Chapter 12

Chapter 12 . A Mess of a Character to Others (1)

[You have leveled up . ]

[You have received a blessing . All debuffs have disappeared, and your stamina and magic power are now full . ]

[You have reached level 10 . Monsters will no longer appear in the Training Dungeon . ]

As soon as he leveled up, Hyrkan turned his head as the Skeleton Warrior pulled his long bone out of a Coal Tiger . The end of the bone was sharp and eerie, and the Skeleton Warrior holding onto the bone was even more ghastly . It truly looked like a cold-blooded warrior .

Watching this scene, Hyrkan rubbed his chin .

‘I hit level 10 but…’

5 days had passed since Hyrkan began Warlord, and he had now reached the highest level possible in the Training Dungeon .

It wasn’t a slow pace . It was faster than the average players and about the same speed compared to diligent players . However, compared to diligent, talented players, it was slow . Talented players that spend most of their days on Warlord can hit level 10 in 4 days . Amongst them, those at the level of Rankers can do it in 3 days .

Compared to them, Hyrkan’s level-up speed was too slow .

‘It took longer than I thought . ’

Before he had returned to the past, Hyrkan had hit level 10 in 3 days . It was because of this that Hyrkan was able to boldly decide to make his living in Warlord . It wasn’t that he gambled thinking he may have talent .

In any case, it had taken him longer than he expected .

However, Hyrkan wasn’t mad or disappointed, as he smiled in satisfaction .

‘It was worth the time investment, though . ’

His gain was big .

The Skeleton Warrior’s Combat AI was indeed high . He had fixed them up with his personal training, and now they could fight better than average players .

There was more .

‘This is a lot better than I thought . ’

Skeleton Warriors had one absolute advantage over players .

The penalty upon death!

If they received damage, they could restore themselves using their master’s magic power .

If they were totally destroyed, they had to be re-summoned . In this case, the Skeleton Fragment was put on a 30-minute cooldown time . If a Skeleton Warrior died after fighting for 30 minutes, it could be summoned again immediately .

In other words, Skeleton Warriors could fight with no fear of death .

This was a huge advantage .

Warlord’s biggest risk was death . As a result, all battles were planned around lowering the number of deaths to as low as possible . At times, of course, it was necessary to give up one’s life . It was a game; thus, it wasn’t the hardest thing to risk losing one’s life . But for Skeleton Warriors, this risk of death was pretty much non-existent .

However, there was something else that Hyrkan found most attractive about Skeleton Warriors .

‘The best thing is that I don’t need to worry about them ever betraying me . ’

Skeletons could not betray their master .

Hyrkan’s Skeleton Warrior training consisted of beatings and abuses . Even so, his Skeleton Warrior never showed the slightest sign of a counterattack . No matter what the situation, it showed an absolute loyalty towards its master . It would only bare its teeth when its master was threatened .

This was to be expected . It was AI .

But after experiencing it firsthand, Hyrkan found his Skeleton Warrior to be extremely admirable, even to the point he found it noble .

‘If it were me getting beaten up like that, I would have stabbed a knife through my throat a long time ago . ’

If Hyrkan were treated the way he was treating his Skeleton Warrior, he wouldn’t have lasted a day before going on a fit of rage .

In any case, Hyrkan found the Skeleton Warrior more than satisfactory . Imagining himself controlling over twenty of such Skeleton Warriors, he was elated .

At the moment, however, Hyrkan didn’t have the time to enjoy daydreaming .

‘The question now is how I’m going to distribute my stat points . ’

He was now level 10, meaning he couldn’t continue to sucking honey off the Training Dungeon . He had to head out to the field, full of competition and violence .

Of course, he wasn’t afraid of fighting at all . In truth, Hyrkan was more the type to stab someone in the back, rather than getting stabbed himself . He received a huge stab to the back before returning to the past, but that was because of betrayal . Usually, Hyrkan wasn’t the type to get conned or tricked .

The problem lied in which direction he would now take .

Hyrkan collected a rather large sum of data on necromancers . He even sent email questions to Helgen .

According to the information he gathered, there were two types of necromancers in Warlord .

‘Should I go the standard build?’

The most typical one was the Summon Necromancer . Upon leveling up, 5 stat points were given for distribution . Summon Necromancers put 4 or even all 5 points into magic power .

The reason was simple . Summoning magic required a lot of magic power . It required a sizable amount of magic power to summon, and more to maintain the summons . It was a class one couldn’t do without enough magic power .

This was the most representative necromancer of Warlord .

