NSE-Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Achievement Shop

‘There was something like this?’

He had hunted Lee Seo-yun many times.

But he had never seen a message related to this before.

‘The One Who Opened the Horizon…….’

It might be related to that.

Then again……

Come to think of it, attaining an EX-grade Achievement was also a first.

If he thought of it as related to that, it wasn’t so strange that this was only popping up now.

If it was a shop, was it a structure that opened like the Status Window?

‘Achievement Shop.’

[Opening the Achievement Shop!]

[Grade: Bronze]

[Owned Achievement Points: 30]

[Product List]

[1. Limit-Breaking Elixir]

[Required Achievement Points: 100]

[2. ???]

[3. ???]

.

.

There seemed to be a lot of items, but he couldn’t see the details.

In the end, only one product was viewable for now.

[Limit-Breaking Elixir]

[Raises Level potential by ‘50.’]

‘Huh?’

Huh?

What am I looking at right now?

Kim Min-woo rubbed his eyes hard.

That was how hard it was to believe the content before his eyes.

Even so, the content remained the same.

“……Crazy!”

―Master, why so suddenly?

“Cedric! Jackpot! Jackpot! Big brother just landed a big catch!”

―……A big catch?

“Yeah, you punk! Now your big brother can break through Level 200 too!”

―……Are there people who cannot do that?

Unfortunately, this Undead did not sympathize with his joy at all.

‘This is why talent bugs are like that.’

Well, it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand.

Because normally, once you Awakened, you could raise your Level up to 300 as a given.

Of course, being able to raise Levels and actually doing it were entirely different matters.

Because as Awakened grew stronger, monsters also grew stronger the higher their Levels went.

To gain meaningful Experience, you still had to catch monsters in a similar Level range, but.

From a certain point, even same-Level ones became hard to hunt.

‘From then on, it’s normal to give up on leveling up.’

Between 151 and 250.

C-rank, the so-called stagnation range, was that cursed stretch.

From clearing C-rank Gates on, even with a party, you had to risk your life.

Until then, if it had still been a shall-I-go-make-some-money-at-a-Gate? – thump-thump mindset.

From here on, a will-I-make-it-back-alive-today? – thump-thump mindset began to come installed as standard.

Either way.

Cedric didn’t seem to understand the concept of leveling being blocked at Level 200.

‘Astonishingly, that’s possible.’

A miracle genius who couldn’t reach Level 300, which even a neighborhood F-rank Awakened could reach.

There was an amazing example called Kim Min-woo.

‘I searched for a way to break through for six years……’

In the end, he hadn’t found it.

So he had had no choice but to fight the Dragon Lord at Level 200.

But now, he had found that way!

‘If I just have Achievement Points…….’

I can raise the Level cap.

What’s more, since a fixed value of ‘50’ was set, he didn’t have to pray like when eating Elixirs.

‘A tremendous effect.’

A Level doesn’t carry only the effect of 4 Stats.

It was linked with many factors, such as equipment and Skill Books.

On top of that, since he was a Necromancer, the Summons’ Level cap would be added too.

‘The ceiling has gotten far higher.’

Far more than he had imagined.

Now what mattered was how to obtain Achievement Points. Kim Min-woo recalled the message he had seen earlier.

● You have hunted ‘Lee Seo-yun,’ one of the Supporting-role Villains!

● The story begins to be partially altered!

‘A supporting role, huh.’

Seeing that, it seemed they wouldn’t just hand out Achievement Points for merely catching some Villains.

He’d probably have to catch the ones with some significant weight in the story.

Hunting Major Supporting-role Villains.

For now, this was probably the first way to raise points.

‘But catching them right now is a bit tough.’

He knew many guys in this game who could be called Major Supporting-role Villains.

Only……

The problem was that they were hard to hunt easily unless you met them through overlapping coincidences like today.

Every one of them was high-level.

Their appearance locations were random, except for a few. Unless he raised his Level far higher than now, he couldn’t catch them right away.

‘Another way to get points is…… changing the story, perhaps.’

A supporting-role Villain died.

The story changed, and he gained points.

The way to gain points probably wasn’t only simply killing enemies.

‘What if I influence an important person?’

The game’s most main-tier lead characters.

