Main Character Hides His Strength

Next day, Dillo Buron appeared before Sungchul once more.

He had a troubled look as he apologized for the previous night’s rudeness.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. I lost my cool for a bit.”

Sungchul replied without seeming all that bothered.

“Let us put it behind us. More importantly, do you feel relieved after all?”

The man from ten thousand years ago shook his head with a forlorn look.

“I can’t take your word for it.”

“Can’t you just ask Aegehios himself directly?”

“Perhaps. But I do not wish to speak to that cow head yet.”

It appears as though he was unwilling to accept reality just yet.

Instead he made a toothy grin with the few teeth he had remaining and raised his thumbs.

“I plan on leaving the dungeon along with you.”

“With me?”

“I don’t want to admit that the world outside had changed, but it seems like it’s probably true. Even if I were to leave now, there wouldn’t be anyone I know, and if I had to live outside this place, it would probably serve me best to have some connections somewhere.”

“…”

Sungchul was not a very social person who enjoyed dragging out a relationship. After Sungchul and Bertelgia simultaneously shot him a piercing gaze for a moment, Dillo feigned surprise and moved onto his next point.

“Ah, I’m not making an empty request without compensation. I’ll provide you info instead.”

“Info?”

“Things like type and weaknesses of the Ultimate Trials’ bosses, or bonus rewards hidden within the dungeon.”

“Hoh.”

“It’s enough if you provide me meal and boarding. How is it? It’s a good trade, right?”

It was not bad. But even so, Sungchul still gave a stern reply.

“The quality of the meal will be based on the quality of the intel you can provide.”

And thus, a new phase in Sungchul’s progress through the dungeon began.

Dillo Buron informed Sungchul about the criteria for bonus rewards that Sungchul couldn’t have possibly discovered on his own.

And that was to observe the attack of every monster in normal trials.

[6-1]

[Legendary Naga Blade Master]

A feminine half human half snake monster who looked like they might be a far cousin of Medusa appeared.

If it was like normal, he would have eliminated it the moment it appeared, but he patiently waited until the end to watch all of its different attacks.

“Shee!”

A dashing strike following a snakelike hiss, a chain attack utilizing all four arms, piercing attack where all four swords are stabbed towards the same point, and so forth.

The attacks themselves were no scoffing matter. It was, in fact, difficult to predict and was rather unique and lethal. Sungchul thought that most of the Thirteen Continental Champions would not be able to overcome this normal trials’ monster’s attack.

But Sungchul was no longer a being within the same realm of strength as they. He quietly fended off attack after attack from the monster and waited for a message to appear before him.

An indeterminant time had passed while dodging and blocking.

The message he had been waiting for finally appeared.

[Your eyes have become used to the enemy’s attacks]

It was a message he had never seen before.

The reason was obvious; he had been breaking all of their heads with his hammer.

But the result will be different from now on.

“Shi shii shiik!”

Sungchul swung his hammer and destroyed the swords along with its wielder like he usually has done until now, in a single blow.

Clang.

A dungeon token fell before Sungchul.

50 Dungeon Tokens.

But this would not be the end. Sungchul saw the words he was promised by Dillo would appear and gave a faint grin.

[You have seen through all of the different skills of a powerful opponent.]

[You can feel your Resolve increase.]

[Resolve +5]

Sungchul immediately opened up his Status Screen – Abilities window.

Shining words blocked his view and finally a smile appeared on Sungchul’s lips.

[Abilities]

Strength 999+ Dexterity 916 Vitality 815

Magic Power 732 Intuition 738 Magic Resist 742

Resolve 548 Charisma 28 Luck 28

His abilities have risen, even if ever so slightly.

*

His abilities rising was definitely a good thing.

At least, that’s what he thought at first.

But as he continued to clear the normal trials, Sungchul was progressively more and more dissatisfied until he was finally starting to feel fed up by the time he defeated a boss of an Ultimate Trial.

[Abilities]

Strength 999+ Dexterity 916 Vitality 815

Magic Power 732 Intuition 738 Magic Resist 742

Resolve 578 Charisma 28 Will 28

Sungchul opened his status window to check after completing the sixth Ultimate Trial.

‘I was right. Only Resolve is rising.’

Adding together the total increase in stats from Ultimate Trials and normal trials, he had obtained 55 Resolve. Each normal trial had bonus reward of 5 and each Ultimate trial had bonus reward of 10.

Strictly speaking, raising Resolve based on Sungchul’s existing stats were not necessarily a bad idea. His strength, charisma, and luck could not be increased by any means, and he had sufficiently high magic related stats.

If he were to exclude stats that were cursed and locked away, there was a significantly lower stat he had compared to all other stats, and that stat was Resolve.

Resolve was a stat that determined his resistance to various types of mental attacks, patience, success rates with certain types of spells or schools of magic like black magic, and mana replenishment rate.

