Dong Bongsu returned to the Danri Family and finished his daily routine as if nothing had happened.
On the outside, he hadn't changed in the slightest from before he left the family.
To anyone who saw him, he was just So-sam.
The foolish, idiotic mute who went unnoticed by everyone.
That was the Dong Bongsu others saw.
No one noticed the progress Dong Bongsu had made.
Far in front of his eyes, the New Murim Online's Error Box, visible only to him, was still blinking.
> [SYSTEM MESSAGE]
> A Critical ERROR has......... occurred in the Murim Online System.
> There should be no problem in proceeding with the game but...............................
Creeak.
Thud.
The door closed, and the stable once again became his own space.
Critical ERROR.
'A critical error, huh.'
The very fact that he existed here was in itself a critical error.
How could another error occur on top of this? This critical error was likely due to the systemic discrepancy caused by his own existence, a presence that should not be here.
He could roughly guess why that error message had appeared.
It was a kind of natural disaster, occurring as this reality and the virtual reality of Murim Online were forcibly grafted together.
Dong Bongsu presumed that this problem, which had been latent all along, had finally surfaced as he leveled up.
And.
That was a remarkably accurate guess.
The 111th Dimensional Plane, the 112th Dimensional Plane, and the auxiliary dimension Murim Online that served as the medium between them.
The laws of these three-dimensional planes were colliding with his Level Up, causing a 'critical error'.
The Critical ERROR message would probably appear every time he leveled up.
If the differences between the three-dimensional planes were not significant, this would never have happened in the first place, but the three planes were fundamentally entirely different.
Naturally, not all system applications could be accepted as they were.
In most cases, they would appear before him as a twisted system.
Dong Bongsu didn't know the precise details, but he had managed to infer something close to it.
The conclusion was.
All that distortion didn't really matter to him.
All he had to do was keep leveling up and adapt to the newly applied system, New Murim Online.
That was his path to survival, and it would be the way to become stronger.
Dong Bongsu raised his right hand and lightly clicked the X button on the right side of the Error Box.
The Error Box vanished, and a golden light flickered on several windows that had become available or changed upon reaching Level 2.
《Inventory, Status Window, Skill Window, Quest Window》
Dong Bongsu first opened the Inventory, which he was now quite familiar with.
Inside the inventory, a sword he had never seen before, a set of clothes, a pair of leather shoes, and a hood were neatly placed in a corner.
He took them out and laid them one by one on the floor.
They all looked as if they were made of shabby cloth, but their sanitary condition was top-notch.
Like brand-new products fresh from a factory.
In truth, these were items that should have been provided the moment Dong Bongsu connected to New Murim Online, but due to the critical error, they were the basic equipment he was only now receiving.
Of course, Dong Bongsu did not know this, nor did he care.
It exists, so I use it.
For him, it was a simple and clear proposition.
Dong Bongsu briefly examined the items, then picked up the sword without hesitation.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Click-.
He had only picked up the sword, but a sound like fastening a metal accessory was heard.
At the same time, he felt a strange sensation.
'I feel like I've gotten stronger?'
It was hard to explain in words.
But he clearly felt a peculiar sensation, as if his strength, health, and agility had increased.
Dong Bongsu immediately put the shabby stablehand clothes he was wearing into the Inventory and put on the equipment he had laid out.
Every time he put one on, a clicking sound struck his ears, and just like when he held the sword, he felt as if he had become stronger.
"Is this an item?"
He had no choice but to be certain that all of this was a game Item.
Equipment that had spontaneously appeared in the inventory.
The feeling of his abilities increasing each time he equipped one.
A mechanical sound he couldn't quite place, whether it was in his head or his ears.
To sum it all up.
The feeling of having become stronger.
'It wasn't a misconception.'
It was likely that by simply wearing the 《Equipment》, his 《Stats》 had 'actually' increased.
Click.
He closed the inventory window.
Perhaps because he had finished checking the inventory, the golden flickering disappeared.
Now that he had equipped the gear, it was time to check how much stronger he had become.
Dong Bongsu immediately opened the Status Window.
There, too, was a dramatic change.
"Is equipment finally being recognized?"
Items were now displayed in the previously empty equipment window.
The things he was currently wearing were displayed just as they appeared.
[Beginner's Sword], [Beginner's Clothes], [Beginner's Shoes], [Beginner's Hood]
First, Dong Bongsu moved his hand like a mouse and placed it over the 'Beginner's Sword'.
A transparent window then popped up next to it, displaying the description for the Beginner's Sword.
> [Beginner's Sword]
> Attribute: None
> Required Class: Common
> Required Level: 2
> Minimum Attack Power: 2
> Maximum Attack Power: 5
> Hit Rate Increase Effect: ?
