Chapter 55: Climbing the Ranks: Strategy and Dominance in Eternal World

Currently, PaePae ranks 64th in Challenger.

Actually, scratch that—62nd now.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck at Master Tier, 1st Division, with 0 LP.

The last time I climbed from 0 LP in Master to Challenger, it took me about six days.

So, to catch up to PaePae, it would take at least six days of hardcore gaming—probably longer.

And PaePae wouldn’t just sit idly either.

They’d keep grinding solo queue, and with their exceptional skills, their rank would undoubtedly climb steadily.

While the competition from the top 50 onwards is fierce enough to slow even PaePae’s progress, the same holds true for me.

This meant only one thing: I had to take drastic measures.

[The Person Who Forgot How to Sleep]

Thanks to my part-time job and game development commitments, I couldn’t realistically stream non-stop for an entire week.

But if I did about five days of sleepless streams a week, that should suffice.

Adjusting my part-time job schedule to just one day a week secretly turned out to be a blessing.

Who knew it would come in handy now?

“It’s started, hasn’t it?”

“Ah, youth. Only someone young could pull this off.”

“They’re not just forcing themselves; they’re legitimately full of energy. Maybe it’s their pancreas?”

“Yup, pancreas supremacy.”

Pancreas?

What on earth did a pancreas have to do with staying awake?

My viewers were getting weirder and weirder.

Who was corrupting them like this?

…Bunnyrun?

I booted up the game and offered a sincere apology.

“I’m sorry, everyone.”

“WTF is this?”

“STOP.”

“DON’T DO IT!!!”

The chat exploded in chaos.

I was genuinely taken aback.

I hadn’t even done anything yet—why were they freaking out?

“Please, calm down!”

“I don’t know what’s happening, but it feels like the apocalypse is starting!!!”

[DO NOT WATCH HAN YURIM]

[DO NOT WATCH HAN YURIM]

[DO NOT WATCH HAN YURIM]

Rules.

I vaguely recalled something about Rule 9.

It just kept repeating over and over again:

[Rule 9 of the Guidelines: Han Yurim.]

“……”

Feeling slightly disheartened, I selected my position.

[Guardian]

As soon as I queued for a quick match, the game connected instantly.

Figures. Guardians are such an unpopular role that unless you’re a lunatic obsessed with climbing ranks, hardly anyone picks it.

[For the Glory of the Nation]

Every game has performance disparities.

Eternal World was no different.

There were performance gaps between characters, and there were performance gaps between positions.

In my opinion, the position with the highest carry potential was Urban Core.

Purely in terms of growth potential, main carries were stronger, but overall, Urban Core reigned supreme.

But here’s an interesting question:

Which position has the highest influence, regardless of carry potential?

Logically, Urban Core again seems like the answer.

But theory doesn’t always match reality—at least not in solo queue.

In the current meta, for solo queue, the most influential position—the one that could force enemy surrenders the fastest—was Guardian.

That’s why I apologized to my viewers.

To catch up to PaePae before they hit rank 1, I had to play Guardian.

I can say with certainty that anyone who willingly plays this boring position has probably sold their soul to the devil of rankings.

The character I picked was Noah Bever, the current most overpowered Guardian.

And with that, the game began.

The game’s setting shifted to resemble classic architecture from modern Germany.

This was part of Noah Bever’s passive ability.

I moved to a secret room within the building and began tinkering with the communication device.

After about 3 minutes and 15 seconds, I reached level 4.

Having hit my target level, I headed straight to the building’s basement.

All Guardians possessed a passive ability that allowed them to “claim” their structures, essentially turning them into their own domain.

This included one skill that was exclusively non-combat, which generally made Guardians seem weaker compared to other characters.

But that was old news.

Modern characters in the MZ category combined multiple abilities into one skill.

For them, a Guardian’s supposed weaknesses were meaningless.

I crossed the underground passageway—a benefit of Noah Bever’s passive ability, [Safe House], which connected every corner of the map via secret tunnels.

“Isn’t this skill totally broken?”

You’d think that, right? Well, what can you do—MZ characters are just built differently.

I opened a manhole and emerged.

Nearby, I could hear the sounds of a skirmish.

It was my allied carry duo clashing with an enemy scout.

Pulling out my staff, I approached the enemy scout.

The rustling sound made them turn their head, their expression shifting to shock.

“Rule 9, the blue-eyed Han Yurim is here!”

What kind of nonsense is this lunatic spouting?

Slash!

With one swift motion, I sliced the scout’s neck with my staff blade.

Considering it was clearly a sniper, I didn’t hesitate.