If judging by the number of things it affects, Resolve might at first appear to be an important stat with many uses, but practical utility of this stat was mediocre at best and were not immediately obvious.

Even by the world at large, it was considered a stat that was low on the priority to raise. Of course, it comes with the warning not to leave it too low because to do so meant that there was the possibility one might end up as a pawn of a demon or a toy of a magician.

Therefore, it was common sense to raise the Resolve stat to a certain point and to ignore it going forward when trying to get stronger.

Therefore, Sungchul’s Resolve stat was on the low end in comparison to his other stats, but he was well within the top levels compared to the world’s average.

And, to compound the issue, the reason why he didn’t feel much compulsion to touch his Resolve was because he had a powerful Soul Contract by the name of Thunder Shield that could protect him in case his stats happened to be too low.

Thunder Shield had the ridiculous ability to make Sungchul immune to all mental attacks below Legendary Tier spells on top of having the already-unbalanced feature of reducing magic damage.

It was one of the three methods taught to him by Ryze Himerr, a pillar that formed the basis of how Sungchul might stand alone against the world.

For this reason, Sungchul had no motivation to actively seek to raise his Resolve stat even if it proved to be low somehow.

‘I don’t really need Resolve. It would have been better if it had been dexterity, strength, or even perhaps one of the magic stats instead.’

Sungchul took 21,000 tokens and another and returned to the Blanche Plaza.

‘Mmm. Marakia, I wonder if I’ll run across him today.’

Sungchul thought to himself as he returned to the Dragon Hotel to speak to Dillo Buron.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

Dillo replied in a matter-of-fact tone when asked about why Sungchul only received Resolve as reward.

“Aegehios is a God’s dungeon that raises one of the nine Virtues, persistence and patience, a place to raise your willpower and Resolve.”

It was an unexpected information.

Sungchul handed over 1 token to hear the rest of the story.

Dillo Buron explained that there was 9 God’s Dungeons and 81 Towers.

The towers were essentially a lower tier dungeons compared to the God’s Dungeons, where you would go to train if you were not yet strong enough to challenge the God’s Dungeons.

Furthermore, Dillo added that someone on the caliber of Sungchul would be unable to gain anything meaningful going to the towers.

The most important were the God’s Dungeons.

Each of the 9 dungeons exclusively granted one of the 9 status points only. In other words, the God’s Dungeon of Strength granted only Strength stat, and dungeon of Charisma would grant only Charisma.

“Go ahead and take a look at your status screen.”

Dillo instructed.

Sungchul obliged.

[Ability]

Strength 999+ Dexterity 916 Endurance 815

Magic Power 732 Intuition 738 Magic Resistance 742

Resolve 578 Charisma 28 Luck 28

Ability screen that showed all nine stats covered his sights. This was not visible to Dillo, but he continued to explain as if he could.

“There’s a well known secret hidden in the Status screen.”

“A well known secret?”

“Yes. The arrangement of the abilities in that screen, it gives a general location of each of the God’s Dungeons of that stat. Think about where Aegehios is located.

“Hmm. You’re right.”

Aegehios was located on the south western corner of the Continent.

It was in the same cardinal direction as where the stat was in the ability screen.

“That’s fascinating.”

Sungchul let out a rare voice of astonishment.

Independent of his surprise, he now knew that Aegehios was a Dungeon soley dedicated to raising the Resolve stat.

[ 8-1 ]

But that did not mean Sungchul was going to be lazy with pursuing the Hidden rewards.

His long time standing hobby was watching his Stats rise in the ability screen. Even if it happened to be for the Resolve stat that rarely made a difference.

‘It’s probably better than not raising it at all.’

For that reason, he continued to press himself the until finally Sungchul reached the stage before the last Ultimate Trial.

[8-1]

Sungchul yawned as he opened his status screen to check.

[Ability]

Strength 999+ Dexterity 916 Endurance 815

Magic Power 732 Intuition 738 Magic Resistance 742

Resolve 613 Charisma 28 Luck 28

In other words, if he had obtained every possible hidden rewards, the maximum Resolve he could have obtained was 225.

The hidden rewards from overcoming Ultimate Trials was a fixed value of 10, which would raise the total value of Resolve he could gain to 315.

It was an enormous value.

It was a reward worthy of a dungeon bearing the god’s name.

But Sungchul had slain the first five bosses instantaneously and there was no re-tries.

He had unintentionally evaporated 50 points.

‘That means that the maximum Resolve I can expect to gain is 265.’

According to Voulu, it was possible to re-attempt normal trials again.

There was an opportunity for him to re-attempt to gain the Resolve stat he had unintentionally forfeited.

But on the other hand, he had different thoughts.

The amount of tokens he was capable of earning per trial was increasing.

The amount of tokens he had in his possession was 1832.

