4.

Just opening seventy-five tickets was a chore in itself. He could open them all at once if he wanted. Like in mobile games, he could choose to open them ten at a time, turning them over one by one for a thrilling reveal, or for added convenience, there was an option to check all the tickets at once. But Kim Buja didn't do that. 'I don't want to blow my 7,500 gold in a single click.'

Even if he bought the tickets boldly, seeing them evaporate in an instant would remind him of his gold disappearing, and he felt a strange sense of emptiness would wash over him. He could spend tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars without a second thought, yet he was this cautious about spending gold. It once again made him think that the game was more important to him than real life. "Ten at a time."

Besides, he'd had the experience of opening fourteen at once and getting nothing but Normal grades just five minutes ago. It would be better to get only Normals in smaller batches; the image of over seventy pet tickets all turning out to be Normal-grade at once would probably haunt him for a while. And so, the tickets, shaped like cards, were divided into stacks of ten and flipped over as holograms before his eyes.

[You have acquired a 'Normal' pet.]

[You have acquired a 'Rare' pet.]

.

.

[You have acquired a 'Normal' pet.]

Nothing special. Nine Normals, one Rare.

Two duplicate Normal-grade tickets.

The first pull is always the most important. Seeing this result from the pet tickets he'd paid real gold for, not counting the first fourteen, was deflating. 'Ah, screw it.' So next, he opened twenty. 'Whatever, I don't care if I get anything.'

Even as he pretended to speak with an air of resignation, his eyes were frantically searching for the grades.

[You have acquired a 'Normal' pet.]

Eighteen Normals, two Rares, three Normal duplicates.

'Damn it.'

Even if you say you're not expecting anything, you can't help but hope. After opening thirty tickets and getting nothing significant, regret began to creep in. He knew it. He knew this was what opening packs was like. He knew it was the kind of soul-crushing content where you could blow tens of thousands of dollars in a single day and not only fail to get a Mythic-grade, but even fail the synthesis for the Hero-grade tickets you collected to craft a Legendary-grade, leaving you with just a single Hero-grade ticket.

Still, the reason he did it was because that was the fun of gacha pulls, and there was a real possibility of hitting the jackpot through a stroke of luck. He thought eighty chances would be more than enough to satisfy that. 'If I only get Normals and Rares this time, I'm seriously not touching pets again until the endgame content.' You can't always succeed in life. If even a game doesn't go the way you want, how could you succeed at every attempt?

The pet gacha was no different. 7,500 gold. Considering the rising costs of content and the gold he would earn in the future, it was an amount he could just forget about and move on. Blowing it all at once wouldn't cause any immediately noticeable losses, nor would getting the spec-up he'd hoped for be effective enough to turn a loss into a victory in the National Team Selection. But there was one reason he was so anxious and fidgety.

'Do you know how hard I worked to earn this?' It was gold he'd earned by going through hell in the Gold Mission, clearing achievements that were incredibly difficult to complete. All gold is the same once it's in your wallet, and it all has the same value when you spend it, but he had this small wish, a desire to achieve something with this gold. The energy of that small wish reached the next twenty tickets being opened.

A light burst forth from one of the twenty tickets. "Oh!"

Finally!

He didn't even glance at the other nineteen tickets. They'd be either Normal or Rare anyway, and looking at them would only make him feel worse. He cautiously checked the ticket that was glowing with an afterimage. 'The purple glow is making me a little nervous.' Although the colors corresponding to pet grades hadn't been confirmed, the knowledge he'd gained from countless games allowed him to infer the grade of the creature hidden behind the ticket. 'No. It can't be. It has to be at least Unique.'

[Congratulations! You have acquired an 'Epic' pet.]

[Achievement: The First Epic! (E) has been achieved.]

[Achievement: Ticket Addiction (N) has been achieved.]

His hope that it couldn't be was shattered by years of experience. Of course, it was still something to be happy about.

['Normal Pet Codex (3)' will be activated.]

▷ Normal Codex Effect (3) is now active.

1. All Stats +3

"Huh?"

It wasn't because of the Epic-grade pet, which he couldn't summon and had no intention of summoning anyway, and which required collecting at least ten of to get an effect. It was the achievement he got from the accumulating Normal-grade Pet Codex! 'This isn't bad, is it?' It might not seem like much. And in reality, it wasn't. Just a single line of options, and the codex effect level had gone up by two, but the stat increase was also just two.

One could confidently say it was an effect befitting a Normal-grade. But the option itself was the key. All Stats. 'This is a sweet deal.' It would probably get harder to raise the numbers as he went on. Level 1 effect required fifteen pets, Level 2 required thirty, and Level 3 required forty-five. As duplicates started to appear more often, the number of tickets needed would surely increase.

That's why he hadn't thought much of it when he got the Level 2 effect, but seeing the Level 3 effect calmed his furious heart that had been aiming only for a Special. 'Should I just calculate it as roughly 2,000 gold for All Stats +1?' Currently, the codex showed 50/999 Normal pets registered. If he filled it all up, a stat boost that would make him never look down on Normal-grade pets again would emanate from Kim Buja. And what if Rare, Epic, Unique, Special, and Legendary were added to that?

