The 31st Piece Turns the Tables
chapter-5

It was quite strange, really.

A dead person’s shadow writhed before standing up.

[You have successfully summoned Karuna the Moonlight Knight’s shadow.]

[Passing on the skills.]

[Karuna’s shadow has failed to copy Moonlight Slash.]

[Shadow Summon is very low ranked.]

[You supplement it with your high wisdom stat.]

[Moonlight Slash has been downgraded into Full Moon Slash.]

[Karuna’s shadow has successfully copied Soaring Moonlight.]

[Shadow Summon is very low ranked.]

[You supplement it with your high wisdom stat.]

[Soaring Moonlight has been fully passed on.]

[Shadow Summon is very low ranked.]

[Your summon maintains only 20% of its original strength.]

Karuna’s shadow stared at its original body.

Even though Karuna was already pale before, the shadow had a pitiful look on its face as it stared at the corpse with the distorted head.

Karuna’s shadow now faced Seol. It went down on one knee.

“I am yours.”

Karuna’s warm words embroidered the night sky.

Seol erased the Karuna in his memories that chased him while calling him ‘Insolent’.

Karuna now was his faithful subordinate.

The onlookers, after watching Seol summon Karuna who he had been fighting, were all shocked.

[‘Ah I got it’ has donated 100 Madness!]

[The newbie that I smelled was actually me…]

- He’s not making cute mistakes like a noob at all… Why doesn’t he feel like a noob…

- So this is what a perfect clear looks like sheeesh He’s the first to clear it and the best…

- He never stepped on the wrong tile once… The other people stepped on the wrong tiles, did a tap dance, and ended with their beheading…

- What is that? Are there no penalties for Shadow Summon?

- The guidebook says that there are a lot of penalties for the stats and abilities. I was worried for nothing lol. The stats show that it’s true too.

- Phew… I thought it was going to be overpowered keke

When Seol received the achievement, a bunch of people entered to watch him.

[<I heard this place was sick> enters <Snowman>’s Room.]

[<I came here because of the rumors> enters <Snowman>’s Room.]

[<Found you darling> enters <Snowman>’s Room.]

……

- I heard this was the place with cool summons?

- You found it! I saw it!

- Karuna? Why is he black?

- Apparently, he got stolen. Please delete your message.

- I hate NTR >:(

- It’s actually a reward in this industry.

Seol stepped into the safe zone and checked Karuna’s status.

[[Karuna, the Moonlight Knight]

Title: N/A

Rank: Heroic

Race: Shadow

Level: 1

HP: 240/240

MP: 140/140

Unallocated Stats: 0

Strength 22 Dexterity 20 Constitution 24

Intelligence 15 Wisdom 14 Spirit 18

Talents: Dignity 1, Guard 1]

“It’s pretty good.”

It was honestly much better than just ‘pretty good’, it was insane.

According to Seol’s memories, summons are divided into 10 classes.

Ordinary monsters were in the Common rank and boss monsters were mostly in the Rare rank.

Most summoners used Rare rank summons.

‘But Karuna is a Heroic rank.’

Why?

Seol knew that Karuna was a Heroic rank but didn’t know why that was the case.

Karuna was quite powerful for a boss in the early game and even had a variety of skills.

Seol thought that might’ve been the reason Karuna became a Heroic rank.

There were still ranks above Heroic like Legendary, Transcendent, Mystic, and Wonder but that was much further in the future.

‘I practically guaranteed my survival with just this much though!’

A summon stronger than the summoner was practically every summoner’s dream.

‘The conditions to use Shadow Summon is one of the rarer types of summoning…’

You were able to summon the shadows of the monsters you had defeated.

And as long as you were able to satisfy those conditions, it was possible to summon them.

Because of that, Seol was able to get a summon he wasn’t normally supposed to get.

But how could there be a class that was perfect from the start?

There were also a mountain of other problems with the class.

‘It’s easy to summon but there are a lot of conditions attached to it…’

First, the summon’s ability was based on the original monster’s ability.

So if you revived a goblin, you would get a goblin’s shadow that was much weaker than a normal goblin.

That weakness would eventually be covered once the summoner’s Shadow Summon level was around the level of the monster, but…

‘In this scenario, it’s working as a boon instead of a curse.’

Because Karuna’s original ability was ridiculously powerful, Karuna’s shadow, which copied Karuna, was also powerful.

Shadow Summon allowed you to get powerful summons as long as you were capable of taking them down yourself.

‘Thankfully, I made no mistakes.’

Seol could even consider it fortunate that his first Adventure was Moonlit Dance.

The other tutorials often had short, simple battles that a Shadow Summoner wouldn’t be able to handle easily. Shadow Summoners only started off with the Shadow Summon and Shadow Hand ability, the former being useless in battle and the latter being weaker than the other caster-type class’s skills.

‘I’m sure the rewards wouldn’t have been good either and my summons would’ve been much weaker.’

Anyway, there was no point thinking about something that didn’t even happen.

In the end, Seol was able to get a strong summon and he was finally now a proper summoner.

