Chapter 7
Meditation, a skill that restored mana.
It was also the only way to accumulate rank experience. With that in mind, Hanseong repeatedly practiced meditation, discovering something new in the process.
‘I can meditate even when my mana is at maximum.’
This meant he could focus entirely on meditation for the sole purpose of gaining rank experience. Hanseong devoted every available moment to meditation, excluding the time he spent eating, sleeping, and using his skills.
As a result, he accumulated enough experience to advance in rank in just three days.
[Rank Experience: 100% Achieved!]
[Promotion to Tier 2 Available.]
[Would you like to proceed?]
There was no reason to refuse.
The moment he tapped the accept button, a dazzling burst of light enveloped the room. The light soon faded, and his status window appeared before his eyes.
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[Name]: Kang Hanseong
[Level]: 18
[Class]: Remote Support Mage
[Mana]: 670/950
[Tier]: 2
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Alongside his meditation, Hanseong had been diligently hunting zombies. Thanks to that, his level had risen dramatically compared to three days ago, and he'd accumulated a substantial number of coins.
However, his rank was what mattered right now.
He could browse the store later.
[Tier 2 Achieved!]
[The number of available skill slots has increased.]
[Slots: 5 → 10]
He could now learn up to ten skills.
At this, Hanseong felt as though some of the pressure that had been constricting his breathing had finally eased.
‘Then, shall I take a look around the store?’
He currently had approximately 1,600 coins.
The reason he'd managed to earn so much in just three days was entirely thanks to his Tinder skill.
When used in areas where zombies were moderately clustered together, it could earn him dozens of coins in a single cast at the very least.
Just as he was about to open the store, an unexpected message appeared.
[The rank of your unique skills has been enhanced.]
[Special effects have been added.]
“Huh? Special effects?”
Apparently, new effects had been added to Meditation, Open Map, and Magic Castle.
Hanseong decided to examine them one by one.
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[Special Effect: Rapid Meditation]
- Recovers a large amount of mana while in a state of intense concentration.
▷ Recovery Amount: Up to 1% of maximum mana per second
▷ Duration: 30 seconds
▷ Cooldown: 12 hours
▷ Tier: 2
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Rapid Meditation, the special effect of Meditation.
It was a skill that consumed no mana and restored a large amount in a short period.
Since his mana was already depleted, he decided to try it out while testing the new effect. As soon as he began meditating, a new notification appeared.
[Would you like to enter Rapid Meditation?]
When he accepted, something strange happened.
The distracting thoughts swirling through his mind vanished, leaving him completely thoughtless.
He spent some time in this state of absolute mental emptiness before—
[All mana has been restored.]
[Rapid Meditation has ended.]
The effect was incredible. What would normally have taken him more than thirty minutes of meditation had been completed in just thirty seconds.
It was an extremely satisfying feature.
Grinning, Hanseong moved on to examine the special effect added to Open Map.
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[Special Effect: Expansion]
- Expands the observation range of Open Map.
- Expands the effective range of [Remote] skills.
▷ Open Map Effective Range: 2.5 km radius
▷ Skill Effective Range: +100%
▷ Tier: 2
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The moment he read the special effect, Hanseong's eyes widened.
The map spread out before him had suddenly expanded dramatically.
Its range, which had previously been limited to a radius of five hundred meters, had increased fivefold to 2.5 kilometers. As a result, the number of red and blue dots had increased considerably as well.
“...!”
The area beyond the Han River was especially notable. Among the locations there, one stood out for having an exceptionally large number of survivors.
Hanseong knew exactly where it was.
“Is that Kangil Girls' High School?”
It was a girls' high school located just across the Han River.
There, he could see well over a hundred blue dots clustered together.
Relieved to discover that more survivors remained than he'd expected, Hanseong let out a sigh of relief. Then he returned his attention to the special effect.
‘An increase in skill range.’
With the map's expansion, the range of every skill Hanseong had learned had doubled.
Call Lightning had previously had a range of four hundred meters. Now, it could reach eight hundred meters.
The same applied to all his other skills.
“This is perfect timing.”
