Chapter 89: Online Reputation
Alex could not help chuckling at the sight.
Mia always acted as though she disliked everyone. In reality, she had an especially soft spot for children and never refused to play with them. Even back at the apartment building, the children had constantly chased after her.
The memory made Alex’s smile slowly fade.
He remembered the apartment, and bodies lying motionless in the corridors.
A surge of emotions rose inside him. His first instinct was to activate Battle Instinct Spell to full power and suppress them through heightened focus, but he stopped himself before doing so.
He could not depend on the spell forever. If he buried every painful emotion behind enhanced focus, they would only grow heavier over time. Some things had to be faced normally.
Alex quietly walked over to a corner and sat down. He allowed the emotions to wash over him without resisting them, even as thoughts of his family returned once again. He hoped they were safe.
He took several slow breaths until his heartbeat settled. Panicking would not bring him to them any faster, and rushing ahead blindly could easily lead him into a monster he could not defeat. He had become much stronger than before, but he refused to let that strength turn into arrogance.
His growth over the past few hours had been almost unbelievable, yet he knew he shouldn’t let that go to his head. There were definitely monsters stronger than him, and he needed to keep growing stronger instead of becoming satisfied with what he had already achieved.
Confidence was important, but overconfidence was something he couldn’t afford.
After calming himself, Alex took out his phone and opened Dwitter. The mobile interface was terrible, with cramped menus and sluggish scrolling that made everything unnecessarily frustrating.
Normally he would have used his laptop, but that was no longer an option after it had been burned beyond repair inside his backpack when the spear’s explosion ignited the flames.
The internet connection was surprisingly stable, allowing the app to load almost immediately.
The familiar trending topics appeared on San Francisco’s local page, with titles like [Relativity of Ranks], [Beast Monarchs], and [Time Dilation] filling the top of the feed.
Alex barely glanced at them before moving toward his inbox, planning to check whether anyone had contacted him about the Mana Circuit Spell. He needed it for his Class Evolution.
Just before he tapped the message icon, another trending post caught his eye.
The title read [Strength and Weaknesses of Alex Mercer], making his finger stop in midair.
Curious, he opened the post, intending to give it nothing more than a quick read.
The author was a Warrior named Stefan, who apparently analyzed the short video Alex uploaded earlier showing his Fire Bullet spell.
Based on that brief demonstration, Stefan confidently concluded that Alex excelled in long-range combat but was weak in close combat. He even claimed that Alex was trying to exchange the Body Reinforcement Spell for the Mana Circuit Spell because he could not use Body Reinforcement Spell, and it was useless in his hand.
Stefan continued explaining his reasoning as though the conclusion was obvious. If the Body Reinforcement Spell were truly valuable, Alex would never trade it away.
Meanwhile, the fact that he wasn’t offering Fire Bullet as part of the exchange supposedly proved that Fire Bullet was the superior spell, and what he excelled in.
The comment section had already turned into a battlefield. Stefan seemed to have built a decent reputation among the survivors, and some Ascendants even claimed to have fought alongside him.
Because of that, many readers accepted his conclusions without questioning them.
Quite a few Warriors and Priests immediately joined the discussion to criticize Alex, fanning the flames, while the Mages rushed to defend him.
Mage James seemed to be leading the arguments on the Mage side, replying to almost every accusation that appeared. The debate only became louder as more people joined in.
The Mages argued that Fire Bullet couldn’t be used without a Fire Wand, so it made perfect sense that Alex wasn’t using it for trade.
The Warriors refused to accept that explanation and insisted Alex was avoiding close combat because he simply wasn’t capable of fighting there.
Some even claimed a Level 3 monster could defeat him if it managed to get within striking distance.
Although the Mages defended Alex, it was obvious they shared the same assumption. They believed he was an exceptional long-range fighter, but a mediocre close-range one.
The only difference was that they considered it a normal weakness for someone with the Mage class.
Alex stared at the screen for a moment before clicking his tongue.
’What the hell is wrong with these people? Why are they wasting their time arguing about something so pointless?’ he thought, closing the comments without bothering to read any further.
Even so, he noticed that Dwitter itself had changed quite a bit. Compared to the first few hours of the apocalypse, there were far fewer meaningless posts cluttering the feed.
Most discussions now revolved around class builds, spell/skill/technique combinations, monster abilities, or reports from nearby areas, which made the platform far more useful than before.
That was probably why Stefan’s post had spread so quickly. People were genuinely trying to analyze different classes and understand how powerful Ascendants actually fought. Naturally, among powerful Ascendants the name of Alex appeared.
It wasn’t simply gossip anymore, even if many of the conclusions were completely wrong.
Alex was actually relieved to see that change. It meant people were finally beginning to take the apocalypse seriously instead of acting like it was a game, or pretending everything would return to normal in a few days.
Of course, the reason behind that shift was obvious. Stronger monsters were appearing everywhere, forcing survivors to accept reality whether they wanted to or not.
As for Stefan’s conclusions, Alex didn’t care in the slightest. He didn’t need approval from strangers on the internet, and he certainly wasn’t going to waste time correcting them.
Weak in close combat? They couldn’t be more wrong. Alex could temporarily match a Level 10 monster in raw physical strength, something that should have been impossible for a Mage.
Monsters naturally possessed better physical attributes than Ascendants of the same level, and the system classes were quite similar to games, meaning mages should be weak in close combat, yet Alex had already broken those assumptions with ease.
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