Item Synthesis

"Leo."

"Nyaaaaaang!"

The shadow kitten dropped onto Jin-soo's knee as if the call had been a starting gun, and a wide-area taunt roar ripped out of him.

"Let's hunt whatever comes at us. Keep at it, and the gatekeeper will show ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠itself."

"Got it."

Once Jin-soo's summons were braced for battle, Shin Sua called up her stone golem and set to work layering buffs without pause.

A drumbeat of heavy footfalls rolled in, and the orcs answered it with fierce roars, charging straight for Jin-soo and Shin Sua.

Boom. Boom. Boom. The tanks and the melee line took the front — Shadow Knight, Shadow Warrior, Shadow Assassin, Dragon Tooth Soldiers, variant lycanthropes, dullahans, Skeleton Knights. Behind them the ranged line held its ground: Shadow Archers, Shadow Mages, demi-liches, death wizards, orc shamans.

The orc horde and the summons slammed together head-on.

Jin-soo cast with them, scything through the orcs still out at range.

"Nyaaaaaang!"

"Kuwoooorgh!"

Leo moved like lightning, dropping monsters with cat punches, and still found the breath to compete with the orc shamans — lifting his voice between strikes to loose more wide-area taunt roars and drag the horde in tighter.

This might not even take two hours. The orcs were melting away at a ridiculous pace.

For an ordinary player, throwing a wide-area taunt around while clearing a mission would have been little better than suicide. Monsters that could have been hunted in packs of dozens or hundreds would have come crashing in by the thousands and the tens of thousands. For Jin-soo, it was nothing more than one more way to shorten the hunt.

Found it. Kkami had picked out the gatekeeper — the Orc Great Chieftain.

Stay on it. Jin-soo gave Kkami the order, then called in the bone dragons that had been searching other stretches of the field.

Wind shrieked, and a heavy impact followed. Two bone dragons answered his command and came down onto the ground. The landing alone crushed countless orcs beneath them, the air filling with screams and the wet crack of bodies.

"Kuwoooorgh!"

An Orc Great Warrior roared, and the orcs swarmed the bone dragons like a cloud of bees, hacking with everything they had. Steel rang — and did nothing. Their weapons couldn't so much as mark the dragons' hides.

The bone dragons stomped orcs underfoot, stabbed them with their wings, and tore them apart in their jaws. The orcs died still clinging on, still swinging, and all that did was make the hunt easier.

As the horde fixed on the bone dragons, the summons pushed forward. Skeleton Knights swung sword and shield, shearing necks and pulping skulls. Dullahans pulverized orcs with severed heads and axes. Dragon Tooth Soldiers, Shadow Summons, and the rest ground the orcs down in real time and began the advance toward the Orc Great Chieftain.

"Kwwoooorgh!"

"Kuwok! Kuwok! Kuwok!"

Orcs that had been scattered in every direction came swarming like bees, desperate to cut down anything closing on their great chieftain.

Before the regression, this was a real headache. Head toward the Orc Great Chieftain and the density of orcs climbed. Raise any kind of commotion, and they poured in from all sides. In his previous life, Jin-soo and his party had advanced with painstaking care, nibbling the horde away a little at a time.

It took three or four months just to reach the Orc Great Chieftain. The monsters weren't strong, but there were simply too many of them. There had been no helping it. Back then, it was also a golden chance to power-level. With so many monsters of a manageable level, you could raise your level with relative ease so long as you didn't overreach.

The Orc Great Chieftain was an ordinary boss. Nothing special about it. Hunting it hadn't been particularly difficult. I'll have to be careful. If the great chieftain got swept into the fighting and died before the rest of the orcs were cleared, that would be a serious problem.

Jin-soo hunted alongside his summons, working through the orcs at a steady clip. After about an hour and a half, the numbers that had been spilling in from every direction had thinned to a noticeable degree.

I'll have a little time left over. That wasn't much of a problem. Once the other orcs were swept away, he only had to take the Orc Great Chieftain down at the two-hour, twenty-two-minute, twenty-two-second mark.

He was cutting orcs down at his leisure when the notifications came.

The blessings had grown.

What? Did I just kill 22,222,222 orcs? Otherwise there was no reason for a blessing to grow out of nowhere. As expected — for growing a blessing, nothing beats slaughtering a single species in bulk. Jin-soo's face brightened.

Did a new blessing come through? He checked them with eyes full of expectation.

The Red God's blessing fixed item levels at 1,022. He'd expected that.

The gear I've been using will finally break past level 1,000. The pieces he'd acquired recently — the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set, the Cursed Skeleton Knight's Staff, the Cursed Arch Lich's Robe — had already been well over level 1,000 the moment they entered his hands. The items he'd used from the start, though — Baekcheonsingeom, the Blood-Sucking Sword, the Ring of Revival, the Bracelet of Reduction — were still sitting at level 922.

I should raise them right now. Jin-soo fixed those level-922 items at 1,022.

