Damned System

Chapter 14. Main Server (1)

Three months had passed.

During that time, my daily life underwent many changes.

I quit my part-time job and started working at a construction site.

In the past, I would never have done such a thing.

“It’s dangerous.”

If there was an accident at the site, I could die.

Although I had never shied away from hard work, I always avoided dangerous tasks.

However, thanks to Mana, the situation had changed, and I had to find a way to make up for the lost income after quitting my package handling job.

The advantage was that I now had free time in the evenings.

I filled all that time with training.

I learned everything I could—hand-to-hand combat, dagger techniques, spear techniques, and combat skills that special forces learned.

I ended up spending almost all of the 10 million won I had earned from the rank-up test.

Over three months, spending over 2 million won each month drained my savings quickly.

It was painful, but I had no choice. I had to do everything possible to reduce the chance of dying.

“I should be satisfied with having bought laptops for the twins.”

After all, it was money that came unexpectedly.

And I soon realized that the money spent was well worth it, so I was able to move on without regret.

I was already able to control my body nearly perfectly, making my skills distinctive.

I even sparred with the director directly, which says enough.

“Enough, stop!”

The squad leader, who had been struck repeatedly with the sponge dagger, declared surrender.

I rose to my feet, taking deep breaths as his body lay beneath me.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“Wow, why are you getting more ruthless?”

The director clicked his tongue as he took my hand to stand up.

‘Because I want to live.’

I swallowed my bitter smile and held back my words.

The director, looking at me with a strange expression, spoke with a tense voice.

“I’m just saying, don’t cause any accidents, alright?”

Was it because of the increasingly fierce sparring recently?

The director looked at me with quite a wary gaze.

“No worries. I’m not learning this with bad intentions, like I said.”

“… Alright.”

Even though I said that, the suspicious look didn’t fade.

However, I didn’t intend to go out of my way to clear up any misunderstanding.

More accurately, there was no need for that.

Glancing down, I saw the reason.

“Main Server (Earth) Activation 99.997%”

There wasn’t much time left now.

It was a situation where I couldn’t know when the remaining percentage would increase.

And so, I planned to stop coming to the gym starting today.

Anyway, today was the last registration date for this month.

I finished my remaining exercises as always and left the gym.

I checked once more, but the sentence at the bottom of the view remained the same.

“Activation…”

The main server had undergone stabilization work and moved directly to the activation process.

This was different from when the tutorial started right after stabilization during the Beta test.

“It might just be that the tutorial message didn’t appear for me.”

It wasn’t an impossible scenario. I had completed the tutorial.

But what if that wasn’t it?

The system might have changed the progress order.

Right after the first tutorial, there was a slight delay before external access became possible.

The main server was surely larger in scale than the Beta server.

That delay inevitably had to be longer.

If this assumption was correct, the continuous stabilization and activation implied something clear.

“There’s a correction of errors happening.”

The system was improving issues based on information gathered during the Beta test.

Is there a GM managing the system like a typical game?

Or does the system itself have consciousness?

“What are you?”

Once again, I posed the question that had persisted throughout the past three months.

“Main Server (Earth) Activation 99.998%”

The system once again responded with the numbers displayed at the bottom of the view, as always.

It felt as if it was saying it could answer me soon.

“Soon.”

Repeating that short word, I started running.

Whenever I went home from the gym, I always ran like this.

It was part of my stamina training.

Breathing heavily, I soon slowed down.

I saw someone I met after starting at the gym.

“Grandma.”

“Oh, young man!”

“You’ve gathered a lot today, too.”

She was a grandmother who made a living collecting waste paper.

“It’s not much; these days, there’s no paper around, you know.”

“Yeah, right.”

I turned to look at the cart the grandmother was pulling.

Like there was a jackpot location somewhere, the grandmother’s cart was always piled up like a small hill.

“Seeing her drag this around every day, it seems grandma is pretty strong.”

She was a very spry elderly lady, her back not even bent.

But just watching felt uncomfortable to me.

Thinking about my grandparents, who had passed away when I was young.

So every time we met, I would help her home.

“Hurry up and get on. I have to go home.”

“I told you, I can do it by myself.”

“Just think you hit the jackpot.”

I carried the grandmother on my back and grabbed the cart’s handle to pull it along.

“How strong you are today too, eh!”

The grandmother started singing a rustic cheer.

“There aren’t many people stronger than me, you know?”

As trivial words spilled out and I giggled, a bit of the tension eased.

After escorting the grandmother home, I returned home at 10 o’clock.

After washing off the sweat and returning to my room, my final routine awaited me.

Mana training.

Over the last three months, I had raised my Mana Manipulation skills to over 40%.

