Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 82

‘If I severed my arm, would it stick back?’

?Please do not try that just to satisfy your curiosity, Master.?

‘You’re right, I shouldn’t cut off my arm out of curiosity.’

?Also, the item itself is cheap. The reason why this A-Class item is priced this low is that it is of no use other than to make blood. Of course, people can still use this item to produce blood packs, so the price will not go lower than 1.2 billion won.?

‘You can make blood packs? With this item?’

?Yes, Master. I heard that it can produce every blood type. An item like this is an important asset in its own way.?

‘I see. From the Hunters’ point of view, the price of this item is low, but if it was evaluated as a medical device, the price is reasonable.’

With this, Ji-Cheok could see what kind of fighting style Cheok-Liang was advising him to use. The amazing regeneration power of a troll, the additional strength from the [Bracelet of the Strong Arm], and the boots that gave Ji-Cheok a 15% chance to hit a double blow…all these items would strengthen Ji-Cheok’s melee abilities.

“You want me to engage in close-quarters combat with the enemies using my [Heaven and Earth Chaotic Divine Art]?”

?Yes, Master. If you also add the [Soul Telekinesis], the synergy will increase even more. And with the [Indestructible Toy Summon], the result shall be truly mighty.?

‘But because of [Troll’s Body], it would be difficult to increase my strength above rank B, wouldn’t it?’

?If you look at the description of [Bracelet of the Strong Arm], it says ‘unconditionally increases your strength by 15%’. Since it’s ‘unconditional,’ that means the fixed penalty of [Troll’s Body] can be ignored.?

‘Whoa, that is one hell of a loophole.’

?Yes. This kind of information is not released on the Internet because you have to try on different items that cost hundreds of millions in order to find out.?

‘I think the best thing I’ve bought with my Likes is you, Cheok-Liang.’

?Thank you, Master. As an advisor, there is no greater reward than the trust of my Master.?

Cheok-Liang scratched the back of his head with his front paws.

‘Holy… You are so cute!!’

Ji-Cheok pulled Cheok-Liang’s cheek for a moment and Cheok-Liang gave up on struggling and accepted it with the heart of a Buddha.

“By the way, I have a good idea about this.”

?Another one of Master’s brilliant ideas! I am all ears.?

“I don't know if it’s brilliant. It’s a very simple idea. Let’s increase the probability of a double strike.”

For [Boots of Double Strike], the probability to hit the enemy twice was fifteen percent. Even just this ability made the item quite overpowered, so the price for it was about the same as buying a building.

“Open the Likes Shop. Show me the list of skills and items related to double strike.”

[Likes Shop has opened.]

[Searching for skills…]

A long list popped up. Among them, Ji-Cheok looked for skills to increase the probability to one hundred percent chance with an appropriate Likes price.

[Double Attack—40,000 Likes]

[Class: Epic (Non-upgradable Rank B)

20% chance to hit the enemy twice.]

[Sword of illusion—62,000 Likes]

[Class: Unique (Upgradable Rank B+)

A piece that the God of Illusion placed upon the System. A phantom blade that replicates reality appears and attacks the enemy.

15% chance to hit the enemy twice.]

[Second Chance—65,000 Likes]

[Class: Epic (Non-upgradable Rank A)

There is always another chance. A skill created with the prediction of the God of Opportunity.

25% chance to hit the enemy twice.]

[Remnant of the Sword—63,000 Likes]

[Class: Epic (Non-upgradable Rank A)

The God of Swords once said, “I wish I could cut it one more time”.

25% chance to hit the enemy twice.]

The combined price of these skills was 230,000 Likes. If Ji-Cheok wanted all these skills, he would have to spend almost all of his Likes. For Ji-Cheok, Likes were a part of his life that money literally couldn’t buy, so he always had to think carefully before spending it. But right now, it was different.

?Master, this is…?

‘I know. Wouldn’t it be exciting to see what happens if I reach a one hundred percent chance? Okay, buy them all!’

* * *

The day went by with three glasses of iced Americano, one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner. It was well-known that refraining from drinking coffee after 6 p.m. was a good idea in order to get a good night’s sleep, but Ji-Cheok needed the caffeine to survive the day. As he bought new skills, he spent his day training and training, and then continued training some more. He was also thinking about how to upgrade the purchased items with his alchemy. Of course, he didn’t start on that right away. Since he could only strengthen items once with alchemy, he thought it was probably best to try it after his alchemy proficiency had increased as much as possible.

A week thus passed. Since his Qi would recover right away, there was no problem for him to go straight to another dungeon. He could earn money, items, and Likes from there. However, Ji-Cheok decided that training was his top priority right now, so he postponed going into dungeons for a while and focused on training. Like a slave building a pyramid, he trained his Qi every day, and he devoted his sweat and passion to training his skills in order to maximize the efficiency of his Qi use.

‘It almost feels like I’m on a closed-door cultivation like in those martial arts novels!’

?Master, It is said that the pyramids were built by employees, not slaves, and they were given proper vacation days.?

‘...I guess my labor rights are not even comparable to those in ancient Egypt. Let’s say I’m working like the slave laborers.’

?I agree with you, Master.?

Ji-Cheok thus trained and practiced his Qi like slaves picking cotton. In the evening, he was assembling and upgrading the bike. It was like his days were on repeat.

