You Won't Abandon Me, Will You?
"You won't abandon me later, will you...?"
While waiting for the forge's temperature to rise sufficiently, Dohyun headed to the storage room. To make a knife, he first had to choose the steel. Carbon steel, stainless steel, alloy steel. Metal plates filled an entire wall of the room.
Out of habit from the game, he lightly ran his bare hand over the surfaces of the metal. Then, he tapped them with his knuckles, listening to the resonance.
...This one is better. He picked out a piece of high-carbon steel that rang with a much clearer tone, along with some wrought iron beside it, and carried them out.
The so-called pattern-welding method—placing the carbon steel, which would provide strength, at the core, and wrapping it with wrought iron to absorb impact. For a Western-style chef's knife that needed to balance both light handling and razor-sharpness, this combination was the perfect answer.
Even in the game, he had crafted items in the kitchen category until he was sick of them. Just counting requests from chef NPCs, there had been hundreds.
If the knife was primarily for meat, he would adjust the carbon steel ratio like this; if it was for precise vegetable slicing, he would adjust the blade thickness like that.
Familiar patterns flooded his mind. He would make the blade about 0.5 millimeters thinner than the chef's original knife. The center of gravity would be shifted slightly toward the blade.
He would reduce the handle by one size and carve a subtle groove where the index finger rested so it would grip naturally. Finally, he just needed to blend in a metal with good spiritual affinity, and it would be complete.
Clang, clang, clang. Amidst the heat of the forge, the lump of metal slowly took shape. Just as a chef's knife was beginning to outline itself under Dohyun's fingertips...
"...Whoa." Watching from the side, Seo Jian unconsciously held her breath. Having stubbornly followed him all the way from the hotel, she was now crouching in a corner of Dohyun's Workshop, spectating.
...A true artisan really is on another level. There wasn't a single wasted movement in his hammering. Seamless, without a shred of hesitation.
Hearing rumors of an unaffiliated artisan, she had immediately snatched up an exclusive broker contract with him.
Of course, she had known from the start that he was no ordinary person. She knew he could engrave spell formulas and that his spiritual power was far from average. Thus, she had never once hesitated to sign the contract.
But she had never actually seen with her own eyes what those fingertips of his could create. And now, Seo Jian found herself utterly unable to look away from his hands.
After hammering, grinding, and polishing for what felt like a long time, the knife finally took on a proper form. ...Wait, already? It felt like barely an hour had passed. Yet, the metal had already transformed into a magnificent chef's knife.
Is it over once he finishes the handle? Jian thought. But Dohyun's thoughts were different. He smirked. If it ended here, he would be just a regular blacksmith. ...But I'm no ordinary blacksmith. The most entertaining part was about to begin.
Let's see... what should I engrave first? Right, let's just do what I always did. Just like back then.
Thinking back, there had been quite a lot of chef players. Strangely, while other non-combat classes dwindled in popularity, the chef class alone remained bustling. Well, there were certainly dishes that could only be tasted in another world.
The romance of wandering through unfamiliar lands and cooking with ingredients never seen before—more than a few players had fallen in love with that charm. Thanks to that, Dohyun had crafted a mind-boggling number of knives for those chef players.
Right. I should start with the basic setup for a kitchen knife. First, the Weight Reduction Circuit.
Chefs chop thousands of times a day using sheer wrist strength. If the knife is heavy, their wrists are the first to go.
Of course, shaving the blade thinner makes it lighter, but that sacrifices structural integrity, causing the blade to bend. Weight and strength are proportional, after all. To gain one is to lose the other. That was why one engraved circuits.
The path of the circuit drew itself in Dohyun's mind. He would run a main stem along the spine of the blade, then branch out toward the edge in dense, leaf-like veins, spreading evenly across the entire knife.
When spiritual power flowed through this path, the energy would circulate through every corner of the blade, evenly alleviating the physical weight inherent in the steel. Just like metal submerged in water becoming lighter.
Up to this point, it was just a light knife. The real magic came next. ...I need to pave a path for the energy to flow. The energy circulating through the circuit would surge and shift in the direction the knife moved.
Thus, when lifting it, it would feel as light as a feather. But the moment it swung down, that shifted energy would add force toward the blade. It kept the wrist comfortable, yet allowed the knife to cut deeper and stronger with less effort. In a way, the knife itself was assisting the user's chopping.
...The perceived weight will be cut to a third, and the cutting power will be doubled. Of course, if it was too excessive, the knife might slip out of control. It had to be kept within a range that felt natural to the hand.
