D.I.O

I'm suffocating…!

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D.I.O.'s pain control system was only effective for certain types of physical sufferings such as the excruciating pain after getting stabbed or going through Qi Deviation.
It wouldn’t alleviate things like a workout soreness or the suffocating feeling that Yongno was experiencing right now. 

It would indeed kill the severe pain at the moment of death, but Yongno was already suffering too much from shortness of breath, so he was desperately moving his arms to make an emergency ascent to the surface.
However, the lack of air wasn’t the only problem here.

/The sudden change in water pressure has caused fatal damage to your body!/

/Your status has been updated: 'Serious Injury!'/

Yongno felt dizzy from his worsening body condition.
His vision turned darker as he got closer to the surface, but he couldn’t slow down his rising speed since it would immediately change his status from 'Serious Injury' to 'Dead.'

/Your status has been updated: 'Fatal Injury!'/

Yongno was nearly unconscious by now, and just before his status was about to change to 'Dead,' he quickly popped his head above the water. 

“HUFF, PUFF, GASP!”

His body gulped in the sweet oxygen hungrily.
A new message then flickered in front of him.

/Your HP has increased by 2 points!/

/You have reached Rank 5 in Swimming!/ 

/You have gained the title of Advanced-Level Swimmer!/

/You have gained a special ability – Diving!/

“Oh, my health increased after going through all those obstacles.
My swimming skill rank also went up.
Although my life was at risk, it's quite worth it to…”

Before he finished his words, another message appeared.

/And you are in bad physical condition.
You will be put to sleep for 30 minutes./

“Put to sleep?”

Yongno was perplexed by the unexpected message, but all of a sudden, he felt numb and everything turned dark.

“Eh?”

Something had knocked out his consciousness; he was simply put into a deep sleep.

* * *

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Sizzle!

Mari and Yongno were grilling deer meat on a hot stone at a cool breezy beach. 

“Argh, I'm sick of meat.
I want to have something like veggies or rice,” groaned Yongno.

Mari replied, “Then why don't you stop hunting animals and start foraging edible plants?”

“It's annoying because I have to prep them, but this meat looks like I’ve got it from a butcher shop.
Still, I’m tired of eating this.”

Mari asked, “But you're very much enjoying the meat right now, aren't you?”

“It’s not that I hate meat; I'm just sick of 'only' having meat.
You know I'm a meat lover.
They are easy on my stomach~”

Humming, Yongno took a bite of meat.
The two ate a lot. 

While swimming down along the river, Yongno hunted many herbivores that gathered together to drink water.
After strengthening his physical condition, it was very easy to attack them.
He could even kill a wild water buffalo immediately.
Once he finished hunting, he earned more than two lumps of dropped meat.
Sometimes, he got Drops like cowhide or antlers, so he took them together on his way down the river.

Mari asked, “By the way, how are you feeling now? Have you recovered from the injury?”

“Uh-huh, never better.
Amazingly, my 'Fatal Injury' status turned back to completely normal after I took an hour-long break and had some food.
Such great health! Is it because of the title I earned?” 

Having reached Rank 5 in Swimming, Yongno gained the title of Advanced-Level Swimmer, which increased his Strength, Stamina, and HP by 50 points each.
And just by gaining the title, Yongno could decrease his Stamina consumption rate in the water by 30 percent, so his stats more than doubled.
Plus, the lower-level stats caps did not apply to the stats increase from the title buff, so gaining the title of Advanced-Level Swimmer was considerably helpful.

Yongno added, “Thanks to this title, I don't need to perform Body Strengthening approximately 200 meters deep in the ocean.
Besides, my Strength is surprisingly 77 points, which is stronger than weightlifters, right?”

Feeling excited, he shouted, “I'm a monster! A beast!” 

Mari wanted to school him in what high stats really looked like simply by disclosing her overwhelming stats to him one by one, but she held back her urge to do so in order to give hope to the newbies.

Sizzle!

They put the last deer meat on the grilling stone. 

Yongno suddenly clapped and said, “Oh! I forgot that one!” 

“That one?” asked Mari.

“Hold on for a second.”

Yongno opened his palm to stop Mari from asking further questions, then he put his hand down to take out the king clam he was sitting on.
He had put it there since there was a lack of shade for the deep-sea creature.

Mari exclaimed, “Wow, it's the Kalib king clam.”

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“Is it like the final boss of the clams?” asked Yongno in surprise.

Mari sulkily replied, “…
Idiot…
Do you think that it even exists? It's just the name of this giant clam here.
They are found in the deep sea and get bigger after time.
This one looks like it’s around ten years old.”

“Haha, this game even has all these weird settings.
Anyway, it’s the king of the clams; you'll never know how strong it is.
My arm was bitten and almost sliced…
Eh?”

Yongno was bewildered by the clam opening its mouth powerlessly, but Mari looked nonchalant about it.

“It's dead,” she said.
“Unfortunately, the inventory stores objects inside of it by folding space and time, so living things can't survive there.”

“Really? Then, is it possible to trap and kill a monster inside the inventory?”

Mari explained, “Of course not.
The inventory isn't just fragile on the outside but also very frangible on the inside.
Even small animals like dogs or cats could easily rip and come out of it, but it might work for something as small as a mouse or bug.”

“It means that this clam is dead and can’t move an inch, right?” asked Yongno.

