To Think There Might Be a 5-Star Exclusive Special Option

He-ssams.

That was the name for the people who camped a Haven Online broadcast and backseated the streamer. There was no deeper meaning to it. You just stuck the word teacher on the end and used it sometimes as a jab, sometimes with actual respect.

Most of them were users who played Haven Online lightly. Real Haven addicts weren't at a level where they could hunt with a stream running in the background, and high-level rankers farmed dungeons where losing focus for a single second got you killed. Where were they supposed to find time to watch a broadcast? The viewers were bound to be people half-assing low-level dungeons and filling their breaks with streams. And because low-level users outnumbered rankers by a ridiculous margin, advice about Haven usually wasn't worth much of anything.

Of course, that was only the ordinary case.

"What are you He-ssams even talking about?"

"Come on. My stream isn't that famous... though I guess I can't really say it isn't."

With the exclusive option rolling on its own, there was nothing to do. Just shooting the breeze. While it was spinning, nothing in the world could be more boring. Stop it, though, and the itch came crawling back. I wanted to shut myself inside this dull, joyless stretch of time.

"Shame. Didn't hit."

At least today it had only been five hours. A four-star option rerolled automatically once every five seconds—twelve times a minute, seven hundred and twenty times an hour. Five hours meant thirty-six hundred rolls in all.

Someone had tallied up the money, and reading it, I caught myself thinking the same thing. Why? Back when I was still rolling for a three-star SS, I'd agonized over what to do about four-star. No matter how much money I had, having it and setting it on fire were two different things. Call it a psychological line in the sand. Spending in the hundreds of millions already felt like something you didn't just do, and once the numbers climbed past a billion, then ten billion, the ordinary thought rose on its own: Is this really okay? Shouldn't I be saving? That was how it had been.

Then I pulled the three-star SS, went shopping for items, and cashed out up to a hundred billion, and that line seemed to have slid a long way back. I didn't feel much of anything. Seven hundred and twenty million an hour?

"Pocket ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠change."

Rolling rerolls with Haven money was a little different from doing it with real-world cash. Even so, the thought didn't change.

About that much.

"Be nice if rolling a house's worth actually hit."

For the moment I quit the rolls and headed out to meet the user who'd contacted me.

While the options were rolling, they could argue in chat all they liked. Keep talking nothing but options once he moved on to something else, though, and you got banned. So the He-ssams relocated to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠community boards.

Anyone else might have been scolded for drifting off topic, but to them this was an extremely important subject.

Because this was a chance to prove, at least in part, an option logic that had never once been made public in two years. It wasn't a hundred percent certain, of course. But an option that had never been revealed even a single time had appeared only on a 5-Star. That, in its own way, was a sample with some credibility to it.

To begin with, the theory that special options of S-grade or higher only appeared from three-star upward had itself come out only after a large sample of 4-Star users' exclusive options was made public. Users on the other boards had plenty to say—what are you even talking about, this is boring—but the He-ssams' debate did not end.

And after a long time, the hypothesis that emerged was simple.

Put in a way that was easier to grasp, it looked like this.

Option grades were stacked like a pyramid, and only when your class rank met the requirement did those options unlock and enter the pool together. Which was why 4-Star Class users, numerous as they were, could roll and reroll forever and still never lay eyes on the skill rank +1 option Kim Siwoo had pulled.

Push it further.

Even among the options opened only to a 5-Star Class, there was a separate exclusive special option that appeared solely on SS (★★★★★). That was the core point Magic skill rank +1 proved. Work backward from it, and the same would hold at four-star.

5-Star. SS. Four-star.

A special option that satisfied all three conditions would exist at a hellish probability, reachable only after forcing your way through a triple labyrinth. And that option would, without question, be one hundred percent disgustingly broken.

The conclusion was simple enough. Gut-twisting envy.

And then a new conclusion. Until now, Haven Online's endgame-spec standard had looked like this.

There were standards for Badges and the various bits of content that unlocked along the way, but the baseline everyone actually looked at was exactly that. This was Haven's current endgame spec. Reach it, and once your level caught up, you could comfortably pull your weight in a raid attempting 5-Star content twenty levels above you.

That was changing.

Of course, it was a standard with no real substance behind it, something cooked up by the Haven users who lived on the boards, so some people might accept it and some might not. Most of the current, though, was flowing toward acceptance. Because they were watching. From the moment a 5-Star Class was pulled, right up to now. The ceiling a 5-Star Class held, and the potential.

A solemn mood settled over the boards.

Not everyone felt the same, of course. Plenty of people couldn't have cared less. Even so, the reason they all ended up learning a fact they had no interest in was simple. Kim Siwoo had arrived at the meeting place and, while he waited, gone lurking through the boards.

"Hmm. I see. Everyone, let's all roll 5-Stars and enjoy our Happy Haven."

"I'm sorry, but could we talk with the broadcast off?"

"Oh. Of course."

At the request of the user who'd shown up while I was idling on the community, I cut the video feed and the mic. You can't buy every item with the stream running. Some sellers hate being exposed, and turning up on a broadcast tends to work against you in a deal for all sorts of reasons. Ellen's Tears and the Lich King's Soul Pouch had been special cases, so I'd leaned on the broadcast a little for those, but for an ordinary trade, turning it off was the fair way to do business.

"First, the 5-star accessory I have is this."

Mid-twenties, maybe. The man in glasses carefully held out a necklace.

"The thing is... it is 5-star, but the options are awkward, so I haven't been able to use it. The level range is awkward for selling, too, so it won't move... Would you take a look?"

What's he on about? As a rule, 5-star accessories sold well no matter the level range. If anything, I'd heard that rankers happily bought lower-level accessories too, so long as they had a price advantage over high-level ones. The gap in options wasn't that extreme.

Then I saw the options, and my head nodded on its own.

"So even something like this can come out 5-star."

"Yes... it was a dud."