LCD The Novel's Extra

Atleast the rumor that tomer spread seems to work.
Rachel is actively avoiding hajin now..

 

Theory:Hajin will give tomer a fake needle while keeping the one he stole to himself and thats why it's titled Real And Fake.

 

I think you're underestimating the role his Gift has had. He wouldn't even be able to use the bullets or Aether without it, and Stigma runs out so quickly that its practically useless on its own in most situations. I'll grant you that it's not as strong as it will be, but it already makes him better than the majority of sharpshooters out there. If his stats were at the same level as the rest of the school, he'd probably be ranked in the top ten, even while suppressing his strength. His Gift is in no way inferior to Kim Suho's, or at least, it won't be when it finishes leveling up. Even just the sub-ability Thousand Mile Eyes is something most sharpshooters would kill for.

 

To clarify, I don't think Expert Marksman is bad at all, but if you took away Aether, Stigma and SP hacking and gave Hajin a physical statblock in the same range as Suho, Nayun, Rachel, etc., he would still lag behind the others, particularly because it's early and his Gift hasn't leveled up. This is because Bullet Time benefits guns much more than bows, and currently has such a short window of time and a cooldown, while a standard Hero physical statblock boost would benefit bows more than guns for the same reason no serious Heroes use guns in the world.

Guns are weak for various reasons but primarily because bullets and standard magic don't mix, so anything with a tough constitution or Qi reinforcement would be an issue for a well-statted Hajin with nothing but Expert Marksman. Moreover, that thing Hajin tends to complain the most about is being slower than the other characters, but for his long range support niche being as fast as the others isn't necessarily a good thing.

What's important about Stigma isn't that it runs out quickly but that it's very flexible and allows Hajin to critically alter a given situation on the fly, like summoning a water shield to deal with the salamander (and, it doesn't seem to run out that quickly based on what exactly he's doing with Stigma. For example, he doesn't seem to feel any sort of major magical drain by summoning a basic light.) He only needs to be able to do that once or twice in critical situations for it to vastly outweigh the value of a good statblock.

If he had any more power in his Stigma streaks, he would be massively OP. Combined with the Thousand Mile Eyes and the fact that guns fire faster than bows, Hajin has extreme flexibility and ability to assess the battlefield. Then throw in the SP hacking and Aether and he improves his ability to react to any given situation immensely by being able to prep to target elemental weaknesses and change range quickly.

Based on the initial static Gift, which I'm sure Hajin will surpass at some point though not in the immediate future, if Hajin had taken that option and been given a standard physical statblock with no special goodies like SP hacking, my guess is that he would lag well behind the others in the main cast as then his only real advantage would be meta knowledge. The first Djinn fight he had alongside Nayun and Suho would not have gone nearly as well if he had improved physical stats but no Light element bullet. He wouldn't have been able to break the Qi reinforcement in his exam duel. He wouldn't have been able to break the mana reinforcement to rescue Rachel. Etc.

 

Ah, the problem here is that you're evaluating the skill based strictly on its application to guns, while I'm evaluating it as a sharpshooter Gift. As a sharpshooter Gift, even at its current rank, it is extremely powerful. If he actually had the stats to support it, and was using a bow, he could do bullet time with magically created arrows just as easily as with bullets, and they'd hit harder and in more varied ways too as time went on and his mana control got better. Bullet Time only benefits guns more than bows because its him using it with his crappy stats. Don't forget that bows can fire multiple arrows at once in this world after all. Even if it takes him twice as long to fire an arrow, if he's firing six at once, he's still putting out three times as many projectiles.

I'm not saying that Stigma is weak or inflexible. That's clearly not true. What I'm saying is that it has no staying power. He can use it once or twice and then its gone for the rest of the battle. At best, that's enough to take out two enemies, but usually not even that. So, as a replacement for the affects of his Gift, or even just normal magic control stat, it just doesn't match up in the majority of circumstances. This is especially true once you consider that he could easily replace it with an Art like Parkour if he'd just unlock his magic control stat. Honestly, if he did that, he wouldn't even need Stigma anymore (accept as a pocket space) by the time graduation rolled around.

I'm also not saying that Aether isn't strong. It clearly is. What I'm saying is that, if you gave his gift to any sharpshooter in the school, that sharpshooter would instantly become the number one sharpshooter in the school, and would be assumed to be the future number one sharpshooter in the world. The only reason he needs a crutch like Aether is that his stats are utterly pathetic compared to any other cadet.

Why are you bringing up the stat based Gift that he discarded? It was obviously an inferior Gift in the short term, even if the co-author hadn't decided to ramp up the difficulty level and toss him stuff like SP to help him not die as a result. Though, even with the increased difficulty and no SP, if he'd had a normal cadet's stats and his current Gift, then he could still have saved the day using a bow, Light ammo or no.

 

Yeah, sure, try to have someone fire three arrows at one why don't you? There is a reason why nobody fires more than one arrow at a time, the flight collide throwing the arrows off when you place them on the bow, draw back the bow and release the bowstring. If you have the arrows far apart enough that that doesn't happen then you cant keep the arrows on the bow, you would also need a specifically designed bow with three front notches carved out at the front to stop the arrow heads from sliding off the bow and three rear notches and an extremely large hand, like palms the size of dinner plates. IF you manage to do all that there is the problem with accuracy, which is to say that there is none. The arrows would either collide in midair or fly in entirely separate directions, including the arrow that is in the right place (middle of the bow). The bow string would have to be extensively modified to make it available to have three arrows releasing at the same speed and power, instead of a mixture of high and low speed arrows which would lower the power of the bow across the board because the string would pretty much be a metal pole/ bar with no flexibility. There is also the fact that all bows apart from compound bows bend at the end and in order to be able to fire three arrows at once, the bow limbs would need to bend, because of the modified string, which would point the arrows into different directions than where they were needed. And after all that it would ruin the bow for individual arrow shooting, making it impossible to shoot one arrow at a time.

