Chapter 55. Inferno Pyramid (1)

“This part…… what do you think? We’ve never thought of this before, no, we thought of it, but we never even tried it.”

A man paused a video and started to explain to his friends while enlarging on a certain part of the screen.

Around twenty people were currently sitting down around a table in a large meeting room created inside the Dream Network. The reason they were here was simple.

Their boss urgently called for them.

These group of people had two commonalities.

One was that they were all Finnish, and two was that they belonged to a large-scale guild in EL, Terrícŭlum.

“Wow, Black Mummy’s living bandage was an attack that could be dodged? Hazad, didn’t you say it was impossible?”

Hazad was a user whose Ancient Knowledge was a close-combat assassin-class, and he was the close-range damage dealer and dodge-tanker within Terrícŭlum.

“It’s not possible. No, at least I thought it was. Honestly, no matter how high your dodge rate is, I thought that that attack was impossible to be dodged since there were too many variables…… but the world sure is wide.”

Hazad was looking at the screen with a slightly shocked expression.

Until now, Terrícŭlum brought a professional tanker with stats purely related to defense and health in order to overcome the living bandage attack.

With that user in the party, other aspects of their party were now flawed and this leads to an increase in difficulty.

“This is not the end. Let’s keep watching.”

Kun resumed the video. In the screen, one user was going against the Black Mummy with just a single pair of daggers.

This video was the 1-man raid against Black Mummy video that BJ Gale had streamed yesterday.

“Whoa…….”

“That’s insane…….”

“He actually…….”

The users of Terrícŭlum challenged the Black Mummy several times, and they realized the importance of this video more than anyone.

Normally, other people would just say ‘Wow, he’s good.’ And just watch the video, but the users of Terrícŭlum knew very well how insane the movements done by BJ Gale were.

The video was 28 minutes long.

30 minutes into the raid, the Black Mummy would strip all its bandages and transform into a spirit of darkness, and at this point, clear was practically impossible.

Since the entrance to Inferno Pyramid would not open if the Black Mummy wasn’t killed, the Black Mummy had to be killed within 30 minutes.

In the video, BJ Gale killed the Black Mummy in exactly 27 minutes and 16 seconds.

Considering how Terrícŭlum took 24 minutes, it wasn’t that big of a difference.

The video finished, but no one could speak anything.

The shock they received was something that no one else could feel.

“……Just what were we doing until now?”

“Is that guy amazing or are we the idiots…….”

“Honestly, I think that guy’s amazing.”

“Let’s leave aside the fact that he dodged the living bandage attacks. I think he’s a close-range damage dealer…… but how the hell is his damage so high? He’s stronger than the three of us attacking to the death…… I’m speechless.”

“From what I saw, he kept recovering his health mid-way…… how did he do that? Did he drink a potion?”

“He did drink potions, but I think there was another method.”

“I don’t know exactly, but not to mention recovery, I felt like he was buffing up himself by himself as well. Just how many Ancient Knowledge does he have?”

“Didn’t he just find a special Ancient Knowledge with all of those characteristics?”

“But even so…… tanking, damage dealing, healing, AND buffing? Just what can’t he do? Is that supposed to be even possible?”

“Isn’t it hack?”

“At first, I thought that it might be hack…… but he’s BJ Gale from Korea. There’s no way he’s a hacker.”

“He’s right. That problem already got blown out of hand when he soloed all the way into the 4th floor of the Cave of Giants. Raon even publicly confirmed that he was not a hack user.”

“I thought this guy was no ordinary from the moment I saw him do the Cave of Giants…… but this is now beyond the scope of ordinary. He’s just a total freak!”

The users of Terrícŭlum looked at BJ Gale in the footage in frustration.

However, what was even more shocking was that the video was not over.

The second video followed the first.

In that video, BJ Gale was fighting against the Giant Fire Scorpion that Terrícŭlum was challenging for a half a month now.

“No way…… this isn’t true.”

“There’s no way it’s true. Please tell me it isn’t true.”

“Just watch the video. I watched this live yesterday.”

“You did too? I did too……. You’ll see what happens.”

A few members of Terrícŭlum already saw the video beforehand or knew the results. However, they stayed quiet for the ones who didn’t.

The length of this video was 23 minutes and was even shorter than the last one.

The reason was simple. The time it took the Giant Fire Scorpion to vaporize naturally and fill the surroundings with hellfire was 24 minutes into the raid.

In other words, BJ Gale killed it before it could commit suicide.

The clear time, 23 minutes 22 seconds.

It may look like he barely made it before it committed suicide…… but what was important was that it was killed.

“Just so you know, this was his 7th attempt; and he killed the Black Mummy in his second attempt.”

Kun spoke as he slowly stood up.

“That’s totally insane.”

“He must have practiced a lot before he got there right? Someone please tell me so…….”

