I effortlessly scaled the elementary school wall.
Silence enveloped the surroundings.
It felt like I was indulging in some clandestine mischief.
“I can’t keep doing this kind of thing,” I muttered.
Practicing by always scaling school walls or using a neighborhood playground made me feel incredibly pathetic.
It was also quite inconvenient.
They say A-rank Hunters get their own private training grounds, so I desperately wanted to clear the 20th floor.
Despite having received a spell that allowed me to escape pursuit, my daily life somehow felt unchanged.
After cautiously surveying my surroundings, I activated a new skill.
The new skill I had acquired was [Sand Totem].
It was a technique that gathered nearby sand, solidified it firmly, and shaped it into a totem.
The totem possessed a function to draw a weak aggro (TL Note: Aggro is a gaming term referring to a monster’s aggression or attention, typically drawn by a tank character to protect other party members).
“Summoning a tank, huh… It’s perfect,” I mused.
As a solo player with no one to tank for me at the front, this skill was truly a perfect fit.
As I cast the skill, the sand before me began to writhe, then coalesced into a single mass.
Before long, a colossal sand pillar, taller than a person, rose into the air.
The pillar soon took on the grotesque shape of a face, devoid of limbs.
‘…?’
That was it.
The limbless totem merely stood there foolishly, like a Korean totem pole (TL Note: ‘Jangseung’ are Korean totem poles, often carved with grotesque or humorous faces, traditionally placed at the village entrance to ward off evil spirits), showing no movement whatsoever.
I was speechless for a moment.
“No way, this is a Gold-grade skill?” I exclaimed.
‘Do Gold-grade skills usually come with a flaw?’
At this rate, even a quicksand trap seemed far more useful.
Something like this would only infuriate me before it ever managed to draw a monster’s aggro.
Muttering to myself, I approached the totem.
First, I needed to check if it was controllable.
I decided to try my universal solution.
I severed my right pinky finger and plunged it into the totem’s body.
I felt my finger connect with the totem.
But that was all.
The totem merely bobbed its head in response to my will.
It resembled one of those floppy inflatable tube men, swaying weakly in the wind outside a store.
“Haaah…”
Disappointment washed over me.
Yet, at that moment, another method suddenly came to mind.
I recalled how I had cultivated my inner deity when I first learned magic through a comment.
“Alright, let’s try this.”
I sat cross-legged.
Closing my eyes, I focused inward.
Within me, I perceived a small, sand-like version of myself.
By altering this form, I had previously transformed my fingers into bullets and fired them.
This time, I shifted my focus outward.
I could feel the sand totem with my finger embedded within it.
I concentrated on the shape of that finger.
‘That is not a finger.’
‘It is merely a lump of sand.’
‘It was sculpted from sand anyway.’
‘Is there a need to focus on its form?’
‘Even if sand scatters, it remains sand.’
I dissolved the boundaries of my body.
Both of my arms gradually turned into sand, flowing down onto the ground.
This was the maximum extent to which I could transform myself into sand.
Simultaneously, my finger within the totem lost its original shape, reverting to a simple mass of sand.
I kept my eyes closed, maintaining my concentration.
I began to impart a new form to the scattered sand.
It was like a child building a castle with wet sand.
Or a skilled potter shaping clay into pottery.
‘My inner deity.’
I vividly imagined myself as a powerful mage.
The sand began to coalesce once more.
‘…’
How much time had passed?
I slowly opened my eyes.
A gasp of admiration escaped my lips at the sight before me.
The totem with the grotesque face was nowhere to be seen.
In its place stood a sand effigy, identical to me.
Long black hair, a slender physique—everything about this doppelganger was perfectly replicated.
“Success!”
I was ecstatic.
My heart pounded like a child who had just received a new toy.
Countless applications for this new ability flooded my mind.
Then, another greedy thought surfaced.
“Could I possibly create another one?”
The moment the thought occurred, I immediately put it into action.
I summoned another sand totem.
This time, I inserted my entire right hand into the totem and focused my mind.
Perhaps because I had done it once before, the process was much smoother.
My speed increased.
I easily succeeded in creating a second doppelganger.
Perhaps because I used my entire hand as a material, the second doppelganger was significantly larger and sturdier than the first.
It could even move its arms and legs according to my will.
It was at that very moment.
“Huh…?”
Suddenly, my vision spun.
Along with a dizziness that felt like being struck by a hammer, an overwhelming lethargy drained all strength from my body.
*Fwoosh.*
Independent of my will, the two sand totems I had meticulously created crumbled to dust.
At the same time, my own body slowly collapsed.
I couldn’t even twitch a finger.
I fell onto the sandy field of the elementary school.
“What… the hell…”
My consciousness rapidly faded.
I promptly lost consciousness.
****
“Student, student! Wake up! Come to your senses!”
Roused by a voice shaking me awake, I reluctantly opened my eyes.
Wiping away the drool that had trickled from the corner of my mouth, I pushed myself up.
“Uh… where is this…?”
It was the elementary school playground.
Before me stood a woman who appeared to be in her forties, looking down at me with a worried expression.
Her teacher’s ID badge, hanging around her neck, caught my eye.
