Chapter 61. The Heroic Lands (1)

Congratulations. You have arrived at the Heroic Lands for the first time and by yourself. This record will be engraved in the world for eternity.

You have acquired the legendary-grade title ‘One who surpassed despair by himself (first)’.

Finally, he passed through the Path to Death and arrived at the Heroic Lands. Although it was slightly close right at the end, his final method worked and he was able to break through it.

“Phew, I’m not doing that again.”

He heaved a deep sigh as he raised his head.

Although it was a difficult journey, he overcame it and was able to arrive at the Heroic Lands earlier than anyone.

And the rewards were very sweet as well.

‘It’s a legendary-grade title again? One who surpassed despair by himself? As far as I know, the title given to the users that arrive at the Heroic Lands are given rare-grade titles named ‘One who surpassed despair’. What is this one? And by himself? Were there solo-play related titles in EL?’

Sanghyuk tilted his head and opened the description of the title.

Title – ‘One who surpassed despair by himself(first)’

Grade – Legendary

Description – You have for the first time, and by yourself, have arrived at the Heroic Lands as a Dimensional Traveler. As always, the first is always special. And now, being alone also became special.

Effects – [Prefix: critical hit rate increases by 50% and attack increases by 20% when playing solo.] [Suffix: evasion rate increases by 50% and damage received decreases by 10% when playing solo.] [Constant effect: >The Solo(S): All stats increase by 25% when playing solo,Alone is better(A): All types of recovery ability increases by 2 times when there are no users within a 100m radius,<]

‘That’s amazing!’

Having checked the title description, he could only be surprised. Legendary-grade titles were on a completely different level to rare-grade ones.

The title he got this time all had the condition that he must play solo, but the more difficult the conditions were to fulfill, the higher the effects it would be.

‘When playing solo’ was a pretty hard condition to fulfill. EL was made without solo playing in mind, so for other users, this title would be pretty much useless.

Perhaps due to the difficult conditions, the stat increase was frightening. The constant effect of ‘The Solo’ was so good that he couldn’t believe it.

The legendary-grade ‘first visitor’ title he got when he broke through the Giant’s Cave also gave an enormous stat increase in its passive effect ‘No.1’, but this one had an even better one.

What was important was that ‘when playing solo’ was a condition that practically didn’t matter to Sanghyuk.

In fact, he was someone that avoided team play so playing solo was a natural thing.

‘It’s only been 9 months since the game launched, but I got two legendary titles already…… I’m doing an absurd thing.’

Sanghyuk honestly felt unreal. Even though he came back in time, he never imagined that he would be able to reach this point.

“It’s good. Very good.”

After thinking about it for a while, he eventually just laughed. Whether it was luck or whatever, getting titles or items was a good thing.

Sanghyuk immediately took out his marking book and did his first marking in the Heroic Lands. He didn’t know what was going to happen, so marking was a must.

After finishing marking, he started walking towards the first village ‘Hero’s Rest’.

Naturally, he was going to install a vendor NPC near the exit of the Path to Death and sell maps of the Heroic Lands through it.

So, he even left the basic skill slot he gained at level 50 empty. He was going to put map creation skill and make a map of the Heroic Lands by going around it.

Of course, it wasn’t like a map was a must in the Heroic Lands like it was in Hellfire Desert, so he would have to make the price quite low, but considering the profit-to-manufacture-cost ratio, he definitely had to do it.

It was a massive profit.

***

“Is that really it? Are there no additional reports?”

Seo Wontae asked the management team leader as he read through the report.

“Yes, that is all that Chaos had to report. We did ask for additional information…… but I don’t think it will tell us the information we want.”

“Mm…… so the conclusion is that we cannot find out which group of people broke through the Path of Despair nor the method they used to break through it?”

What the users called the Path to Death was officially known as the Path of Despair.

“Yes. Chaos mentions that that information is under the DN Privacy Policy Laws.”

“That damned privacy policy laws……. No matter how I think about it, I think Chaos is over-interpreting the privacy policy laws…… this is awkward. Honestly, it’s not like we’re trying to do something. We’re just trying to keep tabs…….”

“It cannot be helped. The Chaos Logic Circuit is extremely normal, so it will become an even bigger problem if we try to forcefully change it.”

“Just what kind of method could they have used? According to the report form the support team and the management 2 team, there were no mass movements from users. If it wasn’t human wave tactics, I really wonder what kind of method these people used to break through the Path of Despair.”

“For now, there was no use of bugs in the process of breaking through the Path of Despair. Instead, Chaos intervened at the last minute and increased the difficulty by 10 times. Chaos also must have judged that the Path of Despair must not be broken through yet. But the thing is…… even then it was broken through.”

“They broke through 10 times the difficulty? Does that even make sense?”