Those were precisely the protagonist-type characters users could play.

Park Si-woo, Han Si-a, Namgung Min, even Seo Ye-rim. Normally, these people would never have appeared on one stage together.

But now was different.

The message that had appeared when Phase 6 began.

[All main characters in the game gather in a single universe!]

The main characters existed in this world.

Like Seo Ye-rim.

‘If I influence them…….’

He might be able to gain points.

The reason he hadn’t gained points from Seo Ye-rim was likely that he hadn’t given her a ‘significant’ change.

Frankly, he had only needled her a bit with swordsmanship, not made any decisive change, had he?

On the other hand, though Lee Seo-yun was a supporting role, by dying, the story that had existed had vanished entirely.

So even though she was a supporting role, the ripple effect was big.

Among the four, the easiest character to change was Park Si-woo, the one-star difficulty character.

As he had returned to when Kim Min-woo was Unawakened, the timeline had gone back quite a lot.

‘He’s probably in the orphanage by now.’

Great Light Orphanage.

It was a place with that name.

‘And he’d be Unawakened, too.’

The timeframe in which users directly played Park Si-woo was somewhat further in the future than now.

He’d Awaken then, so he should be Unawakened now.

He knew Park Si-woo’s Awakening Condition.

On top of that, he had seen a message about humanity’s potential being enhanced or whatever.

‘What if I make this guy Awaken beyond S-grade?’

He was already a swordsmanship genius.

If a guy like that became SS or SSS-grade?

Could the story possibly not change, whatever it was?

‘It will influence it without fail.’

If that happened, he could gain far more points than from hunting Lee Seo-yun.

Approaching him was easy, and attempting an Awakening wasn’t difficult.

There was no reason not to do it.

‘If I can’t get points, well…….’

I can just make something like a Guild and use him as an underling.

Since he’s a talent bug, even with just moderate equipment support he’d power-level on his own.

A day to make use of him would come someday.

‘When I get out, I should go meet him once.’

Though first, before that, he’d need to sort out equipment.

He looted Lee Seo-yun’s corpse.

Assassin equipment came out.

Perhaps because she was B-rank and a promising prospect, the equipment quality was decent in its own way.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t wear it due to Class restrictions, so he planned to sell it off at the Auction House.

He could probably get around 30 billion won.

On top of that.

“Oh, jackpot.”

He was able to obtain quite a good item.

[Dark Tracker’s Ring]

[Grade: Unique]

[Required Level: 51 or above]

[Effect 1. All Stats increase by 15]

[Effect 2. Can use Body Heat Tracking(C) by utilizing Mana.]

[Effect 3. Damage increases by 10% upon landing a critical hit.]

“It’s a premium accessory, isn’t it?”

An accessory with no Class restriction and an Equip Level quite low relative to its performance. Something like this was impossible to obtain from ordinary Gates.

‘She cleared a Chain Quest.’

It was an item you’d only get by finding hidden conditions, activating a Chain Quest, and carrying it out to the end.

“It’s usually something you can’t buy even with money.”

Naturally.

Unless an Awakened was retiring, they’d just keep using it, so why would anyone sell something like this mid-growth?

That was probably the reason she’d kept wearing it steadily despite being high-Level.

Because accessories originally had low supply, making them hard to set up, and also because Assassins and critical damage increases were one of the inseparable sweet combos.

And the all-Stats increase went without saying.

He put Lee Seo-yun’s corpse and equipment into the Spatial Ring.

Now it was time to clear the Gate.

His heart fluttered.

By meeting Lee Seo-yun, he had unexpectedly gained 10 Levels.

Current Level 40.

Just 11 more Levels and it’d be 51.

The range where he could absorb the next Elixirs and Skill Books. His combat strength itself would become entirely different in dimension.

“Let’s go.”

Cedric and the Skeleton horde nodded.

* * *

He raised his Level by sweeping every monster in the Gate.

[Your Level increases!]

[You have become Level 51.]

He was able to reach Level 51 before arriving at the Boss Room.

He took out the Low-Grade Elixirs.

[Low-Grade Magic Power Elixir]

[Grade: D]

[Required Level: 51 or above]

[Slightly increases Mana upon consumption. (Applies up to Stat 150)]

Here, the Stat the Elixir referred to meant the inherent Stats, excluding the additional Stats from Titles, equipment, and so on.

