From a distance, the Moong Boss and I stood facing each other such that we could observe each other. He had a sword that was much larger than his body, and he was clutching it in one hand.
[Moong Male (Species)
A homeless wanderer.
Class: S]
His overall class was higher than I expected, and I knew instantly that was why he had been able to successfully hide in the Baclans’ mainland. Meanwhile, he must have been looking at a similar notification message on his window. It probably looked something like this:
[Human Male (Species)
He is currently fighting against the invasion of the Seven Demon Kings.
Class: A]
The Moong remained cautious despite the obvious difference between our classes. He seemed to have a keen eye, and he must have reached S-class step by step. The lightning power trapped in my fists was going insane as it wanted to be released, and he must have felt something from the occasional sparks that sprang out from the gaps between my fingers that made him wary.
Two notification messages popped up almost at the same time.
[You have partially seen through the Moong Male. (Skill, Night Eye)]
[The Moong Male has partially seen through you. (Skill, Night Eye)]
[Name: ?
Health: S(0), Strength: S(0), Agility: S(3), Sense: S(0)
Total points: ?
Trait(8), Skill(8), Insignia(1), Item(8)]
[Physical Defense Power: ?900/?900]
[Magic Defense Power: ?100/?100]
[Trait - Thorn Shield: A(72), ?]
[Skill - Night Eye: S(9), Punishment of the Moong Water God: A(9), Ring of Cold Air: A(21), ?]
[Insignia - Star Hunting (A)]
[Item - The Victory Sword of the Baclan Arena (S), The Victory Breastplate of the Baclan Arena (A), The Battle Pants of the High-Rank Baclan Warrior (C), ?]
The parts I saw were enough. If I judged him by the standards of my past, then the Moong Boss would be at the level of a guild leader of an intermediate-scale guild or a regular member of either the Eight Evils’ or Eight Virtues’ forces. That was how I rated him, and I could grasp how he was evaluating me by the emotions that instantly flashed upon his face. His eyes were flickering with astonishment. I would have reacted the same if I were him because the current me was like a character who had unbelievable strength that would only appear in a Marvel superhero movie.
***
In addition, his trait ‘Thorn Shield’ and insignia ‘Star Hunting’ also existed in our System as well. The titles differed slightly due to differences between the languages we used but their effects were the same. In his world, incredible categories such as the Man Who Overcomes Adversity and Devi’s Sword would also be considered the best of the best, so he probably knew how powerful I was just by seeing those. Furthermore, he wouldn’t be able to figure out using common sense alone what the bolded ‘Second Round’ meant. I also had ten traits and skills as a Challenger. If the past me could see this, I would have had the same expression as the Moong Boss.
I understood how shocked he was. Of course, there was a possibility that he didn’t know anything about the Man Who Overcomes Adversity and Devi’s Sword. However, he still would have been surprised when he realized that I only had high-class traits and that all my skills were titled after the name of God. It was natural that the expression on his face had become serious.
Soon after, he became determined to fight a life-and-death battle with me. Anyway, the most important of all categories were the four basic stats[1]. Only my Agility was in S-class, and I wasn’t visibly armed with any equipment. His decision wasn’t foolish. What he didn’t know, however, was that all of my items were waiting for me in another space, and they could be used the instant I took them out.
***
Right after we saw through each other’s status window I began to equip myself. A burning cape suddenly appeared and wrapped around my shoulders, a sacred helmet blinked onto my head, and I quickly took out ten items in total. The Moong Boss became deathly pale after seeing that, but I could tell that he had made an almost instantaneous decision as his expression had changed. At that moment, I knew that his plan to fight me had vaporized, and he was now busy thinking about how to run away.
Indeed, he wasn’t an S-class Awakened for nothing. The colorful light that was being emitted from his chest wasn’t being used in an attempt to kill me. If he had wanted to kill me, he wouldn’t have started fleeing. The Moong threw himself into the air, jumping so high that he was above my head. It was dazzling even in broad daylight because the lights were so bright. There were multiple beams shooting out, but the intensity was so high that they looked like one giant ray.
The Moong Boss had used the insignia Star Hunting. I couldn’t dodge it as my Teleport insignia was too low of a class. This insignia basically allowed the user to target the subject without allowing the victim to avoid it. He had calculated his options quite quickly, but I also had experienced many one-on-one battles in my past life. Although my battle tactics might have worsened as it had been a long time since I last dueled another Awakened, the muscle memories I had would never disappear.
Thud!
When a ray of light hit my shield, it became so overwhelmingly bright that I was unable to see properly and distinguish objects easily. It basically felt like entering a dungeon without Night Eyes, except that I was being blinded instead. In the meantime, I focused on the superpowered lightning that I had released from my hands. My second half, the lightning bolts, poured out of me. I blocked the Moong Boss’s retreat with Odin’s Wrath and minimized his movements by using Hera’s Lunacy. Then…
[Devi’s Sword has been converted into Indra’s Sword.]
[You have used Indra’s Sword.]
