Chapter 257

Recording the Tier 8 spellbooks he had gathered took way longer than expected. Since they were basically free, he had grabbed every Tier 8 spell that caught his eye and shoved all of them into the Grimoire of Truth.

Even though he knew perfectly well that only a handful of efficient spells would end up as his real go-to moves, collecting them was nevertheless satisfying. For a mage, a spell didn’t need to be practical to feel valuable.

Do-Jin looked over the golden shelves filled with newly recorded magic and felt strangely full, like someone who had just finished a ridiculously expensive meal.

“Alright... this is almost done. I guess it is time to pick a hunting ground to test everything.”

He might have taken the fastest shortcut imaginable into becoming a Tier 8 mage, but that still meant choosing a dungeon that matched the new level of power.

Something nearby... maybe I can hunt the One-Eyed Giant.

He started running through possible dungeon bosses around Level 200 to 210, mentally lining them up like execution targets.

If I am doing this, I should at least think about the MeTube content too.

The thought came naturally now. It wasn’t just the fans who had grown attached to him through everything that had happened. Somewhere along the way, he had started caring about them too. Because of that, he found himself wanting to record even small, meaningless hunts sometimes, just so there would be something new for people who kept waiting to see him again.

Whether it actually gets uploaded can be decided later. Having more footage never hurts.

After a moment of deliberation, he settled on the One-Eyed Giant as today’s unlucky sacrifice.

A dungeon boss over Level 200 should be perfect for a light upload.

He took a step forward, then stopped almost immediately. Something felt off. He couldn’t quite name it, but the idea didn’t sit right. Without realizing it, Do-Jin had already begun turning into a clout-chasing monster shaped by MeTube’s algorithm, and the plan suddenly felt incredibly bland.

Just thinking of the title “Level 200 dungeon boss. Going to try and kill it” felt too mundane. Even for a casual upload, there needed to be some kind of punch, something that made people stop scrolling and click.

Maybe I should check what is trending right now.

Curiosity got the better of him, and Do-Jin opened Lotranet to check. The trending videos were still flooded with posts that had spun off from his own videos.

[Compilation of the Most Do-Jin Fight Scenes Everyone Asked For]

[All the Foreshadowing Hidden Inside the Recent Rift Disaster]

[LOST Runs on a Multiverse Theory. (The World Inside the Sphere)]

[What the Hell Is the Void That Was Revealed This Time]

[When Is the Damn Door to the Other World Even Getting Found?]

There’s barely anything else trending. Maybe that is because only the top recommended posts showed up.

Do-Jin switched to individual boards instead, but it was even worse.

Nothing but nonsense and idiots screaming into the Void.

The entire LOST community was riding a massive high. Players felt proud for holding the world together, Do-Jin’s video had injected pure hype straight into their veins, and the promise of a new region had everyone acting like kids on a sugar rush.

However, as he pulled up the Mage Board, it felt like walking into a funeral hall. Posts filled with frustration kept climbing to the top.

[Title: Fuck... Quitting smoking just to start again feels real today.]

[Not sure if anyone noticed, but there is this Immortal Serpent quest blowing up among players over Level 160 lately. It is basically a Level 180 quest where the process is simple as hell. Talk to NPCs in order, clear one instanced dungeon, get a piece of armor at the end. Even players barely past 160 can cheese it if they twist their builds hard enough, and the armor is insane. Level 180 stats but wearable the second the quest clears. It is basically mandatory at this point.]

[For mages, it gives massive max mana and health. It is like rain after a fucking drought. Except mages cannot clear it. Those braindead M?bius devs fucked the balance so hard that if a mage joins the party the run just dies. The dungeon poison blocks mana regeneration. Who the hell thought that was okay? By the time the boss fight starts, your mana pool is already drained.]

[And the boss has a stupid amount of HP, so even with full mana the garbage-ass mage efficiency just cannot keep up. This shit is not even a class anymore.]

Replies flooded underneath.

└ Jesus Christ, another mage crying post. Everyone knows mage is the most busted class in the game right now. M?bius does not even bother balancing anymore, so stop the propaganda already.

└ Shut the fuck up, you brainless idiot. You really be calling mage busted without even playing one. Try it before running that mouth.

