Master of Six Skills

Maybe it was because my body had answered me for the first time in eight years. I had been in a good mood since morning.

On the off chance, I tried Healing Wind again, but there was no immediate response. Reaching a full recovery in a single stroke had been too much to hope for, perhaps.

Even so, the mere fact that I had succeeded in reconnecting the nerves was satisfaction enough.

A search suggested I would need a new nutrient pill. Once the nerves and muscles began to recover, the body demanded more energy and nutrients than before—more fuel for the work of putting itself back together.

The A-Kroine I had been taking supplied only the bare minimum required to survive. It was the sort of thing people sought out when eating was an unbearable nuisance, or when they were deadly serious about a diet. It no longer suited me.

I asked Yu Seo-ha for the new pills.

What I wanted was a product refined to the highest standard—a flood of energy and nutrients, with so little waste left behind that there might as well have been none. Even among pills like that, C-aminex was infamous for tasting awful. Word had it that it tasted like cattle feed.

What does cattle feed even taste like?

For the moment, I could count myself lucky. I had swallowed one of the old pills to check, and my sense of taste still hadn't properly returned.

…Damn.

Yu Seo-ha's message practically bounced, and still my face went stiff. A-Kroine had been 3.6 million won a box. The price had jumped nearly fourfold.

C-aminex. Even a product that gave not the slightest thought to fragrance or flavor cost this much.

Goods made from Tower resources were, without question, priced like the devil.

Guess I'd better get serious about making money…

Even so, thanks to Old Man Choi, a decent sum remained after the transfer. I couldn't keep wearing that ragged jersey forever, so I went out to shop.

If I had my way, I would have bought clothing made for the Awakened. The comfort against my skin was something Nyzen's robe could answer for, but ordinary clothes fell apart far too quickly—and in the Labyrinth, they drew far too many eyes.

…But they were far too expensive. Even going only by what I had seen on television, the prices started in the ten-million-won range. Add figure adjustment, auto-repair, and the like, and they shot well past thirty million. Not something to buy now.

I settled for simple sporting goods. A top-and-bottom set at 360,000 won—still far pricier than the last round of clearance stock. Two sets, plus functional athletic wear: 850,000 won ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in all.

It was time to test the new magic.

I entered the Tower.

Floor 6 of the Tower. A place with a vicious reputation.

Up through the fifth floor, filling the level cap was enough to keep climbing. Reach level 20, and you could clear the second floor. Reach level 40, and you could clear the third. And so on.

From the sixth floor, it changed. Hunters began to appear who had scraped and clawed their way to level 100 and still failed to clear. From that point on, the only hope was skill level—and as everyone knew, raising a skill's level was no easy thing.

Floor 6, in other words, was where you ran into the limit of your talent. So what about me?

I turned and looked around. A peaceful forest, thick with conifers of a modest height. Water murmured off to one side, and birds startled by the wind took off for somewhere else.

I tried moving. The Cursed Heart's penalty: a thirty-percent cut to physical ability. As expected, my body did not move as smoothly as it should have.

It hardly mattered. A light assist along my mana threads was enough to smooth the control of my body. I couldn't speak for anyone else, but I had been driving every motion through mana threads from the very beginning. A constraint like this barely counted as a handicap at all.

I let my eyes fall shut. Slowly I gathered mana and led it into the new heart. A moment passed. Then, with the sensation of a blocked wall giving way, mana began to pour into the heart.

"…Hup."

A strange, crystalline clarity filled me from head to toe. The Cursed Heart drank down every drop of the mana saturating my body, and even that was not enough—each time Meditation refilled me, the heart gulped it away just as greedily. I repeated the cycle for a long while.

"…Hoo."

At last, calm returned. Barely.

"Good god. This is no joke."

How much mana had the thing swallowed? I couldn't even remember how many times Meditation had turned over. I needed a moment's rest.

Even so—perhaps thanks to the Ring of the Snow Mountain—the sudden drain hadn't pulled my spirit body painfully taut. I could feel it clearly. In every respect, I was advancing fast.

Step. Step.

I had been walking the forest only a short while when a red dot rose on the panel. Detection swept over whatever it marked.

A massive troll, some three ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meters tall. It fought with an enormous wooden club, its parents' bones driven into the wood like spikes. A spiked club, in plainer words—and the destructive power behind it was nothing to laugh at.

Shield first. I need to test that.

I had already worked out how the skills ought to fit together. If it came to it, a fireball would take the head off. The thought settled me, a little.

Yeah. Power really is the best.

I closed the distance slowly. At about seven hundred meters, the troll's shoulders twitched. An orc's detection range was four hundred meters; this was nearly double. No wonder ordinary hunters found a troll such a burden.

It started toward me. Unlike a sharp-witted orc, the movement was a straight line. The reports had been right—it trusted far too much in its monstrous strength and its healing.

From where I stood, that made it a fairly agreeable opponent.

"Krrrk…!!"

Then the thing came into view.

A bulk like eight men lashed together. Small eyes in a vicious face. Fangs so huge they climbed nearly to the height of those eyes. And between the rents of its shabby hide clothing, muscle knotted and bulging.

Overwhelming.

"Kieeeeeek!!!"

The shriek tore out of it, and in the same breath it kicked off the earth and rushed in. The ground surged up and caught its ankle—then broke apart, pathetically.

Kang!

The shattered earthen shackle sprayed into the empty air. A message rose before my eyes.

I cast Bind again at once.

Kwaaaak—!

This time, the result was different.

"Krek?"

Kwaaaaang!

Unable to snap the shackle, the troll drove its face into the ground. The shock must have matched the speed it had been running. It couldn't rise at once; its whole body shivered.

Fwhoosh!

I burned its left arm away with a fireball. The creature screamed like something feral and hauled itself upright, but the shackle held.

