Chapter 22
It appears that The Hunter Who Does Not Age Is So Strong is in the lead, while this series is in second place. However, the number of readers is so close that we will wait another week before finalizing the upload rate. If there is enough reading this series, we can upload up to 20 chapters a week.
For the goodness of the teachers is as high as the sky is- 1
Fortunate or not, no Elite monsters appeared in Room 2. When Ban Yu-won felt that the monsters were no longer appearing, he took his sword and backed away, and as Eve noticed him, they changed into a chain and tied up the few remaining enemies.
“Let’s take a break.”
“Huh?”
“If we kill these ones, the Shift will happen immediately. So, we will tie them up instead of killing them and rest.”
“It’s a fun idea.”
Ban Yu-won only observed the Shift condition from Room 1 to Room 2. But when the monsters completely disappeared, the condition was met, and the Shift occurred immediately. If that were the case, then if you’re a Korean who’s played some games, you’d probably choose to take a break by tying up the monsters before the Shift!
“It’s an idea that any student familiar with the Tower would immediately think of. I’m just curious that you, a freshman, came up with it.”
“As I said before, the world I was in had so many different kinds of games…I feel like people have plenty of petty tricks to enjoy them.”
Ban Yu-won pulled out a sports drink from his inventory and drank it. After the success of the Elixir Jam, this was one of the successful works he made after trying this and that. By taking a sip, he recovered his condition at an unexpectedly fast rate. Moreover, as with the Elixir Jam, it was pure energy concentrated, so there was no worry about side effects.
“…”
“Hmm…?”
But just as he was about to take a sip and put the bottle away, he sensed a gaze on him. Turning his head, he saw Ruchel staring, Light glancing, and Dok Go-yeon pretending not to look at the bottle. Flustered, he defended himself.
“Uh…this is not an elixir.”
“But it smells good.”
“They sell something like this outside too.”
“You can go out, but we can’t, Ban.”
Come to think of it, they were right. Moreover, everyone was guessing until now, but they were secretly trying to hear about Ban Yu-won’s permission to go out, which he hadn’t talked about publicly!
Ban Yu-won lamented his stupidity but firmly shook his head.
“This is something to drink when you’re tired, so you can’t do it now.”
“Tired…then I’ll handle Room 3.”
Dok Go-yeon, who liked sweets, rolled up her sleeves and stepped out. She seemed to have forgotten what she said earlier about making him hunt alone.
“Calm down; it’s not even Friday afternoon yet. If we can solve Room 3 alone, I want to hunt by myself.”
“I want that sweetness!”
“That drink was brought by Ban, Dok Go-yeon.”
“Eeek!”
“What, why me?!”
While Dok Go-yeon, annoyed but unable to express it openly, was letting off her steam at Light, Ban Yu-won read his internal code.
[Life: 129
Physique: 72.8
Soul: 350
Magic Power: 101
Martial Arts: 62 [Swordsmanship 36, Sewing 26]
Leadership: 7
Riding: 15
Resistance: 2
Complete Sight: 115
Complete Hearing: 105
Complete Speaking: 107]
It was a feast of codes that had him thanking his luck.
‘This is madness. I think this is already at the academy’s average level.’
In fact, that was a bit exaggerated. According to what Ban Yu-won gathered while in contact with students at the academy for the past week, the average Life of most students was 140-150, their Physique was 70-80, and their Magic Power was about 90-100. It could be seen that most of them were from a higher dimension with abundant Magic Power, so they tended to have more Magic Power than Physique.
…Of course, it would be very chaotic if the other students discovered his abilities had grown over the past five days.
‘But more than that….’
After all, instead of the basic set that increased in hunting monsters, Ban Yu-won was more attached to the martial arts that he had grown on his own. Wasn’t this enough to have surpassed his sister’s kendo skills, even if he excluded the Sewing he learned from Dok Go-yeon?
He wondered if the result of the fight next Tuesday would ultimately be decided by this martial art.
‘Electo’s Physique was a whopping 300. To be honest, whatever I do, I can’t reverse that difference over the weekend.’
On the other hand, his Magic Power was only about 120. Compared to the academy average, it was quite low, but compared to the number of Life of 250 and Physique that reached a whopping 300, he felt it was by no means small.
