Chapter 158
‘Brahma’s sponsorship…’
Zeus, who he had fought against not long ago, didn’t leave a strong impression before being absorbed by Dongbangsak. But Brahma, the ruler of the Divine Throne, felt different.
‘Ariel, do you happen to know what kind of existence Brahma is?’
[Brahma of the Divine Throne is… a massive collective of all the Brahmas. Even the Brahmas in your world are just fragments of him.]
‘So in other words, the Brahmas from different worlds gathered and formed the Brahma of the Divine Throne. Similar to how the Constellation of the Dead Star gathers dead kings as ghosts?’
[The composition is similar but different. While the Dead Star enslaves the kings, Brahma of the Divine Throne represents himself as the strongest and the mightiest among the countless Brahmas. I heard that there is constant internal ranking among them.]
Then, Ariel added as if she wasn’t completely sure.
[But I heard… Unlike the other Divine Throne gods, Brahma’s representative has never changed. He must be an exceptionally powerful representative. And I heard he doesn’t like BattleNet much, rarely participating in related events… yet he’s proposing sponsorship now.]
‘So he saw something in me.’
[But shouldn’t sponsorship be impossible in the tutorial mode…?]
Hearing Ariel’s words, Seong Jihan asked the system.
“Sponsorship would be great, but is it possible in my tutorial mode?”
[It is possible if Brahma pays the price due to the decrease in Earth’s difficulty level.]
“It’s possible? Then I’ll take it.”
With the empty Constellation slot anyway, it was better to fill it with something.
As soon as Seong Jihan indicated his acceptance, the sponsorship proceeded.
[‘Brahma’ becomes the sponsoring Constellation of Player Seong Jihan.]
[As an effect of the sponsoring Constellation, the efficiency of lightning skills and Intellect greatly increases.]
Just having Brahma occupy the Constellation slot increased the efficiency of all lightning abilities, but…
‘That can’t be all.’
Brahma seemed more powerful than other Constellations, so Seong Jihan expected additional effects.
And then…
[Brahma reviews your abilities to provide suitable sponsorship…]
[Upon seeing your Martial Soul, Brahma is greatly surprised. He ponders…]
After the message about Brahma being shocked after seeing his Martial Soul and falling into contemplation, there was no additional response from the silent Constellation.
[You are logged out of BattleNet.]
In the end, Seong Jihan had no choice but to log out before receiving any additional sponsorship from Brahma.
[You have cleared the special achievement ‘Passing the Space League Promotion Match’.]
[You have earned 1,000,000 achievement points.]
[You have cleared the special achievement ‘First to receive Constellation sponsorship’.]
[You have earned 300,000 achievement points.]
[You have cleared the special achievement ‘Eliminating the Avatar of a Constellation’.]
[You have earned 500,000 achievement points.]
‘An enormous amount of points.’ Including eliminating Karlein’s avatar, an enormous amount of achievement points came in.
But right now, what he desired most wasn’t these points.
[You survived the TOP 25 Promotion Match.]
[Your level rises by 20.]
[Special Reward, you have acquired the ‘Completed Star Fragment’.]
The Completed Star Fragment.
Despite being graded EX, this item didn’t actually have any good effects for Seong Jihan himself.
[Completed Star Fragment]
– Grade: EX
– A fragment of a star that ‘passed all tests.’
– Lowers the BattleNet game difficulty level of the entire planet by one level.
– Increases the frequency of Gift-bearing players appearing.
– Effects apply immediately upon acquiring the item.
The Completed Star Fragment, beneficial only to the players of Earth.
Thus, Koreans had been up in arms, questioning why Seong Jihan had accepted the death penalty to obtain this.
Especially…
“Uncle!! Have you gone crazy!?”
Boom!
As soon as Seong Jihan returned to Earth, Yoon Seah kicked the door while yelling at him.
“Hm. I see you were worried.”
“Is that all you have to say, Uncle? Do you really want me to see you die?! How can you proceed with the Death Penalty with no hesitation, even with that kind of penalty in place!!”
With her eyes all puffy and swollen, Yoon Seah shouted like a madwoman for the first time in her life.
Seeing her like that, Seong Jihan’s gaze naturally lost its place.
