Chapter 51

“Even third-rate would be too good for such sloppy techniques, but considering those fundamentals… You are second-rate!”

The booming voice rang out across the sparring platform, echoing loudly around the area.

The users watching clicked their tongues and began adding their own commentary.

“Look at that attitude.”

“Even the NPCs in Demonic Cult are weird. Seriously.”

“But another second-rate came out.”

“Isn’t that nickname a ranker?”

“Same with the guy who got third-rate earlier… Ahem.”

“Hey hey. Everyone can hear you.”

ThirdElder sat quietly, pretending to analyze the streamer’s video with intense focus.

He was embarrassed.

But even if he tried to ignore it, there was no way to block out the conversation coming from behind him.

And if he could hear it, that meant the viewers watching his stream could hear it too.

-Most of them really are getting low ratings

-That one guy who got third-rate by himself lol

-Just wait, I’m coming too!

Sigh.

‘I need to retake the test quickly.’

But if he got rated as third-rate again like before, it would truly be a disaster, so he was just being more careful in his preparation.

Clunk clunk.

The user who had just been rated as second-rate came down from the sparring platform.

Worn-out clothes, a gourd-like item hanging from his waist, and as the finishing touch, a club slung over his shoulder.

It was like.

“Wow. He really looks like a beggar.”

“Hey hey, he can hear you.”

More voices came from behind again.

ThirdElder wanted desperately to nod vigorously.

Where did the sword he was holding during the swordplay demonstration go, and when did he switch to a club?

Plus, how did he manage to pick such a beggar-like nickname?

[OnlyOneWon]

“Ah, please don’t come over here.”

It didn’t smell, but for some reason it was a visual he didn’t want to get close to.

“Wow, that’s really hurtful to hear.”

“Then you shouldn’t have gone with that concept.”

He had a handsome face, but how did he end up going down that path?

“Someone who chose Demonic Cult shouldn’t be the one to talk. Does it make sense for a middle schooler to have an adult avatar? Huh? I was shocked when I first met you in real life.”

“Let’s not talk about real life…”

When ThirdElder showed reluctance, OnlyOneWon shrugged and sat down next to him.

The place they were sitting was the spectator seats that had a clear view of the sparring platform below.

Someone unknown was climbing up onto the sparring platform.

“Sigh, fine. But who would have thought I’d get second-rate! This doesn’t make sense!”

“It makes sense.”

“Why? Oh right. You were third-rate, weren’t you? Pfft.”

OnlyOneWon laughed heartily at him.

If he just wore proper clothes, he’d be no different from a young noble.

Right now he was just a beggar.

Looking at his face, a handsome beggar.

And that made it even more annoying.

-That’s unique too

-Shouldn’t you return your Peak Master title lol

-I’m almost there!

OnlyOneWon burst into laughter beside him and ThirdElder narrowed his eyes.

“No, I meant that in the sense that I could get a low rating if I went right away…”

Sigh.

ThirdElder exhaled and focused on the screen playing in front of him again.

How much time had passed already? There were posts analyzing every single movement.

“You’re right though. If you go right after watching, you’re bound to get it wrong.”

“Right? That’s what I was trying to say.”

“Still, third-rate is a bit much. Hahaha.”

“Hey, don’t you remember you just got second-rate? It’s only one level difference!”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly the wall that separates masters from novices.”

“What are you saying, second-rate.”

“And you’re third-rate.”

“Ugh!”

“And I got Transcendent but you didn’t.”

“Demonic Cult doesn’t have set techniques. You guys all did it with stuff you learned from playing the game!”

Instead of answering his complaint, OnlyOneWon chose to giggle.

The only one getting frustrated was ultimately ThirdElder, who had actually received a rating one level lower.

He made a resigned expression and shook his head.

“Whatever.”

Tap.

Someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What do you mean whatever?”

“Ah. You’re here, Namgung-hyung.”

It was another high-level player with the Transcendent title, NamgungFamilyWaitress.

They just called him either Waitress or Namgung-hyung for convenience.

The origin was that he lost a bet with a friend about nicknames and named himself this because an NPC shop keeper near the Namgung Family looked similar to him.

And as he became famous by reaching ranker status with this nickname, he couldn’t change it anymore.

