Immortal Blood Art
With the money I made running the dungeon, I paid off the interest first.
Months of overdue collection texts cleared out in one go. Checking my bank balance, I felt like I could finally breathe again for the first time in ages.
And every spare hour after that, I poured into dungeon study.
Five years ago I'd studied D-rank dungeons on the assumption I'd rank up soon, but that was so long ago I'd forgotten everything.
Finding the info itself wasn't hard. Up through C-rank, most of the intel was public knowledge—hunter communities and official guidebooks had detailed clear strategies laid out for anyone who looked.
The real problem was how I was going to fight.
"Skills are the most important part, huh."
I'd confirmed it today in the orc dungeon. Raw mana output was more than enough. But if I couldn't control it properly, it was useless. Wrapping it around a sword came naturally enough—and that was the whole of it.
Seo Ran's offhand comment about learning sword arts came back to me. She hadn't just been talking to fill the air. She'd been watching me and seen the talent.
If I keep charging in on pure physical force like today, something's going to break sooner or later.
While I was turning it over, a thought suddenly struck me.
Come to think of it, I've been so busy since I got back that I never even checked the Infinite Library.
A lot had happened in the Mansang Realm. Quests cleared, realm raised, new people brought under my banner. Something might have updated along the way.
I opened the records to see what had changed.
Entry logs and points earned appeared. Quest rewards, Mansang Realm residence records, points accumulated from every action. And at the very bottom, a new notification floated.
New features unlocked upon reaching Lv.2
Random Draw has been unlocked
"Random Draw?"
I opened the feature at once.
Price: 100 Points
No description whatsoever. Just "Random Draw."
"It's just gacha."
The old days flashed by—too broke even for the mobile games everyone else played, grinding infinite rerolls just to scrape by.
Should I pull once?
A hundred points wasn't anything to cry over. With 1,790 left, I could pull seventeen times and still have some to spare.
I hit Random Draw without hesitation.
A rainbow-colored box the size of my palm appeared in midair.
"Just open it, I guess?"
I cracked the box open. Blinding light poured out; when it faded, a tiny vial floated in the air.
When used, hair grows lush and full. Say goodbye to hair-loss worries forever!
"Trash."
My hair was already so thick it was a problem. If I'd known this was coming I never would have pulled.
I stared blankly at the vial—then a thought hit me.
Wait. Could I sell this for a fortune?
The world was full of people suffering from hair loss. Even Awakeners hadn't conquered it. I'd even seen posts on hunter forums claiming dungeon stress made hunters go bald faster than civilians.
There's definitely demand.
I opened the hunter trading app on my phone. Searching "hair-loss treatment" flooded the feed with posts—most of them reeking of scams.
"Wonder if it'll sell."
No downside to listing it.
I gave the vial a little shake. Clear liquid sloshed inside.
Price… let's start at five million won.
If the effect was real, that was a fair tag.
I snapped photos and fretted over the title.
Actual Awakener-reviewed hair-loss treatment — 1 bottle, 5,000,000 won
Rare item obtained in a dungeon. Confirmed rapid hair regrowth in person.
I even uploaded a few photos of my own hair as "proof."
Hair-loss meds aren't the real prize here.
I closed the app half-heartedly and my hand drifted straight back to Random Draw. Right now my head held nothing but the gacha.
Still got plenty of ammo.
I decided to pull a few more times.
And so my hand kept hitting Random Draw… and a few minutes later I was regretting it like a maniac.
"Fuck…"
Random meant random.
Pebbles. Twigs. A box of condoms. A mousepad. Women's underwear. Nothing but pure garbage poured out one after another. The condoms might actually see use someday, but what the hell was I supposed to do with a rock?
"Is this for real?!"
My hands and feet were trembling. I checked the remaining points.
490 points.
Started at 1,790 and melted down to 490 in the blink of an eye. I'd set aside 300 to buy a quest from the shop, so the actual usable balance was only 190.
"Haa… calm down."
Getting worked up wouldn't bring the points back. I drew a deep breath.
Just like when I used to pull for my favorite character in mobile games, I steeled myself with pure desperation. Gacha was always like this. Pull a hundred times, hit once, and you're ahead.
I hit Random Draw one last time.
A rainbow box settled onto my palm. This time the light seemed to pulse especially hard.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened it.
"SSR, let's gooooo!"
Golden light unlike anything before flooded the room. It was almost too bright to look at. Completely different from the pebbles and panties.
"Did it hit?!"
What floated up was a single card. I checked it immediately.
I will answer exactly one question about anything at all!
