Martial God Regressed to Level 2

[Translator - Asura]

[Proofreader - Gun]

Chapter 591

[Gold League assigned earlier than expected. What's the plan going forward?]

[First Space League representative team roster revealed. Noticeable weakening of the warrior lineup.]

[Yoon Seah takes first place with a large gap. Will the Silver League's first-place ban situation repeat?]

Humanity's entry into the Gold League.

Although Seong Jihan had mentioned this through BattleTube beforehand,

When humanity was assigned to the Gold League less than a month after he spoke about it, articles expressing concern about the current situation poured in.

"The gap with second place is too big, so I'm definitely getting banned."

"It's good that the ban card is gone, but the problem is the gap from second place down."

"It's a shame Mom's power has decreased so much. If she had even half the strength from her Witch of The Void days, it would have been a big help."

Yoon Seah shook her head as she read the articles.

The Space League representative team roster showed far more women than men.

The former rankers who had become male half-elves in the Tower of Martial Gods were working hard to level up, but it was still not enough to immediately recover to their previous levels.

"Uncle still can't participate, right?"

"Administrators can't participate."

"That's too bad... We'll have to be prepared to lose early on."

Yoon Seah clicked her tongue and turned her attention to another article.

[Gold League has fewer participating races than lower leagues. A total of 12 races belong to the league.]

[Newly joined humanity given 3 wins, tied for first place.]

"At least it's fortunate they gave us 3 wins even though we joined midway."

"It's compensation for humanity being weaker than other races. If we were strong, we might have gotten losses added instead."

"Ah... But was Gold always just 12 races?"

"No. Originally there were 15 teams, but 3 were World Tree Elves. The line was drawn after they were wiped out."

As Seong Jihan said this, he brought up a screen.

Yoon Seah glanced at it.

"Oh... you can see them, Uncle? The races in the league."

"Because I'm an administrator."

"Let's see... Silver Dragon Clan, Half-Spirits, Blood Demon Clan, Void Faction... None of these look easy."

"They're all advanced races at minimum."

At the Gold League level, the opponents were indeed formidable.

Yoon Seah furrowed her brow.

"Feels like they should have given us 10 wins instead of 3..."

"Well, I'll help indirectly too, so try to avoid relegation somehow."

"Right. Everyone's leveling up quickly thanks to Uncle's tower... Oh, but don't you need to be at the tower?"

"These days no players are reaching the top floor. I'll go when a challenger arrives at the peak."

After the alien constellations challenged Seong Jihan and all died instantly, the difficulty of the lower floors with phantoms had skyrocketed.

The random phantoms that used to be just life prisoners now included alien constellations popping up.

"True... I challenged today and died on the 13th floor."

"13th floor? You?"

"Yeah. I couldn't do any damage to a rock-form constellation... Can't we adjust the difficulty of the lower floors somehow?"

"Hmm. That is a problem."

For Yoon Seah, humanity's top ranker, to die on the 13th floor.

If she was having this much trouble, it must be even harder for others to climb.

"Yeah. These days there are quite a few people dying from the 2nd floor."

"Hmm. Maybe we should adjust the difficulty."

"Can the difficulty be adjusted? Oh, but you do get a lot of experience if you manage to land a hit on a constellation. The problem is it's not easy even with stat adjustment..."

Even with adjustments, only the stats were equalized.

The skills and gifts of the constellation phantoms were far superior to human players.

It seemed difficult not just to win, but even to inflict damage on opponents.

"I see. I'll have to think about how to revamp it."

"Okay. Well, I'm heading out then, Uncle."

"Oh, right. The Space League representative team is gathering?"

"Yeah. We're meeting in Seoul."

Humanity joined the Gold League mid-season on July 1st.

Since they entered midway, the Space League representative matches were just 3 days away.

It made sense to have an emergency gathering with such urgent timing, but...

"Why meet here instead of New York where the association is?"

"Come on. You're in Seoul, so of course everyone should gather here."

"Hey, I can't help directly just because of that."

"Well... I think everyone's treating the first match as a throwaway game anyway. I'll be back after training camp~"

As Yoon Seah waved goodbye and left,

Seong Jihan spoke to the Red Administrator.

'Tower of Martial Gods. Can we adjust the difficulty?'

[To change the settings, we'd have to temporarily suspend the tower's operation. Also, the current settings are optimized for your leveling. If we adjust the difficulty for each floor, the experience you receive will be less than now.]

'That's fine. I've benefited enough from Urd, so let's make it more user-friendly for challengers.'

[User-friendly... That might work for humanity, but we shouldn't make it friendly for alien races too.]

'Wouldn't being nice to them make us lose money?'

[Correct. Your level might even decrease instead.]

The VIPs of the Tower of Martial Gods, the alien races.

The levels they lost when defeated were used for the tower's growth and Seong Jihan's leveling.

This was essentially the tower's main source of income now.

Giving them conveniences too would likely lead to losses.

[Hmm... For now, let's lower the difficulty up to the 10th floor. And with the queue dropping at an alarming rate lately, how about we announce future update plans in advance?]

'What update announcement?'

[I mean incentives to offer players when the Tower of Martial Gods reaches 50 floors.]

'Do I need to go that far? I'm not a game company. Besides, it'll reach 50 floors soon anyway.'

