There are two kinds of gas in the world.
God-tier gas and trash gas.
If I had to give an example of each, I would, without hesitation, na ‘Magic Knight Academy’ and ‘Martial Academy’.
Two gas from the sa company, StopSeeker, that were polar opposites.
Among them, ‘Magic Knight Academy’ was the ga of my life.
Despite its simple title, it boasted a high degree of freedom, a well-structured composition, and a variety of challenges.
On the other hand, its sequel, ‘Martial Academy’, was a disappointnt.
The rushed plot, the seemingly insane characters, and the terrible balance and difficulty. It was hard to believe they were made by the sa company.
‘I cleared it just once and then deleted the account entirely.’
But now, I heard that ga company was going bankrupt.
They were already an indie developer, so it was inevitable after releasing sothing like that and calling it a highly anticipated title.
As I logged into the ga with a bitter heart, a developer ssage arrived in my account.
[Thank you for loving ‘Magic Knight Academy’ all this ti. We are sending a final DLC to the users who loved this ga until the very end.]
“For so reason, this is touching.”
I read the ssage with a sense of regret. How many years had it been since this ga ca out?
Even a hardcore user like had subconsciously forgotten about it, but this ant that for all that long ti, the developnt team had continued to develop the ga to save it until the very end.
For the users who might still be waiting.
That was strangely moving. The beauty of a graceful exit, perhaps.
I quickly downloaded the DLC and logged into ‘Magic Knight Academy’.
When the character selection screen popped up with a flash, I let out a cry of admiration.
“Oh, is this a master setting?”
Spread out before was a long list where I could select the character’s stats and talents.
A list that allowed one to freely set a character's stats and talents.
Originally, after clearing all character routes in the ga, you could raise or lower certain stats. But this DLC completely unlocked elents that had been blocked for balance reasons.
“Yes, this is it!”
From the heart of a hardcore user, I praised the developers.
This kind of freedom was the identity of this ga. Thanks to it, concept plays like a strength-based mage or a magic archer were possible.
Moreover, discovering new achievents and talents allowed you to select those talents when creating your next character, and expanding the playstyle in that way was also quite enjoyable.
Even compared to recent gas, its world was so vast and detailed that it didn't fall short.
Even for a veteran player like , the highest I had reached was about a 90% achievent completion rate.
“Let’s see, there’s all sorts of things here.”
[Sword Saint], [Absolute Magic], [God’s Agent], [Hero’s Destiny], [Transcendent Growth]….
Even the so-called mythic-grade talents were all unlocked.
“It seems like anything is really possible now.”
I muttered while looking at the list of over a thousand talents. For , who had combined countless talents over the years, it was a gift that ignited my competitive spirit.
Of course, the total amount of stats and talents per character was fixed, and even then, debuffs were adjusted to match the balance after selection.
But I was a hardcore user and a veteran player.
Naturally, I could handle that much with talent settings and a corresponding playstyle.
Soon, the character creation screen appeared.
[Would you like to create a character?]
I pressed confirm without hesitation. The mont the final character was selected, a ssage window popped up with the loading screen.
[Verifying user’s account.]
[User’s hidden achievent completion rate is over 90%!]
[An amazing achievent! The title (talent) [Will of the Extre] is granted. This title (talent) does not consu talent points.]
“What?”
For a mont, I gasped. A title that doesn't consu talent points. It ant I got a free base talent without any risk.
I had cleared all sorts of achievents and received titles before, but this was a first. As expected of the final send-off, they were being really generous.
Moreover, [Will of the Extre] was at least a legendary-grade talent for ntal and growth-related attributes.
It especially granted strong resistance to ntal-type debuffs.
“With this, I can create the ultimate character.”
I went into the talent point settings and started throwing in ntal-type debuffs left and right.
Anger managent issues, helplessness, and so on. As I did, the number of talent points I could assign to the character increased significantly, corresponding to the negative values.
Now, I just had to choose talents with these points. Preferably, an ability that would create synergy with [Will of the Extre].
