Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 176

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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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Chapter 176

“Haha. Thirty seconds sounds a bit rough, doesn’t it? I think that streamer over there may have been giving me some credit.”
Baek Do-yul regarded the viewers with a pleasant expression.
Or rather, he regarded Mental’s perspective.
Since the streaming camera was currently positioned from Mental’s point of view.
He even manufactured a touch of bashfulness at receiving praise.

-Whoa
-Is this the champion’s composure? Is this the champion’s composure? Is this the champion’s composure? Is this the champion’s composure?
-That guy should learn something
-But wasn’t this guy originally a bit of a jerk anyway?
-He’s like that only with competitors. He sees Seo Jun as just a regular person, not a rival—humble and all that lol
-Right. The villain of Reos being a match for the champion does sound weird
-He handles awkwardness pretty well

Of course.
Behind the manufactured expression, there was no benevolent smile.
His true intention was simply to slip past this situation with adequate humility.
And to make Seo Jun look a little foolish.
‘Thirty seconds… He never said I couldn’t take a hit, so maybe someone like him could pull it off?’
Under the current circumstances, that is—assuming the AI doesn’t climb any higher.
Baek Do-yul did acknowledge Seo Jun and wanted to test himself against him.
But.
‘A real fight would be better suited for another time.’
Not because he’d lose.
Because there was no advantage to fighting publicly like this, with everyone watching.
Why bother with a pride match against an AI in the Training Ground, when they weren’t even fighting in person?
‘But Taker over there is doing exactly that.’
Baek Do-yul simply watched with interest, just like everyone else.
This stream that continued to unfold in strange ways.
It might actually be entertaining.

* * *

‘What are you planning to do, brother?’
Lee Dong-su sent telepathy to Seo Jun.
Seo Jun found himself suddenly provoked, for all intents and purposes.
Not that Taker had radiated any hostile atmosphere or shown obvious displeasure.
He’d simply smiled and asked him to prove it once.
If the speaker had been a pro player rather than someone mid-stream, it wouldn’t have been strange at all.
Of course, the fact that a pro said it made the situation somewhat unusual, but ultimately, it was something happening during a broadcast.
What mattered now was how Seo Jun would respond.
Would he truly prove himself?
Or would he show displeasure and wrap it up?

-No way the guy who usually provokes everyone is gonna bail here lol
-Just try it in thirty seconds
-With Taker stepping up like that, it’s gotta be hard?
-He wouldn’t have stepped in if he thought it was easy. And the guy who thinks that is a pro player who knows the Training Ground pretty well
-Can you do thirty seconds?

[Viewers: 30,000]

Seo Jun’s viewership had somehow broken 30,000, and the chat erupted.
‘Ha Yun-ho’s numbers didn’t drop much,’
He wasn’t bothered by it.
But things could be different from now on.
Seo Jun was in a position he couldn’t back out of here. Given everything he’d done so far.
Still, he’d decided to just play it naturally, as always.
‘Dong-su, there’s no helping it.’
The world has its prejudices.
‘Brother, what are you saying?’
The two continued to converse through glances. They understood each other surprisingly well.
Then he turned his head.
Seo Jun’s answer wasn’t meant for Lee Dong-su.
“Everyone, am I angry? That person just smiled and asked me to try it, right? It was… Taker, wasn’t it?”

-Lol he doesn’t even know the name
-Is he ramping up now?
-Master of not knowing names!
-Not worth knowing lol

The viewers’ advantage number one:
They interpret everything generously on their own.
“Ah, Taker. Right. Anyway, let’s just see how it goes. Maybe… never mind.”

-Is he saying he can’t win lol
-Can he actually handle this?
-I did notice it’s been unusually quiet today

The viewers’ advantage number two:
They understand perfectly even when something is said clumsily.

