Chapter 269: Excursion Part I

Translator: HunterW

Editor: RED

“I’m thinking about entering the enemy’s territory again.”

“Alone?” My officers looked at me wide-eyed in surprise.

“Yes.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“He’s right. Warp Scrolls don’t work on the Continent, so if you get surrounded by the enemy…” The two biggest items that became worthless here on the Judge’s Continent were Warp Scrolls and Death Penalty Restoration Gems. The Gems no longer worked since there were no more death penalties, resurrections now being a thing of the past. Warp Scrolls could not record any location on the Continent, rendering them useless. It was not like they could take us back to Earth, anyway.

“If you still insist on going, why not take a couple of Warp Mages and an escort with you?”

“There’s an idea. Besides, didn’t we decide to invade the enemy in less than two months with an army of a million soldiers, anyway? If something happens to you during that time, everything we’ve planned will be for naught.”

“Earth can’t lose you, sir.”

After the first few battles against Croot, it was clear that I was Earth’s only shot at victory. It was why my officers were so worried. But I didn’t say that I was going for no reason.

“Thank you all for your concerns. But I’m afraid going with anyone else will slow me down. And I’m not going because I want to prove something. You don’t need to worry about anything.”

“But still…”

“If something happens…” The Empire’s guild masters and officers still voiced their concerns. Just then, Song Daechul cut in.

“I believe in our commander. I doubt an enemy force of even a million soldiers could ever defeat Jiwon.”

“I agree with Master Song. Besides, I’m sure we can use whatever information the commander brings back to help with the planned invasion in two months time,” Madun added.

After that, no one else disagreed with my decision. They just made me promise to retreat if things got too dangerous, and to report home as often as I could.

——

On the way to the Center D Store…

When I had said that I wanted to enter the enemy’s territory on my own, I had many of the officers tell me I was being too curious and too confident. I just laughed in response, because I knew just how much of a coward I was. I honestly wouldn’t have made the suggestion if I hadn’t completed Survival and upgraded my spear to Rank 10. I just would have spent time wondering how to spend the next two months.

But not only were my rewards from Survival and my new spear so outstanding, I also had 8 skill points to use. It hadn’t been long since I had spent 10 points to learn Remove Skill Cooldown but thanks to Survival and all of those levels I had gained, I could learn another skill this quickly. This time, I was definitely going to learn more AoE combat skills. Just about all of the battles I’d fought here on the Continent have been full-scale battles with armies. I needed more AoE combat skills if I wanted to inflict maximum damage against enemy armies.

I entered the Store’s skill shop.

“Welcome to Section 35’s Center D skill shop.”

“Show me your skills.”

“Right away, sir.”

Soon, I was shown the same skill store menu as the one on Earth. I looked over to the Random Skills tab, hoping that there was another random skill I could learn, but there was none. Slightly disappointed, I opened up the Physical Skill tree tab and searched for AoE skills. As I scrolled through, one skill caught my eye.

==[Scorching Rage (3/3), (Active)

Summons a giant weapon from the sky and slams it deep into the ground. Inflicts massive damage to enemies in a 15-meter radius. (Skill’s range increases according to the user’s STR Stat.)

Inflicts additional damage according to the user’s Weapon Rank.

Rank 7: 3% increase in damage

Rank 8: 5% increase in damage

Rank 9: 10% increase in damage

Rank 10: 20% increase in damage

Requirements to learn: STR 13,000/WIL 3000

Level 1: 600 second cooldown. Inflicts base damage and additional 120% of user’s ATT to enemies in skill’s range. Decreases enemies’ DEF and MDEF by 10% for 30 seconds.

Level 2: 600 second cooldown. Inflicts base damage and additional 150% of user’s ATT to enemies in skill’s range. Decreases enemies’ DEF and MDEF by 20% for 30 seconds.

Level 3: 600 second cooldown. Inflicts base damage and additional 200% of user’s ATT to enemies in skill’s range. Decreases enemies’ DEF and MDEF by 30% for 30 seconds.

Skill points required: 3

Golden rings required: 640,000,000]==

Right away, I liked the part where it inflicted additional damage according to Weapon Rank, since my Harrier was now Rank 10. I also liked that my STR increased its range. Everything about it was better than Fissure. That was probably why it was a hundred times more expensive to learn.

“Learn: Scorching Rage!” I decided to learn it right away. I didn’t need to be concerned about golden rings here on the Continent anymore. Then again, I was still feeling pretty bitter about the 1.4 billion golden rings I had lost the other day…

I still had 5 skill points to use. I scrolled through the list of AoE skills and noticed a familiar skill.

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==[Titan Stomp (3/3), (Active)

A legendary Titan stomps on the ground to inflict severe damage in a range of seven meters. The higher the user’s STR, the deeper the crater the Titan can form in the earth.

Requirements to learn: STR 10,000

Level 1: 300 second cooldown. Inflicts base damage and additional 70% of user’s ATT to enemies in skill’s range. Inflicts additional damage according to user’s STR.

Level 2: 300 second cooldown. Inflicts base damage and additional 100% of user’s ATT to enemies in skill’s range. Inflicts additional damage according to user’s STR.

