Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set (2)
A player's level, a job's level, a skill's level, an item's level—none of them climbed without end just because one diligently cut down monsters of a merely adequate rank.
To reach that level, you need a caliber built from deeds worthy of it.
Items steeped in extraordinary deeds were not traded at outrageous prices for nothing.
A ceiling comes every five hundred levels.
Those who, in the midst of the hunt, slew monsters of high caliber and stacked up fitting deeds had no trouble raising their levels at all.
But the ones who don't eventually slam into a wall.
No matter how many monsters they killed, their levels refused to rise. They had never built the caliber required to stand at that height. It was usually the sort who took no risks, hunted only what was safe, and settled comfortably into the present.
Well. On Floor 100, that's information you couldn't learn even if you wanted to.
Floor 100 simply wasn't high enough for players who had failed to build their caliber to start hitting their limits.
If a new blessing appears, I want a job-level lock. Nothing else.
Failing that, he would have settled for a lock on synthesized skill levels.
I'll have to move even harder.
Floor 100 was vast enough to pass for a nation's entire territory. That meant just as many achievements waiting to be claimed, and just as many hidden dungeons alongside the ones already known.
I wish another place like the Undead Hidden Dungeon would turn up. Just one more.
Unfortunately, nothing of the sort existed in Jin-soo's memory.
Still, I'll look. Diligently.
Who could say? Floor 100 might be hiding a honey pot he knew nothing about.
For now, sleep.
A proper rest today was what would let him push again tomorrow. After putting up the goods he meant to sell at the auction house, Jin-soo sank into a deep sleep.
The next morning, once breakfast was done, Jin-soo headed out to hunt with Shin Sua and put the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set through its paces.
"Graaaaaagh!"
An orc great warrior brought a massive axe around in a killing arc. Jin-soo had more than enough time to dodge. He didn't bother.
The impact landed with a thunderous crash, axe and left arm meeting head-on.
Steel whispered. Jin-soo took the orc great warrior's head and looked his armor over.
Not a single scratch.
His body was untouched as well.
For today's test, he had refused Shin Sua's holy-attribute blessings and protection skills.
This much, even with no blessing and no protection on me.
Gear really was the truth.
And if I stack holy blessings, protection, and a tank's guardian skills on top of this?
He would have a defense that was, for all practical purposes, invincible.
Hunting's about to get even easier.
No more dodging. No more blocking. No more splitting his attention. He could pour every ounce of power straight into the attack, and of course the hunt would speed up. It was only natural.
Enjoy it while I can.
The defense granted by the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set would not last forever.
Right now it's close to invincible, but...
The higher he climbed the Tower, the stronger the monsters would become, until the armor finally met its limit.
Well. That's still a long way off.
Which meant that now, while the gear could still do what it was meant to do, he had to wring every last coin of value out of it.
"Sua. Blessings and protection. All of them."
The test was over. No point dragging it out.
"Okay."
Shin Sua laid holy-attribute blessings and protection skills over him.
"Leo."
"Nyaaaaaang!"
At Jin-soo's call, Leo answered with another wide-area taunt roar, and monsters came pouring in from every side.
Time to cut loose properly.
Blessed and shielded, Jin-soo let a smile touch his mouth and threw himself back into the hunt.
Jin-soo and Shin Sua toured the cities of Floor 100 and swept every hunting ground in reach.
They plotted their route with meticulous care so as not to miss a single title, and with the know-how built from memory and experience before his regression, he cleared every hidden dungeon they found.
Of course, no amount of diligence produced the explosive gains of the Maw Ant Burrow or the Undead Hidden Dungeon. Even so, he was able to grow his blessings at a steady pace.
In the end Jin-soo raised every stat to 1,022, and pushed the locked levels of his skills and items to 622.
His Constitution had grown to level 322 as well. And in the middle of a hunt, the blessings advanced.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
Finally.
Heart pounding, Jin-soo opened his status window.
Just as I thought.
A new blessing had appeared at last.
"Let's rest a moment."
Shin Sua looked at him.
"Should I use Sanctuary?"
"No need. It really will only be a moment."
"Okay. Got it."
Jin-soo halted the hunt and fixed his attention on the blessing that had just been born.
What on earth does this mean?
He had expected a job-level lock, or a lock on synthesis levels. The blessing that had actually appeared blew straight past every prediction.
You will have two jobs.
Two jobs?
He already held two. And now he would have two?
Could it be?
Jin-soo drew a job advancement tome from his inventory. It was a Black Iron Warrior tome, picked up while hunting—common as dirt, the market flooded with them, and cheap because of it.
He attempted the advancement. In that instant, a choice rose before him.
Delete your existing job, Flash Archer?
