Ian was slightly suspicious as to whether Yankoun’s Affinity with him would continued even after the patch, but different from his concern, there was no situation where he was to encounter Yankoun again.

There was no one guarding the corner that lead to Zone 120.

‘What the hell? Isn’t Yankoun supposed to be here?’

Ian opened the quest list and checked the location of Yankoun.

• The last recipient NPC of the quest – Yankoun (Location: City of Rage

/Zone 100 of the Devildom)

Ian slightly tilted his head, but there was nothing that would change.

Since the City of Rage was a place he needed to go to anyways.

“Alright, then, shall we go to catch the contaminated evil spirits or whatever they’re called?”

Based on the content of the quest, it didn’t end just simply by hunting the contaminated evil spirits.

It was Ian’s task to find the reason why the contaminated evil spirits were appearing.

‘Well, wouldn’t I find an answer eventually by catching them?’

The content of the quest could look extensive at a glance, but Ian wasn’t too worried.

That was because this was not his first time doing a quest like this.

“He said that the zones they inhabited the most were Zone 115 and Zone 107, right?”

He wasn’t completely sure, but he felt it was some sort of quest where he needed to find the source of the contamination or something like that and destroy it.

Ian, who had entered Zone 120, had begun to move incredibly carefully, which was different from before.

This was because, starting from about the middle of Zone 120, it was a map that Ian was also stepping foot in for the first time.

“Bbakbbak, protect Ly and take as much of the damage as you can for him instead. Celia will heal you.”

• Understood, owner.

Because quite a number of intermediate-rank magical beasts began to appear starting from Zone 120, the difficulty level had increased incredibly.

Because amongst the high-leveled individuals of the intermediate-rank magical beasts, monsters in the 290-range existed as well, so it was even to the point that Kaizar couldn’t fight them recklessly.

Especially, a monster called the ‘Traccus’, which looked like a lizard that was holding something like scythes in either hand was incredibly menacing.

Clang- Cla-clang-!

Ian, who had successfully blocked the attack of the Traccus, took a step back as he avoided its follow-up attack.

Whoosh-!

The moment that the Traccus’s attack grazed past Ian’s side at such a fast pace it gave goosebumps, the transcendence option that was attached to Ian’s weapon was invoked.

• The transcendence option of the ‘Judgment of the Spirit King’ item has been invoked.

• A ‘Lightning’-type elemental attack has been invoked, and has dealt 8798 damage to the intermediate-rank ‘Traccus’.

If he allowed the Traccus to land a hit, he would have received close to 40-50 thousand damage.

However, Ian dodged almost all of their attacks, and the Vitality Recovery transcendence option was invoked whenever he needed it.

• The transcendence option of the ‘Judgment of the Spirit King’ item has been invoked.

• A powerful energy of life can be felt.

• You have recovered 14,908 (10%) Vitality.

‘As it’s a system where the lightning attack activates separately from the Vitality recovery, it’s even better.’

Ian, who checked his filled-up Vitality with a happy mood, stabbed his spear into the side of the Traccus that lost its balance.

Puk-

And a horrible shriek came out of the mouth of the Traccus.

• Kreeeek-!

• You have dealt critical damage to the intermediate-rank ‘Traccus’.

• The Vitality of the ‘Traccus’ has been reduced by 23,890.

Continued, Ly and Pin’s combined attack was unfolded.

Chwa-ra-rak-!

The two aimed exactly for the weak points of the Traccus as they poured out heavy attacks.

Ba-ba-bang-!

• The Vitality of the ‘Traccus’ has been reduced by 12,890.

• The Vitality of the ‘Traccus’ has been reduced by 9890.

• The Vitality of the ‘Traccus’ has been reduced by 14,890.

The Traccus, who especially gave away all of its weak points as they were to Ly’s continuous attacks, fell flat on its face weakly just like that.

• Keuaaohh!

• All of the Vitality of the intermediate-rank ‘Traccus’ has been exhausted.

• You have successfully killed the ‘Traccus’.

• You have obtained 3,879,809 EXP.

Starting from Zone 120, the inhabiting magical beasts usually banded in groups of 2-3 intermediate-rank magical beast and about 10 low-rank magical beasts.

Because that was the case, despite having successfully killed one Traccus, there were still two Traccuses and many low-rank magical beasts remaining.

Ian checked the Vitality of Bbakbbak, who was facing one Traccus on his own.

‘It seems like he has about 1

/3 of his Vitality left now. In about 20 seconds, the cooldown time of Celia’s recovery skill will probably be over now, right?’

