The Taming Master

Chapter 57: Powerful Enemy, as well as a Level-up (2)

TL: Haku

Editor: Hungry Panda

The YTBC planning team was in a frenzy.

This was because the YTBC service centre’s phone rang as if there was a fire.

And most of it was complaint calls from the viewers.

In the end, all arrows in the broadcast were turned towards the planning team.

“Team Leader Lee! Why exactly is it like this? The popularity for the rookie league every year wasn’t much!”

At Director Park Moonsung’s question mixed with rage, Lee Hansung, the leader of the planning team, had on an embarra.s.sed expression.

This was because he knew the reason why he was mad at him.

‘How would I have known that the rookie league matches would be this big of a hit?’

When this arena opened, Lee Hansung invested all the members of the special effects team and the video editing team in the editing of the major league’s important match videos like any other year.

However, as soon as the arena came to an end, the viewers for some reason flooded with calls asking why the rookie league’s match wasn’t being aired.

This was because, although personal videos of users went up in the community, the quality wasn’t as good as a video that the broadcast took through their crystal ball, and more than ever, there were a lot of users that wanted an explanation.

As the situation came to this, the YTBC planning team had to hurriedly turn members to start editing the semi-finals and finals videos.

However, there was nothing they could do about the delay.

“That… I believe it’s most likely because of the users with the new cla.s.ses, Director.”

The major-league matches, where the highest-level users’ matches were held, were obviously more extravagant and dynamic.

However, the users that appeared in the major league were mostly users that were well-known.

On top of that, because the major league, which had over ten times the number of partic.i.p.ants compared to the rookie league, had just finished their preliminary rounds, it was a situation that even if you called it the main matches, they were only at the 64-player round.

In this situation, the users’ interests were gathered around the surprising rookie league’s finals with the new cla.s.ses rather than the obvious videos of the major league’s preliminary rounds.

“Argh, do you call that an excuse?”

Park Moonsung flew into a rage and yelled at Lee Hansung.

“Invest all manpower immediately and prepare to deliver the rookie league videos as soon as possible! Everything starting from the 64-player round!”

“Ev, everybody? Including the people that were in the middle of editing the major-league videos?”

The Director had on a frustrated expression as he urged.

“That’s right, idiot!”

And Lee Hansung responded with a downcast voice.

“Yes, Director.”

Park Moonsung’s words continued.

“The day our broadcast goes up later than Ta Sa Channel, expect to write your resignation letter!”

Bang-!

Park Moonsung slammed the meeting room door harshly and left, while Lee Hansung, who remained, sighed deeply.

“Argh, this person’s horrible company! I seriously need to write a resignation letter or something!”

Despite his fuming, Hansung hurried out of the
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meeting room in order to give instructions to the planning team.

The schedule for the arena’s rookie league was completely over, and Ian, who even received his reward, quickly left the arena using a return scroll.

This was because he didn’t want to waste time through people that would only bother him.

‘Surely, there would have been recruitment proposals from guilds here and there, and there’s probably a lot of users who are curious about my hidden cla.s.s as well.’

And another reason was to reflect on himself for losing so easily.

‘Hoo, I was too caught up in my opponent’s pace.’

Limlong was definitely strong.

Even if Ian considered the fact that Summoners weren’t a good match for a.s.sa.s.sins, and that Ian couldn’t deal with the hidden cla.s.s skills that he hadn’t known about at all, he was still an unbelievable opponent.

Ian felt that the hidden cla.s.s that used skills with shadows as their base was a high-tier cla.s.s that certainly didn’t lack in rank compared to his own hidden cla.s.s.

‘However, despite that, I shouldn’t have lost so easily. Since I didn’t know my opponent well, I should have dragged out the time a little and gotten used to his attacking pattern rather than counterattacking…’

In another way, Ian had inversely suffered the method that he used against his opponent Himenes, where he caught his opponent up in a swift attack.

Before he could even buy enough time to get used to Limlong’s attacking pattern and style.

‘I was too dependent on my Familiars up until now.’

Truthfully, Ian’s fighting method was extremely obvious for a Summoner.

On top of that, as his ‘Taming Master’ cla.s.s was more specialized in taming compared to other normal Summoners, his dependency towards his Familiars couldn’t be helped.

He had a big advantage in PvE (Player vs Environment) battles, but in PvP (Player vs Player) battles, it couldn’t help but be a critical disadvantage.

