Chapter 237

The event was so difficult, even Do-Jin found himself breaking into a cold sweat. He’d only been lightly grazed by the barrage, yet his HP gauge was shredded at an absurd speed.

If three of those hit me at the same time, I’m straight up flying into the afterlife.

For someone as tanky as Do-Jin, it took three hits, but for a normal mage, even one would’ve put them on the brink of death. With attack power like that, there was no way he could afford to pay attention to the broadcast. If he wanted to clear this alive, he had to lock in on the projectiles flying at his face.

The monsters stood completely still until their spike shots were ready. Then, without warning, they rotated their arms once and fired. Once they started moving, the time until firing was basically nonexistent.

It was too fast to react on sight, so Do-Jin played around their cooldowns. For how insanely hard they hit, the spike barrage had a fairly long cooldown. He first exposed himself in a way that only drew the attention of part of the group, raising the rhythm of their attack cycles. After forcing them to waste their shots at different intervals, he’d be able to carve out a gap in their firepower.

Now!

After several tries, Do-Jin finally carved out a decent window with reduced incoming fire. The ones that had just fired were reloading. The ones that had fired earlier were still mid-reload. It was less than a second, but it was a real opening.

He opened his Magic Circuits and drove Flash Lance through the gap. The spell erupted in blinding bursts at the points he had marked. He had already memorized which ones would be ready to fire first, so those were the first to be struck. That was why he chose Flash Lance. It had no travel time and gave no warning.

The monsters stiffened, their arms lifting to fire new spikes. Then they were blown apart one by one as flashes of light tore through the pack. The impacts overlapped and piled onto each other. Some did not go down in a single hit, but those unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast of a nearby Flash Lance detonation fell soon after.

The spell’s area was super tight, almost single-target, but with enemies packed that close, splash damage did the rest of the work.

“Shit, I’m late—”

Of course, not everything went perfectly. Even after dumping every preloaded Flash Lance and burning through every newly formed spell, it still wasn’t enough.

When two of them had slipped past his timing, Do-Jin twisted on instinct and kicked his telekinesis outward, slamming a wall of force into the incoming spikes. The projectiles got deflected at the last second. If those had hit clean, it would’ve been guaranteed critical damage.

Instead, they barely grazed him and spun off to the side. He had aimed for that outcome, but honestly, he had not really believed it would work.

Don’t get fucking greedy... he reminded himself.

The mistake came from thinking, just one more, and reacting a fraction too late. Do-Jin cast the thought aside, refocused, and finished off the remaining enemies. To him, it had been a minor slip. In reality, he had just brushed against death and pulled back at the very last second.

└ LMAOOOO

└ ???

└ NAHHH this is insane lol

From the viewers’ perspective, there was no way to understand what had just happened. All they could see was what was on screen, so the chat filled with confused laughter and bewildered reactions. Plenty of viewers were sitting at their desks, laughing out loud in disbelief as they tried to process what they had just watched.

While that was happening, Do-Jin, who had cleared the immediate threats, chugged a bunch of potions before addressing the chat. “Whew. I couldn’t really talk in the middle of that, but when you deal with enemies like this, just deal with them like so.”

The chat was instantly flooded with laughing emotes.

└ Uh, sir, with all due respect, could you maybe explain what you mean by “like this” and “like so”?

└ Nah, this man really said “do it like this” and dipped.

Seeing the reactions, Do-Jin accepted that his explanation had been lacking and decided to break down the fight. “I’ll only explain it once, so listen carefully.”

He pulled out a mana cigarette out of habit, then quickly put it away. The game was rated for adults, but minors could still be watching the stream.

“When you spot a range-type enemy, you find cover first. The moment you get detected and you’re standing out in the open, you’re gonna get turned into a fucking pin cushion. Everyone knows that.”

The viewers agreed. That part, at least, wasn’t rocket science. The real problem was everything that came after.

“Even if you’ve got zero info on them, you can still guess a lot just by looking. If their attack power’s way too high for the area, something else is probably low. Enemies that hit that hard usually have gaps between attacks,” Do-Jin explained. “Once you understand its traits, you plan how to counter its strengths and exploit its weaknesses at the same time. Like what I just did.”

He started calmly walking the chat through the chaos he’d just pulled off, now with a friendly play-by-play. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

“Right after they attack, their cooldown starts. That’s when you dump as much damage as you can. That part’s obvious, right? But their AI’s good, so some of them attack while others hold back. To stop that, you let only part of them get an angle on you, and you manage their cooldowns that way.”

The chat instantly started losing it.

└ What the fuck is he on about?

└ Bro said “manage cooldown rhythms” like I’m a NASA control room.

└ My brain just blue-screened.

└ Let him cook, I’m not understanding a single word but let him cook.

└ This is not a guide. This is a lecture for cracked demons.

“If you keep doing that, you can naturally split them into a few groups. If you manage that right, you can create a short window where their firepower drops. Then you just hit the ones that can attack you first, in order.”

He concluded with a simple point: if you could kill them faster than they could prepare their attacks, you could wipe them out in a single sweep. The chat immediately descended into chaos once more.

