Chapter 8: 1F Hidden (1)

The highest skill grade revealed so far was Rare.

The ranking went Normal > Normal+ > Rare, and supposedly, nothing above Rare had appeared yet. Well, presumably Rare+ came next, but still.

For reference, the Flame Strike skill I had obtained was Rare grade.

Skills were also broadly divided into two classifications: “Physical Type” and “Magic Type.” Apparently, Magic Type skills were far rarer than Physical Type skills.

So at first, I thought I had received a genuinely valuable skill.

This was Nightmare difficulty, after all. Surely I deserved at least that much as a reward.

[ButterBread: magic type skills are literally just garbage tho?]

[Fon: ah ffs 8F reward is magic type;]

[DarkKorean: magic type is legit all hype and jack of nothing lmao. zero advantages besides raw damage]

Apparently not.

The general consensus among Climbers regarding Magic Type skills was lukewarm at best.

There were several reasons for that.

“Davis, you mentioned that you obtained a new Magic Type skill on the seventh floor. What skill is it, exactly?”

“It’s a Normal+ grade skill called Shockwave. Basically, it fires an invisible projectile made of force.”

“How was it to use? I’ve heard that most Climbers have a negative opinion of Magic Type skills.”

“Mm... That’s true. Magic Type skills certainly have their strengths and unique characteristics. They allow you to attack from a distance by default, and their power is respectable.”

I had once watched an interview with a man named Davis, who was famous as the frontrunner of Normal difficulty, and he had explained the reasons quite clearly.

“But that’s where the advantages end. Even at my current Level, the Willpower consumption is so severe that only a few uses are enough to drain me completely. And above all, the real problem is a penalty unique to Magic Type skills called ‘Mental Concentration.’”

Mental Concentration.

In other words, the amount of time required to cast a skill.

It was a penalty-like condition exclusive to Magic Type skills.

“During Mental Concentration, you can’t move your body at all. It’s completely absurd. You’re supposed to use the skill in the middle of a battle, so what are you meant to do? Ask the enemy to wait politely while you cast it?”

“Hahaha.”

“Let’s compare. Shockwave requires ten seconds of Mental Concentration and consumes fifty Willpower. Meanwhile, my other Normal+ grade skill, Charge, has no cast time and costs a mere fifteen Willpower. In the ten seconds you waste preparing a single Shockwave, you could use Charge more than three times.”

“Oh... I see.”

Davis’s conclusion had been crystal clear.

“In short, Magic Type skills are little more than flashy garbage. Outside of lying in wait before a battle and landing one powerful opening strike, there are almost no situations in which they can actually be used. Of course, even that can be useful if you know what you’re doing, but Physical Type skills are superior in nearly every respect. Honestly, I doubt there’s a single Climber who would disagree.”

Long casting times.

Almost impossible to use in the middle of combat.

And on top of that, they consumed an obscene amount of Willpower in exchange for nothing but raw destructive power.

That was the reality of Magic Type skills.

Come on, did he really have to be that harsh about it?

Still... I couldn’t exactly argue.

[Skill: Flame Strike (Rare)]

Fires a concentrated blast of flame forward, causing an explosion upon impact. Requires 20 seconds of Mental Concentration to cast.

Classification: Magic Type

Willpower Cost: 100

Cooldown: 30 seconds

That was the description of the Flame Strike skill I had obtained.

For reference, Willpower was essentially the equivalent of mana in a game. It was a stat that increased along with Level.

Apparently, once depleted, it recovered at a rate of one percent per minute.

[Difficulty: Nightmare]

[Floor: 2F]

[Level: 10]

[Willpower: 100/100]

[Skill: Flame Strike (Rare)]

And that was my Status Window.

In other words, if I wanted to use Flame Strike—

I would have to endure twenty seconds of Mental Concentration, use the skill exactly once, and then I would be done.

To use it again, I would have to wait until my Willpower fully recovered.

That meant waiting an entire hundred minutes before I could fire it a second time.

What kind of bullshit was this...?

Just as everyone had said, it was flashy garbage.

Still, they claimed its power was its one redeeming quality, so that was the only thing I could place any hope in.

[You have entered Nightmare difficulty, Floor 1.]

The familiar cavern appeared before me.

I picked up the sword and stared down the passageway.

I had no intention of using the skill immediately.

I would deal with the first three Goblins myself, then test it on the Bow Goblin when the second group appeared.

After a brief wait, the Goblins emerged from the passage.

“Yeah. Come on.”

I hadn’t tested the skill even once, since I could hardly unleash something like that in the real world.

But I had already grown accustomed to the body that had become stronger with each increase in Level.

Honestly, I had become far stronger than I expected.

Strong enough to surprise even myself.

Clearing one floor on Hard difficulty supposedly granted four Levels.

Nightmare difficulty granted two and a half times that amount.

Ten Levels.

So I had no confidence.

No confidence that mere Goblins could make me struggle anymore, that was.

Kieeeek—!

As expected, a Sword Goblin charged first.

There was no need to use Time Slicing.

My reflexes and dynamic vision had improved so dramatically that the Goblin’s movements were now completely visible to me.

I avoided its attack with ease and swung my sword.

Crack!

The Goblin’s upper body split cleanly in two.

‘Huh?’

The sword cut far too well.

No, wait.

It wasn’t the blade.

I had simply become that much stronger.

Right.

The bisected Goblin collapsed with a wet splatter.

The other two Goblins, which had been charging behind it, abruptly stopped.

The sight must have been quite shocking for them as well.

“What’s wrong? Come at me.”