└ Do I need to play it to know? Anyone with eyes can tell from the videos. Ever heard of Do-Jin?

└ Fuck. Forget it. Talking with you is pointless.

└ Lmao, Season 1,523,125 of depressed mage posts. Just give up man. If the game rolled someone into a mage, that is the suffering chosen. At least certain hunts still take mages now. Be grateful for scraps.

└ Honestly want to beat the shit out of every troll in here. Every conversation turns into Do-Jin this, Do-Jin that. Not everyone is Do-Jin, you dumb fucks.

└ Might as well crack open non-mage players’ skulls and brand it into their brains. Do-Jin does not equal mage. Got it?

└ Yeah, no shit. The reputation boost from his videos helped mages get into parties again, but the whole overpowered class bullshit frame is driving everyone insane.

The very first post Do-Jin opened carried this tired, bitter weight that lingered long after he finished reading it. He frowned slightly and scrolled down, wondering if the rest of the board looked any different. Hoping it might have been an outlier, he opened a random post from the next page.

[Title: What a beautiful fucking night.]

[Sometimes I feel like a construction day laborer sitting inside one of those dawn hiring offices. I sit there among people recruiting for parties, watching their faces, trying to read whether there might be a slot for me today. Will I get to go out and work today? I have to make it happen today.]

[Today, though, I got lucky. Someone spoke to me first and asked me if I was a mage. I joined a party. We went hunting. During a break, we chatted about small things. We talked about how this guy was actually a fan of Do-Jin. So whenever he sees a mage, he feels kind of attached. He called it a weird sense of inner closeness. Then he told me to hang in there.]

[The party leader said it with a friendly smile. He was a warrior. Right. Once again, I was able to hunt because of someone else’s goodwill. His words flew straight into my chest and stuck there. I hate Do-Jin. I hate him. I really do. But at the same time, I like Do-Jin. I like him, I really like him.]

└ I fucking cried bro.

└ Fuck. I spent the entire day trying to find a party and gave up. I am just going to drink soju and call it a night.

└ The biggest problem with mages is that the hunting grounds where they are actually efficient are extremely limited. In some level ranges they are treated like nobility, and in other ranges where mages are useless, they are treated like untouchable peasants.

└ Give this guy the Nobel Prize in Literature this year. I have never read something that made tears stream down like this shit.

Do-Jin scratched the tip of his nose. “Is it really that bad? No way...”

Still, there were at least a few hunting grounds specialized for mages. It wasn’t like they were starving to death. In his own case, he had been some defective, weird-ass mage in his previous life, so he couldn’t properly take advantage of those places anyway.

Supply and demand was something Do-Jin was overlooking. Before he regressed, there hadn’t been many mages to begin with. The class had such a terrible reputation that very few people even bothered starting as one.

However, now that Do-Jin had hyped up the class like crazy, the mage population had exploded compared to the same period in the past. There were only so many party slots for mages, but the headcount had increased. It was no wonder their market value in the labor pool dropped tremendously.

“Well, even so, mages with good gear and real skill should still be competitive...”

Then again, the fact that they needed good gear and real skill just to maybe land a spot was already a problem. The mage class had a barrier to entry that was absurdly high.

Wait. The dungeon that guy mentioned earlier. Was it that one? If it’s the armor farming dungeon, that is basically free loot for a mage.

Do-Jin dug through his memory and found the information he needed. Instead of hunting the One-Eyed Giant, he decided to go after a massive serpent that was just as enormous.

Although its level was only 180, unless players properly dealt with the dungeon gimmick, its actual boss-level strength shot well past 200. In terms of performance, that would look way more impressive. And while he was at it, he could help out those poor bastards playing mages.

***

The key to clearing the Pit of the Undying Serpent was destroying the Life Stones scattered throughout the dungeon. Three Life Stones were placed across different areas, and every time players killed the named monster guarding one and smashed the stone, the final boss’s stats would drop.

Each stone reduced its defense, health regeneration, and attack power. The strategy that had become standard back then was to destroy only two stones, slip through a hidden passage to the ceiling of the boss room, and then unload damage on the boss from above. Some had called it a dirty trick or cheese, but the rewards were so good that the Pit of the Undying Serpent had quickly turned into a must-run dungeon that people rushed to clear the moment they could.

