Win Favor by Gathering Tribute
I’m translating the chapter and preserving every in-universe system message as styled HTML blocks, with the narrative shaped into novel-style paragraphs.CHAPTER_TITLE: Win Favor by Gathering Tribute
“You’ve even succeeded in preserving and aging the mana water and dodum tree sap, Guardian-nim? That’s truly impressive! Though imperfect, you’ve now made it possible to produce healing potions and mana potions by hand. As a reward, you’ve gained 200 EP and 300 RP!”
200 EP was ten times the amount of the achievement rewards he had earned so far.
But that wasn’t what mattered to Ho-yeong right now.
“A, advanced achievement? Then?!”
“That’s correct.”
The completion condition for the bonus quest was to achieve an advanced achievement within seven days.
Bonus Quest Complete!
📍 Grade: SSS
🎁 Reward: You have learned both skill trees, Proselytizing Edification and Leading Edification, from the passive ability Influence.
Achievement Unlocked:Today’s Quest Complete! Guardian-nim, you completed the quest only half a day after accepting it. Excellent work! As a reward, you have gained 20 EP.
Ability Level Up! The active-passive skill Blooming has greatly increased from level 2 to 4.
Berneval Luntin has become deeply absorbed in the profundity of pottery. Pottery-making ability blooms.
Sicoop has developed an interest in handling mana soil. Mana soil utilization has improved greatly.
Meyril is feeling deeply rewarded by Guardian-nim’s encouragement. She can now control temperature and humidity with much finer precision.
The hogriphons are pleased by being praised for their work toppling iron trees with body slams. Their lumbering ability blooms, and their enthusiasm for labor surges.
The good news kept ringing through the status window one after another.
“Now you must choose whether to make Proselytizing Edification or Leading Edification your main skill tree. The skill tree you set as main will receive various buffs!
(1) Greatly increased effect range
(2) Increased leveling speed
(3) Increased growth per level-up”
Before he could even enjoy the good fortune, a choice was put before him, but Ho-yeong did not complain.
This time, unlike any other, it was a pleasant choice.
“I like that choosing one doesn’t mean losing the other.”
Daliha seemed for a moment as if she might explain the opportunity cost of growth potential, but decided to keep quiet. Instead, she delivered information that was far more important.
“Next, I will explain the bonus reward. For the next seven days, each time you achieve another advanced achievement, enhancement will be applied to each skill tree.
These enhancement effects are also subject to the buffs received by the main skill tree, so please keep that in mind.
Proselytizing Edification
+ 1 Enhancement: Not only monsters, but all races including humans can become proselytizers and cast Influence. In addition, power increases in proportion to the caster’s charm and edification level. However, for beings other than monsters to become proselytizers, their edification level must be C+ or higher.
+ 2 Enhancement: You gain a certain amount of EP when hostile beings are turned into allies through the proselytizers’ Influence.
+ 3 Enhancement: Harmony among different races is achieved, and they cooperate well even without Guardian-nim’s mediation.
Leading Edification
+ 1 Enhancement: Not only monsters, but all races including humans can be made into leaders. However, for beings other than monsters to become leaders, their edification level must be C+ or higher.
+ 2 Enhancement: For humans and chosen races only, additional leaders may be designated by faction. However, these function as sub-leaders, and their specs do not match the main leader’s.
+ 3 Enhancement: The main leader is treated as a “hero” unit, increasing all stat values and granting levels and skills. As their level rises, their skills become more powerful, and they may also learn new skills.”
Every effect was useful without exception.
“Damn, they’re all amazing. Proselytizing Edification is clearly specialized for wide-area effect, and Leading Edification is all about creating elite units. I’m definitely going for full enhancement on this one!”
As a gamer, Ho-yeong was not the sort to get bound up in achievements, but now he was burning with the desire to clear every single advanced achievement.
Please choose your main skill tree. Time remaining until selection: 1 minute.
If you fail to make a choice before time runs out, the main skill tree will be selected at random. Please take care.
Daliha reminded him that he still had not chosen.
