Chapter 116 - The Money-Blowing Necromancer

Selection Tournament (1)

The selection tournament was fast approaching.

In the meantime, Kim Minwoo worked on strengthening his foundations. In particular, he focused on improving his skeletons’ crafting skills.

‘They’ll come in handy for all sorts of things.’

Magic-grade Plus items were only slightly inferior to Rare items. Special summons like Cedric and Merhen were another matter, but for the rest, simply equipping them with crafted gear was far easier, both physically and mentally.

He also leveled their alchemy in the process. The groups of Skeleton Apprentice Blacksmiths and alchemists were specialized summons, each appearing with skills suited to their profession.

The benefits soon became apparent.

[Skeleton Apprentice Blacksmith 3 gains a flash of insight!]

[Experience Sharing!]

[Everyone’s hammering becomes more proficient!]

[Apprentice Blacksmith 143...]

Previously, out of every ten items they crafted, nine would be Normal grade, with perhaps one Magic item if they were lucky.

‘Now they’re churning out two or three without any trouble.’

On top of that, they gained flashes of insight along the way. Perhaps thanks to those, their proficiency rose remarkably quickly. After just one week of grinding, both equipment crafting and alchemy reached D grade.

[Dwarven Crafting advances to D!]

[Elven Alchemy advances to D!]

“Oh, you got it?”

Inside the underground workshop, thousands of skeletons turned toward him all at once.

“All right, let’s make the equipment you’ll be wearing. Use these materials.”

The tireless skeletons snapped to attention, then went back to grinding away.

Thousands of pieces of equipment emerged from their efforts.

[Items with compatible energies have been gathered!]

[A new equipment set recipe has been registered!]

[You possess Dwarven Crafting!]

[The apprentice blacksmiths gain new insight!]

[The equipment sets consist of + items!]

[1. Blueback Ironclad Armor Set (+)]

[2. Skilled Mage’s Wanderer Set (+)]

Minwoo’s eyes lit up at the messages.

‘Finally unlocked the recipes.’

Reaching D grade had activated the recipe feature.

Recipes were the alpha and omega of crafting.

Their function was simple. Crafting an item registered in a recipe granted additional effects. In the case of equipment sets like these...

‘It makes them count as a set.’

What happened if you crafted a set without a recipe?

Every piece was treated as an individual item. You received no set bonuses.

Registering recipes for individual items also granted special effects every time they were crafted. That made recipes the equivalent of secret manuals for crafting classes.

Normally, people obtained them by finding ancient books inside gates or learning from a mentor.

‘But you can discover them while crafting, too, like this.’

Finding recipes through crafting, however, required a tremendous amount of grinding. For equipment sets, you generally had to craft every piece with compatible energies before the recipe would register.

Finding materials with those “compatible energies” was a real bitch.

Headgear, tops, bottoms, shoes, and gloves. Sets typically consisted of those five pieces.

You might need materials from monster A for the gloves, monster B for the armor, monster C for the shoes...

You had to figure out each one individually before the equipment would register as a set.

‘It’s one hell of a grind.’

An even bigger problem was that, even if you happened to craft all the pieces that could form a set...

‘Sometimes the recipe won’t register on the first try.’

Then the crafter would move on, none the wiser, thinking, Well, I guess that isn’t it.

That was why most equipment sets on the market were monster drops. Discovering crafting recipes was simply too difficult.

Fortunately, Minwoo had been such a diehard veteran of the game that he remembered quite a few recipes. He had discovered some in the game himself, while information on others had appeared in player-written guides.

‘Not all of them, but...’

Anything useful, or anything considered premium equipment—he remembered all those recipes.

The two sets he had just registered fell into that category.

Their level requirement was 101, so his skeletons could equip them right away.

On top of that, perhaps thanks to Dwarven Crafting, every item in the sets had become a Plus item—an astonishing bonus.

