The Skull Engine

The day Cha Dohyeon was to join the negotiation with the Korea Racing Authority had arrived.

Early that morning, one man and two skeletons gathered at the stable.

"Everyone ready?"

Since his appointment with the Racing Authority wasn't until after lunch, he planned to make a quick run to the Tower, which allowed only a single entry per day.

Clack-clack!

Clack!

Today was the day they would challenge Floor 10 — said to spawn two orcs at once — and Goldie and Taesan were brimming with confidence.

'Most Climbers get put through the wringer on Floor 10...'

Open the Climber community and you'd find it overflowing with rookies who'd taken a beating on that floor. It made sense. Orcs were a first-time encounter, and every last one of them was a warrior beyond anything a human could hope to compare with. Twenty-seven stat points weren't nearly enough to close that gap.

Worse still, for Climbers accustomed to carving through feeble goblin hordes, it was an entirely new style of combat — and two of them appearing right out of the gate doubled the difficulty all over again.

'Normally it's a floor where party play is recommended...'

But for Dohyeon, awakened as a most peculiar necromancer, it promised to be a stroll. Taesan's mass, pared down to a tenth of his living bulk, still came to 400 kilograms. One charge from those tusks, and orc or orc grandfather alike would go sailing clean across the river of the dead.

"Entering the Tower!"

Dohyeon laid a hand on Taesan and Goldie and stepped inside.

Floor 10 of the Tower.

The ground was soil carpeted in grass, but it was a plain without a single tree in sight. Thanks to that, the randomly generated escape portal was visible at a glance — as was the fact that there was absolutely nothing to shelter behind for anyone hoping to weather the orcs' assault before fleeing.

It almost felt like the Tower looming over them: get past me with raw strength, fair and square.

Snrk!

An orc that spotted Dohyeon broke into a run. Shieldless, each of them hauled only a single long blade, bounding along in a waddling lope — their thighs so thick that running seemed to genuinely inconvenience them.

Clack-clack!

Taesan charged to meet them head-on while Goldie slipped stealthily along behind him. From the front, all anyone would see was the elephant.

Thud-thud! Thud-thud!

Snnrrk!

Each orc stood a good two meters tall, but with Taesan — three meters at the shoulder — barreling down on them, the pair panicked and split in two directions.

'Just like the community said. They've got real combat instinct.'

Lighter than he had ever been in life and stronger than he had ever dreamed, Taesan swished around with effortless grace, singled out one orc, and charged.

CRUNCH!

Twin two-meter tusks punched through the orc's upper body in a single thrust. The blade in the creature's grip barely managed a scratch against Taesan's hardened jade bone.

Khh... grraahh...

The orc Taesan had struck lost its life in an instant, blood gushing down along the tusk.

Snrk!

The surviving orc — relieved that the bone-white elephant had pounced on its comrade instead of itself — glanced around and locked onto Dohyeon. A frame shorter than its own. A shield, sure, but held clumsily. A loose, careless posture without a hint of tension. If only it could close the distance, that creature wouldn't survive a single punch.

Snnrrk!

In the very next breath, the enraged orc came waddling toward Dohyeon at a dead run.

And then—

Goldie, hidden in the elephant's shadow, clamped down on the orc's Achilles tendon.

Tssnnrrk!

He bit down hard without so much as a whisper of sound, then wrenched with savage force — and the orc toppled flat, crashing down on top of Goldie.

Goldie absorbed a few punches on the chin, then — the very moment the orc raised its long blade — slipped away with such nimble ease it was as if he'd meant to let go all along.

Just as the furious orc pushed itself halfway up, Taesan — one orc still spitted on his tusks — slammed his full weight into it.

KRA-BOOM!

Khh... grrhh...

Taesan strolled back to Dohyeon without a care in the world, both orcs impaled on his tusks. Then he stretched his head out, as good as asking to be praised.

"Whoa there, Taesan. You'll get blood all over your big brother. Head on out and I'll wash you up nice and clean."

Taesan was a 1970 model. At sixty-six, he was forty years Dohyeon's senior — yet resurrected as a skeleton, the Goldie Law now made him the baby of the family.

Ding!

Taesan tactfully drew his head back, and three skill cards floated up before Dohyeon.

Among the familiar names, Dohyeon searched out the one that caught his eye.

"Skull Engine? Skull would be the head, I suppose......"

Arms crossed in deliberation, Dohyeon chose Skull Engine — half on impulse. Deep down, he already sensed that even a long, careful think would land him in the same place.

Advanced Jade Bone Processing and Soul Shaping didn't seem to be skills the current Dohyeon particularly needed.

With his choice made, Dohyeon and his two summons exited the Tower.

Back at the ranch, Dohyeon scrubbed his two summons sparkling clean at the water tap, gave them a thorough brushing as well, then settled into a chair and called up his status window.

"Holy moly......"

The Skull Engine was a game changer set to redraw the entire landscape of how he raised his summons. Until now, Dohyeon had been able to substitute for the Domination stat through good old-fashioned real-world effort, leaving him free to worry only about mana and Mind. With the Skull Engine in hand, he was now half-free even of his mana stat.

If he could stomach the inconvenience of how long jade bone crafting took, he could pocket the stat points he'd otherwise sink into Mind and mana.

The birth of the first Climber in history to grow strong independent of his stats.

