A Blacksmithing Secret and Forbidden Magic
Kim Tae-hyun looked at the three of them and asked, “You’re happy, right?”
“Pardon...?”
“Surely you’re not saying you’re not happy? I went to all the trouble of revealing a skill that’s basically my livelihood...”
As Tae-hyun’s voice dropped, the three men paled and shook their heads in horror.
“We’re happy! We were just reading the skill description!”
“Man, this is awesome! Lucky Blacksmith’s Technique! What an incredible skill!”
“I want to go try crafting with it right away!”
The desperate cries of three men fighting for survival.
Only then did Tae-hyun nod, looking satisfied.
“Right. It’s a good skill.”
But inside, the three of them were screaming.
How the hell is that a good skill?!
If it was a skill related to blacksmithing, shouldn’t it scale with Strength or Stamina? Even if you stretched it, maybe Agility or Wisdom.
Luck?
Until now, it had been a stat they’d never cared about.
A stat that occasionally went up a little when you got lucky, or rose a bit from quest rewards, or from some item bonus. That was all it had ever been.
Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan whispered quietly to each other.
“Does anybody actually put points into that?”
“No clue...”
They had no idea how they were supposed to use this skill.
It seemed like it needed Luck, but raising Luck now just to use this skill would be idiotic.
Meanwhile, Woo Jeong-sik was thinking something else.
Is this guy lying to us?
Woo Jeong-sik was a suspicious man.
And, in his own mind, he had good reason to be.
Anyone who leveled blacksmithing-related skills would’ve focused on Strength or Stamina.
Which meant that no matter what, Tae-hyun’s Luck couldn’t be all that high.
If that was true, then this skill couldn’t possibly be very effective.
Maybe he had a better skill, but he didn’t want to hand it over, so he taught us this one instead...
That was Woo Jeong-sik’s theory.
But he couldn’t bring himself to ask Tae-hyun directly.
He still vividly remembered what happened the last time he said one wrong thing and got kicked out by him.
If there was one thing he knew for certain, it was Tae-hyun’s filthy temper.
And we’re on a ship right now too, so if I get kicked out...
If he got kicked out on a ship?
That meant the ocean.
He’d nearly ended up swimming after making a stupid bet with Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan before, and now that he’d escaped that once, there was no way he wanted to go back into the sea.
Unlike those two, Tae-hyun was exactly the kind of person who would toss him overboard without blinking.
Ah! There’s a way.
Woo Jeong-sik came up with an idea.
“Um, I have a favor to ask.”
Controlling his expression, Woo Jeong-sik spoke up.
Tae-hyun answered with a lukewarm look.
“What is it?”
“I’m not quite sure how to use this skill. Could you perhaps show us a demonstration?”
Woo Jeong-sik spoke with a truly earnest expression.
It was the best acting he could manage.
Well? There’s no way he can refuse this!
His plan was simple.
Make Tae-hyun use the skill himself.
No matter how great a blacksmith Tae-hyun was, there was no way he could make a good item with a trash skill like that.
And if it fell apart right in front of them, Tae-hyun wouldn’t be able to keep insisting anymore.
But Tae-hyun could read exactly what he was thinking.
I can see right through you, you idiot.
Tae-hyun was a battle-hardened veteran who had been through it all in games.
He’d met and dealt with every kind of player there was.
Because of that, he’d reached the point where he could take one look at a person and get a rough sense of what kind they were.
These idiots aren’t even half as sharp as Ju Hyeon-yeong.
Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan were the sort of players you saw all the time.
The type who grabbed good skills first and never even glanced at bad ones.
The type who followed paths other people had already proven worked and never stepped onto one nobody had tested.
That wasn’t necessarily bad, but to Tae-hyun, they were the most boring kind.
Woo Jeong-sik was that same type, except with extra suspicion and an irritating personality piled on top.
Guys like that are always trying to get clever and take the easy road.
If they were actually good at being clever, that would be one thing.
