Chapter 23. The Third Ancient Knowledge (2)

‘Now I have one Soul Hole left…… I’ll need a lot of time to get this one so I’ll have to bear with three Ancient Knowledge for a while.’

There was a reason he left a Soul Hole empty. Well, there wouldn’t be any big problems even if he left it empty.

‘The fusion of Nar’el’s Elemental Burst and Choi Sangryul’s Heavenly Dragon Card Deck…… what do I call that?’

Sanghyuk did make the deck, but he didn’t name it. He didn’t like giving it grand names. Actually, Elemental Burst and Heavenly Dragon Card Deck weren’t things that he came up, on his own, but was thought up of by Nar’el and Choi Sangryul themselves.

“Let’s just go with Special Deck.”

It was a really boring name, but it wasn’t like the name mattered anyway.

‘Let’s wrap up elementalism around here and…… should I switch main weapons now?’

Until now, Sanghyuk hadn’t set on a main weapon. In his previous life, he used the sword as the main weapon, but he was planning to change it in this life.

Actually, swords had good performance and were easy to use as well. And above all, they were the most common.

The reason he was trying to change his weapon this time was because of the tremendous potential possessed by wire-type weapons, such as whips.

Unlike swords, wire-type weapons were incredibly hard to wield. Even across all of EL, there was almost no weapon that was harder to use than wire-type weapons.

Not only that, it was hard to find one as well. The most basic weapon of the wire-type was the whip, and whips were incredibly rare compared to other weapons.

Then why was Sanghyuk trying to use the incredibly rare, and incredibly difficult-to-wield wire weapons as his main weapon?

The reason was simple. Potential, to be exact, the limitations and power of wire-type weapons would overwhelm that of the sword’s when trained to perfection.

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Of course, wire weapons were extremely difficult to use. Even users with high VRA and good in-game knowledge could just swing it around without hurting themselves at best. This was why wire-type weapons were mostly used as the 4th or 5th main weapon.

In EL, there was a system called the ‘Main Weapon Bonus’, so the type of weapon that was set as the main weapon could receive 15% increase in damage.

Second main weapons received 7%, third 5%, and finally, 4th and 5th main weapons, well, more like support weapons, received 2% increase.

There were no boosts at all from the 6th.

For this reason, many users set their main weapons until the fifth.

This weapon bonus may seem like nothing, but the difference was quite big according to order. The main weapon that filled the first place of that list had to be a weapon that the user used very frequently.

Users had to be very cautious in setting a main weapon. This was because an insane amount of karma was needed to switch out main weapons afterward. It was an unimaginable amount of karma at low levels, and a hefty sum even at high levels, so it wasn’t a price that many were prepared to take.

The disappearance of karma meant level down. Although not much as the first main weapon, it required karma to switch 2nd to 5th main weapons as well, so the majority of the users did not switch their main weapons once set.

Will you set the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip as your main weapon? (Y/N)

Sanghyuk nodded his head and touched the (Y) lightly. Since he had thought about this beforehand, there was no need for him to hesitate.

Since he was here anyway, he set his second main weapon to the sword. Since swords were very versatile weapons, it was natural for the sword to be his second main weapon.

Having set his weapons, Sanghyuk took out the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip from his bag.

The Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip was around 8m long. Although it was considerably long, it was thin enough to be wrapped around one arm if wrapped without any gaps.

Tokan made 400 pieces of 2 cm sized fragments by hammering the Ten Millennia Goldbone into a thin sheet, and made the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip by connecting each of those pieces.

Thanks to that, the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip was both very thin and very soft. And depending on the use, the fragments would turn very sharp as well.

*Chrrrrrrrrt, pa-pa-pa-pah!*

Sanghyuk extended the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip and tried manipulating it lightly. Sanghyuk could freely wield most of the weapons disregarding proficiency, but he felt that he would need the help from the system to use the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip.

There existed proficiency levels for all weapons, and that would increase the more the corresponding weapon was used. Once proficiency rose, a ‘force-support’ effect would be applied systematically to enable a user to wield the weapon more proficiently.

For reference, proficiency was known to be insanely hard to increase once it reached a certain point. On the other hand, it was also notorious for dropping incredibly fast once the weapon was not used often.

‘There’s no shortcut for this. Practice is all you can do.’

Sanghyuk felt that he would only be satisfied after he could manipulate the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip as though it was his own hands.

For that level, he felt like he not only had to get used to using the weapon but also increase the proficiency level to 100, master-tier. The end of proficiency was 250 (Grandmaster-tier), but in practice, such things only existed in imagination.

*Chrrrt, chrrrrrrt.* (T/N: imagine card shuffling sounds)

Sanghyuk focused on regaining his senses by swinging around the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip continuously. Perhaps due to his concentration, his proficiency with wire-type weapons rose incredibly fast.

