Former Ranker's Newbie Life

Chapter 160

Compared to before, there were several times more viewers right from the moment the stream began. Word had gotten out that Do-Jin would be appearing live, which was the kind of once-in-a-blue-moon event people camped for. His fans swarmed in like it was feeding time.

└ Lol can we PLEASE get a notice when there’s god-tier content like this?

└ How come we only learn this shit through Lotranet because some other channel posted about it first?

└ Unreal. We were panicking since last month thinking he died or something, and now he pops up here unannounced.

Most of them had no idea what the stream was even about, but the moment they heard Do-Jin was showing up, they decided to click through first and ask questions later. When the stream started, the shock hit them right out of the gate.

└ Wait, it takes her three whole seconds to cast a Tier 1 spell???

└ I mean... it’s possible... if you’re like, Level 30?

└ Hold on, is this a low-level newbie-bootcamp stream?

Kaa’ang’s fans were having the time of their lives watching Do-Jin’s fanbase explode with confusion.

└ Guys... Kaa’ang is OVER Level 120.

└ This situation is so fucking funny lol... We’re over here losing our shit because she pulled off five casts in a row, and those clowns are freaking out because it took her three seconds.

└ What did you expect? They only ever watch giga-chad Do-Jin, of course they’re having a mental breakdown seeing our chaos gremlin.

└ I’m dying LOOOL! These dudes only watch sweatlord streams with perfect POVs. They’re experiencing their first Kaa’ang moment. So innocent!

└ They’re gonna need a trauma counselor after switching straight from Do-Jin to Kaa’ang.

While the chat was busy, Do-Jin was stuck giving Kaa’ang a “how to mage” crash course while trying not to commit a public safety violation.

“You aim at the target and you shoot. Hold your breath right when it goes off. Keep your eyes on it. The aim assist does the rest, so stop panicking.”

“Yes, sir!” she answered like she was about to ace an exam and then immediately fired like someone who absolutely would not. Her Wind Arrow didn’t even graze the ten-meter target. In fact, it wasn’t even anywhere close. Do-Jin stared at the arrow buried a full three meters off the mark and felt something inside him quietly die.

└ CHAT I’M ACTUALLY SCREAMING. LOOK AT HIS FACE AHAHAHAHA. HE’S DONE.

└ BRO REALIZED IT’S SET TO HARD MODE.

└ He hit that “I can fix her” wall headfirst.

└ I’ve been watching since the Closed Iron Mine arc and I swear on my dead GPU I have never seen that expression.

└ He’s kinda cute when he’s suffering though???

His fans were ecstatic. This was a once-in-a-lifetime sighting of Do-Jin showing actual human emotion, and they were eating it up.

“Kaa’ang, why do you keep closing your eyes when you cast?”

“B-because the wind explodes when it comes out and it pops right in front of me so I just... react without thinking.”

Do-Jin wasn’t even mad anymore. Every time Kaa’ang tried to do literally anything, she introduced a new flavor of chaos into the world, like some kind of magical gacha machine that only rolled disaster-tier drops.

He didn’t feel disappointment or horror because those emotions required hope, and hope had been violently evicted from his body the moment Kaa’ang fired that arrow into the afterlife. Now, whatever she did simply felt interesting. She was like a strange creature one would discover in the wilderness, unpredictable, baffling, and absolutely entertaining.

“Kaa’ang, what do we even do now? Every time you close your eyes, your spell flies off into some godforsaken direction.”

“I, I know, right? What are we supposed to do?”

“What do you mean what? You keep your damn eyes open.”

Do-Jin found himself entertained by the ridiculous nonsense Kaa’ang blurted out when she got nervous, and watching chat absolutely lose its mind at every joke felt weirdly satisfying in its own chaotic way.

Is this why people think streaming is fun?

He had done live streaming before, but when he was grinding hardcore content he never had the luxury of paying attention to any of this crap. Now that he actually had breathing room, he could soak in every tiny bit of that chaos.