Level 1: 300 second cooldown. Inflicts base damage and additional 150% of user’s ATT to enemies in skill’s range. Inflicts additional damage according to user’s STR.

Skill points required: 3

Golden rings required: 110,000,000]==

This was the skill Arthur Lucas had once used on me. He actually used a lot of Titan-related skills, and used this one the most. It didn’t really inflict that much damage to me. It did get annoying at times, thanks to the uniqueness of the House Centipede skill. It did fall short compared to Scorched Rage with its shorter range and without the increased damage to weapon Rank. But I did like that it inflicted more damage according to its user’s STR. It could easily turn the tides of a battle.

“Alright. I’ll learn this one. I need a skill that will benefit from my STR. Learn: Titan Stomp!”

==[You have learned Titan Stomp.]==

Now I still had 2 skill points to use. I couldn’t learn any more AoE skills since they mostly required 3 or more skill points. I switched over to single target skills, but I didn’t see a single one I liked. As good Judge’s Gavel was, my normal attacks were just too powerful compared to skills.

“Hmm…” I kept searching for twenty minutes, but came up with nothing. I thought about saving a few more skill points and learning another single target skill that was as strong as Judge’s Gavel. It wasn’t like I felt I was getting much utility out of more single target skills, anyway. Then, just when I was about to give up, a certain skill caught my eye.

==[Increase Blink Range (1/1), (Passive)

Increases Blink range by 50%

Requirements to learn: Blink

Skill points required: 1

Golden rings required: 1,000,000]==

I currently knew two Blink skills with differing effects. The Blink from the Lightning Boots had a range of 500 meters, while the other had a range of 1,000 meters. The first Blink had a cooldown of 300 seconds, while the other had half that. That was the difference the Rank 10 King-Emperor’s Commitment had after being Amplified. If I learned this skill, I could easily give chase to fleeing enemies, or get myself out of any hairy situation.

“Learn: Increase Blink Range!” It was a cheap skill to learn, anyway.

That ended my shopping there. I had spent 750 million golden rings just to learn a few skills, but it didn’t feel like a waste at all.

“Let’s see here…I have 1.8 billion golden rings left…should I try again?” I was still bitter about the Bracelet upgrade, if that wasn’t clear already. I wanted to try to beat the system, but I quickly stopped myself. I wasn’t desperate enough for extra lives to get that hung up over it. Besides, I had lost the 1.4 billion golden rings after being so confident that it would work. I didn’t want to let myself down that hard again.

“I’ll leave that for later. No, I’ll leave all upgrades for later.” I decided to save my money for now and to wait for Fated Crossroads first.

“That just leaves one last thing now.” I headed home for now, to finish up my preparations for my little excursion.

——

Section 115…

Dunia was meeting with Claudia.

“Is that all you’ve done so far? It’s not much coming from you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dunia replied as he raised his hands in surrender.

“I doubt causing only that much trouble will do much against the enemy.”

“I agree. It won’t amount to much without outside help.” Dunia didn’t try to defend himself after all the work he put in. He had heard so much about Lee Jiwon’s strength from the enemy soldiers he had hypnotized into becoming his friends. He also heard about the strength of the Empire Guild that backed Lee Jiwon, and was backed by Lee Jiwon. If the Windsor Guard and the Nayuta Guild decide to attack the Empire, they were going to get destroyed in less than a day.

“The Empire alliance stands at the pinnacle of Earth’s entire strength. Remember that it was the Empire that destroyed Section 79, killed Angel and wiped out two-thirds of your invading army. It’s a miracle that those two guilds still hate Lee Jiwon.”

“Fine. Be that as it may, what’s happened to Lee Jiwon?”

“…” The biggest problem was Lee Jiwon, not causing dissent in the enemy’s ranks. Dunia’s priority target was Lee Jiwon. If he could have forced Lee Jiwon to become his ally, it would have solved so many problems for Croot. He wouldn’t even need to rely on the Windsor Guard and the Nayuta Guild. But Lee Jiwon was cut from a different cloth than Dunia’s past enemies. Dunia couldn’t learn anything personal about him, nor could he hypnotize him. It was the first time Dunia had felt this afraid tof anyone.

“Nothing worked on Lee Jiwon.”

“What?”

“It’s exactly as I said. Not a single one of my abilities worked on him, not even my red eyes.”

“Will you make sense? You’ve used those abilities on countless Unrivaled devas before. Lee Jiwon is also an Unrivaled deva. There’s no way you can fail.” Claudia couldn’t really believe Dunia. He was the one who had caused her and the other Crootian deities so much grief.

Dunia took something out of his inventory. It was a faded crystal. “Will this be enough?”

Claudia knew what that item once was, Dunia’s Resurrection Crystal. It was an item that all deities wanted. She knew what Dunia meant when she saw that it had lost its light.

“Fine. I’ll believe you.” Death was absolute on the Judge’s Continent. She knew that Dunia would never squander an item that valuable, so she decided to not press the issue.

“What do you plan to do now?”

“If we need to cause trouble from outside, then let’s cause trouble from outside,” Claudia replied in a soft voice, ending their conversation there.