But recently, there was a new trend thanks to a high-level information released by Helgen .

‘Should I go explosion?’

Explosion necromancers recently garnered attention .

This necromancer went into the explosion magic that necromancer’s had . There were things like Golem Explosion, but the reason explosion necromancer received public attention was that mass explosions were possible . It required a lot of time commitment, but the power from mass explosions of corpses, skeletons, and golems went far beyond what magicians of the same level could do . But to be an explosion necromancer, it was best to put all stats into intelligence as explosion magic scaled with intelligence .

Hyrkan had to consider his options carefully . To solo raids, he knew he needed a strong, one-hit move . Jabs only worked against someone of similar size . Given most raid bosses’ large sizes, he would most likely be killed before he could finish off the bosses with just jabs .

‘There’s also the immortal necromancer . ’

The immortal necromancer wasn’t currently known . It went into the necromancer’s Body Modification skill tree, and these necromancers put all stats into stamina .

The immortal necromancer appeared thanks to a level 140 skill called Life Vessel . This skill allowed the user to become a lich . No matter how much damage the body received, liches did not die as long as their life vessels were safe .

Of course, they weren’t actually immortal . It was just that as long as they avoided taking direct damage to their life vessels, they could see up to a 10 times increase in stamina . Under this Life Vessel skill were various, lower-ranking body modification and regeneration skills .

This allowed them to become excellent tanks . They were the result of guilds seeking for more efficient tanks .

These were the three types of necromancers that Hyrkan knew of .

But Hyrkan couldn’t decide on one among these three .

It wasn’t that he was indecisive .

‘This isn’t enough . ’

It was just that these three couldn’t match up to his expectations . None fit the image he had in his mind .

However, if he had to choose, he would go with the standard build as Rich Lich had done .

There was just no other choice .

But looking at the Skeleton Warrior’s combat capabilities, Hyrkan changed his mind .

With the defend first attack second method, the summons had no choice but to take some damage .

But if the summon could avoid attacks well enough, there was damage taken . It would be fine to have fewer points put into magic power . At least, in theory .

To put this theory into effect, there had to be a teacher or a role-model for the Skeleton Warriors to follow . There had to be someone to fill the Skeleton Warriors’ sponge-like combat AI .

Who could act as that role-model?

It was, obviously, Hyrkan .

Hyrkan was confident . No one could fight as well as he could . Given the same level, stats, and items, he was confident to triumph over anyone .

As such, no one was a better teacher than Hyrkan .

And that was the problem .

‘The Skeleton Warriors can’t dodge my attacks because of my current stats . Later on, they’re going to see my punches in slow motion . ’

Now was the extent to which Hyrkan could teach his Skeleton Warrior to fight . If his Skeleton Warrior got a spec-up, it was near impossible to teach them how to fight with hand-to-hand combat . To teach them down the road, Hyrkan had to invest in strength .

But if he were to do that, his character would be a complete mess .

Before Hyrkan returned to the past, he had invested all his points into strength . This was because he was a swordsman . Even with the same stats, once swordsmen received buffs and used their skills continuously, they could easily perform 10 times the expected result .

Magicians had a similar skill as well . There was something called magic swordsmen, who used magic power to maximize their combat potential . As such, some magicians invested stat points into strength and stamina .

Black magicians were no different . There was a skill that allowed them to fight in close-quarters using their magic power . Even so, they weren’t as strong as swordsmen .

Most importantly, such stat distribution led to a mess of a character that was invested in invested in neither strength nor magic power .

At the same time, this resulted in going into various skill trees .

‘It’s not a bad thing per se . ’

But if this was the goal, it was better to choose white magic and learn magic of all attributes to the peak .

Of course, a mess like this could become a big hit as well .

But at the very least, it was a road no one had tread before . The road could cut off in the middle or lead to a dead end . If this were the case, that would be the end . There was no way to recover after going down this path . There probably wouldn’t be another chance to reset his life .

‘I can’t dwell on this for too long . ’

Hyrkan closed his eyes .

No matter what he chose, regret was inevitable . The question was which path would lead to fewer regrets .

‘Rich Lich was able to succeed in solo raiding, but even after throwing so much money in the game, he was unable to become the best . ’

If it was his fate to fall off a cliff, then it would at least be better to throw his body towards a dream .

‘Gaming is the one thing I can do well . If I can’t be daring in games, my entire life would just be lame . ’

Hyrkan controlled his watch, making a hologram window of his stat . Looking at the hologram window, Hyrkan smiled .

“All strength necromancer . What a concept . At least it’ll make for a good clickbait . ”