Hidden behind the moss-covered stone walls of Oxford was the narrow cobblestone alley of St. Helen’s Passage, leading into the ancient pub, Turf Tavern. It would have been easy to overlook the secluded alley if Shun hadn’t stumbled into it during one of his aimless wanderings. A sign at the entrance had caught his eye.
Turf Tavern – Welcome.
Stepping through the alley into the pub felt like crossing into another world, much like entering the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley. A spacious outdoor courtyard, a proud sign detailing its 12th-century history, and the warm, rustic wooden interiors—it had an undeniable charm.
During his month of drifting in Oxford, Turf Tavern became his second favorite escape from dull lectures, right after the internet cafés along Cowley Road.
It was also the place where he encountered a classmate whose name he couldn’t even remember.
Sitting in a secluded corner of the courtyard, his shoulder-length hair obscuring a pale, gaunt face, the boy’s deep blue eyes were fixated on the scattered sheets of paper on the table. Everything about him radiated a clear message: Leave me alone.
Shun was not an extrovert. He had no interest in making small talk, even with classmates—especially not with someone so visibly withdrawn. But the pub was full, and the only available seat was at a table near the boy.
His classmate occasionally glanced up and noticed him. Shun caught a sharp gaze sweeping over him—yet it felt like he was looking through him, into something far beyond. Then, the boy simply returned to his notes. Shun followed his gaze and saw pages covered in intricate formulas and mathematical graphs.
More specifically, probability and statistics.
Does he recognize me? Shun wondered. A week ago, he and a few friends had tried inviting this guy to play Valia, but he had flatly refused, saying he had no intention of creating an account. A difficult person. Even as introverted as Shun was, he never went so far as to completely isolate himself like that. And yet, here the guy was—skipping class just like him, but instead of doing anything remotely fun, he was solving math problems.
Shun didn’t dwell on it. His Oxford Blue had arrived. He took a sip, unable to tell what made this beer any different. He just wanted to relax, to let his soul wander in this space, gazing at the perpetually gray sky of a country he felt no connection to. The old pub, steeped in mystery and history, felt comfortable. But Oxford itself, this somber England, even this monotonous planet—it all felt like it wasn’t meant for him.
The name Nakatomi Shunsuke, the father from a farming background obsessed with restoring the family’s lost glory, the powerful mother who never appeared in the media, the hidden estate buried within Tokyo’s bustling streets.
None of it was meant for him. He belonged nowhere.
“How do you counter a Paladin?”
“Huh?!”
A hoarse, icy voice broke through the air, as if emerging from the throat of someone who hadn’t spoken in years. It startled Shun.
“You play Valia, don’t you?”
Caught off guard by his gloomy classmate suddenly striking up a conversation, Shun hesitated.
“Uh, yeah. You mean the Paladin class in Valia? It’s a hard class to play. Most players I’ve met just feed. Mounted swordplay makes timing attacks difficult, and on foot, they’re even clumsier. Some Paladins are decent, but only while on horseback. Knock them off, and they’re useless.”
“That’s how it is in practice, isn’t it?” the boy muttered, intertwining his fingers. “Valia has only been mainstream for three months. Of course, players haven’t mastered Paladin yet.”
He scribbled something onto his notes again.
“But in my theoretical models, Paladin is one of the most troublesome classes. If they dual-wield swords while utilizing the judgment mechanics of a longsword, they leave almost no openings. Unless… Could it really be as ‘he’ suggested? Eliminating the animation freeze during weapon collision calculations…”
Muttering to himself, his hands moved quickly, sketching out a coordinate plane, a circle centered at point O, several intersecting lines, and then an avalanche of equations.
“Hey,” Shun frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re using Monte Carlo simulations to optimize gameplay?”
The boy didn’t seem to hear him. After about thirty seconds of calculations, his face suddenly lit up as if he had just achieved enlightenment.
“Imagination. That’s the missing element I needed to complete my hypotheses. The thing that ‘he’ has… I finally understand. It’s imagination!”
“Uh…” Shun hesitated, unsure if he should get dragged into this bizarre conversation. “Hypotheses and imagination? Why don’t you just create an account and log into the game? Wouldn’t firsthand experience be more reliable?”
The elated expression on the boy’s face abruptly vanished. His sharp gaze locked onto Shun with chilling intensity.
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“I cannot recklessly step into that world unprepared. The moment I enter Valia… it will be only to verify my solution.”
“Solution? Solution to what? Some kind of way to beat the game?”
“Far beyond that, my friend.” He exhaled slowly. “The solution to the mystery of the universe. The answer to God’s puzzle.”
That was the first and last conversation Shun ever had with his mysterious classmate.
Not long after, Shun dropped out.
===
“Ignis Flamma was still overwhelming Henry. The other KOG members were struggling. The supporting fire from the Western Tower was also dwindling. They had suffered heavy losses from Arcturus' blasts. The Estapha forces were hesitating—should they continue providing cover fire for KOG, or shift their focus to attacking Arcturus? If the situation kept deteriorating, they might be forced to target Arcturus, leaving KOG to be crushed under the full might of Zephrania’s army.”
"It's too tough for KOG."
"They’re powerless."
"If Henry can break through, there's a chance."
"If it weren’t Ignis Flamma but someone else, Henry would’ve already breached their defenses."
"Insane, Henry can't even budge!"
"Determination Cheat, it’s Determination Cheat, guys!"
"Deter Cheat is busted!"
"What kind of skill level do you need to consistently land Deter Cheats like that?"
The game community had no shortage of skilled players and those who deeply understood its mechanics. The one-to-two-frame window when the system began its judgment process wasn’t a secret. The technique of canceling an attack animation to perform a new action was also widely known, but executing it required perfect timing and extremely fast reflexes. Not only did you have to cancel successfully, but you also had to hit the exact window between weapon animations clashing and the system finalizing its judgment. That was the Determination Cheat, a technique that exploited the system’s decision-making.
