Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 184

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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 184

Sensation does not reach everyone equally.
Even in virtual reality where a machine transmits the same information directly to the brain rather than through sensory organs prone to individual variation.
Looking at a single landscape, where each person’s gaze first lands will be different.
Clouds reddened in the glow of sunset. A secluded cabin, light reflected on still water.
When people with musical ability hear the same note, their brain will automatically replay what tone it is.
If not, it’s nothing more than a hum.
Even nociception is no different.
There are those who cannot properly tell where they were struck, and those who can gauge from the pain exactly how they were hit.
It is a difference in how information is interpreted.
And this method of interpretation can change.
In other words.
‘It can be learned.’
Acquiring the ability to distinguish sounds mentioned earlier, or
developing vision that can catch subtle details—both are possible through training.
This is not a distant matter.
Even now, lifeguards at swimming pools develop and practice methods to spot drowning people well.
From Seo Jun’s perspective, all these kinds of abilities were quite useful in virtual reality.
Whoooosh!
Just like now.

-Is the boss finally giving up on the game? lol
-So he’s surrendering the back? lol guess it’s over
-Wait, something’s weird about this
-Check Ha Yun-ho’s broadcast
-What is it?

The seventh wave.
One target appeared from behind.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
As the Orb processed the front half in the optimal trajectory and was moving to the next half.
If it were anyone else, they would need to look back and shoot, but Seo Jun had no such need.
He had pinpointed the location by sound.
Two Orbs are fired forward.
Bang! Bang!
One traces an arc and continues on to target the next target.
The other was fired in a straight line. Because after hitting the target.
Whoooosh!
The Orb came flying at Seo Jun rapidly. It passes beside his face and vanishes.
Soon, a faint sound heard from behind.
Bang!
“Can’t you hear it?” Seo Jun said.
At that, viewers gradually began to catch on.

-What is this???
-Quick, turn on Ha Yun-ho’s broadcast
-Emergency alert! Code red!
-This bastard is hitting targets without even turning around?
-??? How is that possible? Prediction??
-The boss said can’t you hear it lol omg

Naturally, when he first tried it, it wasn’t accurate.
The location based on the sound was slightly different from what he’d anticipated.
But having confirmed the error, he simply adjusted his sensory interpretation of the information.
Of course, even after confirming, he couldn’t be entirely certain.
‘That’s why I called it a gamble. But it’s working out.’
What Seo Jun did was something anyone could manage with proper training.
‘A hundred years or so?’
Training hard for that long would do it. Or else recall the previous life.
Seo Jun walked forward with an inward smile.
The success at the seventh wave wasn’t reason enough to relax.
This was just the beginning, and there was only one chance.
A single misstep in the remaining forty waves and he’d fail to reach the Rankers’ records and be done for.
Yet Seo Jun moved forward with ease.
“What am I doing, you ask? How would I predict? I’m just listening and reacting.”
While fulfilling a streamer’s duty to engage with viewers.
Whoooosh!
Targets fly in and Orbs are fired.
Flying spheres mix chaotically together.
“I mean, you all know that thing, right? At least you gotta do this much.”

-Is this really Sound Play??
-Is he insane?
-Processing speed got way faster after targets started appearing behind him, faster than Rankers ddd
-Sound Play makes sense? No Ranker has ever done this before?

‘They just didn’t know it was possible.’
Now that they knew it could be done, he suspected they’d challenge and research until they succeeded.
This kind of thing was common in games.
Problems that seemed completely impossible but turned out to have simple solutions once you changed your thinking or found an obvious method.
The Rankers could certainly train hard enough to develop the ability to distinguish. Some probably already had it.
If that happened, maybe the current ranking standards would become much higher.
But that was none of Seo Jun’s concern. He only needed to make it within the top rankings this time.

-Then… my money?
-Huh????
-Where’s the safe asset???
-He’s pinpointing location just by listening lol omg
-Seriously lol omg the boss is using an exploit again!
-Damn cool though
-Real talk other Rankers look pathetic with their hands in pockets turning around but the boss just walks lol
-Look at him not even turning his head
-So what do we do?