Thanks to his repeated hunting, it had become difficult to find any zombie hordes in the surrounding area.
Now that his territory had expanded, this was certainly welcome news.
“Then, finally...”
He would examine Magic Castle's special effect.
Hanseong tapped the screen floating in the air.
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[Special Effect: Dimensional Isolation]
- Isolates Magic Castle from reality.
The area within Magic Castle's effective range becomes immune to all attacks. Activates automatically when the owner has taken damage at least once.
▷ Duration: 5 minutes
▷ Activation Time: 10 seconds
▷ Cooldown: 48 hours
▷ Tier: 2
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This was obviously a defensive skill.
He could use it to protect himself if the studio apartment building where he currently resided came under attack.
Immunity to all attacks was certainly an advantage, but the skill also had its drawbacks.
‘The cooldown is way too long.’
He could use it only once every two full days.
At this rate, he couldn't even test it out. If he activated it and the building came under attack again before the cooldown ended, he'd be in trouble.
Its activation time wasn't particularly short, either.
‘Still...’
Hanseong decided to be satisfied with the fact that he now had a last line of defense.
As he finished examining all the special effects, another message appeared.
[New Achievement: Promotion Complete]
[Additional Feature Unlocked.]
▷ Central Auction House
A new feature had suddenly appeared.
An auction house? Was it something like the store?
With that thought in mind, Hanseong opened the auction house.
A short while later, his eyes widened.
“W-What is this...!”
His reaction was understandable. The screen spread out before him was on an entirely different scale from the store.
Even more astonishing was the fact that countless survivors were already trading with one another.
[Auction House Notification]
- The Central Auction House is a place where you can buy and sell items. Communicate with survivors around the world and purchase the items you need.
Still wide-eyed, Hanseong examined the items listed in the auction house.
Food, weapons, blankets, clothes, shoes, and much more.
The variety of items up for auction was astounding.
Hanseong tapped one of the listings to take a closer look.
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[Item for Sale]: Cheeseburger
[Condition]: Frozen
[Starting Bid]: 10 coins
[Buyout Price]: 50 coins
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A cheeseburger listed by an unidentified seller.
Below an image of the burger frozen solid, he noticed a section labeled Reviews.
When he looked at it, he found countless comments.
- Hey, who's stupid enough to pay this much for something like that?
- We can't even use microwaves. Is this guy out of his mind?
- I'll buy it for 5 coins if you thaw it first.
- LMAO, I would've bought it if it came with fries and a drink.
Hanseong's eyes widened again.
The people using this place were survivors from all over the world.
That meant the people leaving comments were also survivors scattered across the globe.
For some reason, he felt a little glad.
It made him feel as though he wasn't alone.
Hanseong continued browsing the auction house and gradually learned a few things.
‘The currency is the same as the store's.’
Coins obtained by killing zombies.
Once he found an item he wanted and placed a bid, a twelve-hour countdown would begin.
If nobody outbid him before the timer expired, the item would become his.
However, if someone clicked the buyout button in the meantime, his bid would be meaningless.
In other words, acquiring items required making the right decisions depending on the circumstances.
‘And most items are cheaper than in the store.’
Food was a particularly good example.
The store sold a bottle of water for ten coins, but in the auction house, he had seen bottles being sold for as little as two coins and as much as five.
Of course, excessively cheap products tended to have defects.
The comments in the review sections proved it.
- Everyone, don't buy this.
- It tastes like tap water the moment you take a sip LMAO.
- Where's this seller's conscience?
The problem was that the quality of items sold by survivors wasn't guaranteed.
Under the current circumstances, where visiting a hospital was impossible, getting sick from drinking contaminated water would be disastrous.
Keeping that in mind, Hanseong decided to be careful with his purchases.
Just then, something caught his attention.
“S-Skill books?”
Among the listed items were skill books.
Even more surprisingly, one of them was a skill book he'd been planning to purchase.
A skill that, like Magic Arrow, used charges and theoretically allowed him to cast magic indefinitely.
It was Wind Cutter.