“Hey, beggar-hyung keeps making fun of me for getting third-rate.”

“Really? Third-rate or second-rate.”

He looked at OnlyOneWon with a pitying expression.

“Right?”

“That’s right.”

“Kuh. You really know what’s up, hyung.”

“That’s also right.”

The two of them answering each other while OnlyOneWon watched quietly, then shouted in disbelief.

“Hey Waitress-hyung! You go take the test quickly too. Let’s see what you get.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

NamgungFamilyWaitress questioned back as if it were obvious.

“Is there any reason I have to take it right now?”

“Well, no…”

“I should prepare more thoroughly to have even a slight chance of getting Grand Master or whatever. What’s the point of third-rate or second-rate right now?”

“That’s true.”

“I agree.”

“Well then, let’s analyze it once.”

-High-level players gathering

-Isn’t there anyone else going?

The reactions from the few viewers were positive.

That made sense since the three gathered here were all high-level players ranked within the top 100.

The community veterans also had better information and gaming skills than regular users, but they weren’t quite at the level of top 100 rankers.

However.

They kept challenging but couldn’t surpass Peak Master.

About two hours later, OnlyOneWon returned from the sparring platform and sat on the stone seat, saying,

“Well, it’s only been one day.”

“That’s true. They say it takes newbies about a month to perfectly follow the standard techniques. We’ve only had one day.”

-Pathetic

-Waitress, you can’t even do martial arts lol

-Wait, weren’t you guys the Avengers?

They started digging into other aspects.

Being able to perfectly follow the movements would get you to Peak Master at least. There was no problem with the techniques.

But that was all.

OnlyOneWon said,

“Let’s organize this once. These standard techniques originally never produced Transcendent ratings like now, right?”

“If you just follow them exactly. Hmm. I’ve never seen anyone say they got Transcendent. So didn’t Heavenly Demon-nim change the techniques himself?”

“Calling him Heavenly Demon with ‘nim’ is a bit much…”

“You guys are talking and you’re being noisy, third-rate.”

“Yes sir.”

“Anyway. But what was the original reason the standard techniques spread?”

“It just spread because among all the techniques out there, it had the lowest difficulty for getting Peak Master. Techniques are important up to Peak Master, but Transcendent was impossible just by copying anyway.”

“Right. Even if I tried to do exactly what I did when I got Transcendent, I’m not confident I could get Transcendent again.”

“Me neither.”

ThirdElder, who had been spacing out, asked a question.

“What do you mean by that, hyungs?”

“What do you mean what do we mean? Transcendent isn’t just about techniques.”

“Then where is it?”

“Perfection.”

OnlyOneWon explained with one word, and Waitress nodded in agreement beside him.

“When I performed those techniques, I felt perfection in my sword. I don’t know much about martial arts, but I was confident I couldn’t do that level of perfection again. And while performing it, I instinctively knew. That I would get Transcendent.”

“Same here. It’s just a game, but for some reason I had that feeling. Ah, I was incredible. You get a similar feeling watching other Transcendent verification videos.”

I see.

To be honest, ThirdElder had never properly attempted Transcendent, using Demonic Cult as an excuse, so he couldn’t exactly understand their explanation.

“Then what did you guys feel watching this video?”

At ThirdElder’s words, the two who had been talking while looking at each other turned to face forward.

They were probably looking at the video.

After a long silence, Waitress broke his concentration first and spoke.

“I can’t feel anything.”

And after some time passed, OnlyOneWon also said,

“Right. That’s exactly my problem too. I don’t understand anything.”

-Scary

-You guys are the hope! Keep going!

-OnlyOneWon-hyung is our hope here though.

OnlyOneWon was famous on No-Honor for writing quality information posts.

The reason he chose Beggar’s Sect was because Beggar’s Sect was an organization that dealt with information.

Though he did feel that being a beggar was somewhat comfortable after doing it for a while.

“What could it really be?”

OnlyOneWon muttered to himself.

“Maybe there’s some special in-game trigger, beggar.”

“A Demonic Cult exclusive quest?”

“Yeah.”

“If it were something like that, it would have been discovered already. He’s a streamer.”

And OnlyOneWon didn’t think he was the type to hide something like that.

