The Blood-Sucking Sword (2)

Jin-soo's Mental stat was a mere 322. But that figure was nothing more than a number living on a status window—a crude tally of how accurately and stably he could cast his skills, and of how well he could resist an enemy's attack skills and curses.

The iron will and mental fortitude he had forged climbing from Floor 1 all the way to Floor 2,222 before his regression were not something a status-window stat could reduce to a digit.

So that's why his face looked familiar.

Only now did he remember who the leader of the bandits that had ambushed him really was.

The Bloodfiend. The one who owned the Blood-Sucking Sword. It was him.

Before the regression, the man must have stumbled by luck into the Mimic Dungeon, a hidden dungeon on Floor 2, and claimed the Blood-Sucking Sword there.

The Bloodfiend had been a madman, bewitched by the blade, slaughtering players and monsters alike without distinction in his hunger for blood.

I killed him with my own hands last time, too.

Jin-soo had slain the Bloodfiend then and taken the sword for himself.

Even then, the Blood-Sucking Sword tried its little tricks.

It was doing the same thing now.

So what do I do with it?

Jin-soo sank briefly into thought. Before the regression he had thrown it to the Heukcheon Demonic Sword—his beloved blade—as fodder for that sword's growth. He couldn't do that now. He didn't have the Heukcheon Demonic Sword.

I'll just use it.

The Blood-Sucking Sword's level was a staggering 179. On Floor 2, finding a weapon anywhere near as good was next to impossible, so wielding it himself looked like the better choice.

If it had a drawback, it was this: the sword's cry rang endlessly through his skull. A thing like the Blood-Sucking Sword could neither corrupt his mind nor seize his body. Still, the fact that it never stopped trying to dominate him was more than a little irritating.

"Too loud. Maybe I ought to just smash it."

Jin-soo muttered, caught the blade in his grip, and twisted as he hauled his mana up.

The edge shrieked—a grating, unnatural sound—and warped.

High level and sturdy durability or not, a sword was still a sword. At the end of the day, it was a lump of metal.

And its level only looks high by Floor 2 standards.

Climb any higher and weapons better than the Blood-Sucking Sword would be lying around everywhere.

Well. There is the variable of it being a growth-type weapon.

The Blood-Sucking Sword he had taken off the Bloodfiend before the regression had been far higher in level than this one. That had only been possible because it was a growth-type weapon, raising its level by drinking blood.

It was usable right away, and it could grow, so he had meant to put it to work. But if it kept rebelling like this, wielding it would be nothing but a nuisance.

Ah—of course he wasn't actually going to break it.

Do you have any idea what this thing is worth?

There were side effects, yes, but it was still, in name at least, a named growth-type armament with an ego. Once he could use the auction house, he could sell it off for a very handsome price.

Going to submit?

If it still refused after all this, he would have no choice but to leave it in his inventory and pull it out only when he needed it, using it on the spot and putting it away again.

A hairline crack spiderwebbed across the Blood-Sucking Sword.

Any more and it really goes.

It was a breath away from shattering. A little more force and it would truly break.

In that instant the Blood-Sucking Sword abandoned the persona it had been clinging to, cried out in a panic, and submitted to Jin-soo. As proof, the blood-red haze that had been seeping into his body vanished without a trace.

"Well then. Let's see how you handle."

Jin-soo hung the Blood-Sucking Sword at his waist.

Knew you'd fold.

A wry smile tugged at his mouth. The reason he had stooped to threatening a sword, of all things, was simple. Before the regression, when the Blood-Sucking Sword had been thrown to the Heukcheon Demonic Sword as food, it had begged in a wretched voice right up to the brink of annihilation, pleading to be spared. So he had tried a threat—and it had taken well enough.

The sword whined.

"Keep your mouth shut if you don't want to be smashed completely."

At Jin-soo's warning, the Blood-Sucking Sword clamped its mouth shut for good.

Quiet. Much better.

He gathered whatever supplies were worth taking and stepped out of the dungeon. He needed to hunt monsters—both for his own growth, and to restore the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Blood-Sucking Sword.

The options are decent.

By absorbing blood, the sword could repair itself, increase its cutting power, inflict a bleeding effect, raise its durability, and more. It didn't only strengthen itself. By spending the blood it drank, it could heighten the user's physical ability and restore vitality. For use on Floor 2, it was more than enough.

So it doesn't reach item skills, either.

The Ring of Recovery and the Ring of Deterioration were level 22, which was why their options had been level 22 as well. The blessing simply couldn't touch the level of a skill embedded in an item.

All the better.

If a high-level item had been forcibly dragged down to level 2, or even level 22, the loss would have been catastrophic for him. He had dodged that worst case.

I wish I had another one like the Blood-Sucking Sword. Any chance of finding one?

Probably not. Landing a weapon of this caliber on the lower floors was about as likely as winning the lottery.

And why did that thing have to swing a two-handed axe?

How much better would it have been if the Goblin Champion had used a sword?

Setting the regret aside, Jin-soo picked up the highest-level piece among his newly acquired items: a level 7 longsword.

"Krrruk!"

"Kyaaaak!"

Goblins came charging at him.

A clean slash. A wet punch of steel. Jin-soo hunted them down with the Blood-Sucking Sword in one hand and the level 7 longsword in the other.

The Blood-Sucking Sword drank the goblins' blood with gluttonous greed. As if boasting of its considerable level, it didn't stop at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ones it had killed itself—it hauled in, from a distance, the blood spilling from corpses cut down by the level 7 longsword and swallowed that too.

The drained goblin bodies shriveled and stuck to the ground like mummies.

The cracks are still there.

