Minhyuk looked at both of his friends in confusion. Khan hurriedly came back to his senses and said, “We’ve broken through this difficult area easily. Let’s hurry up!”

The three of them hurriedly advanced, while Minhyuk analyzed their dungeon plan.

‘Looking at the power of Blooming Sword, it seems like I can take on more monsters. So, if I started to use Gryphon’s Cry 50 meters away from that area, the monsters would definitely come running and the area would be crowded with them. If I did it that way, I think we could break through this area faster, right?’

Since Minhyuk asked his friends to help find ingredients with him, he believed that he should also help them achieve their goals to the best of his abilities. Then, the surroundings started to get hot. Steam rose up as flames spurted out from vents.

“This is also a difficult area. The Lava River.”

Shwaaaa!

A burning river of lava releasing an endless amount of steam flowed in front of them.

“Even Black Swan was not able to break through the 30-minute mark because of this area.”

“Then, what are we going to do?”

“The only thing that we can do is drink a cooling potion, or use ice magic.”

Then, Khan and Locke started throwing the cooling potion.

Clang━

Fwiiiiiiish!

Clang━

Fwiiiiiiish!

The two of them threw cooling potions one after another into the blazing lava river in front of them! Because of that, steam constantly rose.

“If we throw the cooling potions non-stop, it will be able to freeze an area where we can step on. This way we can move on...”

“Isn’t that too inefficient?” Minhyuk asked. Khan and Locke both nodded in agreement. It was truly too inefficient.

‘Minhyuk, he... He’s definitely not just someone that only knows how to eat...’

Minhyuk might be obsessed with food, but he was someone that had keen eyes that could analyze the situation and find the best way to solve his problems.

“However, we don’t have magic. So, even though the cooling potion is one platinum each, we have no other choice but to use this method.”

“Hmm...” Minhyuk hummed, rubbing his chin in thought. His eyes suddenly sparkled as if he found a good idea as he reached out for the handle of his frying pan.

“...What’s wrong?”

“Look. Look at what your hyung’s going to do,” Minhyuk said as he enlarged his frying pan and approached the river of lava.

[Frying Pan Gigantification.]

[You can adjust the size of your frying pan depending on the mana that you will input.]

Minhyuk enlarged the frying pan until it was as large as a boat before placing it on the lava river.

Fwiiiiish!

Steam quickly rose the moment the bottom of the frying pan met with the gurgling lava. Thankfully, the durability of the frying pan was infinite and would reset in 24 hours. Besides, the frying pan in Minhyuk’s hands was sturdier and harder than any regular frying pan. 

Then, Minhyuk threw a cooling potion inside the frying pan.

Crack, crack!

Frost quickly formed on top of the frying pan. Then, Minhyuk quickly climbed on top of his frying pan as he called out to his friends. He said, “This hyung got a car, so I’m picking you up~ Kids, get in!”

“...”

“...”

Khan and Locke were both speechless as they climbed on top of the frying pan. Then, Minhyuk handed a rope to the summoned Beanie. Beanie then flew up until it reached a height that was high enough that the heat of the lava would not affect it, before rushing to the other side of the river and tying the rope to a sturdy rock. Khan, Locke and Minhyuk managed to arrive safely on the other side by pulling on the rope that Beanie had tied.

“We’ve already... shortened our time by 13 minutes...” Khan mumbled to himself in disbelief.

Time Attack Dungeon challengers could check their progress real-time just by looking at the top-left corner of their vision. Based on their current dungeon progress time, they had been inside the dungeon for 34 minutes. This was even an attempt for Minhyuk to try, adapt, and understand the dungeon.

Not long after, they had reached the final boss’ room. The room where the Dullahan King was located.

Bang!

The gigantic Dullahan King that was thrice the size of a normal Dullahan descended from the sky.

Bang!

[Repent with your death, foolish humans!]

Powerful sword lights flew from all directions as the Dullahan King swung his sword strongly. Minhyuk quickly dodged the incoming swords and thought, ‘I heard that the Dullahan King has a higher and more ridiculous level of defense compared to its attack, that’s why they’re having a hard time with him. And there’s also that sword.’

Minhyuk’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the greatsword that the Dullahan King was wielding. Generally, it would be hard for anyone to swing such a huge greatsword easily, especially if they did not have the Greatsword Mastery Passive Skill that Minhyuk had.

‘Right. I should try that.’

Minhyuk still had a skill that he had not tried yet. The skill was none other than Splitting Sword.

Dash!

Minhyuk followed closely behind Khan.

“That’s right. You should stay behind me! Haa!” Khan shouted as he threw punches towards the Dullahan King’s body with his glowing white fists.

Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch!

Unfortunately, Khan’s attack did not have much of an effect thanks to the Dullahan King’s high defense. Locke also tried to attack him with his ax, but he also failed to deal a significant amount of damage to the Dullahan King.

Then, scarlet light started to flutter around Minhyuk’s body again. The scarlet light slowly gathered inside the sword in Minhyuk’s hands.

The current Minhyuk had monstrous stats added on top of his double attack power against undead monsters. Although he was only at Level 290, the power that he could exert could already rival Khan and Locke. He also had Barraca’s Greatsword, a sword with an attack of over 700, as well as Beanie’s Pet Summoning Buff. With the power that he could exert, Minhyuk activated Splitting Sword, a skill that added 110% damage to his attack from behind Khan.

Shwaaaaaaaaaaaak!

Wind blew fiercely around Minhyuk’s sword as he slashed towards the Dullahan King. A scarlet sword light that resembled a crescent moon flew rapidly towards the Dullahan King. Minhyuk had already determined the exact area in the Dullahan King’s body that he needed to strike at earlier.

“...Wow. Isn’t that so cool?”

“OMG...”

The appearance of the scarlet sword light made Khan and Locke stop in their tracks. They watched as the red sword light passed through the Dullahan King’s wrist, cutting off the hand that held its greatsword cleanly. Khan and Locke were both dumbfounded, no matter how hard they tried on their previous attempts, they could not deal a lot of damage to the Dullahan King. However, a single sword strike from Minhyuk had cleanly cut off its wrist.

Slash!

That was not the end. After cleanly cutting off the wrist, the sword light slashed wildly at the Dullahan King’s body.

Clang!

The hand holding the Dullahan King’s greatsword fell down as black blood spurted out of its chest.

[Keuaaaaaack! I won’t let you go!]

The Dullahan King screeched in pain as some sort of black energy exploded out from its body.

[The Dullahan King’s Wrath.]

[Dullahan’s have been summoned.]

Keedidididik━

Keedidididik━

The summoned Dullahans slowly climbed up from the ground.

Khan and Locke were left speechless at this turn of events. Was it because of Minhyuk’s skills, or was it the power and strength of his sword that he was able to cut off something that they could not easily cut off? It was something that they could not understand at all.

Then, Minhyuk looked at their dazed expressions. He shook his head helplessly and took command of the attack. He quickly shouted at them, “Move, now!”

The three of them rushed straight towards the Dullahan King.

***

Plenty of players were commenting about the Time Attack Dungeon on Athenae’s official website.

[bxk31: Honestly, there are a lot of people saying that our country is ruined these days. Isn’t this too much of a difference?]

[Coyote: Agree, agree. The difference is too big. Once the servers in the world are integrated will we go down?]

[DamnLegend!: Legend Guild is nothing.]

[Ord: ...? Upstairs, what do you mean by Legend Guild is nothing? Currently, the large local guilds are joining hands together as they send their top rankers to make a 3-party team and challenge the dungeons, but they are still only at the 30th rank. Legend Guild is currently at the 14th place, they’re already doing well enough. After all, they’re doing it on their own.]

[LidManse!: So what? It’s still 14th place.]

[Ord: ...I concede.]

Right now, the key figures of Athenae, as well as all of the team leaders, were gathered together in a single meeting room. President Kang Taehoon sighed as he looked at the comments made by the players in the official homepage. Everyone remained silent because they knew the meaning of that sigh.

“I don’t feel like working today,” President Kang Taehoon said wryly as he looked at everyone in the meeting room.

Athenae was a virtual reality game that was created in South Korea. However, the players of South Korea were struggling. The best of their best ranked only 14th. His words expressed his bitter feelings about this outcome.

“It’s not too long before the Athenae: Korean War too...”

Athenae: Korean War was an event that Joy Co. Ltd., the company behind Athenae, created after the launch of the game. Simply put, it was a competition that selected the best players of each country. It was not just ‘Athenae: Korean War’, there were also Athenae: American War, Athenae: French War etc. The players that received high scores during the Athenae: Korean War would also get the honor of participating in ‘Athenae: World War’. It was important for their country to find the national players that would represent Korea in the Athenae: World War, through the Athenae: Korean War that would be launched soon.

Then, at that moment...

“Huh... Huuuuh...? W…what’s this?”

…the Customer Center Manager shouted in surprise. He was currently checking the current rankings of the Time Attack Dungeon when he noticed something.

“Team Leader Lee,” Team Leader Park Minggyu called out coldly.

The serious and solemn atmosphere had been broken by Lee because he was looking at his mobile phone. However, Team Leader Lee took no heed of the frost in his voice as he shakily stood up from his seat and said, “Th…this. Pre…President!”

