Cheon Museong vs. the Shadow Summons (2)

How strong will Shadow Summon get once it hits level 2,000?

Even now, with nothing but their basic skills, the shadow summons were monstrously strong, buoyed by Jin-soo's stats. If they also came to share the signature skills of every class he had mastered, they would stand far above what they were.

They won't inherit every skill I have all at once, of course.

There would be a cap on how many skills they could share, just as there was already a cap on the stats they drew from him.

Those limits will keep loosening.

As the shadow summons leveled, the share of Jin-soo's stats they received had climbed steadily. Skills, he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠suspected, would work the same way—the higher their level, the more of them they could take on.

Skill levels won't transfer in full either, but a good portion of them will.

And if, somewhere far down the road, a shadow summon came to inherit his stats and skill levels wholesale?

They might end up a greater force than the Army Summons.

He wanted that day to come as soon as it could.

"My Lord, I am prepared."

The moment supper was done, Cheon Museong shot to his feet and called out. The thought of sparring the shadow summons had him burning for it.

"Then we begin at once. Only, if you judge a blow likely to destroy a summon, stay your hand. I will withdraw them from the fight."

"Yes. I shall do so."

The monsters nearby had already been cleared by the shadow summons. If more came swarming in, Jin-soo could deal with them himself.

And if one did shove into the old man's clash with the shadow summons, it would only be ground apart in real time.

Cheon Museong and the shadow summons took their distance and finished preparing.

"Begin!"

The word had barely left him when the shadow summons hurled themselves at Cheon Museong. The shadow healer's curse cinched tight around his body, and in the same breath the shadow archer's elemental arrows came shrieking in. Shield up, Cheon Museong drew on a tank's defensive skills, shook off as much of the curse as he could, and turned the arrows aside.

In that instant a wave of crimson flame from the shadow mage swept his whole body. A tremendous blast roared, and the ground where he had stood was swallowed in red fire.

He burst through the flames and charged the shadow healer—only for the shadow knight to bar his path. At the same moment the shadow warrior's greatsword and the shadow assassin's dagger plunged from right and left toward his flanks. Cheon Museong torqued his shield to catch the greatsword and lashed out with qi like a whip, knocking the blade away.

The spar grew fiercer by the moment. The shadow summons held formation and matched their breathing like a player party raiding a boss, coming at him as one. Cheon Museong rampaged like a savage beast, sword and shield ruining their ranks and tearing their combinations apart.

"Incredible."

Shin Sua said it with her mouth hanging open. The shadow summons moved with the precision of machines. Attack and defense linked like meshed gears, without a single gap—superb, in the plainest sense of the word.

"Yeah. They're really something."

Jin-soo agreed. Whoever they faced, the shadow summons carried a presence terrible enough to pulverize them in an instant.

"How long has it even been since he changed class to tank?"

"And the way he ties it into his martial arts is exquisite."

Yet the one who had stunned Jin-soo and Shin Sua was not the shadow summons. It was Cheon Museong, who showed the bearing to drive the fight the other way even while all six fell on him together.

Looking at base stats and skill levels, it's only natural the old man holds the overall edge.

What had shocked them was his command of shield and tank skills, and the harmony of that command with the martial arts he already possessed.

He's growing even faster than when he spars with me.

In the bout against the shadow summons, the rise in his tank-skill proficiency and in its harmony with his martial arts was plain to see.

Then again, the shape of the fight is nothing like our spars.

When they fought, Jin-soo always drove him. Cheon Museong had no choice but to defend in desperation, eating blow after blow while he waited for a single opening that would flip the match.

So his skill use was always passive.

Now he was the one pressing the shadow summons, actively combining tank skills and martial arts in far more varied ways.

If I were his opponent, he'd lose the moment a gap opened while he was stitching martial arts to tank skills.

Against the summons, Cheon Museong freely used and tested techniques he would not have dared try on Jin-soo, an expert on an entirely higher tier.

For raising the old man's skill and finishing new martial arts, sparring the shadow summons may suit him better than sparring me.

Jin-soo watched with an easy face. Cheon Museong and the shadow summons fought a fierce, close battle—but everything that begins must end.

Little by little the bout entered its final stretch. Cheon Museong's fierce assault had broken the shadow summons' combination.

The shadow healer was the first to be called out. The shadow mage and the shadow archer followed, and before long the shadow warrior and the shadow knight were retired as well. The match ended in Cheon Museong's victory.

"A really fine bout. Your martial arts and your tank skills flowed together more smoothly than when you spar with me."

At the praise, Cheon Museong answered with a calm face.

"I am only ashamed."

He meant it. His opponent had not been Jin-soo, but summons—and not even all of them, only a portion. Far from winning lightly, he had struggled before the victory was his.

By Cheon Museong's measure, the shadow summons had high stats, yet their forms and their control of mana were no better than a peak master's. He had thought the win would come easily. It had not.

The strength of a party whose breathing matched, whose combination was complete, was outstanding to an astonishing degree.

