Junhyuk thought Ariel seemed rather scared looking at him.
“What’s the matter?”
[I heard you fought against a manager.]
“Where did you hear that?”
[In your words, we work for the same corporation.]
“Is he your superior?”
[We don’t work for the same team, but he’s ranked higher than me.]
Junhyuk looked over her and asked, “Why are you staring at me?”
Ariel gave him a cute smile and said, [We do exist.]
“Of course,” he nodded, caressing her head. He wanted to have a close relationship with Ariel.
Standing in front of the exit, he said, “Open it.”
[Hero Junhyuk Lee deployed!]
With Ariel’s might shout, Junhyuk walked outside. The rest of his team was already there. When Gongon saw him, he grabbed his chin and said, “For a human, you are too strong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. I just mean you are strong.”
Layla was even more surprised than Gongon. She stared at him blankly before asking, “How do you train to become so strong?”
“I’m nothing compared to Artlan.”
“Sure, but Artlan is the strongest one in my dimension.”
“Do you know a lot about him?”
“He didn’t really have a teacher. Artlan was born strong, and he became stronger on his own. Artlan is so strong, nobody can keep up with him.”
“What about Halo?”
“Halo and Nudra both had great teachers who opened up their potential, but Artlan had nobody. Artlan is probably the one with the most natural talent.”
Junhyuk felt proud. Layla had said that nobody could keep up with Artlan, but Junhyuk was his student. Artlan had sent him a living spirit and taught him how to tune his muscles. He had learned everything from Artlan and he knew that his current strength was fruit of what he had been taught.
“Let’s focus on today’s battle.” Junhyuk turned to the group and said, “We’ll meet stronger enemies as we progress, so don’t let your guard down.”
“Sure.”
He turned to Elise and Eunseo and said, “Elise, Eunseo and I will head middle.”
Gongon scratched his chin and said, “We need to make Elise our tank, so we should send her left and let her practice.”
“True, but we should also consider her buff. She needs to move with other people.”
“I’m focusing on attack and defense, so should I just go left like always?” Gongon asked.
“Sure.”
Turning to Helen, Junhyuk said, “You go left this time as well.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Looking at Layla and Sarang, Junhyuk said, “You two take the right.”
Layla balled her hands into fists and said, “This time, I won’t be killed so easily.”
“That’s right, Layla. We’ll become legends, so let’s not die and move on to the final round.”
“Yes!”
Junhyuk smirked, turned to the group and asked, “Shall we do some shopping?”
They all went to see Bebe, and Junhyuk handed the yeti the expensive items he had picked up. Bebe inspected them, astonished.
“This is a real pleasure! You brought me some great items. I’ll give you 300,000G for each.”
“Give me more than that.”
Bebe chuckled and replied, “Sure. I’ll give you a bit more.” After looking at the items again, he said, “I’ll give you 1,900,000G for the six of them.”
Junhyuk put his hand forward, and Bebe transferred the gold. With the winnings from the Champions’ Battlefield, Junhyuk now had 4,000,000G on him. Since the tournament began, Junhyuk had been earning a lot of gold.
He browsed Bebe’s items. He could purchase legendary items with about 2,000,000G, but he decided to upgrade the items he owned instead.
“Give me forty enhancement stones.”
“You should be careful with that. Enhancement stones can fail.”
“I’ll try to reach my target.”
“What is your target?”
“I want all my items to be +12”
Forty enhancement stones might not be enough for that.
Junhyuk applied the first stone. Meanwhile, Gongon was also upgrading his items. Gongon was competing with Junhyuk, who failed and succeeded a few times before reaching the twelfth upgrade. Junhyuk used all forty enhancement stones, but only five of his items were at +12.
Upgrades had lower success rates as they progressed.
Junhyuk thought it over. He had more gold, so he was debating whether he should continue to push for upgrades or if he should wait until the next battle. He decided to fight first and make any other decisions later.
Gongon seemed very proud of himself.
“Ha-ha-ha! I’m definitely a dragon!”
“What’s up?”
“Check out my weapon!”
Gongon’s weapon was shining like a rainbow, so Junhyuk asked, “What did you do?”