No matter how low-level his manipulation was, this speed was unprecedented.

Sanghyuk swung around the whip for four hours straight on the spot. He nodded his head in satisfaction only after around four hours had passed.

“I think I got the hang of it now.”

Actually, Sanghyuk’s manipulation of the whip was very proficient and couldn’t just be called ‘got the hang of’, but in Sanghyuk’s view, he still lacked many things.

‘Let’s fill the gaps in real battle.’

Sanghyuk didn’t have so much time as to swing around with the whip to his heart’s content. Since he got the hang of it, he had to hunt stronger monsters with it.

‘With this, I should be able to penetrate the Snake Caves, right?’

The Snake Caves was a hunting zone where the majority of users hadn’t even broken through the entrance yet. The Snake Caves was like a maze with tangled paths, and there were 22 entrances.

At the current point in time, even the highest leveled users were hunting near the entrance, but after some time, it would become the second most popular hunting field after the Valley of the Dead.

***

Sanghyuk headed to the least well-known entrance of the Snake Caves, which was the furthest away from Falcon City. His objective today was to find the ‘Giant snake’ field deep inside the Snake Caves.

Giant snakes were the cream of the crop within the Snake Caves. They were easy to hunt and had good drops as well. Hunting these things not only gave out a lot of karma, but they also dropped very important crafting materials as well.

Sanghyuk saved the entrance of the Snake Caves on the Marking Book he had finally bought before entering the Snake Caves.

Snake Caves harbored snakes of many different types and sizes, and people with ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) would hate this place to their guts.

Fortunately, Sanghyuk had no particular rejection towards snakes, so he didn’t fear to tread inside the Snake Caves.

*Whistle, crrrrrrunch!*

When Sanghyuk swung his Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip, the 10 snakes in front of him were sliced to pieces as though they just went through a shredder. According to the angle of the swing, the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip could slash the opponent as though it was a sword, so shredding snakes was easy.

‘The best weapon to be used in the Snake Caves is, of course, the whip.’

Around Sanghyuk were at least 100 snakes torn into pieces. It was indeed true that it was very difficult to find a more efficient weapon than a wire-type weapon within the Snake Caves.

Using a melee weapon like a sword may risk poisoning from a snake, and using long-range weapons wasn’t enough to kill the onslaught of the infinitely many snakes.

In the end, in a place like the Snake Caves, ones with wide-area attacks were very respected, and wire-type weapons could be used in such a way.

‘It’s about time the snake-men came out…….’

The true masters of the Snake Caves were the snake-men race. Snake-men were basically large snakes with two arms on the upper side of their body, which they used as though they were human arms.

Snake-men were a race that would frequently appear later in the game as well. The Snake Caves he just entered would harbor just snake-man soldiers, snake-man archers, and snake-man warriors, but once the ‘Snake Tower’, which could be called the kingdom of snake-men, appeared later in the game, users would meet many different types of snake-men.

The hundreds of snakes at the entrance were merely pets(?) of the snake-men.

Sanghyuk shredded the onslaught of snakes with his whip while waiting for the snake-men to come out. A Floating Lumistone which he had bought in a miscellaneous store before he came to the Snake Caves, was floating next to him, so his surroundings were very bright.

Floating Limestones, once set, just floated around the user and emitted light. It was naturally a must-have item in dark caves like this place.

Sanghyuk kept proceeding forward. The Snake Caves were very maze-like, and he may wander around on the same spot if he was lost, but Sanghyuk proceeded forward as though he had the map of the Snake Caves in his head.

Of course, nothing like that existed in Sanghyuk’s mind. Even though Sanghyuk had returned to the past, remembering every single event was impossible. Instead, Sanghyuk had his numerous experiences. The general pattern unique to such types of dungeons…… Sanghyuk knew that pattern well enough so that he could find his way without getting lost in this maze-like caves.

After some time passed, Sanghyuk finally met a snake-man. The snake-man soldier was several heads taller than Sanghyuk. It charged towards Sanghyuk with a single crude spear.

*Hiss, hiss!*

When the excited snake-man pierced with its spear, Sanghyuk lightly swung his whip and wrapped it around the spear.

*Whistle, clang*

The Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip spun the spear into a spiral, and as a result, the snake-man’s spear flew into the air.

Although this may be a surprising result for the snake-man, it was an obvious outcome for Sanghyuk.

At the same time he flicked away the spear, Sanghyuk made the whip stand in a straight line and extended his arm forward as though he was stabbing with a sword.

*Stab, crrrunch!*

At that moment, the Ten Millennia Goldbone, which stood stiffly like a sword, pierced the snake-man’s head.

‘Good!’

Sanghyuk nodded his head when the Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip moved perfectly according to how he wished for it to.

The Ten Millennia Goldbone Whip…… this weapon indeed had tremendous potential.