The Spoils
The moment Jin-soo returned to the lodging with Shin Sua, he set about sorting the spoils. The Undying Knight. A remarkably rare job advancement book had fallen into his hands, and it was far too precious to use right away. Across the entire Tower, only three or four of them existed, and the grade itself sat well above the ordinary. It was one of the very items he had demanded of the wandering merchant Lucy the first time they met.
Come to think of it, that one might show up again. She was the creature who had appeared when he killed the Floor 1 gatekeeper, the Goblin Champion, and again when he brought down the White Drake on Floor 50. A Bone Dragon outranked either of those. She would almost certainly come looking to buy the byproducts.
First, sort what I'll sell from what I won't. The Undying Knight job advancement book went into his inventory, and so did the Bone Dragon's twenty-one teeth. This one needs keeping, too.
The True Dragon's Corrupted Dragon Heart. It was the organ that had served as the Bone Dragon's core, and after the Undying Knight book it was the finest piece of loot he had taken. A shame it was only a material. Where a lycanthrope's heart counted as a kind of elixir, the True Dragon's Corrupted Dragon Heart was pure crafting stock, ideal for forging equipment meant for dark-affinity classes. The Bone Dragon he had hunted was a warrior type, closer to a tank than anything else, and the heart that had been its core would show its true worth only if it were worked into gear for a warrior or a tank.
Add the Bone Dragon's caliber, and the feat of being the first to hunt an Out-of-Spec Monster on Floor 100. In the hands of a skilled craftsman, something surpassing even the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set was entirely within reach. Still, born of what it was, the odds were high it would come out as equipment specialized for dark-affinity classes. Well. No need to fuss over that.
Jin-soo went through the skill books one by one and set aside the ones he could use. Everything that had come from the Bone Dragon was dark-affinity, but the items the traitor players had coughed up were nothing to scoff at either. This was not a volume he could finish in a day or two. Two or three days of work, at the least. There were an absurd number of job advancement books and skill books, enough to be a considerable help in crafting synthesis skills, and he had gathered a fair pile of points besides.
He paused. Should I try making holy-affinity synthesis skills, or not? To do it, he would have to take only the Ice Dragon Mage's basic skills and abandon the intermediate and advanced ones. I'll make them. Even this fight against the Bone Dragon would have gone more smoothly if he'd had holy-affinity synthesis skills. All this time he had kept putting it off, waiting for a blessing that locked class level to appear, and unfortunately it had not appeared this time either. Neither had a blessing that locked synthesis skill level. A real shame. It'll show up someday.
He forced the regret aside. In truth, there was no need to dwell on it. The new blessing skill itself was absurdly broken. He could now use holy-affinity and dark-affinity Army Summons at the same time. The Army Summon that included the Bone Dragon had leapt in a single bound to the peak of every summon skill he possessed, and thanks to the blessing skill Skill Sharing, the holy Army Summon and the dark Army Summon could be used together. There was a downgrade, yes, but he could still command two Bone Dragon summons at once. Nor did it end there. The variant lycanthrope and the giant thorn boar already bound into his Army Summons, and any monster he turned into an Army Summon from here on, would give him two summons from a single kill.
He had Shadow Summons and Dragon Tooth Soldiers as well. Shadow Summons, whose strength was decided by his stats and blessings, and the Dragon Tooth Soldiers skill, further strengthened by the Bone Dragon teeth now in his possession, could be used without distinction between his holy-affinity status window and his dark one. And even that was not the end. Right now he was sharing only two skills from each affinity, and the blessing-exclusive skill Skill Sharing sat at a mere level 122. What if the locked level of the blessing skills rises? Every blessing skill would grow to 222, and the utility of blessing-exclusive skills such as Status Window Switch, Skill Synthesis, and Skill Sharing would climb with them. Status Window Switch, honestly, made little difference even now. Skill Synthesis and Skill Sharing were another matter.
With Skill Synthesis, the success rate could rise, and the restriction that barred using Skill Synthesis again on a skill that had already been synthesized might even be lifted. If that restriction came undone, he could raise the level of synthesis skills without a blessing that locked them. A synthesis skill inherited the higher level of the skills used as its materials. Put simply, take a level 522 synthesis skill, find a skill with a hundred percent success rate against it, raise that skill to 822, and synthesize the two. Every time the skill-level lock blessing grew, he could keep pushing the synthesis skill's level higher. The method worked only if the restriction was lifted, the one that forbade using an already synthesized skill as material for Skill Synthesis. Whether a blessing appeared that raised synthesis skill levels, or the restriction itself came undone, he only needed one of the two. Still, one more possibility had opened, and his mood lifted on its own.
Skill Sharing has endless room to grow, too. For now he could share only two skills between the holy status window and the dark. But what if that became twenty-two? A hundred and twenty-two? Two hundred and twenty-two? He would be able to use dark-affinity skills freely from the holy status window, and the reverse would hold as well. Skills that were not summons might carry a slight restriction if he shared them. It would be nice if Holy Body and Dark Body could be shared too. Use a non-summon dark skill through Holy Body, and activation time or power would surely drop; use a holy skill through Dark Body, and the same would follow. More precisely, it was not that time or power decreased. What Holy Body and Dark Body had amplified would simply return to its original state. That much he could accept with a smile. A blessing that let him share Holy Body and Dark Body might appear later, after all.
