Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 200

“Oh wow~ That looks like a Homunculus! Or maybe a Chimera created using the power of a God!”

‘Stop admiring that!’

Ji-Cheok pushed his Qi into his Sun Moon Swords. He combined the two Sword Qi blades to create one giant Sword Qi blade with the power of both fire and ice.

‘[Heaven and Earth Chaotic Divine Art]! [Heaven and Earth Thousand Split]!’

The Sword Qi blade began to distort, split into dozens of Sword Qi beams, and struck the monsters that were clustering into a huge mass.

“Wow! That’s amazing!”

“I had no idea a Sword Qi user could gather that much power in such a short amount of time!”

As Ji-Cheok heard his team members exclaim in admiration…

Slash!

The monster split into dozens of pieces, half of which were instantly burned to ashes and the other half frozen. At the same time, Ji-Cheok landed on the ground safely.

“Whew…”

‘This cave is chaotic. It’s especially tricky that I don’t know how my enemies are going to change their form…’

“Just as we expected… We tried to level up as much as possible, but still, we’re not comparable to Ji-Cheok. You’re so strong! How the hell did you just do that?”

Ha-Na was in awe at the ease with which Ji-Cheok had just slayed the monster.

Ding!

[Fellow Hunters greatly admire you.]

[You have received 10 Likes.]

‘Well, that reaction is understandable, since I have a tremendous amount of Qi and my attacks are explosive.’

“I hope there will be some clues from inside this cave,” Ha-Na said while staring at the darkness inside the cave.

“Then, we will go according to our plan,” Ji-Han said.

Everyone nodded.

“I guess it’s my turn~”

Reable stepped forward and put one hand on his hip and pointed to the ceiling with his other hand. Rather than a combat stance, It looked like he was in a banquet hall, ready to dance.

“Move!”

‘That’s it? You’re just gonna do that?’

While Ji-Cheok looked at him in disbelief, several magic circles appeared around Reable and then disappeared. Then, the black energy that rose from his body headed for the corpse pieces that were still intact. They started to wriggle, and then they moved toward each other, sticking close together.

Reable had just created another five Abominations.

This particular Abomination was actually a kind of Undead Golem created by stitching together a bunch of corpses. Well, it was technically?a Golem, but for all practical and visual purposes, it was a true-blue Undead monstrosity.

“Let’s go,” Ji-Han said without any emotions.

The team started going deeper into the cave.

* * *

The Undead Golem rushed in first.

“Kwoooo!”

Monster attacks that included wind blades, fire javelins, and lightning hammers struck the Abomination square. Any normal Golem would have immediately exploded from these attacks, but this fat and bulky Abomination, about three meters tall, actually withstood everything! Reable and Seong Kwang didn’t even need to use their special buff skills. It was all because of the [Fortitude] effect of the Heirloom Seal of the Realm that Ji-Cheok possessed.

It was a buff that increased all physical stats, including Defense, Stamina, and Strength! The fact that the Undead Golem survived those attacks without being blasted to pieces proved that this buff, which could be used by simply possessing the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, was quite powerful.

Boom!

Eventually, the Abomination successfully got close to the enemies and started to beat them up mercilessly. The enemies were bizarrely mutated, but with all the horns and tentacles, they were still more or less the size of an average human. A single punch from the Abomination broke bones and splattered the blood of the enemies on the ground.

Pow! Pow! Crack!

“Kiiieek!”

“Krrrieek!”

The mutants were screaming in pain. Since the Abomination didn’t have a brain, it obviously couldn’t use a taunt skill, but for some reason, the monsters were obsessed with the big Undead Golem.

In the meantime, Ji-Cheok used his skill.

“Activate Soul Telekinesis.”

Crack!

Ji-Cheok gathered the enemies together with this skill, just like last time. It was as if an invisible hand just swept all enemies in one move and squashed them into a ball.

Just like that, it was game over.