Dohyun's fingertip slid from the spine toward the blade.
Sliiiide. Sliiiide.
Wherever his fingertip passed, faint paths of light spread out like the veins of a leaf.
Done. Now, I need to engrave the rest quickly before the blade cools down. Fast. Next, next. Dohyun's fingertip slid along the blade once more.
Normally, engraving circuits required specialized tools. But just as he had in the game, Dohyun bypassed them. Concentrating mana at his fingertip—...right, it's called spiritual power here, not mana.
At any rate, he condensed that spiritual power to an extremely high density at the tip of his finger, applying it directly to the steel to engrave. This method was far faster and more precise than using any engraving tool.
What he had just engraved was the Self-Sharpening Circuit. It would keep the blade perpetually sharp, as if it had just been honed. Next was... ah, the Anti-Stick Circuit, to prevent ingredients from sticking to the blade.
This would eliminate the need to constantly brush food off the knife while chopping. He also added one more circuit to the handle with a quick swipe: the Auto-Balance Circuit. Now, the center of gravity would dynamically adjust itself to perfectly match the user's hand.
As Dohyun layered these circuits one after another, Seo Jian's face gradually stiffened.
...Wait a minute. Seo Jian was a broker in the spiritual world. Though she lacked combat ability, she could appraise the value of almost any artifact at a glance. It was her livelihood, after all. Yet, the sight unfolding before her eyes right now—No, engraving spell formulas... with his bare hands?
Normally, when engraving spell formulas onto spiritual artifacts, specialized engraving tools were used. Spell formulas were inherently so microscopic that they were invisible to the naked eye; human hands simply couldn't achieve that level of precision.
It was a delicate, grueling process where engraving a single line took ages. Because of this, spell engraving in the spiritual world was a highly specialized field that not just anyone could learn.
Anyone who mastered the skill was automatically hailed as an "artisan," regardless of what they engraved or where.
To begin with, today's commission was merely to craft a custom chef's knife worth five million won. It wasn't to create a spiritual artifact. In fact, she had never once in her life imagined the concept of turning a mere kitchen knife—not even a weapon—into a spiritual tool.
Yet Dohyun was—with just a casual sweep of his finger—engraving complex spell formulas onto the chef's knife one after another. And it wasn't just one or two lines. They were dense enough to cover the entire blade.
How... how is that even possible? Of course, theoretically speaking, bare-handed engraving was more precise than using tools, as there was no medium interfering between the hand and the spell formula. But that was strictly theoretical.
To concentrate spiritual power at the fingertip as finely as a needle, and to maintain that hair-thin width without a single tremor while drawing an entire line of a formula?
Engraving tools didn't exist for no reason. People borrowed the power of tools because such precision was utterly unreachable by human hands.
Yet Dohyun was achieving a level of delicacy and speed that others couldn't even mimic with tools. With his bare hands. And he was doing it as naturally as breathing. A god-like control of spiritual power was unfolding right before her eyes.
...Is that kind of spiritual control really something a human can do? Cold sweat trickled down Seo Jian's spine. Then, suddenly, a lingering question that had puzzled her all this time flashed through her mind. It was about what had happened at the Dokkaebi Market.
Dohyun had created a talisman without any Cinnabar or brushes, simply by sweeping his finger across a blank sheet of Yellow Talisman Paper. And it had been a monstrous creation, powerful enough to obliterate an entire vacant lot.
It had been the same in the hotel kitchen yesterday. He had merely touched his finger to a blank piece of paper, and a swarm of cursed spirits that even a 2nd Class spiritualist couldn't guarantee defeating was turned to ash by a single sheet.
No matter how much she racked her brain, she couldn't comprehend what method he had used. Talismans were supposed to be drawn meticulously with ground cinnabar and a brush, concentrating one's domain into the strokes. How could a few finger swipes on blank paper produce a talisman?
But now, seeing this sight, she realized. No way... She finally understood, if only a little. Don't tell me that monster... was actually engraving spell formulas... onto mere disposable, single-use talismans...?
"W-Wait, just a moment! Mr. Dohyun!" As he was nearing completion, Seo Jian suddenly cut in urgently. What's wrong with her? Dohyun set down the chef's knife he was working on and turned toward her.
"Am I misunderstanding something...? This... this is the knife for the chef, right? But the chef is just an ordinary person...!"
Ah, so that's what she's worried about. It made sense. Typically, spiritual tools relied on the user's own spiritual power as their source of energy—excluding exceptionally high-grade relics, of course. Seo Jian waited with bated breath to see what Dohyun would say next. Just what is he planning to do...?