He didn’t upload videos of his training, but his Likes count was still increasing little by little—the old videos kept raking in Likes for him. This way, he even restored some of the Likes he had used up. In addition, the food that his younger brother cooked for him was now trending on social media. Mu-Cheok’s Likes couldn't transfer to Ji-Cheok, but the latter was still proud that his younger brother was growing popular.

Ji-Cheok also suspected that Mu-Cheok started to get more popular after he had uploaded a training video of him working out with his shirt off, showing off his rather angry muscles. After that, the fans had started to call him Kang-Cheok, a portmanteau of “kangaroo” and “Mu-Cheok.” They also called him Kang-Baby, which made no sense because it didn’t even have Mu-Cheok’s name in it. There was also a meme of Mu-Cheok’s face on a muscular kangaroo’s body going around the Internet.

[Lunch box of the day: Marinated Ribs. My brother is still training.]

-Kang-Baby. You are working hard as always. Your cooking skill is out of this world.

-Kang-Cheok is training and also preparing lunch boxes for his brother. He is so thoughtful. T_T T_T

-It feels like you’re the bride of Umji. Be careful with your hands when you’re cooking for your loved one.

-Beauty.

-Be careful of the lunch box.

-This is big like.

Since N-Stagram did not have a translation function like GodTube, overseas fans used a separate translator app and uploaded their comments directly in Korean. Some of the comments on anonymous websites were about how Ji-Cheok was taking advantage of his younger brother and how Ji-Cheok was being a bad hyung, but Mu-Cheok told his brother that he was not ‘feeding’. Ji-Cheok asked him what ‘feeding’ was, he told Ji-Cheok that it was a short form for “don't feed the trolls”, and that he should just ignore all the bad comments.

At any rate, Mu-Cheok’s N-Stagram was slowly growing, and he said that his popularity increased as he made cooking videos.

‘He should upload mukbang videos.’?

?You have gathered 150,000 Likes already, Master.?

‘Yeah, I can see that. I can’t believe I’ve got this many Likes even after spending hundreds of thousands.’

?GodTube videos are amazing. Even if you do not upload videos of clearing dungeons, as long as people are paying attention to you, they will keep pressing that Like button.?

That was probably the best thing about his job.

Cheok-Liang handed Ji-Cheok a towel as the latter left the training room.

?You did great, Master. Cultivation is like that old story, [The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountains]. It takes a lot of patience and time.?

“I know, I know.”

Ji-Cheok knew well about the story of [The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountain].

Once upon a time, there lived an old man named Wugong in an area called Buksan. In front of this old man’s house, two huge mountains named Taehaeng and Wangok were blocking the road. In order to go anywhere, he had to climb up and down these two mountains, so it was indescribably tiresome. One day, sick of it, old man Wugong said to his family:

“Let’s work together as a family to move the mountains.”

The family members were furious. Naturally, his family denounced him for saying such nonsense, but old man Wugong started moving the mountain the next day, regardless of the opinions of his family. He continued to do it without complaint for several years. Some people called it madness. People around him gossiped and asked him:

“You’re an old man who won’t live long, so why are you acting so recklessly?”

Then Wugong answered.

“When I die, my son and grandson will continue in my path. When my grandson dies, his grandson will continue. These mountains will be moved no matter how many generations of work it will take. Someday, the road will open.”

The end.

The well-known story usually ended at this point.

‘Actually, there is more to the story that people don’t know about.’

The Gods of the two mountains heard the news and trembled in fear. They immediately ran to Sangje, the God who ruled the world, and asked him to save their mountains. When Sangje heard this, he took pity on the Gods of the two mountains and moved the mountains away from the old man Wugong’s house. As the land became flat, roads were soon built and the old man’s land became very expensive.

‘The moral of this story? If your mind is set on something, no matter the hardship, always do the work. But there’s another underlying lesson in this story. Your house price is not going to increase by itself, so you have to think of ways to develop—’

?Master, please.?

‘I know, I know. I’m just kidding.’

This story was like a metaphor for cultivation training. There was always the temptation for Ji-Cheok to quit training. It would be much faster for him to just spend his Likes on better items and skills than to train his cultivation. The variety of skills and items in the Likes shop was too broad for him to even count, and he could take the easy road with the Likes Shop. Sometimes he had doubts as to whether he was actually getting stronger or not.

But, what could he do? This was a cultivator’s life. It was easier to endure hard work when he had fewer thoughts in his mind. Even though he knew that, in one corner of his mind, the Korean national anthem was playing, and in the other corner, he was sitting there counting the minutes until the end of this boring fucking training.

He knew that he was not a hero. He knew that he was not at the level of becoming one with nature and maintaining a crystal-clear mind. But he was still training.

‘...Because people wouldn't pay attention to me if I didn’t strive to become the best.’

With the job he had, if people stopped paying attention to him, he would become useless. He had to impress people with his sword skills so that more people would click the Like button. That was his lifeline. He didn’t want a Hunter Assistant to clean up his dead body. Even if he were to die in the future, he wanted to die in his bed, holding the hands of his loved ones.

“Ah… The sun has already set.”

Ji-Cheok wondered how long he had been practicing. His whole body was covered in sweat.

?You did great, Master. You’ve been concentrating for so long.?

Concentration? Didn’t you hear the Korean anthem that was playing in the back of my head?’

?I understand that people think about many things at once. I do not know what you are thinking unless you yourself wish me to hear it.?

‘I see.’

?Even if that were the case, focusing for this long is still a great feat, Master. Even the masters of cultivation didn’t have that level of focus when they were young.?

‘Does concentration also improve with practice?’

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