Chapter 23

After buying diamonds, I purchased 100 class summon cards with them. This alone cost one million won, leaving my remaining balance at just 1,284,500 won.

‘I don’t need to buy any more diamonds.’

As I flipped through the pages, packages that could be bought with real cash instead of game currency (diamonds) appeared.

‘There is no limit.’

In Revenge, various limited-time packages were sold for different reasons. There were Lunar New Year’s packages, Chuseok packages, Christmas packages, Black Friday packages, and so on. Unfortunately, today wasn’t a special occasion, so only the usual 16 types of packages were available. I checked the details of each package before purchasing them.

[You have purchased ★☆Settling Down in Ardenia Package☆★!]

[You have purchased ★☆Battle Pass☆★!]

[You have purchased ★☆Grand Master Package☆★!]

[You have purchased two ★☆Companion Packages☆★!]

[You have purchased two ★☆Gatekeeper Packages☆★!]

[You have purchased two ★☆Guild Master Skill Packages☆★!]

[You have purchased ★☆Bracelet of Valor Package☆★!]

[You have purchased ★☆Belt of Struggle Package☆★!]

He spent around ten million won from his balance slightly over twelve and a half million won. His remaining balance now stood at 1,845,000 won.

Money goes fast.

The most efficient purchase was indeed the Settling Down package. Despite costing 55,000 won, it included seven hundred diamonds, one rare-grade earring, ring, and necklace each. It even came with ten Grails of Favor along with a Premium Guaranteed Pet Summoning Stone.

‘The Grand Master Package also contains ten class cards, making it now over 100 class cards. There is one guaranteed rare card in each package.’

In any case, buying packages resulted in efficiency that couldn’t be compared to aiming for legendary items individually. I loosened my hands slightly while looking around the convenience store. The sun was rising above the dark early morning streets. People started to appear on the street but none of them entered the convenience store. I covered my mouth with my hand so as not to show up on the CCTV and spoke,

”…Login.”

After returning to Ardenia, I took out the Revenge package. Ten boxes turned into dozens of contents, filling my inventory.

Among them, I opened the Class Card Pack.

Chwah-ling!

For a moment, I saw the playful expression of the goddess’s statue before ten cards soared into the sky and instantly transformed into ten weapons falling right in front of me. Since this entire process was visible to third parties, I performed it inside my exclusive carriage. Fortunately, the sound wasn’t too loud, and due to the narrow space, the size of the weapons became smaller (after all, they were just images). It made it difficult for outsiders to discern what was happening from outside.

Cha-ling!

Hunter (General), Archer (General), Archer (General), Wizard (General)… Wizard (General).

I wildly scratched off the card packs. In any case, these were meant for assigning jobs to soldiers, so I didn’t obsess over their ranks.

‘It’s practically impossible to obtain a legendary class by scratching just a hundred cards.’

Crackling…

Wizard (Regular), Shielder (Regular), Archer (Regular), Wizard (Regular)… Wizard (Regular).

Wizard (Regular), Assassin (Regular), Wizard (Regular), Cleric (Regular)… Flash! High Wizard (Advanced)!

“Oh.” My face contorted despite myself as I kept opening cards.

“What’s with all these wizards?”

The classes I wanted were warriors—swordsman, warrior, shielder—and if not those, then thieves like assassins, archers, or hunters would have been fine. The mage class, with its main stat being Magic Power, wouldn’t be very effective for my soldiers. Even if ordinary soldiers gained mana, what good would it do them? There was no environment to teach them magic spells.

Of course, Skill Books were fraudulent items that allowed anyone to activate psionic powers simply by reciting the skill name. If they had Skill Books, my soldiers could perform their roles…

‘But it’s unaffordable.’

I didn’t have enough gold just to learn one skill myself. Even with buying only four or five equipment enforcement stones per day instead of the maximum ten due to lack of funds, it was still insufficient. Buying even ordinary skills for each soldier remained a pipe dream.

‘Still, I should consider synthesis… and keep the mage cards.’

