I Became a Gallery Newbie Beloved by Transcendents-Chapter 8: Floor 2 (4)

Day 1 of Training.

In the end, I couldn’t land a single clean hit on the damn golem.

This wasn’t a sparring session—it was a one-sided beatdown.

Thanks to that, a few of my skills leveled up, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

When the golem tried to bring its sword down on my thigh again, I pressed the white button to stop it.

[Title: Isn’t this thing way too strong?]

[Author: ㅇㅇ*]

Why is a golem with only 30 durability this ridiculously overpowered?ㄴ Sword of Light: Its durability is 30, but its performance remains the same. Good work. Did you manage to see the sword paths?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*: Yeah, I’m starting to see them. Getting hit directly really does speed up learning. But actually executing them feels completely different.

ㄴ Heavenly Demon: You would do well not to overestimate your ability to learn.

ㄴ Gutter Swordsman: You have no choice but to keep rolling with it. That’s what training is.

ㄴ Damn, these guys sound like old geezers.

ㄴ '*' is getting tossed around with a sword, and the boomers are loving it.

ㄴ I wanna backseat-coach too, but if I do, I’ll just get roasted for being an Easy or Normal scrub... heheh. Better not.

ㄴ Do it. We might not be as strong as them, but we still have guts, don’t we?

Day 3.

I pressed the black button, and the golem roared back to life.

A flash of steel came crashing down before my eyes.

I raised my arm.

It was an instinctive defensive action.

Clang!

I blocked it.

By now, I had been forcibly taught that this was the Third Form of the Dragon Slayer Sword, Drakabani.

Pain-based learning made knowledge sink in faster.

It was a vertical slash, but calling it that felt like an oversimplification.

I swung my sword relentlessly. The feeling of my muscles stretching and expanding spread through my arms and legs.

[Strength +1]

The veterans in the tower weren’t lying. If you pushed past your physical limits repeatedly, your stats would increase—even without leveling up.

[Stamina +1]

They were right about everything. Every damn thing.

And then I got hit again.

Blades flashing from all directions.

After two days of nothing but getting beat up, I was finally starting to see it.

The right angle to block.

There was no sudden, divine revelation.

No flashes of insight.

Just careful observation of how the golem moved its arms when it swung.

How its legs advanced when it thrust.

I saw it quickly and acted on it.

More than anything, I berated myself—why had it taken me this long to realize something so obvious?

A pitcher on the mound studies the batter’s habits and exploits their weaknesses.

It was as natural as breathing.

I blocked the First Form, a slash.

Blocked the Second Form, Hjartagnyr, a thrust.

Blocked the Third Form.

Updat𝓮d fr𝙤m ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com.

My vision was getting clearer.

Thwack!

"Ah."

Then, I took a direct hit from a simple vertical slash.

For a moment, my vision went black, and my body tilted backward.

Thud.

Lifting my head, I saw the golem striding toward me.

"Stay back, you bastard."

I grabbed the activation cube that had fallen to the floor and pressed the button.

Freeze.

The golem, which had been marching forward to beat me further, stopped in place.

That was enough for today.

I had gained a lot. The rest of the time would be spent reviewing.

***

Day 10.

[Title: Today will be different]

[Author: ㅇㅇ*]

I had a breakthrough yesterday.ㄴ How many retries is this guy on now?

ㄴ LMAO

ㄴ FamousOne: If you’ve reached that level of enlightenment, shouldn’t you be ascending to nirvana by now?

ㄴ Damn, that was a clean roast.

Who the hell is this guy?

FamousOne?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*: What the hell is "FamousOne"?

ㄴ Heavenly Demon: It stands for "Open Sect’s Average."

ㄴ Damn it... why is the pinnacle of demonic martial arts, the great Heavenly Demon himself, personally explaining something this trivial to me? The Murim I know isn’t like this. There’s no way this guy is the real Heavenly Demon.

ㄴ You do know there’s only one Murim world, right? That’s the real Heavenly Demon.

ㄴ The only thing he cares about is getting acknowledged by the Climber Gallery elites.

ㄴ FamousOne: Heavenly Demon Returns, Ten Thousand Demons Bow!

ㄴ Why the hell is an Open Sect leader shouting that? My Murim! NOOOOO!

ㄴ That’s just how he adapted to modern times. Didn’t you see the Murim Lord bowing to Heavenly Demon?

Among all the chaotic comments, one stood out for its utter indifference.

ㄴ Sword of Light: Don’t lose focus. Just remember what I wrote down.

He had written a lot, but aside from the sword techniques, most of it wasn’t that useful.

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*: Why the hell did you even write this? "In the end, the greatest weapon is the sword."

ㄴ Gutter Swordsman: That’s a fact.

ㄴ Sword of Light: Indeed.

ㄴ Spear King: I finished my closed-door training and come back to this madness... You’ll use a spear someday.

ㄴ Heavenly Demon: Ahem, get in line. I shall teach him fist techniques first.

ㄴ Spear King: That depends on what this kid wants.

Sword-obsessed freaks.

I had to become one of them, but I wasn’t eager to join their ranks just yet.

I closed the gallery and activated the golem.

Flash.

The red eye embedded in its head gleamed.

If I kept seeing this thing every day, I might even grow attached.

I stepped forward.

The golem’s right hand moved.

So did mine.

Two intersecting trajectories.

My sword and the golem’s wooden blade clashed.

I did it.

For the first time, I canceled out the First Form, Thursahogg.

My first success.

But as they say, well begun is half done.

I countered the Second Form.

Countered the Third Form.

My arms trembled.

There had been times when I wondered—why had Sword of Light sent such a monstrous golem?

But after getting my ass kicked, I finally understood.

He was teaching me how to face opponents far stronger than goblins or Antsranthropes without freezing up.