To defeat him, Ban Yu-won must aim for that gap. That meant training with his sword.
‘If Dok Go-yeon taught me one more thing…no, no.’
Finding himself trying to rely on Dok Go-yeon, he returned to his senses and shook his head. Of course, she had an overwhelming force, but that didn’t mean he could rely on her unconditionally. Ban Yu-won must be on an equal footing with her, and if the scale accidentally tilted toward her, nothing good would happen.
“So, are you satisfied with your growth?”
“I said it before, but it’s not enough.”
Dok Go-yeon talked to him at a scary time, as if she read his mind. Ban Yu-won responded firmly and stood.
“Now, let’s move onto Room 3.”
“We are ready.”
After Ruchel nodded, Ban Yu-won sent a signal to Eve, and the chains tightened around the ghosts.
The Shift started at that moment. First, the ceiling and floor were turned upside down.
“Eve!”
Except for Ban Yu-won, they wouldn’t suffer so much as gravity reversed. Ban Yu-won didn’t even have to call Eve, but they wrapped around him to prevent him from getting hurt.
Dok Go-yeon had her feet on the floor (i.e., hanging upside down from the ceiling), Light spread some wonderful wings of light and rose into the air, and only Ruchel was thrown helplessly. When Ban Yu-won noticed, Eve, reading his thoughts, shot out a chain to grab Ruchel.
“Kyaah! T-Thank you….”
“I mean, seriously.”
She could kill the Elite Monster that appeared in Room 1 without Dok Go-yeon even having to move a finger, but I think she was helpless in this situation…Ban Yu-won wanted to say something, but as he looked at Ruchel’s innocent expression, no words came out.
“If you stay there, you will die.”
Dok Go-yeon, hanging from the ceiling (he couldn’t quite understand why her hair didn’t fall), spoke casually. At that moment, Ban Yu-won saw a string of gold falling over his head as the right and left walls were reversed.
“Haah…!”
Eve’s power couldn’t match the speed, but they quickly unleashed the chains and threw them into the air while Ban Yu-won took out his secret weapon.
-Vroooooom!
“Iron…flying in the sky?”
“What’s that?! What is that?!”
Lilith erupted with the rumbling sound of the exhaust and moved under Ban Yu-won and Ruchel. A blade descended from the ceiling and clattered uselessly off its chassis.
Ruchel grabbed his waist and clasped her fingers behind him, clenching tighter as they mounted the bike.
“Okay, I think Room 3 is a trap section. Let’s deal with it calmly as we were taught by Professor Yoo Mina.”
“That’s not important! That! I want to know about what you’re riding right now!”
“Is this your first time seeing a hoverbike?”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of it!”
While the party was having such a conversation, they moved away from the traps floating around them. Usually, traps would wait for people to approach, but in Room 3, there were spears, poison arrows, huge blades, and poison gas approaching from all sides as if someone was operating the traps. They all were ridiculous.
“Ban, poison!”
“It’s okay!”
He couldn’t absorb the blade that fell earlier. However, as soon as he became conscious of the poison gas sprayed into the air, he immediately turned it into a golden string and sucked it into his hand.
“Ha!”
“I really can’t figure him out.”
In fact, Ban Yu-won riding on Lilith, was nothing but a king in this trap section. His ability made it possible to observe the concept before a trap appeared, and Lilith was able to read his thoughts, so they zipped around, disarming the threats.
“But how do I end this?”
“According to the textbook, you must endure for a certain time. So, how can that iron float?”
God, did she just ask him to teach her how a hoverbike flies? He thought he would be able to give an answer if Dok Go-yeon stopped eating and drinking from now on and focused only on analyzing the concepts, but he decided to just go with the word magic.
“It’s magic.”
“Oh, wow….”
On the other hand, Ruchel sat upright and leaned against Ban Yu-won’s back. Light, watching them as if he found it absurd (the sight of him fluttering his wings of light and avoiding traps effortlessly was equally absurd), suddenly furrowed his brow and asked Ban Yu-won.
“Ban, did it say there are occasions when the trap section appears so early?”