Light poured off Baekcheonsingeom in a brilliant wash, and the sword reshaped itself into something even finer. The Blood-Sucking Sword's blade flushed red, its form shifting into something antique and stately. The Ring of Revival, the Bracelet of Reduction, and the rest shed a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠soft glow as their appearances grew more striking.

They gained more skills. As the levels rose, the growth-type items — Baekcheonsingeom, the Blood-Sucking Sword, and the Ring of Revival — increased their skill counts. Non-growth items such as the Bracelet of Reduction, the Ring of Recovery, and the Ring of Deterioration only had their existing skills strengthened. No new skills appeared.

So innate limits really can't be helped? Even those performance gains were frankly underwhelming. Raising the level doesn't overcome the difference between growth-type and non-growth items after all. Force a non-growth item's level up and its ceiling was still obvious. The gap was small for now, but later it would split into something enormous.

Low-tier skills are the same. Low-tier and high-tier skills grew on entirely different scales as their levels rose. Items were probably no different. Once I have points to spare, I should switch to higher-tier items with similar options.

It was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a shame, but there was nothing to be done. Jin-soo dropped his gaze, wanting to see what gift the Yellow God's blessing had left him.

A new skill? His eyes flashed. At last, a new blessing had shown itself.

"Huh?"

Jin-soo's eyes went wide. At first he thought the blessing that fixed Skill Synthesis's level had finally arrived. It hadn't.

Item Synthesis? The new blessing was a skill that could fuse two items together.

Jackpot. His face lit up. So I can synthesize items. Items that weren't growth-type had clear limits, as he'd just confirmed, no matter how good their option skills were. But if I can fuse those non-growth items with growth-type ones? He could pluck out only the good options.

It probably won't go as easily as I want. Skill Synthesis had a failure rate, and compatibility mattered. Sometimes it spat out something completely unexpected. Item Synthesis will be the same. Fuse something carelessly and ruin a good option, and he'd be in trouble.

The penalty's identical. A synthesized item created with Item Synthesis couldn't be used as material for Item Synthesis again. There's a good chance item-level fixing won't take, either. As with skills, he might not be able to raise the item's level any further.

Level it first. Once Skill Synthesis's level had risen, he'd been able to see the success rate in advance. Item Synthesis would probably work the same way. He raised the skill to level 222, and just as with Skill Synthesis, the success rate became visible beforehand. The synthesis probability rose slightly as well.

Let's try it on junk first. Jin-soo picked two items of different levels that he'd meant to sell at the shop and tested Item Synthesis.

As expected. He'd anticipated it, but items of entirely different kinds — a weapon and a piece of armor — had a success rate near zero.

What about this? He changed the pair.

Even among swords, a longsword and a dagger have a pretty low success rate. He'd thought the shared category might push it higher. Unfortunately, it didn't.

Same type, but poor compatibility drops the success rate. He'd already learned that from Skill Synthesis. Nothing surprising about it. I tested it just in case, and sure enough. It would have been absurd, anyway, for Item Synthesis to vastly outperform Skill Synthesis when they came from the same line of blessing skills.

Same kind of weapon, and so long as the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠affinities aren't polar opposites, the success rate is quite high. Jin-soo selected Yes.

Light roared outward.

The two items had become one, and a new synthesized item existed in their place.

The level follows the higher one, as expected. That, too, matched Skill Synthesis. I doubt this will take. Jin-soo tried to spend an item-level fix stack on the synthesized Cursed Flame Sword.

Failed, as expected. Just as a synthesized skill couldn't be the target of skill-level fixing, a synthesized item couldn't be the target of item-level fixing. Jin-soo clicked his tongue.

Then I'll have no choice but to use it carefully. If Item Synthesis offered only a single chance, and the level couldn't be raised afterward, he couldn't use it on gear he meant to keep as a mainstay — Baekcheonsingeom among them.

Best to upgrade items whose ceiling is already clear. The gear he'd prepared to suit each class was exactly that. Swap everything for synthesized items, and our combat power definitely goes up. The unfortunate part was that the increase wouldn't mean much. Even now it was like catching earthworms with a blade meant for slaughtering cattle. Stronger over-spec gear would improve hunting efficiency, but there wouldn't be a dramatic change.

A new blessing skill is welcome enough. The restrictions still left a bitter taste. Synthesized skills, at least, helped more the more of them you held — passives especially, since you didn't even have to think about whether to activate them. Synthesized items only needed one set per class, and that was that.

Wait. Even as he lamented, Jin-soo turned the idea over.

Warrior weapons are one thing, but mages and healers are different. Warrior, assassin, and archer gear leaned toward offense; a tank's leaned toward defense. Mana attribute makes a slight difference, but the impact isn't large. A mage's staff, or a healer's, was another matter entirely.

A mage's staff options often change with the attribute they use as their main. Healers were the same. Whether blessings or curses were the focus split the staff's options. Merge even two attributes into one, and the item's efficiency will jump.

A deep smile spread across Jin-soo's lips.