[Loading Complete. Touch!]
[Welcome to Pick Me Up!]
I logged in to the game the moment I woke up in the morning.
It was safe to say that I was hooked to the game now.
Now that I had more heroes in the lobby and we had climbed higher in the tower, there were now so many things to do.
The first thing I did upon logging in was checking the system logs.
Since Pick Me Up was an AFK game, there might be some development occurring while I was not playing.
And I was right.
['Trudy (★)' has obtained the skill, 'Pain Resistance'!]
My untalented 1-star hero managed to obtain a useful skill.
According to the guides, Pain Resistance reduced debuff effect caused by bleeding.
Often heroes would be slowed or their strength would get temporarily reduced once they were wounded.
The Pain Resistance would help minimizing those status effects.
It was a useful passive. Necessary even.
The guides mentioned every hero of almost all combatant classes needed to develop such skill for proper progression. Warrior and Rogue heroes, especially, must obtain the skill.
Apparently a hero would eventually develop Pain Resistance if they kept being wounded in battle.
So Trudy obtaining Pain Resistance was nice and all, but I believed most of my units would develop the skill eventually anyway.
My decision had not changed.
I would continue looking for potential heroes to replace her in Party 1.
[Do you wish to challenge the 2nd Floor of the Main Dungeon?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
[Which party will you deploy?]
['Party 3' -(selected)-]
[Opening the rift of space and time!]
My morning was spent grinding with the sub-parties on the first to the third floor.
As expected from Jonah's and Cecily's presence in the Training Ground, there were several spear-wielders and archers among the 1-stars now.
But I did not need another spearman. Jonah's high skill proficiency already made up for two units.
Neither did I need another archer.
Party 1 already had two ranged DPS with my 4-star Serafina and 2-star Cecily. So we were covered on that front.
The highest skill level the 1-star heroes could develop was just level 2, anyway. Both in spearmanship and archery.
What I needed was another swordsman with a shield technique.
A unit capable of both offense and defense. Shanny was the prime example of that type.
[Stage Clear!]
['Gerson (★)', 'Winna (★)', 'Larson (★)' levelled up!]
[MVP – 'Gerson (★)']
[Reward – 1000G, Iron Ore (C) x1, Plank (C) x1]
It was almost lunchtime and I had made some good progress.
Most of the 1-stars outside of Party 1 had reached level 4. They had caught up with those in the main party.
Gerson, the one candidate that I had been paying attention to, just developed his Basic Swordsmanship to level 3 in that battle earlier.
If he trained a little more, he would be able to raise his shield technique to the same level and integrate them like Shanny did.
He might actually do it once I log in again after lunch.
Then I could put him into Party 1.
[Master, do you want to log out?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
[Then goodbye!]
In the afternoon, after I had my meals, my doctor came to check up on me.
She asked the usual stuffs whenever she did this kind of visit.
But our conversation did not turn out like it usually would.
"You haven't any fainting or dizzy episode lately?"
The doctor asked for the third time.
I nodded.
"There was not any that I recall for the past few days. Of course, there was some brief headache whenever I first look into the rising sun every morning. But not as severe as my usual episodes."
"And no nosebleed at all?"
"Definitely. I'm actually surprised that my towel is still clean."
My doctor then eyed me judgingly.
"Hana, we've known each other for years now. You know better than to lie to me."
"I'm being honest! Go check with the attending nurses. They would know that I'm telling the truth."
She immediately nodded upon my words, which was followed with a sigh.
"That is why I'm being more suspicious. They did say you were in good condition lately."
It was indeed strange.
I was so focused playing Pick Me Up that I completely forgot about my illness.
It barely registered to me that I was supposed to be feeling pain and discomfort.
"What do you think made me suddenly better, eonni?"
I asked my doctor.
Seyoung had been taking care of me since I was in middle school.
My illness even became the subject of her dissertation.
We were practically sisters given how much time we had spent together.