“What do you do? Bankruptcy.” Seo Jun replied.
Whoooosh.
Whoooosh!
Bang! Bang!
Busy.
Walking, spotting targets, summoning them, firing them.
Despite the endless chain of actions, targets begin to accumulate.
While firing Orbs at previously memorized positions, he has to keep new target locations locked in his mind.
When targets are destroyed, a faint but audible noise interferes.
It’s impossible not to be confused.
“Ah. I’m focusing. But a streamer can’t stop communicating, right? That’s what being a streamer is!”
Yet he teases viewers on the brink of bankruptcy.
How many times had he mentioned safe assets.

-Please slip up
-Please
-Dude using Sound Play as an exploit here isn’t fair lol
-My assets! Where’d they go!
-No there’s still hope!

At the twentieth step.
The number of targets he failed to process and let pile up was.

-How many?
-Don’t know
-I counted from Ha Yun-ho’s broadcast including the back. The boss is behind by 12 right now.

1.5 cycles?
The delay seems to be slightly under 1.5 seconds, and at this rate.
“Should be doable. Top 10.”
A total of 392 targets are summoned over 50 steps. None appear on the final step.
So how many are the Rankers currently behind at this point?
There were chat questions about that.
Seo Jun recalled the video of the Rank 10 player he’d seen earlier in his memory.
“That Rank 10 player? I think they were also about 12 behind. Maybe slightly ahead, though.”

-Oh lol memory!
-Is there a chance then?
-Doesn’t look like it? Even if the Ranker has a slight edge right now, this will eventually flip
-Then he’d have to make a mistake!!

That’s right.
With thirty steps remaining, if they’ve equalized, it will eventually flip.
Seo Jun had clearly been stacking targets faster than the Rankers starting from the wave where targets began appearing behind.
Even if he only processes two at a time and can’t finish perfectly within one second, this was ultimately a relative evaluation.
It would be more convenient if they tracked the count in real time, but oh well.
This is more thrilling anyway.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Walking. Spawning. Destroying. Spotting.
Piling up and piling up more, but if viewers had both the Ranker’s video and Seo Jun’s current stream playing simultaneously and compared, they’d probably despair watching the count of unprocessed targets from the Ranker tracking in real time.
At thirty steps.
‘By now it should have flipped, right?’

-But what was that Korean gibberish earlier?
-Visualization of Sound, newbies don’t know everything
-Oh lol looks like I’m studying Korean again
-Are we screwed?
-US Treasury bonds can collapse too
-Korean teacher please just once please Korean teacher just once please Korean teacher just once
-Literature is hard! Literature is hard! Literature is hard! Literature is hard!

At thirty-five steps.

-The way he doesn’t make a single mistake even when gritting his teeth pisses me off lol
-Doesn’t really look like he’s gritting his teeth though?
-Real talk lol he’s reading chat and smiling
-This is wild. He’s about to make ten million won lol
-People with 1% stake here give upvote lol
-There’s a sucker here who bet 100k

At forty steps.

-I thought it was safe this time and bet 300k ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-300k omg how many chickens is that
-Give up
-Rank 10’s in trouble

At forty-five steps.

-Don’t know
-I know if he’ll mess up here
-Who said this was a safe asset? Come out
-Was there really some wind-breaker?
-Nah lol who would’ve known Trial of Id becomes Sound Play

The final fifty steps.
Seo Jun stood before a barrier that seemed over ten meters tall.
Phew.
He exhaled a deep sigh of relief.
Along the way here, he’d been talking to tease viewers, but there were moments he’d nearly slipped up.
Though ultimately he hadn’t.
The targets surrounding him vanished. It looked like over thirty of them.
“It’s done. Let’s check the rankings now. Oh, what was the Rank 1 score again? I didn’t really check the rankings before I started.”
Though gauging from the video had been sufficient.

