The Return of the Genius Ranker’s Myth Warehouse - Chapter 69
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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 69
Chapter 69
Sand dust obscured my vision, and irregular gusts of wind swept across the Desert from all directions.
Even with my Sand Goggles secured to maintain visibility, pinpointing the exact path toward the Center in such a wasteland would not be simple.
[ Solar Compass ]
( Non-Tradeable )
Form: Compass
Grade: Rare
Thanks to this item, I had no fear of losing my way.
The Solar Compass.
As long as the sun hung overhead, this compass would ignore most interference effects and reliably indicate direction.
In a Desert terrain where the sun blazed relentlessly, no other item could compare.
Advancing toward the heart of the Desert while scanning my surroundings through the Sand Goggles.
‘There’s one.’
I could spot players wandering aimlessly through the sands.
Twang—
Each time I drew my bowstring.
Thunk!
“Ugh!”
The players struck by my arrows fell without fail.
Of course, I couldn’t eliminate every player in a single shot.
As they proved themselves to be promising prospects selected within the top thousand from the preliminaries, some sharp-eyed ones occasionally spotted my arrows and dodged.
Even those who couldn’t fully evade would shift their vital points away, then create distance and flee.
There were more players who didn’t die in one hit than I’d anticipated.
Truthfully, if I wielded better bows and arrows, I could have eliminated them from the start, and even pursued fleeing enemies.
‘There’s no need to hold back here.’
My goal wasn’t to conserve strength and waste items at this stage.
My goal was the Center.
Though I’d lost some time tracking Defair, with the power of the Shimmering Mirage set and the Solar Compass, I would reach the Desert’s heart faster than anyone else.
After that, I would snipe the players converging from all directions.
That approach would let me accumulate kills far more efficiently than hunting the occasional visible player now.
With that thought.
Dash!
I quickened my pace and rushed even faster toward the Desert’s center.
* * *
Second Crown.
One might think the Beginner League, being the weakest of the three leagues, would lack popularity since the weakest players gathered to compete.
But wasn’t it said that dogfights were always the most entertaining?
Matches where novices struggled against each other proved far more popular than expected.
The Challenger League was the most popular at Second Crown, and the Beginner League came in second.
As popular as the tournament was, the Beginner League naturally had its own strong championship contenders.
And that was.
“Damn it, why did I have to run into Unmemory Spirit here of all places!”
Whoosh!
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
A promising prospect from the Pacheon Guild.
Unmemory Spirit.
Though his spotlight had dimmed somewhat due to Mir’s sudden appearance in the preliminaries, Unmemory Spirit remained a legitimate favorite to win the Beginner League.
And Unmemory Spirit.
“Fortune smiles upon me.”
He surveyed the Desert, designated as the main tournament field, with satisfaction.
The monsters that emerged from the Jungle during the preliminaries were primarily insectoid, plant, and beast types—most of them weak to fire attributes.
Thanks to that, he had easily climbed the rankings.
And the Desert, the main tournament field that followed?
This too was advantageous terrain for Unmemory Spirit.
The Desert’s scorching heat made fire attribute magic even more potent.
And for Unmemory Spirit, who wielded fire, the Desert’s intense temperature imposed no penalty whatsoever.
Because of that.
[ 1st Place: Unmemory Spirit ]
Unmemory Spirit had secured first place in the main tournament without difficulty.
He had pursued every user he encountered in the Desert and incinerated them.
As time passed, the gap between him and second place only widened.
And with each passing moment, his first-place position grew more unassailable.
Yet, why was it?
Unmemory Spirit couldn’t relax. He scrolled down the rankings, searching for a particular username.
[ 21st Place: Mir ]
Mir.
An enigmatic rising star who had suddenly emerged in the preliminaries and seized first place.
With this user’s appearance, Unmemory Spirit had lost the first-place position he’d targeted.
And he’d lost the attention the Pacheon Guild had desired.
So he couldn’t help but feel on edge.
However.
‘Seeing his ranking steadily drop, it doesn’t seem like I need to worry too much.’
In this battle royale, Mir’s ranking had been continuously falling.
Though Mir’s name had briefly reached first place early on.
Since then, he had shown no remarkable performance.
His kill count was rising slightly, so it wasn’t as though he’d given up on the game, yet seeing this suggested he wasn’t performing at full strength in the battle royale.
‘Perhaps he’s unfamiliar with fighting against users.’
There were occasionally types like that.
Players who favored solo play and were comfortable with monster hunting, but lacked experience fighting other users and thus became extremely weak in player-versus-player combat.
In contrast, the Unmemory Spirit had accumulated considerable real-world experience through the support of the Pacheon Guild.
The Unmemory Spirit wasn’t merely trained by peers of the same level—he had received practical instruction from high-level seniors within the Pacheon Guild itself.
There was no reason he should lose this match.
While he was thinking this.
[ Rank 20: Mir ]
Suddenly, Mir’s ranking climbed one position.
He didn’t pay much attention to it at first.
In a battle royale, rankings fluctuated constantly with differences of just one or two kills.
But then.
[ Rank 19: Mir ]
[ Rank 18: Mir ]
[ Rank 17: Mir ]
As time passed, Mir’s ranking continued to climb steadily.
The moment Mir’s ranking reached 9th place, breaking into single digits.
“What in the world is he doing now…!”
The Unmemory Spirit couldn’t help but feel anxiety creeping in.
* * *
As I advanced toward the Center of the Desert, guided by my compass.
I could notice that the sand dust was growing denser and the wind was intensifying with each step.
But.