[Yes] [No]
This choice never used to appear.
Normally the existing job, Flash Archer, vanished on its own, and he was simply advanced into Black Iron Warrior.
Jin-soo selected No.
The advancement completed in that instant.
Jin-soo checked his status window.
Insane. I can hold two jobs at once, in a single status window?
Even now, he possessed the skills of every job. But that had only ever been a workaround, pieced together through Skill Synthesis.
This isn't that.
Jin-soo opened his job skills.
Both of them are here.
Flash Archer's skills and Black Iron Warrior's skills existed side by side in the same window.
"Ha! Hahaha!"
A great laugh burst out of him.
"Did something good happen?"
At Shin Sua's question, Jin-soo nodded.
"Yeah."
"I see."
Shin Sua's expression darkened, just a little. Jin-soo didn't notice. The joy was too big.
Good. Very good.
The blessing he had wanted—a job-level lock, or a lock on synthesized skill levels—had not come. Even so, he was satisfied.
Through Skill Synthesis he already held the skills of every job, and yet he had always felt something missing, something short of enough. It was not simply the feeling of having learned only each job's basic skills. It was hunger for the levels of the synthesized skills themselves.
A synthesized skill's level never leaves the moment it was first made.
He still used the first ones, and used them well. But the gap between those and the ones made later was brutal.
The first synthesized skills are only level 222.
The ones he had made this time sat at a staggering 622.
To close that gap, I have to make new synthesized skills in the end.
Two jobs eased the problem, if only a little. For one of them, he would no longer need to synthesize anything at all.
The moment the job level I can lock rises, I can apply it on the spot.
But that was not the whole of why he was glad.
I can finally use the unique-grade advancement tomes.
Jin-soo held not one but two unique-grade job advancement tomes, each the only one of its kind in existence: the Dominion Necromancer tome and the Sovereign Necromancer tome, both taken when he cleared the Undead Hidden Dungeon.
Until now I wanted to use them and couldn't.
To keep upgrading his synthesized skills, he had been forced to abandon whatever job he already held.
With two jobs, I'm free of that.
Until now, those two tomes had been nothing but a feast painted on the wall.
Not anymore.
He could keep one job fixed. There was no longer any need to let unique-grade advancement tomes rot in his inventory.
Even if a blessing had raised my job level, I still couldn't have used the Dominion Necromancer or Sovereign Necromancer tomes.
The reason was simple.
Even if a blessing that locks job level appeared, the starting point would almost certainly be level 22.
After that it would grow in order: 122, 222, 322.
From where Jin-soo stood, unless he was willing to give up the mid- and high-tier skills of other jobs, he would have to keep swapping. And then the Dominion Necromancer and Sovereign Necromancer tomes would have gone on sleeping in his inventory.
That always stung.
For someone who already held three summoner skills—Shadow Summons, Dragon Tooth Soldiers, and the Maw Ant Colony—the unique-grade Dominion Necromancer and Sovereign Necromancer tomes were a temptation he could not easily set aside.
A necromancer is a branch of the summoner, in the end.
On top of that, none of them—the shadow summons, the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, the Maw Ant Colony—were living creatures.
Not undead. Close enough.
He did not expect the fit with a necromancer's job to be poor.
Test it first.
Jin-soo took out a cheap holy-attribute advancement tome and tried to advance.
You are a dark-attribute player. Advancement to Flash Warrior, a holy-attribute job, is impossible.
So I can only change into jobs of the same attribute.
Two jobs granted less freedom than two status windows.
Jin-soo took out a dark-attribute warrior advancement tome and tried again.
Which existing job will you delete: Flash Archer or Black Iron Warrior?
[Flash Archer] [Black Iron Warrior]
So that's how it works.
He chose which job to delete.
Thank god.
If the deletion had been random, or if the job advanced most recently vanished on its own, he would have been in trouble. This was a mercy.
Jin-soo selected Black Iron Warrior.
Swapped cleanly.
The job skills had updated as well. Only the Twin Axe Warrior's remained where the Black Iron Warrior's had been.
Test's over.
Jin-soo took up the Sovereign Necromancer tome, dark-attribute, and attempted the advancement.
Which existing job will you delete: Flash Archer or Twin Axe Warrior?
[Flash Archer] [Twin Axe Warrior]
Jin-soo selected Twin Axe Warrior.
For an instant Magic Power and Mental Strength surged, and a fierce exhilaration rose with them. But the blessing devoured the increased stats in a blink, and the feeling lasted only the briefest moment.
All right. Time to look at the skills.
Basic skills, yes—but this was a unique-grade job, the only one of its kind in the Tower.
Jin-soo couldn't help but look forward to it.