It was the result of continuous effort without missing a single day, and the progress was not meaningless.

I focused on the red mist enveloping the dagger’s blade.

But it disappeared in less than 10 seconds.

“Phew.”

I brushed back my hair, which had already dried, and sighed.

“This is damned difficult.”

Enveloping an object with Mana was much more challenging than simply extracting it from my body.

Even when trying to envelop it, the Mana kept sliding away.

Nonetheless, I continued practicing without giving up, confident that this would save me.

When red Mana enveloped the blade, its power was beyond imagination.

“It pierced through rocks like they were tofu.”

I refocused and began my Mana Manipulation practice again.

While the duration couldn’t be called long, that was fine.

It was increasing slowly, but surely.

After spending a few more hours in training, it was time to sleep.

But instead of closing my eyes immediately, I murmured softly.

“Inventory.”

What I drew out was something I couldn’t use no matter what I did over the past three months.

The attribute stone, one of the rewards from the rank-up test.

I grasped the rainbow-colored stone and poured out Mana.

“Inject attribute Mana.”

But only the same sentence appeared, something I had seen countless times over the past three months.

From the message, it seemed like I needed to inject just the attribute Mana to use it.

The problem was that I couldn’t yet distinguish ordinary Mana from attribute Mana.

“Right now, the attribute Mana I have is 33.”

Perhaps, the minimum threshold for sensing Mana is truly 50.

If that’s the case, I might only be able to use it once the game resumes.

“Phew.”

I let out a long sigh and put the attribute stone back into the inventory.

It was really time for sleep.

A new system message appeared two days later.

* * *

I woke up at dawn to head to the construction site.

After having breakfast, washing up, and changing clothes, I was quickly ready to leave.

Just as I was about to put on my shoes and head out.

“Orabang…”

Yeonwoo approached, rubbing her eyes, coming out of her room.

“Why are you up already?”

I laughed as I wiped the sleep from her eyes.

“Take care on your way.”

Receiving Yeonwoo’s send-off felt empowering.

“Feeling reassured…”

As I was about to speak with a sunny smile, an unpleasant alert sound echoed for the first time in a long while.

“The Main Server (Earth) is activating.”

I shivered.

“Orabang? What’s wrong?”

But I soon chuckled as if nothing had happened.

“It’s nothing. I feel reassured as you see me off, but don’t come out next time and rest more. Don’t drowse during classes.”

“Yeah… I woke up because I needed to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay, I’ll be off then. Hurry back in.”

“Yeah…”

I watched Yeonwoo enter the bathroom and then left the house.

Soon after, I noticed that my field of view had changed.

“The interface has changed.”

To the left of my view, there were now several icons lined up, and at the bottom center was a minimized message window.

New messages kept appearing there.

Previously, messages had appeared directly in front of my view.

“This might actually be better.”

As I walked, I plucked the weeds I spotted along the way, without missing any.

“This isn’t bad.”

It was June, the time when summer approached after spring.

Unlike in February and March, there was green everywhere.

Thanks to that, it became easier to gather Mana bit by bit.

“I must have gathered over 100 Mana in the past three months.”

There’s a reason for the saying, “Many a little makes a mickle.”

I murmured as I watched the message indicating Mana absorption.

“Message window.”

By calling up the record, I could check the messages I had never been able to examine in detail.

“Main Server (Earth) Activation 100%”

“The Main Server (Earth) is activating.”

“Beta Server is shutting down.”

“System User Manual (Revised) is provided.”

“Player Status Window Function is updating.”

“Player Growth Program (Absorption and Purification) is updating.”

“Player Management Program (Summoning and Recovery) is updating.”

“Player Support Program (Inventory and Shop) is updating.”

“Player Exchange Program (Community and Party) is updating.”

“Hole Management Program (Allocation and Closure) is executing.”

“Mission List is updating.”

“First Stage Player Selection is in progress. (10,000/10,000)”

“Mana 0.9 absorbed.”

“Mana 0.4 absorbed.”

“Mana 0.5 absorbed.”

Those were all the messages that appeared before me.

Among them, a noticeable number caught my attention.

“Ten thousand?”

During the Beta test, there were 100 players who played the game with me.

This time, a hundred times more people are joining the game.

“What in the world…”

With so many people, what are they trying to do? My hands clenched unconsciously.

I struggled to suppress my agitation and thoroughly examined the message window.

Regarding the programs, I understood their meaning right away.

The Growth, management, support, and Exchange Programs had been revised based on the Beta test information.

However, the Hole Management Program was something new.

“This is suspicious…”

The Mana extraction in the rank-up test mission.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was related to that incident.