[ Sand Goggles ]
The Sand Goggles I wore disregarded these conditions and maintained my vision.
[ Shimmering Mirage Cloak ]
The cloak I wore possessed resistance against sandstorms.
Because of this, I alone remained unaffected by the sand dust and could advance forward unimpeded.
And so.
“Is that it?”
I finally reached the Center of the Desert.
How could I be certain that place was the Center of the Desert?
Well.
‘There’s no way I could miss that.’
A colossal structure—the first I’d encountered in a desert where only sand and cacti were visible.
A golden pyramid formed by square slopes.
How could I possibly overlook a Pyramid standing so brazenly before me?
It was unmistakable to anyone that the Pyramid was the Center of the Desert.
Extraordinarily powerful winds raged around the Pyramid, but thanks to the Shimmering Mirage Cloak’s effect, I minimized the wind’s impact and arrived at the Pyramid’s entrance.
“So the rule is that if the number of participants doesn’t drop to 64 by the time we reach here, we enter the Pyramid and have a final showdown?”
On all four sides of the Pyramid, entrances leading into its interior existed.
Since sand wouldn’t sink inside the Pyramid, it seemed we’d continue battling until our numbers were reduced to 64 within.
But the direction I headed wasn’t toward the Pyramid’s Entrance.
– I activate the skill Leap.
Beside the Pyramid entrance.
The Pyramid’s walls, scarred by millennia of relentless sandstorms that spoke of time’s passage, were carved into jagged steps much like their modern counterparts.
Though the Pyramid’s height made the ascent taxing, the harmony of my stats, skills, and equipment allowed me to reach its summit without undue difficulty.
“Quite the elevation.”
Standing atop the Pyramid, the entire Desert sprawled before me in a single panoramic vista.
The air at the Pyramid’s peak was relatively clean, making each breath feel refreshing.
I then focused on my Sand Goggles and surveyed my surroundings.
Thanks to the Sand Goggles’ effect, I could ignore the sand dust, but even from the Pyramid’s summit, my vision couldn’t reach the far reaches of the Desert beyond.
So I employed a skill I’d recently learned from a skill book upon reaching level 150.
– I activate the skill Hawk’s Eye.
Hawk’s Eye—a fundamental Archer skill obtainable through skill books.
Its ability was simple.
‘I can see.’
It expanded my field of vision.
Not merely allowing me to see farther, but also broadening my lateral vision considerably.
With that, several users approaching the Pyramid entered my expanded sight.
Some had pinpointed the location precisely, but most were wanderers who’d stumbled upon it by chance.
Observing them.
“Luke.”
I drew a new weapon.
Not the bow I typically wielded.
During this year’s Master advancement exam, I’d already struck a 500-meter target with a bow, and using an oversized great bow would extend my effective range further, but.
For sustained long-range fire from a fixed position, there existed a superior weapon.
“Bring out the Crimson Sniper.”
– Yes, Master.
Crimson Sniper.
At the mention of that name, black flames erupted brilliantly, and a weapon as massive as the inferno materialized.
A barrel as crimson as blood, befitting its name.
Its elongated, razor-sharp silhouette bore ancient script densely etched across the barrel and body—runes distinct from those of the Runic language.
That’s right.
What I’d drawn wasn’t a bow, but a ‘gun’.
And.
[ Crimson Sniper ]
( Non-Tradeable )
Type : Gun
Grade : Epic
Requirement : Level 150+, Magical Engineering Mastery Lv 20+
Description : The crystallization of a fallen ancient civilization’s technological prowess. An ultra-long-range anti-materiel magical engineering sniper rifle crafted through ancient magical engineering.
A sniper rifle measuring 2.2 meters from muzzle to stock—taller than my own frame.
There was a restriction requiring ownership of the rare skill Magic Engineering Mastery to use the item.
‘But that restriction doesn’t apply to me.’
The All Master’s unique skill.
All Mastery was a higher-tier skill that encompassed even rare mastery skills like Magic Engineering Mastery.
Moreover, my mastery skill level for using all items diversely had long since surpassed level 20.
This much I could handle with ease.
Click.
I installed the sniper rifle atop the Pyramid, its peak flattened by the passage of ages, and took my position.
As I brought the stock to my shoulder, I felt the distinctive weight of the sniper rifle.
Now that my stance was set, it was time to load the ammunition.
The ammunition for this massive sniper rifle, which looked ominous in appearance alone.
“Luke, load a mana stone for me.”
Was precisely mana stones.
This was both the advantage and disadvantage of this sniper rifle.
The advantage was that depending on the mana stone used, I could deliver attacks powerful enough to ignore the 150-level weapon restriction.
The disadvantage was that as purity increased, the mana stones became absurdly expensive, and using them as one-time consumables meant the cost was staggering.
But.
“What’s my inventory status?”
– You have 22,150 lowest-grade mana stones, 9,887 low-grade mana stones, 4,910 mid-grade mana stones, 1,301 high-grade mana stones, 199 highest-grade mana stones, and 15 special-grade mana stones.
My warehouse contained every mana stone I’d collected back in First.
All untradeable items, so there was no need to regret using them as disposable ammunition.
“Since I need to verify the power, let’s start with the lowest-grade and gradually work our way up.”
– Yes, Master.
After loading such a mana stone into the sniper rifle.
The moment I pulled the trigger, which felt as heavy as the rifle itself.
Boom!
The crystallization of technology left behind by ancient magical civilization.
An ultra-long-range anti-materiel magical engineering sniper rifle.
The Crimson Sniper erupted with scorching flames.
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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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