Chapter 76: The Calamities

In the dining room, when Smith heard what Jacob said and seeing the serious expression on his face, he knew that this was no light matter. He kept quiet and waited for Jacob to continue.

​Jacob remained silent for a moment to calm his out-of-control emotions. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Smith, you might not know this because I didn’t tell you at first—we thought it would never happen. But since it already has, I am just thankful you came out of there alive."

​He paused to organize his thoughts, looking at Smith before speaking again. "In order for you to understand this clearly, let me start by asking you a question. Since becoming a player, you have encountered and fought various species. You’ve likely noticed that all of them are supernatural beings assigned specific ranks, like Novice or Intermediate. Yet on our side, the only supernatural beings with ranks are players. Everyone else is just an ordinary human with no powers whatsoever."

​Smith nodded. He had actually been thinking about this exact issue for a long time, though he had assumed it was simply how the system functioned, so he had never brought it up.

​Jacob continued, "On the other side, creatures from different timelines or worlds are born as extraordinary beings because of their species. To put it simply, all creatures on the other side begin as ordinary members of their species, but upon reaching adulthood, they undergo awakening rituals. Their success rate is almost one hundred percent. In short, virtually every creature on the other side becomes a warrior once they mature it just that their potential may differ"

​He paused again to organize his thoughts before continuing.

​"Now, let’s look at us humans. Extraordinary beings only started appearing when the dungeons emerged on our world’s surface. We only have a little over a hundred years of history with awakened beings. On the other side, they have been awakening since time immemorial. They have a vastly richer history when it comes to supernatural powers. Even though their everyday technology might seem somewhat primitive compared to ours, our technology can only help us win against lower-ranked entities. When it comes to higher ranks, the technology we’ve prided ourselves on for thousands of years is entirely useless. Dungeon rules don’t apply there—meaning our technology only functions reliably on our home ground. So in terms of supernatural power, they hold an overwhelming advantage."

​Jacob took another breath before shifting topics. "Next is our player system. Among humans, the percentage of awakened individuals is only about one in a thousand. Everyone gets a chance to awaken, but very few are willing to take that gamble. You might think we hold the advantage because a single player can summon Queens—who can then deploy entire own pawns—making us the elite few while other species rely on mass production. But you would be dead wrong."

​He leaned forward, his voice dropping slightly. "During their awakening rituals, special individuals among them awaken unique, specialized powers. These individuals wield abilities that aren’t strictly ranked, but under the right conditions, they can be entirely overpowered. If you ever see one, there is only one rule: run away as fast as possible."

​"Take the Black Snake Man you encountered in the slaughterhouse, for example. Those types of ’Chosen Ones’ are what we call Controllers. They possess the ability to command members of their own species like puppets, granting them buffs like fearlessness, increasing various boost, heightened aggressiveness, and flawless tactical coordination. It’s as if someone is playing a strategy game, and his kin are merely playable units. The one you fought was not even fully mature, which is why he couldn’t showcase his higher-tier buffs—like directly multiplying the attack power of his people. Controllers only gain those abilities when they reach the Master rank. As they grow stronger, they gain more abilities and become exponentially more dangerous."

​Jacob looked Smith dead in the eye. "Given your situation, being able to kill that guy was a miracle. If you hadn’t killed him when you did, it’s questionable whether you would have made it out alive. When these Chosen Ones appear at higher ranks, we refer to them as Calamities. Taking one down requires a massive team of high-ranking players. Even if you manage to overpower them, nobody escapes unscathed—you always pay a heavy price in casualties. Sometimes, after paying that high price, you don’t even defeat them; you merely repel them to buy time."

​Hearing Jacob’s explanation, Smith felt a cold sweat break out across his back. He realized just how close to death he and his companions had come. The Black Snake Man had driven them to absolute limits, and that was just an immature controller. If they had faced a fully matured one, they would have been wiped out instantly. It was only through an extraordinary stroke of luck and a chain of lucky coincidences that they had managed to slay him. In his heart, Smith felt immense gratitude toward the Black Snake Man’s premature overconfidence and reckless, which had given them the narrow window they needed to succeed in eliminating him.

​Around them, the rest of the party was equally stunned. Astra sat in complete shock, realizing how narrowly they had dodged disaster. Diana, though unfamiliar with the technicalities of ranks, looked visibly worried—she could tell from the conversation that Smith had been playing with fire.

​"Jacob," Smith asked, breaking the silence, "how can I identify these Chosen Ones compared to normal creatures?"

"Some can be identified by their unique appearance or decorative and ornaments they wear but this is not absolute because other may decide to be low key"

​" but different Chosen Ones require different conditions to fully unleash their potential," Jacob explained. "A Controller needs a massive army to coordinate and buff, making standard battle tactics useless against them. Then there is another group known as Accumulators, who are the exact opposite of Controllers."

​"Instead of buffing and commanding an army, an Accumulator draws power from those around him. He connects directly with members of his own species, channeling their collective strength into himself. This gives him insanely high individual combat power—sometimes boosting his core stats to more than five times their base value. Accumulators aren’t usually accompanied by vast armies; they are typically surrounded by smaller groups of fifty to a hundred individuals. These surrounding creatures continuously channel energy into the Accumulator while still retaining their own ability to fight as emotionless thralls."

​Jacob held up two fingers. "Their weaknesses seem obvious on paper. For a Controller, you target the leader first; once he dies, the remaining army becomes significantly weaker and disorganized. For an Accumulator, you cut off his power sources—the surrounding thralls supplying him with energy—before finishing him off. But here is the catch: these two types often work together. When a Controller and an Accumulator team up, the difficulty doesn’t just double; it multiplies tenfold. They complement each other’s weaknesses perfectly, making them the most dangerous combination you can encounter."

​He paused, letting that sink in, before continuing. "There are other types as well. Tamers can directly summon tamed beasts from a personal sub-space to fight for them—much like how you summon your Queens, except they don’t have the same summon limits, they can tame as many as they can with no limit. Then there are Possessors, who can possess any member of their own species. They project their combat experience and power stats directly into that host body. If the host body gets critically damaged, the Possessor simply abandons it and jumps into another, while their real body remains safely hidden elsewhere."

​Jacob shook his head. "There are many other species-specific Chosen Ones, but Controllers and Accumulators are the two main archetypes found across almost every species. Encounters with them in lower ranks are exceedingly rare. For you to run into one this early... I don’t know whether to call it extremely bad luck or extremely good luck."

​As Jacob uttered that last sentence, his eyes suddenly lit up with realization. He turned to Smith with an excited, almost childlike expression.

​"Hey, Smith! After you killed that Black Snake Man... what loot did he drop?"

​Jacob looked at him expectantly. Smith blinked, momentarily puzzled by the sudden shift in demeanor. He knew Jacob held a high position within the Brown family, yet around him, Jacob was always relaxed, straightforward, and free of political pretense—which was precisely why Smith enjoyed talking with him so much.

​"To be honest, I haven’t checked the loot yet," Smith admitted. "I was in such a hurry to get everyone back safely from the slaughterhouse that I didn’t look at the item descriptions."

​Even Lily and the others hadn’t inspected the drops yet, as it was considered bad etiquette to inspect others loot while helping they clear the battlefield.

​Seeing the eager look on Jacob’s face, Smith didn’t waste any time. With a wave of his hand, he opened his inventory and pulled out all the items dropped by the Black Snake Man, laying them out before the group.