For now, Jin-Woo decided to focus on the rewards and received the first one. A soft blue aura enveloped him and immediately, he remembered Yee Ju-Hee's face. When he was being healed by her, he felt a sensation similar to what he was feeling now. If he were to put this feeling into words, then it would be like a refreshing rush of air entering his lungs before leaving again, something like that? Then he felt the blue aura slowly dissipate, Jin-Woo lightly jumped up and down on the spot and stretched his body from side to side.
"How can this be!?"
His heart, which felt like it was going to explode, was beating calmly now, and his harsh breathing had also stabilized. He didn't even feel a hint of fatigue. His body, which was on the verge of collapse, felt refreshed as if he had just woken up from a good night's rest. The effect, in other words, was top-notch.
He wasn't sure if it was some kind of magic or not, but this phenomenon could change him in the most amazing way, no doubt.
In that case, would those 'stat points' be the same?
When Jin-Woo looked around, he saw a small box on top of the bed, as well as his own stat window floating in the air.
"I guess that thing over there is the random box…" Jin-Woo muttered to himself.
However, the important thing right now was his stat window. This window displayed simple information about himself.
Name: Sung Jin-Woo.
Level: 1.
Class: None.
Title: None.
HP: 100.
MP: 10.
Tiredness: 0.
[Stat]
Strength: 10.
Stamina: 10.
Agility: 10.
Intelligence: 10.
Perception: 10.
(Available points to distribute: 3)
[Skills]
Passive skills:
– (Unknown) Lv. Max.
– Tenacity Lv. 1.
Active skills:
– Dash Lv. 1.
The stat he saw was quite similar to that of a starting character in an online game his sister used to play many months ago.
"Is this my current stat value?"
His current level was 1, and all of his stats were also at the bottom of the heap. If he thought about the current reality of how he was, the one where he was ranked the weakest even among E-rank Hunters, then there was nothing to be surprised about.
What he paid attention most to was the "Skills" column. A passive ability called 'Tenacity' and an active one called 'Dash'. For some reason, he felt quite familiar with them.
"Ah, I remember now. Yesterday…"
Yesterday, or to be more exact, early this morning, he remembered hearing those words while being chased by centipedes in the penalty area. It happened probably after three hours of him constantly running for his dear life. Suddenly, he was greeted by a couple of new messages.
[‘Skill: Dash Lv. 1’ has been learned.]
[‘Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1’ has been learned.]
Back then, he was too busy running around to think about what they could mean, but now it was a different story. Jin-Woo confirmed the available explanations for the abilities.
[Skill: Dash Lv. 1.]
Active skill.
Mana required to activate: 5.
Constant running strengthened your legs. When this skill is activated, your movement speed will be increased by 30%. During its activation, 1 mana will be spent every minute.
[Skill: Tenacity Lv. 1.]
Passive skill.
Mana required to activate: None.
You possess untiring tenacity. When your stamina drops below 30%, this ability will automatically activate and reduce all damage taken by 50%.
"Did I learn 'Dash' and 'Tenacity' because I stubbornly ran like there was no tomorrow?"
That seemed to be about right. In other words, if he kept repeating a certain action over and over and met the required conditions, he would be able to learn new skills.
Wasn't this an incredible advantage? The thing was, the skills that individual hunters used were either acquired when they went through the Awakening process, or learned through items called Runestones that very rarely dropped from A-rank and higher monsters. Understandably, the prices for these runestones would start from the low end of several hundred thousand won to tens of billion won on the high end.
Apparently, this runestone contained an ability that could revert many injured people to their original conditions in one go, and it was acquired by an anonymous S-rank healer abroad who had supposedly emptied his life savings.
Jin-Woo's heart began to beat faster. An ability that increased his movement speed, as well as another that decreased the amount of damage taken. Sure, they weren't as good as those skills that sold for billions of Won, but they were still amazing to him anyway. And he was also able to learn them for free!
Their overall magical energy value was too low, so it would be difficult to use them properly, but still, it was better than not knowing them, right? Also, the Tenacity skill doesn't even need mana to activate... It seemed that this Mana thing was his magical energy. If that was the case, even if he didn't have much magic energy, he could freely use the Tenacity skill. That alone was a huge gain.
