Episode 19: Replay (1)

Once the Conquest Exam wrapped up, Lee Sudok gathered Class 3 in one place, just as he had before the PvP Assessment.

"I'll explain points and score. Check the backs of your student IDs."

As the students fished out their IDs and examined them, a new entry had appeared where blank space used to be.

At the same time, a large student ID materialized in the empty space beside Lee Sudok.

A sample ID belonging to one Kim So-and-So, face frozen in a question mark.

"The PvP ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Assessment is close to the zero-sum game you all know well. Win and you gain points; lose and you shed them."

"The Conquest Exam, on the other hand, accumulates points every time you clear a dungeon. For both practical evaluations, the higher your total score, the higher your rank. Now, pay attention."

A new line appeared beneath Kim So-and-So's Conquest Exam score.

"Available Points are the currency used exclusively within Dragon Slayer Academy. You'll be able to purchase all sorts of items that will aid you in the PvP Assessments and Conquest Exams to come. Refer to the catalog for details."

The main uses were other students' replays, rough maps of dungeons, escape items, and the like.

Given enough points, one could even buy elixirs, skill books, or equipment.

If one had the points, that is.

"So how exactly does one earn these points? The sharp ones among you have probably already caught on."

"Your Conquest Exam score is converted into points at a set multiplier. Since this was the first Conquest Exam, and a Fixed Zone at that, a 3.0 multiplier was applied."

"Ah…"

Regret washed over the students' faces.

They didn't fully grasp what these points were yet, but they'd sensed instinctively that 3.0 was a hefty multiplier.

And that was exactly why ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they were kicking themselves.

Should have pushed harder. Should have scraped up every last point.

The students who had retired in particular wore expressions as if the sky had just caved in on them.

The Fixed Zone was so brutal that giving up and vowing to do better next time had seemed reasonable enough—but who could have imagined the points would be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠doled out this generously?

Still, it was a mess of their own making, far too late to undo now.

They cast belated, pleading looks at the instructor, only to drop their gazes under the murderous glare he sent right back.

Lee Sudok wrapped up the explanation.

"Clear dungeons, stack points, and deploy the points you earn exactly where they're needed—that's the core of it. Go through the catalog individually and think ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠about how to spend efficiently. We'll end here for today. Rest well enough that tomorrow's lessons aren't affected. Dismissed."

While the other class teachers lingered after their explanations to field questions from students, Lee Sudok made straight for the exit.

The dropouts tried to catch him for a last word, but he brushed them off without breaking stride.

That man has zero interest in his students.

Since the Conquest Exam itself hadn't eaten up much time, dinner was still a good while off.

And a way to kill time in a situation like this—

"Let's grab a coffee."

"An excellent idea. I was developing a certain curiosity about this 'coffee' myself."

Go Hyeon-woo accepted readily.

I extended the offer to Seo Ye-in as well.

"Would you care to join us, Lady Seo?"

"……"

Instead of answering, Seo Ye-in covered her mouth and yawned quietly.

Then she shook her head, slow and deliberate.

"Sleepy. Going to bed…"

I had noticed her eyelids drooping bit by bit for a while now.

Better to let her rest than drag her along.

"Guess it's just us two, then."

We ordered iced coffees at the campus store and took one each.

Inside a game world or not, coffee was coffee.

It even tasted a little better than the real thing, come to think of it.

Except the rate at which Go Hyeon-woo's coffee was disappearing was frankly alarming.

We hadn't even started talking, and he'd already downed it in one shot.

And then he had the gall to say:

"That was a small serving."

I shook my head. Getting worked up over that sort of thing was a losing game.

Coffee was a side dish anyway; the main objective was the conversation.

"Take a look at this first."

I handed the catalog over to Go Hyeon-woo.

I simply could not picture a born-and-bred martial artist like him deploying all manner of items at the right place and time.

I didn't hold out much hope myself—this was more of a casual skim-and-get-familiar gesture.