“This damned thing… are they planning to extract Mana, no matter what?”

I must be careful not to lose Mana when the next mission begins.

“Damn.”

After a brief click of my tongue, I opened the revised system user manual.

Despite hoping otherwise, there wasn’t much difference from the damaged version.

It was simply organized and cleaned up, removing broken characters.

Consequently, the shop details I had been curious about remained the same.

「Shop」

– Sells items to assist player maintenance and growth.

– Conduct player-to-player transactions in the auction tab.

– Order custom items in the order tab.

It was everything I had read once before.

Having seen enough explanations, now was the time to check the actual content.

“Shop.”

As I murmured softly, one of the icons lined up on the left side expanded.

This time, it was a white window unlike before.

There were a total of five tabs: Technique, equipment, medicine, order, and Auction.

I had a vague idea of what the Order and Auction were about.

So I decided to check the contents of the other tabs one by one.

When I opened the Technique tab, the first thing that caught my eye was the price.

“Mana, huh.”

All prices were measured in Mana.

Does it mean to equip oneself using the absorbed Mana?

Thinking about the system’s intention, while skimming through the first page, I saw a familiar term.

“Mana Manipulation Method.”

“Huh?”

I had a total of four traits.

The question marks, Purify, and the Mana Manipulation I was currently looking at.

With the main server’s activation, it had moved from traits to a skill category, but me having it didn’t change.

I didn’t expect to see that in the shop.

What on earth is going on? I quickly opened my status window.

Player Kang Hyunwoo (Beta Tester)

Mana: 1563.48 (Attribute Mana: 33)

Chaos Rate: 0.00%

Affiliation: Earth

Race: Human (Player)

Rank: Alpha

Attribute: –

Skills: Mana Manipulation (41.19%), Sensory Expansion (11.17%)

Traits: ?????, adaptability, tenacity, Purify (lv.1 – 15.11%)

Some of what had been categorized as traits had moved to the skill tab.

“Come to think of it, they said the status window function was updated, right?”

With a sudden idea, I clicked on the contents in the status window, and a new window popped up.

「Adaptability」

– Category: Trait (Talent)

– Description: Learners without bias toward new things quickly acquire new knowledge. Acquiring new skills becomes easier, and you can adapt quickly to learned skills.

– Effect: 100% increase in the chance of acquiring personal skills, 30% increase in skill proficiency rate.

「Tenacity」

– Category: Trait (Habit)

– Description: The habit of clinging to things until the end enhances concentration. Proficiency in various skills increases quickly during concentration.

– Effect: 20% increase in proficiency rate.

It was the moment when the mystery that had been lingering within me was unveiled.

Over the past three months, I had tried to teach Mana Manipulation to Ethan.

And Ethan only succeeded in managing Mana after over a month’s effort.

Verbal explanations may have been used, but compared to me, it took him way too long, which was odd.

“I finally understand.”

This Adaptability trait increases the potential for players to acquire skills with personal ability, without system assistance.

Without this trait, it’s hard for Ethan to learn Mana Manipulation on his own without the system’s help.

Once I understood this, the next was understanding the classification of traits.

I couldn’t figure out the standard for distinguishing talent from habit, but I understood the difference.

“Talent is a higher trait than habit.”

It was evident even from the numbers listed under the effects.

Adaptability not only has proficiency increment effects, but its growth rate is also a staggering 30%.

On the other hand, tenacity, despite lacking additional effects, only achieves a 20% increment.

“Is it like an advanced version?”

Questions were brief. I had already checked the effects, and those effects were beneficial to me.

“I’ve been uneasy, wondering what effects there were, but now I feel relieved.”

Feeling much lighter, I clicked on Sensory Expansion.

「Sensory Expansion (11.17%)」

– Category: Permanent Skill
– Description: Increases sensory sensitivity and expands the perception area.

– Effect: Sensory extension (Perception ratio 1:2)

Essentially, it increases sensory sensitivity, and makes one second feel like two.

It corresponded precisely to what I had experienced personally.

Lastly, I checked the question mark trait, but nothing appeared.

“Damn.”

Having concluded my status window review, I returned my focus to the shop.

Before long, I had to tear my gaze away.

Besides the Mana Manipulation Method, the majority began at the thousands.

Some items even went beyond that in their figures. It was a tab that had nothing to do with me for now.

‘Let’s gradually check later for anything useful.’

Passing the Technique tab, I skimmed the Equipment tab but found high prices were the norm here as well.

Letting out a deep sigh, I swiftly moved onto the Medicine tab.

This time, unlike what I had seen so far, low-priced items immediately caught my eye.