Chapter 8: Aiming for the #1 Spot in the Power Rankings…

Having fallen asleep at 2 AM, I ordered delivery food as soon as morning came and sat down in front of the computer again.

Actually, I wanted to see more of the story, but our Miss Kwon Se-ah’s body couldn’t handle it.

Anyway, thanks to sleeping and waking up, I was able to get a lot of free Trailblaze Power.

I checked my messages, wondering if my cousin, Kwon Si-young, had said anything special, but it was still all about bags and clothes that I still didn’t understand what was so pretty or amazing about them.

Since there was no mention of Grandpa, I responded appropriately, as if dealing with a civil petitioner.

“Anyway… today, I need to finish raising Seele!”

Having gotten quite used to Kwon Se-ah’s body, I sat in front of the computer in a tank top and panties.

[Seele]

[Level 30 Reached!]

[Combat Power Ranking: 92↑]

“Using about 120 Trailblaze Power gets her to exactly level 30.”

To run Cocoon (Gold) once, 10 Trailblaze Power was needed.

To accumulate 120 Trailblaze Power, an ordinary player would need 12 hours, right?

Even if I had a good night’s sleep, I wouldn’t be able to get 120.

Thinking about it this way, it seems like an enormous amount.

“Hmm… this game seems to really tighten the reins on player growth, doesn’t it?”

“Isn’t the max level 90?”

“Does it take half a day for one character? Just to hit level 30?”

I had leftover experience books because I had left auto-battle on for quite a while while I went to the bathroom…

Leaving mobile games aside, don’t most RPG games require more experience as you level up?

[Cannot raise Seele’s level any further.]

[Please ascend the character!]

Moreover, right now, no matter how many experience books I had, I couldn’t level up.

“To go beyond level 30, it’s not breakthrough… in this game, they call it ‘ascension’, huh?”

“Anyway, I need to ascend her.”

Isn’t the battle for combat power in all games about reaching max level first?

This is as obvious as wearing clothes when going outside.

I quickly pressed the ‘Ascend’ button.

[The following materials are required for ascension!]

[Frail Bud of Hunt – 5]

I wondered where and how to gather these, but surprisingly, this game was kind.

“Oh! If I click on the item, it tells me where to get it?”

“It says I can get Frail Bud of Hunt by defeating ‘Beginner Hunt Remnants’.”

The creatures called Hunt Remnants were common mobs scattered around the field.

“I happened to have 20 Frail Buds of Hunt, so I can just press the ascend button right away!”

[Character Ascension Complete!]

[Level Cap Increased: 30 → 40]

“If I just put in the experience books I got a little while ago…!”

[Level 40 Reached!]

[Combat Power Ranking: 87↑]

From here on, the combat power ranking doesn’t go up as sharply, huh.

Still, I know that in the entire world server, our Seele is the 87th strongest.

[The following materials are required for ascension!]

[Frail Bud of Hunt – 10]

The second ascension is no big deal either!

I happened to have the materials, so I can do it right away, right?

But does this ‘ascension’ purely raise the level cap?

I can see various stats increasing during level up, but honestly, it’s easier to just watch the combat power go up…

Anyway, let’s just raise it! Let’s raise it quickly!

[Character Ascension Complete!]

[Level Cap Increased: 40 → 50]

I threw in all the remaining experience books.

[Level 50 Reached!]

[Combat Power Ranking: 69↑]

“Alright, alright, then shall we raise it to 60 now!”

[The following materials are required for ascension!]

[Giant’s Horn – 3]

[Common Bud of Hunt – 6]

“Huh? Giant’s Horn?”

“What’s this kid?”

“…You can get it by defeating ‘Ragnarok’s Bane’?”

I get it now! It was a good thing I pushed the story a bit yesterday, huh?

This creature called Ragnarok’s Bane was a mini-boss standing in the field.

I wondered why I had to pay 30 Trailblaze Power to go in and fight it, but it was a sacrifice for character ascension, huh?

