Trait Creation
Legend Route.
The game I'd enjoyed for ten years. By now it was a minor title so obscure it had passed beyond dead water into rotting water — the kind of game where the community was so small that everyone knew everyone else.
If it had been an online game, the servers would have been shut down long ago, but fortunately Legend Route was a single-player package game. That was precisely why I'd been able to enjoy it for over a decade.
Today, like any other day, I turned on Legend Route. Starting the game had become part of my daily routine.
A new notification has arrived.
A strange message appeared on the game's main screen.
A new notification? In ten years of playing, I'd never seen anything like this.
"What is this?"
Thank you sincerely for loving Legend Route over the past ten years! A special benefit has been prepared for you, Traveler.
A special benefit? Had there been an update last night?
The game had never received a single update since its release. I was a little flustered by this screen I'd never seen before.
But my confusion was brief. The animal instinct of a top-tier gamer whispered to me — this content would bring me new stimulation.
Please customize your desired character!
The screen changed. A character creation screen — the kind you'd see in other games famous for their customization — appeared before my eyes.
This was a feature that Legend Route had never had. The playable characters in Legend Route were fixed, after all.
"To release a brand-new update like this ten years after launch…" I was amazed. What reason could the developers have had to release such a massive piece of content a full decade after release?
As a gamer, it was something to be grateful for, but their intentions didn't quite add up. Well, it wasn't my problem to worry about, was it?
I clicked the mouse, checking each customization feature one by one. The degree of freedom was enormous — so many features, so vast, that it took me over an hour just to go through them all.
Fortunately, I was a master of character appearance. As a hardcore gamer, my skills in designing looks were good enough to easily rack up a thousand upvotes on the user bulletin board. If I'd put that much effort into studying, I could have gotten into a top-tier Korean university without breaking a sweat.
Character creation began with gender selection. The options "Male" and "Female" appeared on screen.
"Gender, huh…" After about ten minutes of deliberation, I chose male.
Legend Route had plenty of beautiful female characters. But aside from a few, the male characters were all awkwardly designed. No doubt because demand for female characters far outweighed that for males.
When I first started playing, that didn't bother me at all, but after enjoying the game for over ten years, it became a bit of a disappointment.
"Blonde hair, and for the face… I need to make him ridiculously handsome." I searched the internet for blonde character references and quickly crafted a beautiful young man with golden hair and crimson eyes. This was child's play for me.
Please choose a name.
A character name. When playing an RPG, the most agonizing decision was always the nickname.
Since my name was Kim Yohan, I could just go with Yohan, right? Next to the name field was a space for a surname.
I'd just put Baker. No special meaning — I just liked bread.
Confirm character name as Johann Baker?
"Johann Baker. Not bad for a name thrown together on the spot. Complete."
I pressed the confirm button, and the next screen appeared.
Please create your character's Trait.
Trait. One of the key elements of Legend Route.
A Trait was a character's unique ability. Unlike skills, a character could only learn one Trait, and no other character could learn a Trait that belonged to someone else.
For example, as long as Sara Leoris possessed Sage's Eye, no other character could obtain it. If another character wanted to have Sage's Eye, Sara Leoris would have to die.
In other words, a Trait was literally the signature ability that defined a character.
Originally, Traits were predetermined for each character. The most important criterion when choosing a character was this Trait.
"You want me to create my own Trait?" I stared at the screen in disbelief.
What appeared was an editor like a notepad. The title section was for the Trait's name, and the space below was for describing the Trait's effect.
"A Trait of my own design…" What was the Trait I'd most wanted while playing the game?
"I often thought it would be great to be able to obtain other characters' Traits."
Because of the unique nature of Traits, character selection was always a chain of regrets. If I picked this character, I'd think I should've chosen that one; if I picked that one, I'd regret not choosing yet another. The regrets followed each other's tails endlessly.
Even after ten years of play, having become a Legend Route master, I'd always wished I could learn multiple Traits simultaneously. Then speedruns would be so much easier.