"Ah, I have a way." Dohyun replied nonchalantly, walking over to the materials storage room.
These circuits required spiritual power to function, so for an ordinary person who couldn't manipulate spiritual energy, engraving them would be completely useless. But there was always a workaround. Even in the game, not everyone could manipulate mana.
There were many NPCs born without mana, and plenty of players who weren't accustomed to handling it. In those cases, no matter how high-performance the equipment was, it was rendered useless. Back then, Dohyun had devised a solution.
Clack. What he pulled out from the storage room was a transparent stone about the size of a finger joint. A small crystal with a faint blue light shimmering inside. This was a Spiritual Stone.
He had briefly read about it while skimming through a book yesterday. It was a natural mineral mined deep underground that contained spiritual energy. In a way, it was like the petroleum of this world.
Since it naturally held a certain amount of spiritual energy, even those who weren't born with spiritual power could experience temporary magical effects by breaking or activating it.
For example, what if someone went out on a mission and temporarily exhausted their internal spiritual energy? Normally, they would die! But what if they carried a Spiritual Stone?
They could use the spiritual energy trapped inside to escape danger! In other words, it was a strictly single-use consumable that became a plain old pebble once all the energy inside was spent.
He recalled the Spiritual Stone currency unit he had seen on the Dokkaebi ATM. Since it was easy to appraise and contained a sip of spiritual energy, it seemed to be used as a substitute for currency in this world.
In short, to the people here, a Spiritual Stone was nothing more than a disposable battery to be used once and thrown away.
"...Oh, a Spiritual Stone?" Following him, Seo Jian tilted her head in confusion. "You're putting that in a kitchen knife?"
"Yes."
"Well... Spiritual Stones aren't usually used like that. They're burned alongside talismans to activate them, or shattered in emergencies... I've rarely seen them embedded in weapons. If you do that, wouldn't you have to reinstall a new one every single time it's used?"
...So that really is how they view it. It was exactly as Dohyun had guessed. Well, it made sense. In this world, people probably only thought of Spiritual Stones as things to be used while already filled.
Without offering much of a reply, Dohyun placed the Spiritual Stone on the workbench. Condensing spiritual power at his fingertip, he carefully began to shave down the edges of the stone.
Shhh. He smoothed the corners, shaping it to a size that could fit at the end of the handle. If it was too large, it would ruin the grip; if it was too small, its storage capacity would be insufficient. ...This should be about right.
"W-Wait a minute, Mr. Dohyun. Are you... carving a Spiritual Stone right now?" Seo Jian approached the workbench, her eyes widening.
"Yes."
"Spiritual Stones aren't meant to be processed like that...! If they crack, all the spiritual energy inside will just leak out..."
"Then I just have to shape it without cracking it."
At Dohyun's nonchalant reply, Seo Jian looked as if she wanted to ask more, but she quickly shut her mouth. A thin circuit was already being engraved across the surface of the Spiritual Stone, following Dohyun's fingertip. Shhh. ...This is the crucial part.
In the game, mana stones had originally been single-use as well. They were identical to the Spiritual Stones of this world. Once the mana inside was depleted, they became empty shells to be discarded. The reason was simple: the natural mana circuits within a mana stone were structured like a one-way valve.
It was easy for mana to flow out, but the reverse path was blocked. Because the pressure of the condensed mana inside the stone was so high, the circuits naturally formed in a direction that pushed from the inside out. Like air escaping a balloon.
Thus, no matter how much one tried to inject mana back into an emptied stone, it wouldn't enter. Since the circuit itself was designed as a one-way street, there was simply no path.
...But so what? If the circuit itself was the issue, it was no problem for Dohyun, who knew how to engrave them. There was no need to tamper with the existing circuits. He just had to carve a separate, dedicated injection channel leading straight to the core of the Spiritual Stone.
He only needed to drill a new entrance. This single concept had driven players suffering from mana shortages absolutely wild back in the game. Whether it was someone else's mana or their own, once they filled it up, they could use it indefinitely.
...It should work here too. The principles of Spiritual Stones seemed almost identical to mana stones. Dohyun condensed spiritual power at his fingertip to a width thinner than a hair. Then, lightly touching a spot on the surface of the Spiritual Stone, he drew a path straight toward the inner core.
Sliiiide.
Piercing through the surface, a single, slender channel was drawn directly to the tiny point of light nestled at the absolute center of the crystal. That was all it took.
He added just one more thing: a supply control circuit that prevented the stored spiritual energy from gushing out all at once, regulating it to drip only as needed when it detected the movement of the blade. If it poured out in a torrent, it would run dry in no time. ...Done.