'No.' As soon as a stable reward appeared, his greed subsided. 'If I get one, I get one. For now, let's just focus on filling the Normal codex.' He finally felt like spending Gold on filling the Pet Codex was worth it. Satisfaction conquers greed. And from that conquered greed, an unexpected light always bursts forth.

[Congratulations! You have acquired a 'Special' pet.]

* * *

'Wow, to think the day would come when I'd own a Death Knight.'

[Death Knight]

▶ Grade: Special

▶ Name: Undecided (Can be changed once for free.)

▶ Level: 1

▶ Stats: Strength (30), Agility (15), Stamina (12,) Magic Power (15)

▶ Skills

1. Morale Boost

2. Ghost Form

The Death Knight. On PC and mobile, before the shift to virtual reality, it was the pet, the monster, the transformation card, and the boss that always boasted the most powerful specs! Stories of rich people spending hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, to pull this one thing were everywhere; you didn't even have to look for them. Nothing had changed with the transition to virtual reality.

The Death Knight, filled with players' memories, would always make a surprise appearance as a mid-boss at crucial moments, providing a bit of fun. The ultimate boss that you had to pour millions of dollars into to make your subordinate, something 99.99999% of players couldn't even dream of, was now something he could defeat with his own hands. It was the same for Kim Buja. 'This is strange. I thought it would be around Legendary Grade.'

It wasn't so much a feeling of nostalgia as it was sheer amazement at having pulled a Death Knight, a Special-grade pet! 'Looking at it this way, my luck isn't all that bad.' The tickets could yield anything from Normal to a maximum of Special. Reading the description, no one would think a Special would actually come out of it. But it did. 'It was the right choice after all.'

Unfortunately, to receive the Special Pet Codex effect, he needed two more Special-grade pets, and he didn't have enough slots to summon it, making it less useful than a Normal-grade pet for now. But at least the regret over his choice had vanished. After opening a total of seventy-nine tickets, he had obtained sixty-nine Normals, eight Rares, one Epic, and one Special, acquiring an 'All Stats +4' effect. Most importantly, he had seen a glimmer of hope in the pet system.

'Next time, I should level up the pet system and try out the duplicate card synthesis function.' He couldn't be sure if it would unlock at Level 2 or at a later level. But seeing that duplicate pets, after being registered in the codex, were stored separately as tickets, he had a hunch. Pet synthesis. A feature that would help fill the codex—which becomes a permanent part of your character after investing a lot of gold—more efficiently, or at least let you recycle.

"Phew. Preparations are complete."

And so, the gacha session disguised as a spec-up in preparation for the National Team Selection came to an end. With 8,000 gold, he had raised all his stats by four.

5.

The method for the international competition was simple. During the event period, a giant event gate would appear for each country. All you had to do was enter it. Naturally, only players who had selected that country as their affiliation could enter that country's gate, and the same applied to the preliminary event.

Namsan Mountain, Seoul. A golden pillar of light pierced the sky and plunged into one of the most crowded landmarks in the city. Even more people than usual flocked to see the pillar of light. Of course, they couldn't get close. With national pride and rewards on the line, security had to be tight at any location where other countries could interfere right before the event.

They were just here to watch from a distance to see the National Team Selection. And to get a closer look at the massive golden pillar that could only be seen once a year.

"It's tomorrow, right?"

"All the top players in Korea will be gathered here."

And to see the famous players, who were more popular than celebrities, in person. The criteria for becoming a player were diverse, spanning all ages and genders, but the world hadn't changed much in that the universal standards for gaining popularity and attention among those players remained largely the same.

"Hyejeong will be here, right?"

"She's the flower of the SJ Guild, of course she will."

"I hope she comes in her nurse cosplay outfit."

Users who knew how to leverage this didn't just gather attention; they swept it up. They had evolved from idols who merely pleased the eyes and ears to dependable figures who didn't hesitate to join in battles against ferocious monsters. In fact, more than eighty percent of the people gathered here were fans of the players participating in tomorrow's selection. They were waiting just to catch a glimpse of them in person.

After praising their admired players, the next thing they did was speculate on the selection match-ups. "For the Jeongcheol Guild, will it be Jeong Cheol or Kim Buja?"

"What about SJ? The Jeongcheol Guild officially said Kim Buja would be participating, but that could just be media play. What if he actually does? Will SJ put Park Sijun in?"

"That's a bit of a stretch. Honestly, it's true that Kim Buja got famous by getting tangled up with Park Sijun, but it's a bit much to see them as equals, don't you think?"

"Why? He's still a Special-class player and even cleared a Special-grade dungeon with Kim Buja. He might not get first place, but he could probably make it to the finals, right? Even if he loses to Kim Buja there, SJ will probably win the team match anyway. Whether you look at the points or the publicity, it makes sense for Park Sijun to participate."

"Yeah, no. SJ has plenty of rankers who are better looking and more skilled than Park Sijun."

Whether for fans or players, the year-end event was steadily approaching, and one by one, players began to gather at Namsan, welcomed by the cheers of fans who had stayed up all night.

* * *

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