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37. Exp Continues to Rise (4)
These cute little things, finally revealing themselves.
Awakened Essences.
“I just hit level 63 right now. I only have one skill that’s over level 90.”
“Is that so? Even if you’re level 63, you don’t normally reach skill level 100?”
“Of course. That’s obvious. Mana is limited, and the experience required to level up skills is enormous.”
“Hm… Hyung. I think I found something funny to show you.”
“What’s that?”
Jong Ho’s eyes widened as he fumbled through the stones.
He opened his palm to uncover three Awakened Essences.
For over three months, I had spent at least 12 hours a day, or up to 18 hours a day, hunting without any breaks.
Even with that, I was only able to earn 2 Awakened Essences.
But with the mimic, I had just earned three.
Jong Ho did not look like he could close his mouth anytime soon.
Jong Ho said that he was able to earn an Awakened Essence through party hunting once.
But he had to share the profit between 8 members.
The records in the trading center show that since the profit was split between 9 members, it became obvious to anyone that these were low leveled players.
Jong Ho continued to speak.
“I’m continued to be surprised. Really.”
“Hyung. I’m almost scared of opening the duffle backpack.”
“Don’t you have one or two skills that are near level 100?”
“Of course. There are a few.”
‘Plenty of skills begging to be Awakened’ is the truth though.
“That’s good. You’ll need the Awakened Essences soon.”
“Still, you should take one, hyung. It doesn’t come by often. Once you get a skill to level 100, how could I let you wait?”
“I’ll say I received the skill books because they were warrior class only. But this isn’t.”
“Should I feed it to the hounds?”
“Yeah. This is something I wouldn’t receive even if it was fed to the hounds. I’ve lived my life by reading people and keeping my pride. Don’t make me doubt anymore.”
“Stubborn.”
“Yeah! Being a hyung, how can I live depending only on you? Let’s see the rest of the gear.”
Jong Ho rubbed his nose once with his finger, and began to search through the equipments buried under all the blood stones.
It’s little habits like this that make it impossible to hate him.
I also joined Jong Ho’s search.
“Looks like all the gear is useless?”
“Why? You don’t have any mana rings. Stop using that skull ring. The ring and necklace raises your mana, so you can use it.”
“Not pretty. I have a thing called preference, so I’d appreciate it if you let me stick to it.”
“Sounds like you’re very spoiled. You sure you’re not going to use it?”
“Yes. Stones and the gear are going to be sold, and I’ll give you half. If you won’t even receive this, I’m not going to meet you again.”
“You’re just like a pumpkin farmer. Thanks!”
The items we acquired through hunting with Jong Ho were amazing.
Three Awakened Essences, skill books, blood stones, and the rare Titan Boots.
It wouldn’t have been possible without the mimic.
It was the first time Jong Ho had seen a mimic, and he had been Awakened for years.
I felt as though the mimic’s tongue that was sticking out would appear in my dreams for the next couple of days.
* * *
The amount summoned by ‘Devil Avatar’ had increased by two.
It was due to arriving at skill level 100.
Due to the 60 minutes cool down, it bothered me a lot.
But thankfully I didn’t only earn 1 skill experience for summoning it.
The enemies hit by the summoned’s skills gave experience as well.
Red. Blue. Yellow. These are what they are called.
Personally, I liked Blue, since it could cast frost magic.
With one cast, there would be days when two Blues would come out.
I only had Frost Orb as far as frost magic would go, so I needed frost magic that would slow down my enemy’s movement.
The spot was being filled by Blue instead.
The 4m avatar displayed some incredible destructive force.
At level 100, they could slow down the movement of the level 18 monsters just by being near them.
Something similar to a frost aura.
Avatars didn’t only attack with magic.
Each hand held a giant sword.
The shape was something like that of table knife.
Their attacks, both physical and magic, would freeze opponents solid. How much the mobs froze depended on how many times they attacked.
The sword attacks were physical, but it had effects as though if it was enchanted.
From the sky rained icicles while the avatar swung its giant sword.
Kind of made me feel bad for the monsters.
The avatar’s weakness was that they were mortal.
Fire Shock and Gravity Laser caused friendly fire damage.
I could put shields on them and freely cast magic myself.
However, taking care of it myself felt better.
In dungeons where only physical attacks work, it was obvious that they would prove useful.
Also, the summoned would attack until its life force ceased.
Which means that after I summon them, I would be able to freely cast spells with both my hands.
After summoning them for the first time and ending the hunting with them…
I had the worry of ‘How will I bring these giants around?’