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[Item for Sale]: Skill Book - Wind Cutter
[Class Restriction]: Mage, Spirit Summoner
[Learning Requirement]: Tier 1
[Starting Bid]: 500 coins
[Buyout Price]: 500 coins
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The starting bid and buyout price were identical, meaning the seller had effectively blocked the bidding process. It was a rather obnoxious tactic, but the price was still much lower than the store's.
After all, the Wind Cutter skill book in the store cost a whopping 1,500 coins.
‘Besides, I don't have to worry about the quality of a skill book.’
It wasn't something that could be counterfeited.
The price was affordable with the coins he currently possessed.
Hanseong was about to press the buyout button when the comments in the review section caught his attention.
- Wow, this is seriously overpriced.
- Does anyone even have that many coins right now?
- The effective range is way too short, too.
- This is basically a melee spell.
‘Huh? The range is short?’
Now that he thought about it, he hadn't considered the range at all.
Hanseong opened the detailed description.
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[Skill Book: Wind Cutter]
▷ Upon activation, loads seven blades of wind and deals magical damage. If a target struck by the skill dies, there is a 10% chance that a new blade of wind will be generated immediately at the cost of 30 mana.
▷ Cooldown: 1 hour
▷ Effective Range: 5 m
▷ Class Restriction: Mage, Spirit Summoner
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The range really was incredibly short.
Even throwing a stone picked up from the ground would send it farther than five meters.
However, Hanseong had nothing to worry about.
‘I'm a Remote Support Mage, after all.’
Every skill he learned was adapted to suit the Remote Support Mage class.
Magic Arrow, which he'd learned earlier, had originally possessed a short range as well. However, once the prefix [Remote] was added to it, its range had increased dramatically.
Just then, the seller posted a comment in the review section, followed by a flood of replies from other survivors.
[Seller]: It's still cheaper than the store, though.
↳ LMAO, of course it should be cheaper than the store.
↳ Who even buys skill books from the store in the first place?
↳ Exactly. You'd have to be an idiot LMAO.
Hanseong had suddenly become an idiot.
↳ Could you sell it a little cheaper?
↳ I'd buy it for around 200 coins.
[Seller]: Sorry. I've listed it at that price because there's something I want to buy, too.
↳ Then I guess you'll just have to wait until someone buys it.
The comments continued to pour in.
As he watched them, Hanseong suddenly found himself wondering about something.
It was a question prompted by the comments that had just made him out to be an idiot.
‘Where did the seller get the skill book?’
Weren't skill books only available for purchase through the store?
Unable to shake his curiosity, Hanseong finally decided to leave a comment of his own.
▷ By the way, where do you get skill books?
He waited for someone to answer.
It didn't take long for replies to appear.
↳ They drop when you kill zombies.
↳ Isn't that common knowledge by the time you reach Tier 2?
↳ Who knows LMAO. Maybe he's so ridiculously unlucky that he's never gotten a single skill book to drop.
↳ Oof, that's just sad...
“Zombies drop skill books?”
Hanseong murmured in astonishment.
He had killed at least two thousand zombies so far, yet he'd never obtained any loot other than coins.
Could he really just be that unlucky?
No, that seemed unlikely.
There was another explanation that made much more sense.
‘Could it be because I'm killing them remotely?’
Coins weren't physical objects.
They appeared as numbers engraved on his palm.
However, he had no way of collecting physical items.
Hanseong used his skills from inside his room, while any loot would drop where the zombies had been killed.
“Ugh, that's a problem...”
If his theory was correct, it meant he'd missed out on countless pieces of loot.
Hanseong furrowed his brow and sighed.
“...I'll have to figure something out.”
Despite saying that, he had no obvious solution for the time being.
It wasn't as though he could simply go outside while sitting in his wheelchair.
‘Is there a teleportation skill or something?’
If such a skill existed, he could briefly go outside, collect the loot, and return.
Hoping to find something useful, he searched through the auction house repeatedly, but the skill he wanted wasn't listed.
“Phew, I guess there's nothing I can do.”
For now, he would learn Wind Cutter first.
It was a skill he'd intended to learn anyway.
Hanseong tapped the buyout button.