Chapter 69 - Realizing His Worth (3)

Practice and Jini practiced whenever they had some free time.

The basics of moving…

The content by itself wasn't hard to understand, but it wasn't easy to master.

After four days, they started to get a grasp of it.

Although they couldn't be compared to Hyun and Ain since, thanks to their experience, for them it was as easy as breathing. Just the fact that they were able to take the first step on a new level was meaningful by itself.

'That's right. Because Asrian is so similar to real life, I didn't think of it as a game.'

Up to that point, Jini had covered her lack of mobility with skills.

But that way of doing things had limitations.

During the Knight's Quest, she had been a load weight carried by Ain.

The task Hyun gave her solved that dilemma.

Magicians or Priests didn't raise their Agility because they didn't have skills that required it.

But according to Hyun, increasing Agility was important by itself.

It seemed like he wanted to say that investigating movements while having a high Agility as the foundation was one of the reasons why he used to be the number one ranking player by an overwhelming difference.

'Well, Ain has a job related to Magician, but she's very agile.'

Jini tried to remember the movements of them both and began practicing again little by little.

At first, it was moving one meter back and forth.

Once she got used to it, the next level.

She tried to move while drawing a square, curves, or a circle.

"Woah, that was great!"

Hyun, who was watching the practice, was impressed.

Practice had succeeded in cutting three dolls with a sword in an instant.

Practice, who was progressing a bit faster than Jini, was training moving in zigzag patterns while swinging the sword.

Practice, who didn't fall for the first time, shook his head.

"That was a close one... If I had more Agility, I would've probably fallen."

"Your specs are always changing, so you need to get used to the changes."

"There's really nothing easy."

Both members of Stardust went to the third floor of the Knight's Hall every day.

After all, learning the know-how of the former number one wasn't an opportunity that came easily.

Hyun felt awkward.

For a while, there would be nothing he could teach them.

Of course, the moves he and Ain had developed through the years were complex enough that they'd be able to write a thesis on them, but teaching more complex movements to people who hadn't even mastered the basics could become counterproductive.

It would probably take them months before they could pass to the next step.

If they weren't professional gamers, it probably would've taken them years.

'I won't need to help them for a while.'

Even while teaching them, Hyun didn't leave aside his plans.

He reached level 6 of «Pray» after a week.

Whap.

Strong energy started to come out from The Robes of the Praying Priest.

That was the signal that showed that the item had been unlocked.

When the light died down, a couple of lines had been added to the item's description.

[ <The one who receives protection from a Transcendent doesn't die easily.> ]

- When you're about to die, you become immortal for 3 seconds.

- The time for being reborn after dying decreases by half.

- If you're using «Assimilation», these effects are applied to the target.

'This…'

Hyun's eyes widened after reading the item’s description.

First, on the Priest's Robe, it mentioned «Assimilation».

At that point, couldn't he call that an item exclusive to the Support?

Later on, he needed to revise the connection between Empathy, «Assimilation», and «Pray».

Right then, it was more important to check out the item's specs.

'This is amazing.'

The word “immortal” caught Hyun's attention.

Unlike his skill, the item allowed him to be immortal for real.

He would be able to save his life thanks to the effect of an item.

'Not only that, but it decreases the death penalty.'

What Hyun was the most afraid of was the penalty for dying.

In Asrian, any user that died wouldn't be able to log in for 48 hours.

He had already experienced it once, so he knew how critical that could be.

But that item allowed him to reduce it for 24 hours.

Of course, he should avoid dying if possible, but even if he did, he could recover faster than the others.

Just from the item's description up to that point, the item seemed to be worth more than a unique.

But what was more incredible was that the item still had hidden specs!

- If [Skill: «Pray»] reaches level 9, you'll be able to unlock extra abilities.

'There's more?'

Hyun was surprised.

«Pray» level 9…

As the level of skills increased, they became progressively harder to level up.

Not only that, but Asrian, unlike the previous game, had sensory synchronization, so it was obvious that increasing the skill level of «Pray» would be harder than before.

It took Hyun a week to increase the level of «Pray» from 4 to 6.

Of course, it wasn't like he had spent the entire time praying... But getting it to 9 would probably take him a couple of months.

'What kind of item has so many hidden specs?'

Another thing that surprised him was that an item with such incredible abilities had just a unique category.

Just being able to reduce the time of the death penalty should be enough to categorize it as legendary.

He didn't even want to think about how much he could sell it for if it didn't have the Empathy restriction.

Thanks to Jini, he had learned the value of Asrian-related things in real life.

'It came again.'

He received another message.

It was a notification that Jini had sent him money.

Those past few days, Hyun hadn't taught them many things. It was mostly answering some doubts they had. Despite that, Jini kept sending him money.

To be honest, he felt somewhat burdened, but he didn't stop her from doing it.

She must have come up with a value after thinking about it.

Maybe it was him who wasn't fully aware of his own worth.

Also, he'd learned the sweet taste of money those past few days.

"Did something happen?" Ain asked him.

