44
Chapter 44: Mount Tai Pressing Down
Dong Bong-su's dance only came to an end when the morning sun rose. That was just when the meeting in the Emperor King Hall had finished. Of course, there was no way for Dong Bong-su to know this.
"Huu......"
Dong Bong-su exhaled deeply and slowly opened his eyes.
His entire body was drenched in sweat from the intense dancing, but his eyes had become even deeper and more ordinary than before.
Not only had he reached level 10 today, he had unexpectedly come to know the 'taste' of the sword as well. Now his thrusts would no longer be just thrusts, and his slashes would no longer be just slashes. It was the moment when the thrusts and slashes unfolding from his hands were finally entering the realm of 'swordmanship' rather than mere 'swordwork.'
However, to reach the realm of technique or the way...... wouldn't that still be immensely far away? If he didn't learn, it would probably take a very long time to reach that realm.
"Huu, huu."
Despite continuing to breathe deeply, Dong Bong-su's breathing was so rough it wouldn't easily settle. He hadn't noticed while dancing in a state of selflessness, but once he emerged from it, fatigue rushed into his entire body all at once.
'I can't rest yet.'
He couldn't rest.
There were still things left to do. Perhaps what he had to do from now on might be even more important than the sword dance he had performed all night.
Changes from leveling up.
He needed to confirm those. Normally he should have done this first thing upon returning to his room, but he felt he had to restore yesterday's battle right away, so he had postponed it.
Now that task was roughly finished, so it was time to check what changes had come from gaining 3 levels.
Click.
As usual, Dong Bong-su opened his stat window first.
His stats had grown by a set amount as always. This part was no different from usual, having increased by exactly 3 levels worth. Based on his experience so far, this much growth was more than enough to be the difference between a middle schooler and a high schooler. Dong Bong-su knew well that the difference was by no means small.
Next, he opened his inventory window.
"......"
There were no changes whatsoever.
Just in case, he examined it thoroughly once more, but there were no newly given weapons, armor pieces, or items of any kind.
If he had to find something added to the inventory, there was one thing.
It was the corpses of Go San-gong and his squad members. It was because he had swept up and gathered all the body parts left over after writing the warning. Of course, there was now no way to tell who was Go San-gong and who were the squad members. Rag scraps torn to shreds made it difficult to recognize their original form.
He scanned the entire inventory with his eyes once more. Though he had become level 10, there was no special gift given by New Murim Online.
Rather than expecting it, he had anticipated this.
The number 10 wasn't particularly special compared to other numbers, but at least modern Earth was a world of decimal system. If nothing major changed in units of 10, people thought it strange. Money was fundamentally divided in units of 10, and things like age were commonly distinguished in units of 10 in daily life. Especially in games like this, they usually gave some meaningful change every 10 levels to satisfy users' expectations.
But there are always exceptions.
He wasn't disappointed. He hadn't confirmed all the changes yet.
"Huu-."
Dong Bong-su settled his rough breathing once more and closed the inventory window.
Click-
This time it was the equipment window's turn.
Finally, he could discover one unique change that hadn't been there before.
'Hm?'
A small, round button had appeared in the upper right corner of the equipment window. In the center of the button, the characters 'Spirit Creature' were clearly imprinted.
Beep-.
Dong Bong-su pressed the button without hesitation.
With the familiar mechanical sound, a strange window that seemed to combine the stat window and equipment window opened. Besides combining the stat window and equipment window, this window had another difference from Dong Bong-su's own.
The character slot that should contain the owner of the equipment and stats was empty. That was precisely the difference.
Though this was a window he was seeing for the first time and Dong Bong-su wasn't familiar with games, he could easily infer why the character slot was empty.
The reason was.
It must be because he hadn't yet recruited a Spirit Creature.
He could know this without even trying it. Befitting the name Spirit Creature, the owner of this Spirit Creature window would, without question or comparison, be a Spirit Creature.
The problem was that Dong Bong-su had no way to guess exactly what Spirit Creature referred to. Whether it was the concept of mercenaries commonly found in ordinary games, or whether it literally meant animals or objects imbued with spiritual nature as the term itself suggested, was something to be confirmed going forward.
Beep-
He examined the Spirit Creature window briefly, then soon closed it. There was nothing more he could learn from looking at it now anyway, and there was no Spirit Creature here worth recruiting.
Probably, if he encountered a Spirit Creature that could be acquired or equipped, the system would notify him in some way. There was no need to cling to this right now.
Outside, day had almost fully broken, and the time given to him wasn't that much. Soon, the Namgung Family would probably be turned upside down by what he had done yesterday. When that happened, he wouldn't be able to leisurely check things like the Spirit Creature window here.
He moved right on to the next item, the Skill Window.
Click-
When he opened the Skill Window, one new skill had been added.
[Three Talents Sword Technique Third Form Mount Tai Pressing Down Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
A sword technique as common as they come in the Martial World. Even ordinary people without internal energy can learn it.
Mount Tai Pressing Down is an enhanced version of downward strike.
