Chapter 3: Test 1455? Part Three (1/2)

Chapter 3: Test 1455? Part Three

Before my return, there was a piece of information that just about everyone knew. A special piece of information... about the first person to become a deva.

The first person to use a Don Gate was granted a title, ”Humanity's First Evolver”, along with 100 stat points.

To have a total of 100 points was an enormous amount. But it wasn't for just one stat, but all stats.

Normally, when you gained a level, you were granted 10 bonus stat points.

You could use those points however you want for 5 stat categories: strength, stamina, intelligence, willpower, and agility.

But the first person to use a Don Gate received 100 points for all five stats: 100 for strength, 100 for stamina, 100 for intelligence, 100 for willpower, and 100 for agility for a total of 500 points. That was equivalent to 50 levels!

Just being the first to become a deva meant you were 50 levels ahead of everyone else!

”It's a complete scam. Such an advantage available at the beginning.”

Of course, back then, it wasn't that crucial of information. It had to happen for people to know about it. Everyone knew about it because it never happened again. But now this information was precious. I wouldn't sell it for a billion dollars!

And so, I had written down everything I knew and everything I needed to be ahead of everyone else.

This time it would be different. This time I would emerge as the victor, not the loser.

When I jumped into the Sea of Reset, it was because I was a complete loser.

When you use a token of knowledge at a Don Gate, you were no longer a human, but rather a character from a VR game, an avatar-like deva.

When you become a deva, it doesn't matter if you die from a monster, from falling, or from drowning at sea; you don't really die because you can resurrect yourself. But there was a penalty system to that.

The first time you die, you lose 2 points from each of your stats. This effect was semi-permanent. Of course, there was a way to recover those lost points, but it was at a heavy cost. It wasn't also easily accessible, especially to a normal guy like me. I never even came across it.

Anyway, when you use a token at a Don Gate, you start at level 0 with all your stats at 20. But once you die, your entire stat line drops by 2 points; when you resurrect, your stats are at 18.

You also lose the 10 points you gained when you leveled up. In other words, dying meant you lost an entire level.

Hypothetically, if you were to die 10 times without increasing any of your stats, and die another time, your stats would be at -2.

At that point, when you leveled up and gain 10 stat points, those points would only serve to cancel out your current -2 points, putting you at 0 stat points in all. It was for this reason that everyone feared the death penalty the most.

Back then I hunted like my life depended on it, and managed to reach level 576.

That was my level right before I jumped into the Sea of Reset.

With that level, I was considered to be mid-low tier. But the reason I was a loser was that I had died 154 times!

Leveling up to 576, I had gained a total of 5760 points. When I became a deva, I gained an additional 20 points each, a total of 100. So in all, I had 5860 points, but dying 154 times meant I had thrown away a total of 1540 points.

So while I was level 576, I only had the stat points of a level 422 person. On top of that, I was a fire mage and my stats were allocated accordingly.

And so, after my 100th death, my already low strength and agility had dropped down to negative.

All of the stat points that I gained by leveling automatically went to my negative skills to bring them back up to zero. For a while, my main stats remained stagnant.

It didn't matter if I was a fire mage or any other job; I was already in that sticky situation and there was no way out of it.

The only thing that I could was to hunt monsters at or below level 576. But hunting in itself was hard enough.

I couldn't just enter a party to hunt, as my damage output was too low and I would just become a burden to the rest of the party members.

Even using items and buffs to compensate for this penalty was not efficient enough.

And so, even after using my token to become a deva and grinding to level 576 for eight years, I ended up jumping into the Sea of Reset!

”Grr…” I ground my teeth thinking of that bastard!

”Son of a bitch! Just you wait. I don't know why you forced me into that position, but it will be different this time! I will crush your bones to dust!”

I may have died 154 times, but 132 of those times happened at level 576. I died 132 times at level 576. Back to back!

The times I died at first seemed almost wasteful. But that was because I was inexperienced and didn't know much about the monsters I was hunting.

There was no exchanging of information with one another. You had to pay for any small amount of data.

Info became power, authority, and money. People who had it never just gave it out to those looking for handouts.

Back then, there wasn't even much data about the Sea of Reset.

The Sea of Reset had only been discovered for about a year. At that level, people usually had a death count of 30 when they used the Sea of Reset.

There were also plenty of people with an average of 40 deaths that used the Sea.

I was helpless when I first died, but I accepted and learned from those mistakes and worked even harder. Which is why the other 22 times I died happened when I was a noob.

If I recall correctly, from level 300 to 576 I had only died about 10 times. That's how hard I worked. But then I met that bastard.

”Lee Gi Chan! Son of a bitch!”

It was all Lee Gi Chan's fault.

The bastard that killed me 132 times! The bastard that tied me up and killed me over and over, the bastard that had his familiar shadow me to my respawn points to kill, was him!

The shadowy familiar was incredibly stealthy and had high magic resistance, and since I was a fire mage with limited range and only had items that would boost my magic damage, it made it very difficult for me to properly counterattack.

And like that, he killed me 132 times before freeing me. Freed me as if he was going out of his way to help me.

I had no idea who he was. I had no information about him.

At first, he came up to me as if he were finding out who I was. He didn't approach me with any hostile intent. But like he just flipped a switch, he just ruined me.

He left me no choice but to jump into the Sea of Reset!

”I don't know who you are, but I will have my revenge. I will do everything in my power to bury you. I will drag you to Hell!”

Of course, none of this has happened yet...

I don't know why I had returned to the past, and to dream of revenge about something that hadn't really happened yet seemed a bit much. But the grief I received was too much.

The fact that we were under the same sky and sun pissed me off so much!

It was obvious that he had authority. He had over a hundred people under his command, some of which were quite strong, so strong that I couldn't even look at them.