Former Ranker's Newbie Life

Chapter 77

The moment Do-Jin stepped onto the second Challenge Floor, a wave of helplessness hit him like a truck. His body felt off from the start, like something vital had been yanked out of him.

[You have entered a Challenge Floor.]

[A new Challenge Floor penalty has been applied.]

[Item usage is now restricted.]

[All non-spirit races will have their stats reduced by 50%.]

The penalty from Floor 8 had already restricted his item usage, and that restriction was still in effect. Now, just for not being a spirit, his stats were slashed in half. Even though some people liked to say Regenians were similar to spirits, Do-Jin’s system-registered race was still Human. That meant no exceptions applied to him.

His body felt unnaturally heavy, like he was dragging weights with every movement, and his internal mana activity had dropped to a crawl. His limbs were slow, his reflexes dulled. He could feel the fatigue dragging him down like a lead blanket.

The numbers alone are bad, but the way this feels is completely insane, he thought.

In that moment, it finally made sense why not a single player had made it past Floor 9 in his past life. However, he didn’t have time to sit around and think about it. A violent gust of wind surged from the front, and a system message flashed in the air.

[The Guardian has appeared.]

[Wind Demon: Piercing Gale]

[Defeat the Guardian and prove your strength.]

The monster that appeared from the very start was a wind spirit shaped like a warrior. It stirred the air with a low, drawn-out hum, and a sharp gust swept through the space as if the room itself had taken a breath. Without any warning, the thing gave a single nod and reached for its sword.

What it drew wasn’t even a real blade. There was no metal, no solid form. It was wind, violent, unstable, and twisted into the shape of a weapon. The edge rippled with razor-sharp pressure, and the tip shivered with a deadly kind of anticipation, like it was already looking forward to tearing through something.

The moment it shifted, Do-Jin moved. He didn’t stop to think. He didn’t check where he was going. He just threw himself to the side with everything he had.

A harsh crack rang out as a blade of wind sliced through the spot he had been standing in. A moment’s hesitation would’ve left him in pieces.

There’s no fucking way I can react to that by sight...

The thought hadn’t even settled before Piercing Gale vanished. It didn’t leap or dash at him. Instead, it broke apart into a surge of howling wind and came barreling toward him like a freight train.

Do-Jin clenched his jaw and forced his half-dead body through the casting of Flame Pillar. For some reason, it took longer than usual, like his Magic Circuits could only function at half capacity. Every step of the process felt like pushing through cold sludge.

By the time he scraped enough mana together, the bastard was already right on top of him. It had reformed into that swordsman shape and adjusted its grip on the blade, the tip already aimed at his chest.

Finally, the spell activated. A pillar of flame erupted from the floor and roared upward, blasting heat through the air. The scorching fire surged up and slammed into Piercing Gale, wrapping its body in blazing heat. However, the flames were only strong enough to peel away a few layers of wind, leaving the core completely intact. The monster didn’t even blink.

“Fuck...”

The spell was completely ineffective, and now he was wide open. The sword came down hard and slammed into his right shoulder. There wasn’t even a hint of resistance. The blade carved through his shoulder and down to his chest as if his body had suddenly turned into warm butter.

“Khk! Goddam—”

Blood surged up his throat and choked him before he could spit out another word. He didn’t even get the chance to scream.

Two patterns was all it had shown...

That was the last thing that crossed his mind before his world went dark.

***

“This is fucking ridiculous.”

Do-Jin opened his eyes inside the capsule and let out a long sigh. He honestly couldn’t believe what had just happened.

I thought I’d at least get to see a few more attack patterns.

Do-Jin actually knew quite a bit about Piercing Gale, as it was one of the rare monsters with an extremely rigid and predictable pattern.

Every encounter starts the same. It always opens with Gale Blade, and whether you dodge it or block it, it follows up immediately with Wind Step to close the gap, then goes straight into a vertical slash.

After that, Piercing Gale enters a wind-charging phase. While dishing out basic attacks, it builds up wind energy to power its next skill. Players often referred to this cooldown window as a monster’s “downtime.”

You can tell how much wind it’s charged by how many gales are swirling around its sword. Its weakness element is fire. And... it tries to cast an instant-death skill once its HP drops below a certain threshold.

From that point, all Do-Jin had to do was kill the thing before it finished casting. In theory, he had every part of the fight down.

But even with all that knowledge, I still got my ass handed to me...

The stat reduction was worse than expected. His movements were sluggish, and Piercing Gale was way faster than it had looked in the videos. It was a vicious cycle where the reduced stats made him slower, which, in turn, made the fight even harder.

To top it off, Piercing Gale is just a bad matchup for mages.

Do-Jin already had paper-thin defenses as it was, and now he was going up against an enemy with high attack power, aggressive gap closers, and even the occasional ranged attack. Piercing Gale was practically built to counter mages. Nevertheless, Do-Jin wasn’t discouraged.

I know I can beat it. The real problem is what comes after.

All it would take to get through this fight was practice, drilling the patterns into his body until reacting became second nature. However, Piercing Gale wasn’t the only one. There were still two more bastards waiting after him, namely Munda the Stone Bird and Kusa the Fire Serpent. Both of them were just as bad as the first, maybe even worse because no one had ever managed to beat all three in a row. In fact, not a single player had ever made it past Kusa.

