Chapter 162

ETH 162

Wait . I feel like An Gyu-bum said this to me .

I hurriedly shook my head to erase the unpleasant memory .

Either way, as long as I had a level 10 armor and level 10 skill it wasn’t that difficult of a task to win against a single arctic bear in close combat . I had experience killing the level 10 Black Tiger with a level 8 weapon after all .

The physical ability improvement of the Effort skill was just that great .

The arctic bear was not able to land a single proper strike on me so I got on its back and simply cut its neck .

Even if its carotid it was still a level 10 monster .

A wound of that level would soon recover but I had a level 7 Bloody Sword .

Even if it was just shoved into a wide wound it would be able to slow the recovery rate .

The Bloody Sword’s ability to suck blood in real time got stronger causing the monster to collapse of severe blood loss .

All I had to do after that was to stick the sword into its heart .

It was far too simple for a method of hunting a level 10 monster .

Even another level 10 hunter wouldn’t be able to kill it with such a method .

It was also thanks to the Effort skill but it was also thanks to my experience of desperately fighting and collecting data to the very end .

I knew the weak point of most monsters after all .

The way of movement to attack patterns, I knew all of it .

Even if its level went up, it was a bear in the end . It was the reason why it was easier to fight against beast type monsters .

If a tentacle type or ghost type immateriel came out then it would be really annoying but these guys just die if you remove its blood and stab its heart you see .

“Good job . ”

I could hear An Gyu-bum’s voice from behind .

As I turned my body to glance at him I could feel him flinch .

“What are you glaring at so scarily?”

“Well . It can’t be helped if I get mad if a guy causes a mess and runs away . ”

“I told you I did it because I thought you would be able to kill them . ”

“If only you couldn’t talk . ”

He was a cheeky bastard . I was wondering how to straighten him up when a message appeared in front of my eyes .

– You have obtained a level 0 skill book .

Huh?

It was a level 0 skill . It had been a long time since it dropped since Soo-ah’s Friendship skill .

The anger that was bursting out shimmered instantly .

Yeah . There was nothing good about messing with such a guy .

I opened the item list while feeling my own cunningness . I wonder what skill came in .

It was a bit of a let down that it required an extra skill slot because it wasn’t a confined skill but it wasn’t that difficult for the current me to purchase an additional skill slot .

Effort (0) : Able to improve the user’s abilities through reward points .

I doubted my eyes .

No, thinking about it, there was no rule that said that the same skill can’t drop twice .

Even so, it felt unreasonable to be the Effort skill again when a level 0 skill that’s so difficult to find dropped .

“Hm . Either way, do these guys not drop any items?”

An Gyu-bum tilted his head as he inspected the locations the arctic bears returned to the void .

I was thankful that I could avoid something annoying thanks to the Automatic Collection function . Of course, I wouldn’t have distributed any items to this guy even if it dropped .

Ah . But to think it’s the Effort skill .

Repetition is unreasonable .

I was sighing while inspecting the Effort skill when another message appeared .

– Will you learn the Effort skill .

I currently didn’t have any skill slots available . Due to that, I couldn’t learn this even if I wanted to .

I tried pressing accept while doubting myself .

Flash .

While light suddenly exploded in front of my eyes . Oh crap was all I could think about .

The first time I learned the Effort skill I collapsed for 3 nights and 4 days straight . I was in a state where I didn’t move to the point that I was thankful I wasn’t bedsore but if I were to collapse for several days this time as well that would be awkward .

Of course, Edward was here so he would take care of me somehow but the problem was An Gyu-bum . That guy could take my equipment as he wanted after all .

There was no rule that said that conglomerates didn’t covet others’ property . Reversely, rich people had a tendency of desiring others’ property even more .

I was anxious as to what would happen if I lost consciousness here when my sight slowly recovered .

I doubted that several days passed in that time but I could see An Gyu-bum’s dazed expression, the still stiff faced Jeon Min-jeong, and Edward who had his arms folded as if everything was a pain in the ass .

