Chapter 17

In D.I.O., users could gain a new skill by engaging in a certain activity or building knowledge. When it came to the Rank 9 users, the ignorant, these players literally knew nothing about the skills. In order to raise their skill, they needed ability rather than hard work. For example, the following amount of cultivation was necessary for Rank 9 users to reach Rank 8.

Even if they failed, users still earned cultivation points from attempting the Hand Skill. However, they definitely needed to achieve ‘success’ to reach a higher rank. The users must circulate the internal energy through the regular acupoint, then focus on the power to perform the forceful Hand Skill. They had to repeat this a hundred times successfully without any failure each time. Otherwise, no matter how many times they tried, whether it be a thousand times or ten thousand times, their cultivation points wouldn’t go up.

As a Rank 4, Yongno had the following cultivation points.

As a user progressed in rank, their capability gradually became a more significant requirement for them to level up their skill rank, rather than the effort they put in. Of course, it wasn’t completely impossible for users to put in the crazy effort and reach a higher rank, but it worked only when their skill was suitable to their current rank. However, if they didn’t even have the skill, then it was impossible. Although there was a ‘small’ problem – this process also took a lot of time – as long as they had the skill, they would one day go up a rank. However, starting from Rank 5, the advanced level, it became more difficult for users to go further up since it was mandatory to have skill cultivation points of [the next level of mastery].

Whenever users reached a higher rank, their cultivation points, which they earned from making a perfect success, were increased by ten times. If Rank 9 users succeeded in performing acceptable skills for their current rank a hundred times, they reached Rank 8. However, if they tried to enter Rank 7 from Rank 8, they had to successfully operate the suitable Hand Skill to their current rank a thousand times.

Likewise, if Rank 7 users were looking forward to going up one rank, to Rank 6, they had to make a perfect success ten thousand times. Reaching Rank 5 from Rank 6 required a hundred thousand times of success, whereas Rank 5 to Rank 4 demanded a million times of success. The next was ten million, a hundred million, billion, and finally, users should go through ten billion times of successful cultivation process if they wanted to reach the letters-ranked ranks such as Master Rank, Rank A.

But that wasn’t all. If users sought to achieve beyond the higher levels, they had to make a hundred billion times of successful cultivation to reach Rank AA, followed by a trillion times for Rank S, and ten trillion times for Rank SS. For the Rank Ultimate, commonly known as the Grandmaster level of the most perfected skill, users had to experience a hundred trillion times of successful cultivation, which was literally an impossible amount of work.

That was why users calculated both failed attempt cultivation points and attempted cultivation points to narrowly achieve 100%. If they believe they had successfully cultivated their skill, the users could check their cultivation points and see if they reached the next level of mastery.

The Body Strengthening skill isn’t going higher than Rank 7. What exactly are the judging criteria for reaching a higher rank? Sometimes it goes up faster than others, and sometimes it doesn’t at all.

And here was a young man who had never checked his cultivation point, let alone know that was even possible. Of course, that was Mari’s fault since she never taught him about it, thinking that it was unnecessary. But ironically, this indicated how talented he was.

Basically, it was impossible to obtain a higher skill of his rank by only using cultivation points earned through ordinary success. Just based on Yongno’s Hand Skill that was suited for his rank, if he truly focused and didn’t weaken it, he could only release two or three shots before his internal martial arts was drained. In other words, the skill rank wasn’t something that would eventually rise from usage; users had to actively achieve ‘the next level of mastery’ themselves.

As long as users had the ability, they could easily grow inside the game. The skill cultivation points of ‘the next level of mastery’ were fixed at 10% no matter how high the rank was, so if users had a skill that was one level higher than their current level, they could rank up just by performing the skill ten times.

Then, what if they had a skill that was two levels higher? They ranked up faster than they did at the previous level. If they had a skill equivalent to Rank AA, they could reach Rank A by performing the skill only nine times since operating a skill two levels higher gained 100% cultivation points regardless of the users’ rank.

Ugh, my stamina is running out.

