n

nIn the middle of the night, I got out of my room. The handgun in my pocket rattled uncomfortably, but I couldn’t do anything about it without a holster.

n

nMy destination was the shooting range.

n

nLocated east of dorm 1, the shooting range was a dome shaped building consisting of 20 training rooms. The targets were oddly distributed around where the sharpshooter would stand. This was because unlike bullets, magic arrows could easily change their trajectory.

n

nRank 934, Kim Hajin, confirmed.

n

nWhen held my smartwatch against the shooting range’s entrance, an unfamiliar robotic voice called my name. Indeed, my name had changed from Kim Chundong to Kim Hajin. Feeling a bit odd, I walked inside.

n

nPast the wide circular lobby, there were ten doors evenly separated from each other. I held up my smartwatch against one of them.

n

nRank 934, Kim Hajin, confirmed.

n

nThe door opened.

n

nThe shooting range looked simple. At the center of the 130-square-meter circular space was a scaffolding for the shooter. I walked towards the center. When I placed my feet on the low scaffolding, a courteous robotic voice rang out from the ceiling.

n

nInitializing targets. Choose the number of targets you want.

n

nYou must choose at least 2 and can choose at most 20.

n

n“Ten.”

n

nMy voice rang through, and insect-like blue objects popped up from the ground.

n

nI looked at the targets surrounding me. A monster that was barely considered a monster, mole cricket. They were similar to mole crickets everyone knew, the only difference being that they were much bigger.

n

nChoose your training difficulty.

n

nYou can choose from stage 1 to stage 9.

n

nHigher level naturally meant targets moved quicker. At stage 9, the targets even attacked. Although the attacks should only sting at best, they were extremely dangerous to me.

n

n“Stage 4.”

n

nFirst, I set the difficulty to stage 4 and loaded my magic bullets. If I was skilled in handling magic power, I should be able to compress magic power into bullets without having to get physical bullets, but the current me didn’t have such talents. And even if I could do such a thing, using a bow was much more destructive and efficient.

n

n“Start.”

n

nFirst, I notified the system to start and aimed my gun at the leftmost target.

n

nThe slowly moving mole cricket seemed to have noticed my hostility as it began to speed up. It scuttled around without a set movement pattern, but I could see its trajectory. It was like I was seeing an afterimage, but of its future path.

n

nPredicting its movement by a step, I pulled the trigger.

n

nA blue flare shot up from the barrel. There was no loud noise like the guns from Earth. Leaving the barrel silently, the bullet should pierce the mole cricket.

n

nI didn’t bother to check the result with my eyes. The moment the bullet went out, I moved on to the next target and fired. My hand moved on its own.

n

nOne, two, three, four… ten.

n

nThe trigger was pulled ten times, and the mole crickets that were struck scattered into particles of mana.

n

nOnly two targets survived.

n

n“Oho.”

n

nI was quite impressed.

n

nJust by writing a Gift, I managed to hit all the mole crickets other than the farthest two.

n

nYour training ended. Elapsed time: 1.37 seconds. Sharpshooting score: 80

/100

n

nIn just 1.37 seconds.

n

n“… This is pretty fun.”

n

nAn eternal truth. The better you are at something, the more fun it is. It was fun because you were good at it.

n

nFeeling like I was at an arcade, I shouted ‘start’ once more.

n

n*

n

nAn eternal truth. No matter how fun something is, doing it twenty times makes it boring.

n

nAt about 3 A.M., I stopped my shooting practice. After getting out of the shooting room, I was relaxing my sore finger when I heard a noise next door.

n

n—whoosh whoosh whoosh

n

nThe faint sound of shockwaves. It was the sound of arrows cutting through the air. The source was the room next door. Curious, I snuck a peek. I shouldn’t have been able to see anything because of the closed door, but I could see through it.

n

nThe door turned faint and the interior revealed itself.

n

nThe scene beyond the door was showing why bows were superior to guns.

n

n“It’s Chae Nayun.”

n

nChae Nayun was target practicing with a serious face. Four arrows were sitting on her bow. They were magic arrows weaved with magic power. Because her magic power technique was currently lacking, she couldn’t perform ‘split shot’, which multiplied a single arrow into multidirectional shots.

