Chapter 18 - Starting from Zero (1)

"Woah, I almost died."

He still remembered the fire attack that suddenly reached where he was standing.

Ain proudly put her hands on her waist.

"What would you have done without me?" she said.

Hyun couldn't counter it.

If it weren't for her, he would've died without even knowing what killed him.

"I'm... Not saying that Hyun made a mistake. I'm not blaming you," said Ain while playing with her hair.

"You asked me to watch your back. That's why even on the fifth floor, I didn't forget and alerted you!"

"Fifth floor..."

Awakening Quest Fifth Basement Level.

Back then, in Asra Online, users used to call that area a devilish section.

He tried to remember.

'Was there someone that cleared the fifth floor?'

From what Hyun could remember, there was almost no one.

A tiny number of rankers had cleared the fourth floor and reached the fifth one successfully.

Of course, Asrian had a lot more users than the previous game, so that meant that the number of talented players was higher too.

But Hyun was starting to think that the fifth floor was unclearable.

'The difficulty curve is too steep.'

Normally, in video games, each stage has a difficulty gap from the previous one, but on the awakening quest, the gap becomes too wide with each level.

The difference between the fourth and fifth floors was incomparable to the one between the third and fourth floors.

'I need to think about this more carefully.'

Even if Hyun didn't advance any more from there, he would have cleared as much as before.

…But Hyun wanted to go a little bit deeper.

"Wait for me. I'll go and drink some water."

"Okay..."

[Party member 'Hyun' has changed his status to afk.]

* * *

Hyun, who had left the capsule, drank an entire water bottle; then, he ate a sandwich he had bought from the convenience store.

He looked at the time. It was 3 am.

"Oof, I'm feeling much better."

As he went out to the balcony, the early morning breeze felt colder than usual. Summer was almost over.

The chilly wind felt good.

Hyun felt that the cold was cleaning his body, which still felt hot because of the battle he just had.

He was lost in his thoughts while entrusting his body to the wind.

'How should I deal with this quest?'

The average user wouldn't think so much about it.

Most people gave up after seeing how difficult it was.

Some people were proud just because they had been able to reach the fifth floor and didn't even try to clear it.

But Hyun was the former number 1.

SeoHyun was more strict with himself than most people regarding video games.

Was this really the end?

Was it impossible to advance?

Could he approach things from a different point of view?

He asked himself an endless amount of questions.

This endless pursuit was probably the reason why Hyun was the number 1 player of Asra Online by an overwhelming difference.

'The wind... Is too cold...'

As time flowed, the wind began getting colder, so Hyun decided to go back to the room.

After thinking for one more minute.

'Wind...'

* * *

The moment he pressed the letter ‘Start’, the quest began again.

First floor.

'Let's go.'

Ain nodded at Hyun's words.

Fwoosh- From Ain's small hands, a fire ignited.

At the same time, two shadows appeared.

It took them three seconds to clear that stage.

Hyun let Ain deal with them alone.

Since it was their last chance, they had no time to waste.

They had to do things fast and effectively.

They just had to advance as fast as they could.

The second and third floors were very similar. The only difference was that the shadows had a little bit more HP and were more intelligent than the previous floor.

The third floor was where Ain had died, but because they knew their opponents, she didn’t make the same mistakes as before.

The second floor took them 30 seconds and the third one a minute.

Hyun and Ain went to a deeper part of the subconscious.

Fourth basement level.

It was a floor where he had struggled. But back then, the shadows had their stats and skills hidden, so all he could do was try to be as careful as possible.

'This time is different.'

[The fourth trial will start soon! Please distribute the points as fast as you can!]

The stage stopped descending.

Fwoosh- Two giant flames rose, and from the air, two shadow figures showed themselves.

"Are you ready?"

Ain didn't answer.

Even if she didn't answer, they knew what each other thought, so talking wasn’t necessary.

The moment Hyun returned from breathing fresh air…

Both were in the lobby talking about possible skill combinations.

Among those, the one they discussed the most was the «Vision Sword».

"The attack of the «Vision Sword» equals the damage absorbed."

"So the stronger the attack you defend against, the better. Right?"

"Yes, that's true... But there's another way."

Hyun continued with a smile on his face.

"That other way is defending against quick consecutive attacks."

"Quick consecutive attacks?"

"Yes. Multi-strike moves."

Since Ain wasn't following him, he explained it to her in more detail.

"Even though I've called it «One Second Absorption», the truth is that it can't absorb every single attack. After all, the real effect of the skill is increasing all your defensive stats by 100 points. The moment the opponent's attack surpasses a thousand, I'll take damage."

"For example. If I receive an attack of 5000, after counting in the extra hundred points in defense, I'll receive 3300 damage... That's enough to kill us with one hit."

Hyun explained to her how damage and defense work in great detail.

"Have you memorized all these formulas?"

"Obviously."

"Woah... I do things based on intuition."

The conversation was about to be cut short because of Ain, but Hyun kept explaining to her.

"Anyway. If I manage to survive being hit with an attack of 3300 damage, the Vision Sword will end up with a 1700 attack. It's simple math. It's not like 1700 is a low number, but..."

Hyun smiled.

"But what would happen if I receive the 5000 damage divided into equal parts? For example, getting 10 attacks of 500 damage in one second."

"An attack of 500 can't do anything against «One Second Absorption». Since I can perfectly defend it, the «Vision Sword» would end up with an attack of 5000!"

"What you're saying is that «One Second Absorption» goes well with consecutive attack skills, right?"

