Crescent Moon's Blessing

The performance was everything I could have wanted.

"Whoa. You can just keep this going?"

"The cast time's a little long."

Right. Casting. I was a Dragon Words Mage, so I didn't have cast times at all, but Lim Sarang had nothing like a cast-deletion option baked into her base effects. Whenever she used a skill, she still had to cast it. Holy magic was magic all the same, so that was only natural.

"...Feels like about thirty seconds."

"And the cooldown?"

"I don't think it has one."

Unless something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could shred the shield in a single hit and land a direct blow on me before that thirty-second cast finished, my survival was more or less guaranteed. The mana cost was steep, sure, but not so steep that one use would wring me dry.

Other classes couldn't shave seventy-eight percent off their mana and coast on it the way she could. Anyone with a 2-star class or higher could roll a 2-star SS option, but the numbers weren't the same. Even by 4-Star Class standards, that option didn't even reach forty percent.

Next came Crescent Moon's Blessing.

"Whoa."

A buff skill. Not just any buff, either—an attack-power buff.

The reaction hit harder than it had for Moonlight Protection, and of course it did. Moonlight Protection was a shield skill, nothing more. Broken, yes—absurdly hard to punch through—but from a viewer's seat, they were never the ones who had to punch through it. Think of it that way, and the heart settles. Crescent Moon's Blessing was a different story. You could tell yourself you'd never be the one on the receiving end of that either, but then you had to imagine the skills fired under it, and how monstrous they'd become. Just picturing it made my stomach hurt.

I felt the same way.

"Want to head straight into a 5-star?"

"Huh...? Right now?"

"Yeah. I've got a feeling it'll work."

"You think so?"

She still hadn't geared a single low-level item. Even so, Lim Sarang stepped out in front of me without a flicker of doubt.

"If we die, we die."

"Ha. That's the spirit."

"I played it so safe back in my ranker days that now I kind of want to live wild in the tutorial."

"Let's go. I'll keep you safe."

"Then I'm trusting only you, Siwoo."

"You got it!"

On a whim, right then and there, we went looking for a level 1 5-star dungeon.

This 5-star dungeon wasn't a themed one. I picked the first ordinary place I found, a dungeon whose monsters had simply had their attack and health pumped by run-of-the-mill special options, and the moment we stepped inside I smiled at the monster wave rolling toward us in a tide.

Once, I might have been a little tense. Even now that I'd reached level 12, a level 1 5-star dungeon was the sort of place thirty or forty players entered only after their builds were finished. I was still at a level where a single clean hit would kill me. I wasn't worried now. A barrier wrapped around me.

Watching the red of my open health bar drown under white, I flung up the hand that held my staff. Before we'd come in, I'd already sunk my thirteen spare stat points into Magic, and with my items on top of that, Magic sat at 109.

The Fireballs would be stronger. Under the Amplification Necklace, skill damage rose by a hundred percent, and the Fireballs took shape beneath it. One. Two. Three. Five of them, born of Pentacasting, then breeding out to eight through Fireball's special option. They burned fierce enough to scour the oncoming wave to ash.

Unfortunately, Fireball wasn't the star today.

A deep hum rolled through the air. Mana resonated, and the special option that had newly claimed a slot on my 4-star SS option flexed its strength—the thing that emerged once the condition of Pentacasting was met. The empty air split, and a spell was drawn out of it.

What would come out?

Part of me was eager. Part of me wasn't. I was live, so I wore a suitably expectant face, but I'd already read the innate option and I knew how it worked. The level of the spell that appeared shifted in probability with my current level. The exact rates weren't listed, but a spell scaled to where I stood now was the likely pull, which meant a level 11 spell had the best odds. After that, maybe level 1, or something around level 21. A level 100 spell, sitting way out on the far horizon, would be hovering near zero.

A nothing spell popping out would have been a performance in its own ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right. If the first shot, with everyone holding their breath, turned out to be a dud, it would take the sky-high expectations riding a 350-billion-won option down a peg. It wasn't an option I'd wanted to roll in the first place, so that might even have been for the best. And then, right when the anticipation had died completely, if it landed like a critical hit proccing off pure dumb luck and burned itself into everyone's memory—that would be a genuine chart reversal.

A heavier thrum answered me. Something was wrong. From the opened space came a sound too vast to belong to a dud.

"Huh?"

The message hung in front of my eyes. If I wasn't seeing things, it was a level 71 spell—and the name alone reeked of an attack spell.

The rift tearing through space kept widening, and the churn of mana grew louder with it. The monster wave drew closer, but I didn't hurry. The space opened further, and out of it came a single enormous, blazing meteor.

Heat fierce enough to burn everything washed over my skin. It was so strong I thought I might have charred if Moonlight Protection hadn't been covering me, and it wasn't just a feeling. The shield's health bar was ticking down, faint as the loss was. A spell that dealt damage by heat alone.

I tried moving Day of Apocalypse. It handled no differently from a Fireball, answering my will as I aimed it. Heavy, a little, but not so heavy that it slipped my control.

I wanted its information. Unfortunately, a spell summoned this way didn't seem willing to show any. That was fine. Being told it was level 71, and being given a name, was something. I was satisfied.

The 4-star SS special option. No—the 4-star SS class-exclusive special option. I'd picked up the nickname of the 350-billion-won sucker, and on the very first try the thing proved it was worth the price.

I owed it an apology. Random. I'd judged it far too cheaply on the strength of that one word. The 4-star SS class-exclusive special option carried the letters (SS) as well. Whatever spell came out, it meant SS-rank—and once it linked with the 3-star SS special option, that grade locked at SSS.

A low rush of air, and the Fireballs latched on around Day of Apocalypse like an escort and flew with it, arcing down into the heart of the oncoming wave.

BOOOOM!

The instant Day of Apocalypse struck the earth, it showed the whole world that it lived up to its name.

It felt like watching a nuclear bomb fall. From the exact patch of ground where it landed, a baptism of flame surged outward like a wave, racing in every direction in a single breath and swallowing the monster wave whole. Before even a few dozen seconds had passed, the radius had stretched for kilometers, and of course it swept over the spot where Lim Sarang and I stood. The one mercy was that while the heat did damage, the blast itself never touched us directly. If my own spell had hurt me—if it had hurt my party member—we might not have survived. It was that powerful.

And while I stood there marveling, another message had already appeared. Lim Sarang's buff, noticed a beat too late.

Attack power jumped to two hundred percent on that twenty-eight percent proc, then stacked with the 1-star innate SS option's +105% skill effect. A joint production.

The dungeon came out spotless.

So did the chat.