Lately, Yongno realized that he could consume stamina to dive longer. In fact, it was unusual for users to use internal energy rather than to breathe while diving; normally those who stayed underwater for a long time usually relied on their stamina. However, Yongno was unaware of this fact since he had the special ability of Diving.

Anyway, he finally discovered a way to use up his excessive stamina, which was 120 points including +70 title-managed points. Yongno only had fifteen years’ worth of internal martial arts, but the amount of force was so large that swimming wasn’t enough for him to consume them all.

In real life, Yongno got exhausted after running at full speed for twenty seconds, but in D.I.O., he could sprint for twenty minutes straight. If that speed was the same as running 100 meters in ten seconds, then, physically or biologically, he wasn’t a normal human anymore. He was a completely different existence from his DNA to Proteomics.

In fact, this is just a game regardless of DNA or proteomics.

Yongno’s current stats were as below.

He had successfully increased all of his stats to their limit. Although the maximum reachable limit for a Level 1 user was at most 50 points, he had still brought up even the points of those that wouldn’t be possible unless he was at Level 2. However, he had some stats that were less than 50 points. Generative power was increased by 1 point when a user’s health and stamina went up by 3 points respectively. Due to the 50 point limit, Yongno could only earn 30 stamina points and 30 healthy points, and therefore, he couldn’t raise his generative power by more than 40 points.

His Gathering Magical Force was also only 40 points. But thankfully, he had raised Gathering Magical Force and Magic Resistance by considerable amounts while performing the Golden Pill Immortal Technique. If users operated or cultivated a special QiGong Technique, they could increase generative power and Gathering Magical Force individually, but, at least, Yongno didn’t do that kind of training.

It also applied to quickness, which grew as users continued training for adapting to fast speed and extreme combat situations. However, Yongno didn’t encounter any monsters yet, so he had no chance to increase that stat.

And when it came to luck…

Yey, I found another clam!

Yongno’s luck made some progress, but it wasn’t because he did something for an increase. Users could never raise luck points artificially. Then, was it possible to increase luck by cultivating it constantly? No, since it was uncontrollable; it progressed differently every day. Sometimes it was high, whereas sometimes it was low. If there was a way to develop it, only things like getting a blessing from a high priest could work.

Users of D.I.O. earned 100 bonus points every time they leveled up. And like what it said, because it was a bonus, they could choose and increase one of their stats by 100 points. However, a Level 10 user couldn’t split his 1,000 bonus points into investing 999 points in one of his stats and using the remaining 1 point in luck. In this game, when users had higher stats, they had to consume more bonus points to increase their chosen stat.

It was much harder for a user with 500 Strength points to increase it by 1 point than it was for a user with 50 Strength points to reach 51 through training. This was because as users approached the latter part of the game, it became more difficult to increase all their stats. They could progress quickly in the early stage but they could not keep the same speed as they grew stronger.

As users’ stats doubled every 100 points––except for spiritual powers since each of them had a different characteristic––they also consumed their points faster. Under 100 points, users consumed 1 bonus point per point. Around 100 points, they consumed 2 bonus points per point. In other words, their bonus point consumption ratio became 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, etc. every 100 points. If a user earned 1,000 points after reaching Level 10, the Master Level, and spent all his points on one stat, he would get around 400 points of the stat.

SBAM.

Yongno struck a huge fish nearby with Great Strength Vajra Hand. This strong Hand Skill could leave a clear handprint after striking down a steel plate; thus, the fish having its head been struck, died instantly before it could react.

Yongno was surprised by how big the fish was. He just attacked it without a second thought since it went past him, but he didn’t know that it was twice his size.

Wow! It’s indeed 900 meters below the surface. All kinds of weird fish exist! It doesn’t look like a shark or a whale and not even a tuna…

After a moment, the dead fish body disappeared, then a pack of fresh fish slices appeared.

Hmm, I’m getting sick of eating fresh fish slices… and without a spicy dipping sauce.

