Chapter 8
The reason Quicksand gets such mixed reviews.
First, friend-or-foe identification is impossible.
It’s worse than useless if the crowd-control skill catches your own tank along with the enemy.
Second. It has almost no effect on monsters that are more humanoid than that.
Since goblins are small, light monsters, they end up flailing around with their legs sunk in.
Against most humanoid monsters, it’s at best a light slow that only sinks them to the ankles.
Against large monsters or flying monsters, it’s, needless to say, useless.
Third, the duration is short.
You pour mana into it and barely make it, only for it to vanish before long, making it inefficient.
Summing up their arguments, it’s a useful skill in the early game.
But once party play is required and medium-sized monsters start showing up, it’s hard to make use of.
“But that’s none of my concern.”
None of those three were problems for me.
First, the friend-or-foe issue.
I never had any intention of party play from the start.
Even in games, I’m the type who gets stressed out by party quests and raids, so I don’t do them.
Since I was going to climb the tower alone anyway, there was no risk of hurting allies.
“Besides, mages are obviously all about brute-forcing things with damage, right? Why would I need a tank?”
And the second and third reasons.
Even its awkward identity as a CC skill wasn’t a problem for me.
“I wasn’t planning to use it as a CC skill in the first place.”
I could feel my hand melded into the quicksand.
The goblins thrashing in the quicksand. The faint vibrations of those struggles. Even their frightened, ragged breathing.
Everything was vivid, as if it were right on my palm.
Quicksand was now another part of my body.
It felt like my palm had grown enormously.
I counted the goblins in my grasp.
“Exactly twenty.”
Unfortunately, I still couldn’t control this quicksand freely and perfectly.
My control itself didn’t seem to be lacking.
It felt more like a functional restriction.
It was probably because I didn’t have the related skill.
“All right then, just like I practiced...”
I snapped my fingers.
Dozens of sand bullets shot up from beneath the goblins’ feet like harpoons.
Papapapak-!
A sharp cracking sound.
The tightly compressed sand bullets burst in the middle of the goblins.
The bullets that sprayed in all directions pierced their defenseless backs and heads clean through.
Their bodies, with no decent armor to speak of, were torn apart like paper.
“Kek...!”
The goblins collapsed right there without even managing a proper scream.
The goblins in the rear panicked at the slaughter that had unfolded in an instant.
Watching that, I muttered in satisfaction.
“Just as expected.”
I never intended to use this skill to bind the enemy’s feet in the first place.
This was essentially a field skill—an area skill that expanded the range of my attack magic.
A foothold that let me freely control sand even where there was none.
The essence of this skill was in laying down a sand-element field.
The first time I thought of this method was at the playground.
I had been playing with mana and sand in the playground sandbox when the idea suddenly came to me.
At first, controlling it was a burden, but once I realized that mixing in a part of my own body made control incredibly easy, I decided to use it in actual combat.
After one round of slaughter, the remaining goblins were no longer a threat.
I calmly made bullets and sniped the scattered ones down one by one.
Not a single bullet missed this time either.
Once all the goblins were dealt with, the scenery warped and returned to the familiar white room.
And, as always, a blue system window appeared before me.
[Congratulations on clearing Tower 2F (EXTREME).]
[The first-clear bonus will be applied!]
[Rewards obtained]
[Mana stone yield x2]
[Mana Stone 400g]
“Oh, finally I get to see a mana stone.”
It was the mana stone I should have seen on Floor 1.
Since I’d leveled up on Floor 1 and missed it, this was my first time seeing one in person.
A strange mana pulsed from the pebble, which softly radiated a violet glow.
“So this is what’s supposed to be so expensive?”
Mana stones, which are guaranteed on every floor, are hunters’ main source of income.
They’re said to be used in all sorts of ways, but as someone who had only recently been a civilian, I didn’t really know.
What mattered was the price.
“Wasn’t it 2 million won per 100 grams?”
After climbing one floor of the tower, I’d basically made 8 million won.
If I climbed the tower every day, I’d make at least 100 million won a month.
“If I keep making money like this, I could hand out whole pizzas to everyone in the Hunter Gallery and still have money left over...”
Feeling satisfied, I carefully tucked the mana stone into my pocket.
But I still wasn’t satisfied.
Because there was still one more alarm waiting to pop up.
[Tower 2F Clear Record]
[Challenger : Unregistered]
[Selected Difficulty : EXTREME]
[Clear Time : 5 minutes 27 seconds]
[Score : 19,301]
[World ranking updated! (Previous #1 : 6,348 points)]
[Achieved World Rank #1!]
[Please enter a name to register on the rankings.]
[Name : ]
“As expected, it’s coming up again.”
Once again, I entered ㅇㅇ as my nickname.
“That Demigod guy is probably making a scene again, huh?”
He seemed hell-bent on catching me, but I wasn’t really scared.