"The skills the summons used were of a monotonous sort, and thus simple to meet. Had they drawn on a wider variety—or had their forms and their control of mana stood higher—I would have been defeated."

For him, it was an enormous humiliation. At the same time, it was the moment he understood how powerful a combination of classes and skills could be.

This is not the murim. Martial arts alone cannot carry me through every crisis.

He needed his comrades' help.

In a fight like the one just past, above all, Shin Sua's aid as a holy-attribute healer would have made the victory far easier.

"Shameful though it is to confess, until not long ago I was not content merely to scorn what I did not know as petty sorcery. I looked down upon those who had advanced into professions other than the martial path. I believed Lady Shin Sua's aid had shattered that prejudice... It had not. Having sparred your summons this day, My Lord, I see plainly how narrow my thinking has been."

The sincerity of it impressed Jin-soo.

He learns at a frightening pace.

Cheon Museong always lost their spars. Even so, he burned with the desire to win someday.

But he won against the shadow summons.

Even then he did not grow proud. He felt humiliated instead. He saw how fearsome a coordinated party's strength could be, and he drove himself harder for it.

Truth is, the shadow summons are far stronger than an ordinary party. They barely even have each class's fatal flaws.

The shadow knight, a tank, had attack power and agility absurdly high—on a damage dealer's level. The shadow warrior ought to have been less durable than a tank and less agile than an archer or an assassin, and was neither. The shadow archer and the shadow assassin, who ought to have been fragile, were as solid and enduring as tanks in durability and stamina.

On top of that, the shadow mage and the shadow healer—who should have been lacking in durability, stamina, agility, and strength alike—possessed a tank's solidity and a damage dealer's speed.

And the shadow knight, the shadow warrior, the shadow archer, and the shadow assassin carry mana and mental stats as high as a mage's or a healer's.

Winning a fight against a party of shadow summons like that was proof of what an extraordinary martial artist Cheon Museong was. And still he knew no satisfaction.

Not that telling him would change his mind.

That was the man he was. It was no loss for Jin-soo. Cheon Museong growing stronger while serving him as lord meant Jin-soo's own strength grew with him.

"My Lord, for the time being I wish to spar with those summons."

Jin-soo, who had only been watching, had seen the same room to grow—in skill application, and in the combination with martial arts. The man himself could hardly have missed it.

"Go ahead."

He agreed readily. If he confined the shadow summons' night hunting to the ground nearby, nothing would come of it.

I was going to scatter summons to search for hidden dungeons anyway.

Let the shadow summons take that duty alone. Jin-soo sent the ones who had finished the spar out to hunt and to search.

"Sua, let's put Sanctuary up."

"Yeah, got it."

Shin Sua opened Sanctuary to a modest size. After that the party logged into the auction house, sorted their items, and lay down to sleep with easy hearts.

Comfortable.

A faint smile touched Cheon Museong's lips as he lay there. Whenever he slept outside a city's lodgings, he had always taken a light rest high up, in a tree or upon a rock. Monsters might come at any moment; it was only sense.

I no longer need to sleep light, nor wake and doze and wake again.

This was the first night he had camped in the wild since meeting Jin-soo and Shin Sua, and the difference was almost too great. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He could use the auction house. He could eat proper cooking, not hard, cold rations.

To pitch a tent on level ground that kept off wind and rain, spread soft bedding, and simply lie down and sleep—Cheon Museong was happy beyond words.

Jin-soo's party kept camping, working through achievements and hunting monsters. In the midst of it, they finally found the hidden dungeon they had been seeking.

Found it at last.

They had already discovered and cleared two hidden dungeons and three open dungeons along the way, but the rewards had not been large.

I was starting to worry it was about time we moved on.

Fortunately, they had found the hidden dungeon they wanted before the achievement work was entirely finished.

But the reward is different.

Not nine Demon Spirit Divine Pills—three Ilwol Sindan. He could guess why. A dungeon sometimes changed the type and quantity of its rewards according to how many challenged it.

The problem was the nature of the elixir itself.

If it isn't in my memory, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it probably isn't the sort of elixir that simply raises stats.

What Jin-soo knew of elixirs could only come from his memories before the regression. Of famous elixirs he had taken himself, or whose effects were exceptional, he held most of the knowledge there was.

But even I don't know every elixir that exists in the Tower.

There were simply too many kinds, and too much variety, for that. Elixirs like the Holy Body Pellet or the Dark Body Pellet—things he had not even known existed before he regressed—could turn up.

If it came in place of Demon Spirit Divine Pills, it has to be more useful.

Three Ilwol Sindan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had appeared instead of nine Demon Spirit Divine Pills. That meant one Ilwol Sindan was worth three Demon Spirit Divine Pills.

Some elixirs can't be taken, or do little, depending on class or affinity.

For Jin-soo it would not matter in the least, even if the Ilwol Sindan worked only for a specific class, or could be ingested by only the holy affinity or only the dark.