“Hmm…”

He was regretful that he didn’t win, but Ian quickly brushed it off.

It wasn’t Ian’s style to be a sore loser.

‘I just need to win next time.’

Ian fueled his fighting spirit even more.

The time he spent waiting for days and preparing for the rookie league was regretful, but there were more important, new leagues as he became a higher level.

“Shall we go to open up these items then?”

Ian, who sorted his regretful heart, opened his inventory in order to check the rewards for coming in second place. There were two things that Ian received as a reward.

A total of 80,000 Fame and lv 50 standard, Summoner-exclusive, Heroic-rank equipment boxes.

It was widely known that one Heroic-rank accessory and one weapon randomly come from the equipment boxes received for second place.

Ian, who had gone to a desolate area, pulled out the equipment boxes from his inventory.

“It’s most nerve-wracking opening stuff like this.”

The nervousness when checking random rewards like this was separate from the regret towards not being able to win.

“What should I open first? The weapon box? Or the accessory box?”

Ian, who was contemplating happily, decided to open the accessory box first.

This was because, although it was time to change all of his equipment aside from the head ornament he received from the Dungeon of Chaos, the part he wanted to change the most was his accessory.

Ian placed his hand on the accessory box.

“Open!”

Then, a blue light emitted as the box opened wide.

And a system message popped up in front of Ian’s eyes.

Then the information for the item gained popped up.

Cla.s.sification – Ring

Rank – Heroic

Equip Limit – Over lv 50

Durability – 255/255

Option – Summoning Magic +100

Spirit Magic +30

Affinity +50

Leaders.h.i.+p +15%

*1 Spirit Magic is additionally obtained per equipped second.

*For Familiars that have maxed Affinity and Loyalty, all stats will increase by 5%.

*This is an item belonging to user ‘Ian’.

This item cannot be transferred to another user or be sold, and even if the character dies, it does not drop.

This is a luxurious ring bestowed to a Summoner who has received a high grade in the arena.

“Oh, not bad?”

Ian, who checked the item information window, wore a satisfying expression and nodded his head.

The increased stats as an option was incredibly nice as well, but what he especially liked was the inherent option, Spirit Magic recovery.

“There were actually a lot of times that I lacked Spirit Magic when using Current Proliferation, so this turned out well.”

It seemed because it was an item with a lv 50 limit, there was a cla.s.s-special ability that you gained at lv 50 attached to it.

“But, why is such a useless account restriction attached to it?”

However, this time, he didn’t like the account restriction attached on this ring.

This was because this ring wasn’t an item that was worth using continuously like the head ornament.

He needed to sell it in the auction as he leveled up and gained a better ring, but as he couldn’t sell an item that had an account restriction, he felt like it was a waste.

He was certain that he could gain a large profit with this level of an item if he sold this later on.

“Then, shall we open the weapon box this time?”

The ‘Ancient Summoner’s Steel Knuckles’ that Ian was using up until now were weapons that were still extremely useful at lv 50.

Especially because of the inherent ability, ‘Induction’, he had no plans of changing it unless he gained an exceptionally good weapon.

“Open!”

And just like earlier, the box opened as a blue light spread out.

“Oh! Bow! It’s a bow!”

Ian, who was already incredibly excited at the fact that a bow came out, began to read the weapon’s information.

Cla.s.sification – Longbow

Rank – Heroic

Equip Limit – Lv 50

Offensive Power – 205~395

Durability – 600/600

Option – Agility +65

Summoning Magic +30

Critical Hit Chance +15%

Critical Hit Evasion +70%

*Agility of all summoned Familiars will increase by 20%, while Offensive Power will increase by 30%.

*If critical damage is dealt to enemy, 3 Spirit Magic will be recovered, and a ‘s.h.i.+ning Mark’ will be left on the enemy.

The mark will last for 5 seconds, and if you hit the enemy before the mark disappears, the cooldown time for all skills will reduce by 5 seconds.

*This is an item belonging to user ‘Ian’.

This item cannot be transferred to another user or be sold, and even if the character dies, it does not drop.

This is a luxurious longbow bestowed to a Summoner who has received a high grade in the arena.

“Hul…”

Ian, who read all of the item information, contemplated deeply.

This was because an item that was better than what he was expecting had appeared.

‘If I switch my weapon, firstly, I won’t be able to use the induction ability.’