What were inherent Stats?

The base Stats he had from the start and the Stats raised by Elixirs.

And the Level Up Stats too.

The sum of all of these was the inherent Stats.

To include one more, Stats that rose naturally through training or actions were also usually included, but.

‘That doesn’t apply to this guy.’

He had never seen Kim Min-woo’s Stats rise through training.

So it was better to just treat it as nonexistent.

Conclusion.

Each Stat in the Elixir’s terms was currently 100.

He just had to raise each of these by 50.

Then total Stats would increase by 200.

The Royal Road would be complete.

And so he absorbed the first Elixir, and.

[The Low-Grade Magic Power Elixir is absorbed.]

[Amazing! Your horrific body has broken through an abysmal probability and absorbed the Elixir’s full effect!]

[Magic Power increases by 2!]

“What?”

It goes up by 2 in one go?

Kim Min-woo was shocked by a message he was seeing for the first time in his life.

[You acquire the Title ‘Super Lucky Guy’!]

“……But they give a Title for this too?”

Wasn’t a Title something you only got for doing something fairly tough?

To think he’d get even a Title from a message others saw as casually as eating a meal.

He realized for the first time that Kim Min-woo’s body had a merit too.

He checked the effect right away.

[New Title List]

[1. PK Specialist]

[Won against an Awakened with an overwhelming gap.]

[Effect: Attack power increases by 10% against Awakened with a Level difference of 200 or more.]

[2. Super Lucky Guy]

[Broke through an abysmal probability and realized good fortune.]

[Effect: You feel like your luck has improved.]

‘Luck seems to have improved, huh…….’

It was a really vague effect, but.

Either way, it was better than nothing.

And he absorbed all the Elixirs like that, and.

“……The effect is huge?”

He was a bit surprised.

The Elixirs had been absorbed by his body extremely well.

“To do this with just eight hundred……”

How amazing this was could be clearly seen by comparing it with the Level 1 days.

Because over a thousand Elixirs had gone in back then.

Even after buying from Choi Yu-na, he had thought it might not be enough, so he had taken out about two hundred more from the family warehouse, but.

It seemed fine to just put those back.

“That’s lucky.”

Truly, he had been lucky.

Min-woo, grinning, learned the Skill Book.

[Summon Skeleton Mage(E)+9]

[A Skill enhanced to its limit.]

[Consumes 20 Mana to summon 2(1+1) LV1 Skeleton Mages.]

“Ahh.”

The +9 effect was beautiful no matter when he saw it. It took twice the Mana of an ordinary Skeleton, but it was worth it for Mages.

It was about time to switch to the next equipment.

After unequipping the equipment he’d originally been using, he opened the Status Window.

[Name: Kim Min-woo(23)]

[Class: Necromancer]

[Level: 51]

[Owned Skills(4/20): Death Lord(EX), Summon Cedric(SSS), Summon Skeleton Mage(E)+9, Summon Skeleton(F)+9]

[Mana: 1,920/1,920]

[Titles: 15]

[Stats]

[Strength: 181(+18)] [Agility: 181(+18)] [Health: 152(+15)] [Magic Power: 175(+17)]

“Insane.”

This was not the Stat level of a Level 51. And this was even without the Stats of the new equipment.

The Dark Tracker’s Ring, newly equippable now that he’d become Level 51.

Plus the Rare set items purchased at the Auction House this time.

[You equip the Dark Tracker’s Ring!]

[All Stats increase by 15!]

[You equip the Ruin Harvester Set!]

[Strength +15, Agility +15, Health +15, Magic Power +50 increase!]

[Drain(D) is activated!]

Magic Power was inflated by 65 once more here, and with the Indomitable Soul effect overlapping, it rose by 6 more.

Magic Power value 263.

Pure Mana alone was 2,630.

If Death Lord’s Mana cost reduction overlapped on top of that.

“Rise, you minions.”

[452 Skeletons are summoned!]

[300 Skeleton Mages are summoned!]

A great army of over seven hundred in total rose to its feet. It was far too many to catch a single gorilla boss at most.