Just as expected, his eyebrows knitted and relaxed with every page he turned.

"I find most of this incomprehensible, and it leaves me thoroughly bewildered. Would you enlighten me, Brother Kim?"

"You can ignore the items for now. But going in completely blind puts you at a disadvantage later, so take your time and learn them one by one."

"Understood."

"The one thing you absolutely need to know right now is the replay."

"Replay?"

"Remember when you were leaving the dungeon earlier? Didn't it ask whether you wanted to save a replay?"

Go Hyeon-woo mulled it over for a moment, then nodded.

"I do recall that. It seemed harmless enough, so I accepted."

"When you accept, your entire dungeon clear gets recorded, start to finish. And if someone else buys that recording—"

To give an example, I purchased one of Han So-mi's replays.

A hundred points vanished, and a crystal orb materialized in my palm.

Inside the crystal, Han So-mi was darting through the Misty Forest with lightning footwork, crisscrossing it from end to end.

Every time her blade flashed, monsters came apart in clean, tidy slices.

Go Hyeon-woo, watching the replay alongside me, let out a gasp of admiration.

"Ohhh."

"That's how you view one. Yours must be selling like crazy too—check your points."

When Go Hyeon-woo pulled up his balance, his eyes went round as saucers.

"It's true. They've piled up in the blink of an eye."

"You topped the Conquest Exam. The only first-year over 1,000 points, no less. Of course you're selling."

And it wouldn't stop at first-years—the second- and third-years would be curious enough to take a look as well.

Right about now, all four Major Factions had to be in an uproar.

They'd expected either the Disciplinary Committee or one of their coveted prospects to take first place—instead, some no-name, unaffiliated freshman had popped out of nowhere and snatched it.

The title of Conquest Exam Top Scorer carried enormous value.

Not only this Misty Forest replay, but every replay of every Conquest Exam and PvP match he'd ever fight would fly off the shelves.

Amid all this, Go Hyeon-woo seemed to remember something and asked:

"But if my replays sell in quantity, does that not mean more and more people will be studying my techniques?"

"Exactly. And they'll dissect them down to the bone."

"Hmm… then it's not all sunshine, is it."

The single greatest drawback of saving replays: every one of your movements laid bare before the whole world.

You could reference another student's replay when planning a dungeon clear, for instance,

and reviewing and analyzing the replay of an opponent before a PvP match was basic strategy 101.

"You're right—there's no upside to everyone picking apart your techniques. Someone might well figure out a counter. But think of the points. With those on the table, it's a price worth paying."

Dragon Slayer Academy had been founded to raise heroes capable of facing down dragons.

Competition was essential to growth, but if everyone hid their strength just to come out on top, the whole enterprise would be turned on its head.

Which was why points came packaged with benefits powerful enough to outweigh the risk of exposing your abilities.

Me being the exception, of course.

This time, I'd deliberately skipped saving my replay in order to conceal my abilities in the Fixed Zone.

It was one of my most powerful weapons, so I intended to keep it wrapped up tight and spring it at the decisive moment.

Besides, I wasn't in the ranking brackets, so I wouldn't have earned much anyway. What was a little lost pocket change compared to that?

I'd simply reap a far greater payoff later.

"Listening to you, Brother Kim, I begin to suspect these points have uses far grander than I imagined."

"Right—and that's exactly why I asked you for coffee."

What was the best possible use of the points he'd earned from topping the Conquest Exam, and the ones he'd earn going forward?

Go Hyeon-woo must have sensed how much this mattered to him, because his expression turned grave. He met my eyes dead-on and spoke.

"I await your esteemed counsel, Brother Kim."

"As you saw today, your skill itself holds its own against any of the first-year elites."

"Your discernment is beyond question, Brother Kim. If you judged it so, then it must be fact."

"But your weaknesses—you know them better than anyone."

"……I feel them bitterly, and today only deepened the ache."

Go Hyeon-woo smiled, wry and self-mocking.

