Chapter 63. First Broadcast (1)

*Ziiin, clack! Clack!*

Ilya really unlocked the puzzle-type locking mechanism.

‘Oho, she’s more useful than I thought.’

Sanghyuk was thinking about the usages of Ilya as he watched from behind.

“It has been unlocked.”

As soon as Ilya’s words ended, the blue-glowing dungeon entrance appeared before him.

‘It would be somewhat bad of me to send her back right after opening the entrance…… and since she’s here, let’s try cooperating.’

Sanghyuk didn’t send Ilya back and entered the dungeon with her.

You have discovered the ancient Swordking’s Tomb hidden in the graveyard.

The secret dungeon ‘The Swordking’s Tomb’ has been opened.

The Swordking’s Tomb will be bound to the Dimensional Traveler ‘Immortal’.

A total of seven users can be registered for this dungeon.

The Swordking was one of the 144 heroes that protected Treenark in the past. Of course, he wasn’t one of their core members, but was capable nonetheless.

Perhaps due to that, his tomb was filled with monsters named ‘swordsman ghost’, and it had a tricky pattern on top of being a ghost-type monster.

Secret dungeon [The Swordking’s Tomb]

– Bound to the Dimensional Traveler ‘Immortal’

– Registered Dimensional Travelers [Immortal], [N/A], [N/A], [N/A], [N/A], [N/A], [N/A]

: A tomb within which an old hero slumbers. The martial artists that sought the Swordking’s sword had gathered here and became monsters that are now swordsman ghosts. Fundamentally, this tomb was created in a labyrinth structure in order to prevent anyone from disrupting the Swordking’s rest and are filled with numerous traps.

– Bonus karma: +20%

– Dungeon clear rewards: Swordking’s inheritance. Low probability of spiritual pills.

– Dungeon reactivation time after clearing: 10 minutes.

– Dungeon duration: infinite

– Maximum dungeon clears: 1,000 times.

Sanghyuk checked the information on the dungeon and looked ahead. It was a straight path. Passing through this path and getting to the chamber where the Swordking’s body lay, he would be able to meet the boss monster of this secret dungeon, the ‘Swordking’s resentful soul’.

Killing the resentful soul would clear the dungeon, and as the resentful soul wasn’t a ‘named monster’, Sanghyuk would have no problems defeating it.

In fact, the maze-like dungeon structure and the tricky traps, as well as the sudden appearance of the swordsman ghosts were more tricky to deal with.

“The paths are complex, and I sense many traps installed. Should I commence pathfinding and trap removal simultaneously?”

Even though Sanghyuk didn’t give the order, Ilya found her job.

“You can do that?”

“Yes. I cannot tell you everything, but not to mention unlocking locked doors, finding paths and dismantling traps are my specialties. To be exact, they are specialties of someone who succeeds the power of the Darkmoon.

Sanghyuk thought of the quickest method to clear the Swordking’s Tomb the moment he heard Ilya’s answer.

“Good, then you focus on finding the path and erasing the traps. I’ll take care of the monsters”

“Understood.”

Sanghyuk took Ilya and entered the Swordking’s Tomb for a test drive.

The swordsman ghosts were tricky to deal with just as he had heard. However, Sanghyuk had learned all their timings after just dealing with four of them.

This was Sanghyuk’s most frightening talent. Sanghyuk learned their unique skill timings with his body and dodged all of their attacks with ease.

With that happening, Sanghyuk’s dodge rates exceeded the dodge rate stat on his status window. His dodge rate stat was already so high, but adding his own battle senses into it, Sanghyuk now had an incredibly high dodge rate.

*Fwoosh! Clang!*

Sanghyuk moved sideways lightly after dealing with one of them and barely leaving the second one alive, and at that moment, a semi-translucent sword passed through his location and hit the wall.

This was a 1.7 second-timed dodge, and while normal users dodged between 1~2 seconds, Sanghyuk enjoyed doing a 0.1 second-timed doge.

Sanghyuk’s timing was just that high compared to other users.

Sanghyuk dodged the swordsman ghost’s attack through a perfect timed dodge and swung the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip almost simultaneously.

He dodged at the absolute last moment and counterstruck with the very small gap between actions.

Users called this the gapstrike (gap+counterstrike), and gapstrikes were usually a unique thing to the highest-ranking users.

Actually, even the highest-ranking users couldn’t user gapstrikes as they wished. In that sense, Sanghyuk used it freely enough to call him master.

*Riiiiiip! Kehhhhhhhk!*

Another swordsman ghost was ripped apart by the whip. The greatest advantage to gapstriking lay in that it was hard to dodge or defend as it came too fast.

Monsters were especially worse in defending against it than users.

Even after Sanghyuk defeated the swordsman ghost, he looked at Ilya who was removing traps.

“Not yet?”

“Oh, it’s almost done. Seeing the complexity of the traps, I presume that this is the end of the tomb.”

Thanks to Ilya, Sanghyuk had an easy time breaking through the Swordking’s Tomb. He didn’t have to wander around lost in the maze, and he didn’t have to worry about the traps either.

The swordsman ghosts weren’t Sanghyuk’s opponents, so the two arrived at the final chamber where the Swordking lay within just twenty minutes after entering.

Normally, the final chamber was a place that a party of 7 would need an entire two hours of suffering to get to.

