Skill Synthesis (2)

Make it, or don't?

The choice gnawed at him. Blood Drain was a skill he would miss if it were gone, but Shadow Summons was one he could never afford to lose. Fuse it, and the chance to synthesize it with anything else would vanish outright. A skill born of synthesis could never serve as material again.

He had a clear sense of what the result would be. Blood Drain's options would almost certainly carry over to the Shadow Summons, and that was hardly a bad thing. It would be a real boon to their auto-hunting, too.

Hold off.

The feeling was good and the odds were high, but Jin-soo chose to walk away all the same. Eighteen percent was still a chance of failure, and that was not the end of it. He still had no means of raising a synthesized skill's level. Until a Blessing appeared that could lock synthesized-skill levels, he would have to rely on the levels the materials already possessed, and leaving Shadow Summons stuck at 222 for the long haul was unacceptable.

Besides, Shadow Summons was not a warrior-exclusive skill. It was a common skill, usable by every class. Even if he changed jobs away from Blood Demon Swordsman, it would remain. There was no reason to gamble.

That left a single conclusion.

Just buy one.

Jin-soo entered the auction house and searched for skill books that looked as if they would pair well with Blood Drain.

This one.

The skill he settled on was Mana Drain, which stole an opponent's mana on use. The price had always been too steep and the cooldown too long, so he had never bought it—a skill with famously poor cost-efficiency. Even so, it was one he would have had to purchase eventually, and he had the points to spare now.

He learned the skill.

Wait.

On a whim, he checked the success rate for synthesizing the new Mana Drain with Shadow Summons.

Higher.

The success rate was a full ninety-two percent. He decided to be satisfied with confirming that skills like Blood Drain and Mana Drain had excellent compatibility with Shadow Summons, and checked the rate for synthesizing Blood Drain with Mana Drain instead.

Ninety-eight percent.

What snagged at him was that the skill's name would remain Blood Drain. It was a skill that would vanish anyway once he advanced to a higher class, so he synthesized Blood Drain with Mana Drain.

Did it actually work?

Blood Drain absorbed blood to restore health. Mana Drain stole an opponent's mana to restore his own. If the name had stayed the same and the synthesized Blood Drain proved identical to the class skill, that would be a problem. He opened the description.

Not the same.

Blood Drain had perfectly absorbed Mana Drain's advantage, and yet it was a little disappointing. The option to steal an opponent's mana was gone. At this point it was fairer to say Blood Drain had absorbed Mana Drain than that the two had been synthesized. The feeling of absorption was stronger than fusion. Was that why the name had not changed? He would settle for this much.

It would have been better if Mana Drain's option had survived intact, but what could he do about something already gone? In exchange, a skill that had restored only health could now restore mana as well. A gain was a gain.

I should check whether duplicates are possible.

He had already learned Mana Drain once. By all rights, using another Mana Drain skill book ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠should have been impossible, but the skill had vanished as synthesis material for Blood Drain.

Let's buy another.

Jin-soo purchased a second Mana Drain skill book and learned it.

It works.

Jin-soo's face brightened. He could now learn, in duplicate, a common skill he could buy as a skill book whenever he pleased. The options were not perfectly identical, but this was more than enough to satisfy him.

Let's try the others.

He synthesized the Blood Demon Swordsman's class skills and the warrior-exclusive skills with common skills, turning them all into synthesized skills.

The points are flying out.

Buying fresh skill books to push the success rate higher left him no choice. The results, at least, were there.

Done.

He had succeeded in converting every Blood Demon Swordsman class skill and every warrior-exclusive skill into a synthesized skill. More than that, he had begun to grasp the formula for raising synthesis success rates.

Of course, it was not without regrets.

The Blood Demon Swordsman just doesn't have enough class skills.

That was the problem of a class level stuck at a mere 2. If he could have raised the class level, he would have learned far more class skills. A class's mid- and high-tier skills opened only once its level rose.