"Then… a Copy Trait would be about right, wouldn't it?" I typed my desired Trait into the editor.
Copy
"Copies the Trait possessed by the target. The copied Trait becomes stronger than the original."
That was way too overpowered. Even I was taken aback by what I'd written. If a Trait like this existed, the game's difficulty would drop by two tiers.
I clicked the confirm button, and a new message window appeared.
The Trait's content has been modified for difficulty adjustment.
Transcendent Copy (EX-Rank)
Once every 24 hours, copies the Trait possessed by the target. The copied Trait becomes stronger than the original. To copy a Trait, the user must kiss the target. If the character possessing the original Trait dies, the copied Trait vanishes.
The modified content appeared, and I examined it carefully.
"The kiss event definitely required an affection level of 80 or higher, right?" It was certainly nerfed compared to what I'd originally written. But it was still absurdly overpowered. And the Trait's rank was no less than EX-Rank.
The highest rank in Legend Route was SSS-Rank. This had been patched in, it seemed.
Please set your base stats.
The next screen was for setting base stats.
Base stats were all 5, with 25 remaining stat points. If I distributed them evenly, each stat would reach 10.
But that would be a fool's move. As in most games, spreading stats across the board was the fastest way to create a garbage character.
"Strength and Agility are relatively easy to raise. Intelligence is important if you're going for a mage build, but it lacks versatility. So then…" The two core stats in Legend Route were Mana and Luck.
High Mana meant you could use more skills, since most skills in Legend Route cost Mana to activate. Among mages, there was even a tech tree that half-neglected Intelligence and dumped everything into Mana, then dealt damage with high-base-damage skills. That alone showed how important and versatile Mana was.
Luck was equally critical. High Luck increased critical hit rate, effectively boosting damage output. Moreover, Luck affected item enhancement success rates — essential for quickly obtaining high-tier gear.
I left the other stats untouched and added 10 to Mana and 15 to Luck.
"Beautiful." It was a perfect distribution. Not quite at the level of Sara Leoris, the famously strong early-game character, but still excellent.
Create this character?
This must be the final step of character creation. I was extremely satisfied with the result — it was the kind of character you'd make when you fully intended to lean on your custom creation.
"Obviously. Create."
I clicked the character creation button.
And then I lost consciousness.
"Damn it."
When I came to, I had become Johann Baker.
"Yohan! How long are you going to laze around? Get up and come out quickly. It's time to open the shop."
Johann Baker. The son of a commoner who ran Dwarf's Hearth, an ordinary bakery in the Royal Capital.
That was my current identity.
"To think I'd actually be transported into the world of Legend Route…" It was surreal. At first I thought it was a dream and punched my eyeballs countless times. But this was no dream.
At least one thing was fortunate — the parts I'd customized were applied exactly as I'd designed them.
This was my current status window. I'd shouted "status window," and one actually appeared.
"Yohan! Get down here quickly! It's time for customers!"
At my father's nagging, I changed clothes and went downstairs. The first floor of our house was the bakery. It apparently sold well enough that we had no worries about living expenses.
"Yohan. If you keep being this lazy, I won't hand the shop over to you. Who did you take after to be so lazy! Just try to resemble your father even half as much."
My father, bald as a billiard ball, crossed his arms and issued a stern warning.
Looking at my father's gleaming bald head, I unconsciously checked whether my own hair was still intact. That baldness was absolutely something I couldn't afford to inherit. Fortunately, Johann's beautiful golden hair was in good shape.
"As I've told you many times, the Academy entrance ceremony is the biggest event for our shop."
The Academy entrance ceremony. With that keyword, I could deduce the current time period — the early stages of the original story. Chapter 1 of Legend Route was the Academy entrance exam. To be precise, this was even slightly before the original story's starting point.
The Academy.
I had no intention of living as a baker's son. Since I'd been transported here, I should live it up, shouldn't I?
And for that, there was something I needed to do.
The Hidden Pieces that existed in the original story. I needed to obtain them.