“We could not believe it either, but there’s no way Chaos would have lied to us. It seems like Chaos raised the difficulty drastically just at the last limit…… but it’s still an amazing feat.”

“Now that I heard that, I really wonder what kind of users broke through the Path of Despair.”

“We’re looking for them as we speak so we should be able to find out soon.”

“That’s good. Oh, but the Heroic Lands…… it should be fine right? They might abuse the competitive contents. We can prevent that right?”

“Abusing competitive contents is punished by Chaos through investigating all records, whether it’s battle or chat logs, so if they do, they would regret it big time.”

“There’s, of course, a warning message, right?”

“Yes, we made sure that they would be able to see it, so they wouldn’t dare to think about abusing it.”

“Well, if they do start using the competitive contents, we would find out who they are.”

“Yes. The rankings of the various competitive contents are information we are permitted to view, so if they use it, we would be able to find out who they are.”

“For now, please keep a watch on the Heroic Lands. Even though everything is perfect, we don’t know when and where a problem may occur, so tell Chaos to watch out as well.”

“Understood.”

After his conversation with the management team leader, Seo Wontae put away the report to one side and lied deep into his chair.

‘They progressed to the Heroic Lands already? Are the users more capable than we expected? Or are there just a specific group of users that surpass all imagination?’

Seo Wontae fell into thought.

***

Sanghyuk started going around the Heroic Lands starting from Hero’s Rest. There were at least a couple of months until the other users started entering the Path to Death, so he wasn’t in a hurry, but there was no need to do that later either.

Since he also had some things to check around the Heroic Lands, it would be good to create the maps while he was at it.

Sanghyuk planned to first visit the two most iconic places in the Heroic Lands.

‘Hall of Gladiators’ and ‘Hall of Mortality’.

These two were the things he wanted to check out the most. He first went to the Hall of Gladiators.

The Hall of Gladiators was shaped like a huge colosseum, and the whole area was considered an independent space.

*Sss, flash!*

You have visited the Hall of Gladiators for the first time.

As a first visit bonus, you have acquired ‘Lifetime gladiator license’.

‘Oho, there’s a bonus like this.’

It was nothing much, but obtaining something for free was always a good thing.

When in fact, gladiator licenses were supposed to be renewed every month, and that required a thousand gold each time.

Lifetime gladiator license.

– Gladiator license that does not need to be renewed. There’s also a special effect.

Name : [Register]

Duration : Infinite.

Basic effect : Able to use the Hall of Gladiators.

Bonus effect : Able to use the Hall of Gladiators using an alias. However, once the alias is set, it is impossible to change.

‘I can use the Hall of Gladiators with an alias?’

Sanghyuk made an interesting expression after seeing the lifetime gladiator license. Hall of Gladiators was a place he couldn’t hide his identity, so he was planning to reveal his main identity ‘Immortal’, but with this, the story would get a little more interesting.

‘Looks like I can create another identity.’

Sanghyuk immediately equipped the Shadow Duke of Falcon title and started creating another identity.

The identities he had made until now were ‘Ordinary-looking guy’, ‘Gale’, ‘Large Golden Mountain’, and ‘Blake’ for a total of four.

Sanghyuk made his fifth identity, ‘Lone King’. This guy looked very ordinary, but had sharp eyes and looked like a pirate.

Then he registered himself as ‘Lone King’ in the lifetime license.

Having finished registering himself, he immediately called out the gladiator window and tried applying for 1 vs 1 fight.

Registering once in the Hall of Gladiators was enough to call out the gladiator fight window anywhere as long as it was a safe zone.

Once one applied for a duel and was matched, then they would enter the hall. However, as there were no opponents right now, there were no matches at all.

[Cannot find an opponent.]

Around 10 minutes after he applied, a message Sanghyuk never saw in his previous life appeared and the application was canceled.

‘Ah, that’s a pity. If I could be matched without an opponent, I can monopolize the first prize for at least two months…….’

He tried just in case, but it didn’t work.

‘Looks like I’ll have to do with the lifetime license.’

He made a small smile as he left the Hall of Gladiators.

His next destination was naturally the Hall of Mortality.

Hall of Mortality worked in the same way as the Hall of Gladiators. He obtained the ‘Lifetime mortality license’, and registered himself as Lone King as well.

And yet again, he could not put himself in the rankings since there were no matches.

After visiting the two halls, he then just walked around the Heroic Lands in the most optimum path.

The monsters appearing in the Heroic Lands were much stronger than the ones in Hellfire Desert, but they were not a match for Sanghyuk; especially since he had obtained another legendary-grade title and gained a stat boost.

He couldn’t be considered an ordinary user anymore.

Compared to monsters, if ordinary field monsters were normal users, Sanghyuk was a named monster, no, a named boss monster.

Boss named user Sanghyuk.

He was becoming an army all by himself.