Dohyun embedded the processed Spiritual Stone into the groove he had carved at the end of the handle. Click. It looked as if a small gem had been set into the pommel. Then, he drew the final connecting line linking the main circuit inside the handle to the circuit of the Spiritual Stone. Swipe.
The moment the circuits of the Spiritual Stone and the knife merged into a single stream, a low hum vibrated through the chef's knife in his hand as it awakened. Nice, connection complete.
Now, only the finishing touches remained. He polished the handle once more to make it smooth and gave the blade a final coat of oil. ...And the last step. Charging it with spiritual power. Dohyun closed his eyes and gently cupped the Spiritual Stone at the end of the handle with his palm.
"..."
Steadying his breath for a moment, he lightly focused his mind. He felt the energy within him travel down his palm, trickling through the newly opened channel and into the core of the Spiritual Stone.
Like water filling an empty vessel, the stone slowly began to absorb the spiritual power. The faint, blurry blue light that had shimmered when he first carved it gradually deepened, turning into a vivid, clear hue.
"...M-Mr. Dohyun." Seo Jian's voice from behind him sounded incredibly strained for some reason.
"Yes?"
"Right now... into the Spiritual Stone... spiritual power..."
"Yes."
"...Are you putting it in?"
"Yes. That's how you charge it."
"..."
Seo Jian's face grew increasingly rigid. A Spiritual Stone was strictly meant to have its energy extracted and used. You bought it pre-filled, used it once, and threw it away when it became an empty shell.
The idea of putting spiritual power back into an empty Spiritual Stone—no one had ever done it, nor had anyone even conceived of it. To begin with, such a thing was supposed to be impossible.
Yet Dohyun—after holding the stone in his hand for just a brief moment—had simply gone and achieved the impossible. He had turned a Spiritual Stone into a rechargeable battery.
"..."
Seo Jian couldn't find any words. Her mind simply couldn't keep up anymore.
Dohyun took his hand off the handle and lifted the knife. Under the lights, the smoothly polished blade flashed with a silver gleam. The small Spiritual Stone embedded in the pommel caught the light, shimmering with a blue glow.
...This should easily last about three months.
Well, if it ran out, he could just refill it. He could tell the chef to come back for after-sales service once the blade started to dull. Of course, he had no intention of doing it for free. He smirked.
Dohyun lightly flicked his wrist. Whoosh. Rather than a heavy piece of metal, it felt almost as light as a feather. Yet, weight was appropriately distributed toward the blade, lending a deep, satisfying heft to his downward swings. It was exactly as he had envisioned in his mind.
"...Finished." Dohyun gently set the knife down on the workbench.
"..."
It was silent. Sensing no movement behind him, he glanced back to find Seo Jian still frozen with her mouth half-open. She looked as though she hadn't even registered that the work was finished.
"...Ms. Jian?"
When Dohyun called her name, she finally snapped out of it with a start. "Are you alright?"
"...Ah!"
Though she hurriedly composed herself, her gaze remained glued to the knife. Then, she suddenly sprang to her feet.
"Is there... is there anything else you need?!"
"...Pardon?"
"I mean, well... you've been standing for so long while working. You must be thirsty! I'll go buy some drinks right away! What would you like? Coffee? Tea? Or maybe a vitamin drink...?"
...What's with her? The person who had been quietly crouching in the corner spectating just moments ago suddenly had a completely different look in her eyes. "Ah, I'm fine."
"Oh, don't be like that! You haven't even had a proper meal yet. You barely ate lunch at the hotel either. I know a really delicious traditional Korean restaurant nearby. Should I book a private room for you? Or if delivery is more comfortable, I can order that right away..."
"I'm really fine."
"Th-Then, should I massage your shoulders? I actually have pretty good grip strength. Or maybe a cup of warm tea... Ah, instead of tea, how about a massage chair! I put a massage chair in my room on the second floor. Would you like to try it out? It's absolutely amazing. I picked it out myself—"
"Ms. Jian."
"Yes!"
...Finally, she stopped. With a single call from Dohyun, Seo Jian's mouth snapped shut. ...Why is she suddenly acting like this? She had now stepped right up to him, wearing an expression of absolute, unwavering determination.
Seo Jian fell silent for a moment. Then, she neatly clasped her hands together and looked straight up at Dohyun. "...Mr. Dohyun."
"...Yes?"
With her eyes glistening, she took one more step closer. "You won't abandon me later, will you...?"
...?
What on earth was she talking about now?