Chương 173: World First 100

Swing Master Rank One or Bust [VRMMO │ LitRPG │ Book 2 Completed] · RankUnlisted · 205 chương · ~29 phút đọc · Tạo 13/09/2026

They were ready to keep the train moving. Vaelkor survived less than 4 seconds. Legendary VI Damage Tier shredded whatever was left of the first boss. No mechanics mattered, no loot dropped, and the repeat-clear XP had cratered. Delfor's challenge did not care either, since both players were locked out of competing. The kill still felt great. The 6-minute Mush cooldown was becoming the actual boss. There were six fights in the Crucible.

Waiting for Karmabeast's Divine button before each one could waste thirty minutes per run, even though the early bosses died in seconds. Once waiting 6 minutes saved them less than 3 minutes of fighting, the burst strat stopped being faster. They were reaching that point. Mush was great. Karmabeast just needed more Cooldown Reduction. Legendary VI Damage Tier showed its real value against Kharvek.

Their first clear had fallen apart once the Bombardier started flying, but this time they burned through it before the explosive-ball mechanic was a thing. Near the end, Meno canceled Quadrillionator, restored Sinforged Trinity, and made sure the corrupted glaive landed the killing blow. Kharvek became the stored ghost, which opened up a much cleaner way to use the corruption. Meno could keep Quadrillionator active through most of a fight, then split it near the kill whenever a boss was worth saving.

The boss dropped nothing, as expected. Still lame, but repeat clears were making Sunring Concord look much better than Grave Crown for dungeon farming. Sunring guaranteed at least one material from every boss on top of the extra endboss drop, while Grave Crown gave Meno nothing inside the dungeon itself. Then again, most of the Marcel gear carrying his build only existed because of Grave Crown access, so the faction had already paid for itself. They kept Kharvek's ghost stored through Gorvath.

The upgraded 6-second Mush window nearly deleted the tank boss by itself, and when Toxic Crash expired, Karmabeast refreshed Venom Tyrant across the trash with Venom Cloak before stunning the packs again. Meno held Gorvath's attention from the front. His +500% Threat modifier was doing real work now, because all those extra Multi-Strikes pushed Karmabeast's damage high enough to steal aggro otherwise. Without the Threat boost, Gorvath would have turned its shield straight toward the actual damage source.

Instead, Karmabeast stayed planted behind it and pumped into the one direction Gorvath could neither Block nor parry. Meno stopped caring about preserving Chain and attacked from the front as fast as possible. He only needed to keep Threat, dodge the normal swings, and deny Gorvath any chance to turn. The occasional Counterattack restored some HP, but nowhere near enough to survive Karmabeast's damage. Gorvath disappeared around the 9. 5-second mark.

Much slower than their bugged ghost-assisted first kill, but still fast enough to be stupid. Drazhul lasted less than 5 seconds, while Zhaerith took 3 minutes and 41 seconds. Skipping Drazhul's ghost made the Arcanist fight much less stressful, although it meant handling Mirror Images properly. They spent longer finding the real boss, but at least neither player was getting cooked by lava while doing it. Then they reached Varkesh. Meno released Kharvek from Sinforged Trinity before rebuilding Quadrillionator.

The transparent Bombardier dumped its mechanic onto the Level 100 Executioner, but this time the result came nowhere near the 77% chunk it had ripped off Gorvath. Varkesh lost about 17% HP. The Legendary VI weapons handled the rest. Their first Varkesh clear had taken 21 minutes 52. 16 seconds. The rematch still dragged them through the same exhausting rotation of avoidance, bleeds, cleanses, parry positioning, and Chain resets, but every solid window hurt Varkesh much more.

This time, it died at 14 minutes 13 seconds. A massive improvement and still way too long. Meno had entered the fight just short of Level 97 and pushed past it comfortably. Karmabeast had reached Level 95 back at Gorvath and finished the run at Level 96. The XP drop off was real. They were going to need several more clears, and at roughly an hour per run. At least Varkesh decided to pay Karmabeast.

