Trapped in a Webnovel as a Good-For-Nothing

Chapter 90

‘This is…?’

That memory only lasted a second, then Yu-Seong came back to Earth and simply blurted out, "It's been about 15 years, so it's really been very long since you had a vacation.”

"Thank you, young master," said Jin Do-Yoon. Like Yu-Ri, he shed a tear.

With the end of that conversation, Yu-Seong patted Do-Yoon on the shoulder and immediately left the hospital. He headed to the dungeon, since he didn’t feel like wasting any more time.

Just like the two siblings, Yu-Seong had also learned an important lesson following Do-Yoon’s injury. He was definitely getting stronger at a fast enough pace, but there were simply too many threatening enemies in the world. A moment of carelessness could come with a price that he could not afford to pay.

There was no need to worry about the unknown future, but there was plenty of need to try hard on things that had to be done.

‘There's no time to rest. I need to grow.’

Therefore, even while lying in the hospital room, Yu-Seong constantly made efforts to become stronger. For example, he trained using his most powerful skill at the moment, the God’s Chakra. God's Chakra increased the absolute amount of his Chakra little by little every day, even when he was unconscious.

‘It increased by exactly one unit a day.’

In addition, whenever the level rose by one, Yu-Seong’s mana increased by two units.

The skill seemed to improve very slowly at first glance, so Yu-Seong wondered if there was a way to use this skill more efficiently. First, he thought about the uniqueness of God's Chakra skill itself.

‘It‘s called Chakra, but the way to utilize the ability itself is no different from the mana breathing methods in fantasy novels and the martial arts' inner core methods. Then, consequently...'

It would be possible to see a bigger effect if God’s Chakra was used consciously rather than unconsciously, even more so once the user had control over breath and flow.

As a game developer and genre novel reader, it was a strange thing for him to have overlooked this fact. Yu-Seong immediately started to search methods for controlling his breath, and found out that there were indeed such training methods available.

‘There are also people who do Chakra training.’

Surprisingly, there were many people who practiced the basics of Chakra control through breathing.

Yu-Seong assumed the posture for breath control, which looked similar to what warriors did in martial arts novels, and focused on his breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

During his breathing, Yu-Seong tried to feel the Chakra flowing inside his body. It wasn't easy in the beginning. However, on the third day, Yu-Seong could feel the flow of Chakra inside his body. On the fifth day, he became aware of the mana, or qi, that existed outside.

On the sixth day, a day before he was discharged, he understood the Chakra’s repetitive flowing path, was able to consciously use it, and even accelerated the flow himself. This allowed him to practice his Chakra control at a faster pace, which in turn let him activate the skill more quickly. And that was not all.

‘The Chakra growth rate has increased…’

The amount of Chakra, which had been increasing by one unit every day, increased by eight units a day as Yu-Seong focused on his consciousness and repeatedly did Chakra breathing for two hours every day. Indeed, it was an explosive increase.

When he drank a gray mana stone extract, which was ten million won per cup, he obtained about 5 Chakra. In other words, focusing for two hours a day yielded better effects than spending ten million won

Realizing this, Yu-Seong immediately began his second experiment.

‘In martial arts novels, the mana stone extract is a kind of medicine that improves endurance.’

If so, rather than just randomly drinking it, the absorption rate could be better if he directly activated God's Chakra after ingestion. He had already thought of this when he had first gotten the God’s Chakra and had competed against Jin Do-Yoon.

At that time, he hadn’t known the absolute amount of mana he had and its daily growth rate, so there was no comparison and he couldn't find an answer. However, this time it was different.

Finally, the day came when he was supposed to be discharged

Since it was his first experiment, instead of refining the dark gray mana stone extract, Yu-Seong ingested a gray mana stone extract, one rank lower. Then, he tried the Chakra breathing method. As a result, he exploded with joy at the overwhelming increase of 19 units.

The slight disappointment was that the amount of mana did not increase by even one unit after he drank another cup straight away.

‘So there’s a limit of one per day?’

Originally, Yu-Seong had been holding back to save some money, but now he realized that, even if he drank til he puked, it wouldn’t bring him any additional benefits. He could do nothing else but smack his lips in disappointment. Truthfully, the fact that he had the ability to buy and drink at least one cup of expensive mana stone extract every day was a blessing itself. Yu-Seong decided to be satisfied with what he had.

Then, he started to test one more hypothesis.

‘And probably, just like normal medicine, it’s likely to lose its effect if consumed repeatedly.’

If that happened, Yu-Seong could simply just take a stronger medicine, in other words, a higher-rank mana stone extract.

With that in mind, when he again measured after consuming the gray mana stone extract the next day, he saw that the increase was significantly reduced, from +19 to +15. So far, his expectations had been exactly right.

The unusual thing happened later, when he tried the thirty-million dark gray mana stone extract, which was one rank higher than the gray-colored one, the increase in mana did not significantly change.

‘Huh?’

Surprised, Yu-Seong fell into thought for a moment, but he soon understood why.

‘It’s because the dark gray extract is simply a more concentrated version of the gray extract.’

In other words, it was sold under another label on the market, but in actuality, the extract was no different from the gray one.