The mobile game I used to play had something like this too.

And sometimes, it was incredibly annoying because it was tied to ‘Daily Dungeons’, so if you missed the day, you had to wait for the weekend!

“Alright, then shall we see how quickly our C6 Seele can defeat it?”

Ragnarok’s Bane, unfortunately, exploded with a pop as soon as our C6 Seele coolly used her combat skill.

Well, of course!

Do you know how much this character costs?

“Anyway, I used 30 Trailblaze Power to run this once, and it only gave me one horn.”

I need 3 to ascend Seele, right?

I only have 5 Trailblaze Power now, so I’ll have to do a ‘paid recharge’, huh.

[Recharge 60 Trailblaze Power?]

[This is your second recharge today: Consumes 75 Glimmering Dreams]

60 Trailblaze Power is equivalent to 6 hours.

One Glimmering Dream is worth roughly 15 won.

In other words! I’m paying about 1,200 won to buy 6 hours of time!

“Hohoho! I can buy time with money!”

“Kwon Se-ah buys time with money!”

With 4 billion won in my bank account, a thousand won is really peanuts!

In an instant, I was able to gather the materials needed for Seele’s ascension.

[The following materials are required for ascension!]

[Giant’s Horn – 7]

[Common Bud of Hunt – 9]

“Huh? I need 7?”

“That’s 210 Trailblaze Power, isn’t it?”

This means I have to do the 60-power recharge 4 times, right?

…And what’s this Common Bud of Hunt?

I didn’t pay attention earlier because I wasn’t short on it?

“Ah, this… I need to collect Frail Buds of Hunt and synthesize them into Common Buds of Hunt, huh?”

Then, even though it says 9 Common Buds of Hunt are needed, do I actually need more?

No, forget it.

Common mobs aren’t really important. I can just grind by running around the field for this.

Our C6 Seele is incredibly good at killing common mobs!

“No, but… no matter how I think about it, isn’t 210 Trailblaze Power equivalent to 21 hours?”

And it’s not even max level?

For the 4th ascension, it requires practically a full day per character?

“No… I’m going to steamroll it with money anyway, so it doesn’t matter to me, but is this right?”

Am I perhaps playing the game inefficiently?

[Does it normally take a lot of time to raise characters in this game?]

No matter how I think about it, something seems wrong?

I’m on the 4th ascension now, and just farming horns requires a full day’s worth of Trailblaze Power?

Is this right? And I see ‘Arcana’ below, isn’t that equipment?

There will be skills too, right? This farming is taking too long, isn’t it?

[You don’t farm Arcana right now.]

[No, f*ck, what the hell, you’re already on the 4th ascension???]

[You don’t just blindly do all ascensions like that.]

[When the player level goes up, the world tier goes up, and the number of materials dropped in dungeons increases according to that tier.]

[▶ This is correct ]

[It’s because your world tier is low, right? If you raise your tier and then fight, you’ll get 2 per run.]

[▶ When you hit max level, they give 5 each]

“Ah… this is a terribly inefficient thing to do, huh?”

There’s something called player level, and when it goes up, the tier goes up.

When the tier goes up, instead of getting 1 horn when defeating ‘Ragnarok’s Bane’ like now, I can get up to 5, right?

But wait a minute…

[When your player level increases, a tier ascension quest will appear, and you need to clear that to raise your world tier ㅇㅇ]

[The tier ascension quest is surprisingly tough, so don’t pour everything into one character; raise them evenly;]

[Don’t just blindly run whatever you see right now; there’s an efficiency chart in the strategy guides, look at that and run.]

[▶ But how do you raise player level?]

[▶▶ As you clear content that uses Trailblaze Power, you get experience proportional to the Trailblaze Power used.]

“…What? I have to use Trailblaze Power to raise my player level anyway, right?”

Then doesn’t it become like this?

Recharge Trailblaze Power.

Farm with the recharged Trailblaze Power.

Became stronger than others.

