Climbing the Mythic Tower as a Cheating Administrator - Chapter 57

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Cheating Administrator’s Mythic Tower Climb (57)
[Time Remaining: 01:44:55]
‘I need to finish this in fourteen minutes and fifty seconds.’
Do what I normally do—dig a trap and wait somewhere?
There’s no time for that.
The moment I sense something’s there, I’ll just unleash skills and turn everything to scorched earth.
The dragon won’t land in the first place.
I can’t set traps in mid-air.
If I waste time on pointless tactics, its breath might come raining down.
I’ll turn to ash in an instant.
‘This is maddening. First—.’
So my options are limited.
‘I need to block lightning magic first. If flame magic is this potent, lightning will be genuinely fatal.’
What I need are things that obscure my vision while becoming obstacles to magic.
Tall trees would be ideal.
Moo-saeng sprinted toward the Coniferous Forest.
Tap-tap-tap-tap—!
Wash laughed beside Moo-saeng as he built up speed.
[Kweh-kweh, hiding will be tough, Kim Moo-saeng? In fact, it’s your loss. That lizard will see you, but you won’t see it.]
“Not quite. It can see me the way an infrared camera would, that’s all.”
[If it’s Thermal Detection, sure. But you can’t even—.]
“I don’t need to see to know.”
[—Kwack?]
Moo-saeng activated a skill.
[You have caught the scent of the Blue Dragon—Azulvibo.]
[Marking Azulvibo.]
[Distance differential: 438m, altitude differential: 53m, bearing angle: 215°]
Hound Nose—a skill that lets you know distance and direction once you’ve marked by scent.
Map reading is the absolute foundation of what a dungeon sherpa must master.
If it shows the distance differential, altitude differential, and bearing angle relative to Moo-saeng’s own direction of travel—!?
‘I see it clear as day without even looking. Upper left rear, above me!’
The location of the Blue Dragon Azulvibo materialized in Moo-saeng’s mind as if he could reach out and touch it.
Flap, flap, flap—!
‘It’s closing in. First… first I should try this.’
There was the sound of wingbeats.
Using auditory cues and position data to calculate real-time distance between himself and the Blue Dragon, Moo-saeng extracted poison from Poison Snake, deployed Poison Craft Workshop—
Then poured the venom into two small wooden cups.
“When the dragon is above the forest, penetrate through the trees and come up from behind. Target: the eyes.”
[Will that work? Direct injection through mucous membrane, maybe, but that quantity won’t paralyze a Blue Dragon.]
“Tch, you’re right. I know.”
[You know? Then why?]
“Because—whoa!?”
Whoooosh——————.
Moo-saeng scrambled backward in alarm.
A wall of flames towered above his head, roaring higher than he was tall.
“Even though dragons resist all elemental magic, it really goes this far.”
[This isn’t the time for admiration, Kim Moo-saeng.]
Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh—.
The fire began chasing him immediately.
“It’s not admiration. It proves dragons are weak in actual combat.”
[What?]
Moo-saeng laughed as he ran left, forward, right.
He already knew why concealment and cover don’t work against a dragon.
‘Thermal vision like an infrared camera. I’ve heard some Awakened have skills like that. Stupid though—why use heat-based magic?’
The scattered embers would only make it harder to pinpoint him.
But a dragon was still a dragon, after all.
In a flash, the wall of fire vanished.
As smoke rose from the scorched plants around him, Moo-saeng felt ice slide down his spine.
Roooooaaaaaarrrrr——————!
A sound far more dangerous than the fluttering of wings.
A sonic boom powerful enough to tear the air itself tore through the forest—the shriek of wind made manifest!
“Damn it, dragon or not!”
Kim Moo-saeng’s gaze swept left and right in an instant.
He needed the tallest, thickest trees at his back.
Even as he heard the sharp crack-crack-crack of wood splitting, his feet never slowed.
“Hngh—?!”
He hurled himself sideways, narrowly dodging the blast.
Whoosh-! Whoosh-! Whoosh-!
Hearing the dragon’s wingbeats accelerate, Kim Moo-saeng checked again through Hound Nose.
[Distance: 238m, Altitude differential: 48m, Bearing angle: 221°]
‘I should be caught by now.’