“For the Black Mummy, he could have done that…… but not the Giant Fire Scorpion. I don’t know whether he did this as a mistake or on purpose, but that user even revealed the first kill bonus on his stream. Whether he practiced in secret or not…… we were crushed by a single user.”

The reality that everyone knew but avoided, was spoken out by Kun in a cold voice.

“Why do you think I gathered you to watch this video? To take inspiration? NO! We were too arrogant until now. We were egoistic just because we killed a few named monsters in the Hellfire Desert for the first time.”

The users of Terrícŭlum wanted to retort to his words, but they had a hard time doing so.

“I kept thinking about this until now, but I think we need to change. So…… I’m going to propose something very carefully.”

Kun spoke again after looking around to his allies in a serious expression.

“Let’s get rid of the first rule of application to our guild – ‘You have to be Finnish’. No matter how I think about it, I think it will be difficult to go to the top with this condition in effect.”

Surprisingly, Kun was speaking about getting rid of purism.

When in fact, the reason Terrícŭlum met its demise in Sanghyuk’s previous life was precisely because Kun could not get rid of his purist ideals.

That led to an internal conflict, and that conflict eventually brought Terrícŭlum’s demise. But this time, Kun was the first one to propose that they would get rid of the purist ideals.

This was a surprising change.

Considering that Kun’s purist ideals were what led Terrícŭlum to its downfall, Sanghyuk could never imagine that it would get rid of its purist identity.

Naturally, the one who brought about this change was BJ Gale, aka Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk’s flap of his wings had become a storm and was sweeping across the world of EL.

This didn’t happen just in Terrícŭlum. Numerous guilds and numerous users were changing. In fact, even Raon entertainment, the developers of EL, and even Chaos, the God of EL was changing little by little.

Of course, these changes weren’t very good news to the current Sanghyuk. In his view, the fewer changes the better.

However, these changes weren’t something he could stop somehow. It would be foolish to halt just because he was afraid of change, so he boldly stepped forward without thinking about what changes he might bring.

***

“In the end, the only thing I can use is the scorpion gauntlets?”

Muttered Sanghyuk in a bitter voice while organizing the items he earned yesterday.

He ran for about 8 hours yesterday, and could eventually defeat the 2nd named monster, Giant Fire Scorpion, of Inferno Pyramid.

Obviously, his streams became a huge hit.

There was no other stream like it in the history of Pu TV. No, even after considering all histories of personal streaming media, there was nothing like that.

The star candy (donations) he got during 5 hours of the stream amounted to over 100 million (100,000 USD), and the number of viewers he got was nearly 2 million if he factored in the commentary rooms.

Countless people from all over the world gathered, so any ‘previous records’ became meaningless in front of this overwhelming result.

Especially when BJ Gale killed the Giant Fire Scorpion on his 7th attempt, the users of EL across the globe became shocked.

Honestly, running a raid solo was insane in itself, but he killed the never-killed-before Giant Fire Scorpion in 7 tries, so they were naturally shocked.

It became such a big issue, that the number 1 searched-for words was temporarily switched to BJ Gale.

“Well, I can’t be full on the first spoon…… So there’s 5 left? If I kill 3 per day, then I guess I’ll be able to clean up in around 3 to 4 days.”

The reset period of Inferno Pyramid was 10 days. Since it was reset 3 days ago, there was a week left.

Sanghyuk was planning to kill the 3rd and 4th named monsters today, 5th and 6th tomorrow, and the final boss the day after.

Since he wasn’t planning to stream from 3rd named monster onwards, he felt like he would have an easier time fighting them than the 1st and 2nd.

Honestly, his stream yesterday became such a hot topic that he considered streaming the 3rd one again, but he eventually decided not to.

He may be able to gain immediate income, but in the long run, it would gain him nothing.

His streams right now was nothing more than a bait to catch that live channel anyway.

If he could get that live channel and maintain it, then he would easily earn over 100 million (100,000USD) per week, and yet another 100 million if his paid video services went well.

Live channels weren’t called the ‘greatest honey jars’ in his previous life for nothing.

Of course, live channels were all managed on a guild level, so individuals didn’t really get much income. However, Sanghyuk was different.

Although he packaged himself as a guild, the content was just himself, an individual. That was why, if he could properly manage the live channel, he would be able to hit a huge jackpot.

“For today, I’ll put some Blake battle footages that I held back on to keep some of those viewers from yesterday.”

Since yesterday’s stream was a huge hit, Sanghyuk felt that he should still do something for the viewers. So, he decided to stream the recorded footage about Blake’s final battle in the Sky-Gold war, where the cruelty of Skies Above Skies and the crushing of Gold Rush was shown.

Like that, he put the footage on during his stream and started raiding Inferno Pyramid again.

His objective for today was the 3rd and 4th named monsters, and the estimated time in the clearing was around 10 hours.