“Well… Of course I knew I wouldn’t die…”
“Where on earth is there 100 percent certainty! Put yourself in my shoes for a moment. How do you think you would have felt if I had attempted something like that?”
“I’d have pulled you out of the game by your hair.”
“That! Is! What! I! Want to say!”
Snap!
Seong Jihan’s door was shattered and flung away by Yoon Seah’s emotionally charged kick.
Compared to a month ago, her physical strength had increased significantly, and now she was strong enough to tear apart a door like it was a sheet of paper when she exerted her full power.
‘The door’s gone.’
Boom! Boom!
After rampaging for a while, Yoon Seah suddenly sat down weakly, burying her face in her lap.
“Uncle. I really… I thought I was going crazy earlier.”
“I’m sorry… I didn’t know it would turn out like that either.”
“Uncle. You’re my only family left now….”
Sigh…
A sigh mixed with relief escaped from Seong Jihan’s lips. He had naturally thought that he wouldn’t die, but he couldn’t fathom the feelings of the only family member he had left.
In his previous life as a player, he had already experienced the absence of family, so he was lacking in understanding from that perspective.
“I won’t do that again.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it a promise?”
As Seong Jihan nodded, Yoon Seah heaved a deep sigh.
“So, why did you go to such lengths, risking your life, to obtain a difficulty-lowering item? Honestly, Uncle, you don’t care about difficulty, right?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Seong Jihan took out the Completed Star Fragment from his inventory.
It was a rock fragment with a radiant blue light. To the average person, it would look like an oddly colored rock, and they wouldn’t understand why this rock was rated as an EX-grade item.
But Seong Jihan understood the value of this item better than anyone.
‘In the past, this came out as a reward in the Space League.’
During the time when Earth was trailing far behind in the Space League.
There was a minor planet race competing for last place with humanity.
With no racial merits compared to humanity, they were helplessly being trampled in BattleNet as a race.
But after luckily obtaining a Completed Star Fragment in an emergency Space League mission, the situation changed dramatically.
‘They barely escaped relegation and eventually, Earth and the Orc planet ended up in the relegation battle.’
The Space League wasn’t a system where individuals could pull up the team like a national competition.
No matter how strong Seong Jihan was, if others didn’t grow well too, they couldn’t survive in this goddamn game.
That’s why Seong Jihan had fought desperately, even at the cost of death penalties, to obtain the ‘Completed Star Fragment.’
[Due to the effects of the Completed Star Fragment, the BattleNet difficulty of NO.4212, Humanity, is lowered.]
[As the owner of the Completed Star Fragment, you have been granted the authority to read the BattleNet Administrator’s report.]
[Would you like to read the report?]
‘Administrator’s report?’ And a while later…
‘I should share this.’
Seeing the report, Seong Jihan immediately turned on his BattleTube.
* * *
-Jihan please
-Don’t do this please
-Why are you trying to die?! It’d be so embarrassing to die playing a game
This month, Seong Jihan rose as the hope of Korea through the national team matches.
Seeing him almost die in the promotion match, Korean subscribers flooded the channel telling him not to do that again.
-Is this the channel of the player who just played? Thanks to you, my Supporting Gift rank went up. Thank you!!
-Seong is the reason I can get Gifts, Should I thank his country?
-Seong Jihan! Why do you hide that your sect is shamanistic? Why do you deny the essence of martial arts belongs to China!?
-Foreign… bastards… get out…!
-Shut up!!!!
People from various nationalities also jumped into the chat, creating a huge uproar.
“I’m sure today has been shocking for many. But I chose this because I felt lowering the difficulty was absolutely necessary.”
Before Seong Jihan’s words could even finish, an overwhelming number of support messages began to pour in.
[Downglass has donated 100,000GP.]
[I really thought my heart stopped when Zeus’ lightning struck!! Don’t do that again or I’ll get mad!]
Starting with Ha Yoori, fans recklessly spent without caring about the 1 billion limit.
[R.E. Gates has donated 10,000,000GP.]
[I salute your decision to play with. According to reports coming in from all over, there’s a sudden surge of awakened gift users. Interestingly, there are many players who have awakened support gifts. Also, many players with existing support gifts are seeing an increase in their gift grade.]