The sword then transformed into a long stem, and I sent it out into the overly white world, having it grow out. It had concentrated lightning power in it. Before long, I could hear the screams of the Moong Boss echoing from a good distance away, but my world was still dyed white. The magical rays from the insignia were constantly bumping into each other, constantly emitting more white light.
That was the power of a skill-type insignia. They were only good for one use, but they gave off the power equivalent to a top-class skill that came from a challenger box. Before long, the light pummeling me stopped. As my vision cleared, I could see the back of the Moong, who was still trying to resist my superpowered lightning prison that I had caged him with, but it looked quite vague as my head was still ringing. The status window that displayed the amount of power I had left in my defensive barrier also looked blurry, as if I had suddenly acquired astigmatism.
[Total Magic Defense Power: 75200/90400]
That one insignia had done more than fifteen thousand points of magic damage to me. If I didn’t have the Magic Resistance Rune that I had acquired on the Land of the Dead, the numbers would have been much worse.
I closed my eyes tight and opened them, making my vision return to its original state. There was a thick lightning stem that connected the two of us, and it was from Indra’s Sword. Similar to Star Hunting, my item also didn’t allow the target to escape. He had no way to flee. His weak magic shield had already vanished because he had also been attacked by Hera’s Lunacy. Furthermore, the sword itself was stuck in his back, and Odin’s Wrath had been manipulated into lighting arrows that were shooting into him.
Zing-
All those large and small lightning bolts were slowly whittling away his life. However, I didn’t get closer to him. Although dying immediately was less painful, S-class Awakened had a tenacious hold on life. Basically, any experienced Awakened would never give up until the very end, so there was no point in me exposing a potential opening.
In fact, there it was now. The look in his eyes had turned evil the moment he realized that I refused to get closer to him. When he stared up at me, two skills stretched out from him. One gave off a cold energy that rushed into me while drawing a large half-moon trajectory, and the other was a whirlpool of water that flew at me with a violent spin. There was a significant difference in the attack power of the two skills. The whirlpool was the skill named after the Moong water god. He wouldn’t have thought this could turn the tables. He might have believed he could succeed if he could shorten the distance between us. Or it could have been just a frantic, last-ditch effort. Anyway, it was impossible for him to win now.
[You have used Road of the King of Hell.]
[You have used Hanuman’s Tail.]
I kicked the ground after banishing the cold air around me by fanning it with my fire tail. Right after that, flames fluttered in front of me as if the cold energy had never existed. However, his water whirlpool was still intact. It was flying at me quickly, but it was probably because I was rushing at it at the same time.
Moderate amounts of water can only extinguish small fires instantaneously. Even if you poured water into a big flame, if there wasn’t enough, then the water would vaporize into steam. I set up a flame wall with Hanuman’s Tail, and another one with Ra’s Sun Cape. With two walls of fire on the side, I enlarged the flames by using Road of the King to Hell.
Cheeeeeeeeek-
I pierced through the maelstrom and came out with steam all around me. I could feel the hot moisture whenever I inhaled.
I had succeeded in destroying his skill!
[You have destroyed the Punishment of the Moong Water God.]
When I came to my senses, the gods were having a feast[2].
Zing-
In the air, the large and small stems of lightning were chopping the turkey relentlessly like knives.
Hiss!
The fire pillar that struck the turkey burned it even though it was already fully baked. The turkey… No, the Moong looked up at me as if he had intuitively perceived his death arriving. His complex gaze was filled with death, pain and hostility. I stabbed him with Seth’s Nails as the last blow. The dark energy was divided into five sections and wrapped around his body.
[Forerunner has been activated.]
[Your Agility has been upgraded. Change: S → SS]
He’s almost dead, though…
Sheek-
He never had a chance to swing the S-Class sword in his hand. He still held it until his last moment. Following that, the notification message popped up at a speed faster than the rate of blood flowing out from him.
[You have eliminated Moong Male.]
It felt like the message had appeared faster than usual as if the System was glad that I removed an Awakened from another system. Well, it could have just been me.
[Would you like to absorb the skill Punishment of the Moong Water God?]
Of course. I abandoned Iron Fist and replaced it with the new skill I just obtained. I passed on all of his traits as they were all too low in class.
[5 challenger boxes, 1 master box, 3 diamond boxes, 3 platinum boxes, 5 gold boxes, 2 silver boxes, or…]
I got five challenger boxes for killing one S-class Moong Awakened…?
There was a nickname for such targets. The risks were different, but several quests were often completed as soon as an Awakened caught a boss monster in a top-class gate battle or an S-class dungeon. I had never experienced such a jackpot before, and I had only heard the rumors that multiple challenger boxes were given as rewards.
Oh, so what did the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues call them? Wasn’t that obvious? Treasure Goblins. From now on, the S-class Moong Awakened were my Treasure Goblins. Again, I had no sympathy for them.
***
It was too fierce to call it a fight between the little ones because there were many Moongs to hunt down. Unfortunately, there was no Treasure Goblin among them. In fact, more than half were non-Awakened, and the highest class among the Awakened was B-class. Their total number exceeded two hundred.