Still, at least she does what she’s told to do.

More than anything, she was the kind of student that actually made him want to teach. Sure, her baseline was buried so deep, it was practically geological, but once he gave her instructions, she gave genuine effort. And weirdly enough, she absorbed things at a decent rate.

Even as he scolded Kaa’ang to keep her eyes open while casting, she gradually improved. By the fifth try, she was only squinting instead of clamping her eyes shut like a startled rabbit. At times, it felt less like he was coaching a person and more like he was running some kind of dog-training center, but seeing obvious improvement felt good.

“I hit it!” Kaa’ang practically screamed as her seventh shot finally landed on target.

To be fair, tossing out seven shots with barely any aim, blindfolded or not, was inevitably going to hit something just by sheer probability. Do-Jin clapped anyway, since a win was still a win.

“I’m just saying, if you fire seven times, you might hit it even with your eyes closed,” he muttered out loud without thinking. “Anyway, now that your casting doesn’t explode on startup and you can actually hit a target, we’re testing it in a real fight.”

“W-wait! Already?!”

“You know how it is. Real progress only shows up after getting wrecked hard in an actual fight.”

“W-wrecked hard...?”

“I meant ‘worked’ but my tongue slipped. Anyway, we should run an appropriate dungeon. Let’s grab a tank and a healer from chat.”

The second those words left his mouth, the chat exploded once more. Even though he specifically said he’d only take players around Kaa’ang’s level, the applications flooded in like a stampede of degenerates desperate for content. The two viewers chosen by roulette appeared on screen looking like they were about to meet God.

The tank was a huge guy with a deep voice. “Hello! I’m a huge fan, Do-Jin!”

“MackerelDaddy? Aren’t you one of my viewers?” Kaa’ang narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

He didn’t even bother looking at her before answering. “Well yeah, but I see you every day, so meeting him is more exciting.”

“Excuse me?!”

The healer was a female viewer with the nickname MéMé, and she was already spiraling. “I-I’m seriously freaking out. I didn’t think I’d get picked! What do I even do?!”

Her emotions were a full buffet of joy, excitement, embarrassment, and fear all mashed together while she shuffled in place like she needed to go to the bathroom.

The overexcited party headed for the Level 115 instance dungeon, Wolf Den. As the name suggested, it was one of the generic, mass-produced dungeons scattered across Lostania. Half a dozen dungeons shared the same name at different level ranges, and they were all built for mindless farming. The difficulty was nothing special, especially since everyone here outleveled the enemies and had decent gear. At least, that would’ve been true for any normal party.

Kaa’ang shrieked the moment a few mutated wolves appeared in the distance, approaching the tank. Do-Jin yelled at her to start dealing damage, so she forced herself to cast, but her hands were shaking like she was trying to defuse a bomb with a toddler screaming in her ear. Naturally, her spell fizzled out before completion.

After Do-Jin stood next to her, relentlessly encouraging her to breathe and calm down, her second attempt barely succeeded. However, everything that came after the successful cast was an absolute train wreck.

“Argh!”

Her fire arrow slammed straight into the tank’s jaw, exploding into a pathetic yet devastating little firecracker effect. It was the most despair-inducing small explosion Do-Jin had ever seen.

“Kyaaa! O-oh my god! Are you okay?! I’m so sorry!”

Kaa’ang panicked at her own mistake, dropped her staff, and nearly ran over to the tank like she was trying to perform CPR. However, Do-Jin grabbed her before she could sprint headfirst into stupidity.

“He’s not going to die from a Tier 1 spell. Look. He’s literally fine.”

He pointed at the tank, who raised a proud thumbs-up and replied, “Please don’t worry. I came fully prepared with magic-resist gear because I knew Kaa’ang would shoot me.”

└ Bro’s in a dungeon with ZERO spellcasting mobs and still came in stacked with magic resist...

└ Honestly? As a Kaa’ang viewer, that was the correct choice.

└ I can’t believe Do-Jin isn’t even blinking at this. The man’s poker face is sexy as hell.