Aside from the induction ability, the Critical Damage Increase for all Familiars and the Leaders.h.i.+p option attached to the knuckle would all disappear.

However, because the options attached to the bow were also just as useful, it was hard to make a decision.

‘Still, the Spirit Magic recovery and the cooldown time decrease options are too tempting…’

The bow was far superior in Offensive Power compared to the knuckles when looking at just the weapons themselves, but truthfully, the weapons’ Offensive Powers were not as big of a merit to Ian as before.

As ‘Summoning Magic’ was a more direct influence to his skills’ damages, and therefore a bigger influence to Ian’s Offensive Power, compared to the Offensive Power of his weapon.

And after a moment of contemplating, Ian made up his decision.

“I’ll change my weapon to the bow, and until I get a new weapon that has an ‘Induction’ ability, I’ll just hold onto the knuckles.”

There was no particular reason why Ian made such a decision.

At the moment, he preferred the bow’s options a little more, but because in the case his Familiars gained an incredibly powerful Familiar Inherent Ability, there could be a situation where he needed to use a weapon with an Induction ability.

Ian, who made up his mind, removed his knuckles and put it in his inventory, while equipping the longbow.

“Now every time I go for a round of hunting, my Training skill’s cooldown time would have shrunk by a couple minutes, right?”

Truthfully, the reason why Ian chose to use the bow was right here.

The part that Ian thought was most important was precisely his Familiar’s ‘Potential’ stat.

And the option to reduce the cooldown time for the skill that influenced the stat, the ‘Training’ skill, was attached to the bow.

‘Speaking of which, shall we check Ly’s Potential?’

After Ian granted Bbookbbook the ‘Sh.e.l.l Expansion’ skill, he continuously used the Training skill on Ly.

Thanks to that, his Training skill had gone up to lv 8, and Ly’s Potential was also over 50.

“Alright.”

Ian had on a satisfied smile.

Now, as he could use the Training skill even more, he could make Ly’s Potential 100 even quicker.

“Now, now if I get a new, exceptional Familiar, I could probably raise him well.”

Truthfully, in order to most effectively use the Potential stat from what he’s a.n.a.lyzed, he needed to level-up his Familiars only after he’s reached 100 Potential.

It was obvious that the higher the Potential, the bigger the range in stat increase.

However, Ian was currently leveling-up his Familiars continuously without worrying about what their Potentials are as leveling them as fast as possible made them stronger than if he were to worry about each increased stat range every time they leveled.

“Now my Affinity is over 300, and I would be happy if I could catch a Heroic-rank with an evolution possible option attached.”

Because of his high Affinity, he could easily catch a decent Rare-rank monster now.

Excluding Bbookbbook, he had yet to catch a Unique-rank monster, but he felt he could achieve even higher than that.

‘Huehue… Ly, who started as a Common-rank became this strong, so if I catch a Unique- or Heroic-rank and evolve them, then they’ll probably become unbelievable, right?’

It was an imagination that just lifted his mood effortlessly.

‘If I gained a Heroic-rank, evolution possible monster and raised it with a full 100 Potential at lv 1…’

In the case that just so happened, he felt he could raise an unbelievable Familiar.

“Eut-cha.”

After Ian, who stretched, cleaned up his items neatly, he began to move his feet.

“Still, above all, I should just level up until the end of this break.”

Because of the arena, he wasted a week of time.

The bet Ian made with Professor Lee Jinook suddenly flashed through his mind.

‘Err, right. Lv 93… I need to make it before the break ends.’

Ian inwardly counted the days.

‘There’s a month and ten days left until the beginning of cla.s.s. And I can skip the first week for changing courses, while Professor Lee Jinook’s first cla.s.s is on Thursday…’

Ian’s mind began to violently rotate like never before.

And as his calculations ended, the outcome was about 50 days remaining.

“I’m screwed!”

It was a short time that was almost impossible even from Ian’s perspective.

He needed to level almost 1 level per day in order to reach a level within range of his requirement.

Right now, he thought it was possible to level about 2-3 levels in a day, but he knew well that once he went over lv 70, his EXP would be h.e.l.lish to raise.

“Euaah, there’s no time to be here like this! Hunting, let’s go hunting!”

Ian hurriedly moved his feet.

Aside from his compet.i.tiveness, it was a bet that put Ian’s future gaming life on the line.

He had never once imagined losing.