For an ordinary Player, that's no issue.

Training and monster hunting raised class level and skill level as a matter of course. Jin-soo was different.

Once the Blessings grow, I'll be able to raise it.

A Blessing that could raise the levels of class skills and common skills had already appeared. Surely a Blessing that could raise the level of the class itself would appear as well.

The question is when.

From his perspective, the sooner the better. Only then could he put the synthesized skills to richer use. He deliberately pared back his greed. There was no need to grow impatient over something he had not yet been given.

At times like this, you start with what you can do right now, one thing at a time.

Steeling himself, Jin-soo drew a class-change scroll from his inventory.

This is where it matters.

What he pulled out was the dark-attribute mage class-change scroll he had received for clearing Floor 49's survival mission.

Synthesized skills—please, stay.

With that desperate wish, he used the scroll and changed into a mage.

The change from the warrior class Blood Demon Swordsman to the mage class Flame Mage was complete. Jin-soo fixed his eyes on the synthesized-skill window.

They're still there.

The synthesized skills built on Blood Demon Swordsman class skills, Blood Drain among them, and those built on warrior-exclusive skills remained exactly as they were.

"Hahahaha!"

The cheer burst out of him on its own.

Let's keep going.

Elated, Jin-soo locked the Flame Mage's class-exclusive skills at level 222, then turned them into synthesized skills. Along with that, he bought a heap of exclusive skills only mages could learn and synthesized those as well.

What class next? Healer? Tank? Assassin?

He deliberated a moment, then decided.

Summoner.

The summoner line was both a higher class in the mage branch and a rare one. A normal mage Player could not easily change into a summoner; the skills they already possessed would be too precious to throw away. For Jin-soo, there was no penalty at all.

Let's see.

He looked through summoner-line class-change scrolls in the auction house.

Expensive.

Scrolls for a rare class chosen by only a tiny few cost more than ordinary ones.

Shouldn't something with no demand sell cheaper?

The thought came unbidden, but Jin-soo knew perfectly well why the price was so high.

Because they barely ever drop.

Class-change scrolls for ordinary jobs were rare, but they did appear. Scrolls for a rare class like summoner appeared vanishingly seldom. When supply was scarcer than even a thin demand, this was the result.

Jin-soo bought one summoner class-change scroll and changed class. After that he purchased and learned summoner-exclusive skills, then bought and learned the skill books that would serve as synthesis materials.

Let's give it a try.

He synthesized in a frenzy. Whenever Skill Synthesis ran out of stacks, he waited out the cooldown and used it again. In the end, he managed to turn every summoner class skill and exclusive skill into a common skill.

Assassin next?

Thinking so, he entered the auction house to buy assassin skill books.

Huh?

Not a single assassin skill book was listed. For an instant he wondered what was going on, but he found the cause quickly enough.

I'm out of points?

In the thrill of the shopping spree, the hundreds of millions of points he had stacked climbing from Floor 1 all the way to Floor 100 had vanished clean.

Only two hundred twenty thousand left?

To think he would burn through that many points so fast.

Once the items I have listed sell, the points will climb again.

Even then, measured against what he would need from here on, it was a drop in the bucket.

All I did was synthesize the level-2 basic skills of three classes—warrior, mage, and summoner.

And already he was broke.

Even if a Blessing that raised class level had appeared, I wouldn't have had the points to use it.

On the dark side, only the basic skills of three classes. On the holy side, he had synthesized nothing but the Ice Dragon Mage's class skills, and still he was gasping for points.

I do mean to keep the Ice Dragon Mage class for the time being.

Even so, some preparation was necessary.

Gather points while growing the Blessings.

That was the only answer. Points were money. He needed them to live in the Tower, and he needed them to make synthesized skills. Growing the Blessings was a given, but it had grown more urgent still, and not merely for the sake of locking class level.

If I'm going to turn my main skills into synthesized skills, I absolutely need a synthesized-skill level lock.