[Ancient III | Varkesh's Inertia] Type: Leather Chest Durability: Empowered Defense: Medium Leather Bonus: +2% Action Speed +50% Movement Speed +5% Damage Reduction per 20% Movement Speed +5% Maximum Damage Reduction per 100% Movement Speed (Baseline Maximum Damage Reduction is 75%.) (Maximum Damage Reduction cannot go higher than 90%.) Meno wanted it, but being guild master continued to involve all of the responsibility and none of the part where everyone handed him their best gear.

Empowered armor worked much like Varkesh's weapon. Instead of granting 10% more Damage while durability remained, the chest gained 10% more Defense. The Movement Speed wording bothered him more. Sometimes Veyrath called the stat Movement Speed. Other tooltips called the exact same bonus increased Movement Speed even when both behaved identically.

Movement Speed started from zero baseline value and added onto it, so the wording did not even match increased Damage, where Damage Tier supplied an actual base value first. Solar needed to clean that up. Meno stayed in the capsule and opened the Veyrath website through an overlay. He submitted a bug report about the inconsistent terminology, then added one final note before sending it. Lifesteal is fine. Still worse than Action Speed, though. Just saying. They reset the dungeon again.

After waiting out the remaining cooldown, Vaelkor got deleted. During the downtime, Meno opened the leaderboard to see how badly everyone else had fallen behind while he and Karmabeast chained Crucible clears.

What was happening? CROWNFALL WHAT THE HELL SOLVER FROM NOWHERE PIKE OUT OF TOP TEN??? MOON MISSING TOO AURELIA LEVEL 83???? KARMA SUBCLASS MAGICIAN LMAOOOO EXCRINANT XP FARM IS REAL KESTREL COOKED THE PARTY Kestrel's strategy was all over the leaderboard. Four Crownfall players had Excrinant, the post-party downtime to grind uncontested, bonus XP from Meno's level lead, and enough sustain to run five damage dealers instead of wasting a slot on a healer. Crownfall was finally learning. Solver made far less sense.

Meno barely knew the guy existed, yet there he was at Level 87 with Titan, sitting in third place without even having a guild. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Then there was Aurelia. She had skipped Streamline entirely, locked herself into the capsule, and climbed to tenth while everyone else was busy partying or recovering from it. Meno jabbed a finger at the leaderboard.

"Check the board. This is exactly what I was worried about with that Excrinant XP buff plus sustain crap. Also, what the hell is that Magician you're using? I haven't seen it do anything." Karmabeast opened his hands, and a bouquet of flowers burst into existence. He flung it over one shoulder. It vanished before hitting the stone.

"It doesn't give combat stuff. It lets me perform magic tricks."

"And you replaced Bloodwake with that?"

"Yeah, it's good for clips. I own someone in PvP and throw a flower at their corpse." MAGICIAN META 9 MILLION VIEWERS FOR FLOWER TECH HE DROPPED A COMBAT SUBCLASS FOR CLIPS NUMBER TWO PLAYER BTW Meno barely stopped himself from facepalming.

"Do you know this Solver guy?"

"I have seen his videos. He is a speedrunner, mostly old stuff. He doesn't stream, just uploads his runs. He must have started late to collect info, then optimized everything to death. Very boring. Very expected."

"Well, he is about to run out of information. I don't think he can copy what we are doing." Solver made sense after that. Aurelia did not. She streamed, had Titan, but tenth place was too big a jump to write off as normal solo progress. Maybe she had unlocked Titan with Solver. Maybe she was still helping funnel XP to him. Meno could investigate later. Level 100 came first. Kharvek died without causing trouble and finally dropped something Meno actually wanted.

[Ancient II | Kharvek's Breachscale] Type: Mail Pants Durability: Augmented+++ Defense: Medium+++ Mail Bonus: +5% Defense Pierce +30% Maximum HP +50% Defense Pierce +2% increased Attack Speed per 10% uncapped Defense Pierce It was great, and Meno still did not equip it.