Recently, the Tower of Martial Gods was growing by 1 floor every 1-2 days.

At this growth rate, it seemed the tower would reach 50 floors within 3 weeks at most.

So why not just announce rewards then?

Why make a fuss advertising now just because the queue has dropped a bit?

However,

[If we ignore this rapid decline, the tower's growth will significantly slow down. We need to announce in advance to regain attention.]

Unlike the laid-back Seong Jihan, the Red Administrator was more serious about the Tower of Martial Gods.

'But we haven't even decided on rewards yet?'

Most aliens challenging the Tower of Martial Gods were constellation-level or similarly exceptional players.

It would take quite substantial rewards to appeal to such beings.

[True. No matter how much GP we offer, or even if we put up SSS-grade items as rewards, they won't be very interested. They won't keep risking level drops for that.]

'That's right.'

[But... how about an administrator's ability?]

'An administrator's ability?'

As Seong Jihan's eyes widened,

Whoosh...!

A small flame appeared before him.

[Yes. My ability. Giving 'Red'.]

* * *

[Translator - Asura]

[Proofreader - Gun]

The stat 'Red'.

This unique ability of the Red Administrator could be continuously generated in the Blue and Red, Hell.

So for Seong Jihan, Red was not just abundant, but something he had to manage to not exceed Blue's control range, but.

'For alien players, it would be an eye-catching prize...'

What if he offered 1 Red just for reaching the top floor?

They'd all keep challenging the Tower of Martial Gods without caring about level drops.

The ability of an administrator who had reached the pinnacle of BattleNet would be even more appealing to constellations.

But.

'Is it okay to offer your unique ability as a prize like that?'

[It doesn't matter. Right now, the tower's growth is more important than Red.]

'...You seem more serious about the tower than me.'

[The Tower of Martial Gods needs to keep getting attention for your White Light to grow too. White Light is the most important thing to me right now.]

The stat White Light that the Red Administrator had been obsessed with from before.

This ability had been increasing little by little since Seong Jihan applied White Light to the Tower of Martial Gods.

Over the past 2 weeks, the stat had increased by 5.

While it wasn't exactly clear why it was growing, they suspected it might be related to the alien viewers participating in the Tower of Martial Gods.

He was now willing to offer even his unique ability to accelerate White Light's growth.

'Hmm... You're still obsessed with White Light. By the way, what happened to that thing you wanted to find out by obtaining White Light?'

[The White Light stat is still too low for full information access. However...]

'However?'

[When I did a detailed search on content related to me, a title "Update-Hephaestus" came up.]

Hephaestus?

'That's the blacksmith god from Greek mythology, isn't it?'

[He's also the god of fire.]

'I don't see how that god is particularly related to you though...'

In Greek mythology, wasn't Hephaestus kind of a pushover?

His wife always cheating on him, just making items...

That god didn't seem to have much in common with the current Red Administrator.

[Urd and Yggdrasil didn't exactly match their images from your mythology either, did they?]

'...That's true.'

[We need more White Light to see the update contents. So for now, it's fine to offer Red as a prize as much as we want.]

'Update - Hephaestus', huh.

The Red Administrator's original form as a red-eyed monster and the lame blacksmith god seemed to have no connection, which made him curious.

'Come to think of it, I think I fought some Greek mythology gods before...'

Seong Jihan recalled his past memories.

When he fought the Thunder God's group as a player.

'Right. Zeus was definitely one of the opponents then.'

Hephaestus' father was just one of those gods too.

It didn't seem likely he would have become the Red Administrator on his own like this.

'What's your real name anyway?'

Just in case, he tried asking.

[It has nothing to do with Hephaestus. In our clan's language, it's Alkurta Veim...]

The Red Administrator went on for about a minute, listing his name starting with Alkurta.

It certainly seemed to have no relation to Hephaestus.

So was the name "Hephaestus" given to him from a purely human perspective?

'Urd, Yggdrasil, and now Hephaestus...'

If coincidence repeated three times,

It was no longer coincidence but necessity.

This was definitely worth looking into.

'You're right, we need to get more White Light.'

[Yes. So I recommend turning on BattleTube right now to make the announcement. Sell my ability as much as you want.]

'Alright.'

If that was what he wanted.

Seong Jihan was about to turn on BattleTube immediately, but he suddenly thought of something and asked the Red Administrator.

'By the way, did anything come up about me?'

[You mean in the White Light search?]

'Yeah. I doubt you only looked yourself up.'

[Hmm. I did search for you too, but... I couldn't find any related information.]

'So nothing about me, but something about you.'

[Yes... Remember how Urd was only obsessed with your power, and not very interested in Red?]

Seong Jihan nodded at those words.

Urd, who had invaded the Tower of Martial Gods but couldn't even generate the Light Clock due to stat adjustment.

When he attacked her using only Red, her reaction was quite lackluster.

[I think it might be because my information is already in the White Light data, while yours isn't.]

'Hmm... That's a plausible theory.'

The Red Administrator, who appeared as "Hephaestus" in the update log, versus Seong Jihan with no data.

Was Urd's obsession with the Blue stat related to the presence or absence of data?

'Still, it's just speculation at this point. To be more certain, we need to grow White Light first.'

For that, he needed to attract more alien beings to the tower.

Seong Jihan turned on BattleTube.

[Translator - Asura]

[Proofreader - Gun]