[System: Due to an excessive number of concurrent connections, the connection has been temporarily delayed.]

[System: Please wait for a moment.]

[System: Queue number: 178,490]

[System: estimated waiting time: 95 seconds]

… Syncopation…

[System: Queue number: 7]

[System: estimated waiting time: 1 second]

[Iris recognition needed.]

[‘Ian’, welcome to the world of Kailan.]

Pat-!

Along with the countless familiar sounds, Ian’s dark vision turned bright.

And after a second, the blue sky with no clouds could be seen.

“Phew, I think I clicked at the right time… queue number of 100,000 already?”

Lying on the ground, Ian grunted as he got up after a moment.

Tat-!

The last-minute Ian logged out, he was on one of the peaks at the seven mountains of Ulphir

Ian looked around.

With the massive update patch happening all over, there was a possibility to enter the ‘Warrior’s Path’ which was supposedly being created somewhere along that region.

‘Kay, where is it?’

Ian’s eyes were searching for it.

There was a thick cloud which had between the peaks, something that wasn’t there before the update.

Not sure, but probably related to the ‘Brave Path’.

Ian summoned Pin immediately and rode on it, and moved in that direction.

Because of the white cloud, the naked eyes couldn’t easily find the so-called ‘Brave path’.

Swak-!

Pin which had been summoned after a long time flew through the fog.

‘I need to find it, even just a little faster…!’

According to the analyzation of Ian, there was no one other than him in the Ulphir Mountains.

Perhaps somehow, it was clear to him that Ian was the first human user in the Korean server.

The problem, however, was that it wasn’t a competition between the ‘human’ users of the ‘Korean’ server.

In the Ulphir Mountains of the human system, in a similar manner there was a Pakalio Canyon in the Devildom that would open the Brave path, and the competition wasn’t just between the Korean servers but from all over the world.

The rankers of more than top 20 rankings from every country would be rushing for the new content, so he had to be cautious.

Without stopping, Ian picked up the speed and flew around.

Was it 15 minutes?

“…!”

Ian who noticed something stopped Pin.

What caught the eyes of Ian was a magnificent stone statue that never been seen in the Ulphir mountains.

‘No, it doesn’t seem like a stone statue, and it feels like a rock sculpture…’

A large colossal stone statue, possibly ten meters in length.

The interesting thing being, the giant statue was holding something in its hand that was lifted high.

A large shape similar to an ellipse, with white energy pouring down from it.

And the white energy that was constantly oozing out of it seemed to be broken down in the air, creating the cloud which was covering the Ulphir Mountain.

Ian pulled on Pin and flew quickly.

His intuition was telling him that it was the Warrior’s path.

Honestly, it would be too embarrassing to say that it was Ian’s intuition.

Whoever would have seen that means they would have made the same judgment as Ian.

Swoosh-!

Ian and Pin were vertically around 10 meters across the wind.

Soaring up to the ellipse, Ian naturally looked down to see it and jumped from the back of Pin.

Ian’s figure on which he jumped fell into the white light and disappeared somewhere.

* * *

The place Ian had jumped into was a giant portal.

As soon as he had entered there, he was able to enter the Brave Path just as he had expected.

Tring-!

[You have entered the ‘Brave Path’.]

[Due to the dimensional movement, the summon ‘Pin’ has been recalled.]

[You have entered the ‘Brave Path’ for the first time from a Korean Server.]

[Fame increased by 200,000.]

Upon seeing the simple system messages which had come up, Ian was seemingly interested.

‘What? The first from the Korean server…?’

There had never been a modifier of ‘Korean Server’ when receiving a first discovery reward.

In addition to the qualifier that was integrated with the world servers, Ian was the first Korean server player that has entered, and not the first one in the world.

‘So much fun, right from the start!’

Ian smiled and looked to the front.

A mysterious landscape had unfolded before the eyes of Ian.

An endless cloud path in the blue sky.

And a subtle gold shines around the path.

Ian stepped on it without any hesitation.

There was just one road, and he had to hurry up.

But the next moment, Ian stopped again.

Woong-!

Along with a resonating sound, someone had blocked Ian.

-Those who set foot on the transcendence path…

A heavy voice ringing in his head.

A warrior with white wings was blocking the path of Ian.

And surprisingly, however, the first thing that Ian could think of when seeing the man was.

“King of Rings?”

The dragon fleet and the army of Heaven came down on the call of Ian during the dimensional war with the Devils.

Excluding the color of the armor which was pure white instead of golden, the man had a similar appearance to the commander of the dragons fleet.

The man who heard Ian speaking under his breath stepped forward.

Nervous at what had happened, Ian gulped and looked.

“How… how do you know about the celestial dragon fleet?”

At the question of the man, Ian immediately answered,

“In the past, the castle of the King of Rings helped the human world.”