"By the way… what could this ‘unknown’ thing be?"
[Skills]
Passive skills:
– (Unknown) Lv. Max.
The 'Unknown' that took up an entire slot in the passive skill column. Since it was located in the passive column, that meant it was activated automatically, but there was no explanation or information about it.
"Not even a single clue, huh. Maybe if Belial was here, he could probably explain it to me." Jin-Woo touched his chin and then shook his head several times. "No, there's no way that demon would explain things to me, he never did."
Jin-Woo more or less knew Belial's twisted personality, a devil who doesn't care about anyone but himself, so giving Jin-Woo free explanations would never happen even if the world came to an end. The amount of information he could learn on his own was too limited. Even if he racked his brain trying to figure it out, he knew there would be no answer, so Jin-Woo turned his attention elsewhere.
"Stat points, is it...?" Three additional stat points he got as a reward remained there, yet to be distributed.
[Stat]
Strength: 10.
Stamina: 10.
Agility: 10.
Intelligence: 10.
Perception: 10.
(Available points to distribute: 3)
"I'm sure this means I can increase any of my stats by three points, right?"
There were five categories in the Stats list. Perhaps because he was a mere level 1, the values of each stat were "simple", to say the least. However, if he considered how reality operated, he couldn't take these statistics lightly. If his abilities truly changed with a moment's decision, then who in this world would be capable of making such decisions casually?
Jin-Woo's expression turned serious. "Strength is definitely talking about my physical power..."
He could more or less figure out what 'Strength', 'Endurance' and 'Agility' could mean. After all, those were the kind of 'Stats' one would often find in video games. The question was with the last two Stats, 'Intelligence' and 'Perception'. And just like before, the hostile system provided no response at all.
If he increased 'Intelligence', would he really get smarter, for example? And, if he increased 'Perception', would he become more sensitive? Whatever the case may have been, he felt that those two stats didn't really seem that useful to him at the moment.
To begin with, he was a melee-type hunter. What he needed was power, speed, or even stamina.
"If you asked me to choose between the three, I would inevitably choose Strength."
If he became physically stronger, many things would become much easier for him. Also, he wanted to know what kind of change would happen to his body once the Stat values were increased. Since he thought this change would be much more prominent with the increased Strength stat, he ended up investing all three points into it.
"All three points for the Strength stat."
[Stat]
Strength: 13.
Stamina: 10.
Agility: 10.
Intelligence: 10.
Perception: 10.
(Available points to distribute: 0)
"That is all?"
The only change he could notice was the Strength stat value floating in front of his eyes like a hologram projection changing from 10 to 13. Unlike cartoons or movies, his body didn't feel like it was overflowing with uncontrollable power or anything.
"Yes, that's it. What did you expect?" Belial appeared behind Jin-Woo, giving the young man a fright.
Since Jin-Woo was busy at the time, he ended up getting scared by the sudden voice speaking near his ear, causing him to fall on his butt.
"So clumsy," Belial laughed. "You need more stat points to tell the difference."
For the first time, Belial decided to give Jin-Woo some information, but that information was a simple thing that anyone could find out sooner or later.
"Did something really change or not?" Jin-Woo asked, wanting to know if those three points made even a little difference.
"It did, compared to before, you are stronger now. Try lifting the bed." Belial suggested.
Jin-Woo decided to trust the demon and used his muscles to find out. He went to the side of the bed and picked it up. He felt a bit of weight, but was able to lift it more easily than he thought. However, it was impossible for him to tell if this was because the bed was light or because his Strength had improved.
"I should have lifted the bed first before spending those damn points…" Jin-Woo cursed, since he had already spent all the points before confirming, it was hard to tell the difference between "before" and "after".
"Trust me, the stat points worked. The old you wouldn't be able to lift up the bed, no need to regret spending the points." Belial reassured Jin-Woo.
"This is your first time trying to help me, have you changed your mind about treating me like trash?"