Player level increased because Trailblaze Power was used.

World tier increased because level increased, improving farming efficiency.

If I recharge Trailblaze Power again, I can become even stronger than others with improved efficiency!

“Hoo… hohoho! This is a total win-win for spending money! I’m buying time with money! I’m buying efficiency too!”

The one who doesn’t do paid recharges would be the fool, wouldn’t they?!

I frantically pressed the paid recharge button.

[Recharge 60 Trailblaze Power?]

[This is your third recharge today: Consumes 75 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your fourth recharge today: Consumes 100 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your fifth recharge today: Consumes 100 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your sixth recharge today: Consumes 150 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your seventh recharge today: Consumes 150 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your eighth recharge today: Consumes 200 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your ninth recharge today: Consumes 200 Glimmering Dreams]

[This is your tenth recharge today: Consumes 200 Glimmering Dreams]

The number of Glimmering Dreams required increased with each recharge, but it didn’t matter.

From the eighth recharge onwards, it cost 200 Glimmering Dreams at a time, but in cash terms, that was only 3,000 won.

“Hohoho… To be able to buy time with just 3,000 won!”

Money is indeed the best.

If I had played this without paying, I would have had to wait, twiddling my thumbs, for a whole week just to reach max level!

For me, who can generate a ton of Trailblaze Power with a single ‘click’, reaching Seele’s max level is nothing.

With a joyful heart, I set it to auto-battle and stood up from my seat in my panties to receive the delivery food.

“Wow… come to think of it, the brunch set or whatever I just ordered is way more expensive, isn’t it?”

To be able to buy time with just 3,000 won.

Mobile games are indeed the best!

***

“Kyaa! This is it! I didn’t even use up all 120,000 won, but I hit max level with just a few clicks!”

[Player Level – 24 Reached!]

[Seele]

[Level 90 Reached!]

[Combat Power Ranking: 9↑]

“This is it… this is it!”

“Just by hitting max level, my combat power ranking became 9th!”

Honestly, I haven’t even leveled up her Light Cone, nor farmed Arcana, nor farmed skills, and I’m 9th, right?

This, this, if I just do a little bit, I’ll hit number 1 in no time, won’t I?

“Hehehe… If I hit number 1, what, should I try internet broadcasting? Brag a little that I’m the number 1 ranker in Korea?”

I stopped calculating how much Trailblaze Power I used from the middle onwards.

In the end, I defeated Ragnarok’s Bane, which dropped one horn per run, a whopping 35 times.

Even after 10 runs for experience books, I couldn’t even gain 1 level, so at the end, I felt a bit suffocated in my chest.

“But… it’s strange, huh?”

“When I started, my character level was definitely 6, but now it’s 24, right?”

“Why did it only give one horn until the very end?”

If it had given 2 each, I wouldn’t have needed to do 35 runs…!

This is honestly a waste!

Spending 120,000 won doesn’t make my chest tingle anymore, but thinking I made a loss makes it feel like a waste!

[My player level is 24, why do I only get one horn when I defeat the Yeti?]

Sh*t

They definitely said I’d get more horns if I raised my player level!!!

[???]

[No, f*ck, you crazy whale]

[When you hit level 20, you should get a world tier ascension quest, right? Did this guy skip it or something?]

[(Emoticon telling you to clear the world tier ascension quest)]

[The ascension quest is surprisingly tough, so make sure your character composition is right before you go.]

[▶ Seriously, newbies go in thinking it’s easy at first, get wrecked, and then come to the gallery to complain like crazy.]

[Don’t come crying after getting wrecked, look at a strategy guide before you go ㅋㅋ]

“Ah… I need to clear the world tier ascension quest to raise my tier, huh.”

…But it’s difficult?

Newbies are guaranteed to get wrecked?

“This Kwon Se-ah-nim has a max-level C6 Seele, though?”

A quest that everyone unanimously says is difficult.

The thought of clearing it with an auto-click made my heart pound dangerously.