Chapter 151

Chapter 151

Ooh- Woo-

Oh….

With the sound of clacking footsteps, a group of undead headed in the same direction. However, these weren’t typical undead – they were Death Warriors, with a species level of Level 5. They carried swords in each hand that emanated black light, and their bodies were enveloped in dark spiritual qi.

Slip.

Yet, at that moment, a plain, crude iron spear was pushed out before the Death Warrior in an instant. It was as if a spear had suddenly appeared from thin air, like a badly edited video. And the moment the Death Warrior was about to react….

Bam!

As the sound of wind blowing appeared, the Death Warrior’s entire upper body flew off in the blink of an eye as if it was chewed and swallowed by space.

Creek!

Woo!

In response, the Skeleton Warriors around the fallen Death Warrior started screaming and attacking. However, surrounding the aggressor was impossible. The man with the spear, Lancelot, predicted this situation from the beginning, which was why he chose the narrow hallway as the main battlefield.

Bam!

The air exploded with activity, and the forwardmost skeletons were smashed like they had been hit by a massive hammer. As the concentrated force collapsed all at once, a vast open space was created almost immediately.

“Phew… phew… that attack method expends a lot of aura power. To maintain consciousness during a fight, I need to use that skill in moderation.”

Originally, Lancelot was just another common user who possessed an average set of abilities. Of course, at Level 7, he had reached a rare level of achievement, but this was the result of his unique fighting style. He tailored one form of attack and took a gamble in challenging numerous promotion tests with that singular approach. In terms of pure attack power, Lancelot was barely equal to a Level 6 user. If Lancelot fought a Level 5 user, they could notice his movement patterns and essentially read his every move since his battle method was full of holes. Lancelot would ultimately lose to a Level 5 user within a few exchanges.

His fighting style, which relied on stabs while protecting his body with a minimal amount of aura power, was so direct and committed that if his enemy avoided the initial stab and closed the distance, Lancelot wouldn’t be able to defend himself. In other words, he was an open book.

In general, when someone was in a similar situation, they would ideally train in aura power flow and defense, but Lancelot gave up on that approach without any regrets and trained solely on his stabbing.

Lancelot knew his overall aura power and control were relatively poor; when he attacked, he couldn’t defend himself and vice versa.

Therefore, Lancelot forcibly increased his level and placed all his bonus points into aura power to maintain a constant barrier around his body, which could withstand most weak attacks. With this in place, Lancelot never stopped training by hunting enemies far below his level.

That was the only way for Lancelot to develop and progress.

Crack! Crack!

However, things changed after he’d practiced his stab for over 100 days and realized the meaning of stabbing. Although he could still only execute the stab move, the power and force behind that attack grew exponentially. Due to this, Lancelot had grown strong enough to contend against Level 10 monsters. By understanding the essence of a martial arts move, he had acquired an ultimate ability.

Crack.

The essence of a martial arts move didn’t require the user to be overwhelmingly powerful, nor did it need vast amounts of aura power or internal energy to operate. This was because it was based on a deep understanding of a fundamental essence, which was also why a move using this essence was much less taxing than what would be expected from its resulting destructive force.

However, unlike Merlin, whose stats grew even if he didn’t put points into internal energy and magic power, Lancelot found it difficult to increase his aura power limits through basic training. With his iron-like unwavering mental fortitude, Lancelot could hone his aura power, but he couldn’t yet control how much he outputted, which was an entirely different issue.

“It’s a miracle that I even reached Level 7.”

Honestly, he shouldn’t have been able to reach Level 7 with his skill and ability set. Yet, he got to this point through a neverending cycle of death and willpower training. Whenever he leveled up, he’d put his bonus stat points into aura power, a stat area that shouldn’t have grown if he was playing the game normally. After fully understanding DIO’s skill and stat system, Lancelot lived like a ‘parasite’ off the game’s overarching structure. This was how he existed and succeeded in DIO.

[Impressive. I’m surprised you’ve come so far with a fighting style like that… at this rate, you might wipe out the whole undead army.]

At that moment, a black spiritual qi rose from the other side of the narrow hallway. It was an undead monster with a full set of black plate armor, a Death Knight.

“You’ve finally come out.”

Most assuredly, Lancelot didn’t possess the natural skills to defeat a Level 10 Death Knight. The only reason Lancelot could best something at Level 12 during the event assessment was his thorough preparation and reliance on an ample supply of magic items. Thus, without any hesitation, Lancelot removed a ring from his finger.

“Goodbye.”

[What?! Wait, you… you….]

Poof!

The ring Lancelot threw out, his Gate Ring, grew in size and swallowed him. Everything happened so fast that the Death Knight had no time to react. If the Death Knight was standing right in front of Lancelot, it might have been able to do something, but it had stayed some distance away since it was cautious of Lancelot’s stab move.

Poof.

Lancelot returned to Starting after teleporting through space and immediately collapsed.

“Phew… phew… I feel like I’m going to die.”

After expending all his aura power long ago, Lancelot constantly shuddered. In truth, his physical state shouldn’t have deteriorated to this point, as his body should have shut down already. However, Lancelot’s mental fortitude transcended his body, so he could consistently go beyond his physical limits. If he had done this to his real body outside the game, it would have broken down beyond repair long ago.