“One minute? Why so short? Did the system get mad because I finished the quest too fast or something? Is it badgering me to decide quickly? Some kind of heavy-handed sys...?”
Time remaining until selection has been reduced to 30 seconds.
“I meant that as in ‘my brain needs to be remodeled.’ Please extend the time a little, System-nim.”
Unfortunately, Ho-yeong’s wish did not come true.
“Then I choose Proselytizing Edification! I can’t resist auto-farming.”
Elite-making for monster forces under a leader was appealing enough, but the idea of expanding his territory even larger through conversion drew him more strongly.
“Lord. My lord?”
“Huh? Oh. Right.”
While he had been preoccupied with developing his abilities, Lilian had come over.
“You seemed to have stopped doing that for a while, but you’ve started muttering to yourself again. And who exactly is this system?”
“There’s such a guy. Someone who keeps flipping back and forth all the time.”
Ho-yeong brushed it off vaguely, and Lilian, instead of pressing him further, asked another question.
“More importantly, about the journey to the capital. Are you planning to take the highway?”
“Of course we should take the highway. Why, is there some problem?”
“Have you forgotten the blessing of the highway?”
The angels’ blessing upon the highway was the biggest reason western continent people used the Podwor Highway. Monsters could not approach it, so safety was guaranteed.
“But I heard that blessing’s been wearing off lately for some reason. On the way here to the Tamer Territory, monsters were brushing up against us from every direction. And our territory’s monsters are edified anyway, so shouldn’t that be fine? The mandragorani came along the highway just fine too. They didn’t actually step on the road itself, though.”
“It’s not a matter of edification. The mandragorani are thought of more as wild animals than monsters, so there was no issue. But this is different, is it not? The monsters pulling that carriage are hogriphons and minocentaurs. Who would look at that and think it was a cart loaded with tribute? If anything, it would look like a monster war chariot.”
“Ah.”
At Lilian’s point, Ho-yeong let out a groan.
He had overlooked something important.
“So do you think the relay station will just stand by and let it happen? If I were one of the relay station guards, I’d raise the beacon fire first and ask questions later.”
“And after that, they’d lift their spears?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks for telling me, Lilian. If we’d just gone without thinking, we would have lost a ton of time. So what do we do now?”
They needed to come up with a method.
Ho-yeong called in the mages and began discussing it.
“What about using polymorph?”
Pierre offered a good suggestion.
“Oh, that’s good. You mean changing the monsters into animals that won’t arouse suspicion, right? Horses or cattle would be good.”
“Yes. Polymorph has a higher success rate when the form is close to the target’s original appearance. I’m not very confident when it comes to living creatures, but Sicoop-nim should be able to manage it. Is that not so, Sergeant Sicoop?”
“Y-yes. I can cast polymorph, yes... but for a body that large, my mana is insufficient.”
Sicoop neither nodded nor shook his head, leaving only a wavering expression on his face.
I mean, he sure knows a lot of spells, but mana shortage keeps tripping him up. Fine, should I try out the ability I learned freshly in Kihara Territory?
Ho-yeong decided to cast Blooming.
I was in a rush when I used Blooming on Yak back in Kihara Territory.
He approached Sicoop and placed a hand on his shoulder.
What if I use Communion and Blooming together this time? Whenever I’ve combined my skills before, the effect has multiplied. Each time, I even earned the achievement called Combination.
Ho-yeong closed his eyes, focused, and released aura.
“Lord? What are you doing...?”
If aura was the life energy that flowed out from the body, mana was mental energy generated by the brain.
The two energies required different methods of handling, which made it very difficult for one person to use both. Crude as the analogy might be, it was like writing with the left hand while drawing with the right. Even concentrating on one task was difficult; what more, then, of doing both at once?
This was why sword mages existed only in epics and novels. Mages were not good at handling aura, and warriors were not good at handling mana.
“Hold still. Close your eyes too and try meditating.”
Though mana was mental energy, the healthier the body, the easier it was to exert mana. As the saying went, mental strength came from physical strength.
Sicoop looked puzzled, but he did as his lord instructed.