All action bonuses for this skill are related to proficiency in related skills and whether Sword Energy/Sword Aura is activated.
Currently Applied Level: Lv.1 (Player can adjust the level tier of this skill.)
Vertical Strike Range Bonus: 1%
Vertical Strike Attack Power Bonus: 1%
Vertical Strike Casting Speed Bonus: 0%
Energy Point Consumption per Use: 30 JP
Following Sweeping Away a Thousand Soldiers and Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon, this was the Third Form of the Three Talents Sword Technique, Mount Tai Pressing Down. Since it was the 'Three' Talents Sword Technique, this Mount Tai Pressing Down was probably the final form.
'If I had this Mount Tai Pressing Down when fighting Go San-gong, it would have been much easier.'
Because he mainly used the sword with the thrust of Direct Strike at the Yellow Dragon and the horizontal slash of Sweeping Away a Thousand Soldiers, his swordplay had no choice but to be monotonous.
Now he could receive skill bonuses for at least the basic movements of swordsmanship.
Horizontal slash, vertical strike, thrust.
He now had Active Skills (Three Talents Sword Technique) and Passive Skills for all those movements.
Even so, the Active Skill Three Talents Sword Technique was honestly just an enhanced version of basic movements rather than true sword forms.
Probably the real basic movements of Dong Bong-su's swordsmanship going forward would be the Windless Sword Technique born while imitating the Heavenly Wind Sword Technique earlier.
If the abilities of passives like thrusting and slashing plus the Active Skill Three Talents Sword Technique were overlaid on the Windless Sword Technique, his sword strikes might perhaps be far superior to the Heavenly Wind Sword Technique that Go San-gong used.
Even after examining the Three Talents Sword Technique that had become complete with the addition of Mount Tai Pressing Down from various angles, Dong Bong-su didn't close the Skill Window but looked more carefully. It was because he had thought some extraordinary skill would appear upon reaching level 10, but the changes in the Skill Window were more disappointing than expected.
'Can't be helped.'
Beep-
In the end, he closed the Skill Window as it was.
Honestly, the changes so far were pathetic for what he gained from becoming level 10. What unexpectedly filled the expectations for such anticipation was the next window, which he hadn't expected at all.
It was the Quest Window.
Click-
Normally, following this short mechanical sound, a 'Critical Error' message window that noisily complained should have appeared.
But.
Strangely, the error window didn't appear this time. The reason the 'Critical Error' window appeared was purely because NPCs for quests didn't exist in this 'New Murim Online.'
'Why isn't the error window appearing?'
Dong Bong-su still couldn't know exactly what had happened. As always, all he could see were various quests with large X marks drawn across the transparent Quest Window.
Quest NPCs that didn't exist couldn't have suddenly dropped from the sky. If that were the case, shouldn't all those quests have been unlocked and become completable all at once? The cause was definitely elsewhere.
Dong Bong-su considered various possibilities briefly, but there was only one plausible one.
To confirm that possibility, he quickly scrolled down the long scroll bar beside the quests.
However, the succession of X's continued.
He exercised patience and continued scrolling down.
Finally, the scroll bar reached the bottom, and the last quest located at the very bottom entered Dong Bong-su's eyes.
"......!"
Among the many incomplete quests, one quest without an X mark had appeared at the very bottom of the Quest Window.
[First Class Change Quest: Wanderer]
Tester-exclusive class.
Quest Completion Condition: Achieve 100 Kills of enemies Level 10 or above.
Current Quest Completion (Completed/Total): 0 / 100
Originally, in Murim Online, there were 3 types of first classes users could choose.
Chivalrous Warrior, Demonic Being, and Evil Class.
Depending on which class one chose, which faction one belonged to would naturally be determined during the Orthodox-Evil-Demonic Great War, a group battle similar to siege warfare in other games. In other words, this first class had the same meaning as race in other games.
But in fact, the Murim Online system had one more class in addition to these.
Wanderer.
Originally, Wanderer was one of the first class types created during Murim Online's development stage. A class for people who, depending on users' inclinations, couldn't decide which faction to belong to even after reaching level 10. That was precisely this class called Wanderer.
Then, around when Murim Online's development was completed and it was officially released, the system was completely established with the confrontation structure of the three Orthodox-Evil-Demonic forces. At that time, the Wanderer with its neither-here-nor-there nature was abandoned along with the game's release. The CEO's will that a class belonging to no faction was unnecessary given the game's theme was reflected in the game.
However, the Murim Online development team felt awkward about eliminating the excellent class called Wanderer they had already fully created, so for the testers' interest and enjoyment, they 'sealed' the Wanderer class within the system as it was.
After all, the Orthodox-Evil-Demonic factions were meaningless to testers, and it was sufficient if they could just test more efficiently.
On top of that, in case they expanded the game later, it was in the development team's calculations that it would be easy to reuse the Wanderer, which had already been sufficiently tested.
So after the game opened to the public, that seal was set to be released only for testers.
'Class change, huh.'