Beep!

Unable to muster the strength to even speak, Lancelot activated a party invitation message window that he had readied beforehand. Above his head, a pre-prepared message read:

[Wanted – Holy Priest Healer, Level 5 or higher. One silver for a complete heal.]

One silver was equal to 5,000 won. For users who were walking around the city with an abundance of divine power, this exchange was worth it.

“Hey, you’ll give one silver for treatment?”

“Yes. As you can see….”

As he couldn’t speak any further, Lancelot handed the user a single silver currency. Of course, they could have just run off with the money, but most people treated DIO like a second reality. Moreover, everyone’s real face was used, so there weren’t many people who played dirty. Additionally, any user at Level 5 or above was mindful of their reputation; they wouldn’t throw away their well-maintained standing for a pittance of money.

Lancelot had an impressive cache of money. Though a single orc’s drop didn’t amount to much, after tens of hours grinding and killing more than 10,000 of them, it started to add up. For Lancelot, one silver wasn’t much.

“The power of Goddess Luna who governs serenity, please provide rest for he who is exhausted….”

As the run-of-the-mill priest in a pure white robe chanted the prayer, a soft light enveloped Lancelot. The light restored his damaged body cells, mended his wounds, and recharged his energy levels.

“Thank you.”

“No worries. Have fun~!”

After parting ways with the priest, Lancelot headed to the Exchange Center. Since he didn’t adhere to any traditional training method, Lancelot had to purchase several items to hunt a large number of monsters and forcibly raise his level.

Location

Description

Price

Training Room

If you don’t want to be bothered, come here! Time passes at least 24x to 100x faster in this room. However, the room is a restricted space, so one’s stat increases will be greatly attenuated. You won’t be able to raise any spiritual power stats in this place! However, you can raise individual skill levels!

1,000 ~ 100,000 Spirits

Panitris

A fantasy world! With dragons and magic, come to this fantastical middle-century world! However, the average level is low, so Panitris is not an ideal place to learn magic.

100,000 Spirits

Jin

Come here to find martial artists! If you want to experience what formidable opponents look like, come to Jin! However, the average level is low, so Jin is not an ideal place to learn martial arts.

100,000 Spirits

Demon World

A dangerous place where you can die at any moment! There are no villages, cities, or NPCs. The only thing that exists in the Demon World is constant battle!

500,000 Spirits

Noah

A futuristic world with humans who fight otherworldly monsters! We recommend this destination for those who want to acquire state-of-the-art tech!

1,000,000 Spirits

“Carlin, I’ll enter the Training Room. Make it a 100x room.”

When Lancelot entered the Exchange Center, he made his way over to the gatekeeper, Carlin, who nodded after hearing Lancelot’s request.

“It’ll be difficult to endure solitude for a hundred days. Would you still like to proceed?”

“Yes, immediately, please.”

As the room with the highest time multiplier, the 100x room costs 100,000 Spirits or EXP. This was an incredibly high amount of points, but it allowed one to experience 100 days for only one day in DIO or two hours in real-time. If it were being compared to the speed of time passing in reality, it would be faster by 1,200 times.

“Then… I’ve received your 100,000 Spirits. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll open the gate.”

Then, a heavy thump was heard as a huge stone door fell from the empty air. This wasn’t the only door. There were tens of hundreds of similar ones strewn all over Carlin’s area. The Training Room was an essential tool for those who wanted to get ahead in the game. However, there were few users who chose the 100x option. The required EXP was a deterrent, but more than that, it was challenging to be totally alone and isolated for so long.

“… It’s been a while.”

The space that Lancelot entered was a football field-sized indoor training hall. In one area, there were training dummies in the shape of humans, and there were also two-by-two-meter slabs of wood, iron, Mithril, and even Adamantium for target practice. This was an area to train and test one’s most explosive skills.

On one side of a wall was a bed for sleep in, and on another, there was a constant stream of water flowing into a small pond and a tree that constantly bore fruit. There was also a full-size track for users to run and a bunch of crystals for magic power, divine power, and pure spiritual power users to use. It was a perfect training area for users.

“I currently have around… 2,400,000 Spirits.”

Considering that the relatively high-leveled One-Horned Fire Snake only gave 10,000 Spirits, Lancelot’s total Spirits was astronomically large. However, as Merlin experienced earlier, it was more advantageous to hunt multiple mid or low-level monsters than a few high-level monsters if one’s objective was to accrue Spirits. An orc gave 100 Spirits, and Lancelot had killed over 10,000 of those orcs. That wasn’t all. There were also orc warriors that appeared from time to time, and they gave 300 Spirits or more. Furthermore, in the Dead Earth area, Lancelot had defeated hundreds of Death Warriors, who gave a similar amount of Spirits as orcs.

Once Lancelot settled on a hunting ground, he always eradicated hundreds, if not thousands, of the same monster. If he wanted to focus on training his stab, he didn’t need to level up, as he could easily kill the low-level monsters. Yet, Lancelot used his aura power to kill the orcs to obtain EXP points. In truth, the only user who probably had more Spirits than Lancelot was likely Arthur, who went around killing swaths of high-level monsters.