“The Tower changes every time, so there’s no point in questioning it.”
“You said that the absolute difficulty according to the room’s depth doesn’t change much.”
“That’s right.”
Ban Yu-won agreed with Light and nodded. Although the appearance and abilities of the monsters were different, their absolute strength was the same. If such a basic premise were violated, the act of climbing the Tower of Babel would be more like a lottery.
“However, according to the manual, it is said that traps start to appear after at least 20 rooms.”
“And what about the sections completely made up of traps?”
Unless one possessed an unreasonable force like Dok Go-yeon (even now, she was lightly slashing all the blades that flew at her), or they had wings like Light or could ride a hoverbike in a dungeon like Ban Yu-won, an ordinary freshman would never be able to withstand this trap section.
“It should be after at least 50 rooms…shit! They don’t even let me talk!”
It seemed that Light also changed a lot in just a few days. Ban Yu-won thought about that as he drove Lilith into the air to dodge the surge of acid about to swallow them.
“Shrrr!”
“Oh, yes, yes.”
Ban Yu-won reached out for the waves about to seep back to the bottom. The black waves disappeared, and he received 10 Acid and the same amount of Wave as a bonus.
‘Wave? Hmm, a Wave….’
This was an unexpected bonus. He thought it would be something like Water, but the concepts changed significantly depending on their state at the moment of absorption. Perhaps this was an important realization in his future development…
“Ban, up!”
Light urgently shouted. When Ban Yu-won raised his head, he noticed the ceiling was closer than he thought.
[Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap]
A string of gold characters densely protruded from it.
“Really, you should break that habit of getting distracted!”
“Ban, I’ll break it, so go back down as quickly as possible…!”
“Kyaaaaaah!”
When he intuited his death to come, there was no sound in Ban Yu-won’s ears. He knew by reason there was no way he could die to this. Dok Go-yeon had already promised to help him, and even the beam of light emitted by Light’s sword was powerful enough to destroy the blades. Above all else, he was convinced that Ruchel, clinging to his back, would use her powers if it was really dangerous.
‘What can I do? What…oh!’
But when presented with the possible death, he couldn’t look back on the situation so calmly. Ban Yu-won focused only on the flow of the string in front of him, and he realized he could move even if it were a string he couldn’t absorb.
[Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap]
The strings of Snaps were tightly packed on the ceiling, reaching out and overlapping with others. He wondered what he was doing against a group of concepts that were about to trigger, but instinct, not reason, controlled him now.
[Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap]
The number decreased as fragments flew around him.
“What?!”
“The trap…”
“Kyaaaaaaaah…!”
Someone was talking loudly around him, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he focused on guiding and merging the concepts quicker.
[Snap] [Snap] [Snap] [Snap]
[Snap] [Snap]
Weaving and weaving concepts. Finally, by combining the two remaining concepts, he could cut down the entire room.
[Nested concepts were compounded into parent concept references!]
In the end, all of the blades were scattered, leaving only a single composite concept in its place. The concept, which had already completely mutated, no longer functioned as a trap but simply floated there.
Ban Yu-won reached out his hand and secured it.
[The concept of a newly synthesized language was created by interfering with an external concept. The depth of Complete Sight has increased to 120. Soul depth is now 360. The depth of Magic Power has increased to 105.]
[Absorbed 20 Snapping. It is a concept that humans cannot possess.]
Each time he used his abilities to create new achievements, his Soul and Magic Power grew together, which meant those two key concepts were making an impact.
Once Ban Yu-won had safely absorbed the concept, he sighed in relief and noticed Dok Go-yeon was looking at him bewildered. She was holding out one hand toward the ceiling.
“If that was always possible, you should’ve done it already. I just made myself tired.”
“It’s really too much.”
“It was very close, Ban. Perhaps it was a new awakening of ability, but….”
Light and Dok Go-yeon grumbled, but Ban Yu-won only smiled, knowing that he was the cause of their worries. Now, this team seemed to be running quite efficiently, so he felt proud as their class leader.
“It was a chance to get some sweetness and drink it.”
“The space is changing again. Room 4 will give us more opportunities to perform.”
…They were worried about him, right?