Chương 158: Chapter 158
'The Thunder God's support…' Zeus hadn't left a strong impression on him and had been absorbed by Dongfang, but he thought that the Divine Throne's Thunder God might be a bit different.
'Ariel, do you know what kind of entity the Thunder God is?'
[If it's the Thunder God of the Divine Throne… They're an amalgamation of gods. The ones from your world are just pieces of it.]
'In other words, the lightning-and-thunder gods of many worlds came together to form the Divine Throne's Thunder God… Is it similar to how the Dead Star drags around kings as ghosts?'
[A bit, but it's not quite the same. The Dead Star enslaves the kings, but the Thunder God of the Divine Throne selects the strongest god as their representative. From what I heard, they're always fighting over the rankings.]
Sounding unsure, Ariel added, [I'm not certain, but… compared to the other gods of the Divine Throne, the current representative of the Thunder God has kept his position for a very long time, and he doesn't really like Battle Net, so I heard he hardly participates in things like this…]
'But he offered to become my constellation.'
[It seems that he sees potential in you, but it shouldn't be possible for him to support you in the Tutorial Season…]
"Receiving his support would be great, but is that possible since the Earth's still in the Tutorial Season?" he asked.
[Since Earth's difficulty is lower, it's possible if the Thunder God pays a price.]
"It's possible? Then let's do it."
It was better to fill his empty constellation slot than to leave it unused.
[The 'Thunder God' has become player 'Sung JiHan's' constellation.]
[Due to the constellation's effect, electricity-type skills and the Lightning Seal's effects have greatly increased.]
'I guess this isn't the end.'
The Thunder God seemed stronger than other constellations, so he expected there to be more.
[The Thunder God is reviewing your abilities as your constellation…]
[The Thunder God is greatly surprised to see 'Martial Soul' and is deep in thought…]
[You'll now be logged out.]
JiHan was forced from the game before he could see the Thunder God's other effects.
[You've cleared the special achievement, 'Finish a Space League Promotion Match'.]
[You've earned 1,000,000 achievement points.]
[You've cleared the special achievement, 'Receive a Constellation's Support for the First Time'.]
[You've earned 300,000 achievement points.]
[You've cleared the special achievement, 'Eliminate a Constellation's Secondary Character'.]
[You've earned 500,000 achievement points.]
'Amazing.' He managed to earn a huge amount of achievement points from defeating Kallein's secondary character, but that wasn't what he was most excited about.
[You survived the 'Top 25' promotion match.]
[Your level has increased by 20.]
[You've earned the special reward, 'Completed Star Fragment'.]
He personally didn't benefit from it much, but…
[Completed Star Fragment]
Rank: EX
- A fragment of a star that has passed every 'test'.
- Lowers the difficulty level of Battle Net games for the entire planet.
- Players with Gifts will appear more frequently on the planet.
- Will be applied immediately upon acquisition.
It was beneficial to Earth as a whole, which was why Koreans were in an uproar and wondering why he'd taken such a risk for it.
BOOM—!
"Uncle!! Are you crazy?!" As soon as JiHan returned to Earth, Sae-ah kicked open the door and yelled at him.
"Sorry for making you worry," he said.
"Uncle, do you want me to die of a heart attack?! How could you risk a death penalty?!" Sae-ah screamed with her eyes bloodshot and swollen for the first time in her life.
JiHan felt guilty when he saw how stressed she looked. "Well… I did it because I obviously thought I would survive…"
"There's no such thing as 100% surety in this world! Put yourself in my shoes! How would you feel if I did that?"
"I would have grabbed you by the hair and pulled you out of the game."
"That's…! What…! I…! Want to say!"
"Sae-ah, it's different with me, right?"
"What's different?! Ugh! Seriously!"
Crack—!
JiHan's door broke after she gave it an angry kick. She was much stronger than she was a month or two prior and could easily tear a door apart like it was paper.
'There goes the door.'
BOOM! BOOM—!
She stopped her rampage and suddenly collapsed in place and buried her face in her knees.
"Uncle, I really… thought I would lose my mind."
"I'm sorry… I didn't know things would turn out like this."
'Uncle, you're the only family I have left…"
JiHan sighed. He'd easily accepted it because he was certain he wouldn't die, but he hadn't considered the feelings of the only family he had left. He lacked empathy in that regard because, in his previous life as a player, his family fell apart at the start.
"I won't do it again," he said.
"Really…?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
Sae-ah finally sighed in relief after he nodded. "Why did you risk your life to get the difficulty reduction item in the first place? Uncle, you honestly don't care about the difficulty, right?"
"Yes. It doesn't affect me much." He took the Completed Star Fragment from this inventory. It was a rock shining with a bluish glow. To the untrained eye, it might look like nothing more than a peculiarly-colored stone, and most probably didn't understand why such a rock warranted an 'EX' rating.
Fortunately, JiHan was well aware of the item's value.
'This was once a reward in the Space League during my past life.'
Back when Earth was in last place in the Space League, there was a planet of dwarves competing with them for bottom place. Just like humanity, their species was considered weak.
Everything changed after the dwarves were lucky enough to obtain a 'Completed Star Fragment' in a Space League priority mission.
'They managed to scrape their way out of the bottom ranking with it, which is why Earth ended up competing with the urks to avoid demotion.'