When they failed to move, I attacked first.

I rushed the Sword Goblin and swung my blade.

It didn’t even manage to mount a proper defense before its body was cleaved in half, just like the first.

The last remaining Spear Goblin suddenly turned and fled toward the passageway.

“Seriously?”

I let out a dry laugh and chased after it.

I caught up in an instant and drove my sword through the back of its neck.

‘Easy.’

Had it even taken ten seconds to kill all three?

I wasn’t even slightly out of breath.

I could feel it vividly.

My body had completely surpassed the limits of an ordinary human.

Now for the next three.

The Bow Goblin in particular—the one that had caused me so much trouble before—I intended to kill the instant it emerged from the passage.

For the first time, I activated my skill.

The moment I began casting Flame Strike, my body locked in place.

I couldn’t move at all.

Something resembling an hourglass began to empty inside my mind.

It was a bizarre sensation.

So this was what Mental Concentration felt like?

I had to endure this state for a full twenty seconds before the skill would activate.

Naturally, if I interrupted it midway through, I would have to start again from the beginning.

At last, the hourglass inside my head emptied completely.

The skill was ready.

Then I panicked.

‘What?’

...I still couldn’t move?

Wait.

Don’t tell me.

It wasn’t only during Mental Concentration that my body became immobilized.

Even after the casting period ended, I still couldn’t move until I actually released the skill?

And if I wanted to move, I would have to cancel the skill entirely.

‘Wow. Seriously?’

I immediately understood why everyone called Magic Type skills garbage.

With nothing else to do, I remained frozen stiff and waited for the Goblins to emerge.

Grrk—

At last, the next group appeared from the passageway.

Two Sword Goblins and one Bow Goblin.

I fired the skill immediately.

Fwoosh!

A sphere of flame erupted from thin air before me.

Responding to my will, the fireball shot toward the Goblins at tremendous speed.

And then—

BOOM!

A massive explosion erupted, sending flames surging outward.

The shockwave shoved me slightly backward, and my hair whipped violently around my face.

The power exceeded anything I had imagined.

For a moment, I could only stare in stunned silence.

“Whoa...”

The smoke gradually cleared.

The three Goblins that had been standing there only moments earlier were nowhere to be seen.

In their place, charred masses resembling clumps of black ash lay scattered across the cratered ground.

They had been blown apart so completely that they hadn’t even left proper corpses behind.

“...Well, the power is insane. I’ll give it that.”

It was undeniably powerful.

There was no question about that.

My opinion of the skill improved slightly, but I still wasn’t convinced.

The penalties attached to it were far too crippling, no matter how overwhelming its destructive power might be.

At this rate, there was absolutely no way to use it in a real battle—

Rumble—

Once all the Goblins were dead, the stone gate began to close.

I sprinted forward and escaped through the passageway.

Without slowing down, I charged straight up the continuous incline.

By the time the iron ball began rolling, I was already crouched inside the recessed groove.

THOOM!

Once you knew the trick, this section was easy.

After the thunderous crash faded away, I leisurely stepped back out and checked my Status Window.

[Willpower: 1/100]

A single use had almost completely emptied my Willpower.

I decided to wait until it had fully recovered before continuing.

Next came the boss monster, the Goblin Knight.

With my current physical abilities, I felt confident that I could defeat it even without using the skill.

But I wanted to test Flame Strike’s power against it as well.

I waited the full hundred minutes until my Willpower had completely recovered, then continued onward.

The unattended weapon shop appeared.

I walked straight past it without taking anything.

Then I entered the boss chamber bathed in red light.

Grrrk—

The Goblin Knight stood in the center of the cavern.

The moment I saw it, I began casting Flame Strike.

Twenty seconds of Mental Concentration.

But the Goblin Knight spotted me and began closing the distance far more quickly than that.

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

‘Impatient bastard.’

At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to use the skill.

Without giving it much thought, I stopped time.

And then—

‘Huh?’

The hourglass inside my head was still flowing.

...Mental Concentration hadn’t been interrupted?

‘I stopped time, so why?’

I stared in confusion for a moment before a possibility occurred to me.

Could it be...

Did Mental Concentration continue even while time was stopped?

The hourglass emptied completely.

The instant I released Time Stop, I fired the skill without hesitation.

The fireball ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) slammed directly into the Goblin Knight.

KABOOM!

The monster was hurled several meters through the air before crashing to the ground.

It did not move again.

I approached and examined it.

Both the armor and the Goblin’s body had been torn apart by the force of the explosion.

The boss monster I had once struggled so desperately against had been eliminated in a single blow.

Even I had to admit that it was impressive.

‘But more importantly...’

I tilted my head.

Mental Concentration was possible while time was stopped?

How did that even work?

A hypothesis suddenly came to mind.

Time Stop.

Even when time was frozen, I could still think.

In other words, even when the flow of time in the outside world stopped, time inside my mind continued to pass normally.

What if Mental Concentration was also measured according to the flow of mental time?

Was that why it continued even while the world was frozen?

Then another thought occurred to me.

‘...What about Willpower?’

The word “Willpower” sounded pretty mental too, didn’t it?

Will and mind were practically the same thing.

Only half convinced, I stopped time again.

[Willpower: 0/100]

My Willpower had been completely drained by the skill I had just used.

I remained still in the frozen world and waited.

Then, a moment later—

[Willpower: 1/100]

‘...!’

My Willpower had recovered.

Even though time was stopped.

Inside, I couldn’t help but shout.

‘Eureka.’

...I think I had just discovered the most absurdly broken cheat imaginable.

A cheat that only I could use.