However, it was still too good to throw it away, so Yongno put it in his inventory. Lately, he figured out that a dead animal turned into an item after five seconds. Users outside the game knew about this fact, but Yongno noticed it quite recently.

Mari also told him that if he succeeded in putting the dead creature in the inventory within ten seconds after its death, he could acquire its entire body and not just part of it. However, this only applied to dead animals and not monsters. Thus, it was the best choice for users to get as many things as possible from the animals.

However, Yongno didn’t take this action as he found it unnecessary to get the entire body when he was just hunting for food. Plus, he felt annoyed to prep the dead body for a meal. Above all…

The inventory can hold up to 100 kilograms of objects, so it’s useless to put that whole fish in here. Besides, it seems to weigh over 400 kilograms.

Splash.

Then, there was another huge fish swimming near him. Of course it was only natural for a fish to be fast in the water, but it was so unbelievably fast that Yongno turned on the map and checked his location.

1,000 meters deep…

It was a new record. He had dived and finally reached the deepest and darkest part of the ocean he had ever attempted. The increase in water pressure was also another level.

The water pressure is insane!

He was talking about it matter of factly, but it was actually terrifying. America’s Seawolf-class nuclear power submarine or Russia’s Alpha-class or Sierra-class submarine could dive to depths of up to 600-700 meters below sea level, but those were special cases. Other nuclear-powered submarines usually operated at a depth of approximately 400 meters. So, how could a human dive 1,000 meters deep into the ocean without wearing any protective gear? Even a submarine with a titanium hull could get crushed by water pressure if it descended to this depth.

Considering the fact, even if Yongno had internal martial arts, this was still abnormal. If users had to endure the water pressure in this depth, they would need, at least, three cycles of the Self-defense Technique.

If I didn’t earn the Water-friendly skill, I couldn’t go down this deep.

As he entered Rank 3 in Swimming, Yongno gained this skill to control water and sustain cold air, and thankfully, he could manage the water within a meter around him and remove the water pressure applied to his body. He could also endure the deep-sea temperature close to subzero from using this Water-friendly skill. As a result, it was relatively easy for him to enter the deep ocean.

Tada!

Suddenly, a giant turtle jumped in front of him. Just its shell alone looked more than three meters wide.

How can a turtle be this big?

Yongno was bewildered at its gigantic size, but he calmed down after he saw the turtle’s innocent black eyes. Unlike its surprisingly big body, the turtle looked quite cute.

Whoa, it’s a sea turtle. I only saw it on the TV. There’s a lot of fish in this ocean but no turtles so I’ve thought they don’t live here, but wow! I never expected to see one in the deep sea!

Patting the turtle on its head, Yongno recalled the image of sea turtles he had seen on TV programs. A turtle in his memories was holding a fish bigger than its size by its mouth. While Yongno was interested in how the slow sea turtle had caught the fish, the narrator of the show spoke calmly.

“Unlike their cute appearance, sea turtles are wild hunters of the ocean.”

Crunch.

AWK?!

The sea turtle suddenly bit his hand. Yongno shook his hand bewilderedly, but that part of his body didn’t move an inch since the turtle’s strong biting force broke the bones in his wrist. Yongno channeled his internal force into his left hand and performed Strengthening, then operated Great Strength Vajra Hand with his right hand to strike down the turtle’s head. But…

WHAM!

Why is it so hard?!

His left hand was already spreading gold clouds of dust. If Yongno lowered his guard, he could lose his hand forever. He felt threatened by the turtle’s biting force. He lifted his right hand again, but then he changed his mind and concentrated his internal force on his left hand. After a second, he exploded it.

BOOMM!

When a massive force surged into its throat, the sea turtle released his hand and retreated, but before Yongno could feel relieved, the giant turtle shot itself at him.

Uuughhhh!

Feeling a buzz in his head, Yongno crashed into the cliff. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach, so he operated Body Strengthening all over his body, then observed the turtle’s movement. The hole in the animal’s stomach seemed to absorb the water, but shortly after, the sea turtle fired itself at Yongno like a huge cannonball.