[Blueback Ironclad Armor Set]

[Grade: Magic+]

[Set Bonuses]

[1. Strength, Vitality +60]

[2. Grants access to Ironclad Defense (C)]

[Skilled Mage’s Wanderer Set]

[Grade: Magic+]

[Set Bonuses]

[1. Magic Power +100]

[2. Grants access to Magic Shield (C)]

‘Oh.’

Minwoo marveled at the set bonuses listed in the recipes.

Originally, collecting the full Ironclad Armor set only increased strength and vitality by thirty each. Now those values had doubled, and it even granted an additional skill. Those seemed to be the effects of becoming a Plus set rather than an ordinary Magic set.

The Wanderer Set had undergone the same change.

‘And if I add Equipment Binding to this...’

A twenty-percent increase in equipment stats.

At that point, they would be less like skeletons and more like absolute bruisers.

‘The mages should reach level 100 soon, too.’

He could give them the mage sets then.

While the skeletons busily crafted their equipment...

“Snowy, time to eat.”

“Coo.”

Snowy fluttered over and promptly sucked the elemental attributes out of the items.

[Opening the status window for the divine beast Snowy!]

[Name: Snowy]

[Species: Seven-Colored Bird]

[Attributes: Ice 20%, Fire 10.2%, Wind 10.31%, Electricity 10.11%, Earth 10.23%]

‘They’ve gone up quite a bit.’

It wasn’t just Ice. The other attributes had all risen to around ten percent as well.

‘I did pour a lot of money into it.’

Had it cost roughly four trillion won to bring those four attributes up to ten percent?

Of course, it was worth the price.

Ten percent was nothing to scoff at. Against enemies weak to the element, that damage bonus shot up to twenty percent.

And if he combined it with stacking attacks?

He would be positively overjoyed.

‘That should wrap up my preparations.’

The selection tournament was fast approaching. And once that was over, next came...

Minwoo stared at the Mysterious Necklace.

Salvation of the Continent.

An S+-rank gate.

He had met its entry requirement of level 251 long ago. He intended to enter as soon as he finished visiting the Sky Auction House.

There was plenty to gain there.

‘It’s accessory heaven.’

A necklace. And the Ring of the Fourth Apostle, for which he had yet to collect all the remaining fragments.

Loot awaited him.

* * *

“Minwooo!”

He met Naye’s eyes as she ran over and hugged one of his legs tightly.

“I heard about you at kindergarten today! We cheered for you, too!”

He scooped her up into his arms.

“Really?”

“Yeah! When I told them you really were my big brother, my teacher and everyone said you were amazing!”

Only one day remained before the selection tournament. Aside from each country designating its representatives, no particular participation procedure had been specified.

‘Usually, in situations like this...’

Most likely, the designated participants would be whisked away somewhere on the day itself.

‘And that’s how the tournament will begin.’

It was close enough now that even Naye’s kindergarten was talking about it.

Soon, Chairman Kim and Mrs. Choi approached as well.

“Have a good trip. Stay safe.”

“Your mother doesn’t care one bit about your ranking. Just come home without getting hurt, all right?”

“I’ll be careful.”

Minwoo nodded.

The details of the selection tournament had been public knowledge for some time, including the clause stating that participants could die and would bear personal responsibility. Perhaps it was only natural for his family to worry.

‘Not that sitting it out is an option.’

Being an awakener meant putting your life on the line. If something like this scared you off, you would never accomplish anything.

“You’ll be back soon, right?”

“Of course. Be good while I’m away, Naye. And don’t eat too much meat.”

“Okay! I’ll eat lots of vegetables, too!”

Minwoo chuckled.

As if.

She had pushed the bell peppers into a corner of her plate just that morning.

Still, she was cute. That was enough.

After saying goodbye to his family, he left home and headed for the guild headquarters.

A crowd of reporters was already waiting there. He joined his companions, gave interviews with them, and waited inside the building.

Before long, messages appeared.

[You are a participant designated by ‘Korea.’]

[Entering the selection tournament!]

[Your number is 123!]

The scenery before his eyes changed.

Fifty participating countries. Three awakeners selected from each.

A total of 150 people stood on an empty plain.