-Originally he should’ve been pulling aggro left and right since arriving at the Training Ground, but he was being quiet
-You call that quiet?
-He was pulling like crazy!
-You guys haven’t seen the wide-scale provocation on day eleven of the Battlefield

Lee Dong-su thought to himself.
‘The seal’s broken on that mouth.’
He was pulling aggro even without meaning to, but once he set his mind to it…
This was it.
He comes out swinging from the start.
Should I just leave now?
As Lee Dong-su was deliberating whether it’d be better to take criticism for bailing from Reos or stand in the center of this storm right now,
Taker’s words came through the broadcast—words that Seo Jun’s provocation hadn’t yet reached him through.

[Alright, let’s go. I guess I need to beat it under the same conditions, huh?]

Seo Jun nodded.
“One minute, full HP—that’s what you’re saying, right?”

-Whoa!
-But isn’t that supposed to be easy?
-No idea, let’s just watch

Through Rein’s broadcast, we can see Taker moving.
He’s touching the empty air in front of him with his hand.
Difficulty level settings.
What’s summoned next is a copy of Baek Do-yul.
Since he didn’t use unknown mode, Baek Do-yul’s physical characteristics were rendered in a blurred fashion.
Then.
Taker began fighting the copy of Baek Do-yul.
Taker’s sword focused on the Variable Sword Technique.
In other words.
‘It’s grappling technique.’
Changeable.
Irregular.
Thrashing.
Of course, grappling technique at that level of mastery would be potent, but if Baek Do-yul—with his overwhelmingly superior skill and solid fundamentals—deployed the same sword, it would be far more devastating.
‘So he felt a limit.’
There are two ways to break through such a ceiling: either return to fundamentals, or mask the problem with a different technique.
The former is a tower built on solid ground. It can soar much higher.
The latter is a tower hastily stacked with bricks to suit the moment.
The latter is fast but fragile. And Taker, with his naturally excellent talent, has climbed this high without shattering.
“You all shouldn’t do what that player does. Understand?”

-Huh? What do you mean?
-Obviously we can’t replicate it lol
-Facts

“You’ll hit your ceiling far too soon if you try. It’s a method only talented people like him can manage. Just do a thousand Downward Strikes a day. Then you can become like me.”
Though it’ll take two hundred years.

-How the hell do you do a thousand strikes lol
-Facts, guy’s insane
-You guys are Bill Gates with all the time you’ve got, give it a shot
-If I could get as handsome as the Master, I’d do it lol
-But why suddenly praise Taker?
-That doesn’t mean his talent is lesser, right?
-Humility mode. He’s copying Baek Do-yul! lol

It wasn’t praise.
“Humility mode? That’s not it. So what is it? I’ll show you now.”
One minute had passed.
Taker succeeded in capturing it without his stamina dropping even once, just as he’d said.
Though slightly more difficulty than Baek Do-yul had.
Either way, people were now clamouring for him to prove it.
But Seo Jun had no intention of leaving it at that.
“Everyone, how about we test who lands a hit first instead? Under the same conditions we’ve been using?”
Seo Jun summoned without even waiting for a reply.
Just as Taker had done.
If you don’t accept this, you’re disqualified as a streamer.
Seo Jun leveled his sword at Taker’s puppet and smiled.
“One minute.”
From now on, the proving was no longer Seo Jun’s alone.

* * *

The Training Ground Ranking.
From second place to ninety-ninth, the ranking is engraved based on records against Level 9 AI, scored by the AI’s own assessment.
But first place is different.
It’s a throne that only the master of Level 10 can occupy.
Such a throne
was undergoing
a massive upheaval in real time.

#1
#1
#1
#1
#1

[Mutual Pan Blocking Exchange is insane]
[Is he seriously grappling with a pro player lol]
[That guy is that guy lol]
[How is he doing this on his first practice day? At this point, making issues is basically his talent?]
[When you think about it, the Master was also the one who got all the pros together… just the GOAT.]

And real-time seizures of the throne flooded the community with posts.

[There’s always a lot of posts on Riben, but this is too much! Don’t let me get buried—upvote!]
[Wow, both of them look like they’re clenching their teeth. But this isn’t actually easy, right?]
[Easy? Just look at the fact that Seo Jun didn’t do thirty seconds]

#1

[Taker reclaimed it!]