Dohyeon went straight for the orc skulls. Even though the goblin bones he'd shipped by courier from his Seoul home had yet to arrive, he already had quite the stockpile of monster bones.

"I should build a storage shed too. The bones just keep piling up."

One for Goldie, one for Taesan. As luck would have it, he'd caught exactly two orcs today — so there'd be no need for the two of them to squabble over who got to call seniority first. Of course, Goldie would be the one bellowing "I'm the hyung!" while Taesan hollered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"I'm the youngest!"

Dohyeon was just about to start pouring mana into the orc heads that very moment—

"Oh, wait, though......"

The mana he'd loaned out to his two little brothers snagged at his ankle.

"It felt great handing it out, but taking it back now makes it feel like I gave with one hand and snatched with the other...... kind of sorry about it......"

After a brief moment of deliberation, Dohyeon reached an easy decision.

"The Skull Engines are going to make mana upkeep pointless anyway. Just borrowing it back for a bit, no big deal."

Dohyeon trimmed his allocation to a single point of mana each for Goldie and Taesan, and while he was at it, put his stat points to work too.

"Mana and Mind aren't directly tied to how strong I am, but they sure raise my quality of life — let's take them both up to 20."

Whump.

Apparently a single point of mana was too little to swing a 400-kilogram frame — Taesan flopped himself down onto the ground.

"Taesan, buddy. Bear with me just a little longer. I've got something to make first."

Clack... clack...

Dohyeon got straight to work with Jade Bone Crafting. To use his new Skull Engine skill, he first needed fully refined jade bone.

With the combined power of Mind and Mana — both newly raised to 20 — focused on the orc skulls alone, the great heads began turning jade-bright fast enough to watch with the naked eye. The limb and spine bones that had come as a set with each skull couldn't endure the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠imbalance and crumbled away into dust.

A few minutes of effort later, Dohyeon had succeeded in turning both orc heads into jade bone.

"And I've still got mana to spare. So that's how much the Mind stat boosts mana efficiency."

Before the real Skull Engine work began, Dohyeon picked up his smartphone.

"Now, what did dog and elephant hearts look like, again?"

The Skull Engine's description had been clear: the better a completed engine harmonized with its skeleton, the better it performed. A mana-producing Skull Engine would serve as nothing less than a heart for the skeletons, who had only ever been able to move by occupying their summoner's mana.

Which meant it was best to shape each one as close as possible to the heart they'd carried in life.

"Both are four-chambered — two atria, two ventricles. Goldie's should come out to around 300 grams, and Taesan's needs to be at least 20 kilograms, right? Can one orc head manage that? Or can I combine multiple heads into a single Skull Engine?"

Mobilizing his Climber's instinct and the intuition flowing from his Mind stat of 20, he chewed on the problem and arrived at a conclusion: fusing multiple heads into one engine was impossible — but crafting an elephant's heart out of orc heads was not.

Dohyeon set to crafting the Skull Engine at once.

— Dog's Heart —

With a photo of a large breed's heart pulled up from the internet, Dohyeon pressed down firmly on one orc skull with both hands.

"Interior structure: two atria, two ventricles. Shape the valves and walls properly... overall form, elliptical, with the left ventricle protruding the most. The four major vessels connecting to the heart, about the thickness of a finger... and finally, coronary arteries across the surface, and there we go......"

Dohyeon's hands moved with astonishing precision and speed. In truth, he wasn't kneading it into shape by hand at all. It was the Mind stat's control over the surreal doing the work; his hands merely helped him hold the mental image steady.

The orc skull was carved — like marble in a genius sculptor's grip — with astonishing realism, astonishing beauty, and astonishing intricacy.

Clack-clack!

Whether the 15-centimeter heart in Dohyeon's hand somehow knew it was meant to be his, Goldie was beside himself, bouncing up and down.

"Hold on just a moment, Goldie. I'll make your little brother's too, so you can get them together."

Dohyeon carefully set aside the small heart and lifted the orc skull, now pure jade bone. Mana seeped into it, and under Dohyeon's fingers its form shifted like rice cake being kneaded.

"Interior's the same — two atria, two ventricles — but it has to be 60 centimeters, so bigger. Valves and walls, nice and sturdy... this one's special: make both the left and right ventricles protrude... the connecting vessels about as thick as a forearm. Interior's done, so now coronary arteries — much thicker than the last set......"

The orc skull, once the size of two human heads, astonishingly swelled far beyond its original dimensions, becoming a 60-centimeter elephant heart.

"There we go. Goldie! Front and center!"

Clack-clack!

Goldie sat proudly before Dohyeon, and Dohyeon lifted the small heart and tucked it carefully inside Goldie's ribcage.

...!

The freshly made dog heart drifted into the position where a heart belonged, then — flash! — blazed with light and locked itself fast within the ribs.

Clack-clack! Clack-clack-clack!

Goldie whipped around and around chasing his own tail in excitement, but the Skull Engine didn't budge an inch, as if it had been wired to the ribs.

With the Skull Engine acquired, Goldie's mana upkeep had vanished along with it.

While Goldie thrashed about in pure joy, Dohyeon — the giant heart cradled in his arms — walked over to Taesan, still sprawled on the ground.

"Taesan! Come on, you too — up you get. Big Brother will have you back on your feet in no time."