With Kharvek's Skybreaker multiplying Mail bonuses while airborne and False Wings making those modifiers work on the ground, Breachscale would push his uncapped Defense Pierce high enough for the final line to grant around 30% increased Attack Speed. His current Legendary III pants gave him 50%. Dropping 20% Attack Speed felt disgusting. Ancient II Defense and another 30% Maximum HP were tempting, but not enough to make his Massive weapon swing slower. While they waited for Mush after Kharvek, Meno called Thorn.

The leaderboard still had holes in it. Kestrel abusing the post-party window with a prepared Crownfall stack explained some of the reshuffle, but Pike and Moon should not have fallen out of the top ten that easily. Thorn answered over dungeon noise.

"What's up? Bit busy here, we are doing the Crucible, just killed the first boss. It was easy. Stormhold rising."

"How easy? Under 5 seconds?"

"Shut up, I am only 83. Do you know how big it is to actually kill a boss 12 levels above you?" Thorn flex interrupted PBG asked for the timer LMAO LEVEL 83 CRUCIBLE IS ACTUALLY CRAZY stormhold rising stormhold rising"No clue. Anyway… anything happened with Moon? The leaderboard looks like someone hacked it."

"Kestrel, that asshole, has no honor. I shouldn't have let all Stormhold members attend the stupid party. This guy was all smiles and handshakes there, used plus-ones to bring friends pretending to be those guys, then kept the real players home to pump. Streamline knew for sure, but didn't care." That was dirtier than Meno expected.

"And Moon?"

"What about her? She is doing her post-party detox skincare routine at a spa. She will catch up, don't worry about that."

"Bit suspicious that Pike is missing, aren't you worried? I thought she was married."

"I couldn't give a flying— I gotta bounce now, these idiots pulled. Bye." The call cut out. Talking to Thorn was always fun. The man lived one sentence away from losing it. Once Mush came back, Meno and Karmabeast continued the run. They cleared the Crucible a little faster than before, but nothing dramatic happened and the loot was garbage. Meno reached Level 98 and finished roughly 90% of the way to 99. Karmabeast hit Level 97 with solid progress toward his next level.

One more run should put Level 100 within reach. Meno hit 99 early in their third repeat, while Karmabeast's loot luck remained offensive when Drazhul dropped him another usable Leather piece.

[Ancient II | Drazhul's Firestep] Type: Leather Boots Durability: Augmented+++ Defense: Medium+++ Leather Bonus: +2% Action Speed 15% Physical Damage Taken Converted to Fire Damage Taken +30% Movement Speed if you have taken Fire Damage in the past 3 seconds +30% Movement Speed Meno's current boots reached 50% Movement Speed through his Charisma setup, so Firestep would lose some raw speed whenever its conditional effect was inactive. That was about the only advantage his old boots had left.

They were still Legendary III, while Firestep brought Ancient II Defense and converted part of incoming physical damage into Fire Damage. Karmabeast kept getting usable Leather while Meno got none of it. Very fair system. Then Zhaerith finally contributed something. The annoying mage dropped an item Meno could actually use.

[Ancient II | Zhaerith's Accelerant] Type: Amulet +50% Cooldown Reduction -30% Maximum HP 22% less Defense 11% less Damage -7 Multi-Strike -7 Multi-Cast -5% Maximum Damage Reduction (Multi modifiers cannot go below 0.) Zhaerith's Accelerant looked like somebody had put 50% Cooldown Reduction on an item, then got a divorce. Meno still liked it. Marcel Aurastone gave the same Cooldown Reduction, but its Charisma penalty had been taxing the rest of his build for ages.

Rings and other slots had to waste modifiers compensating for one amulet. Accelerant kept all its problems on Accelerant. That could be much easier to work around, so Meno saved it for proper testing later. Varkesh was the only boss left. Before the pull, Meno queued something dramatic in his music window and pulled up an old clip. A much lower-level BrineSaint appeared in the overlay, already carrying the same absolute confidence. BrineSaint continued, calm as a knife in a drawer.

"I will be the first to reach Level 100. Without a doubt."

