Chapter 176

CHAPTER 176

“Hahaha. Thirty seconds might be a little difficult. I think that streamer may have hyped me up a bit too much.”

Baek Doyul looked at the viewers with a friendly smile.

More precisely, he was looking at MentalAll.

Since the streaming camera was currently showing Mental’s perspective.

He even put on the act of someone who didn’t know how to react to all the praise.

• Damn.
• Is this the composure of a champion? Is this the composure of a champion? Is this the composure of a champion? Is this the composure of a champion?
• That bastard should learn from him.
• Wait, but wasn’t this guy originally kind of rude too?
• Only toward rivals. He sees Seojun as just an ordinary person, not a competitor, so he’s acting humble lol.
• Probably. It’d be weird if the villain of Rios was considered a rival to the champion.
• He actually knows how to act awkward.

Naturally,

there was no kind smile behind the face Baek Doyul had put on.

His true intention was simply to get through the situation with a bit of humility.

And slightly embarrass Seojun in the process.

‘Thirty seconds... They never said he couldn’t get hit even once. If it’s that Sabam guy, he might actually be able to do it.’

At least in the current situation.

Assuming the AI didn’t get any stronger.

In any case, Baek Doyul acknowledged Seojun’s skill and even wanted to fight him.

But—

‘Let’s save a proper match for another time.’

It wasn’t because he thought he would lose.

There was simply no benefit to publicly fighting under the spotlight when everyone was watching.

It wasn’t even a real match.

Why bother getting into a pride contest against an AI in the training grounds?

‘Though that Taker guy is actually doing it.’

With genuine curiosity, Baek Doyul began watching alongside everyone else.

This stream kept going in increasingly strange directions.

‘This might actually be fun.’

‘Hyung, you’re not actually going to do it, right?’

Dongsu sent Seojun a telepathic message.

From Seojun’s perspective, he had essentially been challenged out of nowhere.

Of course, Taker hadn’t acted hostile or openly shown dislike.

He had simply smiled and asked him to prove it.

The only reason it seemed strange was because the speaker was a pro player.

If it had been any random player from Rios, there would have been nothing unusual about it.

Though admittedly, it was still a bit strange because it came from a pro.

In the end, however, it happened during a stream.

Now the important thing was how Seojun would respond.

Would he actually prove it?

Or would he show that he was annoyed and leave it at that?

• No way the guy who always goes around provoking people is gonna run away now, right? LOL
• Just do it within 30 seconds.
• If Taker stepped in, it’s probably difficult.
• He only stepped in because he thought it couldn’t be done. And that Sabam guy is a pro who knows the training grounds really well.
• Can he actually do it in 30 seconds?

[Viewers: 30,000]

Before anyone realized it, Seojun’s viewer count had surpassed thirty thousand, and the chat exploded.

‘Yoonho’s viewer count hasn’t dropped much.’

He hadn’t really cared before.

But now things might be different.

Seojun wasn’t really in a position where he could back down.

Not after everything he’d done so far.

Still, he intended to handle things the same way he always did.

‘Dongsu, there’s no helping it.’

The world was conspiring against him.

‘Hyung. What are you even talking about?’

The two continued conversing through eye contact.

Surprisingly, it worked.

Then Seojun turned his head.

The person he needed to answer wasn’t Dongsu.

“Everyone. Do you think I’m angry? He just smiled and told me to try it. What was his name again? Tate?”

• Hahahahahaha!
• Is he starting up now?
• The Art of Forgetting Names!
• Basically saying he’s not even worth remembering LOL

One advantage of viewers:

They interpreted things however they wanted.

“Ah, Taker, right. Anyway, let’s wait and see. Maybe... no, never mind.”

• Maybe he thinks he can’t beat him? LOL
• Wow, can he really handle this?
• I knew he’d been way too quiet today.

Another advantage of viewers:

Even if you said nonsense, they somehow understood exactly what you meant.

• Normally he would’ve been provoking everyone in the training grounds by now, so yeah, he was pretty quiet.
• That counts as quiet?
• Wasn’t he provoking people already?
• You guys clearly didn’t witness the mass taunt on Day 11 of the battlefield.

Dongsu thought:

‘The sealed mouth has been unleashed.’

The guy attracted aggro even when he wasn’t trying.

Now that he was doing it intentionally...

As expected.

He was coming out swinging from the start.

Should he just run away here?

Dongsu couldn’t decide whether he’d rather be mocked for fleeing Rios or stay standing in the center of this storm.

At that moment—

before Taker had even heard Seojun’s provocation—

his voice came through the stream.