The corpses of the monsters were then reborn as Undead Golems. When Reable finished patching everything up, the twenty-first Abomination took its place next to the others.

‘Dude… Isn’t that kinda overpowered? At this rate, he’s going to make an army of these things.’

“That’s it for me! It is difficult to maintain this many Abominations. It would be easier if I just made an army of normal Undead.”

‘Is he reading my mind? How is it possible that he says he’s going to stop right when I think about how overpowered his skill is?’

“This is good enough. Ugh, with this many Abominations, I don’t think the team needs me…” Ji-Byeok said.

Reable waved his hands in disagreement.

“How is that possible~ These Undead, although they look a bit bulky, will quickly disappear in the boss fight. Besides, these can’t even taunt enemies! They are only good for killing weaklings.”

‘That’s a lie. I know that you can put them all together into one big clump.’

Ji-Cheok muttered that to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud. Thanks to Reable’s encouragement, it looked like Ji-Byeok had regained her energy.

“Good! You can trust me!” Ji-Byeok said, banging her gauntlets together.

They continued their way inside. It was like a maze—specifically, a maze with booby traps at every corner. However, it wasn’t that difficult to move forward, as they used the Abominations as a sacrifice for the traps. They also helped a lot in combat, taking care of the monsters in their way.

‘Come to think of it, my team members are amazing! Even without that Reable…’

They went through several crossroads and sometimes came across dead ends and had to go back. There were no traces of anything in the cave. There were no murals or objects from other dimensions at all. The monsters that appeared were all mutants, and they didn’t have any weapons or armor.

It was just like the dungeon description said. This place was abandoned.

After taking down the who-knew-how-many-th monster in their path, Ji-Han finally let them rest.

“Let’s stop here. It’s time for a meal and a break.”

When Ji-Cheok looked at the [Absolute Time] watch that Ji-Han had given him as a gift, he noticed that it was just past lunchtime.

‘How the hell does he know exactly when it’s time to eat? Is it because he has time-related abilities?’

“Alright, let’s wash first. Please come here one by one. Yes. Clean.”

Ji-Cheok used his Clean magic spell. This was a very useful spell, as it instantly washed away all the filth. He used the spell on each of his team members.

“Wow… I don’t think I can ever hunt without you again, Ji-Cheok. I feel so refreshed!”

“Thanks to Brother Ji-Cheok, my body feels so clean! Thank you!”

“Ji-Cheok, don’t ever leave us~”

“Haha, you’re welcome. Let’s start preparing for the meal.”

Ji-Cheok took out a few things from the Shadow Pouch. Since they were the only ones here, he had nothing to worry about. He took out cooking utensils, tables, plates, water, other beverages, and food ingredients. As he completed the ad-hoc outdoor kitchen, Mu-Cheok came by his side and started cooking.

Surprisingly, Mu-CHeok was the best cook among the team members. He cooked rice with the rice cooker and made soup. In the meantime, Ji-Cheok took out some kimchi, cut it, and brought out a few other side dishes.

‘...I am certain that we are the only ones who can eat like this in a dungeon.’

?I think if you made mukbang videos inside a dungeon, you could earn more Likes, Master.?

‘I think so too.’

There was beef and radish soup, rice, braised beef in soy sauce, kimchi, dried seaweed, and stir-fried potato and ham on the table.

‘Maybe we can have a barbecue later and do like a barbecue mukbang on GodTube.’

?That is a great idea, Master!?

‘Hm… A mukbang inside a dungeon… It’s not a bad idea.’

“Oh wow… I can’t believe I’m eating beef and radish soup inside a dungeon…”

“Ji-Byeok, look! That’s braised beef in soy sauce! Braised freakin’ beef!”

“This is not good. Thanks to Brother Ji-Cheok, my palate has become even more sophisticated. I think it’s going to be hard to go to other dungeons without you.”

“Don’t other teams hire Porters?” Ji-Cheok asked.