└ Respectfully, this advice is completely unusable for humans.

└ This is god-tier advice for people with robot hands.

└ Bro, that fight looked like pew pew boom boom and you were doing 4D chess.

└ This is why cracked players make trash coaches. “Just play better, bro.”

└ My fingers can’t even press buttons that fast. What do you want from me?

Among all the defeated reactions, someone’s comment cut through the jokes.

└ Real talk, what about the part where you didn’t kill them all at once and almost got clapped? That shit looked sketchy as hell.

“Oh, that was just a mistake. The monsters were tankier than I expected, so the timing slipped. When you realize it isn’t working, you should immediately focus on dodging or defending. I got greedy and tried to squeeze in one more shot, and that was the result. Mages are supposed to die when they make mistakes. If you want to live, you have to improvise and survive on your own.”

└ Bro really said “if you mess up, just die.” Skill issue.

“When did I ever say that? Don’t put words in my mouth.” Do-Jin immediately shot back in protest. However, the chat wasn’t buying it at all.

└ Bro you literally just said that but in different words.

└ Professor, just because you can do it does not mean the students can, okay...

The more they talked, the more Do-Jin and the viewers talked past each other. Then a chat philosopher dropped a moment of clarity.

└ Guys, think about it. Do you really think someone soloing this as a mage is ever going to understand what we are saying? LMAO.

That was true. The shock of the scene had made everyone forget. This was a Rift Dungeon that took already difficult content and cranked it up to absurd levels, and this guy had walked in alone as a mage. What exactly had they been expecting?

└ Oh yeah, I forgot he went in alone.

└ Sigh. Useless geniuses. They literally can’t comprehend the struggles of normal people.

Watching the whining, Do-Jin felt wronged. He’d gone out of his way to give a long, detailed explanation, and this was the reaction he got.

“I guess I’m just bad at explaining. If this isn’t helpful, I’ll just end the stream.”

The moment he said he might end the stream, chat instantly flipped.

└ Wait, who said it wasn’t helpful?

└ Nah, this is actually insanely helpful.

└ I already cleared 30 Rifts using tips from this stream.

└ Only 30? I learned from Do-Jin and cleared 100.

Do-Jin let out a stunned laugh as he watched the sudden wave of lies flooding in.

“Who said it wasn’t helpful? You did. I literally saw you typing the hardest in chat just now.”

└ Oh shit...

“Oh shit my ass.” Half laughing, half sighing, Do-Jin ran a hand through his hair. “If you keep thinking it’s useless, then it really will be useless. If you can’t apply it directly, downgrade it, change the situation, or adapt it to something you can do. I’m gonna keep the stream on today, so just keep watching and take whatever you can from it.”

The chat instantly turned angelic.

└ Yes, professor!

└ I’ve learned so much already!

└ This is such a high-quality educational stream, wow.

Watching that, Do-Jin thought flipping these people’s attitudes was easier than turning over his hand. With that thought, he headed back into the hunt.

What he had killed earlier were basically gatekeepers of the Rift. The deeper he went toward the core, the more dangerous the fights became. Do-Jin fought through regular mobs, elites, and then bosses, one after another. Each encounter was a life-or-death situation.

The boss fight in particular was completely insane. It looked like the other spike-shooting monsters, but this one moved underground as if it were swimming through water. He used every ability he had, and at the very end, he even used Limited Regression to repeat the entire sequence. Only then did he barely manage to kill it.

Because the fight had been so brutal, it was packed with highlight-worthy moments. The viewers who watched it live were completely fired up.

└ Honestly, who gives a shit about guides? This is what we wanted to see.

└ Now I get why mage mains walk around acting cracked. This isn’t the power of editing. He’s actually just like this.

└ Didn’t you know? His live fights are sometimes even crazier than the edited vids. The edits are clean and stylish, but this? The raw tension is straight up insane.

Before Do-Jin had even ended the stream, clips from the broadcast were already being edited and spreading everywhere.

[Do-Jin complaining about injustice]

[Professor Who Doesn’t Understand Student Pain]

[Uploaded Because He’s Just Hot]

[Sweaty Do-Jin, Hair-Fixing Do-Jin, Sighing Do-Jin]

[How a Deranged Veteran Actually Fights]

And then, the next day, Do-Jin went live again. “I thought about it, and I don’t think my teaching method is wrong. If you keep watching, you’ll probably get it eventually. Repetition works. Eventually, you’ll start doing similar things.”

Do-Jin promised to stream as much as possible during the event. He said he’d prove he wasn’t wrong. Instead, he kept producing highlight moments and iconic lines every single day. With every passing minute, he proved exactly how wrong he was.

As he continued hunting and streaming, the Empty Key’s charge steadily filled. At the same time, the viewers’ faith in his teaching ability hit absolute rock bottom.

However, the worse his “professor” reputation became, the more subscribers and fans flocked to him. Most of them said the same thing: watching him get treated unfairly and complain about it was strangely relatable and weirdly endearing.