Solo Leveling Arise: A New Beginning, On to Jeju Island without leaving home

 Another Wednesday has passed and the game shows improvement.

Thanks to the developers for speeding up the animation slowdown in the shop and elsewhere!  I haven't seen that ugly blue progress circle since the new release.  It's been slightly more than seven months, so progress should be expected.  In development, it's always better to get it working correctly first and then, speed it up.  Trying to make it fast from the start often requires re-working it far down the line when there isn't time or money for it.

Now, Jeju (pronounced chey ju) Island is a real place in South Korea.  So far the game hasn't talked about much but Seoul and Jeju Island.  Now, the ant king is another matter.  I don't remember a king ant in biology, but a queen ant.  We'll see.

The whole year has been put into future plans.  I was wondering if the game would last a year with the quick progression toward maximum levels.

My Sung Jinwoo is quite strong and the Hunters are showing their strength, also.  It was good to see that they have new light-oriented weapons for Sung Jinwoo.  For so long, I had one R-ranked weapon and then, one SR-ranked weapon.

Now, I have several weapons in both categories that are at level 100.  I've eliminated all of the R- and SR-ranked weapons except for Hunters, and those that remain are for Hunters I have rarely used.

Our tiny, 3-member Guild is going strong, on the way to C-rank.  With the re-balancing last month, it's become easier to finish every daily task.

I'm still unable to enhance/enchant artifacts.  Also, I have three cores, already assigned, but I'm slow to learn how to enhance those.  Being that I started playing the first official day, I should be picking it up better, but I'm sure people with school or jobs are having much more difficulty.

I hope you're all having fun.

Update 2024.12.21: I started on the journey to Jeju Island.  I'm a little concerned about some of the language.  I'm Japanese and I've had Korean friends.  I have the audio in Japanese, but I'm using English subtitles.  All along, when Korea is mentioned, the characters say in Japanese "Japan", which is very confusing since there is at least one word for Korea.

Ahead of the trip to Jeju Island, the Japanese Hunters meet the Korean Hunters in Korea.  There is some dialogue which is aggressive, as though our countries are not friendly.  I'm surprised, especially since this is a video game.

In any case, the first few episodes have been okay, but I'm not to the point where the characters met the queen ant or rather, king ant yet.

Update 2024.12.24: Character level is up to 91 and Army of Shadows is up to level 55 of 72.  Reputation level is 59.

Update 2024.12.28: The Army of Shadows is up to level 57 now.  Battle Tier is up, as well.  Plus, our little three person Guild ツムツム is up to C-rank level 2 and will probably be at C-rank level 1 by Wednesday.

I'm working on getting weapons upgraded with better skills, and getting the Hunters' skills up as well.

Update 2025.01.06: Character level is up to level 92 and Army of Shadows is up to level 60.  I've been fighting the Ant King, but without enough success.  He was down to level 15 when I ran out of time, so I have to have different Hunters, different weapons, a better strategy.  I'm not sure what else I can do, but, as with the rest, I'll figure it out.

 Getting the Hunters skills up to level 10 would be nice.  I still have some level 5 skills, so I definitely need to continue to upgrade them.  Resources take time or money and sometimes, you can spend money and still not get what you want.  I could have concentrated on three Hunters but I typically use nine regularly.  Also, I've been using the SSR-ranked healers lately.  Getting everything up to maximum is difficult for so many.