She began wondering because Hyun had suddenly stopped and was immersed in his own thoughts.

"It's nothing."

Hyun opened his mouth but stopped.

Ain was still underage.

Maybe things could get troublesome if they talked about stuff related to money.

That was something he, an adult, had to think about and find an answer to.

'Now that I think about it, I was able to reach here thanks to Ain's help.'

Just like Jini had compensated him, must he also compensate Ain?

He decided not to forget about that.

That was probably the most important thing.

He would compensate her once he found some stability.

Hyun kept thinking while walking through the Knight's Hall.

'Was it worth it to keep going to University?'

From what he'd seen, many people lived just by playing Asrian.

There were things like buying and selling items, competitions, analysis, streaming, among many other options.

People generated a lot of content related to Ain because there was a lot of demand for it.

He had experienced being number one in the rankings, so Hyun was sure he could do anything better than them.

It was weird for Hyun to care about real-life things while inside the game.

It was at that moment…

A childlike voice interrupted Hyun's thoughts.

"Oh! I found you-!"

Someone had shouted while pointing at him, but Hyun was so immersed in his own thoughts that he didn't notice it.

"Wait, please!"

As Hyun and Ain passed by him, he quickly followed them.

That's when Hyun finally saw the identity of the person calling to him.

"What? He's just a kid."

"Hmm... He's a little one. Hyun, do you know him?"

"Not at all. Hey kid, I'm busy right now, so I don't have time to play with you."

His identity was TarrTarr.

He was the person who had filmed the video of Hyun and Ain hunting down Leopard.

"Wait, wait, please! Do you know for how long I've been looking for you? It's been more than a month!"

TarrTarr still didn't know Hyun's name.

—But he knew Ain's.

That was because Ain had become a hot topic on Reddit many times.

"You're Ain, right?"

"Eh? It seems like he's been looking for you."

Hyun said while looking at Ain, but she just shook her head.

"I'm not interested in people I don't know."

"Really? By how people you don't know recognize you, it seems like you've become quite famous."

"Really famous! I'm sure almost every Reddit user knows her."

"Reddit...?"

"You don't know Reddit? It has one of the biggest Asrian communities... That's also where I uploaded a video of you two!"

"Hmm... I see. It seems like he's fan enough to record a video of you. Maybe he's a stalker?"

"Not really interested... I don't need anything like that."

"Hey kid, you heard what she said. You better go."

After that small talk, Hyun and Ain were about to leave.

TarrTarr couldn't believe the current situation.

He felt like a criminal confessing his crime while telling them that he'd recorded footage of both of them... But he wasn't expecting a reaction like that.

Wasn't anyone going to say anything about copyright, privacy, sue him, or even talk about profits from the video...?

TarrTarr shouted while trying to catch up with Hyun and Ain.

"Is that all? Don't you have anything else to say? For example, about the profits gained from the video..."

'What, profit from the video?'

Usually, he would just ignore whatever a bothersome kid was saying to him, but those past few days, Hyun had been quite sensitive to money-related topics.

He stopped.

"What?"

"Profits. I recorded a video of you two, so I thought you'd be interested in topics regarding the money generated from it."

"We're interested, of course."

After noticing Hyun's sudden change of atmosphere, Ain looked at him closely.

As Hyun's conversation with the kid that had suddenly appeared started to prolong, Ain complained.

"Hyun... We'd decided to clear the rest of the Heaven's Achievements today... Let's get going."

"Oh, sorry. I have some stuff to discuss with this kid... You have to increase levels and catch up with me anyway, so farm some experience for a little while."

"Alone? Until when?"

"Just a little bit? Hey kid, come here."

Hyun grabbed TarrTarr and moved to somewhere where they could talk more comfortably.

As Hyun took some time to listen, he heard TarrTarr's name and what he'd done until then, among other things.

TarrTarr also told him that he had secretly recorded the footage of him fighting against Leopard.

Hyun didn't understand things related to privacy, so at first, he couldn't understand what was wrong.

Even though TarrTarr was a lot younger than Hyun, he knew more things about stuff related to real life.

"See this video? It has eight million views. The amount of money you can earn is approximately one dollar per thousand views. If only I had monetized the video, it would've generated at least eight thousand dollars!"

"Wait, how much?"

Only after adjusting the translation settings did Hyun understand TarrTarr's words.

"What the… one video generated eight thousand dollars?!"

"Yes."

After understanding everything, Hyun's eyes changed.

Tarrtarr was so startled that he backed down.

"Then... Among the eight thousand dollars, there's my part, obviously. Right?"

"No. I didn't monetize it. It isn't even my video, so I can't do it as I wish. Also, I've put this video as private."

"What... Does that mean?"

"I didn't earn anything!"

Boom- Hyun subconsciously slammed the table.

"Why didn't you do it?!"

"Should I ask for monetization?"

"Obviously!"

TarrTarr flinched at Hyun's shout.

After looking at TarrTarr reaction's, Hyun calmed down.

Now that he thought about it, it wasn't his fault.

After all, he was unaware of the fact that you could earn that much money in such ways.

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