Unlike in the international matches, a single individual wasn't capable of carrying an entire species through the Space League. No matter how strong JiHan was, Earth would end up being destroyed if others failed to grow. That's why he'd done everything he could to obtain the 'Completed Star Fragment' despite the death penalty.
[NO.4212: 'Humanity's' Battle Net difficulty has been reduced by the Competed Star Fragment.]
[As the owner of the Completed Star Fragment, you're granted the right to view the Battle Net Administrator's report.]
[Will you read the report?]
'The Administrator's report?'
'I should share this,' he thought after he took a glance through the report.
Soon after, he started streaming on Battle Tube.
- Mr. Sung ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
- Please, don't do that again ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
- Why are you trying to die so badly?! It would be a disgrace if you died in a game --
JiHan had risen to become South Korea's sole hope after everything he did in the international matches, so Korean subscribers flooded his channel and begged him not to do it again after he risked the death penalty.
- Is this the channel of the person who just finished the Space League game? Thanks to you, my Support Gift went up by a level. Thanks.
- I obtained a Gift thanks to Mr. Sung. Should I be thankful to his country?
- JiHan! Why do you hide the fact that you're of the Wudang Sect? Are you trying to deny that your martial art is Chinese in origin?
- You bastards, get lost…!
- Stop it with the bullshit!!
People from all around the world jumped into the chat until it devolved into complete chaos.
"I think you were all very surprised today, but I made my choice because I believed it to be a necessary one," JiHan said.
Messages started to pour in as if the donation minimum of 100K was a joke.
['Downglass' has donated 100,000 GP.]
[I thought my heart was going to drop when Zeus's lightning struck! If you do that again, I won't help you!]
Other donations came in after Yuri's.
[R.E.Gates has donated 10,000,000 GP.]
[Player Sung, I pay my respects to the decision you made, regardless of the risk. According to various reports, many more people are obtaining Gifts, and most of them are Support Gifts. Finally, there are those whose Support Gifts have risen in rank.]
Along with a generous donation, Robert Gates gave him a brief report.
'That's good.'
Earth's Support Gifts had been significantly lacking, so it was welcome news.
- It's great that more are getting Gifts, but it won't benefit you, Mr. Sung. You should just think of yourself!
- Isn't the reward only good for countries with large populations like India or China?
- That's right. Is there a need to lower the game's difficulty when JiHan's always winning?
JiHan shrugged his shoulders at the concerns of his Korean fans. "If Earth never had to participate in the Space League, that'd definitely be the case. All I'd have to do is solo carry against other countries, after all, but…"
JiHan showed everyone the Battle Net Administrator's report he'd recently read.
- Huh?
- What's this????
- A report on humanity?
The report, which was in Korean for JiHan, was translated into each viewer's native language through Battle Tube.
[NO. 4212: 'Humanity'.]
[Upon reviewing their achievements in the Tutorial Season, it's been concluded that NO.4212 will likely be relegated to the Space League's demotion zone. Their biggest problem is the inherent weakness of their species. Undoubtedly, humans are the weakest species in the Space League. Despite having been given many SSS-rank Gifts, they are unable to even maximize the performance of S-rank Gifts due to the limitations of their species.]
[League Survival Probability: 0.3->3.3% after the difficulty decreased. They will likely still end up at the bottom.]
[Variable: None. Even the player who could be a variable has a fatal weakness.]
[Investment Value: None. The Administrators won't take any responsibility for losses incurred from investing in this planet. This planet won't last long.]
- What's this…?
- Only a 3% chance of surviving the Space League?
- And that's up from 0.3%? LOL!
The report was shocking. People who thought there wouldn't be any problems in the future fell into an uproar upon learning of Earth's likely demise.
- Is JiHan the variable?
- Probably, right? But what's the weakness?
- This is so unsettling…
JiHan had a rough idea of what his critical weakness could be.
'It's probably that I'm the enemy of the Wandering Martial God.'
He was getting along fine with Martial Soul at the moment, but there's no telling what would happen if the Wandering Martial God had a change in attitude later.
From the Administrator's perspective, JiHan was a player with an expiration date, which was why the report mentioned a critical weakness.
- Are we humans really that weak?
- Didn't you see the 'Top 25' match? It was a monster fest, hahaha.
- Seriously. Even the human-sized ones were monsters.
- Are all other planetary species like that? Can't humans just compete against other humanoids…? ㅜㅜ
People agreed with the report's consensus that they were the weakest species as they recalled the recent match.
Simply put, the 'Top 25' match was a giant monster fest. There were no species like humans, and the closest ones were high elves or Kallein, but they were also monsters.
"Even though the difficulty has been lowered, our chances of surviving in the Space League are still very low, so…" JiHan finished the stream with a smile. "I hope everyone becomes stronger and breaks my record. How is it possible that no one has broken my record yet? Everyone, please try harder."
- That's because you're too much of a monster…
- You even smashed aliens' heads. How could anyone beat that? Hahaha.
JiHan was a player who'd entered the Space League's 'Top 25' and been among the last five survivors, so of course people reacted in disbelief.
"Mr. Sung's still the same." HaYeon was watching the stream in her office, which was almost like her home.
[Your Gift's rank has increased.]
Her eyes widened in surprise at a sudden message that popped up.
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