There might be opportunities to create a mage unit by selecting those with high intelligence or bestow them on mana-deficient clerics. For now, I decided to think big.

Flash!

At that moment, the goddess’s playful smile disappeared as if she was surprised.

Gugugu…!

The moment the sword embedded in the ground started shining with a golden light,

“Huh?”

I unconsciously reached out and grabbed the sword.

-I thought I gradually understood the pinnacle of swords, but before long, people were calling me the Sword King.

[Sword King (Hero)]

”…Logout.”

Firstly, I returned to Earth and checked my surroundings. It was dawn, and nobody could be seen on the streets yet. Naturally, there wasn’t anyone at the convenience store either. Eventually, a groan couldn’t be suppressed as it burst out from me.

“Sword… Ohhhhhh!”

★☆Job Change Completed☆★

[Sword King (Hero)]

Strength +80, Agility +160, Stamina +80, Health +40, Mana +40

[Attack speed increased by 50%.]

[Gap Between Experts (間合)]

My fists clenched automatically.

“Sword…King? No way! Is this possible?”

Duelist wasn’t a bad job but considering that I was affected by the ‘kri’ bug, the combat power of Duelist and Sword King were fundamentally different. Unlike the skills of the Duelist which increased critical hits, there weren’t any critical increase skills for Sword King, Sword Ghost, Swordmaster or Sword Saint branches. Originally, those in the swordsman class needed to acquire critical through equipment, accessories, and collections.

“Everything has changed.”

I sat at the counter with Cheddar on my lap, tapping his stomach while emptying out four Killian’s gold coins. Then I bought all the general and advanced swordsmanship skills.

Triple Stance Skill (Passive) (General), Light Stance Skill (Active) (General), Dash Boots (Active) (General), Quick Wheel Skill (Active) (Advanced), Activated Body (Passive) (Advanced), Long Sword Proficiency (Passive) (Advanced).

“And… ah, there is no way to obtain this immediately. Yes, let’s buy it.”

I entered the exchange and bought the Inner Force Injection (Active) (Rare) skill book. There were no problems with purchasing since I had diamonds from the package. Luckily, I was able to buy it at the lowest price of 480 diamonds.

“About $50 or so?”

If this was just a simple game, I would’ve cursed automatically. Can you imagine paying 50,000 won for one rare skill? For 50,000 won, it should be enough to buy not just one skill but an entire package-based game.

However, my current feelings were completely different.

Inner Force Injection.

Just by thinking about it, the zenki within my body moved automatically. I grabbed a kitchen knife placed on one side of the counter.

Wooong!

A faint energy was infused into the knife. It was something meant to peel fruit but now I knew it could even cut through logs.

“Haha.”

Embarrassingly, tears welled up in my eyes. Something I had craved for all my life but never achieved was now in my hands. I understood:

“Now…I can beat the police.”

Even if they were at the bottom, it meant that I could overcome the force of the state. This implied there was nothing to fear in back alleys or the underworld. Of course, if I encountered riot police, I would be defeated without using this blade, but…

Isn’t this just a rare skill that I obtained now?

“As expected, Revenge is the answer.”

My psionic aptitude was still poor, so I couldn’t properly control the zenki flowing inside my body but it didn’t matter. The skill would automatically operate once used.

“Good. Login.”

I put down the sword and returned to Ardenia’s carriage. Then I used all the remaining Summoning Stones. The result was…

‘General: 97 cards. Advanced: 12 cards. Hero: 1 card.’

It annoyed me that there wasn’t even one rare card, but it was okay since a hero card came out. There was also a guaranteed rare card from the Grand Master package.

‘And the job is…’

There were 38 warrior cards, 31 archer cards, and 41 mage cards. Fortunately, fewer mages appeared towards the end, with many shielders among the warriors.

‘Good. To reduce casualties, it’s urgent to strengthen our tanks.’

However, there was one problem: stats. In Revenge, increasing strength increased damage for warriors while raising agility boosted damage for archers. But reality differed from this concept.