“Oh ho, you must have participated in the dimensional war.”

“Yes.”

“But… during that time, I had passed the brave path.”

At the man who was nodding his head, Ian asked,

“Are you also one of the heaven’s army?”

The man shook his head and laughed.

“No, I’m not. Well, it is a bit complicated to say.”

He looked at Ian once again from the top to the bottom.

And the words came again.

“I need you to follow me.”

“Huh?”

“At the end of this road, there is someone who is waiting for you.”

“For me…?”

“I don’t know who either. I’m just his servant for the time being.”

When the man was done speaking, he reached his hand out to Ian, and Ian grabbed his hand.

The next moment…

Woong-!

The white energy spread out and started to spread to the hands of Ian.

Tring-!

[The conditions have been met.]

[Being moved to ‘The Decision Room’.]

A short two lines of system messages had appeared in front of Ian’s view.

At the same time, Ian with the new man disappeared and moved to someplace.

* * *

The ‘Brave Path’ was a ‘gateway’ kind of thing for the Warrior’s canyon.

Originally, there were thought to be a total of 7 gateways.

Seven ancient heroes who will judge the qualities of the user who have passed through the seven gates and arrived at the ‘decision room’.

And to make it interesting, if the gate wasn’t passed at the trial, then the users wouldn’t be eligible to challenge it for one whole month.

If a user made any mistake while passing through the gate and missed the qualification, they will have to wait for a month.

“Of course, Ian will be having a hard time, but seeing him get a free pass like this makes my stomach hurt…”

The face of Na Ji-chan began to crumble right after a few moments, the massive update was done and the server got opened, as he was looking at the personal monitor of Ian.

Less than 20 minutes after the start of the monitoring, Ian’s play was out of expectations.

Of course, Na Ji-chan had guessed that Ian would be the first user to arrive at the Warrior’s Village from the Korean server.

That was the very reason why he was monitoring him.

But apart from that, it was inevitable for him to be upset.

Ian had passed the Warrior’s path which the planning team had designed all night long, without even taking a few steps.

“Ahhh.”

Na Ji-chan exhaled strongly and turned at Kim Ji-yeon who was next to him.

“Miss Ji-yeon. Please show me the status board.”

“Yes. Sir.”

She slightly passed her hands on the tablet, and a small note had popped on one corner of the screen with Ian’s image on it.

-System Table

Server Name: The Brave Road 001

Server class: World

Condition: well

Map: Brave Path

Number of Concurrent users: 27

Maximum Progress: 99.25 percent.

Bug report: 0

… Syncopation…

And Na Ji-chan who had just checked the situation of the board spoke again,

“Uh? In that one moment, did we get more than ten?”

“Yeah. One just increased right now.”

The number of the concurrent users, written in a small font was on the status board, and it was the number of users who were on the Brave Path.

And the number of 27 was the number of users from all over the world, but Na Ji-chan was still shocked.

When Ian had just entered, there were just 5 concurrent users and just 30 seconds back, there were 10 people.

Then how come Ian didn’t meet a single user?

Simple reason.

The ‘Brave Path’ was designed in such a way where one user wouldn’t be able to meet another.

The only room where users could encounter the other was when they reached the ‘Decision room’.

“How many from the Korean sever?”

“Well… Ian, Limlong, and Shakran. Three in total. Irahan seems to be coming in soon.”

“Oh ho.”

Listening to the report from Kim Jiyeon, Na Ji-chan’s face brightened.

Apart from Ian, the Korean server users were usually expected to be strong users.

‘To have three in 27… they surely are a delightful bunch.’

But the very next moment, his eyes went wide as they confirmed something.

“…!”

“Uh?”

Number of Concurrent Users: 24

Brave Path, couldn’t be exited once it was entered till the end.

However, the number of the concurrent users who was 27 a while ago, suddenly decreased to ’24’.

What could that mean?

At the same time, both Kim Ji-yeon and Na Ji-chan were screaming,

“How can that be?”

“How could three people pass already?”

Na Ji-chan which once again confirmed the number of users sighed.

“Khuem…”

Things started to get much more complicated as the pace was much faster than the planning team had thought of.

Kim Ji-yeon checked the data and opened her mouth again,

“Yes, sir. The Warrior’s Village… three members have passed already.”

Na Ji-chan bit his lower lip and gave instructions to Kim Ji-yeon,

“Tell all the monitoring teams to wait.”

“Already?”

“You know too, Ji-yeon. The ‘first team’ is the most important one.”

“Ha, understood team leader.”

Kim Ji-yeon nodded and called someone.

Although the number of 23 hadn’t changed since then.

“Two more to pass… how long will that take?”

If another two moved to the Warrior’s Village, then a total of five would be gathered in there.

And the number of ‘5’ was a very important one for the Warrior’s Village.

That was the first condition for the quest generation.