The Golden Skeleton Knight, Part 2

No matter how many times he heard them, messages like these never grew stale. The melodic chime of the system notifications brought pure, unadulterated joy, coaxing a wide, satisfied grin onto Sanghyuk's face as he nodded in quiet triumph.

Securing the First Field Boss Hunter title was thrilling enough, but hauling in a staggering seventy-one different items through the First Kill Bonus felt even better.

The First Kill Bonus.

It was a privilege reserved strictly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for Named monsters and Field Bosses. Put simply, the first player to conquer a Named monster server-wide was rewarded with every single item that the creature could possibly drop, all at once in a single sweep. There were zero exceptions. If the monster had it in its drop table, you received it.

Because of this system, every serious user in Eternal Life staked their entire existence on claiming first clears. Under ordinary circumstances, slaying a Named boss offered no guarantee of high-tier loot. Take the Golden Skeleton Knight, for instance. The creature was famously dubbed the "Golden Skeleton Lottery" precisely because its signature drop—the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone—had an abysmal drop rate of roughly 0.01 percent. In other words, an adventurer could slaughter ten thousand of them and still walk away empty-handed. Yet by claiming the server's very first kill, that near-mythical material was guaranteed.

In Eternal Life, a first clear meant far more than fleeting bragging rights; it yielded astronomical, game-changing wealth.

First clears really are the absolute best, Sanghyuk thought, nodding repeatedly as he took in the glittering mountain of treasure heaped before him. His Space Expansion Bag lacked the volume to swallow the haul whole, forcing him to convert several choice items into cards just to transport them.

The rewards Sanghyuk had reaped from the Ghost Citadel were too numerous to tally at a glance, but three prizes stood tall above the rest.

The first was the legendary prize itself: the Golden Skeleton Knight's Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone. True to its name, it resembled an immense, radiant bone forged from solid gold. It served as a premium crafting reagent, and any piece of equipment fashioned from it was guaranteed to lock into the Unique grade. While Unique-grade equipment would eventually circulate in the distant future, at this stage of the game, even Rare gear remained virtually unseen, let alone Unique. Basic Magic items were commanding exorbitant sums on the market; to possess a Unique item under these conditions was nothing short of miraculous.

Furthermore, gear forged from the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone was revered for its extraordinary baseline performance. Even years down the road, when high-level players no longer gained relevant experience from the Golden Skeleton Knight, legions of hunters would scour the map in search of the creature solely for a shot at that bone. Aside from that solitary prize, the knight's drops were unremarkable, sharing standard five-percent probabilities. The bone alone made it a lottery ticket, and cashing it in meant an instant fortune.

There were twenty-four distinct pieces of equipment that could be forged using the bone. In his previous life, Sanghyuk had personally wielded ten of them. Back then, higher-tier items had already flooded the market, driving the bone's market price into the dirt. He had treated those items as cost-effective, high-quality mid-tier staples, but their performance had left a lasting, thoroughly positive impression on him.

The second major prize was the Unique title, First Field Boss Hunter.

While the title's benefits were restricted exclusively to encounters with Field Bosses, the raw numerical values were exceptional. It would prove an invaluable asset in future boss hunts.

Finally, the third prize was the colossal ocean of Karma harvested from clearing the hidden bonus field and crushing the boss. To put it simply: while other adventurers pedaled furiously on squeaking bicycles, Sanghyuk had slipped behind the wheel of a high-end supercar and slammed the pedal straight through the floorboards.

Before entering the Ghost Citadel, a noticeable level disparity had existed between Sanghyuk and the front-runners. Emerging from its depths, he had obliterated the gap entirely.

Sanghyuk had reached Level 37.

According to the latest buzz across the community boards, the highest-level player in Eternal Life was the Chinese user Zhang Zi, who had breached Level 40 just yesterday. Yet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Zhang Zi had pursued a One Soul build. In Sanghyuk's memories of the future, no top-tier ranker bore that name. The man had merely sprinted headlong with a single soul without grasping the game's long-term systems, only to be cast aside and rendered obsolete once the meta matured. What truly mattered was not Zhang Zi's inevitable decline, but that Sanghyuk had shattered the inherent handicap of his Quadra Soul build, matching the leveling pace of a One Soul rusher stride for stride.

Among the mountain of loot dropped by the Golden Skeleton Knight, a handful of pieces caught his eye. He equipped what was useful, deposited the material cards he intended to use later into his bank vault, and put the rest up for sale at the consignment shop.

Having firmly stepped onto the path of a card user, Sanghyuk was going to need astronomical reserves of gold. Utilizing combination cards was effectively equivalent to burning hard currency to cast skills; reckless card usage could bleed even a wealthy adventurer dry in the blink of an eye. Naturally, wealth alone did not allow infinite card production. While his foundational creation, Flame Stone, was a 0-cost Low-grade card that could be stockpiled by the thousands, higher-tier combination cards introduced strict cost limits that dictated a deck's carrying capacity—the card user's sole intrinsic drawback.

