Chapter 314: Close – 3
Ian’s devil energy training continued on for over a month.
In order to merge the soul of Marion Khalifa with his Magical Beast Alchemy, it was necessary to have the 10th level of the devil energy dexterity , which was almost like saying that it was the peak of his training.
It wasn’t easy to go from level 6 to level 10 no matter how quickly Ian tried to.
‘Well, the 10th level is the highest level that anyone could have as of the moment… Rather than slowing down skill exp, it is actually moving much faster.’
In fact, the 10th level was the best place to reach with magic skills, it was necessary for Ian to have the experience even if that wouldn’t get him to level up.
However, Ian had succeeded in going up to level 9 in just a month, and now it seemed like reaching the 10th level was possible if he tried hard enough.
‘For now, it is important to reach level 10 and create a legendary or myth class that has a high level.’
As well as the summoning, swordsmanship, archery, and other combat class proficiency continued to rise even after reaching the mastery level in the skills.
Maybe there were other ways to level up magic to level 10.
However, two days after reaching level 9, Ian felt like reaching level 10 was much harder than expected.
Catching and attacking from low to high hadn’t improved the proficiency.
Especially, the magic-durability of the lower classes didn’t give much experience.
Ian analyzed the experience of the skill acquired by magic durability.
And there were a few unusual things,
“Uhmm… but this case and that case, but they have higher level abilities, and why is the experience of both so different?”
And he realized the reason without much difficulty.
“Ahh… I have got a lot of experience because of the new technique, but the dexterity of devil energy hasn’t reached any higher. It seems the higher the rank of the player, the higher the increase in experience gains.”
The change in the proficiency of experience started after hitting the 9th level.
So the conclusion was simple.
Now quality was more important than the quantity.
‘Eventually I’ll have to go further inside.’
The inside that Ian spoke about was the lower part of the Devildom.
‘It’s dangerous, but there’s no other way.’
In fact, there was a reason why Ian hadn’t gone lower than the division of 100 in the Devildom region, and that was to increase his Devil energy dexterity even though he had the efficiency.
Since the end of the Dimension War, it was in the thoughts of many human users, that the Devildom would be dangerous for a human user, and if found in their realm they wouldn’t let that human live.
Besides, Ian wasn’t a user that any creature in the Devildom could consider as an enemy.
Ian decided to make sure that Harin returned to the Central Continent.
“Harin-ah.”
“Huh?”
“I have a much more dangerous place to visit, so will you go back to Central Continent first?”
Harin’s face immediately turned sulky.
“Hmm, do I really need to?”
Ian replied with a sorry expression.
“Yes, I’m not gaining much from here.”
“Well, then I guess there is no other way.”
Ian immediately opened the door of the portal through his Dimensional Beads, and Harin walked towards the portal.
And just before going through it.
Harin turned back to look at Ian because she thought about something.
“Oh right, Jinsung-ah.”
“Huh?”
Harin gulped and spoke again.
“You… you seem to be skipping classes? I’ll ask Yoo-hyun for everything.”
Cold sweat ran down Ian’s back.
“Ah, okay. Don’t worry. I didn’t really get good grades in my 1st year, I think I need to do better on my 2nd year to compensate for it.”
Harin’s expression was brighter after those words.
“Nice! I’ll trust you for now.”
Harin disappeared through the portal. Ian shook off his fear as she moved away.
‘Uh, I was thinking of skipping the VR system class tomorrow… what am I supposed to do?’
Ian admired Harin’s insight and moved away to the place he needed to go.
The place he was directed to was the Cervian’s Institute.
* * *
“Oh, Ian! It has been really long!”
Cervian welcomed Ian very warmly.
Ian was also glad to have seen Cervian after a long time.
When Ian was still in Kailan, Cervian was an NPC that matched him perfectly.
Cervian could have been the soulmate of Ian in the game, according to the research that Ian did.
“I know. I have been busy with a lot of things in the meantime.”
Ian laughed and looked at the date.
‘Has it been months?’
He came back to Devildom for the first time after a month.
Ian was originally going to stop at Cervian to ask about Khalifa’s Soul determination.
However, the skill level of Magical Beast Alchemy hadn’t reached the level 10, so it was the first thing he did after entering the Devildom.
He tried to come here after reaching level 10, but in order for that to happen he had to descend even more inside Devildom, so he needed help from Cervian.
Seeing Ian thinking about something, Cervian laughed.
“I know that you are a very busy person.”
“Huh?”
Ian was flustered the moment he heard those words.
Cervian continued what he was saying.
“That I didn’t know any news from the outside because I was stuck in the laboratory in the Devildom, is that right?”
“Uh-hmm…”
“You woke up the Army of God, woke up the power of the Abyss Dragon once again, and most importantly… you killed off the Khalifa Dragon, my masterpiece.”
Cervian’s eyes were twinkling.
Ian was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say.
‘What am I supposed to say? I would’ve in the past, but Cervian is an half-Asmodian now who is residing in the Devildom…’
It was an obvious thing, Ian thought that he was the target of Asmodians so he carefully chose his choice of words.
However, there weren’t that many alternatives since Cervian knew everything.