Seol approached the glowing moon chest in the safe zone.

Pause.

Seol realized that he was smiling.

And it was obvious, there was no way he would suddenly dislike the game he’s enjoyed for 17 years.

He, at this moment, was enjoying it.

He was someone who was crazy about the World of Eternity.

‘...Who cares if I enjoy it or not.’

Click.

Gloooooow.

A ray of brilliant light shot out from the chest.

Fwoooosh!

[You open the ‘moon chest’, the best possible reward.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have received skill points.]

[You have acquired a ‘Moonlight Sword’.]

[You have acquired a ‘Full Moon Staff’.]

[You have acquired a ‘Moon Seed’.]

[You have acquired 271 gold coins.]

[You have acquired 13 medium red potions.]

[You have acquired 7 small blue potions.]

……

When Seol saw that he had leveled up, he immediately checked his stats.

[[Snowman]

Title: The One Who Brought Down the Moon

Race: Human

Level: 3

HP: 120/120

MP: 200/200

Unallocated Stats: 8

Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Constitution 12

Intelligence 12 Wisdom 22 Spirit 12

Talents: Cooking 1, Insight 1

Skills: Shadow Summon 1, Shadow Hand

Shadow Space: 400/850]

He had leveled up twice.

In the World of Eternity, each level up gives you 4 unallocated stats and 4 fixed stats.

The fixed stats went to the stats specific for each job while the unallocated stats were up to the player to choose.

‘Shadow Summoners have to put everything into Wisdom.’

Seol immediately invested all of his unallocated stats into wisdom.

Most summoners have their summons match their level.

Seol checked to be sure and sure enough, Karuna was also level 3 now.

Seol spread Karuna’s unallocated stats evenly.

The next thing was to check the rewards.

There were also a few small materials there, but none of them were important.

“As expected…”

Seol focused on the 3 most important items he got from the moon chest.

[[Moonlight Sword]

Quality: Rare

Recommended Level: 1-10

Damage: 37-42

Durability: 35/35

Weight: 1.4kg

A sword that Karuna, the Moonlight Knight used to favor before he became an apostle.

Basic Effect: +5 Strength, +5 Constitution

Bonus Effect: When you make an attack using the moonlight, attack range, and damage increase by 20%.]

‘This one’s the fixed drop.’

This item was a guaranteed drop after you defeated Karuna.

There were various qualities for items, like poor, common, special, rare, treasure, and even more ranks above that.

A rare item was a huge haul for a tutorial Adventure.

Seol looked at the sword for a moment before handing it over to Karuna.

[Karuna, the Moonlight Knight equips ‘Moonlight Sword’.]

There was another special thing about Shadow Summoners.

Their summons were able to grow on their own and even put on equipment.

When ordinary summoners grow stronger, their growth trickles down on their summons to make them stronger. However, for shadow summoners, their summons grew on their own.

This meant that it required that much more investment and effort to grow their summons but it was worth doing so.

[[Full Moon Staff]

Quality: Rare

Recommended Level: 1-8

Damage: 22

Durability: 32/32

Weight: 0.8kg

A staff that absorbed energy from the holy moon. It is quite heavy

Basic Effect: +10 Wisdom

Bonus Effect: All of your stats increase by 5% at night.]

- Gross LMFAO I read the guidebook a little and it said that Wisdom was the most useless stat among the 6 stats.

- He wasted an item drop. It would’ve been so much better if he got something else since he could at least sell that kekeke

- Excuse me… can I pick again?

- Oi newcomers, watch carefully. It’s looking like a reset angle.

Unlike the awful reactions from the people watching him, Seol smiled happily while equipping the staff.

‘I got the best possible item for my current situation.’

An item with a wisdom bonus was pretty much treated as a white elephant in the World of Eternity.

It was because even though Wisdom increased your maximum MP and gave other small benefits, it was a less efficient stat to increase than any of the other five stats.

‘But that’s only for other classes.’

Summoners.

No, for Shadow Summoners even more so than normal summoners, Wisdom was extremely important.

It wasn’t because the maximum MP increase that Wisdom gave was important, it was because it made most of the Shadow Summoner’s skills stronger.

Shadow Summoners are split into three typical archetypes. The first is an all-rounder type that uses both magic and summoning.

But it’s only an all-rounder in name, it’s quite mediocre at both things.

Another archetype is the mob summoner type. They gather a bunch of weak shadows to travel around in a group.

This archetype is more powerful than the other types in the early game but once the early game passes, it becomes drastically weaker than the other types.

That’s because once the mid-game started, the boss monsters were on another level. Those kinds of boss monsters could ignore the weak attacks like they were nothing.

The last archetype was the elite-type.

This type used a handful of high-rank summons. Because each summon had huge potential, if this type was cared for well then this would become the most powerful type.

The downside was that it was difficult to find those good, high-rank summons to use.

That’s why the early game was practically hell to get over.

The type that Seol was trying to become was the last summoner type, the elite-type.

And Wisdom was much more important for this type than any of the other types.

