Chapter 12  

The first perception shift towards Choi Yu-Seong happened close to home. In the beginning, when he first seemed to change, his housekeepers had been half afraid that he would start lashing out again, but now, they were much more calm and relaxed. Whereas before they had forced a smile and dealt with the outbursts in order to keep their high salary, they now smiled genuinely at him.

If that was the change close to home, then externally, the players who visited Yu-Seong's house spread rumors saying he was a changed man. There were various stories: that he changed from his rascal-like ways, that he was a fool who wanted to show off and waste his money, that even with the rumors he was still very handsome, and that since he seemed to be a changed man, it was fine how he spent his money.

Among the gossip, there was even talk about Kim Do-Jin, the super-rookie—at least for now—visiting Yu-Seong's house. Yu-Seong's reputation benefited from the stories that painted him and Do-Jin being as close as brothers. After all, Do-Jin was the most popular rookie in Korea.

Like killing two birds with one stone, Yu-Seong used the new articles implying that he became a player as an opportunity to both upgrade his reputation and Star-Factor skill. As a result, the level acceleration rate attained by Star-Factor increased from 30 to 50 percent in one month. In other words, the efficiency of the skill increased. Considering skills usually became more difficult to upgrade as their ability increased, Star-Factor's development was extremely rapid.

However, apart from these kinds of external changes, Yu-Seong also underwent personal changes. This was because his goal wasn't to merely become a wealthy player.

'My goal is to have the ability to stay safe and survive in the future.'

He could only find happiness once he was sure of his survival. Therefore, it wasn't a difficult decision for him to somewhat sacrifice his time now to ensure he had time later on. After all, the concept of 'working to survive' was quite familiar to him.

'But last month was really a pain in the butt.'

He slept even less than he had when he was on Earth pulling countless all-nighters while working at the game company. Instead of sleeping, his entire attention and focus were on training.

Yes, he did go through the Awakening and got powers, but if that was enough to determine a player's strength, then every player in the same skill rank would be equally powerful.

However, differences in power clearly existed within the same rank. This was because a player's strength was decided not only by their basic profile like skill numbers or the synchronization between skills but was also influenced by countless variables like but not limited to proficiency and experience.

This difference grew larger as the player rank increased andYu-Seong believed that fundamentals were one of the biggest factors in determining that difference.

'The skill that a player uses and upgrades the most from when he was a lower rank becomes the symbol that represents that player in the future.'

His thoughts weren’t based on a wild guess; a player would be foolish to ignore a skill just because it was new, low-ranked, or weak.

Skills were bound to grow as the player ranked up and a player's proficiency increased. Therefore, it was crucial for a player to completely understand his skill and train himself to be able to easily use that skill at the drop of a hat.

That was why Yu-Seong had rented an entire player training center for the past month and trained with Jin Do-Yoon to master his skills. He was quite satisfied with his results. Even though Yu-Seong threw his sweat-covered shirt aside and gasped ferociously as he lay down, he couldn't stop smiling.

"How was it? Not bad, huh?"

"It was far from being bad, young master."

Standing in front of Yu-Seong without a drop of sweat, Do-Yoon had a weird look on his face. He glanced at the tip of his sleeves. Surprisingly, the ends were burning so much that they turned to ash and dispersed into the air.

This wasn't something Do-Yoon took lightly. After all, he was a B-rank level 70 physical-reinforcement type player, and normally, an E-rank all-rounder player shouldn't be able to even touch him. But on the last day of the month that Yu-Seong decided to train, he broke the status quo.

'His talent is on a different level.'

Yu-Seong had the blood of the Choi family that Woo-Jae always talked about. Perhaps his blood's special powers had been activated?

Although Yu-Seong only recently became a player, Do-Yoon could easily imagine Yu-Seong standing shoulder to shoulder with him in the near future.

'I should train harder.'

