Skill Conversion

Jin-soo was still watching to see how Ak Chanseo and Changsung Gate would play their hand when the man spoke.

"Shameless as it is of me to ask, I have one request of you. Please grant me a formal spar."

Ak Chanseo bowed his head with careful courtesy.

As expected. Why are the ones from Museong so obsessed with spars? Jin-soo could guess well enough what the man was thinking. He believes that if he hadn't let his guard down—if he had gone all out—he could have won.

Even believing that, he had held back his hand and offered thanks. That alone was proof Ak Chanseo walked the righteous path.

Well. I'll need more time before I know for certain.

Players from Museong cared enormously about face, and so what they did in public and what they did in private often failed to match.

"Fine. First, let's move. I've got no interest in playing the monkey at the zoo."

"Understood. Follow me."

Ak Chanseo took the lead, and Jin-soo fell in behind him.

Shin Sua reached him through the Message skill.

At his answer, the tension left her face and she started after them.

Reaching the Tower's 200th Floor and meeting players from other dimensions—strange faces, strange tongues—had startled her more than a little. Even so, she could not picture Jin-soo losing to them, or falling into any real trouble.

So we're headed for the guild house in the Starting City.

Jin-soo knew the road Ak Chanseo was walking. It led to where Changsung Gate's branch had stood before his regression, and just as he expected, the man brought them to Changsung Gate's guild house.

"This is the place. Come in."

Jin-soo and Shin Sua stepped through without a flicker of hesitation. Surprise bloomed across Ak Chanseo's face.

They had managed to end things on decent terms, yes—but they had already clashed by force, and a man like that might turn enemy at any moment, in any way.

And yet they walk into the inner compound without a shred of caution.

It was the same as strolling of their own accord into a tiger's mouth.

Their confidence in their own skill is truly something else.

Ak Chanseo decided Jin-soo was excessively arrogant.

I'll have to teach him a great deal through this spar.

He was certain that if he fought without holding back, the victory would be his. And even if some miracle handed him a loss, he had no intention of nursing a grudge or doing Jin-soo harm.

The Tower, though, held every sort of person, and among them were no few villains who repaid goodwill with malice.

No matter how outstanding the skill, no matter how confidence overflows, carelessness and arrogance like that are no help at all inside the Tower.

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠resolved to use the spar to teach Jin-soo, firsthand, that the world was vast—and that it held just as many masters.

"How about we spar here?"

Ak Chanseo indicated the empty yard at the heart of Changsung Gate.

"That works."

The ground was familiar to Jin-soo as well.

This is where Changsung Gate's players sparred day in and day out.

He himself had dueled here before the regression.

"You may come first."

Ak Chanseo spoke with both hands already set on his spear.

So he's made every preparation.

Those two eyes were fixed on Jin-soo, sharp enough to cut. Muscle lay drawn taut as a bowstring, and mana turned through his whole body, ready to fire a skill at any instant.

How should I handle him?

The spar Ak Chanseo wanted was surely a clash of flesh and steel—spear against sword, nothing between them.

Jin-soo was under no obligation to indulge that wish. An arrow would do. A magic attack would do. A curse to bind the man's feet would do just as well. He did not even need to lift a hand himself; call a summon and throw it in, and Ak Chanseo would be put down with ease.

I'll just give him what he wants.

There was no need to advertise in every direction that he held the skills of several classes at once. Nor did he care to torment Ak Chanseo with some nasty method in a place steeped in good memories ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from before the regression.

Above all, he was confident he could beat the man handily even in a pure contest of sword against spear, with no skill to aid him.

I understand why players from Museong take such pride in their martial arts.

Sometimes that pride ran too far and curdled into arrogance—the certainty that if skills were set aside and the fight was pure martial skill alone, victory was theirs without question.

Today I'll break that arrogance.

This, too, was a kindness toward Changsung Gate, with whom he had formed a good bond in the life before.

Thud!

Jin-soo launched himself first.

Fast.

Ak Chanseo, braced for anything, was stunned. Jin-soo's movement was so quick his own eyes could barely follow.

Whoosh!

The instant the sword came in, Ak Chanseo's body answered on instinct.

Clang!

He caught the blade on his spearhead and swung the shaft for a counter—only for Jin-soo's sword to come again.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

What is this?

Teeth clenched, Ak Chanseo barely held off the two swords the man was swinging.

Seeing two blades hung at his hip, he had taken it for empty show. He had never once imagined that Jin-soo, a player from Earth, might be a master of the twin-sword arts, handling both with complete freedom.

Too fast. Too precise.

And he could find no opening at all.

This man has clearly fought spear-wielders many times over.

As a rule, a swordsman had little experience dueling a master of the spear, and so the shifting variations of spear technique startled him, or threw him off entirely. His opponent showed not a trace of that.

Even so, this is too much.

Grant that the man had sparred often against spearmen, and the result now was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still far too humiliating.

The spear was the easiest weapon for a beginner to learn, and the hardest to carry to the level of a master. A wide reach was an advantage that could just as easily become a flaw.

