The 100th Regression of the Max-Level Player - Chapter 93

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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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The Maxed-Out Player’s 100th Return – Episode 93
93. Rainbow Effect
Blueprints were undeniably crucial items.
‘Purchasing a blueprint with the combination formula written on it would save time compared to endlessly testing various items and running through countless permutations.’
It also spared me from tedious grunt work.
But was it worth climbing all the way to a billion won?
‘That was another matter entirely.’
A blueprint was merely an item containing information.
The materials needed to craft the blueprint item had to be sourced separately.
‘In other words, a billion won was spent purely on acquiring information.’
The buyer must have judged it worth that investment.
‘It made sense—this was the first blueprint item to appear, and it could supposedly craft a unique armor piece, so it would’ve looked attractive.’
Perhaps after acquiring the information from the blueprint, they’d share it with others and pocket profits in return.
There were actually people who made money that way.
‘If I wanted, I could sell the combination formulas in my head and rake in serious cash….’
But the reason I didn’t was simple.
‘The profit from monopolizing the information far exceeded what I’d gain by selling it.’
Rather than sharing with others and consuming limited materials, I’d monopolize those materials first.
‘Combining items that way and selling them would be far more lucrative.’
That said, I had no intention of bothering with the tedious work of crafting and selling items.
I’d simply combine materials to create only what I needed.
Besides, I had more money than I could ever spend.
‘And that’s not even counting stock price increases.’
In any case, I was satisfied with the windfall of a billion won when my phone rang.
The caller ID showed Ma Gyeong-rok.
“Yes, Representative.”
-Prophet! Did you see the final auction price?
“Yes, I did.”
-Unbelievable—a billion won in just one day. I never expected it to climb that high.
“Have you identified who the buyer is? With that kind of capital, they’d likely have connections with you too.”
-That’s what I thought. So I looked into it, and the buyer’s name matches the Han Chul Group Eldest Son. Though we’re not close—just acquainted by name.
“Is that so?”
-And I did some digging. Apparently about ten thousand people placed bids over the 24-hour period. Just as you predicted, it certainly drew attention. Traffic dropped sharply the moment the auction item came down.
“Is that right? Then should we list another item?”
-You have something else to put up?
“There’s a possession called ox hide that I think would sell if we list it as a material required for the blueprint we just auctioned.”
-How did you know it was needed for the blueprint?
It was a sharp question, but Ryu Min had an answer that worked for nearly everything.
“I saw it through prophecy.”
-Ah, I see….
“In any case, I’ll stop by the company later and hand over the items.”
-Understood. If you give them to Manager Kim, he’ll take care of everything.
Being the chief executive officer certainly has its perks.
I can dump tedious tasks onto my employees.
-By the way, where did you obtain items like designs and materials? I’ve never seen items like those before.
“Items don’t just appear whenever I want. I got lucky and they dropped from monsters, that’s all.”
Attributing everything to luck was such a convenient excuse.
“I noticed quite a lot of items were uploaded in just one day.”
-That’s right. We currently have over 3,000 items registered.
“Hmm, having only sellers won’t work.”
-We have plenty of buyers too. Transaction volume is already exceeding 50 deals per hour.
“You’ve prepared transaction safeguards for the brokerage site, haven’t you?”
-Of course. As we discussed before, we’ve created diverse transaction methods—direct trades, courier deliveries, consignment sales—all with user convenience in mind. PulPul provides identity verification and various authentication methods so buyers and sellers can trade safely on our platform.
“That’s excellent.”
Ma Gyeong-rok certainly had the qualities of a businessman, befitting someone from a chaebol family.
“You set it up so foreigners can register too, like we discussed before, right?”
-Yes. We’ll open internationally in a week, but we’ve already built the system so players worldwide can use it. We’ve handled all customs and legal matters as well.
“Well done.”
Korea currently has only 40,000 players.
Limiting customers to Korea alone would naturally guarantee failure.
I needed to expand the scale globally.
That way, I could scrape together materials from all over the world.
-I’ll have the auction proceeds sent directly to the Prophet’s account.
“Understood.”
-If there are any other items you’d like, feel free to purchase them too, Prophet.
“Yes, I will.”
After hanging up, Ryu Min smirked.
‘I was planning to do that anyway.’
I accessed the app and browsed for useful items.
‘People must be desperate for money—they’ve uploaded all sorts of things.’