Porters were Hunters with subspace-type skills like Ji-Cheok’s Shadow Pouch. Although these Hunters weren’t as powerful as others, it was still pretty expensive to hire them. Just like the place they were exploring, dungeons four-star or above were often so expansive that storage size could make the difference between life and death.

“That’s because Porters usually enter a dungeon as members of a fixed team. It’s not that there aren’t Porters who work as freelancers, but those are rare. As for finding a Porter who has as great a transport capacity as you, that’s just a pipe dream,” Ha-Na said.

Ji-Cheok nodded

‘So she’s saying it’s difficult to find such Hunters. I get it.’

“But didn’t they stop calling them Porters these days? I thought they were now called Transporters,” Reable intervened.

“Transporter is the official name of their job. But everyone always says what they are comfortable with. By the way, Reable, aren’t you a foreigner? How do you know so much about this stuff?”

“I have a very special magic skill. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it before… It’s called the Internet~”

“Whoa! I have that spell too!”

‘These guys are good at cracking jokes.’

While they were eating their meal, Ji-Han started to talk with a serious expression.

“I want all of you to listen while you eat. This is about the boss in this cave.”

Everyone listened.

“I am telling this to you now because the information I have obtained is restricted. There are parts that I cannot reveal until a certain point.”

“We understand, Director.”

Everyone nodded at Ji-Han’s words as if they already knew what the problem was.

“Great. That makes it easier to tell you. The boss monster of this cave is called [Fused Mutant]. It can use eight skills at once and the cooldown for each skill is one or two seconds. Also, the boss monster can easily break any taunt skills.”

“So the timing of my taunt skills would be very important,” Ji-Byeok said while clenching her first.

“Yes. Also, there is no way of knowing which skill it is going to use. It can use debuffs, attack skills, or skills that can change the environment... The possibilities are endless. It can even use skills that hurt itself.”

“Jesus…” Ha-Na said.

Her comment was exactly what Ji-Cheok thought.

“If we want to kill it in a standard way, we have to keep blocking his skills, constantly deal damage to it, and finally take out the Fragment of the God, which is the Core…. However, it’s a real pain to kill it that way. We have to think outside the box.”

‘Outside the box?’

“The key player in this plan is Um Ji-Cheok. Can you use your [Augmented Qi]?”

“Yes.”

As he had increased the rank of the [Heaven and Earth Chaotic Divine Art] to A, he had become able to use [Augmented Qi]. He had already shared that information before entering the dungeon. The reason why he didn’t use it on a normal basis was that it ate up a lot of his Qi. Even though he had increased his Qi capacity with various supplementary skills, he still couldn’t afford to sustain the [Augmented Qi] for too long.

“That’s the keyword for this strategy.”

Ji-Han began to explain.

* * *

They went deeper into the cave, killing all the mutants along the way. The monsters were not strong enough to pose a problem, and since they were still inside the dungeon, they didn’t have to worry about the monsters respawning. However, in order to kill this boss monster more easily, they had to kill all the other mutants in the cave. Otherwise, the boss monster could absorb the surviving mutants and become even stronger.

When they finally found themselves in front of the boss room, all that remained for them to deal with was the boss monster.

“O, great cow! Please give us thy milk and protect our spirits!”

Seong Kwang applied a buff on everyone first. It was a mental protection blessing. With his Chronicler skills, Mu-Cheok also applied buffs on himself and others. Ji-Cheok also gave everyone all the buffs he could. Then, he took out the Hope shield.

“Alright, I’m going to open it.”

Ji-Byeok’s arm muscles swelled up. She grabbed the handles on the giant stone gate and pushed it inward. With a loud screech, the stone gate opened.

The boss room was almost completely empty and about the size of two football fields. The only thing decorating it was a magical ball of light on the ceiling, which illuminated the entire cave.

In the middle of the cave, the boss monster was waiting for them alone.