Ian hurriedly opened his retainer information as he checked the cooldown time of Celia’s inherent ability.

’13… 12… 11…’

And with perfecting timing, just as an attack was headed for Bbakbbak, she invoked her inherent ability.

“Bbakbbak, activate Blessing of the Turtle Dragon on Kaizar, and invoke Absolute Defense!”

Absolute Defense was the greatest defensive skill that could turn all damage into nothing for a whopping 10 seconds.

However, Bbakbbak couldn’t perform any actions during that time, which is why he had invoked the ‘Blessing of the Turtle Dragon’ ability first in order to maximize the effectiveness of Absolute Defense.

This was because if it was a state where the ‘Blessing of the Turtle Dragon’ was on Kaizar, Bbakbbak would take in all of the damage that Kaizar would have been receiving instead, and Bbakbbak, who was in an Absolute Defense state, would absorb all of that damage.

Of course, Kaizar, who had fighting with Ian down to a science, began to leap around like crazy as soon as the Blessing of the Turtle Dragon was on him.

“Go and die, you scoundrels!”

As he had given Kaizar, who already had an incredibly aggressive tendency, a shield that was no different from invincibility, his movements had become even more daring and violent.

Bang- Ba-ba-bang-!

Ian, who had quickly looked around at Kaizar’s movements and the battle situation of his other retainers, called Celia.

“Celia, you know, right? Before Bbakbbak’s Absolute Defense is over, you need to cast the recover skill on him.”

“Yes, Lord!”

And the moment the protective film that was guarding Bbakbbak’s surrounding became faint, Celia’s inherent ability was invoked immediately.

“Familiar Healing!”

• Retainer ‘Celia’ has used ‘Familiar Healing’ and has recovered 79.5% of Familiar ‘Bbakbbak’s Vitality.

• Bbakbbak’s Vitality has been recovered by 228,595.

Bbakbbak’s Vitality, which was almost hitting the bottom of the bar, filled up at once.

When he first employed Celia, her Familiar Healing skill was an ability that recovered 60% of the Vitality of Familiars, but as she had raised her proficiency a lot during then, the value had increased to 79.5%.

“Kaizar, Paulean, take care of the left dude with me. Ly and Pin, you guys help Bbakbbak and continue to tie that dude down!”

• Understood, owner. Just leave it to us.

Kku-ruk- Kku-kkuk-!

Ian faced the magical beasts on the battleground quickly and accurately.

Because that battle scene was falling exactly into place so systematically like perfectly aligned gears, if someone who didn’t know what was going on saw, it was to the point that it looked like an incredibly easy battle.

However, in reality, that was not the case at all.

‘Whew, even if the cooldown time of Absolute Defense was even the slightest bit late, it would have gone downhill.’

Currently, Ian’s party was incredibly offensive.

Aside from Ian’s Bbakbbak and Ddukdae, who Celia was controlling, the rest of the members were in an attacking position where they poured in damage.

On top of that, the only healers available were the two or three retainers that Ian had.

A regular party in Kailan had a ratio of 4:4:2 or 3:4:3 of tankers, dealers and healers accordingly.

However, Ian’s current party was at a ratio of 2:7:1.

From the outside, it was a party that interlocked and ran well like a machine, but the moment that Bbakbbak, the main force tanker, collapsed, the party itself could be destroyed.

‘Hmm, it does feel like I am relying too much on Bbakbbak and Celia…’

Ian, who cleanly finished the battle, rubbed his chin as he began to analyze the battle just now.

‘If the opponents become even just a little stronger, it looks like I’ll have to reinforce with some proper healers.’

The biggest reason why the party could be maintained despite the lack of healers right now was because of Celia.

This was because the main force tanker of the party was a Familiar, and Celia had a cheat-like healing ability that was restricted to Familiars.

‘Even though our hunting speed may become a little slower, if I was to change Paulean into a defensive-type position and recruit one or two decent priests… It should be possible to have a little more difficult battles.’

Ian enjoyed hard hunts, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed irrational hunts.

It was different if it was a battle that was being held outside of his predictability range, but he was the type to reject going for a method where he would be recklessly proceeding through the quest with the rise in the fighting power of opponents that he could predict like this in front of him.

‘Let’s just endure with this party until about Zone 118, and then we’ll go down to the central continent and after employing two decent healers, we’ll come back up.’

During the time that Ian was having such thoughts, Celia collected all of the items and approached Ian.