Equipment that had become unnecessary as my level increased, mysterious magic stones, and material items whose purpose I didn’t even know.
Many varieties were listed.
‘Should I start by sweeping up unique materials?’
I’d memorized the unique item combination formulas needed for the Grim Reaper hundreds of times over.
‘Deer tree root, black diamond stone, orc’s protruding tooth, Nol’s spine….’
Each monster dropped quite a variety of items.
Even a lowly goblin dropped things like a goblin’s rusty dagger, beginner-grade equipment items, goblin blood, and a worn leather pouch.
More than five or six different items.
How did I know that?
‘Because I experienced it firsthand through dozens of playthroughs.’
Even when hunting the same monster, the items that dropped varied based on probability.
I’d been shocked more than once, thinking, “This monster drops that?”
‘The probability is just low, but there are really so many types of items.’
Because of this, figuring out combination formulas through sheer grinding without a guide wasn’t easy.
There were limits to gathering materials alone.
The trading function probably existed for this reason.
‘The reason it’s unlocked at level 40 must be because that’s the point where players have secured enough diverse items to actually trade.’
But most players needed to reach round 9 just to hit level 40.
‘I couldn’t wait that long.’
So what I came up with was a social marketplace that players could use.
I created it with the mindset that if no one else made it, I would.
‘Of course, the one who actually built it was Ma Gyeong-rok.’
Ryu Min added unique material items to the shopping cart.
‘Looking at what I’ve gathered, I can make 3 unique items.’
I purchased all the materials through delivery receipt methods.
The purchase amount was deducted from the cybercurrency I’d pre-charged on the site.
‘Now the seller will ship the package to my address.’
Once I safely received the items, the site would give the seller their payment minus the commission.
Even if the wrong package arrived, the site would refund me, so there was nothing to worry about.
‘With the site acting as a middleman like this, transactions could happen safely without anyone getting scammed.’
Since there was no set market price, the material costs weren’t that expensive.
Most were under 500,000 won.
When I added everything to the cart, the total material cost came to less than 5 million won.
‘For the cost of making 3 unique items, that’s incredibly cheap.’
Ryu Min smiled with satisfaction and searched for magic stones next.
Since the combination method for these was somewhat known, even the lowest grade exceeded 2 million won per piece.
‘Well, the magic stone combination method is easy to figure out.’
They probably discovered it by trying combinations of the same colors.
Once they realized it could be embedded in equipment, they’d already grasped its value.
‘The price doesn’t matter.’
Money in reality was overflowing anyway.
Ryu Min purchased all the magic stones listed.
They were all lowest-grade magic stones, totaling around 90 pieces.
‘Spending 180 million won is no problem.’
Ryu Min grinned and clicked the payment button without hesitation.
* * *
Two days later.
A scream came from the entrance.
“Whoa! Hyung! What, what is all this!?”
“What’s wrong?”
Ryu Min walked out with an indifferent expression, then let out a quiet chuckle upon seeing the stack of delivery boxes piled in front of the entrance.
“They’ve arrived.”
“D-Did you order all of this, hyung?”
“Yeah.”
“What on earth did you buy so much of…?”
“Nothing special. Just items that players use.”
“Ah, so you bought them from that PulPul player-exclusive marketplace?”
“Yeah. Anyway, could you help me move these into the room?”
“Sure thing, hyung.”
I stacked the delivery boxes neatly in the room alongside my younger brother.
Click—
After closing the door, I opened the boxes one by one.
The contents were all intact, matching the 105 delivery boxes I had ordered.
‘Perfect. Let me try combining some of these. I’ll start with the magic stones since there are so many.’
I combined magic stones of the same color over and over again.
I also took out the magic stones I already had and combined those as well.
‘Sixteen lowest-grade magic stones can make one highest-grade magic stone.’
The count that had exceeded one hundred gradually diminished, and finally—
[Combination successful!]
[You have created a ‘Highest-Grade Red Magic Stone’.]
[You have created a ‘Highest-Grade Orange Magic Stone’.]
[You have created a ‘Highest-Grade Yellow Magic Stone’.]
…
…
[You have created a ‘Highest-Grade Purple Magic Stone’.]
I was able to create seven highest-grade magic stones, one of each color.
‘Excellent. If I embed these into each piece of equipment…’
Weapon, helmet, armor, gloves, boots, necklace, and ring.
