The Skill Gacha
This was my first time drawing a skill. For an ordinary user it's one of the first things you do after rolling a class, but I didn't stand in front of a skill-draw NPC until I hit level 12.
"If you'd like to draw a skill, place the materials here and rest your hand on the crystal orb."
The Magic Tower NPC explained it kindly. Filling an empty skill slot, they said, didn't take any materials at all. A new slot had opened when I reached level 11, so I figured I'd spin for that one first.
"What if an SS-grade pops on the very first pull?"
"..."
The message demolished my expectations without a shred of mercy, and I was left with nothing to say.
I was a little worried. People had been saying, over and over, that skill draws wouldn't be easy. So I asked.
"How do I roll it again?"
The mage NPC told me the materials.
"A level-11 skill draw requires one lowest-grade essence, three level-11 monster materials, and one lowest-grade magic powder sold at the Magic Tower."
"That's all it takes?"
"Yes."
Hearing it, the whole thing looked easier than I'd expected. I went to the auction house and searched. Lowest-grade essence dropped in level 1 to 20 dungeons, and a pretty enormous pile of it was already up for sale. Viewers told me that monster materials, sorted by level, were cheaper bought in bulk from dealers who specialized in them than off the auction house. And lowest-grade magic powder was something I could simply purchase at the Magic Tower.
"What? This is nothing."
The moment the viewers' warnings were exposed as pure fuss. What I'd been turning over while I listened was the listings—or the lack of them—from when I bought my first SS-grade skill. Those materials had barely been on the auction house, and I'd related, to a point. If you had to buy the materials and roll them yourself, there was bound to be a ceiling, nothing like the ease of letting it drain automatically through Windy Pay.
But lowest-grade essence already had more than tens of thousands listed. Count the listings exactly and you were past the hundreds of thousands. The price, of course, wasn't exactly cheap. It was the core material for rolling low-level skills, about a hundred thousand won apiece. A hundred thousand in Haven money comes to roughly thirty or forty thousand won in cash. Three monster materials ran about twenty to thirty thousand, and lowest-grade magic powder was fifty thousand. Which meant one roll cost somewhere around sixty to eighty thousand won in real money.
"What is this. Everybody. You lied to me?"
The whole thing felt kind of deflated. The feeling didn't last long.
"Still, that's a relief. I was spooked. If it's like this, I can just reroll forever until an SS comes out, right?"
Since I was already here, I bought the materials for expanding skill slots too and headed off. Those were definitely far more expensive than the draws themselves—about five million won at level 11. They said the units change as your level climbs.
"Hmm. Even so, skills are pure efficiency for a spec-up, aren't they? Two a tier, and if I push to level 70 that's fourteen total. Fill every one of them with SS and I'd get seriously strong."
Filling every skill with nothing but attack magic might actually drag the efficiency down. Just enough variety to swap elements depending on the situation. It would be less fun, but if I was thinking about efficiency, I could set them up that way and pack the rest with support magic—spells that strengthen other spells, and status ailments that lock a monster's movement down.
From the very start to the very end, this was a game I'd begun intending to max everything at the top. A little annoying. A little expensive. I had no intention of compromising.
I spent ten billion Haven won and swept the lowest-grade essence clean. Not that the near-million listings vanished in a single stroke.
"They said I'll need them at level 20 anyway, right? If I buy them and don't use them, I'll just sell. Sarang might need some too."
And right then, the donations detonated.
Add up every user in the world and you're past a hundred million. The Korea server alone has to be figured at about a million. That many people take turns hunting dungeons and selling materials. I called on the donation that had offered, with decent sense, to match three hundred thousand.
"The one who said they'd match three hundred thousand—can you come over here?"
They arrived inside of three minutes.
"Hello, boss!"
A solidly built man. Late thirties, by the look of him? A kind face, easy and warm.
"Can you really match it? Within thirty minutes."
"I've got my people bringing it now. Right out front of the Magic Tower."
"Oh."
"Doesn't matter to me, you know? My viewers already got burned once, so the second the word sucker so much as shows up, they start seizing."
"Of course. I'll give you the lowest price. Low-level dungeons are so overstocked that dumping cheap is always how you come out ahead. Haha."
"But why three hundred thousand..."
"..."
"More competitors, for one... and honestly, the mood these days is to breeze past low-level skills, so the stock has piled up."
"Oh. Really? I figured low-level skills were where you could roll something good on the cheap."
The trend ran a little differently from how I thought, and that caught me off guard. Unique options were the same story. People had to know that 1-star and 2-star were where you could pull a good option for the least money. So why were skills any different?
I didn't know how ordinary people played, so I just nodded. The boss who'd promised the lowest price, for his part, laid the unit cost out without a flicker of shame.
"We usually sell these for skill use, so we price them at ten thousand won each. I'll say this up front—if you hunt the auction house for the cheaper monster hides, you can beat that unit price, but it costs you time. I'd appreciate it if you kept that in mind."
Soft-faced as he was, the man was razor-sharp when it came to business.
"As thanks for the bulk order, and a request that you keep looking after us going forward—and with this many people watching, I figure the indirect advertising alone is worth something—I'll do five thousand won apiece."
"Huh? You're really okay with that?"
"I consider it an investment."
Buying at full price wouldn't have bothered me much anyway. What mattered to me from the start wasn't the price. It was whether the supply could actually keep up. Truth was, the thing the viewers had worried over and tried to scare me with was exactly this monster-material problem—a distribution channel that could sell in bulk. Shops handling small and mid-size orders were everywhere, but places that could swallow my scale in one bite were few enough to count on one hand. If the flow broke and I was rolling a handful of times and then stalling out, they figured it would get miserable.
"To be honest with you, I'm a fan of your stream too, Mr. Siwoo. I thought about it while I watched. Once you start drawing skills, this is going to become a trend as well. That's the investment, so I'd be grateful if you just accepted it comfortably."
"I'm the one who's grateful. Shall we trade right now, then?"
Five thousand won each. Three hundred thousand of them. That was 1.5 billion.
A deal that was a win-win any way you looked at it, and then I headed for the Magic Tower.
"A hundred thousand lowest-grade magic powders."
"..."
I weathered even the mage NPC's what kind of lunatic is this stare and stood before the skill draw.
"Hah. A new method. But this smell—I know this smell."
The skill draw began to spin.