“Alright, here we go. I should clear it under the same conditions too, right?”

Seojun nodded.

“So one minute. Full health, I assume.”

• Damn!
• But I thought this was supposed to be easy?
• Stop talking and watch.

Through Rain’s stream, Taker could be seen moving.

He was touching the air in front of him.

Setting the stage parameters.

What appeared was a clone of Baek Doyul.

Since he hadn’t selected Unknown, Baek Doyul’s physical characteristics were still vaguely reflected in the model.

Then—

Taker began fighting the clone.

His swordsmanship revolved around transformations.

In other words—

‘Tricks.’

Unpredictable.

Irregular.

Desperate scrambling.

Of course, tricks that had reached that level were still threatening.

But if Baek Doyul, with his overwhelming skill and rock-solid fundamentals, used the same sword, it would be far more dangerous.

‘Looks like he hit a wall.’

When facing a limit, there were generally two approaches.

You could faithfully refine your fundamentals.

Or you could compensate with other techniques.

The former was a carefully constructed tower.

It could rise much higher.

The latter was a tower hastily built by stacking bricks to solve immediate problems.

It was faster.

But easier to collapse.

Taker, however, was talented enough that his tower had never fallen despite taking that route.

“You all shouldn’t play like that player. Got it?”

• Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?
• We couldn’t copy him even if we tried LOL.
• Eomd.

“If you imitate him, you’ll hit your limit much earlier. It’s a method only someone with his level of talent can use. Just practice downward swings ten thousand times a day. Then you can become like me.”

It would only take about two hundred years.

• How the hell do you do ten thousand swings LOL?
• Bro is actually insane.
• You all have Bill Gates levels of free time, so give it a try.
• If my face becomes as handsome as the streamer’s, then maybe lol.
• Random Taker praise?
• You’re not saying your own talent is worse, are you?
• He’s just being humble. Copying Baek Doyul! LOL.

It wasn’t praise.

“Humility mode? No, that’s not it. Then what is it? I’ll show you right now.”

One minute passed.

Just as he had declared, Taker succeeded in clearing it without his health bar dropping even once.

Though he had struggled slightly more than Baek Doyul.

In any case, people immediately started clamoring for him to prove it.

But Seojun had no intention of ending things there.

“Everyone, instead of that, how about we make it a contest to see who gets hit first? Same conditions as before.”

Without even waiting for a response, Seojun summoned the dummy.

Just like Taker had done.

If he didn’t accept, he’d be disqualified as a streamer.

Pointing his sword at Taker’s dummy, Seojun smiled.

“One minute.”

From this point on, the proof was no longer Seojun’s alone.

The Training Ground Rankings.

Ranks 2 through 99 were determined by scores calculated by the AI itself based on players’ records against the Stage 9 AI.

But Rank 1 was different.

It was a throne reserved exclusively for the master of Stage 10.

And that throne—

in real time—

was undergoing a cataclysmic upheaval.

#1 Jin Seojun

#1 Taker

#1 Jin Seojun

#1 Taker

#1 Jin Seojun

[These two maniacs are insane.]

[Wait, he’s challenging a pro player to a duel here? LOL]

[A noob is still a noob lol.]

[How does he cause this much chaos on his first day practicing? At this point creating drama is a talent.]

[If you think about it, the reason we even saw the pros was because of the streamer in the first place lol.]

[Just the GOAT.]

As the battle for first place unfolded in real time, the community was flooded with posts to the point of paralysis.

[Reven is already full of posts, but this is ridiculous! Upvote me so I don’t get buried!]

[Holy crap. Both of them look like they’re trying their absolute hardest. Is this actually not easy?]

[Of course it’s not easy. You can tell just from the fact that Seojun didn’t do the 30-second challenge.]

#1 Taker

[Taker reclaims it!]

#1 Jin Seojun

[LOL the streamer reclaimed it after only one minute without even talking.]

[Taker spends time chatting, but Jin Seojun just immediately goes at it. Why? Does no one care about wealth inequality? Tell him to take it easy lol.]

[Everything was part of the streamer’s plan. Through Lee Dongsu he met the pros, immediately went to the training grounds, drew attention, threw out the thirty-second statement, provoked the pro who got baited, and challenged him to a duel → becomes a massive issue. Chills.]

[Since when did Seojun’s thirty-second comment become a provocation? LOL. Wasn’t he just praising Baek Doyul?]

[Seriously, nobody isn’t watching Jin Seojun’s stream right now, right? LOL.]

[Why watch someone else watching it when you can watch it directly?]

[Or just watch Rain lol.]

No matter which stream people visited, everyone was watching the same fight.