All the teams that looked like they were going to clear the floor eventually got fucked by the lack of potions. This limit on consumable items is seriously annoying.

Do-Jin had a trump card ready. However, he could only use it once. If he wanted to stand a real chance of clearing this floor, he would need to take out Munda without using it. He had to save all his cards for Kusa.

This is a goddamn gamble with my Floor 8 reward on the line. If I fuck this up, it’s over.

They say a man became stronger when he had something to protect. Do-Jin never had a family, so he wouldn’t say anything about that, but he sure as hell was going to protect the reward he had staked on Floor 9. With good reason to be desperate, he logged back into the virtual world with his eyes filled with determination.

He had used up one attempt, which meant he had four entries left. Each ticket cost a fortune, so he couldn’t afford to waste even one. Every single run needed to count. Despite his conviction, however, he failed to take down Piercing Gale in any of his remaining runs that day. Something told him this floor was going to be one hell of a long, miserable grind.

“Haa... I might as well eat and take a break.”

Either way, he wouldn’t be able to re-enter the tower again today. There was no point in getting hung up about it. Managing his condition was more important right now. When he stepped outside the capsule, Chun Ji-Hyun had already gone home for the day. He stared at the fridge full of health food for a moment, then shook his head and pulled out his phone.

“Fuck it. I’m getting some tteokbokki today.”

Nothing beat junk food when it came to blowing off steam.

***

Its attack patterns were simple, and what needed to be done was clear. The problem was how difficult it was to pull off. This was the kind of enemy where the challenge lay entirely in execution. Every move it made was fast and brutal. If his reaction or decision-making lagged even a tenth of a second, his breathing would break rhythm, and that was all it took to die.

The tempo of the fight was relentless, and losing the rhythm even once could be fatal. Still, Do-Jin kept at it. He used all five of his daily entries every single day without fail. On the fourth day, he finally managed to bring it down. There was no time to rest, because the next named monster still had to be dealt with.

[A new Guardian has appeared.]

[Defeat Munda the Stone Bird and prove your strength.]

Just like Piercing Gale, Munda was a completely different beast when faced in person. It flew around hurling earth-elemental attacks using spirit magic.

What the fuck kind of rock flies that fast?

Despite being made of solid stone, the thing soared through the air like it weighed nothing. While the attacks weren’t as fast or lethal as Piercing Gale’s, they had a much wider area of effect.

Do-Jin jumped this way, then that way. He threw up a shield with a rushed spell, only for the bird to swoop in for a hit and quickly retreat before he could even catch his breath. Compared to Piercing Gale, Munda was easily more annoying.

While Do-Jin struggled through that nightmare, more and more parties began clearing Floor 8 and entering Floor 9. Thanks to the footage he had already shared, far more teams were getting through the Spider’s Domain faster than they had in his previous life. Progress reports kept rolling in from top-ranking raid teams focused on stable compositions and textbook strategies.

「The Spear Guild has finally taken down the second guardian, Munda. Will they claim the title of the first-clear party once again?」

「The Korean guild Myth also took down Munda. Can Korea once again prove itself as a dominant force in the gaming world?」

With the Star of Ruin debuff tying every player’s fate together, interest in the tower was higher than ever. Every new update about raid progress pushed public hype even further.

「This was the real stop. The fire serpent, Kusa, was wiping out every raid team that tried to push past.」

「Spear issued an official statement: ‘With the current specs, Kusa is impossible. No raid party is going to take that thing down.’」

「Even with maxed-out fire resistance, surviving inside Kusa’s domain was nearly hopeless. Is there really no way forward?」

Unfortunately, the good news didn’t last long. The parties that had crushed the flying stone bird now had to face the blazing serpent, Kusa. Its specialty was turning the entire battlefield into a constant burn zone with its signature ability, Flame Domain. That meant every single player was under the effect of steady, unavoidable fire damage. With all stats halved from the Challenge Floor penalties, surviving that kind of sustained damage was a nightmare.

Healers wouldn’t be able to keep up when their efficiency was cut in half. Potions were no better, since the number of consumables was limited. With constant tick damage coming in without pause, there was no way for those items to even be effective in the first place.

「Even a team running one tank, one healer, and three spiritualists failed against Kusa. Tower of Trials clearly failed at basic difficulty tuning.」

Major guilds poured in obscene amounts of money trying to build new compositions and strategies to beat Kusa. However, none of them succeeded. This time, even regular players weren’t pointing fingers or throwing blame. Just watching the streams was enough to tell that this fight wasn’t designed to be cleared yet.

When the light of the Star of Ruin flared up again and the curse of Laves spread its foul effects across the field, most players started to accept it for what it was. Around that time, Do-Jin finally took Munda down and was also facing off with the fire serpent, Kusa.

There’s no point in doing a practice run without a healer... Do-Jin thought this to himself as his HP plummeted under the pressure of Kusa’s Flame Domain.

This fight wasn’t going to be about learning or testing strategies. It was time to settle everything in one shot.

“I guess we’ll see. Either my trump card hits harder, or that fucking snake does.”

Kusa’s blazing red eyes locked onto him. Almost instantly, Do-Jin’s body, drained of every last bit of health, turned to blackened charcoal. Their first encounter couldn’t have been more intense.