“There’s really only one choice.”
After staring at the talent list for a long ti, the talent I chose after much deliberation was [Transcendent Growth]. It was a talent that literally allowed one to grow by transcending all aspects.
In theory, it boasted such monstrous potential that most debuffs could be overco with it.
It might seem ridiculously overpowered, but in reality, users rarely used it. The reason was simple.
‘Because the failure rate for clearing the ga skyrockets.’
As a mythic-grade talent, [Transcendent Growth] inherently eats up a considerable amount of talent points.
With no specialty, the early to mid-ga becos incredibly difficult, and even if you manage to grow, you can't catch up to the specialized growth speed of other high-tier talents.
In other words, the early to mid-ga is hellishly difficult, and even if you barely manage to grow and reach the late ga, your main abilities end up in an ambiguous state compared to other specialized characters.
‘I rarely used it for that reason too.’
No matter how good a talent [Transcendent Growth] was, if the character's growth speed and ntal strength were eaten away by the debuffs assigned to afford it, it would actually be a net negative.
But with [Will of the Extre], the story changes.
‘This is a tech tree only possible for this character who has obtained the [Will of the Extre] title.’
Keeping this in mind, I carefully adjusted the debuffs and buffs.
For example, if you attached [Ti-Limited Life] and [Life Extension], since [Ti-Limited Life] is a bigger debuff, the available talent points for the character increase.
In this case, the character would have a short life, but by growing the [Life Extension] talent through the combination of [Transcendent Growth] and [Will of the Extre], even [Ti-Limited Life] could be overco.
Of course, if the growth of the [Life Extension] talent slowed down even a little, the character would die from the reduced lifespan caused by [Ti-Limited Life].
But that's what hardcore mode was all about. A day-to-day existence where one misstep ans death.
All the user could do was either succeed or fail.
‘It’s just a ga, anyway.’
I nonchalantly arranged the talents.
“Done.”
After finally assigning enough debuffs to cover the talent points consud by [Transcendent Growth], I read through them.
‘Ti-Limited Life’, ‘Mana Severance’, ‘Weakness’….
Debuffs that made you sigh just by looking at them were packed tightly together.
“Still, thanks to them, the talent points have increased. Two high-tier legendary talents, that’s a bit disappointing.”
‘If possible, I definitely want to have a mythic-grade talent as my main.’
As I was pondering, a status window caught my eye. It wasn't for talent points, but for stats.
“They said this could be adjusted too, right?”
I imdiately lowered all the stats like health, agility, dexterity, and ntal strength. The values, which normally couldn't be dropped below 5, went down to 2 or 3.
“This is absurd.”
It was questionable if the character could even move like this.
If such a human actually existed, they would need to start with convalescence, let alone enter the main scenario.
‘Still, this is a ga.’
It was worth a try. After all, [Will of the Extre] would support the ntal strength, and the rest could be supported by talents and dramatic play.
After lowering all stats except for mana to their lowest, I looked at the talent points again.
“Oh.”
A considerable amount of talent points had been gathered. More than I had anticipated.
‘With this much, I can afford to be a little greedier.’
While I was at it, I scrapped my original ideal plan and started designing an ideal talent combination that was only possible in theory.
In the process, I added two debuffs I had previously omitted.
They were the chuunibyou trait [Arrogant Young Master], which I had given up on due to fa points, and [Intermittent Debuff Enhancent], the main culprit for extrely raising the play difficulty.
[Warning: The account’s survival probability is extrely low. Do you really wish to grant the above talents?]
I imdiately pressed the confirm button. With this, the lacking talent points were filled up at once.
“Done.”
At the sa ti, I unhesitatingly chose the two talents I had in mind.
[Absolute Magic] and [Limitless Martial Body].
I planned to use the mythic-grade talent [Absolute Magic] as the main talent to maximize my magic potential.
And the high-tier legendary talent [Limitless Martial Body] was a placent to support the abysmally low physical abilities and to keep in mind future growth as a knight.