"Dud…?"
As expected, my luck was pure garbage.
"No, wait a second."
Thinking about it, it wasn't bad. An answer to anything—used right, that could be insanely valuable. Mansang Realm intel, secrets of reality, even the Infinite Library system itself.
I agonized for a long while before opening my mouth.
"How do I learn the Immortal Blood Art sealed inside the Blood Lord Token?"
The card flared brilliantly, and a soft female voice rang directly inside my skull.
"Wait—! Cancel that question!"
But the moment the answer finished, the card evaporated.
What, I just have to eat it?
Knowing the method left me hollow. The seal even Seo Ran couldn't break, and the answer was "just swallow the gem"? Unbelievable.
And at the same time, a crushing sense of waste slammed into me.
I could have asked something way more useful than how to learn Immortal Blood Art. The limits of the Infinite Library system. Why the dungeons appeared.
Water under the bridge now.
I let out a long sigh and pulled the Blood Lord Token from storage, setting it on my palm.
Thankfully it wasn't a world-exclusive object like the hypnosis watch. I could store it, withdraw it, even bring it into reality without issue.
I stared at the token on my hand. The red gem embedded in its surface held a faint glow.
Swallow this and the Immortal Blood Art gets engraved into my body.
I worked my fingers under the gem and pried it free.
Click.
With a tiny sound the red gem popped out.
I set it on my palm and looked. Fingernail-sized. At a glance it was just an ordinary red jewel. Hard to believe the founding master of the Red Blood Sect had poured his entire life into sealing a secret technique inside this thing.
Should I eat it?
The biggest worry was synergy with the Yang Spirit Root. Immortal Blood Art was a blood-based technique. Yang Spirit Root was pure Yang energy. They might clash.
Fuck it. Eat first, think later.
I tipped the gem into my mouth.
Gulp.
At first, nothing.
Then my vision blacked out and I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, a monstrous stench made me clap my hand over my nose on pure reflex.
"What the hell is that smell…"
It was like the time I'd accidentally walked into a goblin latrine in a dungeon. No—worse.
I slowly took in my surroundings.
The floor looked wrong. Black scorch marks spread in a circle under my feet; I'd clearly collapsed right at the center.
I blacked out, huh.
Checking my body, I couldn't help but freeze in shock.
Sticky, pitch-black filth coated my skin in layers.
It was the thing I'd only ever read about in novels—Bone Marrow Cleansing. Every impurity inside the body forced out.
"Holy shit…"
I was the source of the god-awful stench.
I scrambled to the bathroom and blasted cold water. As the shower washed the filth away, unbelievably smooth, hard flesh emerged underneath.
This wasn't just better skin. Muscle density had tightened far beyond before; my entire body felt like a single refined weapon.
Most shocking of all was the change inside.
They didn't clash.
The collision I'd feared never came. The opposite happened.
The heat of the Yang Spirit Root surging from my dantian passed through my heart and melted perfectly into my blood. My blood was no longer simple liquid. It was liquid flame racing through my veins.
Every heartbeat flooded my whole body with fierce vitality; the Yang Spirit Root refined that energy again into purest mana.
I finished the shower and stood before the mirror.
Deep in my pupils, a faint blood-red concentric circle was etched.
So this is Immortal Blood Art.
No one had taught me, yet the method of use was crystal clear. Controlling blood to heal wounds, dissolving power into the bloodstream to explode combat strength. It sat deep in my brain like an instinct I'd been born with.
Just then the smartphone lying on the floor buzzed violently.
The name on the screen: Choi Jae-hyuk.
A guy who scraped by forming parties for E- and D-rank dungeons. Looks like some golden-boy gyaru-oh type, yet for a mediocre D-rank tank his pride was sky-high.
This bastard rarely texted first. Usually only when he was short a party member or needed disposable bait for something dirty.
Same story this time. Someone had bailed, and he was looking for an easy sucker to use as meat shield and pack mule.
Normally I'd ignore it, but one face suddenly flashed through my mind.
Is Kim Ha-eun coming too?
Choi Jae-hyuk's girlfriend, Kim Ha-eun.
Fitting for the girlfriend of a golden-boy type, her looks weren't ordinary either.
Face and body are honestly top-tier on that bitch.
The thought of revenge settled in. A revelation: snatch the prize he treasured most from the bastard who used to look at me like an insect.
I typed a short reply.
I set the phone down and looked in the mirror again. The eerie blood-red pattern from earlier had vanished, leaving ordinary black eyes.
"Looking forward to tomorrow."
A smile curled at the corner of my mouth.