Emperor of Solo Play

 ­ A Mess of a Character to Others (1)

[You have leveled up.]

[You have received a blessing. All debuffs have disappeared, and your stamina and magic power are now full.]

[You have reached level 10. Monsters will no longer appear in the Training Dungeon.]

As soon as he leveled up, Hyrkan turned his head as the Skeleton Warrior pulled his long bone out of a Coal Tiger. The end of the bone was sharp and eerie, and the Skeleton Warrior holding onto the bone was even more ghastly. It truly looked like a cold-blooded warrior.

Watching this scene, Hyrkan rubbed his chin.

‘I hit level 10 but…’

5 days had passed since Hyrkan began Warlord, and he had now reached the highest level possible in the Training Dungeon.

It wasn’t a slow pace. It was faster than the average players and about the same speed compared to diligent players. However, compared to diligent, talented players, it was slow. Talented players that spend most of their days on Warlord can hit level 10 in 4 days. Amongst them, those at the level of Rankers can do it in 3 days.

Compared to them, Hyrkan’s level-up speed was too slow.

‘It took longer than I thought.’

Before he had returned to the past, Hyrkan had hit level 10 in 3 days. It was because of this that Hyrkan was able to boldly decide to make his living in Warlord. It wasn’t that he gambled thinking he may have talent.

In any case, it had taken him longer than he expected.

However, Hyrkan wasn’t mad or disappointed, as he smiled in satisfaction.

‘It was worth the time investment, though.’

His gain was big.

The Skeleton Warrior’s Combat AI was indeed high. He had fixed them up with his personal training, and now they could fight better than average players.

There was more.

‘This is a lot better than I thought.’

Skeleton Warriors had one absolute advantage over players.

The penalty upon death!

If they received damage, they could restore themselves using their master’s magic power.

If they were totally destroyed, they had to be re-summoned. In this case, the Skeleton Fragment was put on a 30-minute cooldown time. If a Skeleton Warrior died after fighting for 30 minutes, it could be summoned again immediately.

In other words, Skeleton Warriors could fight with no fear of death.

This was a huge advantage.

Warlord’s biggest risk was death. As a result, all battles were planned around lowering the number of deaths to as low as possible. At times, of course, it was necessary to give up one’s life. It was a game; thus, it wasn’t the hardest thing to risk losing one’s life. But for Skeleton Warriors, this risk of death was pretty much non-existent.

However, there was something else that Hyrkan found most attractive about Skeleton Warriors.

‘The best thing is that I don’t need to worry about them ever betraying me.’

Skeletons could not betray their master.

Hyrkan’s Skeleton Warrior training consisted of beatings and abuses. Even so, his Skeleton Warrior never showed the slightest sign of a counterattack. No matter what the situation, it showed an absolute loyalty towards its master. It would only bare its teeth when its master was threatened.

This was to be expected. It was AI.

But after experiencing it firsthand, Hyrkan found his Skeleton Warrior to be extremely admirable, even to the point he found it noble.

‘If it were me getting beaten up like that, I would have stabbed a knife through my throat a long time ago.’

If Hyrkan were treated the way he was treating his Skeleton Warrior, he wouldn’t have lasted a day before going on a fit of rage.

In any case, Hyrkan found the Skeleton Warrior more than satisfactory. Imagining himself controlling over twenty of such Skeleton Warriors, he was elated.

At the moment, however, Hyrkan didn’t have the time to enjoy daydreaming.

‘The question now is how I’m going to distribute my stat points.’

He was now level 10, meaning he couldn’t continue to sucking honey off the Training Dungeon. He had to head out to the field, full of competition and violence.

Of course, he wasn’t afraid of fighting at all. In truth, Hyrkan was more the type to stab someone in the back, rather than getting stabbed himself. He received a huge stab to the back before returning to the past, but that was because of betrayal. Usually, Hyrkan wasn’t the type to get conned or tricked.

The problem lied in which direction he would now take.

Hyrkan collected a rather large sum of data on necromancers. He even sent email questions to Helgen.

According to the information he gathered, there were two types of necromancers in Warlord.

‘Should I go the standard build?’

The most typical one was the Summon Necromancer. Upon leveling up, 5 stat points were given for distribution. Summon Necromancers put 4 or even all 5 points into magic power.

The reason was simple. Summoning magic required a lot of magic power. It required a sizable amount of magic power to summon, and more to maintain the summons. It was a class one couldn’t do without enough magic power.

This was the most representative necromancer of Warlord.

But recently, there was a new trend thanks to a high-level information released by Helgen.