And not at something like level 22, but at a level equal to his class skills and common skills.

In the end, the work is the same.

Hunt monsters, clear hidden dungeons, earn points, raise his level, and claim achievements.

The ant tunnel really was a gold mine.

Hunting only a single species had made achievements easy to earn. On top of that, hunting 22 worker-ant agwi, then 222, then 2,222, then 22,222, had sent his Blessings shooting upward.

That place is the one.

The hunting ground Jin-soo chose was the Undead Hidden Dungeon on Floor 100.

A hidden dungeon where I can learn how to handle Demirich, the gatekeeper of Floor 100.

A hidden dungeon where the undead revived without end. The only way to clear it was to destroy the Black Mana Orb in the dungeon's deepest reaches.

Before the Regression, it boasted a mad difficulty. We barely cleared it on the brink of a total wipe.

It was a dungeon so hard to clear that they had scraped past death more times than he could count.

The rewards, though, were sweet.

It handed out plenty of items, but the greatest rewards were the many achievements and the level-ups. The pace of earning achievements and raising levels had been so fast that they had felt a pang of regret after clearing it. Of course, that was nothing but the complaint of a full stomach, possible only because the whole party had survived and cleared the hidden dungeon without a single death.

If we'd been even a little late breaking the Black Mana Orb, we might have been wiped out.

The terror of being surrounded and attacked by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠endlessly summoned undead, inside a hidden dungeon with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, had been truly immense.

My situation now is different.

If infinite undead came charging at him, he would be bowing in thanks.

If it were up to me, I'd set out tomorrow.

That did not seem possible. For one thing, the distance was too great. He would have to brace for at least a week of sleeping rough just to get ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there, and that was not the end of it.

There will definitely be eyes on us.

A week of temporary protection was time for a new Player to choose a guild, but it was equally time for the guilds to choose a new Player.

Not just the Daehan Guild. The other guilds will be watching us to some degree, too.

If Jin-soo and Shin Sua had been warriors, the interest might have been a little less, but as a mage and a healer they might draw even greater attention.

They don't know for certain. They're only guessing.

Neither of them had ever told anyone their level, their stats, or their class. Still, people would be making rough guesses from the gear they wore. Stand out, and you drew needless attention, and then the hassles multiplied. He wanted to avoid that.

I want to rest a little, too.

From the moment they had arrived on Floor 51, they had moved while scrimping even on time to eat and sleep, all to keep to twenty-two hours, twenty-two minutes, and twenty-two seconds. Thanks to the Shadow Summons and the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, a little breathing room had opened up, but that was breathing room only from Jin-soo and Shin Sua's perspective. To other Players, it had been a brutal forced march.

We haven't eaten anything good, and we haven't slept comfortably, either.

Now and then they had eaten their fill, but the quality of the meals had been poor. Most of them had been something hastily thrown together just to stave off hunger, and their beds had always been hard dirt floors leaking cold, or bare stone. The last three days in particular had been a fierce death-struggle inside the ant tunnel. In a situation like that, even Jin-soo wanted to avoid another week of sleeping rough with no rest in between.

There are also achievements and hidden dungeons that can only be cleared here.

If they moved without pause, they could clear them all in about three days. But there was no need to rush.

We'll be hunting nonstop once we enter the Undead Hidden Dungeon anyway.

They needed rest. Jin-soo was human, too. Climbing from Floor 51 to Floor 100 was bound to pile up physical and mental fatigue. After a forced march like that, he needed comfortable rest, good food, and a decent bed to unwind the exhaustion that had built up in body and mind.

So let's hunt lightly. Just ten hours a day.

Set against the journey from Floor 51 to Floor 100, that was an enormous cut in hunting time.

Shin Sua looked exhausted, too. Give her about a week of slack, and she'll be able to rest properly.

Jin-soo sincerely believed that ten hours of hunting a day was an exceedingly leisurely schedule.