And that is why bows will never outshoot guns, even in a magic world. *phew*

 

I forgot to mention that even if you can pull the bowstring back ridiculously fast you stull have to wait for the bowstring to push the arrow out of the bow and past the neck of the bow and wait for the string to settle, because if you don't let the string settle if you are using a bow fitted to your strength you can tear your fingertips off by doing that. The bowstring settling takes longer the stronger the bow is, so there is that as well.

 

I suspect that time actually goes faster for both Kim Hajin and the weapon since his regular pistol fires at the rate of a machine pistol when he uses bullet time. Therefore, if he were to use bullet time with a bow, he would be able to fire at a faster rate since the bowstring would settle faster.

 

Still not as fast as a gun though.
I wonder how fast he would shoot with a SMG in bullet time, what with over 1500 RPM?

 

And your forgetting that such things were established as fact in the early parts of the novel and are definitely not my mad fantasies.

 

Should have known that the author would have had no knowledge of weapons *ugh*

 

Shouldn’t he be getting a lot of SP? Since the rumor is about him going to confess to Rachel who is a real princess?

 

I mean... it's called 'Bullet Time'. Hajin will benefit more from using bullets than arrows with this.

I'm not evaluating this strictly based on its application to guns-- I'm evaluating this based on the idea that Hajin created a GIft meant to be applied to guns, because he'd already chosen a gun as a favored weapon before rolling his Gift. Recoil and gun firing rate being faster and easier to deal than bows is an established fact, even though it's just something Hajin says to hide his actual trump cards.

That is not to say it doesn't apply whatsoever to bows. It's just to say that it will benefit guns more than bows. Hajin had some clear (meta, story-based) reasons for choosing a gun in the first place. His Gift was rolled accordingly.

Hajin's setup is that he can deal with weak/average enemies on his own with his regular power but he needs Stigma and his other toys to deal with upper rank bosses. However, that's ALL he needs in terms of this story. Staying power doesn't matter because Hajin's not out to impress the rest of the world. He doesn't need to prove himself by brute force winning duels against the other students.

I do not agree with this. Aether gives him tactical flexibility as well as a buff. A force that can take any shape combined with improved throwing skill/perception has high utility value that can't be made up with by stats, although stats would compensate to an extent.

Hajin being able to shoot to 900 yards with a bow doesn't imply that his Gift by itself is enough to carry a bow. His Gift includes Thousand Mile Eyes but afaik does not include 'Observation and Reading' or encyclopedic knowledge of what he's fighting that comes from being the original author of the setting. JUST having high accuracy, perception and a buff that lets you increase your firing rate as a sharpshooter isn't going to hands down beat shooting arrows that buff or Nayun's overwhelming magical power. If you handed Expert Marksman to Nayun, she'd still have the same issues with using a bow that she has now.

I'm bringing it up because it was a pretty good Gift that established what a 10k SP static Gift looked like. His current Gift is good. I'm not trying to say it isn't. But it's underleveled and the base package. My argument is that his Gift+normal 4/10 stats but no Stigma/Aether/SP hacks would not carry him through the novel's setting alongside the main cast, not that the Gift is terrible or anything.

 

I'm kinda disappointed with the last two chapters...the way stigmas magic can make sleeping gas....will the author just use stigmas magic for whatever purpose is needed in a situation....sounds too much like plot armour...also no description of a fight between Haajin and the two heroine..soo sad

 

I treated the stigma as more of an ability that stores and allows the use of purely magic power which would be like an energy source rather than an ability that can be directly used as a weapon or tool. It was in my eyes the fuel to use for certain powers or to enhance the body/Gifts. I didn’t think it could turn from a fuel source like mana into magic power that can be used to cast magic(sleeping gas). Does this mean he can cast fire balls now?

 

Plot armor is exactly what it is. The drawback is that it has limited uses per day, so Hajin has to be careful about wasting it. If you read back to its original description:

'authorities of the Creator' may have its meaning a bit lost in translation-- Korean isn't my jam, so I'm not 100% on this, but it sounds pretty much exactly like limited use plot armor.

Other than streak application coming with intense pain, there is probably a serious drawback to Stigma that will be plot relevant later. The name 'Stigma' has some weird potential implications, though it might be another thing lost in translation. Combine that with Hajin's Mysterious Background and it'll probably be a plot point later on.

It doesn't seem like there is any limit to what Hajin can do with Stigma other than having a limited pool of power. So yeah, he can probably cast fireballs. But he'd probably benefit more from making/amplifying grenades given his throwing skill and the fact that he wants to hide Stigma's real power.

 

I agree.

 

Difficulty is a reasonable standard of judgment, though. That's normal for classical music competitions. No clue about whether it should apply to talent/karaoke but judging arts is kind of difficult to begin with.

That said, damn, Hajin went directly for angst. Honestly, I can't even tell if he's doing the whole Mysterious Supporting Male Lead with a Tragic Past and Devastating Secret thing on purpose or not anymore.