No matter how fast Kim Moo-saeng was, he couldn’t match the dragon’s speed.
By the time the distance had closed to two hundred meters—
Crackle-crackle-crackle—snap-snap-snap!
[Running away while preparing such tricks, human? Did you truly believe such things would work on me, human?!]
The enraged dragon screamed.
Since Kim Moo-saeng was operating them through Mage Maia’s Magitech Engineering, he already knew.
Two Guardians had fallen.
‘……Okay.’
[Distance: 238m, Altitude differential: 39m, Bearing angle: 221°]
But one thing was certain.
‘A threat from behind and from above. Any living thing would have to react. Even a dragon.’
What do flying creatures do when they sense danger in empty air?
When they feel a threat coming from above their own position?!
They descend. Always.
The altitude gain might not seem substantial, but it would happen!
“So wouldn’t it have been nice if you’d actually tried it first? Put it in your eyes, rubbed it around, and then talked big—I might’ve felt a little better then.”
[Silence!]
Fire and wind, and lightning too.
Blazing cyclones began erupting across the Coniferous Forest.
Kim Moo-saeng rapidly calculated his path and spoke in a low voice.
“Wash. You go this time. Show yourself clearly from above.”
[……You think that lizard can even see me?]
“Of course. You’re stronger than Sleeken.”
[Damn you. This was the plan all along.]
Wash let out a sharp, exasperated chirp.
Kim Moo-saeng shrugged.
“Not from the start. It would’ve been different if the poison had taken. But now that fear’s been planted, it’ll work. Once you show yourself, it’ll definitely drop altitude again, and then…….”
If it succeeded, fine. If it failed, he’d built in layers of contingency.
It wasn’t something he’d planned from the beginning.
He exhaled.
Kim Moo-saeng explained quickly.
Wash, satisfied, began to move.
Tap, tap-tap…….
Around then, Kim Moo-saeng finally stopped.
[Distance: 188m, Altitude differential: 40m, Bearing angle: 3°]
And he turned to face behind him.
He donned Mage Maia’s Goggles.
Through them, he tracked Wash’s movements.
The distance to the Blue Dragon was closing.
At the same moment, he saw a single yellow point rising from behind the dragon.
“Good…… good…… excellent.”
The moment Wash began rising from the dragon’s blind spot, Kim Moo-saeng activated a skill once more.
“Berserk.”
[Select the stats to increase.]
[You may increase up to 4 stats based on your current power.]
“Agility and Strength.”
[Select the multiplier and duration.]
[The multiplier range is determined by your current power.]
[5%~200%]
“…200%. One minute.”
[Berserk begins.]
“Whoa—!?”
Kim Moo-saeng felt it.
Triple his strength, overwhelmingly amplified—and his agility with it.
Tap, tap, tap, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap—!
Acutely aware of this alien state flooding through his body, Kim Moo-saeng ran.
One goal alone.
[Distance: 138m, Altitude difference: 27m, Bearing: 3°]
The Blue Dragon, plummeting the moment it spotted Wash.
And Kim Moo-saeng needed to reach it before it landed.
His feet hammering off the towering conifers.
───────────……!!!!
He launched himself skyward.
The Blue Dragon turned its head when Wash spoke.
It wheeled around.
By the moment it spotted Kim Moo-saeng—
He was already cutting through empty air, seeming almost to fly as he closed the distance—
“Got you.”
His hand found the dragon’s wing joint.
Whoooosh….
Poison Snake bore deep into the Blue Dragon’s wing joint.
Without the tripled strength—
Without the surge in agility—
And without the SR-grade poison, forged from Metal Rhine’s technological mastery—
[SCREEEEEEEE—!]
The Blue Dragon hunt would never have ended this way.
[Congratulations!]
[Clear condition achieved.]
[Time remaining: 01:32:18]
[Calculating Contribution Rate.]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Contribution Rate 100%]
[Others: Contribution Rate 0%]
[Additional Condition achieved.]
Two minutes, eighteen seconds to spare—Kim Moo-saeng had cleared even the bonus objective.
* * *
—Moo-saeng, it’s done?