If Sword of Light told me I was wrong, then he was the idiot.

[Skill Acquired: Warrior’s Movements Lv.1]

[Skill 'Enhanced Focus' has leveled up. Lv.2]

[Skill 'Crisis Detection' has leveled up. Lv.2]

I had achieved real, tangible results.

Moreover, Warrior’s Movements was a skill that Sword of Light had specifically emphasized in the appendix of the sword manual.

He had mentioned that it was an incredibly versatile skill.

But after countering three attacks, I was back to getting completely beaten down again.

After stopping the golem, I focused on practicing mana control.

Upon reaching the second floor, I had gained the Mana stat, which naturally formed a Mana Heart in my body.

Sword of Light had written a brief guide, like an appendix to the Dragon Slayer Sword manual, explaining how to handle the 10 points of mana stored in the Mana Heart.

I sat in a meditative posture.

It took me a full week just to perceive my Mana Heart.

And over the next three days, the best ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) I could achieve was slowly circulating mana throughout my body.

[Skill Acquired: Mana-Enhanced Body Lv.1]

I still couldn’t manifest Sword Aura, but I could now temporarily enhance my body during combat.

Even with just 10 points of mana, the difference between being able to use it or not was enormous.

The brutal fights against the golem and the teachings from the Dragon Slayer Sword manual had given me the bare minimum qualifications to survive in this tower.

Then, on the thirteenth day of training, something significant happened.

[Skill Activated: Mana-Enhanced Body Lv.1]

Swish!

The wooden sword came slicing down like a lightning bolt.

I twisted my shoulder slightly to evade it.

Then, I extended my right foot and stepped on the golem’s right foot.

It wasn’t calculation—it was instinct.

—Crunch.

And with that, I executed the First Form of the Dragon Slayer Sword, Thursahogg.

Finally, I had reduced the golem’s durability from 30 to 29.

By the time training ended that day, its durability had dropped to 23.

[Title: Hey, Sword of Light. You’re lying, right?]

[Author: ㅇㅇ*]

There’s no way you were weaker than this golem Mk.2 when you were seventeen.ㄴ Sword of Light: Oh? So you finally landed a hit?

ㄴ ㅇㅇ*: Not one. Seven.

ㄴ LMAO, dude’s acting all proud like a Climber.

ㄴ Sword of Light: The golem is a bit rusted, that’s all.

ㄴ Sword of Light: But don’t downplay what you accomplished—it’s not weak enough for that.

A bit rusted? Yeah, right.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Day 15.

The golem’s remaining durability: 16.

I had no more time to waste.

I needed to clear the second floor, reach the waiting room of the third floor, and attend the Exchange Meeting.

That meant today was the absolute final day of my training.

I spread mana throughout my body.

[Skill Activated: Mana-Enhanced Body Lv.1]

This ends today.

The sparring golem Mk.2 was covered in deep fractures across its body.

But I couldn’t afford to underestimate it.

I had been hit by it over a hundred times.

[Skill Activated: Enhanced Focus Lv.2]

The golem ignored its own crumbling body and kept pounding me.

Pain sharpened my senses.

I closed the distance inside the range of the wooden sword.

A warrior moves like a beast.

That was a phrase Sword of Light had scribbled at the end of the sword manual.

It became my guiding principle.

It was okay to take a hit.

Give up flesh, take bone.

That mindset drove me forward.

But at the last moment, I managed to slip past the attack entirely.

I had grown stronger.

That certainty fueled my adrenaline.

I swung my sword horizontally and struck the golem’s head.

Then, the center of its torso.

Crack!

Its side, its legs, its neck—

I slashed at the golem’s limbs one after another.

Stone and metal shattered.

Golden shards scattered in every direction.

Slash!

The golem’s right arm twisted grotesquely before breaking in half.

Fragments crashed to the ground in a cascade of heavy impacts.

Its head fell off and rolled across the floor.

Thirty.

Its durability had hit zero.

The red eye lost all light.

I stared at the broken remains of the golem.

"Thank you."

It wasn’t just empty words.

I genuinely felt grateful to the golem.

Without it, there was no way I could have developed my combat sense this much in such a short time without the risk of death.

Even the pain it had inflicted on me had been a medicine in the long run.

I took a picture of the wooden sword it had dropped and uploaded it to the gallery.

[Title: Broke it.]

[Author: ㅇㅇ*]

Gonna eat a bowl of pork soup and open the door to the second floor.

[Attachment: 99868690.jpg]

[A photo of the golem’s wooden sword.]ㄴ Ohhh, you getting the hang of it now?

ㄴ Shrine Maiden: Hawawa, please upload a picture of the pork soup too!

ㄴ Sword of Light: Well done.

ㄴ Ice Queen: Frozen!! You’re amazing, Climber!

ㄴ Gutter Swordsman: You finished it faster than I expected.

ㄴ Elf Guy: You worked hard.

ㄴ Archmage: Don’t let your guard down. Hard Mode gets insane from the second floor onward, and you’re in Pandemonium Mode. Don’t forget that.

I won’t let my guard down.

I’m just planning to smash through whatever comes my way.

I ate the pork soup.

Unlike her desperate request for a picture, Shrine Maiden left a weak comment saying she couldn’t eat it just based on how it looked.

Then, I headed toward the far end of the second floor’s waiting room.

A gray door stood before me, faint light seeping through its cracks.

I grabbed the handle and opened it.

Creak—

[Welcome to the Second Floor Stage of Pandemonium Mode.]

The scenery was completely different from the first floor’s simple dungeon.

Towering gray walls.

Armored warriors gathered in formation.

Shouts echoing through the air.

Before me was the battlefield of a siege war.

[The second floor of Pandemonium Mode is a Quest-Type Stage.]