“...?”

Kang Taehoon looked at him suspiciously. He was not acting like his usual self and was shaking wildly.

“P…please check the rankings now!”

“...?”

Kang Taehoon tilted his head in confusion. His words during the meeting were already very uncomfortable for everyone in this room. If there were no big changes, everyone would remain bitter. Then, Kang Taehoon whipped his phone up and checked the Time Attack Dungeon’s current rankings.

“...!”

President Kang Taehoon pulled his mobile phone closely towards his face once more. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. He was so shocked that he could not help but jump to his feet. At the exact same moment, gasps of shock rang loudly in the meeting room. Team Leader Park Minggyu also checked his mobile phone.

[America’s Black Swan Team: 43 minutes 38 seconds. Rank: 1st.]

[South Korea’s Legend Team: 47 minutes 24 seconds. Rank: 2nd.]

“C…crazy...!” Team Leader Park shouted in disbelief.

Obviously, they had just checked a few moments ago. The Legend Team had stood firmly in 14th place and could not go past the one-hour threshold. However, they had suddenly climbed to second place and were closely chasing behind the number one spot!

“Th…the comments are going crazy!”

Someone said as the people from the outside shouted loudly.

“Waaaaaaaaaah!”

“Legend, let’s gooooo!”

“Pull yourself together! Super powers!” They heard voices of the regular employees outside loud and clear.

Kang Taehoon’s face twitched, struggling to maintain his aloofness. However, deep inside, he could feel something hot bursting from his chest. If it were not for his position, he would also want to scream as loud as them. He closed his eyes for a moment to calm his heart, but he could barely keep his mouth from twitching in joy.

‘It’s not over yet. South Korea can still be the gamer powerhouse that it used to be.’

“Turn on the screen.”

“Yes!”

The people in the meeting room moved quickly to set up the monitor. They were just in time to watch Legend Team’s second attack.

“...They changed it,” Team Leader Park mumbled. 

Kang Taehoon heard Team Leader Park. So, he turned to him and asked, “What is it?”

“The member. They took Genie out and put Player Minhyuk in.”

“The Food God?”

“Yes.”

“Their strength changed that much just with the addition of the Food God?”

“Let me open his status window for you.”

All of the team leaders present could not help but turn speechless when they saw the status window on the screen.

“H…his strength at that level looks ridiculously absurd, right…?”

“OMG. What kind of Holy Power and DEX is that...”

Everyone was once again left speechless.  Then, Department Head Kim Dae-Il suddenly said, “Isn’t this a complete balance breaker? Isn’t this enough for other players to complain? Even if his class is a god class, isn't this still too much?”

“...”

The others nodded when they heard his words, except for Team Leader Park. Team Leader Park was the only one who shook his head. 

“The Food God is not a balance breaker,” Team Leader Park contradicted him confidently as he stood up from his seat. The scene in the monitor showed Minhyuk using Gryphon’s Cry as he dragged the aggro of the mob monsters and killed them all at once.

“That’s not a balance breaker?”

However, Team Leader Park’s expression still remained the same. He said, “Food God is a non-combatant class.”

“That’s right. That’s why it’s so weird. He’s a non-combatant, but he’s that strong?”

“Yes. That’s right. He is ridiculously strong. But before we get to that part, let me ask you, does he currently have any ‘Attack Skill’ related to the Food God Class?”

“...Huh, there’s none?”

The people all around him looked around for the answer, but it was President Kang Taehoon who answered. He said, “There’s none.”

“...”

“Then, please look at this. Generally, stats for people around Level 300 are usually only at 400. However, Player Minhyuk broke through that by eating countless medicine, training a lot and clearing quests. That’s why he is much stronger than what we expected him to be. Are you telling me that this is a balance breaker? Anyone that eats medicine like they were eating a normal meal would be as strong as the Food God too.”

“...”

Department Head Kim Dae-Il was left speechless. They realized what Team Leader Park was driving at. The strength of this player was gained through his own perseverance and power, not through his class’ special privilege.

Team Leader Park also added, “If you look closely at him, you can also see that all of his artifacts are incredible. He has Barraca’s Greatsword, Armor of Immortality, and the Legendary Frying Pan. His attack skill is also Ellie’s Swordsmanship. Do you still think that this is a special privilege of the Food God class?”

“...No.”

Team Leader Park nodded once Kim Dae-Il conceded.

“That’s right. Balance breaker? This is not a planned balance breaker. This is all thanks to the player’s own perseverance. We don’t call this a balance breaker. Isn’t there something that we used to say?”

Team Leader Park took a deep breath, looked around and said, “That player is really cool.”