I embedded a magic stone into each of the seven slots.
[Combination successful!]
[The option ‘Damage +16%’ has been added to Death Side.]
[The option ‘Strength +32′ has been added to Hermes’ Feather Boots.]
[The option ‘Luck +32’ has been added to Wanderer’s Tattered Clothes.]
…
…
[The option ‘All Stats +16’ has been added to Ring of Resistance.]
All my equipment was now completely inlaid with highest-grade magic stones.
As I equipped the gear, my stats surged dramatically.
-Strength: 206, Intelligence: 284
-Agility: 244, Luck: 202
‘All my stats have exceeded 200. And that’s without the Massacre Rune or Bless buffs.’
Once I applied those buffs, they’d soar to somewhere between 600 and 900.
Ryu Min’s lips curled upward with satisfaction.
But that wasn’t the only reason to celebrate.
[You have equipped seven colors of supreme-grade mana stones.]
[The buff ‘Rainbow Effect’ is now active.]
A subtle rainbow shimmer emanated from my equipped gear.
Depending on the angle, it would appear and disappear, so it wasn’t visually jarring.
More importantly, the Rainbow Effect wasn’t merely a cosmetic shimmer.
[The Rainbow Effect buff increases your resistance to status ailments by 50%.]
For Ryu Min, status ailments were the greatest threat of all.
The Rainbow Effect was the key to boosting resistance against them by a full 50%.
It was only natural that my smile wouldn’t fade.
‘A 50% resistance boost is incredibly valuable.’
Factor in Jaba’s Necklace at 35%, the Ring of Resistance at 35%, and the basic resistance from the common skill at 15%, and what do I get?
‘0.5 × 0.65 × 0.65 × 0.85 = 0.179. That means I can block status ailments with roughly an 82.1% success rate.’
If it were additive, I’d have already exceeded 100%, but unfortunately the system applies percentages multiplicatively.
Equipping mana stones by color like this grants tremendous benefits.
‘Most people won’t be able to activate this buff. It’s not something you can trigger with ordinary mana stones.’
The Rainbow Effect only activates when you equip supreme-grade mana stones of each color.
Lower-tier mana stones cannot trigger the buff.
‘Most people would struggle to even craft a single mid-grade mana stone. There are limits to what individuals can acquire.’
At this point in time, no one but Ryu Min would have equipped themselves entirely with supreme-grade mana stones.
I’d monopolized every single mana stone available.
‘Of course, as time passes, more inventory will appear on the market.’
People like me will emerge, trying to monopolize mana stones through trading sites.
‘But when that happens, mana stone values will skyrocket and shortages will become severe.’
Right now, the lowest grade costs 2 million won, but later it’ll exceed 20 million.
And that’s just for the lowest grade.
Eventually, listings appear as rarely as beans in a drought.
People will think it’s too precious to give away to others.
‘Getting in early really does pay off.’
Since I’d crafted supreme-grade stones, I didn’t need mana stones for a while.
Now it was time to craft unique items.
‘The process is simple. I put the equipment to enhance as the main material and the designated materials as secondary materials.’
That’s all it takes to transform normal gear into unique equipment.
It’s more about enhancing existing items than creating something entirely new.
But Ryu Min had no intention of combining anything right now.
‘I’ve already gathered the materials, but I’ll hold off for now. The equipment tier I use as the main material needs to be higher to be advantageous.’
My current level was 54.
I’ll reach level 60 soon.
‘Once I do, my rank will advance to Master, and the quality of equipment available in the shop will improve as well. I should save the Unique item combination for then.’
It would be wasteful to enhance the Expert-grade equipment I currently possess.
It’s far more efficient to raise my rank first, then purchase Master-grade equipment from the shop and combine them.
‘For now, I should be satisfied with having secured Unique materials in advance. After all, there isn’t much time left until level 60.’
In the meantime, I’ll check the app whenever I have a moment, and I need to purchase any Unique materials that become available beforehand.
Once I reach level 60, I’ll be able to enhance all my items to Unique grade.
‘I wonder if any materials have appeared yet?’
The thought prompted me to open the app and check if any new materials had been listed.
But then.
‘Huh?’
I blinked in disbelief as I saw the recently listed materials.
‘Wait, this is….’
My surprise wasn’t without reason.
‘This is a material needed for a Legendary item combination, isn’t it?’
An extraordinarily rare item had appeared on the listing.

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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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