So viewers no longer needed to watch a screen through another screen.

As a result,

every stream except Ha Yoonho’s and Rain’s suffered massive viewer losses.

Ten thousand gone.

Twenty thousand.

Thirty thousand.

The longer the fight dragged on, the more people left.

Before anyone realized it—

[Jin Seojun: 80,000 viewers watching]

The highest viewer count in the channel’s history had gathered.

The same was true for Rain, who was directly spectating.

[Rain: 140,000 viewers watching]

The two streams were sucking in viewers like black holes.

And then—

#1 Taker

After finishing his attempt, Taker, still uncertain, immediately opened Seojun’s stream, which he had closed while fighting.

Until now, whenever he checked Seojun, Seojun had always been in the middle of a fight.

This time was different.

Seojun was simply standing there, not having summoned him, staring at Ha Yoonho.

‘Damn. Was I a little late this time? Or not?’

He was starting to reach his limit.

Though the other guy probably was too.

‘Anyway... did I lose?’

If that were the case, the viewers weren’t saying much about it.

Instead, they were wondering why Seojun was just standing there.

• What? Why’d he stop?
• Don’t tell me they’re ending it with “we both won.”

Taker was curious too.

‘If he’s trying to end it here... that’s actually pretty smart.’

Like himself, Seojun had probably hit a wall.

The conditions were what they were.

He had talked about thirty seconds, then continuously smoothed things over.

And now he was trying to back out after sensing danger.

A remarkably cunning man.

Of course, Taker didn’t like it.

‘That guy. What makes him think he knows anything about me?’

Through the chat, he had learned the meaning behind what Seojun had said while watching him fight Baek Doyul’s AI.

And he understood immediately.

‘He thinks I’ve stagnated.’

The thought felt presumptuous.

And then—

Seojun raised three fingers.

• Three?
• Does that mean one minute three seconds?
• Nah, Taker just got fifty-eight seconds.
• Whew, that was close.
• Seojun got fifty-nine seconds last time too.

As everyone clearly saw the three raised fingers,

Seojun smiled, silently turned around, and summoned Taker’s AI.

Then he shot forward like lightning.

Swords collided.

And the AI’s health dropped.

[HP 9]

The movement of his sword had changed.

And that sword reduced the AI’s health.

It was a sword he had never shown before.

Clang!

[HP 8]

But it was a sword someone else had shown.

‘That’s... Transforming Sword? No... me?’

The AI’s movements overlapped with Seojun’s from before.

The same.

No—different.

[HP 7]

The same concept of transformation.

But the motion—

the sword path—

was shorter.

Shorter meant faster.

Yet more threatening.

‘How is that even...?’

A change occurred on the battlefield where the two were fighting by proxy.

[HP 6]

Attack and defense became one.

Seojun defended while attacking simultaneously.

Using Taker’s own sword.

[HP 5]

With every exchange, the health bar decreased.

The blade moved in unexpected ways.

During difficult moments, he would suddenly reverse his grip, spin his body, and strike.

‘That’s what I did a moment ago.’

[HP 4]

At the same time, as if planned beforehand,

the AI performed the exact move Seojun had just used.

But by then Seojun was already moving.

[HP 3]

The sword that had cut across continued downward.

Then it blocked.

Blocked the AI’s reverse-gripped blade.

At that moment, Taker felt as though he was being dismantled.

[HP 2]

His own sword was stopping him.

His own sword was attacking him.

Watching the scene was strangely immersive.

[HP 1]

No.

The reason he was drawn in wasn’t because it was happening to him.

That attack—

‘That attack... how did he possibly get that from there...?’

And then—

#1 Jin Seojun

It ended.

The chat exploded even harder.

But Taker couldn’t focus on the fact that it was over.

What snapped him back to reality was what Seojun said next.

“Thirty seconds.”

• DAMN!???
• ????
• He’s farming hooks like a madman LOL
• Come to think of it, he was incredibly fast.
• Wait LOL, thirty seconds and he didn’t get hit once?
• HAHAHAHAHA THAT’S INSANE
• Were the three fingers supposed to mean that?!

“I just gave it a try.”

Seojun spoke in the same casual tone as always.

As though it were nothing special.

But what he was saying was—

“So the conditions are still the same. One minute. Just beat it within one minute. Easy, right?”

It sounded like he was looking down on Taker.

No.

It wasn’t contempt.

It was the consideration of a stronger man who had cut the time limit in half.

Now it was Taker’s turn again.

Just as before.

Yet a pressure on an entirely different level descended upon him.

And even the viewers in Rain’s stream—

began turning their attention toward Seojun instead.