Routine and Retaliation

There was an order to everything in this world, and Kim Haun was a creature of habit when it came to his daily grind.

"First, smash through the Tower. Dungeons come second."

The reasoning was dead simple.

He had to hit the floor at maximum output to secure this specific prize. Naturally, the eleventh floor was no exception. Haun rushed in without a second thought, his crosshairs locked on a single goal: an EX clear rank.

Floor 11 was widely considered the true starting line of the Tower of Despair. Haun had heard all the rumors: this was where genuine monsters began to roam, the difficulty spiked through the ceiling, and the opposition grew downright vicious.

Thud. Thuuud!

"Yeah... this definitely feels entirely different from the ninth floor."

How should he put it? They looked rock-solid at a glance. Twenty massive stone statues stomped across the arena, their lumbering strides sending rhythmic tremors through the stone floor.

"Might actually get a little savage."

The moment he stepped past the boundary of the safe zone, every single one of them would charge.

He slid a foot forward.

Boom!

Right on cue.

"Whoa..."

Twenty stone sentinels snapped around simultaneously and charged straight at him, kicking up clouds ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of pulverized grit. The sight was ripped straight out of a horror flick. Were they really that glad to see him? Look at them bounding forward with pure, unadulterated enthusiasm. Since they were rolling out such an aggressive welcome mat, the polite thing to do was return the gesture in kind.

'Energy Bolt.'

He locked his gaze directly onto the center of the approaching horde. The second he focused his intent—

Crackle!

Ta-da. Energy Bolt primed.

As for clearing the floor? That was never in question. Slamming this single spell into the pack would be more than enough to wrap things up. After hauling in so many cheat-tier gains from the Tower of Transcendence, failing to clear the eleventh floor was an absolute impossibility. However, securing an EX clear rank was another matter entirely. It was an unrecorded rank that wasn't even supposed to exist in global databases, an impossible grade achieved by Kim Haun and no one else.

'It probably comes down to clear time...'

Since he needed to benchmark just how sturdy Floor 11's monsters were anyway, why not hit them with everything he had? He pulled up one of the foundational enlightenments he had earned in the divine tower.

Mana control. Thanks to that breakthrough, he could now manage the output of his mana reservoir at a fundamental level. In other words, dumping every single drop of his reserves into a solitary strike was now well within his capabilities.

Szzzzzzt!

"Wait... isn't this getting way too huge?"

Excuse me? Right now of all times?

KABOOOOOOOOM!

An Energy Bolt inflated to the proportions of a two-story building, supercharged by an outright drain of his mana pool, collided with the double-damage trigger of With Explosive Power. The resulting cataclysm yielded an instantaneous verdict.

Naturally, it was cleared.

And with an EX rank to boot. But setting aside the spoils for a second...

"Are you kidding me? What the hell happened to the floor?"

He had always heard that terrain inside the Tower never deformed under normal circumstances. Unless someone dropped high-circle catastrophic magic like Meteor on it, the stone remained pristine. Was that really true? Because right now, Floor 11 looked like ground zero of a heavy bomb testing range. A cratered wasteland yawned where the stone sentinels had once marched.

All right, lesson learned. He definitely couldn't use a full-output Energy Bolt in ordinary settings. Restricting it strictly to deep dungeons or the Tower was non-negotiable. At this stage, it wasn't a beginner spell anymore; it was an actual miniature meteor.

Then again...

He had funneled enough mana to cast eight consecutive Energy Bolts into a single blast, plus the doubling multiplier from his blessing. Of course he was running on absolute fumes. Even so, the exercise proved one indisputable fact.

"Climbing the Tower of Despair isn't gonna be an issue at all."

Correction: it was going to be an absolute walk in the park.

So how would dungeons fare? With his mana pool bone-dry from exhaustion, casting spells was out of the question for a while. But who said dungeons had to be farmed with Energy Bolt?

"I can just clear them with a bow."

With these two artifacts equipped, he was practically a divine archer. On top of that, his base attributes had scaled significantly higher.

"Maybe it's time to test the waters in a higher tier."

Every dungeon he had run so far was either F-rank or E-rank. He had shied away from D-rank up to this point because word had it that monsters swarmed in large packs. But he was no longer the fragile newbie who ran out of steam after nocking a handful of arrows. Why not kick things off with a D-rank? If that felt manageable, maybe C-rank... and who knew, perhaps even B-rank?

And so, he stepped inside.

The D-rank dungeon, Rotten Smelling Abandoned Mine.

"Yeah... D-rank definitely hits on another level."

E-rank and F-rank dungeons were almost exclusively wide-open fields, which made sweeping them in a single blast of Energy Bolt effortless. This place, however, assaulted his nostrils with an eye-watering, rotten stench. The claustrophobic tunnels twisted into a pitch-black labyrinth—literally a derelict mine in every sense of the word.

"So I have to comb through this maze hunting down fifty monsters, huh?"

This promised to be far more tedious than expected.