└ Like fr, from Do-Jin’s POV this entire scene should be impossible, but look at him. His soul isn’t even rattled.

Do-Jin gently steadied Kaa’ang’s trembling arm and spoke in the calmest, most therapist-ass voice imaginable.

“If you obsess over messing up, you’ll only screw up harder. The tank has the aggro locked down. See that? Take a breath, loosen your shoulders, and just think of the boss as a barely-moving target. Then shoot.”

“Okay... I’ll try.”

Every emotion in the world is contagious, and the unshakable composure that radiated from Do-Jin seeped into Kaa’ang like a hot compress straight to the brain.

Keep calm, slow down, and finish the spell... Breathe, look straight at the target, hold my breath when firing, keep my eyes open... Follow through and actually watch where it hits...

Repeating Do-Jin’s lecture in her head step by step, she finally completed the spell. A transparent arrow of wind shot through the air, hitting a wolf right in the ribs.

“I hit it!” Kaa’ang widened her eyes like she was seeing a miracle.

“See? You can do it.”

“Yeah...!” Her voice trembled with pride she had never felt before. For the first time, she genuinely felt like she could actually accomplish something.

She’d assumed this stream would be the same as always: her as the punching bag, the chat farming memes, and Do-Jin looking like he wanted to jump off a cliff. But instead, he’d taught her in earnest. He kept it simple enough for her to follow and walked her through every step.

“M-my spells are actually hitting!”

“Yes. That is what spells do when you cast them properly.”

“I mean, I know that, but they never hit when I did it!”

Once she landed a few shots, Kaa’ang’s confidence surged and she started casting more boldly. She fired spell after spell a little too boldly, and occasionally, she would set MackerelDaddy’s behind on fire.

“Ah, sorryyy!” Kaa’ang shouted, but it didn’t even seem apologetic anymore.

└ Look at her getting bold as fuck LMAOOO.

└ She hits him, he shrugs, everyone moves on, LOL.

└ Bro... I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s actually character growth. I’m emotional rn.

└ Anyone who’s watched Kaa’ang for a long time knows this is HUMANITY’S VICTORY.

Throughout the entire dungeon, Do-Jin didn’t lift a finger. He just drank mana potions, topped up his MP like some bored raid overseer, and let Kaa’ang handle every point of damage by herself. The dungeon crawl was painfully slow because of it, but the tank and healer were high enough level that nothing dangerous ever happened.

Eventually, they reached the boss room.

“Ugh... I’m getting nervous again.” Kaa’ang, who had been buzzing with excitement, instantly folded the moment she read the popup. “The boss here is a werewolf, right?”

“Yes.”

MéMé chimed in with a detailed breakdown. “Just think of it as a two-legged wolf with a massive HP bar. It’s fast, sure, but MackerelDaddy will hold it down. Don’t try to aim at it while it’s moving. Prepare your spell, and shoot exactly when it’s attacking the tank.”

“So... prepare the spell, wait for the boss to attack the tank, and then shoot. Okay... okay. I got it,” Kaa’ang responded.

As the boss fight began, she tried her hardest to follow everything Do-Jin had said, but there were limits to how much someone could improve in a single day. It wasn’t realistic to expect a baby mage to solo DPS a boss in the first place. Eventually, MackerelDaddy slipped into a groggy state from taking too many hits.

The moment the tank collapsed, the werewolf charged straight toward the healer. That was when Do-Jin finally stepped in. With Psychokinetic Artistry, he shot forward like a blade of air and parried the boss’s claws. A close-range burst of lightning stunned the beast, and a psychokinetic kick sent the hulking monster flying backward.

Before the boss even regained its footing, a burning sphere of Flame Shell slammed into its chest, and that was that. One flawless chain of attacks later, the werewolf of Wolf Den was roasted, toasted, and spiritually obliterated.

“Holy shit.” MackerelDaddy finally shook off the groggy status and let out a breathless, defeated-sounding sigh of admiration.