"You think that's the level cap? It hasn't been confirmed."

"It is unknown," BrineSaint said.

"But it is a number people care about. Even if it is not the final threshold, it is the finish line for the first part of this race." THE PROPHECY BRINE CLIP RETURNS FIRST PART OF THE RACE LMAO LEVEL 100 INCOMING SOMEONE CHECK ON BRINE PLAY IT AGAIN"Soon people start saying the real race had always been 101. When I hit it, it will be 102. Then 103. I can keep going forever. Keep moving the finish line for all I care."

"Play it again, makes me feel like a legend." Meno replayed the clip. A low boom rolled through his audio as the paladin started talking again. Meno should have asked BrineSaint to commentate the moment, but this was a celebration, not making fun of someone Meno still thought was really good. Brine had been right about Level 100 mattering. He had merely been wrong about who would reach it first. Once the festivities ended, Meno and Karmabeast engaged Varkesh.

Their third repeat was cleaner than either previous attempt. The positioning rotation had become muscle memory, their Damage Tier VI weapons punished every solid window, and they stopped wasting attention on mechanics they already understood. Avoidance still broke Meno's Chain when the timing went bad, but Varkesh no longer felt like a wall. It was just a long boss they knew how to kill. When the Executioner dropped below 10%, Meno finished it with Titan. Karmabeast hit Level 99.

No loot beam appeared, and Meno did not care. [Level Up! | Level 100] BOOM. The soundtrack hit its next beat as the first notification filled his vision. [World First: Level 100] Reward: Deferred until Prestige Selection is finalized. A second prompt followed almost on top of it. [Global System Unlocked: Class Revision] Reward: Deferred until Prestige Selection is finalized. [Prestige Unlocked] Choose a Prestige. [Option 1: Prodigy] Choose a tenth active or passive skill.

10 options are generated from your current Evolution after selecting Prodigy. [Option 2: Hoarder] Gain two additional ring slots and one additional amulet slot. [Option 3: Manipulator] For each weapon, helmet, chest, gloves, pants, boots, ring, or amulet in your possession, choose one of its modifiers to either disable or duplicate. The choice is permanently recorded for that item and does not reset if ownership changes. It affects only you and does not modify the item itself.

[Option 4: Corruptor] You may Corrupt any weapon, helmet, chest, gloves, pants, boots, ring, or amulet in your possession. An item can only be Corrupted once. Corrupted items cannot normally be modified. As a Corruptor, you may modify Corrupted items through non-Corruption effects. Corruption does not change Rarity Tier or Damage Tier. Corruption may modify or remove existing modifiers. Items with 6 or more modifiers lose at least two. Corruption always adds at least one Upside, ranging from Useless to Forbidden.

Corruption always adds at least one Downside, ranging from Severe to Catastrophic. Corruption Downsides have 50% less effect on you. [Option 5: Fatebreaker] Refresh all your other cooldowns. This skill's cooldown becomes equal to the longest cooldown refreshed. [Option 6: Usurper] Store one modifier from a slain dungeon boss. Only modifiers visible on inspection can be stored. Stored modifiers may grant an additional active or passive skill. The stored modifier lasts until replaced.

[Option 7: Destroyer] You may use Massive weapons. Combine any 3 daggers into a Linked Massive Weapon that can only be dual-wielded. Combine any 3 melee weapons into a Two-Handed Melee Massive Weapon. Combine any 3 ranged weapons into a Two-Handed Ranged Massive Weapon. Combine any 3 caster weapons into a Two-Handed Massive Magic Amplifier. The Massive Weapon inherits the lowest Damage Tier among the three weapons used. Choose one modifier from each weapon to retain.

This combination is permanent and cannot be reversed. The resulting Massive Weapon is tradable. Massive Weapons may be used as input materials when creating another Massive Weapon of the matching type. For Destroyers, Massive Weapons count as every relevant weapon type for class-specific active and passive effects. Each Massive Weapon is named after the highest-level Tyrant player at the time of its creation.

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