The conclusion was the same as ever. I have to grow the blessings. Unable to level up and unable to earn titles, Jin-soo had only one path of growth, and that was the growth of his blessings.
Start by gathering the holy-affinity job advancement books and skill books. He piled together the holy tank, warrior, assassin, mage, archer, and healer advancement books and skill books. There was an enormous amount of them. Unfortunately, nothing existed at the grade and rarity of the Undying Knight, which was only natural. The Undying Knight job advancement book was never an item that should have shown itself on a mere Floor 100. He had been able to receive it only because he had hunted the Bone Dragon, an Out-of-Spec Monster that should have been impossible to kill, and because the traitors had dropped out, leaving him with seventy-two percent of the contribution and first place.
Mage first. His current holy-affinity class was Ice Dragon Mage, so that was only fitting. He began by turning the Ice Dragon Mage's class skills into synthesis skills. It was not easy. Ice was an uncommon attribute, and the success rate of Skill Synthesis was not especially high, but there was no need to worry. Mage-exclusive skill books were overflowing, and if he ran out he could simply buy more at the auction house. One by one, he converted the Ice Dragon Mage's class skills into synthesis skills. Done.
After spending a fair stretch of time turning most of those skills into synthesis skills, he picked up another mage advancement book. Fire-attribute magic this time. He changed class to a fire mage and threw himself back into the work. Once that was finished, he used every remaining mage advancement book that held skills which did not overlap. Warriors came next. He consumed the warrior advancement books one after another, changed class, and built synthesis skills as he went. When the warrior books were exhausted, he worked through tank, assassin, archer, and healer in that order, turning the basic class skills of every job into synthesis skills.
He ate on the fly and cut into his sleep, wholly absorbed in the crafting. Shin Sua lived the same way, taking charge of sorting the advancement books and skill books and helping him along. In the end he not only converted most of the basic class skills on his holy-affinity status window into synthesis skills, but also turned every usable basic skill from the dark-affinity advancement books into synthesis skills as well.
I wish they'd all succeeded. Unfortunately, he could not make a synthesis skill of every basic skill. Cases like Sanctuary kept coming up, where he simply could not find another skill fit for synthesis. He had so many skill books that he forced the attempts anyway, and the results were miserable. The probability was so low that not a single one succeeded. Nothing to be done. I'll be satisfied with this for now. At this point, just looking at advancement books and skill books makes me sick of them.
The problem was that the item sorting still was not finished. There were simply too many of them. Keep only the most useful gear for each class and sell the rest. Organizing it all would eat a fair amount of time. Even so, it was pleasant watching the points climb and climb. After the successful Bone Dragon raid, the purge of the traitor players, and now the sale of the spoils, the points that had fallen below two billion when he bought the Black Dragon's Cursed Armor Set had surged past ten billion. Once the sorting was done, it would be fifteen billion at the least, and it might even approach twenty. I'll think about that later. For now, I should rest.
Since the Bone Dragon raid and the fight with the traitors, he had never properly rested, grinding away at synthesis skills the whole while. Starting tomorrow, he would return to a normal pattern: hunt monsters by day, and set the evening aside for sorting items. Not that he had gone without hunting in the meantime. While he crafted, he had sent his Shadow Summons, Dragon Tooth Soldiers, and Army Summons out beyond the city to hunt on their own. He had not even bothered to avoid the other players' eyes. Right in the city, in plain sight, he summoned the Army Summons, Bone Dragon included, along with the Shadow Summons and the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, and sent them off to the hunting grounds. It was a show of force in its own right, and a measure meant to lend weight to the Daehan Guild, the Ollihi Guild, and the Upendo Guild. If those traitor guild bastards misjudged the situation and clashed with the three of them, it would be a problem. Out of sight, someone always started getting ideas. So he deliberately kept the Bone Dragon and the other summons appearing in the city, cutting off any vain resistance at the root.
Sleep, then. Jin-soo dropped onto the bed.
"You should get some rest too."
He said it to Shin Sua as well.
"Haaahm! Okay. I will."
She must have been exhausted. The moment the words left his mouth, she let out a long yawn and went straight into her room. I should sleep too. The instant she was gone, Jin-soo closed his eyes and sank into a deep sleep.
"Ah! I feel alive!"
After a proper sleep for the first time in a long while, Jin-soo worked the stiffness out of his body. I'm hungry. He had been eating on the fly, and he felt the need for a real meal.
"Nyaang!"
"Kkaak!"
The moment he started getting ready to go out, Leo and Kkami grew wildly excited. He had given them plenty of monster meat, but they had been cooped up in the lodging for quite a while, and it seemed the confinement had left them restless. Still asleep? Jin-soo glanced toward Shin Sua's room, head tilted, and was just reaching to open the door and step outside.
Creeeak!
"I'm coming with you."
Shin Sua came out looking dazed, her door swinging open behind her.
"Sure."
The two of them left the lodging and headed for the restaurant on the ground floor.
"Huh?"
As Jin-soo started down the stairs, an astonishing sight met his eyes.
"Looks like they caught them all."
It was exactly as Shin Sua said. In the ground-floor restaurant, the guild masters of the traitor guilds knelt in a row, bound.