How on earth was he supposed to identify me?
The guy would just keep venting on SNS and that’d be the end of it.
[Rank #1 bonus applied!]
[All stats +10]
The moment I saw the words [All stats +10] on the last line of the rewards list, I could feel my body’s senses sharpen even more.
“I still can’t really feel the increase in mana, though...”
Since I can’t check my stats numerically, I can’t really tell how much stronger I’ve gotten.
I still don’t have much of a sense of how valuable +10 to all stats really is.
“I can only check my stats at the Hunter Association... No choice. I need to break through to Floor 20 fast.”
Once I broke through the 20th floor, the benchmark for being recognized as an A-rank hunter, I’d register as an official hunter.
Until then, I’d have to put up with the inconvenience.
Living as an unregistered hunter was inconvenient in many ways.
Selling mana stones was one of those inconveniences.
Right now, I had nowhere to sell this mana stone.
Because all mana stone trades had to go through the Hunter Association.
“Should I try finding a broker?”
For now, I decided to ask the Mage Gallery.
I left the tower and headed straight home.
When I turned on my computer and logged into the Mage Gallery as usual, there were new posts waiting for me.
Most of them were messages asking why I’d been so silent.
I smiled and tapped away at the keyboard.
[Title : Big bro’s here. Quicksand review.wedp]
Cleared Floor 2 nice and easy.
There were about 20 goblins.
And I tried using Quicksand, and it needs to be reevaluated.
See the video for the details.
(Combat video recorded with a body cam.wedp)
The comment box exploded the moment I posted it.
ㄴ Beetle : No, why is your clear time so fast again?
ㄴ p깟쮸 : 20 of them? That’s insane. How’d you even take them down?
[Title : I watched the video, and the idea’s actually pretty good?]
Author : Fridge
You’re using it to lay down a sand field, not as CC.
Come to think of it, it was only after Floor 20 that I could barely use ice magic freely in places without water.
Until then, I had to lug around ridiculously heavy water jugs.
Looks like a win, then?
ㄴ Magic Is Firepower : I used to carry a lighter around too at first.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Using Water Style at this level with no water around?
ㄴ Fridge : I knew you were going to say that.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : But can’t you just grind up a nearby rock and make sand out of it?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : I tried testing it, but it was way too slow to work.
[Title : Freaked out seeing you cut your hand and stick it in]
Author : Magic Is Firepower
I’ve never seen you do that when casting magic.
What’s the point of using it like that?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Control? Like... something that boosts control? That kind of feeling?
ㄴ Fridge : We should test that once.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : But how did you know something even we didn’t know?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Just a hunch.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : That newbie swagger is insane;;
ㄴ Magic Is Firepower : Why did nobody think to use Quicksand like that? If you use it like that, the future potential is endless.
Should I raise Quicksand’s rating?
ㄴ Beetle : No. That guy’s special.
Normally, you can’t control Quicksand like that.
Especially not at level 2.
ㄴ Fridge : Control ability scales with mana, right? Just how much mana does this guy have?
ㄴ p깟쮸 : Can’t you just register as a hunter already? I’m dying to know your stats.
ㄴ Beetle : Sure, that too, but I think it’s also because putting part of your body into it makes control easier.
ㄴ Beetle : Probably best to keep this a secret.
ㄴ Fridge : Yeah. We need to keep this secret. We can’t let the foreign bastards know.
“Ah, so that was something nobody knew...”
For some reason, I felt kind of proud.
Like a brand-new newbie had found a hidden piece even the veterans didn’t know about.
ㄴ Beetle : Now that we’ve learned something like this, we can’t just let it go for free. If you ever need help later, say the word.
ㄴ p깟쮸 : I can’t stand owing a newbie. It hurts my pride.
ㄴ Magic Is Firepower : I’m going to go test it right now. If it works, I’ll help you out sometime later too.
ㄴ Fridge : What an incredible newbie we’ve got here....
A promise of help from S-rank and A-rank hunters.
My chest swelled with pride.
Around then, I changed the subject to the rewards.
I had a lot I wanted to ask.
[Title : But this time they didn’t give me a skill book as a reward.]
Content : As the title says.
ㄴ Magic Is Firepower : Don’t misunderstand~ skill books don’t normally drop on every floor~
ㄴ Beetle : Skill books are leveling rewards. Usually you get mana stones or junk loot. So what did you get?
You probably got both the EXTREME bonus and the rank-one reward again, right?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Stat bonus. It gave all stats +10. But is that actually good?
ㄴ p깟쮸 : ???? That flex is insane.
ㄴ Magic Is Firepower : Moderator!!!!!!! Ban this guy already!!! Ah, right. We don’t have a mod here. Puhuhh~.
ㄴㄴ Fridge : Why is this old hag acting like this;;
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Ah, so it really was good. I had no idea.
I’m a newbie, after all. Cut me some slack.