“That’s true.”

“Then he really did it with skill?”

Waitress’s eyes widened.

“It’s not something that could happen by accident.”

OnlyOneWon said matter-of-factly.

-Crazy

-A real master?

-So Grand Master is real?

-What are the chances it’s fake?

“Well, unless other people start getting Grand Master, we don’t know. I give up. Even Transcendent is hard.”

OnlyOneWon read the chat and stated his opinion.

And then Waitress also declared his surrender.

“I can’t do it either. Now that I think about it, isn’t that the skill level that beat Shin Ha-yeon in Training Hall?”

“Plus he also beat Baekho, who beat Namgung-hyung.”

“Hey! Don’t bring that up!”

“Or maybe he really is the Heavenly Demon.”

“Even so, he’s not really the Heavenly Demon!”

-So what’s the conclusion

-They’re just chattering among themselves

-Networking hell game lol

-The game is too stagnant

-Was this the person who beat Shin Ha-yeon? Then Grand Master is believable

OnlyOneWon looked at the broadcast chat and stood up from his seat, saying,

“If Grand Master is truly a rating above Transcendent with no special conditions, purely skill-based, then Seo-jun who received it by modifying standard techniques in one go is practically the best For the Murim player, isn’t he? That’s my conclusion.”

OnlyOneWon had heard things about Seo-jun before and wasn’t the type to be stubborn about pride, so he made a statement acknowledging Seo-jun.

However, the community veterans couldn’t accept this.

-Gasp.

-Can’t accept that statement

-Who decided he’s the best player

OnlyOneWon smirked at such viewers.

“Who decided? Well, Baek Wigang decided.”

Eventually Waitress also stood up and said,

“That’s right.”

“Let’s go to sleep. We’re done!”

“Yes! I’m ending the stream.”

“Alright.”

In the end, they couldn’t determine the truth, but it couldn’t be helped.

If you’re curious, go ask the developers.

And all their statements were broadcast in detail on No-Honor, causing a major stir.

[Even rankers failed for 2 hours]

[Is Grand Master real?]

[Beggar’s Sect master ‘OnlyOneWon’ declares “Heavenly Demon is the top player in For the Murim.”]

[“Just what is different about the Demonic Cult’s spirit and the Heavenly Demon’s sword!” Why the orthodox faction trembles in fear and the unorthodox faction stamps their feet in envy!]

The post that was originally uploaded was just treated as a humor post or fake by most people except a few, and quickly fell out of sight.

But OnlyOneWon was famous on No-Honor, and the clip containing his statement drew much more attention to Grand Master and Seo-jun.

Overnight, many more people attempted to challenge Grand Master, but not a single person achieved it.

[At this point, suspicions of cheating are creeping up]

[Cheating is definitely possible. The point when he got Grand Master wasn’t during his first For the Murim stream.]

[The moment his nickname was Heavenly Demon, I should have known.]

[Just ‘orthodox faction’ behavior to go after someone without evidence. Despicable.]

[Actually, the Demonic Cult guys covering for Heavenly Demon is more disgusting]

[Turning this into orthodox faction vs Demonic Cult framing!]

[So which is it?]

It was a confusing situation where no one could give a definitive answer.

Though there were people who gave definitive answers anyway.

[He definitely used some kind of trick!]

==

I also have the Transcendent title so I know, but this isn’t something you can just watch once and do like in the video.

Martial arts aren’t like rice.

How could some newbie discover what countless rankers haven’t been able to figure out?

==

-I think this too lol

-The poster’s tone is disgusting

-Turned off stream and got lucky with a hidden quest while playing? What a luck

-No way lol Just because you can’t do it doesn’t make everyone a cheater

└It’s not just me who can’t do it, everyone can’t do it. Isn’t that reasonable suspicion at this point? (OP)

-You don’t know everything because you don’t know anything, but it was the same in Assassin’s Dawn.

└PVE games should get out of No-Honor. (OP)

-He beat Shin Ha-yeon in Training Hall too, so he’s at least better than you

└I’ll acknowledge Training Hall. But martial arts are different. I’ll prove it by meeting him myself (OP)

└Who are you

└Last battlefield rank 13 (OP)

└Wow! Please give him a lesson