Robert Gates provided an enormous amount of sponsorship along with a report on the current situation.
‘Good.’
Earth had a significantly low number of supporting gifts, So, The increase in people awakening them was a welcomed change.
-Ah, really… it might be a good thing if more people awaken, but there’s no benefit for you, right? Just think about yourself, Jihan!
-Yeah, the population is huge in places like India and China, so wouldn’t it be best if just humans competed!? More awakened just means
-For real, the good thing is that there are a lot of awakened people. In countries with large populations like India and China, If there are many awakened individuals, wouldn’t that make them the best? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Right? Lowering the game difficulty doesn’t even matter when Jihan’s been #1 from Bronze to Platinum anyway, was it even necessary?
Seong Jihan shrugged his shoulders in response to the worries of his Korean fans.
“Sure, if Earth doesn’t participate in the Space League, that would be the case. I could keep getting first place all by myself and crush other countries. However….”
He shared the report from the BattleNet administrator he had read a while ago, making it public for the general audience.
-What’s this?
-What is this about “humanity”?
The report, originally in Korean for Seong Jihan, was automatically translated into each viewer’s native language through BattleTube.
[Report on NO. 4212, ‘Humanity’.]
[After reviewing their achievements in the tutorial, it is expected that NO.4212 will be in the relegation zone in the Space League. Their biggest problem is the weakness of the species itself. To be clear, humanity is the weakest species among the Space League participants. While many SSS-grade Gifts have emerged, due to limitations of the species, they cannot even demonstrate S-rank capabilities.]
[The likelihood of staying in the league was 0.3 percent, but it has increased to 3 percent due to the difficulty reduction. However, they still have the highest likelihood of becoming the lowest ranked species.]
[Variables – None. Even the players who could potentially become variables have fatal weaknesses.]
[Investment value – None. The administrators are not responsible for any losses if you invest in this planet. This planet will not last long.]
-What is this…
-The likelihood of staying in the league is a mere 3 percent?
-And that increased from 0.3? LOL
The administrator’s report Seong Jihan disclosed was shocking.
Those who had thought there would be no problem in the tutorial world were now in confusion when they saw the message about the slim chance of staying in the league and the prediction that the planet wouldn’t last long.
-…The variable player must be referring to Seong Jihan, right?
-Must be. But what’s the fatal flaw?
-This is so frustrating
Seong Jihan had a rough idea of what the fatal flaw might be.
‘It’s probably that I’m the Wandering Martial God’s enemy.’
While he was living well with Martial Soul now, if the Martial God were to somehow change his mood later, who knows what would happen?
From the system administrator’s perspective, Seong Jihan, the player representing Earth, was a time-limited player who could disappear at any time. So, in the report, they had expressed such a fatal flaw.
That’s probably why the report described him as having a fatal flaw.
-But are we humans really that weak?
-You didn’t see the TOP 25? It was like a monster party lol.
-Seriously, all the human-sized ones were like monsters. Lol. Are there only creatures like that among other planetary species? Shouldn’t humans just compete amongst humans..
Mentioning the weakness of the species specifically pointed out in the report, people quickly agreed as they recalled the recent match.
The TOP 25 Space League promotion round was a massive monster fest. There were no races like humans, and even the closest ones, the High Elf and the Karlein, were more like monsters themselves.
“Even though the difficulty has been reduced, the chances of us surviving in the Space League are still low. So…”
Seong Jihan smiled mockingly as he wrapped up the broadcast.
“I hope everyone becomes a bit stronger, breaking my consecutive #1 rank and 100% win rate. I’ve gone from Bronze to Platinum with my records never broken once. Come on, everyone. Put in a little more effort.”
-But that’s because you’re a freaking monster bro…
-Even the aliens had their skulls cracked open. How can we break your records? Lol!
The TOP 25 are the ones who are actually recognized by the universe. So, asking them to break records of one of the five survivors was met with incredulous reactions.
But…
“As composed as ever.”
Watching the broadcast from her guild master’s room, which was practically her home now, Lee Hayeon was taken aback by a sudden message.
[Your Gift rank has increased.]
Her eyes widened in surprise at the sudden message.
*****
*****