In actuality, agility was more important for a warrior. No matter how robust a person might be, they would still die if pricked by a needle. To spill blood and flesh, one needed to be nimble enough to target their opponent’s weaknesses.

On the other hand, strength mattered for archers. The power and range of a bow were determined by its draw weight, requiring significant muscle strength to pull back a strong bowstring effectively. This is why elite archers and skilled knights often had large builds with well-developed back muscles.

‘A certain level of compromise is necessary.’

I had already experimented with this. If I possessed attack power, meaning if I swung an item with ‘Attack Power’ attached to it, then additional damage occurred beyond the physical harm caused by swinging a sword. However, unlike Swordsmanship, the efficiency was lower as the damage spread throughout the body.

‘Still, it is a pity to give up on free additional damage.’

I classified warrior classes into agility warriors and strength warriors. Most of them were strength warriors since their damage for general classes like swordsman, warrior, or shielder depended on Strength.

‘Then we just need to put thick armor on them before sending them to the front lines. With high strength, they should be able to bear even heavy armor.’

For the agility warriors, equipping them with long swords and spears would enable them to deliver lethal attacks.

‘For the Rangers, focus on agility. Instead, select those with large frames and train them with high weights.’

Originally, no matter how much humans trained their physical bodies, they couldn’t exceed a certain limit. Unless they learned bio-energy or psionic abilities such as chakra, aura, etc., it was impossible to surpass the limits of the human species. However… despite all my training, my physique had been constantly growing recently.

‘It means that if one stat exceeds the human limit, the limits of related stats will also increase.’

“Log out.”

Once I returned to Earth again, I organized the confirmed information in Notepad:

Training Plan

1. Warriors should focus on strength and health while being pushed hard for stamina training.

2. Archers should raise agility and health, along with weight training for strength.

3. Mages - Pending.

Of course, all of this was just rough guidelines. To find the optimal efficiency, continuous research and experimentation would be needed.

“Hyung-nim! I’m here!”

As my thoughts were organized, dawn broke. The morning rush of students had ended, and it was time for shift change after cleaning up their messes. Sehan entered the convenience store and waved at me. He was a 21-year-old class 3 mage who was working part-time to earn money for potions while interning. He applied to the Iron Giant Magic Tower, famous for enchantment studies, around seven decades ago in 2019.

“You’re here.”

“Yes, hyung-nim. Anything special?”

“Not really. Just one uncle caused a fuss because there wasn’t any ‘Eternal Makgeolli’ brand available.”

“Woah, what a tough uncle! Did he dare give you trouble, hyung-nim? Was he an Elder?”

The peaceful District 34 faced an unprecedented crisis. A mythical entity that had descended from the distant universe and slumbered on Earth was awakened by the ‘Project Apocalypse’. Billions of humans were annihilated. The population of District 34, which exceeded six billion, plummeted to less than one-tenth its original size within minutes.

However, after ultimately defeating Project Apocalypse… they realized something. Every survivor understood that they had become monsters.

‘It was a crazy time when even elementary school students walking down the street or ajummas at the food stalls were above level 10.’

According to the interstellar standard ranking system, those who completed their training as cultivators were considered level 10. This meant sword masters capable of wielding sword energy were also categorized as level 10. Considering humanity’s average level soared well beyond 10 after the end of Project Apocalypse, it gives you an idea of how powerful the average person became.

Back then, even children piloted gigas.

It was a crazy time when it wasn’t one household with one giga but rather one person to one giga.

Many of those powerful individuals from that era have either passed away or left Earth, but quite a few still remain… And out of respect and fear, people refer to them as Elders.

“He’s not old, just middle-aged.”

“Looks like you’ve had too much to drink… Anyhow, I confirmed everything! Good job!” Sehan cheerfully waved goodbye.

I subtly nodded at him before exiting the convenience store. For breakfast, I nibbled on some leftover rice rolls found in the trash, then headed to my next destination.

“Let’s see, the address is…”

The current time: nine o’clock in the morning.

His part-time job had just begun.