‘This is…?’

Choi Yu-Seong came down 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 tapped 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, Choi Yu-Seong also learned a lot after Do-Yoon was injury. He was definitely getting stronger at a fast enough pace, but there were so many threatening enemies in the world. A little carelessness of his could come at a heavy price.

There was no need to worry about the unknown future, but there was also no reason to not 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’s increased exactly one unit a day.’ 

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

The skill seemed to increase 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 singularity of God's Chakra skill itself.

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

Rather than being used unconsciously, it would be possible to see a bigger effect if God’s Chakra was used consciously. This was especially true after the flow was found and the respiration was directly controlled over.

It was a strange thing to overlook and miss this fact as a game developer and genre novel reader. Yu-Seong immediately began to search about controlling the respiration, and found out that there were such training methods existing in today's modern day.

‘There were also people who did Chakra training.’ 

And surprisingly, there were many people who practiced the basics through breathing on both sides. Yu-Seong followed the control respiration posture, which was similar to the warriors from a martial arts novel, and focused on breathing—inhalation and exhalation.

During his breathing, Yu-Seong tried to feel the Chakra flowing inside his body. It wasn't easy from the start. 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 spirit, that existed outside.

Naturally, on the sixth day, a day before discharge, he acknowledged the Chakra’s repetitive flowing path, was able to consciously use it, and even accelerated the flow himself.

That alone added acceleration to the Chakra operation training, which was needed to quickly activate the skill. There was more to it too.

‘The rate of the Chakra’s rise increased…’

The amount of Chakra, which had been increasing by one, began to increase by eight a day when 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-colored mana drink that was 10 million won per cup, he obtained about 5 Chakras. Thus, even with simple calculation, he had the effect of exceeding 10 million won just by concentrating 2 hours a day.

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

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

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

Although by then, he didn't know the absolute amount of mana he had and his every day increasing rate, so there was no comparison and he couldn't find any answer. However, this time it was different.

It was the 7th day and the last day of discharge.

Since it was his first experiment, instead of drinking the dark gray-colored mana drink, Yu-Seong ingested the one rank lower one, the gray-colored mana drink. Then, he tried the Chakra breathing method. As a result, he cheered with joy at the overwhelming increase of nineteen.

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

‘So there’s a limit of one per day?’

Originally, Yu-Seong was holding back to save some money, but now it literally became useless to have as much as he wanted even if he could spend as much as he wanted. It was a situation where he had no choice but to lick his lips, but in fact, the situation itself was blessed. He had the ability to buy and eat even one cup of expensive mana drink every day. That made Yu-Seong satisfied enough.

Then, Yu-Seong began to test one more thing.

‘And probably like general medicine, it would be more likely to lose its effect if it is absorbed repeatedly.’ 

If that happened, Yu-Seong could simply just take a higher-rank medicine, the mana drink.

With that in mind, when he again measured after drinking the gray-colored mana drink the next day, he saw that the increase was significantly reduced from +19 to +15. So far, Choi Yu-Seong's expectations were exactly right.

The unusual thing happened later, when he tried the 30 million won dark gray-colored mana drink, which was one rank higher than the gray-colored mana drink, the increase of mana did not significantly change.

"What?" Surprised, Yu-Seong fell into thought for a moment, and he could soon guess why.

‘It’s because the dark gray-colored drink is simply the increased concentration version of the gray-colored drink.’

In other words, it was only sold under another label on the market. In actual fact, the drink was no different from the gray one.

In fact, the term ‘dark gray-colored’ was not the existing rank of the mana stone in the first place. After Yu-Seong figured out the reason, he immediately started to drink the red mana drink the next day, since it was higher than the gray-colored one. Although it was only one rank higher, the red-colored mana drinks had a market price of 100 million won. Compared to the 10 million won gray-colored mana drink, it was ten times more expensive, and more than three times more expensive than the 30 million won dark gray-colored mana drink.

At this point, it was a huge luxury that could never be done without the background of a conglomerate. However, Yu-Seong didn't think of it as a waste of money, since it was for his survival and to not easily lose the precious ones around him. In fact, 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.’ 

As a result of the experiment, the Dancing Electric Doll consumed about 200 mana per use. Therefore, Yu-Seong could only use up to three Dancing Electric Dolls. He could invoke it the fourth time, but the remaining Chakra, commonly called mana, would become zero.

Even if the fourth Dancing Electric Doll was activated using exactly 800 mana points, it would be meaningless if there was not enough left to continue the next battle. Thus, the first goal was to increase Yu-Seong’s Chakra points to 1000.

For reference, while searching for his growth, Choi Yu-Seong found an interesting overseas website where an individual posted a comparative analysis of the 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 or equivalents, such as China's Lin Xiao Nuo—the Flame Emperor, Sweden's Timewalker Christian, and Korea's Swordmaster Chuck Jun-Hui, as well as names of Kim Do-Jin and Bernard Yoo being classified as super rookies. Surprisingly, Yu-Seong’s name was also in the list with the word ‘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 wrote down Yu-Seong's estimated magic at the time quite accurately.

‘710...’ 

At that time, Yu-Seong did not know exactly how much his mana was because he did not have the skill of God's Chakra at that time. However, estimating it now, it would be about in the low 700s. Though this was only known because he could physically check his system interface window. The website’s owner guessed Choi Yu-Seong's mana possession quite accurately even without such information.

It could be just a coincidence. Still, Yu-Seong couldn't help but be interested to move forward. Naturally, he looked at the top rankers’ D-rank records written by the website’s owner. There were two hunters who stood out exceptionally in terms of the amount of mana they had: it was 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 about 1,600 to 1,800. They were huge numbers, as expected for the top rankers. Even so, the two were actually overwhelming. For the other top rankers, there were few people with more than 1,000 mana in the low-level section of the D-rank.

If Choi Yu-Seong, who was an all-rounder type player who had more than 1000 mana points, he might be more overwhelmed among the same ranked players when compared by overall integration capabilities. In fact, in the case of Lin Xiao Nuo, the Flame Emperor, the mana level itself was quite high, but in other physical ability levels, it was extremely low.

‘So, his standard score of the D-rank given by the website’s owner is 8.3 points out of 10.’

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

‘And for Kim Do-Jin… His record when he was D-rank is 8.9 points, ranking first place. And he’s currently third place in the C-rank rankings 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’s power could also be regarded as a great outstanding ability of the main character.

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

Of course, Yu-Seong didn't forget to check the evaluation of the person who he had to compete in the dungeon racing game after a while. It was exactly the same evaluation score as Kim Do-Jin of D-rank.

Currently, Bernard Yoo’s score was 0.5 points higher than Choi 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 would change significantly.’ 

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

For ordinary hunters, the process of achieving 1000 mana points would be quite rough. However, it was a quite reachable goal for Choi Yu-Seong, who could drink the red-colored mana drinks from tomorrow and even perform the Chakra breathing methods.

On the day of his discharge, Choi Yu-Seong went to the dungeon and contacted the two reporters who could drive the magic tech drones, Park Jin-Hwan and Kim Jin-Young, and asked them to sign a three-month-long 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 Choi Yu-Seong went to the dungeon in the future, they had ro film accordingly. Since then, it had been the job of the two to post the filming to each media company, portal sites, and NewTube.