“What did you do just now?”

An Gyu-bum asked . Even I didn’t know the specifics so I couldn’t explain .

“Did something happen?”

“No, something like a halo above your head…… . ”

“Halo?”

It’s because I’m good looking or so I was going to say but I endured . I would have said it if Soo-ah was here but if I did it in front of these guys only the atmosphere would become weird .

Either way, it seems like several days didn’t pass thankfully . I wasn’t certain if it was because I experienced it before or if it’s because I had a sufficiently good physical ability .

Either way, I now had something like 2 Effort skills somehow .

Adding Effort on Effort (0) : Able to improve the user’s abilities through reward points . Receives two times more reward points . The ability improvement amount increases to double .

This was okay . I was just thinking that the reward points were stingy . Since reward points didn’t go up if I hunt using the monster army I didn’t get much points at the Yellow Sea .

If I got all the reward points from killing the Chungho Group members I would have had at least several hundreds of thousands of points .

However, the amount I had right now was about 60,000 .

With this much it would be used up after raising the proficiencies 10 times or so . The period of rapid growth was basically over already .

However, if I were to get double the reward points I would be able to aim for the same growth rate as before .

Since the improvement rate doubled as well the Effort skill’s value basically quadrupled .

Thinking about it this isn’t on the level of being okay?

I endured my mouth from opening wide and turned my sight toward An Gyu-bum . I had something to obtain from this guy as well .

“Since I killed the bear . Tell me about the ruin . ”

“You didn’t forget the condition of trading right?”

“Yeah . If your information is useful then I’ll tell you what I know . ”

“Good . Then let’s talk inside . It’s too cold here no matter how you look at it . ”

An Gyu-bum said so as he shivered while only wearing a suit .

Now that I think about, was this guy okay with just that? If that suit was the same thing as the one given to Jong Sa-won there wouldn’t be any temperature adjusting function .

I decided to take this chance to inspect him again .

Name : An Gyu-bum

Equipment : Sword of Judgement (8) , Eternal Immortality Suit ++ (10) , Black String Armor (5) , Gaiters of Elasticity (7)

Skill : Martial Arts of Death (8)

The thing this guy was wearing was definitely the Eternal Immortality Suit .

But there was something weird attached to it .

I was wondering what that was so I opened the additional explanation of the Eternal Immortality Suit .

Eternal Immortality Suit ++ (10) : Returns the body to its prime condition . Aging is stopped and becomes immune to diseases . Can regenerate missing body parts . Can use additional functions through strengthening .

Additional Function 1 : Protects the wearer from the outside environment . Survival is possible regardless of temperature, pressure, and atmosphere condition .

Additional Function 2 : Etherizes the equipped items . Able to take them out when needed .

There were incredible things attached to it .

In other words ‘++’ meant that there were additional functions attached to it I suppose .

Of course, that in itself might not be that great . One can just get an item with such a function after all .

That can be said to be custom made for An Gyu-bum who found it annoying to carry about several items at once . Conclusively, this could also be seen as a type of money flaunting .

Of course, there’s a practical side to it as well .

For people that don’t have the Manual like me the fact that one can etherize equipment and take it out when needed is an incredible advantage .

On top of that, there are items that can’t be overlapped .

The effect on Additional Function 1 was especially something that could only be seen on full body suit type items .

The fact that such an effect is constantly active without having to wear it all the time is a definite merit .

There was much more meaning to the fact that such options were attached to a level 10 item .

Level 10 equipment were thought to be impossible to strengthen or upgrade but with this it was possible to minimize equipment carried around and make more powerful equipment .

No matter how good of an option an item has, hanging a dozen of them would be inefficient after all .

There was no way such a thing would appear as a drop so I thought that there would be a method to making it .

It would be nice if it was possible to beat the hell out of him and figure it out .

