Class Level Lock
If there was one problem, it was that Jin-soo had no way to call Lucy.
If I had something expensive on me — a bone-dragon byproduct, say — she'd come looking on her own two feet. He had nothing of the sort. For now, all I can do is wait for the number of listings to climb.
He was turning that over while he restocked the empty sale slots, when the system spoke.
The number of items for sale has increased to 200.
The count of sale listings had reached two hundred. The blessings answered at once.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
Huh?
The blessings grow just because the sale count went up? A dry laugh stirred in his chest. Then again, anything tied to the number two is enough.
He had almost certainly missed it at the time, but blessing experience had likely piled up even when the listings went from ten to twenty. Not bad. When the count hit two hundred and twenty, they would grow again — that much was obvious. And the prices and quantities of everything I've sold so far have probably been feeding them experience as well.
Whenever the number of items sold landed on a figure bound to two — two, twenty-two, one hundred twenty-two, two hundred twenty, two hundred twenty-two — it would have nudged the blessings along. Plenty of things I overlooked must still have nourished them.
He had arrived on the Tower's 200th Floor, and his sale listings had reached two hundred. That may have helped too. From here on, blessing experience would accumulate every time he climbed. Until I reach Tower Floor 300, every floor is tied to two.
If he thought of nothing but the blessings, he wanted to race up the Tower as fast as he could. But I can't. He had to claim everything there was to claim before he stepped onto Floor 201. It's not as if any of it is going to run away.
The blessing experience waiting through the 200s was a bonus already guaranteed to pay out. Late or early, he would receive it either way, so there was no sense hurrying into a loss just to collect it a little sooner.
I wonder what rose this time.
The blessings had been growing without pause. Every one of Jin-soo's stats now stood at 1,722, and his skill level lock sat at level 1,322. Lately it's been Holy Body and Dark Body, leveling one after the other.
He opened his status window and looked over the new blessings. What he wanted most was a class level lock, and a lock on synthesis skill levels. This one's a bust too. He had been striking out without a break, so of course he assumed this draw would be empty as well.
The levels of 2 holy-affinity classes are locked at 22.
It wasn't a bust.
A Class Level Lock had formed within the Yellow God's blessing.
Jin-soo shot to his feet and clenched his fist tight. It still wasn't perfect. Only holy-affinity classes? That was a problem. He didn't worry over it long, though — the Red God's blessing was still waiting. Might as well check the rest.
He already had a fair guess what it would be.
The levels of 2 dark-affinity classes are locked at 22.
The guess landed dead on.
As expected. Now he had a way to raise the class levels of both holy and dark affinities. I still don't have much room in the count. Two each — four in all — and the level he could lock was a mere twenty-two. Slower than I thought, but...
He had half believed it might never appear at all. That it had shown up, even now, came first.
As the blessings grow, the level I can lock — and the number of times I can lock it — will rise too. One more reason to push them faster. First, I'll take Sovereign Necromancer and Dominator Necromancer to level 22.
The class levels of Sovereign Necromancer and Dominator Necromancer, stuck at 2 for so long, rose to 22. No great change. Perhaps because the level was still low, no new summon-buff skills appeared. There was no cause for disappointment, though.
The growth limit of Army Summons increases slightly.
The intelligence of Army Summons increases slightly.
Those messages had surfaced the instant the class levels rose.
An increase in the Army Summons' growth cap alone is an enormous gain.
Shadow Summons grew strong beneath the weight of Jin-soo's stats and blessings. Army Summons were different. Their combat power was decided by how powerful the original had been, and the ceiling on how far they could surpass that original was quite low. The stronger the original, the faster they slammed into it. Now that constraint had loosened, if only by a hair.
And the higher their intelligence, the better. A rise in a summon's intelligence sharpened its grasp of the fine orders Jin-soo gave and made cleaner, more efficient combat possible. Even when they fought on the memories engraved in Hun and Po, higher intelligence would let them draw more of those memories out. And this isn't the end of it.
The limit of Hun that can be made into Army Summons increases slightly.
The limit of Po that can be made into Army Summons increases slightly.
As the class levels of Sovereign Necromancer and Dominator Necromancer climbed, so did the ceiling on what could be made into summons.
I've never once failed to turn a Hun or a Po into a summon while using Army Summon. That had been thanks to the skill's high level. Looking at it now, though, a high class level seemed to raise the ceiling on summonable Hun and Po on its own, regardless of the Army Summon skill's level. Just because it hasn't been a problem yet doesn't mean it never will be.
Some problems could be brute-forced with skill level. Others could not. The trouble would have shown up when I tried to make high-caliber Hun and Po from the Tower's upper-middle floors into summons. Now there was nothing to worry about. He only had to keep raising his class levels. The problem had been wiped clean before it could even appear.
Good. He could still lift one more holy-affinity class and one more dark-affinity class to level 22. No need to agonize over it. Raising a level 2 class to 22 would not bring any dramatic change, and he had only one use left for each. No reason, then, to buy extra class-change scrolls.