#1

[Lmao the Master reclaimed it in just one minute with zero chatting]
[Taker talks a lot, but this guy just goes ahead. Why isn’t anyone stopping the wealth gap? Take it easy lol]
[It was all the Master’s design from the start. Gathered the pros through Lee Dong-su, came straight to the Training Ground to draw attention. Provoked with thirty seconds, then provoked the provoked pro to lock horns –> becomes an issue. Creepy.]
[When did the Master’s thirty-second statement become a provocation? Wasn’t it just hyping up Baek Do-yul appropriately?]
[Ah lol so now nobody’s watching anything but Seo Jun’s stream, right?]
[Ah lol why watch a streamer’s view when you can watch in person?]
[Or Rein lol]

Everywhere else on stream, people are watching this fight.
So the viewers didn’t need to watch through a screen within a screen.
And so.
Except for Ha Yun-ho’s and Rein’s rooms, a massive exodus of viewers occurred.
Ten thousand viewers per room.
Twenty thousand.
Thirty thousand.
As the fight wore on, the numbers gradually increased, and before long, Seo Jun’s broadcast had

Rein, who could watch in person, was the same.

And then.

Up until now, whenever he checked on Seo Jun like this, he’d always be mid-fight, but this time was different.
Seo Jun was standing quietly, not summoning his copy. Looking at Ha Yun-ho.
‘Hmm, did I just barely lose this one? Or…?’
He was starting to feel the strain. The opponent would be too.
‘Anyway… did I lose?’
The viewers didn’t have much else to say about it.
They were simply curious why Seo Jun was standing there.

-Is this supposed to be a friendly draw?

‘If he’s ending it here… that’s pretty smart.’
He must also be hitting a wall. Given the conditions, that is.
He’d mentioned thirty seconds and then kept smoothing things over.
Now he senses danger and tries to slip past it.
Remarkably cunning, really.
Though it did irritate him.
‘What does he know about me to act like he understands?’
He caught the meaning behind what Seo Jun had said during his fight with Baek Do-yul’s AI through the chat, and understood instantly.
‘He thinks I’m stagnating.’
He thought that presumptuous.
And in that moment.
Seo Jun held up three fingers.

-Is it one minute three seconds?
-No, Taker just did fifty-eight seconds
-It was that close
-Good call, Seo Jun did fifty-nine last time

Then he struck at it like an arrow.
Sword meets sword. And the AI’s stamina drops.

This was a sword he hadn’t shown before from the start.
Clang!

‘That’s… the Variable Sword? Or… me?’
The AI’s movements and Seo Jun’s actions overlapped. They were the same. Or not—they were different.

‘How is that even…?’
Within the battlefield where they fought at a distance, a change occurred.

Seo Jun defended while simultaneously attacking.
With his sword. Taker’s sword.

The sword showed unexpected movements.
Mid-fight, at a moment that was hard to catch, he’d reverse his grip on the blade and spin his body to attack, or
‘Something I did just before.’

But Seo Jun was already slipping his body aside.

Descended and blocked.
The AI’s blade, held in reverse grip.
That’s when Taker felt something breaking.

Himself being attacked.
Watching that unfold was both alien and mesmerizing.

The reason for the captivation wasn’t that he was on the receiving end.
That attack.
‘That attack… how in the world did he…’
Then, that moment.

The chat exploded even more violently.
But Taker couldn’t focus on the fact that it had ended so suddenly.
What woke him from his daze was what Seo Jun said.

-????
-?????????
-Collecting hookshoots like crazy lol
-Now that you mention it, that was crazy fast
-Wait lol he did it in thirty seconds without taking a single hit?
-Ah lol insane
-Was that what the three fingers meant?

But the content was.

No—not dismissal.
The courtesy of a superior who’d cut the time in half.
His turn was coming again.
Weightlessly, as before.
But the pressure that descended on Taker now was on a different scale entirely, and
viewers—even those from Rein’s channel—were beginning to stream toward Seo Jun’s side.

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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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