> Minimum Martial Arts Attack Power: 3
> Maximum Martial Arts Attack Power: 8
> Martial Arts Hit Rate Increase Effect: ?
> Additional Stat Increase: None
He then checked the rest of the items in the same way, and all had similar descriptions.
The only difference between the descriptions of the other items and the sword's was that instead of Attack Power, it was Defense Power, and instead of Martial Arts Attack Power, it was Martial Arts Defense Power.
Other than that, the format itself was identical.
Another common feature between them was that the increase effect for hit rate or defense was consistently marked with a '?'.
Dong Bongsu concluded that this too was one of the phenomena occurring due to the critical error.
He pondered for a moment what kind of effects they might have, but soon dismissed the thought.
No matter how much he thought about it, it was a problem he couldn't figure out for the time being.
There was no need to waste mental energy on such matters.
The important thing was.
'The fact that I've truly become stronger.'
That was it.
He continued to examine the changes in the Status Window.
Along with equipping the gear, there had been a huge change in his stats.
The basic stat values for Strength, Agility, and Intelligence had all changed from the previous '?' to a yellow Gauge Bar.
It was difficult to know the exact numbers because they weren't represented by Arabic numerals, but it was clearly a tremendous change.
Though barely perceptible to the eye, all the gauge bars had filled up a little.
With the Level Up, the stat gauges had finally begun to activate.
Gauge bars had also appeared for Health, Accuracy, Evasion, Attack Power, Defense Power, Martial Arts Attack Power, Martial Arts Defense Power, Elemental Defense, and True Qi/Internal Energy, which would increase in proportion to the increase in Level, Strength, Agility, and Intelligence.
Similarly, they were not precisely quantified.
Dong Bongsu checked a few more things before closing the Status Window.
Just as with the inventory, the flickering of the Status Window disappeared once he finished checking it.
Click.
This time, it was the Skill Window's turn.
There were five new skills.
To be more precise, there were no 'Active Skills', and all were 'Passive Skills'.
Four basic actions that should have been there from the moment the game character was created had been added, along with one skill of unknown identity.
The four were things he was well aware of.
Although he had only played for a few hours, he still had experience playing Murim Online.
He immediately checked the descriptions of the five skills.
> [Slash (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
> A technique for swinging a weapon.
> Moving a weapon up, down, left, and right to annihilate enemies is one of the most basic attacks.
> Current Action Bonus: 0%
> [Thrust (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
> A technique for thrusting a weapon.
> Moving a weapon back and forth to inflict piercing wounds on an enemy is one of the most basic attack techniques.
> Current Action Bonus: 0%
> [Throw (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
> A technique for throwing a weapon.
> The technique of throwing a sharp or blunt object at an enemy to cause injury is one of the basic attack techniques that has been passed down since ancient times.
> Current Action Bonus: 0%
> [Block (Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
> A technique for raising a weapon to block.
> Block an enemy's attack by holding the weapon vertically or horizontally.
> Current Action Bonus: 0%
These four were the basic actions that were commonly generated when a Murim Online character was created.
However.
> [Spiritual Eye (Tester Passive) Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]
> Tester Exclusive Skill.
> Current Action Bonus: 0%
This was something he had never seen before.
There was no special explanation other than that it was for testers, so Dong Bongsu had no way of guessing what it was.
He could only surmise that it was a skill that ordinary gamers could not possess.
In fact, everything within Murim Online---monsters, items, backgrounds, skills, etc.---were in principle components of the server, and as perfect artificial constructs, they were complete entities endowed with their own artificial intelligence.
Nevertheless, there were a few exceptions.
Testing.
Newly opened servers, newly created dungeons, new monsters, and so on, can sometimes be crudely constructed or incomplete.
So, before releasing them to the public, Testers play them in advance to see if they are incomplete or not.
And there were separate skills prepared to help such Testers with their Testing.
That was the Tester Exclusive Skill.
Now, one of those skills, through an unknown route, probably due to the critical error, had been applied to Dong Bongsu.
Why was a Tester Exclusive Skill applied to an ordinary player like Dong Bongsu?
There were several reasons, but the most important one was, as Dong Bongsu had thought, the conflict between the New Murim Online system and this Real Murim.
The New Murim Online system was, in itself, a system with a very high-performance artificial intelligence, but it was now in a state of considerable disrepair and entanglement.
The things that should have been on the actual Murim Online server were, naturally, almost non-existent in this Murim.
Because of this, the New Murim Online system had come to regard all of Dong Bongsu's current plays as new actions, that is, as 'test actions'.
Dong Bongsu was completely unaware of this fact, but it was a great stroke of luck for him, and what would become a great misfortune for the Murim.