Belial tilts his head, a little confused by those words. He tried to remember when he treated Jin-Woo like trash, however, due to his twisted personality, he couldn't find anything wrong with the things he did or said. The only conclusion the demon came to was that humans are more sensitive and weaker than demons, so he shouldn't treat Jin-Woo the same way he treats demons.
"Did the things I did hurt your feelings? Then I guess I should apologize, however everything I'm doing will help you become stronger, depending on me won't do you any good."
"I get that part, I know the quests are mine to complete. But that doesn't change the fact that you're always making fun of me, I want you to stop doing that."
Belial has never seen such a brave human, usually humans obey those stronger than them, without having the courage to complain about the demons' attitude or actions. But this weak human complained to Belial, not even thinking about the consequences of his actions. This part of Jin-Woo was one of the reasons Belial believed he made the right decision in giving him another chance to live, but the bigger reason has yet to be revoked.
Belial touched Jin-Woo's head and ruffled his hair. "I will stop making fun of you, from this day on, I will treat you as my equal even though I am much stronger than you."
At first, Jin-Woo never thought of being treated as an equal, all his life he has been mocked by those stronger than him, this was the first time he saw someone strong say those words. Just because of this, Jin-Woo began to see Belial in a new light, even though he is a demon, Jin-Woo couldn't help but think that he has been kinder than most of the humans he knows.
"By the way, there are still rewards for the penalty quest, why don't you receive them?"
After hearing those words, Jin-Woo remembered the penalty quest. Today wasn't the only time he was able to "complete" the daily quests. He may have almost died, but he sure did complete the Penalty Quest, and he remembered seeing the message about available rewards as well.
Jin-Woo hurriedly opened the mailbox.
[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]
Would you like to confirm the rewards?
Jin-Woo clenched his fists tightly. Of course, it’s a resounding "Yes!"
The following rewards are available.
Reward 1. Three additional Stat points.
Reward 2. One random box.
Would you like to collect them all?
Unlike the Daily Quest rewards, the option for full status recovery was absent, but hey, what he needed right now was the extra stat points anyway. He was momentarily worried that there would be a big difference in the rewards since they were from a penalty quest and all, but he was relieved to find three points waiting for him.
Jin-Woo hummed joyously to himself.
"Add all three points to the Strength stat."
[Stat]
Strength: 16.
Stamina: 10.
Agility: 10.
Intelligence: 10.
Perception: 10.
(Available points to distribute: 0)
His strength went up from 13 to 16.
Jin-Woo stood by the bed again and put some strength into his arms. And he was able to lift the bed much more easily than before. He could definitely tell the difference now.
"It’s for real…!!"
His physical strength had greatly improved. If he were to consider the change solely through stats, then the initial value of 10 had increased by 60%, so how could he fail to notice the improvement? Now feeling completely elated, he went around the room and started picking up not only the bed, but everything he could get his hands on, generally making a mess of things inside.
"You get excited like a little boy," Belial sat in the air and crossed his legs.
"I can't help it, after all, becoming stronger is something I wished for all my life." Jin-Woo couldn't calm down at all, his heart was beating like crazy. In fact, his chest really hurt.
The daily quest that would continue to appear every day and the stat points as a reward! As long as this unexplained phenomenon did not come to a sudden end, he would be able to live a completely different life than the one he had led until now. This was an amazing opportunity for him, in addition to that, the stat window also showed his "level".
"Does this mean I can also increase my level?" Jin-Woo's eyes filled with expectation landed on Belial.
"Yes, you can level up. That's why the system shows that you are currently level 1."
That was good news for Jin-Woo, after all, he never expected to get stronger. The E rank Hunter, always mocked as the weakest weapon. He would go so far as to be promoted to S or A rank. Even the idea of reaching C or D rank, like those Hunters he had been working with, would surely come across as ridiculous. In fact, they would point their fingers at him contemptuously and roar with laughter.
However, he didn't care if they laughed at him. No, he was already used to being the butt of many jokes. He was happy that an opportunity had fallen into his lap, that was all.
"Jin-Woo." For the first time Belial called Sung Jin-Woo by name, this caught the young man's attention immediately. "From this day forward, you will become the strongest hunter in the entire world."