For Do-Yoon who swore to protect Yu-Seong to his death, he was extremely excited for his master's potential while also being greatly inspired to work on his own growth. But his training could wait for another day. Right now, he wanted to express his excitement for Yu-Seong's development by any means.

"You are the best E-rank player that I know of, sir." "Aren't I the only E-rank player?"

"For now, yes but..."

"Don't worry about it. You don't have to lie just to flatter me."

Yu-Seong had read the original novel to its end, so he would've known if Do-Yoon had any other relationships or friendships. Suddenly, he sprang up and checked the calendar on his phone.

Finally, he only had to wait one more day.

His rapid breathing showed that he couldn't hide his anticipation. After all, from Yu-Seong's point of view, the training he went through for a month was all for tomorrow.

"Everyone is going to be amazed."

"I'm going to make sure of that." Yu-Seong wished this from the bottom of his heart.

* * *

What were the ways one could grow as a player? Although there were many ways, the majority of players considered leveling up as the main method of increasing their skill rank.

While a skill’s level would rise if the player continuously used it, it was too slow. For example, the Eye-of-Replication didn't level up when Yu-Seong used it all day. It only rose eight levels after a month of intensive training. If he didn't have the Star-Factor skill to boost the growth, the Eye-of-Replication would currently only have grown five to six levels.

Leveling up a skill was difficult even when he was at a low level and the skill was low-ranked. In the end, the most efficient way to level up was undoubtedly hunting monsters in the dungeon.

But exploring dungeons wasn't open to just any player. Since there were many non-combatant players, the country set a standard to prevent them from recklessly risking their lives. To go inside a dungeon, a player had to be a dungeon explorer who possessed a special license; in other words, a hunter. The exam to become a hunter was officially held three times a month, which were the 10th, 20th, and the last day of the month.

Yu-Seong picked November 20th for his exam. Since the last month had been filled with painstaking training all for this day, Yu-Seong headed to the Korea Player Association filled with both eagerness and nervousness. Jin Do-Yoon and Jin Yu-Ri also felt the same as they sat in front of the car.

Do-Yoon wanted to stop Yu-Seong more than anyone else when he declared that he would become a hunter. It was because while hunters received a lot of benefits, they also bore many risks.

Death.

A dungeon hunter knew that they might die as a result of always fighting monsters. Do-Yoon was someone who wanted his young master to stay safely in the house, so Yu-Seong's sudden announcement made him anxious. However, he couldn't refute Yu-Seong's argument that it was better than being crushed to death by the cruel treatment of his family as he was pushed around.

Similar to Choi Min-Seok, members of the Choi family didn’t hesitate to murder others, even if their target was their own family. Yu-Ri, unlike Do-Yoon, didn't oppose Yu-Seong’s idea as she guessed what Yu-Seong was going to say before he said it out loud. Since Yu-Seong needed to plan how to deal with both his family and Do-Jin for his survival, he had no choice but to work hard and today was the day that he would test the fruits of his labor.

As everyone had complicated emotions, the car was unusually quiet as it drove across Seoul Gangbyeon Expressway, reached Yeouido, and entered the Korea Player Association. The entrance of the institution was already very crowded when Yu-Seong arrived.

Hunters received the most attention and respect from the public because their job was accompanied by great danger. Therefore, it was only natural that people were interested in the exam that selected such hunters.

Various people filled the entrance for different purposes: aspiring players that had prepared for today like Yu-Seong, scouts from guilds that tried to recruit talented players, and journalists that were crazy for new stories or rumors.

"We also called some journalists, right?"

Yu-Ri nodded at Yu-Seong's question.

"Yes. We did as much as we could using our connections, but it won't be that many."

Recently, Yu-Seong was craving attention. He always had been like that, but nowadays he has become more outright with it. Since Yu-Ri knew that it was due to the development of the Star-Factor skill, she gathered several journalists working for influential media.

"Is this them? This is more than a few. There’s a lot more than I thought would show up."