But usually, the little schemes people like that came up with backfired more often than not.
Compared to them, Ju Hyeon-yeong was more like Tae-hyun.
She never hesitated when it came to grinding.
More importantly, she didn’t obsess over whether a skill was good or bad.
She’d received that same skill too.
But when Ju Hyeon-yeong got it, she hadn’t reacted the way these blacksmiths had.
“If my Luck is low, then I’ll just raise my Luck and use it.”
“Maybe I don’t get it now, but if I keep practicing, I’m sure there’ll come a day when it’s useful.”
Instead of dismissing a skill as bad and throwing it away, she was the type to keep it and think about how she could make use of it.
People like that were the ones who always carved out new paths.
Tae-hyun smirked and answered.
“Fine. I’ll show you.”
“...!”
Not just Woo Jeong-sik, but Kim Ji-sahn and Park Seong-chan also looked startled.
He was actually going to demonstrate it?
“You really will?”
They’d been half-suspicious too.
How could a trash skill like this possibly be the secret behind Tae-hyun’s flashy techniques?
“What would I gain by lying over something like this? I’ll show you right now.”
Tae-hyun pulled out a handkerchief and tied it over his eyes.
The blacksmiths stared at one another, wondering what the hell he was doing.
The answer came soon enough.
“W-wait, maybe that’s a little...”
“Stay too close and you might catch a hammer to the skull.”
At Tae-hyun’s warning, the blacksmiths hurriedly backed away.
Tae-hyun was about to craft an item while blindfolded.
Is he insane?
To the blacksmiths, that was exactly what it looked like.
With blacksmithing, skill level and stats mattered, sure—but the user’s real experience mattered a surprising amount too.
One blacksmith ranker had once put it like this:
“After swinging a hammer a few thousand times, you just kind of develop a feel for where and how to hit.”
It wasn’t the kind of thing a skill could solve instantly.
The actual ability of the user mattered too. That was Fantasy Online 2.
And now Tae-hyun was hammering away with his eyes covered.
Crafting [item].
Bonus granted through Luck.
Bonus granted through Blacksmithing.
Activate Divine Foresight.
Even with his eyes covered, colors began appearing to show him exactly where he should strike.
Of course, the other blacksmiths had no idea what skill Tae-hyun was using.
Clang, clang, clang—
The hammer swung down without hesitation.
It made the people watching more nervous than the one doing it.
The item Tae-hyun was making wasn’t anything special.
The materials were ordinary too.
It was steel the pirates had on them on Katerand Island.
No magical reagents. No rare ore mixed in. No special blacksmithing skill in use.
He was relying on nothing but his own ability.
And he was doing it blindfolded on top of that.
He was really putting his faith in Luck.
At this point, even the blacksmiths couldn’t say much anymore.
Tae-hyun really was using Lucky Blacksmith’s Technique.
The only question was whether it would actually produce a decent result.
There’s no way he can really make something good like this...
He’s doing it with his eyes covered. How is that even possible?
While the blacksmiths wavered between doubt and disbelief, Tae-hyun swung the hammer quickly and precisely.
Divine Foresight showed him the colors, yes—but that wasn’t the only reason.
Tae-hyun would’ve been confident even without it.
He’d swung a hammer thousands—tens of thousands—of times.
Even blindfolded, he had a pretty good sense of where to strike.
Long experience, honed all the way back in Fantasy Online 1.
[Item] has been completed. Through exceptional skill and Luck, a superior item has been created.
Blacksmithing has increased.
◈ Durability 140/140, Attack Power 65
◈ Level Requirement 40
◈ Strength Requirement 50
◈ Agility Requirement 15
◈ A work that proves a true craftsman excels even when creating something light. It may not be a soul-poured masterpiece, but no one could deny that it surpasses the work of mediocre blacksmiths.
“Done. Check it.”
At Tae-hyun’s words, the three approached the two-handed axe and opened its status window.
On the surface, it looked convincing enough.