Jin-soo raised his current classes to level 22. As expected. Nothing dramatic. All he gained was one additional class skill apiece. I'll make them into synthesis skills for now.
When the work was done, he turned an expectant gaze on the Red God's blessing and the Yellow God's.
If I could lock even twenty-two classes at level 122, a great deal would change. He would be able to step past each class's basic skills and forge their early core skills into synthesis skills. And if the lockable class level climbed higher still, the day would come when he could turn each class's highest-tier skills into synthesis skills and wield them as he pleased.
Jin-soo looked away from the blessings and set about sorting the auction-house inventory. Gather steadily. If he wanted to buy class-change scrolls later without feeling the cost, and burn them as single-use items, he needed to stockpile as many points as he could now.
The very next day, Jin-soo's party left the city for the hunting grounds. Eyes followed them in secret.
They belonged to the rank-and-file of the Daehan Guild's branch in the second city. The guild had posted its lowest members at the gates of every city, and those members had memorized the party's descriptions in advance. The moment Jin-soo's group entered, word went up at once and a tail was set on them. The next day, the watchers cross-checked the descriptions passed down from above against the party itself.
"Going by the description, those have to be them, right?"
"I'm sure of it. Let's report in."
The guild members returned to the branch and filed their report upward without delay.
I only just got back.
Choi Woohyeong, Guild Master of the Daehan Guild, frowned. He had gone all the way to the Starting City, come up empty, and returned to the Final City only a few days before. Back out I go.
He turned his steps once more toward the second Starting City.
Jin-soo's party threw themselves into the hunt without missing a single day. Jin-soo was driven, and Shin Sua and Cheon Museong brimmed with even more appetite for it. In a mere three days they swept up every achievement the second city had to offer.
Looks like we've found most of the hidden dungeons, too.
Unfortunately, every one of them was a bust. Not a Sun-Moon Divine Pellet — not even a Demon Spirit Divine Pill. A fair number of spirit elixirs that nudge stats up did drop, though.
They might matter to Shin Sua or Cheon Museong. To Jin-soo, a spirit elixir was useless. Even the two of them, who had hunted with such fire, seemed to sag a little once the rewards proved so modest. I couldn't even tell you when spirit elixirs started counting as modest.
Shin Sua and Cheon Museong understood their worth perfectly well. They fetched high prices at the auction house, and stats rose the moment you swallowed one. Misjudge that value and you would have to be trying. But knowing a thing's worth and being satisfied by it were not the same.
Shin Sua had been at Jin-soo's side since the 50th Floor and had worked her way through countless spirit elixirs. Cheon Museong treated them as rewards that ought to appear as a matter of course whenever you killed a monster or cleared a dungeon. To the two of them, a spirit elixir was no jackpot. It was a modest reward. Ordinary players would have been well within their rights to curse the pair for growing fat and ungrateful...
Those two have earned it.
Before the regression, Shin Sua had been called the Holy Saintess, and Cheon Museong the Weird God. All that had happened was that the day they came to see spirit elixirs as modest rewards had arrived a little early. Nothing of real substance had changed. Even so, the lower your stats, the more spirit elixirs you ought to take in.
It was a far better position than the one before the regression.
"Shall we head out?"
"Yeah."
"Yes, My Lord."
The party left the second city. Around lunch that same day, Daehan Guild Master Choi Woohyeong arrived there — and came up empty once again.
This hidden dungeon is a bust too.
Another spirit elixir he couldn't even make use of. From where Jin-soo stood, the disappointment was inevitable. They could at least hand over a class-change scroll or a skill book. It truly stung. How many hidden dungeons are even left around here?
He was clicking his tongue at the waste of it when Demirich, one of the Army Summons, suddenly passed along something he had not expected in the slightest.
You found a space you can't enter?
Jin-soo had been turning the Army Summons loose to hunt all this time, and not once had a report like this come back. Summons, to the last of them, were so cockeyed they couldn't tell an item from an ordinary object. So I fixed it by ordering them to hunt the monsters and pocket whatever came out.
The order to report any space they couldn't enter had been given so they would find hidden dungeons. These wall-eyed fools, though, could not tell a path blocked by a rock or a tree from a space they couldn't pass because a hidden dungeon sat there. I did tighten the orders because of that. Not one of them had filed a proper report until now. And now we've got a first. The odds that it was a false report, however, were very high.
I'd check this instant if I had my way. The distance was considerable, and time was too precious to set out already braced for a wasted trip. I'll have to go later. It was a stretch he would need to sweep anyway while searching for hidden dungeons. If it's real, it's a jackpot. Pinning down a hidden dungeon's location ahead of time would save time. And I can't find every hidden dungeon myself.
Jin-soo had one body. He could not comb every reach of that vast hunting ground. His success rate was high only because he sought out the places where a hidden dungeon was likely to be. Unless it's one I cleared before the regression, it can never be a sure thing.
Which was why this, at least, was encouraging.