“Well… I did those. I’m a half devil, but I still reside in the human world. I chose to live in the Human world, unlike you Cervian who chose to live here in Devildom.”
Cervian who was rather puzzled with Ian’s words, soon burst out laughing.
“Kyahh, I also have a remarkable thing for you.”
“Huh?”
With a face that still didn’t stop laughing, Cervian opened his mouth.
“Okay then, do you know what was the first order that needs to be done in this realm’s enormous dimension?”
“Hmm…”
Ian seemed to think for a moment, but Cervian didn’t wait for an answer.
“That is… Strength is Law.”
“Strength is Law?”
“Yes. You don’t seem to know. In this Devildom dimension, Power is Strength.”
“I’ve heard that. But what does it include…”
Cervian cut off Ian to tell him his explanation.
“The Asmodians are also very individualistic”
“Hmm…?”
“If a story isn’t related to you in any manner, then they wouldn’t show even an ounce of care.”
Ian listened to Cervian’s explanation without interrupting as he didn’t understand the reason as to why Cervian was saying all of this to him.
“So, to put it much more bluntly, even if you own the sword that has slaughtered an Asmodian in the dimensional war, the Asmodians who didn’t participate in the dimensional war won’t even know your name or face.”
“Aha…!”
“And even if they know, they won’t hurt you nor will they retaliate against you.”
“Now, that is a little interesting.”
“Maybe perhaps if an Asmodian tries to humiliate you, then that is purely because of loyalty rather than trying to hurt you.”
Listening to Cervian, Ian felt his nervousness calm down.
‘If what Cervian is saying is true, then I can broaden the ranges of my magic.’
Ian felt like the most nerve-wracking part of this visit had been solved.
If any high ranking Asmodian came into his path, Ian would have surely felt nervous and stunned, but he wasn’t so concerned now after hearing this.
‘I’ll only have to be careful of the Asmodian users.’
That was what he thought, but the Asmodian users weren’t that much of a problem for Ian to deal with.
Also, the most powerful user of the Asmodian class—Irahan—had already lost 5 times in the hands of Ian.
“By the way Ian, how did you come here?”
“Huh?”
“No, I heard that all the dimensions from the human world had been closed. I don’t think you have the power of the Devil King, so I wonder, how did you manage to get beyond your dimension?”
“Oh, that… I have an artifact that I received from the Dimensional Enchanter. Having that, one can move from one dimension to another.”
“Aha, is that so.”
Cervian didn’t ask for any more details.
To Ian whom he had met after a very long time, there were a lot of curious things and questions that he wanted to ask.
Cervian wondered about the battle he had with Khalifa, about the things that Ian had succeeded in so far, and a lot of more things.
“So, I was thinking Cervian.”
“What is it?”
“When I hunted the Khalifa, I have a ‘thing’ in my possession that belonged to him.”
“Thing?”
Cervian frowned, but soon his eyes shined.
Till now, the Marion Kalifa was the strongest creature in the whole world.
And when such a strong monster was hunted down, it was only natural to get something from such a monster.
As soon as Cervian checked the Soul Determination that Ian took out, he was much more astonished.
“Thi… this…?”
“What is it?”
Cervian looked at Ian and spoke with a trembling voice.
“You are so lucky!”
“Huh?”
Despite not knowing Ian’s confusion, Cervian continued to mutter.
“Unbelievable. The Soul Determination. It determines the soul of a myth class… I might be able to see these while I’m still alive.”
Ian—who was now more curious than ever—began to urge Cevrian to speak clearly.
“Is this something great?”
The moment Ian asked, Cervian responded.
“Ha, you’re really asking me that?”
Cervian made sure he settled his excitement and began to slowly explain everything to Ian.
“So Ian, how many magical beasts have you hunted down so far?”
It was rather a unique question, but there would have been a reason for it so Ian thought about it.
‘Hmm…I’m sure it has crossed over a thousand… 3,000? 4,000 maybe?’
As if he read through Ian’s thoughts, Cervian opened his mouth again.
“I’m not sure exactly, but you would’ve hunted at least a thousand, right?”
Ian nodded.
“Maybe close to a thousand?”
Cervian continued.
“Well, have you seen the monster’s soul drop as you hunt them down? If you did, then how many times did you see it?”
Ian tried to remember.
He certainly had experienced seeing the soul of a monster go away. In fact, he just experienced it the other day.
“Maybe around three or four times. I think it was a hero rank or unique grade.”
At this information from Ian, Cervian turned his head.
“That is right, the Soul determination doesn’t work on creatures below the intermediate class.”
Cervian continued.
“Of the things you have hunted, you took down a thousand of high-level monsters, right?”
“Yeah, maybe two thousand or three thousand, I guess?”
“The number of monsters are not important. You have hunted down a thousand of these creatures, so you have probably acquired around two or three Soul determinations by now. It is better for you to know what this means.”
As soon as he heard that, Ian tried to understand why Cervian was so so excited.
‘Is what I’m hearing right? Even if I hunted down a thousand low-class monsters for their drops, the drop rate of soul crystals was around 0.3% to 0.4%… but the drop rate when I hunted Marion Khalifa…’