Yu-Seong’s eyes were wide as he looked out the car window at the group of journalists who were in front of the main entrance that led to the examination hall.

"No. The journalists I called said that they were waiting in the entrance of the parking lot."

"Then who are those people here for?

Yu-Seong's question was answered by a familiar, smiling face that appeared among the group of journalists.

"Choi Min-Seok...?"

The faces of Yu-Seong and the Jin siblings simultaneously contorted when they saw someone completely unexpected.

* * *

Park Jin-Hwan, a reporter from Minguk Broadcast called by Yu-Ri, was annoyed as he waited in the cold weather with the press corps that came for Yu-Seong.

"What the hell is Choi Min-Seok doing here?" His fellow reporter had the same question as him.

"I don't know."

If he knew Min-Seok was coming, he wouldn't have easily accepted Yu-Ri’s request.

'I was certain there wouldn't be a bigger story than Choi Yu-Seong...'

Today's main issue was Yu-Seong. Although he thought that way and accepted Yu-Ri's call, Min-Seok appeared with more journalists attached to him.

'I hope he's here simply for the attention...'

But Park Jin-Hwan eventually realized that Min-Seok wasn’t here for fun when he overheard others talking about him.

"They say a new Irregular is born."

"Lee Jin-Wook?"

This was new information and a new name. Bewilderment and confusion flashed across the eyes of the press corps that had been gathered by Jin-Hwan.

If an Irregular survived, they grew rapidly. There were only 12 Irregular players among the entirety of the players in Korea, and eight of them were hunters that explored dungeons. Of course, every one of them possessed great power and influence. In other words, the appearance of a new Irregular was extraordinary as, no, perhaps much more interesting than the ninth child of the Comet Group, Yu-Seong, applying for the hunters exam.

"Reporter Park, it doesn’t seem like Choi Yu-Seong is the biggest story today?"

"So what? Turn our cameras to the new guy?" Jin-Hwan replied, extremely annoyed, as he glanced at the man next to Min-Seok who seemed to be in his mid-20s.

'That guy is Lee Jin-Wook? He's young.'

He was an Irregular, on top of that, he was young.

As the situation just worsened, the fellow reporter who had spoken to him before asked again.

"No, what I'm saying is, how about we film both of them?"

It was obvious he was going to film both, but the problem was on whom to focus the article on. Some of the reporters among the press corps even began sneaking out. Jin-Hwan thought that they were foolish.

"It's already too late to go there."

Before they jumped ship to follow a better story, there were other reporters who had already taken pictures using their cell phones, emailed them to headquarters, and made a phone call right away. So even if the deserters eagerly photographed and wrote an amazing story, they were already too late.

Jin-Hwan thought it was better to film Yu-Seong instead, who often became a headline just by breathing. Of course, filming Yu-Seong would get fewer views than the Irregular that appeared with Min-Seok, the member of the Choi family most similar to Yu-Seong, but what was he going to do?

"No use crying over spilled milk."

As Jin-Hwan sighed and looked away, the elevator that came up from the underground parking lot opened.

"It's Choi Yu-Seong!"

Somebody shouted.

"Did he really come here for the hunters exam?"

Between the intentional scream and doubt, Yu-Seong slightly smiled while he bathed in the pouring sunlight as if it was his spotlight. Instinctively taking pictures as he looked at Yu-Seong, Jin-Hwan thought:

'Damn. He really is freaking handsome. He beats most actors in the looks department.'

Meanwhile, the reporter that stood next to Jin-Hwan marveled as he couldn't keep his mouth closed.

"Wow. Reporter Park, don't you think this story will blow up if we just take decent photos? The pictures alone look at least ten times better than those guys."

"Reporter Kim, you're kidding, right? Ten times seems too small a number..."

Jin-Hwan chuckled and shook his head as he spoke, "He's a thousand times better."

"Damn right. Haha."

As always, being handsome had its uses.