As the faint glow of the blue panel spread in front of him, a soft chime echoed in Kaito's ears. The transparent system window stabilized before him, its letters forming line by line until the full message appeared.
[Class Advancement Quest Triggered]
Please select the difficulty level for your Advancement Quest carefully.
Available Difficulty Levels:
[Normal] [Elite] [Hard] [King] [Hero]
Please note: both the rewards and the punishments will scale according to the level of difficulty you select.
Kaito stared at the panel in silence for a few seconds. Then, as the message sank in, his eyes softened slightly with realization.
He had seen this kind of interface before many times, in fact.
"So it's still the same as in my previous life…" he murmured under his breath.
He knew exactly what this was. This was the Class Advancement Quest selection screen a test every player had to take once they reached the threshold for advancement.
However, comparing the difficulty of these quests to regular dungeon tiers would be a huge mistake.
Most players made that exact mistake in his past life. They assumed that "Normal" meant easy, or that "Elite" was manageable if they had handled elite-level dungeons before. But they didn't understand that the Class Advancement Quests were built differently from any other challenge in Glory.
They were designed to be taken alone.
There were no parties, no backup, no healers or tanks to support you. Everything depended solely on your own skill, your understanding of your class, and your reaction speed. Even the smallest mistake could lead to failure.
Because of this, the difficulty of even a "Normal" advancement quest was roughly equivalent to an Elite-level dungeon. It wasn't that the enemies inside were overly strong it was the fact that you had to survive and clear everything completely on your own.
The balance of teamwork and cooperation that made dungeon raids manageable simply didn't exist here.
Kaito knew this better than anyone.
In his previous life, he had seen thousands of players attempt their advancement quests. Many failed on their first try, some even multiple times. Among those who succeeded, the majority only managed to clear the Elite or Hard levels. The King-level difficulty was something that even high-ranking players hesitated to challenge.
And as for the Hero level… it was practically legendary.
No one had ever completed it.
In fact, from what Kaito remembered, no player had even managed to stay inside a Hero-level class advancement quest for more than ten minutes. Those who tried were completely overwhelmed.
Even the top-tier players such as the god-level players themselves in the latter years of the game had only managed to clear the King difficulty in the different class advancement quests. And that too they had achieved it with skill, preparation, and sheer persistence, but even they had stopped there.
As for Elite and Hard levels, the reason players had been able to complete them was largely because of the existence of guides. In his previous life, the major guilds and top organizations had worked tirelessly to document every difficulty of the class advancement quests at various levels and with the help of some of their strongest members, they created detailed step-by-step guides for their lower-ranking players.
Those guides became the key to success.
Without them, the average player stood almost no chance.
Solo players or those without any guilds or any large organization's backing rarely managed to clear anything above Elite, and even that was considered lucky. Most of them failed multiple times before eventually giving up or joining guilds for support.
Kaito remembered those times vividly. In his previous life, he had only been a normal swordsman. Though his teammates later began calling him the Sword King, he knew deep down that it was nothing more than flattery. In truth, during his level 50 advancement quest, he had only managed to clear the Hard-level difficulty and even that was mostly due to luck rather than strength or skill.
As for the advancement quests before that, he had completed all of them at the Elite-level, just like the majority of other players. Few ever dared to aim higher.
Even in his past life, these different advancement quest difficulties had eventually become an important measure of a player's true worth. The difficulty one cleared wasn't just a matter of pride, it became a standard used by major guilds, organizations, and powerhouses to judge players.
The stronger the difficulty one cleared, the better the contracts and opportunities they received. Many guilds even made it a rule that only those who had cleared at least the Hard-level advancement quests could apply to join their main teams. The entire system of recruitment and power in Glory had revolved around these advancement quests at that time.
And only after taking all these things into account, Kaito had previously decided that the other Genesis members should wait before attempting their own class advancement quests, at least until he had completely prepared the job guide.
Now, as he looked at the panel glowing before him, all those memories surfaced. He could almost see the names of old players flashing through his mind the ones who had succeeded, the ones who had failed, and the ones who never returned after spending too long trapped in their cooldown periods.
Because that was another cruel part of Glory's system the advancement quest punishment.
Unlike some games where failure only meant a small penalty, in Glory, the class advancement quests had strict cooldowns after each failure.
For the Normal-level difficulty, if you failed the quest, you had to wait 10 days before you could attempt it again. And this wasn't just in-game time it was real time.
And from there for each higher difficulty, the cooldown increased by another 10 days.
Elite 20 days.
Hard 30 days.
King 40 days.
Hero 50 days.
That meant, if someone attempted the Hero level and failed as everyone inevitably did they would be locked out from trying again for fifty full days.
And in a game like Glory, where every day of progress mattered, fifty days of inactivity could destroy a player's career.
Guilds couldn't afford to keep members who couldn't grow, and solo players couldn't recover the lost momentum.
That was why almost everyone stopped at King difficulty.
Trying the Hero level was nothing short of madness.
And yet, because Glory was a fair game, it also gave incredible rewards to those who dared to challenge it.
The higher the difficulty, the better the foundation it built for the player's future. The class advancement quest wasn't just a test it directly shaped your class growth. Clearing a harder quest level meant unlocking stronger abilities, better stat scaling, and even unique skills unavailable at lower levels.
This was the reason so many people risked everything for the higher difficulties. Success here could change a player's entire future path.
Kaito stared at the glowing options on the screen for a long moment.
Normal. Elite. Hard. King. Hero.
Each one seemed to carry its own invisible pressure.
He exhaled slowly. He knew what each of these levels meant what they truly meant.
Even in his previous life, the player who had received the Magic Swordsman class, the same class Kaito now held, had only cleared the King-level difficulty.
The Hero difficulty remained untouched, unconquered, a symbol of what even the strongest players couldn't achieve.
But now, things were different.
Kaito had more experience. He had his martial arts strength, his Rank 1 physique, and most importantly, his knowledge from the future.
And yet, despite all that, he wasn't certain.
He could feel his hand hovering near the panel, his mind torn between confidence and caution. Choosing the Hero difficulty could bring him unparalleled rewards, but if he failed, the 50-day cooldown would cost him precious time.
If he chose King, he would still surpass the previous Magic Swordsman of his past life but at the same time, a part of him felt that doing so would be settling for less.
For someone like Kaito, who had already lived once, that thought didn't sit well.
Still, even with all his reasoning, he hesitated.
He frowned slightly, lost in thought, unaware that the woman sitting across from him had been quietly watching the entire time.
A faint smirk appeared on her lips.
It wasn't a mocking smile it was more like the smile of someone who knew something he didn't.
And just as the various thoughts crossed Kaito's mind, the glowing blue panel flickered.
At first, he thought it was a system glitch. But then, below the Hero level, faint red letters began to appear one by one. The text shimmered and shifted until it finally stabilized into a single line.
[Asura]
Kaito froze.
His eyes widened slightly, staring at the newly appeared option.
"Asura…" he muttered under his breath.
Let alone this life, even in his previous one, he had never heard of such a difficulty. Not a single player had ever mentioned it. It was as if this level had never existed before.
For a moment, he simply stared, stunned into silence. Then, slowly, he turned his gaze toward the woman sitting in front of him.