I did think for a moment that it was possible to kidnap him and force him to spit it out but there was a high chance that it wasn’t something this guy knew but something discovered by the GE Group System Research Laboratory or whatever . It probably meant that it wasn’t something that would be solved by beating up An Gyu-bum .

This side had to give something for that side to give something .

What An Gyu-bum always proposed was that type of negotiation and it was true that I saw a lot of profit from it . I thought that it would be better to go towards looking for an item this guy wants for now .

I decided to check the ‘Effort X 2’ skill before going into the ruin .

Skill Name : Adding Effort on Effort (0) , Immortality (4) , Aura Blade (10)

Additional Technique : Overwork, consumes the Endurance stat to raise another stat for 24 hours .

Proficiency : 52

Reward Points : 65,000

Stat Increase : Strength 550 Endurance 450 Reflex 750 Concentration 400 Defense 400

Upgrade : 1,573/10,000

‘Adding Effort on Effort’ you say .

It was a name that had too much spirit in it . I thought that I was putting in enough effort until now so why did it feel like I was getting urged on .

I started feeling like I should become lazier like how you don’t want to study when someone tells you to study while you’re studying .

Either way, I tried pouring the reward points into Strength .

As much as it had to increase from 550 to 600 it costed 6,000 reward points .

If it was in the past, I would have been able to raise the proficiency several times at once but, well, it wasn’t hard to accept that more effort was needed the stronger you become .

– Strength stat has become 650 .

It should have gone up by 50 if it was like before but it went up by 100 and became 650 . This is what it meant by the ability increasing by double the amount .

If I wanted to raise it from 550 to 650 it would normally have costed 6,000 + 6,500 for a total of 12,500 reward points but it was achieved with less than half of that amount .

I got excited and so poured the remaining reward points into upgrading my stats .

Strength 750 Endurance 650 Reflex 850 Concentration 700 Defense 700

Proficiency : 63

Reward Points : 0

I raised the Endurance, Concentration, and Defense stats mainly as they were the lowest .

The most useless among these was actually Defense but I decided to think of it as an investment for the future . I felt like I would be able to deflect a pistol bullet .

I still got the feeling that I would die if I got beaten up by monsters with my bare body no matter how much I raise this but it wasn’t like I could wear my armor all the time and emergency situations could arise at any time so I was raising it as something like an insurance .

In other words, as long as I didn’t die of a disease or something there was a slim chance of me dying outside of a raid .

Also, Concentration .

If Reflex decided speed in close combat then Concentration helps greatly in mid to long range battles of at least 10 meters .

In other words, it helps in battles against large monsters that require that amount of distance .

The reason I overlooked it until now is because there weren’t many occasions where I had to fight against large monsters but thinking about how I’m going to meet level 10 monsters rather frequently from now on this way was better .

It would also work as preparation for when I meet Baek Gyeong again . To approach while dodging the Hadron Cannon which is his greatest weapon fast speed is really important after all .

Since the proficiency passed 60 on impulse level 6 dungeons will soon disappear as well .

“How about you come here and clear this?”

An Gyu-bum pointed at the collapsed entrance in front of the ruin .

Who was he treating like a laborer?

“I will if you request me . ”

“Please clear this away . I request it of you . ”

An Gyu-bum said so without a bit of hesitation . I felt like I got hit once since I thought that he would rampage saying that there’s no way he would do so .

“…… Do you not even have any pride?”

“I can push around a level 10 hunter with a few words so why would pride matter?”

I nodded my head at An Gyu-bum’s words . His words were certainly correct .

It might be that I’m the one with overblown pride . He was cheeky but I did have to engrave what is correct .

“Everybody get out of the way . ”

I covered the Dancing Sword in Aura Blade and threw it towards the ruin entrance .

As the sword penetrated the boulders it started destroying the boulders as if they were exploding .

Boom! Booboom!

“Ahh?”

As the boulders instantly got destroyed into pieces the debris scattered into the surroundings . An Gyu-bum getting completely covered in that debris is a complete coincidence .

A coincidence .

…… .

Yeah, I’m a petty person .