Neither the increase in cutting power nor the boost to the user's physical ability had triggered. It looked as though he would have to feed it a good deal more blood before it was truly worth using.

I'll stuff you full.

Jin-soo made for the site of the next hidden dungeon, cutting down the monsters that rushed him from every side.

In the midst of the hunt, the level of his class, Blood Demon Swordsman, rose.

But the blessing restored it to what it had been in an instant.

So class level is locked too.

His face tightened, but he had no choice except to trust that the blessings would take care of it.

Jin-soo kept hunting.

The gap between level-ups got shorter.

Jin-soo had been a level 2 player on Floor 1, and he was a level 2 player on Floor 2. Monsters were a different story.

Floor 1 goblins and Floor 2 goblins are the same species, but not the same level.

Naturally, a Floor 2 goblin outleveled a Floor 1 goblin. That meant it gave more experience.

Later on, a single monster might be enough to power-level me.

Not that it would matter. Level and stats would snap right back to where they had been.

And the level and stats that vanish will feed the blessings' growth.

Of course, the more the blessings grew, the more level and stats they would demand in turn.

But a low level doesn't mean fewer stats.

Whether he climbed from level 2 to 3 or from 102 to 103, the stats he gained were the same. The experience required to go from 2 to 3, though, and the experience required to go from 102 to 103, were heaven and earth apart.

The higher the floor, the higher the monsters' levels.

Which meant that the higher he climbed, the more efficient blessing growth through level-ups became.

Good.

From where Jin-soo stood, this was an enormous gain.

I cross to Floor 3 at exactly twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds.

He was certain the blessings would grow.

Keep moving.

Before he went up to Floor 3, he had to monopolize the titles and the hidden dungeons.

Some twenty-two hours after he had arrived on Floor 2, Jin-soo finished what he had set out to do.

The problem is that most of them were duds.

The clear rewards from the hidden dungeons were, for the most part, elixir-type items that permanently raised stats.

Useless to me.

The moment his stats rose, they fell again, so Jin-soo simply dropped the elixirs into his loot pouch. Eating them and cycling his stats up and down over and over would still help the blessings grow.

But using elixirs that way is miserably inefficient.

He had only picked them up so easily because he was clearing hidden dungeons. In truth, the price of an elixir that permanently raised a stat was expensive beyond imagination.

Much better to sell them once the auction house opens.

What he needed right now was weapons, armor, accessories, class-change tomes, skill books—that sort of thing. Not elixirs.

Just get to Floor 50.

Then the auction house would activate, and he could sell the elixirs that did him no good and buy the items he actually needed.

About time I went in.

Jin-soo checked the time and looked at the rippling space dead ahead. Beyond it waited the Floor 2 boss monster—the condition for ascending to Floor 3.

Going in alone.

Before the regression, he had entered with a party of other players. Jin-soo waited, watching the time.

In.

The instant twenty-two hours and twenty-two minutes had passed since he arrived on Floor 2, he stepped through the rippling space.

Light flared, and Jin-soo stood at the center of a circular arena built like a coliseum.

"GRAAAAAH!"

A single hobgoblin loosed a savage roar and charged him.

Its club came down on the spot where he had been standing with a thunderous crack. Jin-soo simply turned his body and slipped the blow.

"Kruk?"

The hobgoblin's eyes bulged, and it hurled itself at him again in a blind assault.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Every strike missed. Jin-soo flowed around the hobgoblin's attacks as naturally as water and kept an eye on the time. Then, just before the count reached exactly twenty-two seconds—

He swung the sword in his left hand and sheared off both of the hobgoblin's arms.

And drove the Blood-Sucking Sword in his right hand into its forehead.

The hobgoblin's body crashed to the floor and rolled.

In that instant a wash of brilliant light wrapped around Jin-soo.

As expected.

The blessings had grown.

A shame it's only the once.

He hadn't earned a title. He hadn't leveled up. And still, simply for matching the timing, the blessings had grown. From Jin-soo's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠side of it, it felt like a reward that hadn't cost him any effort.

I'll clear Floor 3 inside twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds too.

As the floors rose, clear times were supposed to lengthen. Jin-soo was the exception.

This time, please let a class-change tome drop.

And if he was wishing anyway, a holy-affinity one. But whether holy or dark, the odds of a class-change tome appearing on the lower floors were vanishingly small, and that was all he could do—regret it.

Jin-soo swiftly cleared the titles and hidden dungeons to be had on Floor 3, dealt with the boss monster, and crossed to Floor 4 right on time. Then he repeated the same thing, climbing the Tower at speed.

Jin-soo arrived on Floor 12.

Sure enough, the blessings had grown.

They hadn't been rising lately. I was starting to worry.

The monsters had grown stronger, but the real problem was that the experience the blessings needed in order to grow had grown with them. And from Floor 5 onward, even when he kept strictly to twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds, there were plenty of times the blessings simply didn't grow.

It's slowed a little. Even so, doing things tied to the number two, and acquiring items, is still favorable for blessing growth.

If the blessings grew only through titles and level-ups, it would take far too long for Jin-soo's liking.

Actions related to two, and the act of acquiring items, had also fallen off sharply in efficiency compared to the beginning. Even so, the fact that the blessings could grow with no special effort—nothing but the right timing—still made it quite worthwhile.

But that was only Jin-soo's own assessment.

With this latest growth, every one of his stats had reached 922. He had only just arrived on Floor 12, and his pure stat total already exceeded 5,000.

If other players had seen it, they would have had no choice but to scream that it was cheating. The pace of his growth was absurd.

All of it came from climbing while holding to twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds—and from making the effort, whenever he reasonably could, to complete his item sets.