate, Fly's declaration that he would tackle an 8-star dungeon was shocking enough to capture everyone's attention.

And that wasn't even the end of it.

—He's going straight for an Epic dungeon. Damn.

—Isn't that way too dangerous?

—An Epic?

Even a Normal dungeon would have been more than enough to dominate public opinion.

The word "Normal" might sound easy to shut-ins or low-level players, but anyone who had set foot in a 4-star dungeon or higher knew the immense pressure that came with challenging the next tier.

The dungeon penalties weren't the real problem.

The monsters' stats, intelligence, and types all spiked in an instant, and even the dungeon's inherent traits changed.

All of these things intensified as the dungeon level went up, so what would an 8-star dungeon be like when nothing about it had even been revealed yet?

Above all, he had to challenge it alone.

That was why more people were worried than excited.

Naturally, Fly was not shaken by any of that talk.

His fans trusted him as well.

—Fly doesn't attempt anything unless he's sure he can pull it off.

—If he waited until Level 70 and only now decided to try, it means he thinks he can do it.

—The first Dungeon Break buff must be huge for him, huh?

—At Level 70, +5% to all stats is insane.

Buja trusted him too.

"That guy will pull it off just fine."

Even for Buja, the buff stacked on his current specs had granted him over twenty extra stat points.

On paper, that was roughly equivalent to gaining seven levels.

'And if that was the case for me, what about Fly?'

The "all stats" option applied not only to his base stats but also to every increase from items, achievements, and all other effects before calculating the final total. This meant the benefit Fly received from the buff was far greater than a simple 5%.

At the very least, it was like equipping one more Special-grade item.

That was why he could challenge it with confidence.

Considering Buja himself was planning to tackle a 3-star dungeon—and a Legendary-grade one at that—Fly's challenge wasn't something to make a huge fuss over.

Fly was just the one in the spotlight; all over the world, countless rankers were likely shattering their limits and surging forward.

"I should start sprinting with them."

He might not be able to keep up, but he refused to fall behind.

Level 19. Regardless of his stats, it was not a level he could be satisfied with.

He needed to pick up the pace.

He couldn't afford to be content just because he was growing fast and building a solid foundation.

→ Stagger Lv2: Has a chance to stagger the target when attacking.

Even with a solid foundation, it still felt insufficient for the leap he wanted to make.

He steeled his resolve and refined his plans.

* * *

Buja showed the video to Seora first.

"Wow! Is that a new skill?"

"It's a refinement effect. Stagger. It turned out better than I expected."

There was nothing special about the video itself.

As always, it showed him entering a dungeon alone, fighting monsters, and quickly meeting the clear conditions. It was the kind of hunting video from Buja that had become almost cliché.

The first couple of times, people might be amazed, thinking, 'So that kind of hunting is possible.' But once they got used to it and watched all his videos, they would realize that this level of performance was simply his average. They would end up leaving a one-line review like, [Nothing surprising here, no new techniques or combat sense.]

Even so, the reason Seora was so impressed wasn't just because he was her boyfriend.

The fights were nothing special: he was just slaughtering monsters in a run-of-the-mill 2-star Unique dungeon. However, one thing had changed—the way the monsters died.

It was a change that would be hard to notice unless you had carefully watched every single video on his channel.

"The freeze effect looks a bit stronger here too. Is that because the skill leveled up?"

"Yeah. The skill level went up. I burned some gold on it."

"This is totally broken. It's so good! Does it not work on high-level monsters?"

"I wonder. There's probably some kind of scaling, but I doubt they'll be completely immune."

When you got down to it, that was all there was.

Every now and then during combat, the monsters would briefly stagger or freeze.

It didn't happen every time, and if you weren't paying attention, it would slip by in a blink, feeling like nothing more than a tiny bit of lag.

However, Seora, who was on the verge of hitting Level 60, understood.

She knew just how much those tiny changes, those variables in battle, could alter the final outcome.

She also knew how much players invested and risked their lives for even that small change.

"I'm going to try a 3-star now. My level doesn't really matter."

"That's amazing. I can't wait to see it."

"I can't wait to test it either."

It was a refinement effect worth a full 100,000 gold.

Buja's lips twitched as he thought about how he had finally obtained the top-tier effect from the level 2 refinement list.

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