When I put myself inside the Bakgyeokpo and fired myself out of it, too, the aura gathered by the sub-officers stabilized the barrel, letting the mana stone’s power reach its maximum. Now I just need to do that in reverse. Like when Gohan and Krillin passed their ki to Piccolo.
Ho-yeong was building an image of his aura flowing into Sicoop, recalling a scene from a certain comic where ki was transferred between people.
“Oh?”
Sicoop felt his exhausted body begin to stir with life again.
“Now, drink down a cup of mana water and focus your mana.”
Sicoop gulped down the mana water scooped from the Jar of Hope. Just as he began to draw up his mana, Ho-yeong activated Blooming.
“Oooooh? Suddenly, incredible mana is surging up! Lord! What on earth is this...?”
“What’s happening? I’m detecting a sudden spike in mana!”
The raging flow of mana left both Sicoop and Pierre stunned.
Sicoop’s mana value has increased from 43~48 to 55~62, and his stat grade has risen from C to C+. In addition, all mana has been restored.
In contrast, Ho-yeong felt a crushing exhaustion wash over him and staggered as he let go.
“Lord, are you all right?!”
“I’m fine. More importantly, how’s that? Working pretty well, right?”
“It feels like I was born again, sir. I drank mana water as a substitute for a potion, but that alone couldn’t explain a mana increase of this scale... Could it be because you infused aura into me just now?”
Sicoop’s mana value rose to just below Pierre’s.
Achievement Unlocked:What Is That, It’s Scary! Guardian-nim’s idea of maximizing mana recovery by using aura infusion and concentrated mana water is truly splendid. As a reward, you have gained 20 EP.
Achievement Unlocked:Combination 3! A brilliant idea to link Communion and Blooming as a passive skill + passive skill chain! Rather than using Blooming in a simple way, the method of naturally drawing mana by linking it to Sicoop’s body and mind is highly innovative.
As a reward, you have gained 25 EP.
And there was one more very good piece of news.
Advanced Achievement Unlocked:Full Combination! You have achieved all series in the Combination achievement, earned through skill-combination use. As a reward, you have gained 150 EP.
That made it his second advanced achievement, and he succeeded in strengthening both Proselytizing Edification and Leading Edification to the first stage.
* * *
Sicoop succeeded in transforming the hogriphons into giant eagles, but he was having trouble with the polymorph on the minocentaurs.
Whenever he tried to turn them into horses, six legs would sprout. Whenever he tried to turn them into cattle, horns would jut out from their shoulders instead.
“It seems the minocentaurs’ magic resistance is quite high, sir.”
“But even if you do change their appearance properly, isn’t there still a problem? If the minocentaurs lose their arms, how are they supposed to push the carriage?”
Rubia, who had been watching, pointed out the crucial issue, and Ho-yeong came up with another method.
“Then how about this? Instead of changing the minocentaurs’ actual forms, what if we make them look different only to other people? You taught me about this when we made the invisibility magic circle before, remember? Something about distorting the phase of incident light waves through space light modulation.”
The principle was not to make the object itself invisible, but to refract light within a specific area so that it could not be seen from outside that area.
“This time, instead of invisibility, let’s adapt illusion magic! Pierre was skilled with illusion magic, so if we work together, shouldn’t it go well?”
“So there was such a method! However, even that may not work well because of magic resistance...,”
“We’ve got mana soil, don’t we? If we smear that all over the minocentaurs, wouldn’t it offset the resistance?”
“Indeed. That is worth trying.”
They smeared mana soil all over the minocentaurs’ upper bodies, and the mages worked together to chant the spell. There was no need to apply mana soil to the lower half. That part was already a horse’s body.
“Wow, that’s amazing. Just looking at them, they look like horses!”
The result was a complete success.
“A little, no, a lot big, but still. Well, we can probably talk our way around that.”
To the people watching, they now looked like nothing more than enormous horses. But that was only a disguise. Since the minocentaurs’ actual forms had not changed, there was no problem at all using both arms.
“Uh... but let’s make Eollugi look like an ordinary cow. A horse with cow markings just seems weird somehow.”
And so the Tamer Territory’s first tribute delegation set out toward the capital.
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