“Lord, I’ve picked up all of the items! A whopping two Heroic-rank equipment were dropped!”

Smiling slightly towards Celia, who spoke out of excitement, Ian quickly checked the options of the equipment.

“Alright, quite decent stuff came out.”

Ian, who had passed on a head ornament for Summoners that was one of the items to Celia, began to move in order to hunt again.

“Let’s keep at it, since if we just proceed through one more map, we’ll rest a bit before hunting.”

At Ian’s words, life returned to the eyes of Bbakbbak and Karceus, and Paulean also wiped away the sweat that was dripping down his forehead as he wore a faint smile.

Of course, the expression of Celia, who had received an item as a gift from Ian, was the brightest.

* * *

It had now been 10 days since the opening of the 3rd large-scale update now.

Even aside from Ian and Remir, quite a lot of ranking users had stepped foot into the Devildom.

However, different from Ian, the rankers that were experiencing the Devildom for the first time were not able to pass through the section that was between Zone 120-130 easily.

“Damn it, it seems like their levels are similar to the top-ranking dungeon monsters of the central continent, but why are they this picky to face?”

“I don’t know, it even seems like their stats are stronger separately from their level…”

“No, I don’t think that’s the case. If you look at the fact that the damage that goes through for each hit is similar.”

“Is that so? Then will it be alright if we get used to it?”

And as many users began to step foot into the Devildom, information related to the Devildom slowly started to be released onto the community as well.

Amongst the top rankers, there were a couple of named users that obtained popularity as they organized the information of the new content and posted it onto the community, and they had begun to post attacks.

Also, users that liked to brag posted screenshots of the Heroic-rank items that they obtained through hunting the low-rank magical beasts onto the bulletin board as they acted conceited.

• Wow, Jiwoong. Is this one-handed sword an item that come out after you caught a Devildom monster?

• Yes, that’s right, huhu. It’s an item that I obtained after catching an magical beast called Lakoum, but the Offensive Power is no joke. I feel like the price will be all up to the seller.

• Wow… When will I be able to obtain an item like that…

• Pfft, how dare you deceive an innocent beginner user. The level limit of this sword is 170, but with an Offensive Power like this, you can’t get that high of a price. Even just by looking at it, it’s clearly an item that everybody has.

• T.T No, but still, saying it’s an item everybody has is too much. When something like this is a high-rank one-handed sword.

• Dude, if it was a one-handed sword that wasn’t even a high-rank, I wouldn’t have even said it was an item that everybody has. I would have just said it was rust at the forge.

In the midst of all these different issues related to the Devildom stimulating the community, the one that was the biggest issue was the existence of Magic Stones.

Magic Stones were covered by the game press corps., and it was new content so incredible to the point it largely decorated the main page of the community.

• Finally, a fortification system has even been created on ‘Kailan’!

• Let’s expose the ‘Magic Stone’, the equipment fortification material that can only be obtained in the Devildom.

On the screenshot bulletin board, a couple of bragging posts from users that had succeeded in fortifying their items to a certain point with the Magic Stones were already starting to pop up.

• ‘Boasting Warning’ Screenshot of successfully fortifying a Legendary-rank two-handed greatsword by 3.

• No way, I heard that the fortification success rate of lowest-grade Magic Stones is incredibly low, but for there to already be a person that succeeded in fortifying up to 3… Shivers

• I am a level 651 Archer user. Starting from yesterday, I’ve continuously just caught Lakoums and am in the middle of grinding for Magic Stones, but including yesterday, I’ve gathered eleven. I’ve used all of those and barely succeeded in fortifying it by 1, so with what means did you get to 3 this quickly?

• Huhu, don’t be surprised. When I also used 7 Magic Stones, failed at fortifying all seven times, but on the 8th try, I succeeded once, and then I succeeded consecutively with my 14th and 15th stone.

• Wow, it seemed like the estimated fortification success rate wasn’t even 10%, so man, your luck is no joke.

• It seems that’s the case. On top of that, it seemed that the higher the fortification number, the lower the success rate…

If the equipment window of Ian, who had fortified all of his equipment for every part up to 5, was revealed onto the community, everybody would go crazy, but fortunately, Ian wasn’t interested in such things.

Ian just wanted to find Priest-class retainers that were at least Heroic-rank or higher in order to get through the inside of Zone 118.

“Damn it, why can I only find Archers and Warriors in the Human Resource Centre today?”

1 Although it actually says 65 in Korean, I believe it’s a typo and the author meant to say 165…