"I don't know yet. We haven't changed anything to your current treatment procedure. I still need to monitor your condition further to know for sure."
She then eyed me up and down like a human scanner.
"Did you do anything new lately? Perhaps that new habit helped with your recovery."
Her question made me chuckle.
"I doubt it. Unless you think gaming actually cures diseases."
"Oh yeah, you picked up a new game, huh? Is it as fun as your old one?"
"I think so. It keeps me occupied."
She smiled and nodded at me.
"You do seem like your usual self again before you retired."
She continued with that curious calculating researcher eyes of hers.
"Perhaps playing a new game helped improved your mood and in turn benefit your body."
"No way! Playing a game actually heals me?"
"It's plausible given no evidence suggest otherwise. Anything is quite possible since your illness itself remains a big mystery. But as a medical expert, I'm still inclined to investigate for more believable causes."
Seyoung said as she was leaving the room.
She continued before going through the door.
"Gaming might had improved your condition, but don't strain yourself too much. Your body is still not as strong as your pro days anymore. I will run some tests on you soon, so be prepared."
Urgh. More tests.
I hated them.
But at least I got something fun to do till then and in between.
[Loading Complete. Touch!]
[Welcome to Pick Me Up!]
It only had been a couple of hours since I logged off.
The heroes in the other parties would not had enough rest yet after the grind session last time.
That was why I wanted to focus on my main party this time.
Unfortunately, the 1-star Gerson still had not levelled up and integrated his skills yet.
I did not want to ruin the main party's dynamic by including him too soon. He would need to level up his combat skills more in order for a smooth transition.
Now did something happen with my main units while I was away?
['Jonah (★)' has obtained the skill, 'Fire Resistance'!]
Oh wow!
Someone finally developed the passive skill I really wanted them to have.
With the Fire Resistance skill, Jonah would not be negatively impacted by Serafina's fire spell casting.
It was a good progress.
I wondered what prompted him to learn such specific skill.
Was it simply because he was in a party together with the 4-star Serafina?
Would that mean all I needed to do for a hero to obtain Fire Resistance was simply group them together with a fire elemental mage?
Possibly.
I could test the theory by switching members of the main party with heroes from the sub-parties.
But it was not necessary for now.
The official forum said the fifth floor only required one party.
Then I only needed for the other members in Party 1 to develop Fire Resistance skill.
But that was just one aspect I needed them to prepare.
My units still needed to develop their other skills and levelled up further.
So much work to be done still.
[Do you wish to challenge the 2nd Floor of the Main Dungeon?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
[Which party will you deploy?]
['Party 1' -(selected)-]
[Opening the rift of space and time!]
I spent the rest of the day grinding with Party 1 on the second and the third floor.
Despite Jonah obtaining the Fire Resistance skill, Serafina did not use any fire magic in the battles.
Perhaps she was waiting until all her comrades obtained the passive?
Could her AI really be that deliberate?
It would be interesting if that was the case.
We shall see if that was the truth tomorrow.
I was getting sleepy and it was getting late too.
The 1-star heroes in Party 1 had all reached level 5, the 2-star Cecily on level 4, while Serafina was closer to level 3. It was really hard levelling up a 4-star.
Trudy managed to level up her Basic Swordsmanship to level 2 during the grinding.
But Shanny had also levelled up her Basic Sword-Shield Technique to level 4, on par with Jonah's proficiency in Basic Spearmanship.
So Trudy was still getting left behind by her 1-star peers.
That being said, all the four heroes accompanying the 4-star mage had now acquired the Fire Resistance skill at the end of today's grind session.
It was a nice surprise when I checked the burst of notifications after dinner.
The guides said heroes in a party together could learn a skill a lot faster if one of the members already had it.
It was a nice feature.
Now I would not need to worry of my heroes getting burned by the 4-star mage in battle.
We were getting more prepared for the fifth floor mission.
Tomorrow we would be climbing to the fourth floor and getting us closer to the first boss stage.
[Master, do you want to log out?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
[Then goodbye!]