Ak Chanseo was a master of that art. Using the spear's long reach, he could press an opponent from a distance until they could not even close. Even in a fight so near that he and a longsword wielder could feel each other's breath, he could turn the spear's strengths to his favor and drive them back.

And yet that same Ak Chanseo had been cornered so thoroughly he could not land a single attack.

How, at so young an age, does he command two sword arts this lofty, this refined...

The two blades Jin-soo swung traced entirely separate paths, as if two different sword masters, each trained in a different art, were attacking him at once.

That was not the end of it. They struck on their own, and then, the moment they needed to join forces, they matched their breathing as if they had always been one and bore down on him together. From where Ak Chanseo stood, it felt like fighting two sword masters who had grasped the very essence of a combined ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠assault.

Truly tremendous swordsmanship.

More tremendous still was Jin-soo himself, unfolding those lofty arts alone and at the same time, handling them with perfect freedom.

I was arrogant.

He had been certain a proper fight would mean his victory without question. He had looked down on his opponent for coming from Earth, for being young. So long as he did not grow careless, he had believed he would win even if the man unleashed some powerful high-level skill.

He had been wrong.

On pure martial skill alone, his opponent stood a full step above Ak Chanseo, a First-Rate martial artist.

To think Earth held martial arts of such a level.

Ak Chanseo mistook him for a formidable martial artist who had trained in the twin swords even before entering the Tower.

In truth, the swordsmanship Jin-soo was displaying now was as good as something he had built and perfected inside the Tower. When he first arrived on the Tower's 200th Floor, the foundation of his sword work had been wretched.

To players from Museong, that twin-sword art would have rated, at the most generous, a second-rate martial artist or a middling wanderer. But Jin-soo had kept growing.

His own effort had played its part, and so had the power of Skill Predation, his class skill. Once the level of Skill Predation broke past its limit, an option was added that let him own the skills he had devoured.

Well, the limits were clear enough.

Holy-attribute skills, and skills belonging to other classes, could be devoured but not owned. Nor did a single act of predation grant ownership. He had to devour a target's skill to completion, over and over, before it could become his.

Even that alone was tremendous power. Thanks to it, I devoured sword skills and mana-control skills from several dimensions and forged a sword art of my own.

After the regression, every sword skill and mana-control skill he had held was gone. Lacking the skill, though, did not mean he could no longer use the swordsmanship or the mana control he had learned.

They simply hadn't been made into skills, so I received no aid from the System.

Even now his swordsmanship had not been converted into a skill, and of course the System lent him nothing.

But from here on, that changes.

Unlike players from other dimensions, who awakened already holding several skills, a player from Earth awakened with not a single skill to their name. That was because players from Earth possessed no transcendent power of any kind—no Authority, no aura, no magic, no martial art, no spellcraft, no sorcery.

In exchange, players from Earth can start on Floor 1 and earn all manner of achievements and skills.

Many players had wondered why the floor on which one first entered the Tower differed according to one's dimension of origin and one's stats at the moment of awakening.

If players from the Aurs Dimension—those whom Earthlings called demons, for their superior physiques and Authorities—had started on Floor 1, they would likely have swept up every achievement with ease and grown stronger all the faster. The System did not allow it.

And so two hypotheses came of it.

The first was that the System did not want the Tower conquered. The second was that even the System was bound by some absolute law, or by some great risk it could not avoid.

Most players back the second.

The reason was simple. For them, the idea that the System did not want the Tower conquered was too cruel.

Because that would mean the System wants every one of us to die in the Tower.

And so the second hypothesis gathered the greater strength. An absolute law existed that forbade placing a being of great power on the lower floors. The stronger a being, the more System resources awakening them required. Awakening the weak and sending them to the lower floors to grow strong was simply more efficient. Awakening the strong and dropping them onto the lower floors tanked that efficiency beyond belief. So the theories went.

Whether any of them were right, no one knew.

In truth, the hypotheses don't matter.

What mattered to Jin-soo was that every player began on a different floor according to the power they had held before awakening. From the standpoint of players from Earth—no outstanding physique, no mana, no Authority, no magic, no martial art—it amounted to a great deal of consideration.

But there was exactly one way we'd been shortchanged.

Unlike players from other dimensions, they could not convert the abilities they already possessed into skills.

It was not on the level of the overwhelming Authorities of Aurs, the martial arts of Museong, or the magic of Arius. Even so, for Earth players who had learned and drilled kendo, archery, combat sports, special-forces fighting, traditional martial arts, and the like, the fact that their specialties were never made into skills was a clear loss—and a clear discrimination.

Yet the System had not sealed that path in order to discriminate against them.

It had only sealed it for a while.

The Tower's 200th Floor was the first place one met players from other dimensions, and the place where the long-shut restriction on skill conversion for players from Earth finally lifted.

Just like now.

Every sword art, footwork, and mind art Jin-soo had learned and wielded across the dimensions began, in a rush, to become skills.