‘Should I go explosion?’

Explosion necromancers recently garnered attention.

This necromancer went into the explosion magic that necromancer’s had. There were things like Golem Explosion, but the reason explosion necromancer received public attention was that mass explosions were possible. It required a lot of time commitment, but the power from mass explosions of corpses, skeletons, and golems went far beyond what magicians of the same level could do. But to be an explosion necromancer, it was best to put all stats into intelligence as explosion magic scaled with intelligence.

Hyrkan had to consider his options carefully. To solo raids, he knew he needed a strong, one-hit move. Jabs only worked against someone of similar size. Given most raid bosses’ large sizes, he would most likely be killed before he could finish off the bosses with just jabs.

‘There’s also the immortal necromancer.’

The immortal necromancer wasn’t currently known. It went into the necromancer’s Body Modification skill tree, and these necromancers put all stats into stamina.

The immortal necromancer appeared thanks to a level 140 skill called Life Vessel. This skill allowed the user to become a lich. No matter how much damage the body received, liches did not die as long as their life vessels were safe.

Of course, they weren’t actually immortal. It was just that as long as they avoided taking direct damage to their life vessels, they could see up to a 10 times increase in stamina. Under this Life Vessel skill were various, lower-ranking body modification and regeneration skills.

This allowed them to become excellent tanks. They were the result of guilds seeking for more efficient tanks.

These were the three types of necromancers that Hyrkan knew of.

But Hyrkan couldn’t decide on one among these three.

It wasn’t that he was indecisive.

‘This isn’t enough.’

It was just that these three couldn’t match up to his expectations. None fit the image he had in his mind.

However, if he had to choose, he would go with the standard build as Rich Lich had done.

There was just no other choice.

But looking at the Skeleton Warrior’s combat capabilities, Hyrkan changed his mind.

With the defend first attack second method, the summons had no choice but to take some damage.

But if the summon could avoid attacks well enough, there was damage taken. It would be fine to have fewer points put into magic power. At least, in theory.

To put this theory into effect, there had to be a teacher or a role-model for the Skeleton Warriors to follow. There had to be someone to fill the Skeleton Warriors’ sponge-like combat AI.

Who could act as that role-model?

It was, obviously, Hyrkan.

Hyrkan was confident. No one could fight as well as he could. Given the same level, stats, and items, he was confident to triumph over anyone.

As such, no one was a better teacher than Hyrkan.

And that was the problem.

‘The Skeleton Warriors can’t dodge my attacks because of my current stats. Later on, they’re going to see my punches in slow motion.’

Now was the extent to which Hyrkan could teach his Skeleton Warrior to fight. If his Skeleton Warrior got a spec-up, it was near impossible to teach them how to fight with hand-to-hand combat. To teach them down the road, Hyrkan had to invest in strength.

But if he were to do that, his character would be a complete mess.

Before Hyrkan returned to the past, he had invested all his points into strength. This was because he was a swordsman. Even with the same stats, once swordsmen received buffs and used their skills continuously, they could easily perform 10 times the expected result.

Magicians had a similar skill as well. There was something called magic swordsmen, who used magic power to maximize their combat potential. As such, some magicians invested stat points into strength and stamina.

Black magicians were no different. There was a skill that allowed them to fight in close-quarters using their magic power. Even so, they weren’t as strong as swordsmen.

Most importantly, such stat distribution led to a mess of a character that was invested in invested in neither strength nor magic power.

At the same time, this resulted in going into various skill trees.

‘It’s not a bad thing per se.’

But if this was the goal, it was better to choose white magic and learn magic of all attributes to the peak.

Of course, a mess like this could become a big hit as well.

But at the very least, it was a road no one had tread before. The road could cut off in the middle or lead to a dead end. If this were the case, that would be the end. There was no way to recover after going down this path. There probably wouldn’t be another chance to reset his life.

‘I can’t dwell on this for too long.’

Hyrkan closed his eyes.

No matter what he chose, regret was inevitable. The question was which path would lead to fewer regrets.

‘Rich Lich was able to succeed in solo raiding, but even after throwing so much money in the game, he was unable to become the best.’

If it was his fate to fall off a cliff, then it would at least be better to throw his body towards a dream.

‘Gaming is the one thing I can do well. If I can’t be daring in games, my entire life would just be lame.’

Hyrkan controlled his watch, making a hologram window of his stat. Looking at the hologram window, Hyrkan smiled.

“All strength necromancer. What a concept. At least it’ll make for a good clickbait.”