-This madman lol
-But at this rate it’s not Rank 10…
-Huh?

* * *

Meanwhile, at the same time.
Over 6,900 miles away from Korea.
A world 11,000 kilometers away—converting from the yard-pound system that engineers despise—one of the world’s three greatest cities.
Among them, if you had to rank them, one of the two major ones, a city that frequently appears in those “Where is the US capital?” trivia videos.
New York, USA.
In a renovated loft house from an abandoned factory in Brooklyn, New York, a famous American female professional player on vacation received the somewhat distorted news about Seo Jun one step late.
“Sis. Your brother won Rank 1 in Trial of Id, right? They’re saying it just got broken?”
Through her younger brother’s friend browsing the community.
“What.”
She lay sprawled on the bed. Her head resting against the opposite end of the pillow.
She lazily shifted toward the foot of the bed.
And when her neck reached the edge, she hung her head over it to look upside-down at her younger brother sitting at the computer desk in front of the bed.
She didn’t have the strength to lift herself up and turn around.
Because she was on vacation!
Blonde hair touched the floor.
That’s fine. She kept her shoes off while living here.
“My friend David said a famous streamer from Korea just beat you with only two Orbs!”
“That’s bullshit.”
She dismissively spat out the words and told her brother to just go to school.
“My annoying brother interrupting my sweet vacation.”
Blood was gradually pooling in her head. So she lazily crawled back to her original position.
“I’m the one who lives here, so why am I the one interrupting your vacation?”
“Then who got you this place?”
“You did.”
“Then you got nothing to say?”
“No. But what if your record actually got broken?”
“Listen. I’m serious. If even just two Orbs gets them in the top 10 of the rankings, I’m dropping whatever goal I have and becoming their servant for the entire timeline everyone sees. No questions.”
“Even in front of all the League users in the world? That sounds fun. But what if they take first place and steal your spot?”
“Then I’ll just take it back.”
“Can you do that? Isn’t your record already at the limit?”
“That’s the problem. Why would it not be possible?”
She had been waiting for years for Trial of Id to appear in a League event.
Since Id is non-affiliated, legitimate solo play is definitely possible within the event. More precisely, she could do whatever she wanted.
Of course, other heroes could do the same, but doing so would get them flamed by their respective Faction fans. Why are you trolling, they’d say.
In an event, she also had the option of targeting other non-affiliated heroes.
But unless it was her main character, she couldn’t guarantee first place in the Trial.
“What if Id doesn’t appear?”
For reference, Id was also her most-played character.
“I think Id will definitely appear this time, but I’m still prepared for other heroes too.”
She spoke confidently, but who knew.
There were so many skilled competitors. Those craftsman users who only play one character.
“Then what if that person makes the top 10 but doesn’t appear in the event?”
“Then there’s nothing I can do. But first of all, how would they even do it with just two?!”
“Right, I guess.”
“Just get out! I don’t want to know anything about virtual reality while I’m on vacation, okay? That’s why I came here. So if you keep spouting nonsense, could you please leave?”
She loved virtual reality, but when resting, she had to stay away from it completely for at least a few weeks.
It was good for both mental health and performance.
And while she loved the work, she didn’t want it to become her entire hobby.
And so Rachel—the American version of herself, as she claimed—buried herself back under the blankets.
Her brother didn’t leave.
Ten seconds later.
Her brother spoke again.
“Sis, your record just broke.”
“What?”
“Rank 1.”
“Stop spouting such crap—”
“Look for yourself.”
Whirrrr.
Her brother shifted his chair to the side so the monitor was visible, and Rachel again lazily crawled to the foot of the bed, hanging her head upside-down to look at the monitor.

[Trial of Id Rankings]

#1 – Geomsin (Korea) – 360
#2 – Rachel (USA) – 356
#3 – Bernard (USA) – 344

The moment she saw the rankings, she flipped her body up abruptly.
“What. Why is it like this…. Is it a bug?”

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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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