However, the common sense-destroyer Sanghyuk destroyed common sense this time as well and broke through with his own style. Though, even if it was Sanghyuk, he would have taken at least 4 hours to get here if not for Ilya accompanying him.

Ilya’s role was that big.

“It’s opening.”

Ilya dispelled the last trap and as a result, the final chamber showed itself.

Now, killing the Swordking’s resentful soul would clear the dungeon.

“Ilya, you can go back for the time being.”

Sanghyuk sent Ilya back for now. Her summon time was calculated by total, so it was best to save some like this.

Having sent Ilya back, Sanghyuk entered the chamber. When he did, a tattered coffin in the middle of the room started giving off ominous smoke.

Once a well-going hero, but now forgotten by all that he died; the Swordking. That became a resentment and he now became a ghost, but even after becoming a ghost, he could not become a named monster.

Of course, this wasn’t the end. The Swordking appeared later in a different form, and he would be a named monster at that time.

‘That Swordking is utterly vicious, but this guy…… is piss easy.’

Sanghyuk smirked and looked at the ominous aura that was slowly taking form.

Swordking’s ghost……. An ordinary boss monster that was not a named monster could never be Sanghyuk’s opponent.

***

Even though it was not a named monster and as such the first kill bonus would not activate, he got a spiritual pill the first time. Although it was a strength pill and not the agility pill that he wanted, strength would help him greatly anyway.

Though, Sanghyuk was planning to eat all the pills regardless of the type, even if they were intelligence or wisdom pills. Pills were always short in supply anyway.

So it was best to eat as much as possible when he could.

As the gap between users who ate spiritual pills and the ones that didn’t would widen tremendously as more time went, consuming spiritual pills was a must to be a highest-ranking user.

Usually, raising a single stat by +40 or more was acknowledged as a highest-tier spiritual pill consumption in Sanghyuk’s previous life.

Although the limit was +100, it was practically impossible to fill that +100.

The reason Sanghyuk wished to monopolize the Swordking’s Tomb was also that he wanted to get at least 150 spiritual pills here. If he gathered as many spiritual pills as possible from the Swordking’s Tomb and gathered them through the Golden Mountain merchant guild as well, then he thought that he would be able to consume a tremendous amount of spiritual pills.

Sanghyuk cleared the Swordking’s Tomb a few more times after that with Ilya, but unfortunately, no pills dropped.

Now that he truly learned and got used to conquering the Swordking’s Tomb, he went to look for Hurricane Hole.

As Hurricane Hole was a place he earned money as a ‘carrying bus’ a lot in his previous life, he knew about this place too well.

Without much effort, Sanghyuk opened the entrance to Hurricane Hall in half a day. Knowing the answer made it so easy.

Considering how Gold Rush took almost half a month of suffering in his previous life to find this place, the ease of finding the path when knowing the answer could be seen.

Sanghyuk was planning to use the Hurricane Hole as a business item for the Golden Mountain merchant guild, so he didn’t even go for a test drive.

Now that he gained the two secret dungeons he had to acquire in the Heroic Lands, Sanghyuk started to look for the rest of the secret dungeons that he knew some information about.

Of course, he cleared the Swordking’s Tomb whenever he had the time to get spiritual pills.

After around ten days of working, Sanghyuk was able to find four other secret dungeons of various scale.

‘I have to focus on the Swordking’s Tomb for now, so let’s just leave these be.’

Since all four of the secret dungeons had an unlimited duration, there were no problems in just leaving them be.

He wanted to look for some more secret dungeons, but the information he knew was too fragmented and it was not that easy to find any other secret dungeons.

And what decisively drove him away from finding secret dungeons was that there were a lot of things to prepare for the broadcast that would take place a week from now.

“Yes, I’ve almost finished editing the video for the first broadcast. I’ll send it to you by tomorrow, so you can check it then.”

Recently, Sanghyuk had many calls with Lee Mirae. Since there wasn’t that much time left until the first broadcast, there were a lot of things for the two to consult.

[Are you really fine with not doing a livestream? Most of the other channels seemed to be preparing something big with a livestream…….]

“I said last time, but if you see the video tomorrow, then you’ll see why I’m fine with it.”

[Hmm, is that so? Okay, then. Let’s talk again after looking at the video tomorrow.]

“Just think about how to make a teaser. Then it’s game over. The other channels will never win.”

[Aren’t you being too confident? Your opponents, well, let’s call them that, aren’t so easy you know?]

“It’s somewhat embarrassing for me to keep repeating this, but again, you’ll understand once you check the video tomorrow.”

[So, you mean to say that everything is inside this ‘video’ you’ll send me tomorrow?]

“Yes, that is right.”

[It seems like we’ll have to speak again after I check your video tomorrow.]

“Sure. I’m almost done editing, so you’ll be able to receive the video early morning tomorrow at the earliest.”

[Yes, I’ll be waiting.]

After ending the phone call with Lee Mirae, he logged into DN (Dreamnet) immediately. Not that he logged into EL.

As he purchased one of the paid services of DN, the ‘master video editor tool’, he could edit the video inside the virtual space.

The video he was making instead of the livestream.

This was a strong blow to all the other people and would stomp on their livestream.

‘Live channel’s rise and fall…… it begins with the initial audience capturing. So the first broadcast is very, very important.’

Sanghyuk knew the importance of the first broadcast, so he was putting more effort into it than anything he made until now.