With the pressure it exuded and its size, people may mistake it as a portal explosion.
But I found out that you could shrink the Devil Avatars to the point where they could fit in your pockets.
Anytime at my will.
They’ve become something like my own Pokemon.
With their size reducing to that of a finger, they looked a lot cuter than I thought they’d be.
From using the Devil Avatar, I was able to find out the potentials of a summoner.
Fast skill leveling, destructive power, survivability, and even cuteness.
I became really greedy for another high ranking summoner skill.
* * *
It’s been about half a month since I’ve hunted with Jong Ho.
I had learned ‘Iceberg’ and ‘Meteor Call’.
Both were A+ ranking skills, displaying devastating force and price.
But with the vast amounts of B ranking stones and gear earned from the mimic, I was able to amass an earning far more than what I thought I could obtain.
With all the money saved up until now, along with half a month’s worth of hunting, I purchased them.
When I first obtained the Awakened Essences, I thought to sell them so I could afford to purchase more skills.
While this method would speed up my growth immediately, it would be a heavy lost if you considered the future.
I would only be earning more and more money, to the point where I’d be sick of it.
But no matter how much money you had, you couldn’t obtain Awakened Essences.
You’d know it just by looking at Yoon Jong-sun, who worked under Ilseong.
I used one of the essences on Reflect Shield.
Compared to the other shields, the Reflect Shield was superior.
It was a worthwhile investment since it would increase the reflect chance as well as the damage reflected back.
The other two leftovers, I was definitely going to use it on the A+ rank spells.
Originally I was planning to buy Glacial Field, as it did more damage than I thought.
It had an AoE freezing crowd control effect as well.
But I could get the freezing crowd control from the Devil Avatar.
Of course due to the summoned being random out of the three types, there was a chance that Blue won’t come out.
But to hunt faster, I needed stronger skills first. That was my choice.
Out of all the skills I’ve learned so far, none of them had a cast time.
But both Iceberg and Meteor Call had one.
At level 1, both skills needed 5 minutes to cast.
And both had a cool down of 5 minutes.
Thus, it took 10 minutes to be able to finish casting it again.
Thankfully for every 20 skill levels, the cool down would be reduced by 10%.
So if I was able to Awaken these skills and get them up to level 100 again, I could use them without any limit.
It’d only apply to me though.
From level 1, it used up 4,000 mana, and as the spell leveled, so did the cost.
Only a magician who put all his points into the mana stat until level 160 could use one of these spells once when it’s at level 1.
To a regular Awakened, forget about getting it Awakened, you couldn’t even reach level 100.
To test the destructive capabilities of these spells firsthand, I entered the dungeon after obtaining the skills.
Since I was equipping the Titan Boots, my movespeed had increased more than two times.
Running to the end of the dungeon didn’t even take 5 minutes.
It was a massive upgrade from the Boots of Haste, which took 10 minutes.
Arriving at the end of the dungeon with 10 monsters in tow, I used the skill.
From what I’ve seen at the guild pvp, both skills seemed to exist only for the purpose of complete annihilation.
First test was with the Meteor Call.
Above the rabble of monsters flew down a flaming meteor.
The poison naga was instantly decimated due to its weak defensive stats.
The corpses that were left quickly disintegrated, not even leaving ashes behind.
After the meteor falls, it continues to explode and causes damage over time.
The next skill was Iceberg.
The griffons flying above that wasn’t directly hit still flew about without any major injuries.
However.
A massive iceberg came forth from the earth, swallowing them whole.
Without even being able to use Final Attack, they were instantly trapped in the ice and became frozen chicken.
The insides of the iceberg continued to split apart and freeze again.
Almost like mixing puzzle pieces or a rubik’s cube.
Within 5 seconds, the 4 griffons had been ripped apart to pieces until I couldn’t recognize them anymore.
Only a level 1 skill.
But the damage it caused was more than sufficient to surprise me.
Since it had a cool down and cast time, I couldn’t level it up quickly. However, I was certain that I must level them up by any means possible.
Entering the dungeon again, I casted both spells at the same time.
Both skills were of the same level.
However, both skills canceled each other out as if to remind me that they’re both polar opposites, causing zero damage to the monsters.
If I cast a ton of buffs on myself and debuff the enemies, nothing would be a match against these spells. That’s if the dungeon mobs weren’t immune to spells though.
“Does casting Meteor Call and Iceberg on each hand still raise the experience? Or doesn’t it?”
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