An increase in wisdom gives more loyalty from the summon, charisma, overall improved skill efficiency, an increase in the monster retaining more skills when they are revived, an increase in your summon awakening, and a variety of other things.

The archetype that benefited the most from this was obviously the elite-type.

It was difficult to maintain the summon’s loyalty the higher ranked it was and if the summoner had low charisma, the summon could even rebel against the summoner. These facts only added to the fact that wisdom was much, much more important for this type.

So that’s why Seol was happy to have received a staff that only gave a bonus in Wisdom.

‘It turned out pretty well.’

[[Moon Seed]

Quality: Special

Recommended Level: 1-5

Weight: 0.1kg

Bonus Effect: You could consume this in a variety of ways. The effects of it are unknown.]

- What is that?

- Uh… it’s in the drop list but it doesn’t say what it does.

- Is it a dud?

- Don’t eat that! No, bad dog!

‘...I never thought this would come up.’

It was an item that Seol had only seen others pick up in the past 17 years, never himself.

‘Moon Seed, a lottery ticket item in the early game.’

The first thing to know about it is that it’s always beneficial to eat it.

It had an even bigger benefit if you were able to get good stats or even a good skill out of it.

And Seol knew how to get the most out of this item.

‘I’ll save it for later… Was that all of the new items?’

And finally, Seol checked his new title.

[[Title: The One Who Brought Down the Moon]

Related Achievement: Moon Hunt (Adventure: Moonlit Dance)

Bonus Effect: The power of your moon-related abilities increases by 5%. This also applies to your summons.]

Seol rubbed his chin.

‘So this would also apply to Karuna.’

It might’ve been an awkward bonus effect for others but this was definitely a boon for Seol.

‘It’s been good so far, time to move on to the next one.’

* * *

Translator - goguma

Proofreader - Karane

* * *

Fssssss.

Seol, after finishing his examination, moved on to the next Adventure.

[You begin your next Adventure.]

[Your 2nd Adventure is starting.]

[Adventure 2. The 5 Good Brothers]

[Adventure 2. ‘The 5 Good Brothers’

In the Pointy Mountains in the South of Pandea, the World of Eternity, there lives a terrible tribe of trolls.

That terrible tribe of trolls is the Rock Molar Tribe. The Rock Molar Tribe has a special way of choosing their leader and an even more special way of maintaining their tribe.

Their leader is currently, ‘Jamad, the Tyrant.’

Please use whatever method you can to weaken the Rock Molar Tribe.

Objective: Kill at least 1 of the Rock Molar Tribe’s leaders.

You will die upon failure.

Remaining Time ⌜20:47⌟]

‘Is it… about noon now?’

If he completed the Adventure by tomorrow morning, he would be able to go to the safe zone.

2 Adventures, 1 Rest.

Unless there were special circumstances, most Adventures worked this way in the World of Eternity so Seol assumed it would be the same here.

‘But regardless, 5 brothers, huh… that’s one of the more difficult Adventures.’

Because there were 5 targets there were many variables to keep track of. It was a rather difficult adventure.

[‘Breaking News’ has donated 100 Madness.]

[I went to go check the guidebook. It said that Wisdom is the key stat for Shadow Summoners.]

- Take that information with you and go back. I don’t want it.

- So that staff from before was a good drop, no?

- So these idiots who didn’t know anything were making fun of it for nothing?

- I didn’t make fun of it.

- I didn’t make fun of it.

- I obviously knew that it was a good item so I just quietly chilled obviously.

Fwiiiiii

The adventure started at the midpoint of the Pointy Mountains while the sun was up.

It wasn’t that tall of a mountain but because the terrain was harsh and had various sentries, it was going to take a while to climb up it.

‘It’s weird seeing something you saw on the tables in person. But… why is no one here?’

Seol was confused the moment he found out what his Adventure was.

‘That’s strange. 5 Brothers should be a party Adventure because of its difficulty…’

Because there were 5 brothers, this Adventure also required 5 people. When Seol played this Adventure in his dreams, he always did it in a party of 5.

“Wait.. the remaining time was 20 hours and 47 minutes?”

Why would the time be such an awkward number like that?

Moonlit Dance gave exactly 6 hours to complete the Adventure but suddenly the time changed to something unusual.

‘I’m not getting a good feeling about this…’

Seol quickly manipulated the Adventure interface and found out the truth.

It explained why the remaining time was so awkward and why he didn’t see any of his party members.

“...God damn it.”

[- Party Member 1 ‘Ahn Hye-eun’ (Status: Deceased)

- Party Member 2 ‘Mantis Fist Expert’ (Status: Deceased)

- Party Member 3 ‘Nitpicker’ (Status: Deceased)

- Party Member 4 ‘Supreme Hwang Tae-ho’ (Status: Deceased)]

- OMG? Are they all dead?

- That’s insane… How is he supposed to clear it??

- This underdog’s going to die because of his party members like that?

A 5-Party Adventure suddenly became Seol’s Solo Adventure.

His party members were already corpses.