Using 7-5 as the point of reference, if he were to simply repeat that trial five times a day, he could earn 300 tokens a day.

Considering the fact that there was incremental increase in token rewards as he progressed to higher trials, it was possible to get a rather good influx of tokens doing nothing but repeatedly clear normal dungeons all day. And combining that with the Essence of Spirits he could purchase, it could directly lead to an increase in stats of his choosing rather than Resolve.

‘6 more days remaining. I now have to make a choice to go back and gain more stats or focus on gaining more tokens.’

Sungchul’s time to think came to an end with a message informing him that an enemy had made its appearance.

[Legendary Master Succubus, Dungeon’s Idol]

‘Dungeon… Idol…?!’

Sungchul’s eyes momentarily grew unfocused.

A narrow waisted and busty demoness appeared from the darkness, shaking her hips with a seductive expression on her mind meltingly beautiful face.

It was a humanoid succubus, unlike the succubus in the outside world. And because of that, it troubled Sungchul even more.

“Oh my, what a cutie. You’re completely my type~”

Sungchul felt a cold sweat drip down his back.

“Shit. Fuck it…”

He was wondering why he hadn’t come across one yet.

‘That god fellow… What a lack of creativity.’

Sungchul uncharacteristically filled his mind with rather unholy and blasphemous phrases as he stared emotionlessly at the Master Succubus who continued to uselessly try to seduce him as he put his hand over his heart.

“W…what are you doing?”

Bertelgia asked, and Sungchul was reduced to a sigh and a mutter.

“It’s inappropriate for minors.”

Sungchul glared at the enemy.

“Then, shall we begin a crazed party?”

Master Succubus raised her hands in the air and began to dance.

The special attack of the Master Succubus aimed at dominating the mind through powerful mental attacks had begun.

And that was even proven in the form of a text that appeared before Sungchul’s eyes.

[Master Succubus has begun her dance of temptation!]

“…”

A limp man watched his enemy as a cow might watch a chicken. It didn’t take long for effects to show.

[But you have managed to overcome the temptations of the Master Succubus! (physical error).]

Sungchul flinched a bit when he saw the message.

There was soon another message before him.

[You have grown accustomed to the enemy’s movements]

“Damn it! You eunuch!”

Succubus who failed at charm was greatly enraged and pulled out a whip with large number of sharp razers along the length.

But this was what Sungchul had wanted all along.

Bam.

Clang

Just a handful of tokens and a pitiful amount of Resolve stat.

It was a wholly dissatisfactory reward for such a terrible ordeal he had to suffer.

But this was not enough to stop Sungchul.

‘I guess it’s sometimes nice that it can’t stand.’

Sungchul managed to complete all 8 trials thus far without too much issue.

The only one remaining was the final stage 9 trial.

But before that, there was something that he had to do.

“Pii…”

He had finally caught him.

He finally caught Marakia.

“…”

Sungchul plucked him off of the ground. He felt the soft and fluffy feathers against his fingers.

“Why did you avoid me?”

“A…avoid? What nonsense! It was simply bad luck!”

But even as he shouted, Marakia was avoiding Sungchul’s eyes to the limit of his ability.

“…I shall take back 30 coins.”

Sungchul said after exercising restraint to the limit of his patience. But Marakia, too, replied with a statement befitting a challenger to the Dungeon of Resolve.

“I have none to give.”

“What?”

Sungchul’s eyes began to fill with murderous intent.

“I spent it all! It’s true! I have not a single coin remaining!”

Marakia flapped his wings about as if to stress that he was not hiding anything in his feathers.

“And if I find even one?”

Sungchul asked calmly.

“Take them all! I’m telling the truth!”

Marakia shouted as he struggled.

He was all-inning on his stance.

But there was an item in Sungchul’s possession that Marakia did not know about.

Sungchul extracted a rainbow colored key from his Soul Storage.

It was the key of the vault keeper of Troimea. It contained the power to open other people’s Soul Storages.

When he held the key, it became visible to Sungchul.

The invisible vault door next to Marakia.

Sungchul put the key up close to the vault, and it forced open the Soul Storage automatically, forcing out possessions most desired by the holder of the key.

Clang clang clang.

Marakia, who was still caught in Sungchul’s grasp, couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Pi… piiiiiii!”

There had never been such a loud cry of despair from Marakia’s mouth before.

The Dungeon tokens poured out of the vault endlessly.

The total came to thousand five hundred fifty.

He must have somehow managed to defeat up to the second Ultimate Trial’s boss.

Among the tokens, Sungchul held up the large thousand-unit token as he grinned towards Marakia.

“Take them all if there’s even one, you say?”

“Piii…”

Marakia was finally cornered.

“Mer… Mer…”

“What?”

Sungchul asked.

“M…Mercy…”

Marakia was trembling.