With his unwanted wares safely listed on consignment, Sanghyuk strode purposefully toward Falcon City's 41st Street, widely known as the Artisan District. Workshops of every trade lined the avenue, but his destination was the undisputed crown jewel of the district: a smithy known as The Golden Anvil.

The Golden Anvil ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was the largest forge in Falcon City. In truth, it was the grandest smithy across all seven settlements within the Twilight Lands, the beginner basin of Planet Trinark. At the helm of this monumental forge stood a dwarf known as the Red Hammer: Tokan.

Tokan was an NPC whom ordinary players could never hope to meet at this stage. Though the truth remained completely unknown to the player base right now, he was in reality the supreme King of the Earth Clan. Why such a monarch had chosen to pound steel incognito within a Falcon City smithy was a mystery slated to unravel much later through the overarching Main Scenario Quest. Unlike common, scattered side quests, the solitary Main Scenario Quest held world-altering importance, and Sanghyuk remembered every detail vividly.

For an adventurer who had barely shed their rookie skin to secure an audience with Tokan was theoretically impossible. The affinity system in Eternal Life was an intricate, interdependent web; reaching Tokan normally required grinding reputation across countless intermediary NPCs and factions. The process was agonizingly tedious. In his past life, players often joked that raising the affinity of a high-tier NPC was far more harrowing than slogging through the brutal Hell Level Range. For an extraordinary figure like Tokan, merely securing face time demanded a mountain of prerequisites. In short: If you wish to gaze upon the king, earn it with blood and sweat!

Except I happen to hold the ultimate shortcut.

A golden pass that bypassed every barrier and granted instant access to the dwarven sovereign. That shortcut was none other than the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone.

"Oooooh..."

Tokan lifted the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone, his expression borderlined on trance-like reverence. His wide eyes were thoroughly captivated by the lustrous metal.

In Sanghyuk's previous life, Tokan's obsession with the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone had been common knowledge among elite circles, as was the secret that presenting the bone unlocked an immediate audience. In the game's core lore, Tokan possessed a legendary, insatiable lust for gold; gazing upon a radiant, flawless treasure like the golden bone was bound to bewitch him. More importantly, because the bone was an exceptionally rare, pristine crafting material, Tokan's dwarven instincts screamed at him to hammer it into a masterpiece. He could no more resist shaping such an ore than he could resist breathing.

"Hmph, ahem... You carry quite an intriguing oddity here, lad."

Tokan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cleared his throat, struggling to maintain an air of gruff composure, but Sanghyuk could clearly see the dwarf's soul already tethered to the shimmering prize.

"Fortune favored me, and I happened upon it by sheer luck," Sanghyuk replied smoothly, adopting a posture of respectful reverence. "The very instant it fell into my hands, Master Tokan was the only name that surfaced in my mind. Who else could possibly do justice to such an extraordinary medium, if not the supreme artisan of the Earth Clan, the heir to the Flame Soul, the great Red Hammer himself?"

Sanghyuk weaponized every scrap of lore in his memory, pouring praise designed to strike the dwarf's ego dead center.

NPCs in Eternal Life could never be treated like primitive lines of pre-programmed code. While they were not flesh-and-blood humans, they were driven by state-of-the-art artificial intelligence capable of sophisticated contemplation and emotion. A figure of Tokan's stature possessed an intellect that was sharper still. Like any sentient being, they enjoyed hearing words that stroked their pride. Certain eccentrics detested flattery, but most welcomed it warmly. Tokan, in particular, despite his rugged, intimidating exterior, had an infamous weakness for grand praise. Sanghyuk's silver tongue hit the bullseye.

"Bwahahaha! Well said, lad! Well said! Say what you will about other crafts, but when it comes to this, no soul breathing under the heavens can work it better than me!"

His chest swelling with pride, Tokan roared with hearty, boisterous laughter, his braided beard bobbing as he nodded in delight.

The affinity bar, which had been steadily ticking upward ever since the bone appeared, surged dramatically once more. The Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone was truly the supreme bypass key.

"So, what do you want forged?" Tokan boomed, his eyes glittering with eager anticipation. "A sword? Armor? A greatshield? A spear? Speak your mind, lad! I'll hammer you out a piece of work that'll make the gods weep!"

Before Sanghyuk even had to steer the conversation, the master smith volunteered to forge the item himself, triggering a Sudden Quest in the process. The winds of fortune were blowing entirely in Sanghyuk's direction.

"I would like..."

Long before setting foot on 41st Street, Sanghyuk had settled on his choice. Of all the twenty-four relics that could be coaxed from the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone, there was one singular weapon that aligned perfectly with his build, boasting stats so devastating it bordered on absurdity.

Forging that weapon was, without question, the ultimate choice.