"Yes, that's right! And you can use those on me!"

But finding a skill that checked all the necessary conditions was hard.

Most of the Close Range Magician's attacks dealt a high amount of damage.

Ain stopped thinking.

Fourth Basement Level.

While they were feeling sweat drop from their hands because of the heat, the shadows made a fancy entrance.

She didn't panic and moved as they planned.

[Type: Wind]

Not only is firepower important for a Close Range Magician! You also need to take care of the speed!

But be careful. The wind is very picky!

- Now you can learn wind attacks.

- [«Flame Claws»] changes to [«The Touch of The Wind»] while using this element.

Normally, all of the Close Range Magician’s attacks were of the fire element, but by using the skill points correctly, you could unlock other elements.

'Wind' was one of those.

Whoosh-

A strong wind began to blow.

Ain felt the raging wind pressure on her body.

She felt as if the coolness was washing her whole body.

'The one who found this was Hyun.'

[«Execution Island» Lv.4]

- One second after you pick a target, you cut the opponent 12 times. Each cut deals [Magic Power] x 2.5 times damage.

- If the opponent moves while the attack is active, the skill stops.

- If you attack an opponent that's under an abnormal status effect, the skill stops.

(Mana Required: 150)

The theory behind the skill was simple:

You had to attack an opponent that didn't move.

The name “execution” really fitted it.

The sum of dealing 2.5 times the Magic Power 12 times was over 30 times the Magic Power!

If you managed to hit every time, you could achieve abnormally high damage.

But Execution Island had a fatal flaw.

—The opponent had to be standing still for it to be a success.

Only one hit out of twelve would land if the opponent moved even once.

During a fight, no one would be dumb enough to be standing still.

A skill that you cannot properly use is the Ultimate Trash Skill.

The requisites were too hard to fulfill even for a high-risk, high-reward skill.

'It isn't high-risk.'

Ain remembered Hyun's explanation.

By using Hyun's strategy, there was no risk to the skill.

[You've left the party!]

[The party has been broken!]

What Ain did next was something that, at first glance, didn't make sense.

Why would a sane person leave the party just before an important quest? But since this was something they had both agreed on, no one was in shock.

"Then, I'll hit you."

Swoosh- Wind started covering Ain's body.

The robe's hat fell off, and her hair got blown by the wind, revealing her eyes as well.

She was looking in the direction of Hyun.

Ain seemed a little bit embarrassed.

«Execution Island»!

The second the short casting ended…

Both of Ain's hands shone brightly.

Swish-! The wind blades swept through Hyun's body and played a devastating melody.

Each attack dealt 300 damage approximately.

Twelve of those swept through Hyun's entire body.

"Oof..."

Hyun sighed.

Whir- The light surrounding Hyun vibrated while making a loud noise that it didn't make before.

The colors of the lights went from being blurry to a clear white one.

‘I wonder how strong the force I have inside of me right now is.’

Just thinking about using so much force made him feel chills.

"This... Is going to be interesting."

Hyun took one step while making a creepy smile.

Both shadows were coming at him.

Just a little while ago, they had put his life in danger. But at that moment, he was getting excited at the thought of getting back at them.

"I wonder what the damage output will be."

Hyun launched toward them like a rocket.

Whir-

First, the Close Range Magician.

Aim for the neck…

'And cut it at once!'

Clang-!

He planned to cut the shadow's neck, but things didn't work as expected.

[You've applied 392 damage!]

Whir- Whiiir-

A lot of blue lights were protecting the shadow Close Range Magician.

That was the Support's awakening skill.

He had already used the Awakening Skill «Inverse Shield».

Hyun smirked.

The deeper they went, the more clever the artificial intelligence became.

The fact that it had noticed the danger of Hyun's attack meant that the shadow knew how to calculate damage.

'Although that won't help you.'

Swish- The moment the cool-down time of the skill went back to 0, 12 lights attacked Hyun's body again.

That time he targeted the shadow Support.

"You were able to protect yourself by using the Awakening Skill."

Whir- In Hyun's hands, there was a huge sword.

He brandished the sword.

"What are you going to do next?"

A flash went through the shadow.

Until the very end, the Shadow Support tried to survive by using «One Second Absorption», but it was useless.

I'll kill it with one hit...!

[Critical Hit! You've dealt 10,112 damage!]

[You've dealt an attack equal to or more than 33% of the opponent's total HP!]

[You've dealt damage that equates to more than 33% of the opponent's HP with one hit!]

[You've pierced its heart!]

It was over.

With just one attack, the shadow Support disappeared.

The damage was so high that the opponent would have died even if he hadn't targeted a specific part of the body.

Hyun could do such a ridiculously high damage because he was using Ain's unique gloves.

Elemental Damage increased by 50%!

Critical Hit Damage increased by 30%!

He couldn't use the other extra effects properly, like increased Magical Power, but that didn't matter.

Compared to how much he had struggled the last time, that had been an easy victory for him.

"I'm not going to get banned for this, right?"

How well the combination of using «One Second Absorption» and absorbing the damage of an ally worked made it look like a cheat.

"Ain, hit me."

"Oh, okay...!"

Whish-

Ain's wind knives recharged Hyun's «One Second Absorption».

Every time Ain hit Hyun, she made strange breathing noises.

Hyun's eyes narrowed.

'What's happening...?'

Ain's face was red.

Asrian Online was able to recreate the physical condition realistically.

‘The reason is probably that Wind-type skills required her to move more aggressively.’

Hyun came to a conclusion about Ain's condition in his own way.

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