“Ha-ha-ha! It started shining like this once I reached the twentieth upgrade.”
“Twentieth?!”
Gongon had won many enhancement stones in the Champions’ Battlefield. Now, Gongon had succeeded in reaching twenty upgrades. It seemed like his weapon had enormous damaging power. Gongon’s weapon was much better than Junhyuk’s.
“You are our special damage dealer now. How many enhancement stones did you use?”
“I used twenty stones. It took that much to increase it by ten upgrades.”
“Are you saying that it only took you twenty stones to upgrade it from +10 to +20?”
The normal success rate decreased by half with each upgrade, and whenever an upgrade failed after a certain level, the weapon became weaker. Gongon certainly had a dragon’s luck.
“Just call me damager. I’ll show you what a legendary damager can do.”
“Why don’t you boost your piercing stat?”
“I’m doing that already.”
It was probably expensive, but Gongon was managing to get the items he needed one by one. His damage was really high now, so with a high piercing stat, Gongon would have enormous damage potential.
Junhyuk decided to try for more upgrades.
“Give me another twenty stones.”
“Sure.”
Junhyuk applied all the stones to his weapons, and both reached +13, three more upgrades than when he started.
Junhyuk had used all of his twenty stones for a total of six upgrades, whereas Gongon had managed ten upgrades. Junhyuk was envious of Gongon’s luck, but with three extra upgrades, both of his weapons had become stronger.
“I guess I was lucky. Now, I can kill our enemies more easily.” His ability to deal damage had increased. Everyone smiled, and he added, “Let’s go.”
“You’ll do fine,” Bebe said, cheering him on, and Junhyuk smiled at the yeti.
Once out of the store, the group divided up, and each team moved with two hundred minions. Junhyuk headed up the middle path. With the help of Elise’s buff, he would kill any enemies that came up against him. His weapons were outstanding now.
Eunseo seemed nervous, so he told her “Don’t worry. We’ll win.”
“What happens if we win the tournament?”
“Then, we’ll fight against legends.”
Fighting the legendary team again meant that he would have his rematch. Back then, he had only been a champion, but his team had still been easily defeated by the legends. It was time for payback.
“Whew! I should become a champion.”
“When you do, you’ll have to leave my team.”
“Right…”
Junhyuk turned to her. He hadn’t been able to help her with her training for a while now. He wanted to help her out whenever he had the time.
Junhyuk now had his Triple Yin Yang, a style of his own, so he would be able to teach her other martial arts as well. He wanted to spar with her.
When they reached the top of the mountain, they saw the enemy team coming up from the other side. The minions showed up first. They were hunched over and had tiny wings on their backs.
“Can they fly?”
They were walking, so it didn’t seem like they were able to fly. It was possible they had long claws because they weren’t carrying any weapons.
“They may not fly, but they can hover in the air for a while.”
That was Elise’s appraisal of the enemy minions, and Junhyuk nodded in agreement. THen, he saw the heroes coming up behind them. They were familiar faces.
“Adolphe! Kilraden!”
Aldolphe was carrying his saw-bladed sword, and Kilraden was dressed in his usual white attire. Junhyuk had come up against Kilraden in the Champions’ Battlefield, and Adolphe had been the champion in Bater’s team. The two weren’t easy opponents.
They had become heroes around the same time as him. At that moment, Junhyuk remembered being told that another rookie team had been winning and realized that the enemy team he was facing was composed entirely of rookies.
He couldn’t disregard their items, and it was almost certain that they all had great powers.
Victory would depend on how everyone’s powers were used.
Adolphe smiled at him and said, “We meet again.”
Junhyuk aimed his sword at Adolphe and replied, “I killed Bater in the quarter finals, so I didn’t expect to see you in the semis.”
“I heard about that from Bater. My goal was to avenge him, but I didn’t expect it would be so soon.”
“You won’t have that chance.”
Elise buffed him. Her buffs were absurd.
“I’ll kill you all within five minutes.”
Adolphe’s and Kilraden’s eyes beamed. The two motioned with their hands, and the winged monsters beat their wings. The enemy minions were incredibly fast, 50 percent faster than ordinary minions.
Adolphe and Kilraden ran forward behind the minion army