It was so difficult that even if a pro player pulled it off in a professional match, many would assume it was just a lucky accident.
Yet, throughout the entire fight, Ignis Flamma had been consistently executing Deter Cheats—against a top-tier pro player like Henry—leaving the audience in utter disbelief.
"He's on another level."
"I never thought a strategic genius would have such insane solo skills."
"This is completely broken. I thought Paladin was the most OP class, but Ignis Flamma is even more OP!"
"The only way to balance this is to nerf Ignis Flamma!"
"Nerf Ignis, please!"
"Dear God, please nerf Ignis!"
"Dear God!"
"Dear God!"
"Dear God!"
The chat was flooded with "Dear God" comments, making Helen both amused and exasperated. The situation looked grim for Estapha. If even Henry, who had been performing at his peak, couldn’t turn things around, who else could possibly save them?
Helen shifted her in-game perspective toward Asterith Fortress. The jade-like citadel was struggling under the relentless fiery breath of Arcturus, bombarded by thousands of attacks from both the sky and the ground.
Could this be the day Asterith finally fell?
"7k DAMAGE!"
"Holy crap! A single slash for 7k damage!"
The chat started flooding with messages, making Helen snap her attention back to the duel. She was shocked—Henry was regaining control. A radiant aura blazed around him.
"Valiant Heart is fully stacked!" Helen gasped. "He reached 20 stacks!"
Both Paladin and Warrior were sword-based classes built around Might skills, but their playstyles were entirely different. Warrior was an easy-to-learn class, perfect for beginners or less skilled players, whereas Paladin was incredibly difficult to master. While both classes relied on heavy, straightforward attacks, Paladins didn’t focus on raw Power like Warriors did. Instead, they invested heavily in Attack Speed and relied on continuous combo chains to build up stacks.
At the core of the Paladin's gameplay was the Valiant Heart skill.
Valiant Heart (Might + Will Passive Skill)
- Successfully landing a Great Combo or highergrants +1 stack.
- Each stack provides +5 Attack Speed, +5 Speed, +5 Focus, and +(50xn) bonus damage, stacking exponentially.
- At 20 stacks, all Physical Might skills are upgraded.
- Stacks last for 10 seconds.
The stat boosts were easy to understand, but the "(50xn) bonus damage" puzzled many players. At first, Valiant Heart was heavily underrated—landing a Great Combo wasn’t easy. Typically, it required 10 consecutive hits, or fewer if mixed with special abilities. In PvP, maintaining combos was even harder. On top of that, stacks only lasted 10 seconds, forcing players to continuously land hits to maintain them. The initial bonuses seemed too weak to be worth the effort.
That was until the community realized how insane the scaling actually was. The damage increase was exponential:
- 1 stack:+50 bonus damage
- 2 stacks:+150 bonus damage
- 3 stacks:+300 bonus damage
- 4 stacks:+500 bonus damage
- 5 stacks:+750 bonus damage
- …
- 20 stacks:+10,500 bonus damage per hit!
Paladins lacked raw burst damage, but 10.5k bonus damage per attack was ridiculously strong.
Henry’s last strike had dealt around 12k total damage—after Ignis’ physical defense, he still took 7k damage!
Ignis, as a Sword Master, had low defense and HP. Even with his shining high-tier gear, his HP was only around 80k. A single 20-stack slash from Henry shaved off nearly 1/10 of his health bar. The sheer damage stunned the entire audience.
"It’s usually impossible to keep a combo going this long, but Henry’s precise blocking allows him to maintain his hit count. That’s right! Perfect blocks also count toward combos. Now that he’s at 20 stacks, Henry’s Paladin has fully awakened!"
"21!"
"22!"
"23!"
"He’s at 23 stacks! Ignis is struggling to parry. Henry’s awakened abilities are just too fast—Ignis can’t maintain Deter Cheat anymore! He missed a beat! And he got hit—10k damage! Oh! 24 stacks! Henry just faked him out—he slashed with his left hand! 25 stacks! Finally, he reached 25 stacks! IT’S HERE!"
Henry’s radiant aura faded. Instead, his entire character burst into golden flames.
"25 STACKS!"
"RADIANT SPIRIT ACTIVATED!"
"Sir Henry’s ultimate form!"
"Forget that—look at his Devil Sword!"
"Look at his sword!"
Helen noticed it too.
"Oh! Henry’s Devil Sword is engulfed in black flames. That’s the effect triggered when it absorbs debuffed stats from the opponent… But wait, this fire looks different. That’s right! The debuffs on Ignis weren’t just from the Devil Sword—they also came from the Mystic passive of Xaltheon! Xaltheon has a 3% chance to lower the enemy’s Power stat. Over this entire fight… Ignis has lost 70 Power! And Henry’s Devil Sword has absorbed all of it!"
"Henry just sheathed Xaltheon. Now, he’s only wielding the Devil Sword…"
Helen was speaking at rap speed, yet she still struggled to keep up with the battle’s unexpected twists. Henry, now wielding his Devil Sword with both hands, had skyrocketing Speed and Attack Speed.
"Devil Sword at +170 Power!"
"That’s practically a Mystic-grade weapon now!"
"And it’s insanely fast."
"It’s much lighter than Xaltheon."
"A Rare-tier sword just turned into a monster!"
"THIS is Henry’s true ultimate form—one sword, absolute dominance!"
From a losing position, Henry completely reversed the fight. The black flames of his Devil Sword engulfed the battlefield, threatening to swallow Ignis’ crimson fire whole.
A message appeared in the chat from Ignis Flamma:
"Paladins are as expected, such a hassle."