n

n—Whoosh!

n

nChae Nayun let go of the bowstring. Her arrows left behind a blue trace of magic power as they hurled towards the 20 targets. As though they were alive, her arrows obliterated the targets.

n

n“… Amazing.”

n

nI exclaimed in shock.

n

nStill, Chae Nayun’s real aptitude wasn’t for bows. There was a weapon that suited her much more. But if she was already that amazing with a bow, just what kind of a setting did I make?

n

nAt that moment, Chae Nayun suddenly turned around. Her eyes met mine. Though there was no way she could see me through the wall, something still seemed odd.

n

nI quickly escaped.

n

n*

n

nSharpshooting training increases your Gift’s proficiency by 3%.

n

nRepeated sharpshooting training increases your Gift’s proficiency by 2.9%

n

n‘Luck’ applies! Your perception and speed increase by 0.1!

n

nRepeated sharpshooting training increases your Gift’s proficiency by 2.8%

n

n…

n

n…

n

nThe above messages were written on the laptop. Master Sharpshooter’s proficiency shot up, and the stats I gained with luck were an added bonus.

n

n

nThanks to the Gift’s grade being low, I had already gained 50% in proficiency EXP. Achieving grade 9 didn’t seem to difficult.

n

n===

n

n▷「Master Sharpshooter」

n

nLow-intermediate rank Spirit attribute Evolving — Grade 10 Proficiency EXP 50%

n

n—Master Sharpshooter’s Training

n

n*Familiarity with all long ranged weapons

n

n—Thousand-Mile Eyes

n

n*Can see far away and somewhat predict target’s movement path.

n

n—Bullet Time

n

n*In combat only and once every 24 hours, you can spend 3 seconds in 'Bullet Time'.

n

n===

n

nThe more I thought about it, the better this Gift seemed, especially in how it applied to 'all long ranged weapons'. Currently, it was easier to raise proficiency with a gun than a bow, but since a bow was stronger, I would have to switch to it eventually.

n

n“But what’s up with the SP?”

n

nYou obtained 0.2 SP!

n

nYou obtained 0.2 SP!

n

nAn auspicious gift! You obtained 1 bonus SP.

n

nYou obtained 0.2 SP

n

n…

n

nAfter practicing for twenty rounds, I only obtained 5 SP. Choosing a gun as my main weapon gave me 64 SP, meaning showing off and standing out gave more SP than quietly training.

n

n“Tsk.”

n

nAlthough I only received a tiny bit of SP, I still had a use for it.

n

nThe dreaded combat training was tomorrow. To obtain even the tiniest amount of points, I needed to make up for my lacking physical abilities.

n

nThe biggest problem was stamina. Because I threw all my points into luck, I was weaker than an ordinary person.

n

n===

n

nTraining Sneakers

n

n—Specially crafted sneakers.

n

n*Adds 0.3 points into stamina and speed.

n

n===

n

n“Maybe with this…”

n

nThe easiest way to fix my problem was with equipment.

n

nI began to tap on the keyboard.

n

n===

n

nMystical Training Sneakers

n

n—Specially crafted sneakers. Contains a mystical power.

n

n*Adds 0.3 points into stamina and speed.

n

n*Enhances energy and stamina recovery.

n

n===

n

nYou do not have enough SP.

n

nBut this time, the modification I made was canceled without being adjusted.

n

nI wasn’t too surprised. After all, I only had 5 SP.

n

nBut it was still too early to give up.

n

n===

n

nMystical Training Sneakers

n

n—Specially crafted sneakers. Contains a mystical power.

n

n*Adds 0.3 points into stamina and speed.

n

n*When the wearer desires, energy and stamina recovery is enhanced for 1 hour. After use, this effect cannot be used again for 24 hours. This ‘effect’ disappears after one month.

n

n===

n

nTo save SP, I put a total of three restrictions. A 24 hour cooldown time, one-hour effect duration, and effect dissipation after one month.

n

nYou used 5 SP. Would you like to save?

n

n“Oh! It worked!”

n

nI hit the Enter key ecstatically.

n

nImmediately, a blue light flashed from the laptop. The dancing light melted into the sneakers, and a streak of color was branded onto the white sneakers.

n

n