With this, I had all the talents of a mage and a knight.
“This is insane.”
I let out a dry laugh looking at the character sheet plastered with mythic and legendary-grade talents.
It was a complete cheat. A dazzling feast of talents of a level I had never seen before, even after playing hundreds of playthroughs.
“What kind of monster is this…”
With this, couldn't I even take down the final boss of the late ga by myself?
“I’ll have to play this seriously.”
I steeled my resolve.
The fatal weakness of this character is that if it stops growing, it dies. Because it's built for maximum efficiency, it can only survive by moving towards the best possible move.
Otherwise, it would be overwheld by debuffs and die. In the end, it was a high-risk, high-return situation.
However, I had hundreds of character-building strategies from my playthroughs. As long as I had a growth strategy for each situation, there was nothing to be afraid of.
“Well then, shall we get started?”
As I pressed the save button before playing, the traits I had set up popped up one after another.
[Absolute Magic] [Transcendent Growth] [Limitless Martial Body] [Will of the Extre] [Life Extension]…
[Mana Severance] [Anger Managent Issues] [Insomnia] [Dulled Senses] [Arrogant Young Master]…
“Ugh, just looking at it makes dizzy.”
As I was about to close the ssage window, I paused.
‘I wonder if Martial Academy has a DLC or sothing?’
No matter how much of a failure it was, it was still from the sa ga company, so I felt like there might be sothing. I imdiately logged into ‘Martial Academy’.
“Nope.”
I figured as much. There was no reason for the developers to cling to a dark chapter of their history.
But at that mont, a comnt displayed at the top of the ga's sales reviews caught my eye. It was a review written on the day ‘Martial Academy’ was released.
[It’s not as good as the previous ga. The freedom is low, and what’s with the in-ga balance? The difficulty too. What’s with the main character dying out of nowhere? A reclusive master suddenly appears and cuts the character down before they can even grow, what am I supposed to do? At least make the instant-death events with so sincerity. I managed to clear it sohow, but I was really disappointed.]
It was a scathing review, to say the least. Below it were several painful ‘agree’ clicks.
Still, since it was the end, I thought it might be better to delete this review now and was about to press the edit button.
Then, a comnt added by an official account nad ‘Story Team’ below it caught my eye.
[Then why don’t you try it yourself.]
“What?”
I furrowed my brow, bewildered. Looking at the tistamp, it was a comnt posted just a few minutes ago.
If the account manager themselves was like this, there was no way the service would be run properly.
“Jeez.”
I clicked my tongue lightly and brought up the ‘Magic Knight Academy’ ga window. I couldn't let sothing like this ruin my final playthrough.
I moved the cursor and placed it over the ga start button.
“It feels just like the first ti I played.”
A new challenge is always enjoyable. Full of anticipation, I pressed the play ga button.
“Huh? Did it freeze?”
But the ga didn't respond. Instead, another window popped up.
[Achievent Point Ranking 1st place confird. Kim Jaejun has been selected as the final one chosen by our company. According to the final DLC special privilege….]
The text stops. At the sa ti, the screen flickers. It doesn't respond.
“What, did the window close?”
At the sudden disappearance of the ga screen, I inadvertently double-clicked the ga start button in front of .
“Ah.”
And then I realized.
The trash ga's screen was displayed in the background behind the closed god-tier ga's window.
‘This was ‘Martial Academy’, right?’
You're not supposed to touch anything else when it's lagging. It would just make the loading take even longer.
I tried to close the naturally appearing ‘Martial Academy’ window, but no matter how many tis I pressed the button, the screen wouldn't close.
‘What the?’
[Loading account….]
“What account?”
I deleted it completely after seeing the ending of ‘Martial Academy’. Since I deleted all the existing information, there should be nothing to load.
At that mont, a window popped up before my eyes.
[Found you!]
“What kind of program speaks informally….”
I stared at the ssage window with a look of disbelief.
That was the last thing I saw.
(End of Chapter)
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