‘Oh, damn.’
The moment I grasped the situation, my face flushed crimson.
“Are you alright? You shouldn’t sleep out here. You’ll catch a cold,” the teacher asked, placing a hand on my forehead.
“You don’t seem to be a student from our school. What grade are you in? Did something happen? Have you contacted your family?”
“Ah, no! I… I was just… out for a walk…” I stammered, fumbling for an excuse.
I could not bring myself to look up due to the sheer humiliation.
To be found by a teacher after sleeping on a sandpit all night.
Could there be a more mortifying morning?
Unable to bear the shame, I scrambled to my feet and fled the school as if escaping.
I could hear the teacher’s voice calling after me from behind, but I lacked the courage to look back.
****
“Ugh, this feels so gross…”
Even after returning home and showering, the unpleasant feeling lingered.
Success had been so close.
Why exactly had I collapsed?
To find answers, I turned on my computer and accessed the Mage’s Gallery.
[Title: I fainted while using a skill, what’s going on?]
[Author: ㅇㅇ(22E.222)]
[I made two doppelgangers with Sand Totem and suddenly collapsed.]
[Why did this happen? Is it a bug?]
As soon as my post went up, comments started pouring in.
However, people’s reactions were completely different from what I had expected.
[Pikachu: Doppelgangers? How do you make doppelgangers with Sand Totem, ‘daeyo’ (TL Note: A Korean internet slang term, ‘daeyo’ (다에요), often used by characters in a cute or childish manner, similar to ending sentences with ‘-chu’ or ‘-nya’ in English anime fandoms)?]
[Magic is Firepower: What are you talking about? That’s just a skill to make a single aggro stake.]
[Refrigerator: The skill description doesn’t mention that function. Explain in more detail.]
Their responses made me tilt my head in confusion.
It seemed no one else knew about it.
I meticulously explained the process I had undertaken last night.
[ㅇㅇ(333.333): You know about the inner deity, right? If you use that to break down your body and reconstruct it, it somehow works? Haven’t you guys tried it?]
Despite my comment, the gallery users remained perplexed.
[Refrigerator: …Inner deity? What’s that supposed to mean?]
[Magic is Firepower: Do you, like, see lines or something?]
[Pikachu: I knew the newbie was weird, but I didn’t think it was this bad, ‘daeyo’…]
[Beetle: Hmm… I don’t understand what you’re saying.]
Even Beetle, who had originally told me about this method, seemed unaware.
Engulfed in bewilderment, I posted a reply.
[ㅇㅇ(444.444): Hey, you’re the one who told me about this. Why don’t you know? Didn’t you awaken this way too?]
[Beetle: No, I just wrote down what an NPC I met while climbing the tower said. My awakening method was completely different from yours.]
“What?”
I exclaimed, staring at the monitor.
“Then why did you copy something you didn’t even understand?”
[Refrigerator: Then why did you keep posting that comment? An S-rank like him, with nothing better to do?]
[Magic is Firepower: Something did seem odd. I even tried eating some dirt, but nothing happened.]
[ㅇㅇ(111.111): Why would you eat dirt? Seriously….]
[Magic is Firepower: Double Class. It sounds cool.]
[Pikachu: Beetle is a really bad guy, ‘daeyo’. He just goes around scamming newbies, ‘daeyo’.]
[Refrigerator: But since they really did awaken, isn’t it not a scam?]
The gallery’s opinion quickly shifted towards cornering Beetle.
A flustered Beetle hastily changed the subject.
[Beetle: Anyway, I think I know why you collapsed. It’s mana exhaustion.]
[ㅇㅇ(555.555): Mana exhaustion? Me? My magic power is so high, there’s no way it could be insufficient.]
I had never measured it, but I always received all stats.
And the conditions for opening the special difficulty for the first time.
If anything, my stats should be higher than others, not lower.
[Refrigerator: No, Beetle is right. You don’t realize how absurd what you just did was, do you?]
[Magic is Firepower: You said you made the Sand Totem into your doppelganger, right?]
[There’s a Platinum-grade skill that does the exact same thing.]
[Pikachu: It’s famous for consuming an enormous amount of mana, ‘daeyo’.]
[Refrigerator: But you used two of them simultaneously? And you’re just a low-level who barely cleared the 5th floor? You idiot, it would be weirder if you *didn’t* collapse.]
[Beetle: Using a Gold-grade skill to mimic a higher-tier skill is absurd…]
[And that one was fine is also absurd…]
[I don’t even know where to begin pointing out the flaws here.]
Only after hearing their explanations did everything make sense.
I understood how reckless I had been.
[ㅇㅇ(666.666): So, how do I fix this?]
[Beetle: There’s only one way.]
[Magic is Firepower: Climb the tower, noob.]
[Refrigerator: You’ve only leveled up once. Just level up more.]
[Pikachu: It is about time for a level-up, ‘daeyo’. Since Extreme is faster than others… I wonder if it’ll happen around the 8th floor, ‘daeyo’?]
Their words solidified my resolve.
Yes, I would climb the tower.
I would grow stronger and challenge doppelganger magic once more.