Still, I had to give them credit—they were sniping without resorting to stream ghosting.

That earned them a spot in my Tier 3 fan list.

Leaving my allies behind, who were now mechanically looting as if nothing had happened, I returned underground through the manhole.

“Wait, how can you reuse a manhole so quickly? Isn’t there a cooldown?”

Well, technically, there is—but the cooldown for exiting and entering is calculated separately for each manhole.

So practically, there’s none.

Honestly, this feature feels overpowered and will probably get nerfed soon.

But for now, it’s staying as is.

[Victory]

Starting from the Urban Core and cutting through even the outskirts, we forced a clean 10-minute surrender.

The next game went similarly.

The biggest advantage of the secret tunnels was the reduced travel time.

Moving faster than anyone else was already a huge perk, but strategically, it was near game-breaking.

It essentially gave me an extra turn compared to everyone else.

For a Guardian to eliminate the main carry and still appear moments later in the city center was nearly impossible under normal circumstances.

Such a sequence just didn’t happen.

But Noah Bever pulled it off.

And not only that—on the way, I converted earned gold into items.

Novella, your lax balancing is about to get a reckoning.

Whoosh. Boom. [Victory]

In 20 minutes, I secured two wins. My rank points increased by 26.

Still, there was a long road ahead.

In the next match, Noah Bever got banned.

It might’ve been targeted sniping, but it was more likely due to their reputation as the current meta’s most overpowered character.

Banning them was a natural choice.

I switched to my Plan B: Plawie, another solid pick.

While Plawie wasn’t the meta’s strongest, they were consistently reliable in solo queue.

Plawie’s main drawback was that their base was painfully conspicuous.

The entire building transformed into a giant flower, making it impossible not to notice unless you were blind.

Of course, in a normal match, the base’s location would usually be exposed within 10 minutes.

So, this wasn’t necessarily a critical weakness.

When the base’s location was revealed, it became much easier for enemy scouts to predict the movements of allied main carries.

Naturally, keeping it hidden for as long as possible was ideal.

So, how did Plawie manage to remain consistently effective despite such an obvious drawback?

Simple—mobility. That was the entire reason.

After hitting level 3 via photosynthesis, I used Plawie’s unique ability to ride a massive petal through the air at high speed, heading straight for my target.

This was a secondary effect of Plawie’s base: ultra-fast travel to a designated location.

In hindsight, Plawie’s introduction marked a turning point in Eternal World’s game mechanics.

Reading through old patch notes, I discovered that starting with Plawie, every new character was packed with multiple abilities in a single skill.

Thinking about it, Thierry deserves recognition here.

Being among the original 21 characters and still holding their own against any MZ character is pretty impressive—at least in terms of skill count.

Performance? Well, I think Thierry’s great, but public opinion differs.

A true Super Developer respects the players’ views, after all.

Arriving above the enemy’s main carry, I saw our allied scout already in position and ready to ambush.

Channeling solar energy into Plawie’s flower-shaped hands, I unleashed hell on the enemy.

The Sleep-Flower Trap-Solar Beam combo was devastating, and the enemy couldn’t hide their frustration.

Plawie wasn’t a full MZ character, so pulling off a sequence like this required a cooldown—about 2 minutes.

This 2-minute cooldown defined Plawie’s playstyle.

The key was maximizing effectiveness between cooldowns, and I did just that, making calculated plays to keep the enemy unsettled.

Sometimes I secured kills; other times, I simply disrupted them.

After two minutes, I returned to my base, converted all my gold into items, and immediately dropped down on the enemy’s main carry again.

The enemy carry duo was level 5.

I, on the other hand, had reached level 6.

It was just a single-level difference, but in Eternal World, that gap was insurmountable.

The ability to use an ultimate skill defined the difference between characters being worlds apart in strength.

Activating my ultimate caused flowers to bloom all around.

The effects? Area-wide slow and damage over time (DoT).

The enemies tried to escape the range as the damage intensified, but my skills acted faster than they could react.

A direct hit with the Solar Beam dropped the enemy.

From that spot, a giant flower sprouted, nourished by the fallen foe.

I boarded the massive flower born from my ultimate and flew towards the outskirts.

[Victory]

Another game won in just 10 minutes.

Eliminating even the isolated enemies on the outskirts significantly increased the chance of forcing a surrender.

My current rank score? Master Tier, Level 1, with 40 points.

Interestingly, the points awarded per win increased from 13 to 14. It seemed the MMR adjustment was beginning to kick in.

I checked Paepae’s rankings.

Still sitting at 61st place.

“Four more days to catch up? Looks doable.”