Nevertheless, the reason why Seong-Il was winning was because of the items I had provided them in advance. The three were armed with A-class items while the Moongs only had drop items that the Baclan had thrown away. The difference in their capabilities was clear.
The battle ended as soon as I intervened. Although they felt pain when the opponent struck them, all direct shock was absorbed by their protective barriers. This was the first time the three of them could only focus on offense without paying too much attention to their injuries.
Their faces were full of excitement since they had just experienced how strong they could become when they were fully armed with A-class equipment. Lee Soo-Ah, who was usually calm and empathetic toward the Moongs, was no different from the rest. She breathed heavily, and her entire body was covered with their blood. As I had mentioned previously, it was because she was too excited, not due to a lack of stamina.
While Seong-Il recalled the power he tapped into to kill the Moongs and Shin Kyung-Ah was walking around to kill the remaining, I was looking at the new notification messages on the window.
[You have removed 10 Moong Awakened.]
[You have obtained the trait Passion.]
The Man Who Overcomes Adversity, Strongman, Explorer, Interdiction, Forerunner, Gifted, Sensitive, Collector and Challenger. With the addition of Passion, I now had the maximum number of traits one could possess in the Second Round of Privileges.
[Passion (Trait)
Effect: Reinforces the user’s offensive skills in three levels that activate in proportion to combat time.
Level One. One hour from the start of the battle.
The rate of injury regeneration slightly increases.
Level Two. One hour after Level One activates.
The probability of trait and item activation slightly increases.
Level Three. One hour after Level Two activates.
Physical and Magic Resistance slightly increases.
Class: F(0)
Cooldown time: 7 days.]
Right. I couldn’t say this alone was the Fifth Virtue’s main trait. Even if it had super great potential, I had to upgrade it by using the rewards from the boxes.
***
I killed an S-class Treasure Goblin and a bunch of Moong Awakened. On top of that, Yeon-Hee had also given me points, so I had many boxes waiting for me to open.
[You can open the next box.]
[Subject: 5 challenger boxes, 1 master box, 9 diamond boxes, 6 platinum boxes, 12 gold boxes, 15 silver boxes, 2 bronze boxes]
I had already finished planning where I would use the rewards from the five challenger boxes and one master box. After all, the most important thing to focus on was the growth of the four basic stats. This applied to every Awakened, but it was especially significant in my case. I could rebuild my skills after I finished upgrading all four stats.
I had planned to upgrade Strength with one challenger box, upgrade Sense with one master box and two challenger boxes, and then upgrade Health with two challenger boxes. If I hadn’t received the unexpected event ‘Moong Special Privilege,’ I would have expected my stats to increase around the end of Act Two at the Final Stage.
It would be best for me if the System didn’t do anything to my detriment at this point. Like in the Land of the Dead, there were elements here in the Baclans’ mainland that could help me grow to a great extent. In particular, the Moong Special Privilege had little risk compared to the compensation being offered. Maybe, the System had decided to be generous this time and deliberately led me to the spot where the remaining Moongs had fled to.
I used the rest of the boxes on the water god’s skill that I had gotten from the Moong Boss and the trait Passion. I ended up with the following result:
[Passion (Trait)
Effect: Reinforces the user’s offensive skills through five levels that activate in proportion to combat time.
Level One. One hour from the start of the battle.
The rate of injury regeneration slightly increases.
Level Two. One hour after Level One activates.
The probability of trait and item activation slightly increases.
Level Three. One hour after Level Two activates.
Physical and Magic Resistance slightly increases.
Level Four. One hour after Level Three activates.
Cooldown times slightly decrease by a low probability.
Level Five. One hour after Level Four activates.
The charging speed of all items slightly increases.
Class: B(0)
Cooldown time: 2 days]
Even if the effect of increasing the defense power was charming, relying on the trait Passion alone wasn’t enough for a one-on-one battle. At my current class, this trait would only be useful two hours after I entered a battle, which was when Level Three activated.
However, the trait proves its real worth at S-class. I was looking forward to how much power this trait would have when it became upgraded to SS-class.
[Punishment of the Moong Water God (Skill)
Effect: It generates a powerful energy of water that rushes toward the target. The user’s damage is recovered to a significant degree as soon as the skill is used.
Class: C (98)
Cooldown time: 2 minutes]
At one point, this trait would have completely healed the boss Moong at one point as he had it at A-class. It must have happened when I was destroying his skills and got out of the whirlpool. However, that would have been a tragedy for him as he would have felt all the pain from the beginning again. The sharp sensation of all his muscles being burnt and torn off by the streaks of lightning was probably incredibly painful.
I suddenly remembered the time when I had experienced that exact same thing when the Sixth Virtue had captured me in the past. The memory of his frivolous laughter taunted me, but then Yeon-Hee came back, drawing me back to the present. She didn’t need an explanation of what had just happened. Her face brightened as she noticed something from the tiny movement of my pupils.
“Congratulations, Seon-Hu,” she said with a smile that resembled the happy grin of a golden retriever puppy.