"Kyaaaaaak!!!"

It looked from the shackle to me and back again. In the end its rage won out, and it began beating its own ankle with the club. Twenty blows or so, and the shackle finally gave.

…So did the ankle.

Much harder than I expected.

Limping on the ankle it had ruined itself, the troll came on. The club was still whole, so I couldn't relax. I raised a shield in front of me. A breeze seemed to pass, light as nothing—and then a translucent membrane stood across the troll's path.

The shield spanned about a meter. I swallowed, throat dry. My heart hammered. Seeing a monster three meters tall from this close was a first.

"Krr…!!"

The enraged troll's club came down.

Kwaang!

One blow, and it cracked. I formed a second shield behind the first at once. I tried for a third. I couldn't.

The limit of the skill's level…?

That was when it happened.

Ch-ch-chink.

A strange sound rose from the half-broken shield. If I had to name it, it was the sound of shattered glass drawing itself back together.

"Kraaaaaaaak!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The troll howled and hammered the club down. The barrier did not so much as flinch. The section that had broken a moment ago was already whole again.

"…This is insane."

A fire skill's levels poured everything into raw destruction. The other elements, by contrast, looked unmistakably versatile.

As the troll wound up for another swing, I locked a shackle around its ankle and hauled. Balance gone, the creature shrieked and was dragged scraping over the ground.

"Kraaaaaaaak!"

The infamous gatekeeper of the sixth floor tumbled across the dirt in an ugly sprawl. In a last thrash it hurled the bone club, and the shield stopped it with pathetic ease. A beat later, a perfectly timed strike punched clean through its skull. The troll's body crumbled to dust and was gone.

Fsss…

Level 120, in a breath. An exhilaration past anything I had felt before wrapped me whole. I shuddered once at the strange pleasure, then steadied my breathing and turned my mind to what came next.

I thought for a moment. Instead of pressing the hunt, I tested the magic. In practice, the Tower was the only place I could. Practicing five-element magic along the Han River would have gathered every eye in sight. It was still too soon.

Krrk—creak.

Bind was not as easy to control as I had imagined.

The skill itself was excellent. What threw me was the lack of any limit on number—I could throw them out without restraint, and that freedom was its own kind of confusion. After fumbling for a long while, I found the answer.

Stop obsessing over what the eyes could see. Use ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Detection, and use it hard. Not the whole of a motion: pour everything into only the point I wanted, and seize the enemy there.

The method had to change with the opponent. Against the weak, I could grab a handful of ankles at once. Against the strong, that was suicide. Better, in those cases, to spend it as a crack—one instant stolen from the enemy's timing.

Ssk.

Shield magic proved far more effective than I had expected.

Hardness I would have to confirm by taking the hits myself. As for how many I could make, there seemed to be no particular ceiling.

Not infinite, of course.

Mental power set the number I could hold at once at about five. But the moment one released, I could form another without trouble.

Theory, admittedly. Still—if I opened the distance and laid shields as I went, an endless shield was possible.

This ought to be enough.

I went back to the hunt. This time I left Bind unused and met the attacks with the shield alone. Astonishingly, there was no problem at all. A single shield weathered a good twenty swings of the club.

The troll was not weak. Not even close. A swing that missed me had gouged the earth nearly a meter deep. This was simply the shield being absurdly strong.

Crack!

A fireball smashed the troll's head apart. I scattered the flames before the body could catch, and everything above the neck was cleanly gone.

Then flesh and muscle squirmed, and in an instant the head began to grow back.

Incredible.

Startled all over again by the thing's regeneration, I waited until the head had finished forming—and drove a second fireball into the skull of a troll that still hadn't found its senses. The force was the same. This time, I added Holy Fire.

Crack!

The head burst. Unlike before, it did not regenerate. Holy Fire, as expected. It did more than pass judgment on the undead. It was exceptional at suppressing the regenerative power of the living.

Four trolls remained. This time I headed toward the sound of water. A quiet creek opened ahead of me, and two trolls that had caught my presence began to close in.

"Krr…!!"

"Krrrk!"

The moment they saw me, they kicked off. In a flash they were out of the trees and running the broad bank of the creek. Splash, splash—water leapt as high as their thighs.

I caught the water with Flow and dumped it over their torsos, then froze it with Freeze.

Fssss…

Chaeng!

They locked solid for a moment. The ice could not hold a troll's strength. Broken shards caught the sun and glittered, brilliant—and in that instant—

Two skills, both at their ceiling. I used Flow, and the water surged up and swallowed both trolls whole. Simply manipulating a current had no power to kill. Water was only a medium.

KRRR-CRACK!

I used Freeze, and both trolls became enormous blocks of ice. Something inside seemed to strain with everything it had. The ice groaned and twisted a few times. That was all.

The trolls were gone. Only the ice remained.

"…Huh."

My heart kicked at a power that should not have been possible. This was what basic skills alone had produced. If I learned true skills in earnest, I couldn't begin to imagine the destruction—or the versatility—waiting on the far side.

"This is actually insane."

Floor 6 of the Tower. A place ordinary hunters cleared with their lives on the line. For me, it was nothing more than somewhere to test my skills and grind their proficiency higher.

Feeling all over again just how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠monstrous the Transcendence trait was, I bent my knees and set a palm in the water. I used the last skill I had left—the lightning line.

Pachichichit—!

The lightning ran out through the water. It climbed the ice, spread in every direction, and took the trolls whole. Their bodies shuddered. Muscle came apart. Their hearts failed, and they began to melt from the inside out.

Ice conducted worse than water, and for a moment their regeneration let them endure the pain inside it. Only for a moment.

The instant Electrocution reached its maximum level, the body that could no longer bear that savage current burst like a balloon.

PWAAANG!