Park Hyun-gu’s voice crackled through the radio, but Kim Moo-saeng couldn’t answer.
The dragon was dead. Dead in midair.
Wheeeee—————!
“Gyaaaaaaah!”
Which meant he was falling alongside the corpse of a creature that had lost the power to fly.
He couldn’t let the dragon’s body crush him.
He tried kicking off the dragon, desperate to gain even a meter of distance—but—!?
‘My—my legs won’t—. Damn it!’
The Berserk Penalty had begun.
He’d used Berserk for one minute at 200% amplification.
Which meant a three-minute penalty period—and his Stats would crater to half their baseline during that time!
[What are you doing, Kim Moo-saeng! You’ll get crushed!]
Wash scrambled backward, shouting in panic.
Twenty-seven meters was roughly the height of a ten-story apartment building.
The fall wouldn’t take long.
“I know!”
There was no time for explanations or anything else.
He was simply falling—
[Kim Moo-saeng!]
Thooooom……!
—and hit the ground.
Behind the black-framed goggles, Wash’s beady eyes trembled.
Crushed under a ton-class dragon—would he even survive?
Wait, Kim Moo-saeng! You… surely not—… Huh?
But Wash had to listen closely as a sound reached his ears.
The dirt around the dragon’s corpse shifted slightly.
More precisely, it was the earth right beside the body.
When the soil crumbled downward as if being sucked into the ground, what burst forth was…….
“Phew, I really thought I was done for.”
Moo-saeng’s head.
Even Wash was momentarily taken aback—what was happening?
The answer came from a small silvery beetle emerging from the earth.
[……Kekeke! So you sent a beetle down in the meantime?]
In that falling moment, Moo-saeng had sent the Dung Beetle Guardian to his predicted landing point and had it dig through the ground.
Even after two of them had been deployed, there were still individuals remaining.
“If I’d been crushed to death, we might’ve gotten a Legend-tier result, huh?”
Thanks to that, he managed to avoid being buried entirely under the dragon’s corpse, but for Moo-saeng, it had been an incredibly close call.
“Ugh, damn it, my arms are still shaking—. Ah, I’ll just wait it out.”
Even now, three minutes of the Penalty hadn’t fully elapsed.
His body trembled uncontrollably—no strength left to pull himself out even with the hole dug for him.
Freshly astonished at the Penalty of Berserk, Moo-saeng sent a radio message.
“I’ll tell you the direction and distance—just head straight here. Let’s camp out tonight and head up to the twenty-first floor tomorrow.”
But without Berserk.
He would never have made it up those towering Coniferous trees the way he did.
He couldn’t have torn through the dragon’s scales and driven his blade in like that.
‘Well, it was worth the cost.’
[Additional Reward Granted.]
[Sectional Stat Points +40]
[Contribution Rate: Kim Moo-saeng 100% / Others 0%]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Sectional Stat Points +70 Acquired]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Additional Attack Power Against Large Monsters +50%]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Additional Attack Power Against Flying Monsters +40%]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Dragon Slayer]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Enemy of the Blue Dragon Tribe]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Confusion Resistance Acquired]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Fear Resistance Enhanced]
[Kim Moo-saeng: Skill Elemental Magic Fusion Acquired]
[You are the 1,121st Achiever of the Additional Condition.]
All Stats +40. Confusion Resistance acquired.
Dragon Slayer title?
Watching the cascade of system messages, Moo-saeng let out a soft laugh.
“So I’ll pick a skill while we wait for people to arrive.”
[Huh? Already? You’ve made a decision, Kim Moo-saeng? Last time you spent thirty-three hours on it, didn’t you? And there are far more options now?]
“Yeah. Now that I’ve been through it, I understand. What I need to pick.”
It was a surprisingly quick decision, enough to startle even Wash, but for Moo-saeng, it was nothing unusual.
[You may acquire a new skill.]
[Awakening Ability: Transmission (O)]
[Compiling available skill list…….]
[Skill list compilation complete.]
[494 available skills.]
[One selected skill will be acquired.]
Of the 494 options, Moo-saeng had only one desire.
“From the flight line.”
To face enemies suspended in the air.
This was the type of skill he absolutely needed.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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