Right in the middle of all the chaos online, a single video went up on Do-Jin’s channel.

[Clip of Pit of the Undying Serpent Boss Clean Kill.]

Everyone who saw the notification had the same thought. Why the hell is Do-Jin going there?

Wasn’t this dungeon too ordinary for him to even bother uploading a video about? The level was low, and even the shock value of the words Clean Kill felt weak once the name Do-Jin was attached to it. However, the moment the video started playing, any thought that it was boring or mediocre vanished without a trace.

Huh? What the fuck is that? Why does that snake bastard have three horns on its head?

Every time a Life Stone inside the dungeon got destroyed, one of the horns attached to the Undying Serpent snapped off. A serpent that still had all three horns intact was, quite literally, close to being truly “undying.”

Its absurdly high physical and magical defense was a nightmare, and its health refilled way too fast. Some players even suspected that all three Life Stones were boosting the serpent’s maximum health at the same time. And yet the creature Do-Jin was facing in the video was an Undying Serpent whose three horns were still completely intact.

Everyone watching thought the same thing. That thing is not going to die, right?

No matter how high one’s DPS was, its health regenerated almost infinitely. The only option was to one-shot it, but all the viewers thought it was bullshit. If all the horns were intact, that monster was not even meant to be killed.

The serpent, carrying enough poison to drown the entire dungeon in venom, shrieked as it glared down at the human. It bared its fangs and drew in a long breath, compressing toxic fluid inside its body as it prepared to dissolve the irritating human without leaving a single bone behind.

Right... If all the horns are still there, that pattern comes out, Do-Jin recalled.

A Poison Breath that swept across an area so wide it was basically impossible to dodge. It was a near-wipe mechanic that only appeared when the horns were intact, forcing players to weaken it first by breaking at least one.

Yet Do-Jin didn’t move an inch from the spot where death was guaranteed. He simply kept doing what he had been doing. Anyone who watched him regularly recognized the startup sequence immediately. He opened the Golden Book, unfurled wings of golden mana, casually drank a potion, and lit a cigarette to stack buffs on himself.

The serpent stopped inhaling, and the sudden silence made it clear its next attack was ready. The viewers’ breaths stopped too, because they all knew exactly what came next.

He’s dead.

A hellish stream of continuous damage poured over him, enough to melt even the toughest tank in seconds. From that position, no one could dodge it no matter how hard they tried.

The instant the Poison Breath exploded outward with a thunderous boom, the camera angle snapped to a completely different position. Do-Jin had used Flash to shift far above the serpent that was spewing poison below.

“What the fuck?”

Half the viewers jerked upright at the completely unexpected turn. Then, the magic Do-Jin had been stacking one layer at a time roared to life.

A blazing coffin of fire wrapped around the massive serpent. His overwhelming stats, traits, elemental advantage, and the spell’s raw destructive power all stacked together, hammering the snake with the power of a storm.

The Undying Serpent’s grotesque regeneration only worked while the boss was still alive. Flame Coffin bypassed that entirely, burning through its life in a single burst. The video was short, but the shock it delivered was enormous. The ones hit hardest were, of course, mage players.

└ Hey, I’m gonna be honest. Am I the only one who feels kinda shitty about this? The mage board is full of posts from people crying because they can’t even get invited to parties that hunt this thing. It kinda feels like he is mocking everyone with this nonchalant vibe.

└ Yeah, it stings a little. I kept telling myself it wasn’t Do-Jin’s fault even when mages kept getting treated like shit, but honestly this one hits different.

From the moment the video went up, negative sentiment started creeping through the mage forums.

└ Lol, I told you all. That bastard Do-Jin is a fucking nutcase. You idiots kept kissing his ass because you liked how cool he looked. At least people are finally waking up to what he really is.

His anti-fans poked their heads out right on cue, though it only lasted a moment. Another video dropped immediately after and flipped the entire mood on its head.

[Even mages can kill the Undying Serpent. (Solo clear possible)]

Do-Jin had uploaded a cheese strategy from his own memories, a broken exploit route that nobody had even figured out yet. In a matter of minutes, the mage forum turned into a religious cult board.

└ Alright you bastards, today is conversion day.

└ I screenshotted every idiot who talked shit about our One True God and sent it to Rael HQ.