The first weakness was insufficient internal energy, born of his low-grade Core.

The second was his weapons shattering the moment he so much as looked at them.

The weapon issue was outside my hands for now.

It was bound up too deeply with his sect's sacred relic, his longsword.

Meddling carelessly could put me in the position of interfering in sect affairs, and that would be a grave insult to a martial artist.

We'd need to build far deeper trust, and Go Hyeon-woo would have to extend his hand first, before I could help.

So, back to the Core.

When he'd faced Han So-mi, he'd been badly outmatched in the contest of internal energy.

Only after I used Amplification to raise his Core by two ranks had things evened out somewhat.

His match against Jo Byeok had looked, at a glance, like an even contest—but the reality was otherwise.

His weapon had been destroyed and he'd burned through every last ounce of internal energy; the instant the match ended, he'd had to sit down and circulate his qi to recover.

"To be blunt: you only took first because this Conquest Exam was a Fixed Zone. The moment it becomes a fight of raw mana, you lose, every time. So for now, shove everything else aside and focus on your Core."

"What would you have me do?"

"Go to the Training Center."

The Training Center.

It was no mere gymnasium.

Like the Arena, it was infused with the finest of magitech—a place where every conceivable variety of training was possible.

"Inside the Training Center, you'll find something called the Mana Cultivation Room."

"……!"

"The mana density there is far richer than anywhere else, so even the same hour of cultivation builds your internal energy much faster."

"Such a place actually exists?"

Go Hyeon-woo let out a cry of wonder.

He looked ready to bolt for it that very second.

I held him back and pressed on with the explanation.

"Hear me out to the end, because this is the most important part. There's a place called the Special Cultivation Room. The mana concentration there is beyond anything the ordinary rooms offer—easily ten times or more."

"……!!"

Go Hyeon-woo's eyes blazed and trembled all at once.

Any martial artist would react exactly like that.

If the regular cultivation rooms were already efficient, what in the world was a room whose potency exceeded them tenfold like?

"Naturally, a place that extraordinary doesn't exist in unlimited supply. Not just anyone gets in."

"Judging by the flow of this conversation… it requires points."

"Bingo. Five hundred points for six hours."

A frankly ruinous burn rate.

Even at just six hours a day, the three thousand points Go Hyeon-woo had earned from the Conquest Exam would go up in smoke in under a week.

On weekends, martial artists often poured an entire day into cultivation—and then eighteen hours cost 1,500 points, twenty-four hours 2,000, evaporating in an instant.

And sustaining that for a full semester… I didn't even want to guess how many points it would take.

"If you hoard every point you earn and pour it all into the Special Cultivation Room, it's doable—but then you can't buy anything else at all."

"Hmm… is there no other way?"

"There is. The Season Pass."

The Season Pass.

Hold one, and for an entire semester you could use the Special Cultivation Room whenever you liked, free of charge.

"Something that valuable must be terribly difficult to obtain."

"Easiest route is the auction. They typically hammer down somewhere between thirty and forty thousand points."

"Hoh. And *that's* the easy way? Then what are the others?"

"The Season Pass is one of Dragon Slayer Academy's many privileges. It's granted preferentially to clubs with strong results. The traditional powerhouses like the Swordsmanship Club or the Black Magic Club probably have five or six apiece."

Even those powerhouses were stretched thin dividing two or three passes among each of the first, second, and third years.

So they allocated them to their very best performers.

"Join the Swordsmanship Club and take the first-year prospect seat for yourself. That's your path."

"……"

The problem was that Moyong Jun's skill sat squarely on par with Han So-mi and Jo Byeok.

Asked whether he could beat him, Go Hyeon-woo shook his head.

"Frankly, no—not as I am now. Then the Season Pass must be shelved for the time being. Still, if I invest points steadily in the gaps, I imagine I can visit the Special Cultivation Room fairly often."

"No, it's too early to give up."

"……There is another way?"

"Of course there is."

I pointed at myself.

"I'll get one for you."