Skreeeech!

Well, at least some of them were generous enough to deliver themselves to his doorstep.

"Let's see how this feels."

Creak—!

He pulled the bowstring taut in a crisp, fluid snap, then let go.

TWANG—BOOOOM!

"Is this thing a bow or an artillery cannon?"

The sheer stopping power made him flinch in disbelief every single time he loosed an arrow. Perhaps because his base stats had jumped across the board, the projectile hit with even greater violence. Yet his arms felt entirely light, lacking even a shred of recoil fatigue.

"Not bad at all."

This made raising his stats completely worth the trouble. Now, time to locate the rest of the pack.

Kreee! Kyaaaak!

The deafening thunderclap of the arrow's explosion had echoed down every shaft, prompting a chorus of shrieking replies from all four corners of the mine.

"Jackpot."

Even better. He didn't even need to waste footsteps searching for them. He stood rooted in place, waited patiently—

KABOOM!

—and picked off the beasts as they threw themselves straight into his line of fire.

Auto-targeting was truly a magnificent piece of equipment. He didn't possess the faintest clue about proper archery technique, yet every shaft found its mark with lethal accuracy. Even in the murky subterranean shadows, the arrows bent their trajectory to plant themselves directly into enemy vitals. All hail the Tower of Transcendence exchange shop.

After casually dropping the initial rush of subterranean pests, he strolled through the tunnels to mop up the scattered survivors.

Chime!

"Sweet..."

A staggering 180 magic stones in one sitting. What was more, it had been laughably easy.

"Drawing the bow is a breeze now, too."

Before his stats spiked, loosing a few dozen arrows would leave his forearms shaking violently. While he hadn't fired quite that many yet, ordinary fatigue should have set in by this point. Instead, his body felt completely refreshed. At this rate, pushing his luck with a C-rank dungeon felt well within reason.

"Hmm."

Just in case things went south, maybe he should let his mana regenerate before making a run at it?

Around that time, a bombshell news bulletin slammed into South Korea's media landscape.

The S-Rank Awakened Dispatch Agreement was straightforward in principle. If an upper-tier A-rank or catastrophic S-rank dungeon spawned—calamities that South Korea lacked the domestic military muscle to handle on its own—China was obligated to dispatch one of its S-rank Awakened powerhouses to provide strike support. Naturally, it was far from a charitable gesture. It had been an intensely predatory, one-sided agreement that demanded exorbitant security fees alongside painful political concessions.

Everyone understood the treaty was humiliatingly unfavorable to South Korea. Yet they had no choice. Ever since the mysterious disappearance of South Korea's solitary S-Rank Awakened, Lee Mungi, the previous year, the Chinese pact had served as the nation's sole emergency insurance and lifeline against total devastation.

Even when that initial statement broke, the public held onto faint hope. Most assumed it was mere diplomatic posturing. After all, the entire global community was watching—surely they wouldn't pull the plug entirely over bruised egos?

Then the hammer fell.

They tore it to shreds. Out of nowhere. Completely unilateral.

Domestic internet forums exploded overnight. Thousands of posts flooded bulletin boards every few minutes.

Every comment section was drowned in curses and raw vitriol. Yet the fiery anger proved short-lived, swiftly replaced by cold, creeping dread. Because beneath the outrage lay a terrifying reality.

South Korea possessed zero natural immunity against S-rank dungeon outbreaks. Hell, it wasn't just S-rank—even the upper echelon of A-rank dungeons posed an existential threat capable of wiping municipal zones off the map. And China had just voided their defense pact. Even worse was the suffocating dead end on other fronts.

Every alternative safety net was likely already compromised. People tried to reassure themselves that an S-rank catastrophe wouldn't just materialize tomorrow, but the sheer unpredictability of gates bred relentless panic. In their desperation, some even grasped at wild straws.

Yet reality crushed that fantasy within seconds.

That was the undeniable truth of the world. Just hours earlier, the public had basked in euphoric celebration over securing the continental buff, Song of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Victory. Now, the atmosphere across the nation plummeted into pitch-black gloom.

"Whew..."

Haun took a breath. He had ventured into a C-rank dungeon just to test his limits, and the verdict was in.

Chime!

A flawless, pristine clear.

"Still, jumping straight to B-rank would be pushing it."

It hadn't taken twenty-four minutes for nothing. The monsters were disgustingly dense in population, and the dungeon geometry was an irritating maze of dead ends. Man... he had drawn that bowstring so many times he thought his shoulder joint would detach from the socket.

Even so...

"It won't be long before B-rank is well within reach."

He was still only Level 12. Since he was knocking out a floor of the Tower of Despair every single day, his levels would rise at the exact same pace.

The golden gacha chests were practically within his grasp. On top of that, the fourth floor of the Tower of Transcendence was waiting for him. Once he conquered those trials, wouldn't B-rank dungeons be a trivial chore?

No, why stop there?

"Maybe clearing an A-rank solo isn't just a pipedream after all."