The outside looks decent?
Yeah. I was expecting some bizarre monstrosity.
The fact that it had come out in the proper shape of a two-handed axe, despite him crafting it blindfolded, was astonishing enough.
But that wasn’t where the shock ended.
The moment they read the status window, all three men’s eyes widened.
“...!”
“!!!”
“!!!!!”
A weapon far too good to believe had been made by someone blindly hammering away with his eyes covered.
How the hell did he make this?!
Even when they rubbed their eyes and looked again, the status window didn’t change.
Tae-hyun looked at them and said in an annoyed tone,
“Satisfied now? Figure the rest out yourselves.”
“W-wait! Then how exactly did you—”
“Use Luck and make it work. I did that blindfolded, so if you do it properly with your eyes open, you can more or less imagine what’s possible, can’t you?”
The three blacksmiths trembled.
The skill Tae-hyun had taught them wasn’t trash.
It really was an incredible skill.
Of course, they’d need to raise Luck to use it properly, but...
So what?!
I’m finding Luck-boosting items! Luck quests too!
The blacksmiths gathered there made a solemn vow.
But there was one thing they were mistaken about.
They assumed Tae-hyun’s Luck was, at best, around 100—maybe 200 if he really pushed it.
After all, nobody raised Luck beyond that.
They didn’t know exactly what Tae-hyun’s class was, but they never imagined a class that would push Luck any higher than that could even exist.
I’ll get mine up to at least 100!
But Tae-hyun’s Luck wasn’t in the triple digits.
It was in the four-digit range.
“They finally left.”
After bowing to him over and over, the blacksmiths departed.
It was only natural. He’d just handed them a skill that valuable.
Of course, Tae-hyun didn’t actually expect them to make anything amazing with it.
The ones who can make it work will make anything work. The ones who can’t won’t succeed no matter what.
Most likely, they’d try it for a while, fail, then give up and go back to leveling other skills.
Tae-hyun hadn’t lied to them.
And he had kept his promise.
What happened next was their own choice.
First, let’s learn Blood Magic.
Left alone, Tae-hyun pulled out the book he had been reading earlier.
It was Beginner’s Blood Magic Introduction.
Reading Beginner’s Blood Magic Introduction.
Would you like to learn Blood Magic?
Yeah.
You have successfully learned Blood Magic.
A Beginner Magic skill has been created.
Magic has increased.
You have learned Blood Magic.
Status window.
Beginner Magic 1 (1%)
Current Skill Level 1. A secret art that temporarily uses HP instead of MP, and physical vitality instead of mana, to strengthen magic. Because of its excessive side effects, several schools have banned it.
At last, he had gained a magic skill.
Tae-hyun nodded with satisfaction.
He’d wanted to learn magic for a long time.
He just hadn’t had the opportunity.
Of course, Blood Magic itself wasn’t all that meaningful.
It was support magic, nothing more.
If he wanted real spells, he’d have to learn those separately.
Bracing himself, Tae-hyun pulled out another grimoire.
A secret undead summoning art once used by cultists long ago.
Use to learn the magic Undead Summoning.
Upon use: Infamy +500
Upon use: Luck -100
The penalty worried him, but Tae-hyun made up his mind.
He was going to learn this magic.
Once he returned to the kingdom, he could clear class quests while also searching for other spells to learn—but he had a feeling opportunities to acquire magic of this caliber wouldn’t come often.
For one thing, most magic-related NPCs were all in the Magic Tower, and if you weren’t a mage, getting in was nearly impossible.
The Magic Tower was even more restrictive than crafting or art-related jobs.
That meant he either had to find spellbook items or mage NPCs living outside the Magic Tower, and both were difficult.
Any spellbook item containing good magic naturally sold for absurd prices, because mage players wanted them too.
And mage NPCs outside the Magic Tower who were willing to teach people were hard to find.
In other words, a grimoire like this was an exceptionally valuable item—something incredibly hard to come by.