Everyone seemed mentally prepared; no one looked particularly rattled. They merely whispered among the companions who had arrived with them.

Strangely, all their different languages reached his ears as Korean.

“Minwoo, I think all the foreign languages are being translated.”

“Looks like it.”

They wouldn’t provide translation for no reason.

‘We’ll probably have to talk to one another.’

Just then, he felt a hostile stare. The group of Chinese awakeners was glaring straight at him.

Every face was familiar.

They were level-four-hundred-something awakeners from the Nine Dragons Guild. Later, during the middle stages, they would serve as some of China’s secondary star players.

One of them, a man sporting a blond mohawk, stepped forward.

‘His name was... Liu Wei, wasn’t it?’

His class was the uncommon druid. He fought by transforming into various animals, and his skill at using those transformations had earned him something of a name in China.

He spat on the ground and spoke.

“You Kim Minwoo?”

“Why ask when you already know?”

“Arrogant bastard. How dare an awakener from some little country persecute a member of our Nine Dragons Guild?”

Minwoo snorted.

“Persecute? All you lot do is churn out knockoffs.”

“Ha. This little shit...”

The atmosphere turned ugly.

Every awakener from the other countries turned to watch. After all, what could be more entertaining than watching a fight?

The Chinese awakeners gripped their weapons. Frowning, Park Siwoo and Seo Yerim drew theirs as well.

Violence was a hair’s breadth away.

Then it happened.

WHOOOOSH...!

Wind gathered in midair and began taking shape.

The fierce pressure made Liu Wei and the other Chinese awakeners whirl around. Minwoo looked in the same direction.

‘Huh?’

“That’s...”

Yerim sounded startled. Minwoo narrowed his eyes as well.

The stuffed bear they had met in the Testing Grounds was floating in midair.

“Ahem! Greetings. I am the great evaluator, Lord Popo.”

Arms folded, Popo arrogantly surveyed the awakeners below.

“What the hell is this?”

“... A stuffed bear?”

The Chinese participants frowned.

“Silence! Who dares chatter while I, Lord Popo, am explaining?”

The stuffed bear glared around at the awakeners with wide eyes. Then Popo fixed a stare on Liu Wei.

“Number 73. This is a warning. Keep your mouth shut.”

“And what’s your warning going to do—Gwaaagh!”

The jeering Liu Wei was suddenly sent flying.

He landed far in the distance and collapsed, spewing stomach acid as though he had taken a blow to the gut.

Popo was already in front of him, delivering a final warning.

“There won’t be a second time.”

Vomit dribbling from his mouth, tears and snot streaming down his face, Liu Wei hastily nodded. The awakeners from the other countries smiled in satisfaction.

‘Acting cocky in front of an unknown being?’

‘They haven’t even learned the basics.’

Everyone gathered here was a veteran who had been through all manner of hardships.

Judging an opponent by appearance alone was one of the last things an awakener should do. Yet that was exactly what the Nine Dragons Guild members had done.

Excessive nationalist pride and an insufferably arrogant attitude—those were among the defining traits of Chinese awakeners, particularly members of the Nine Dragons Guild.

As a result, they had been taught a harsh lesson right from the start. The other awakeners’ satisfied expressions hardened as they turned to Popo.

‘Just as I thought. It had something up its sleeve.’

‘I’d better not act rashly.’

No one had seen what had just happened.

They had no idea what that thing was, but one fact was now abundantly clear: beneath that cute exterior lurked an absolute monster.

“Ahem!”

Clearing its throat again, Popo floated into the air and struck an imposing pose.

“Numbers 1 through 150! You are all extraordinarily fortunate. Ordinarily, the System almost never bestows its grace on a bottom-tier dimension like this... er... you see?”

Its confident tone suddenly dwindled into meek politeness.

Its gaze had met someone’s directly.

That someone was Kim Minwoo.

‘Wh-what?’

Popo had heard that a selection tournament had been assigned to a bottom-tier dimension.

‘Th-that was this human’s planet?’

Popo’s eyes trembled.