Then, he took the pearl and meat out of its shell.
He placed the meat on the grill, which was actually just a stone slab Mari used her magic power to get ready for grilling.
Shortly after, the grilled clam began to boil.
Yongno lifted it up by using a chopstick roughly made of broken twigs, then tossed a question to Mari as something flashed through his head.

“…
This isn't contaminated…
is it?” he asked.

Mari replied, “It's fresher than you think, so don’t worry about it, Oppa.
Being dead in the inventory is a spiritual matter, and not something biological.”

When she waved the twig-like wand, her amazing magic skills cut the clam nicely and neatly without actually touching it.
After she was done, she put a slice in her mouth.
Yongno saw this and then continued to eat.
All the grilled meat was soon devoured. 

He praised, “Wow, that was a fiesta! A survival game isn't that bad if things go this way.”

Yongno got sand all over his body from lying on the beach, but there was no need to remove them since he was going back into the water.
Leaving the seawater dry on the body was indeed bad to the skin but having high health prevented it from happening.

“Are you gonna dive again?” asked Mari.

“Uh-huh.
My goal is to cross the ocean.”

“Cross the ocean…?!”

Mari gave him a dumbfounded look, but Yongno just shrugged.

He replied, “But I changed my mind.
I already have 45 Stamina points, so if I keep swimming, I'll soon reach the stats cap.
It’s a bummer.”

“Then?”

“I'm gonna dive as deeply as possible since diving is more helpful for increasing HP rather than Stamina and cultivating my Internal Arts.
So, a short while would be fine.
I only have 27 HP, which means I still have 23 points left to reach the maximum cap.
Besides…”

Yongno then took out the pearl he got from the clam.
The clear ivory jewel was as big as a child's fist. 

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He asked, “I can sell this, right?”

“Yeah, I'm not sure about its market value, but it won't be low-priced,” said Mari.

In fact, the pearl was quite pricey, but Yongno clenched his fist.

“Alrighty! This will be my source of income for now.
It's dark underwater, but using my night vision, I can find every one of them inside.”

As Yongno called upon his Internal Energy, his eyes began to glow gold.
He was performing the Enhanced Eyesight skill. 

Narrowing her eyes, Mari questioned, “Night Vision Eyes…
since when did you start using that skill?”

“I used it earlier underwater because it was too dark down there.
We used to have a pair of these night vision goggles in my house.
Let me tell you how it works…” 

“Hold on.” Mari put her hand on the back of his hand. 

Yongno tried to pull away, but he soon felt tense when a tremendous qi flew into his skull.

“Mari?”

She said, “Remember, this is the Telescopic Vision.”

As soon as Mari told him the name of the skill, the sea that was far away jumped into Yongno's sight.
He was now seeing the distant place on a magnified scale. 

Mari added, “And this is the Night Vision Eyes that you just used.”

At that moment, the dark surroundings turned as bright as the daytime.
The generated sight was much clearer and enhanced than the skill Yongno had demonstrated earlier. 

/You have reached Rank 8 in Skill – Enhanced Eyesight!/

/You have gained the title of Entry-Level User of Enhanced Eyesight!/

The messages appeared one after another. 

Mari asked, “Did you memorize them?”

“Ah, yeah, for now.”

“Will you be able to use them?”

“Probably,” responded Yongno.

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Mari pulled the corners of her lips upward to show a twisted smile.
She said, “…
Alright.
No problem then.
Now this one is…”

“Wait!”

Before the qi surged back into him, Yongno shook off her arms, then took a step forward.
He saw the beautiful, gray-haired girl staring at him calmly, but for some reason, her glimmering eyes looked cold and made Yongno shudder. 

He asked, “What's going on? You look scary…
Is there something wrong?”

“…”

After a pause, the heavy silence around Mari disappeared.

She uttered, “I was a little serious, haha! You're so good at learning skills, so…”

Mari flaunted a vibrant smile as if nothing had happened.
Yongno had a doubtful look on his face.

“Why do you get serious when I'm good at learning skills? Do you think that makes sense? To begin with, why did you suddenly…” wondered Yongno.

Mari cut him off, “It's time to dive, right? Let's go diving! You have had enough rest, so it's time to work!” 

“No, I don't want to work…”

“Let's go! Come on, or I'm gonna throw you in the water again!”

Mari beamed, but her eyes looked determined as if Yongno wasn’t allowed for any objections. 

Unlike her innocent and kind-hearted appearance, she's such a villain-like character!

Shrugging with those thoughts in his mind, Yongno replied, “Okay fine, I was about to dive anyway to burn up some calories.”

“Good, please enjoy your time!”

“Pfft, she’s such a mystery,” grumbled Yongno, then he sank into the water. 

When he utterly disappeared from the surface, the cold look in Mari's eyes subsided. 

“One in a quintillion…” she murmured.

The nickname belonged to a genius as quintillion was 1/10^18 in numbers.
One in a quintillion was, therefore, a person born in a 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance, which was literally a miracle.
God didn't plan and work this surprising and welcoming event; it was the so-called 'rarity of a miracle,' the odds of one in a quintillion.
And the nickname suited Yongno; he was indeed a super genius. 

Still, his power was feeble at the moment.
If there was enough time to fight everyone, Mari could beat billions of Yongno rushing at her.
However, if Yongno continued his cultivation, the sky was his limit.

“The odds that someone gives birth to a mutant genius like him is almost non-existent.
I have only heard about it, and never thought I would ever see one in my life…”

The sun began to set on the beach.
The silver-haired, CG fantasy-like beauty stood there for quite a while, staring at the ocean.