In fact, there was no such thing as a ‘dark gray’ mana stone in the first place. After Yu-Seong figured out the reason, he directly tried a red mana stone extract the next day, since it was higher-ranked than the gray one.

Although it was only one rank higher, red mana stone extracts had a market price of 100 million won, 10 times more than the gray ones and 3 times more than the so-called ‘dark gray’ extracts.

At this point, it was a huge luxury that no one could afford without the backing of a conglomerate. However, Yu-Seong didn't think of it as a waste of money, since it was for his survival and so that he would not lose the people he considered precious.

As a result, Yu-Seong's amount of Chakra had increased significantly compared to before the hospitalization.

Chakra: 745 → 803

‘It's a little over 800.’

Currently, Yu-Seong’s priority target was the Chakra's absolute quantity of 1,000.

'The most mana-consuming skill I have now is the Dancing Electric Doll.’

After experimenting, he learned that the Dancing Electric Doll consumed about 200 mana per use. Therefore, Yu-Seong could only use up to three Dancing Electric Dolls. He could use it a fourth time, but the remaining Chakra, or rather mana, would become zero.

Even if he used the fourth Dancing Electric Doll for a total of exactly 800 mana points, it would be meaningless, because he wouldn’t have anything left in the tank to continue the battle. Thus, the first goal was to increase his Chakra to 1000.

While searching for a point of reference to assess his growth, Yu-Seong found an interesting overseas website where an individual posted a comparative analysis of virtual battle results, mana points, properties, and the rankings of world famous powerful hunters or rookies for fun.

The homepage listed data on top rankers, such as China's ‘Flame Emperor’ Lin Xiao Nuo, Sweden's ‘Timewalker’ Christian, and Korea's ‘Swordmaster’ Cheok Jun-Hui, as well as people like Kim Do-Jin and Bernard Yoo, under the classification of ‘super rookies.’ Surprisingly, Yu-Seong’s name was also on the list with the mention ‘New,’ although it was below the others.

‘I assume that the name was added after clearing the Goblin Fortress Dungeon…’

The most surprising thing was that this website’s owner had written down Yu-Seong's estimated mana at the time quite accurately.

‘710...’

At that time, Yu-Seong had been unable to tell exactly how much his mana was because he did not have the God's Chakra. However, from his current estimation, he had probably been around the low 700s.

Of course, this was only known to him personally because he could directly check his system interface window. The website’s owner, on the other hand, had guessed Yu-Seong's mana tank quite accurately even while lacking such information.

It could be just a coincidence. Still, Yu-Seong was curious enough that he couldn’t just forget about it and move on. Naturally, he looked at the top rankers’ D-rank records written by the website’s owner. There were two hunters who stood out in terms of the amount of mana they had: the Flame Emperor and the Timewalker.

‘Both of them are Psychic-type players.’

According to the website’s owner, the amount of mana the two had before the 50th level of the D-rank was 1,600 to 1,800. These were huge numbers—even among the top rankers, these two people were overwhelmingly better. Among the other top rankers, there were few people with more than 1,000 mana in the low-level section of the D-rank.

If Yu-Seong, who was an All-Rounder, had more than 1000 mana, he would likely stand out even more among players of the same rank if they were compared in terms of overall abilities. In fact, in the case of Lin Xiao Nuo, the Flame Emperor, his mana level was extraordinary, but he was nothing special when it came to other physical traits.

‘So, his overall score at the D rank, according to the website’s owner, is 8.3 points out of 10.’

For reference, Yu-Seong's score at the time of Goblin Fortress Dungeon was tied at 8.3. He was now ranked 7th among current D-rank hunters.

‘As for Kim Do-Jin… His record when he was D-rank is 8.9 points, first place. And he’s currently third place in the C-rank with 9.2 points. Is this for real?’

Kim Do-Jin’s score was overwhelmingly higher than Yu-Seong’s even without revealing his magic skills to the public. If the website’s owner was correct, Kim Do-Jin had a completely overpowered ability, as befitting of the main character.

Of course, Yu-Seong didn't forget to check the evaluation of the person whom he had to compete against in the dungeon racing game.

‘Bernard Yoo scored 8.8 points. Is he second place among the active D-rank players?’

Currently, Bernard Yoo’s score was 0.5 points higher than Yu-Seong’s. Obviously, this score was not absolute. The website’s owner, who recorded it for personal fun in the first place, also said that the results could vary significantly depending on the situation and environment, and that it could change sufficiently depending on the time and rank.

‘First of all, if my Chakra exceeds 1000, it will change significantly.’

Yu-Seong's potential would become much higher just by using the powerful attack skill, the Dancing Electric Doll, once more.josei

For ordinary hunters, the process of achieving 1000 mana points would be quite rough. However, it was a reachable goal for Yu-Seong, who could drink red mana stone extracts whenever and also had the Chakra breathing method.

On the day of his discharge, Yu-Seong went to a dungeon and contacted the two reporters that could operate magic tech drones, Park Jin-Hwan and Kim Jin-Young. He asked them to sign a three-month contract with him.

The work of those reporters would not be much different compared to when they worked in the media. However, from now on, whenever Yu-Seong went to a dungeon in the future, they had to be there to film his performance. From then, it would be their job to have the clips shown in the news and posted on web portals and NewTube.