The Third Ancient Knowledge, Part 2

Without wasting a second, Sanghyuk consumed the compendium and mastered the discipline.

Sanghyuk scanned through the skill list and nodded slowly. Upon learning Spirit Arts, a player gained the ability to summon the quintessential five elemental spirits. Yet countless spirits inhabited the wider world of EL. Of course, only the five innate elemental spirits could follow the full developmental path from Lowest-grade, to Low-grade, Medium-grade, High-grade, and ultimately Highest-grade.

Most wild spirits either had no grade progression whatsoever or hit their ceiling at Medium or High tier. Some odd varieties lacked a ranking entirely.

Only one Soul Hole left... It will take considerable time before I can fill that final slot anyway, so for now, I'll push my growth using these three Ancient Knowledges.

He had deliberate reasons for leaving the last Soul Hole open. An empty aperture posed zero immediate disadvantage.

The card combination recipe born from fusing Naruel's Elemental Buster with Choi Sangyeol's Heavenly Dragon Card Technique... What should I even call it?

He had forged the underlying technique, but he had yet to christen it. Grandiose names held no appeal for him. Neither Elemental Buster nor the Heavenly Dragon Card Technique were his own inventions back then; Naruel and Choi Sangyeol had named those combinations themselves.

"Let's just call it the Special Deck."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

It was utterly uninspired, but flair mattered far less than substance.

That settles the Spirit Arts for now... Next, it's time to reconfigure my weapon loadout.

Up until this moment, Sanghyuk had left his primary weapon slot unassigned. In his past timeline, he had mained the sword, but in this life, he intended to branch out in a radically different direction.

Swords offered balanced versatility and intuitive handling. Above all, they were by far the easiest weapon class to acquire in the market.

Even so, Sanghyuk was determined to pivot toward wire-based weaponry because of the staggering ceiling it offered.

Unlike swords, wire weapons were notoriously brutal to control. Across the entire arsenal of EL, scarcely any category proved harder to wield. Finding one was just as grueling. While whips served as the flagship archetype of the category, finding a decent whip compared to conventional arms was rare in the extreme.

Why would he deliberately choose an arm so difficult to obtain and even harder to master?

The answer came down to pure potential. When pushed to absolute perfection, the upper limit of devastation a wire weapon could unleash left ordinary bladecraft in the dust.

Merely picking up a wire weapon invited headaches. Even elite players with absurdly high VRA and peerless gaming instincts rarely managed more than basic flailing. For that reason, wires usually gathered dust in fourth or fifth auxiliary weapon slots as niche situational utilities.

In EL, the Main Weapon Bonus granted a flat fifteen percent stat multiplier to whatever arm occupied the primary slot.

The secondary weapon received a seven percent boost, the third weapon received five percent, and the fourth and fifth auxiliary slots each settled for a meager two percent. From the sixth weapon onward, the system awarded no bonus at all.

Consequently, every competitive player made sure to configure up to five weapon slots.

While the passive multiplier might seem straightforward on paper, the hierarchy carried massive implications. A player ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had to designate whatever tool they wielded most as their primary weapon without fail. More importantly, changing that primary slot later required burning an obscene amount of Karma. At lower levels, the cost was unthinkable; even at the pinnacle, forfeiting that much progression was crippling.

Lost Karma was synonymous with lost levels. Modifying secondary through fifth slots also drained Karma, albeit in lesser amounts, leading most adventurers to lock their selections in permanently.

Sanghyuk gave a calm nod and tapped the prompt's confirmation. Having weighed this move long ago, he felt no hesitation.

Riding the momentum, he assigned the sword to his secondary weapon slot. Its sheer adaptability earned it that position by default.

With his loadout secured, Sanghyuk drew the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone Whip from his dimensional inventory.

The weapon measured roughly eight meters in length. Though lengthy, its profile was razor-thin, allowing him to wrap it flush around his forearm until it vanished beneath his cuff. Tokan had hammered the primordial bone paper-thin, cutting four hundred discrete two-centimeter segments before linking them into an unbroken weave.

The result was exceptionally supple, yet capable of hardening into a razor-edged crescent depending on how its wielder flicked the wrist.

Schr-r-rk! Crack, crack!

Sanghyuk unfurled the whip with a test strike, testing its balance and tension. Skilled as he was at bypassing standard proficiency penalties through raw spatial awareness, a weapon as temperamental as this one demanded systemic reinforcement.

Every weapon possessed an internal proficiency rating that climbed through relentless use. As that rating mounted, the game applied subtle systemic assists, smoothing out micro-deviations and enhancing the wielder's kinetic control.

Naturally, once proficiency reached a certain plateau, pushing it higher was agony. Conversely, neglecting a weapon caused that hard-earned mastery to plummet with unforgiving speed.

There are no shortcuts for this. Only repetitive drills will carve it into muscle memory.

He would not rest until the whip moved as instinctively as an extension of his own limbs. Reaching that threshold meant pushing weapon proficiency past one hundred to attain Master rank. The absolute ceiling lay at two hundred and fifty for Grand Master, though that was widely regarded as a mythical tier.

Schr-rk, whuff!

Sanghyuk immersed his entire focus into the whip's arc, tracing the shifting weight of its segmented links. Perhaps due to his extraordinary concentration, his weapon proficiency climbed at an abnormal tempo. Even across the lower tiers, his progress would have broken every established record.

He stood on that spot for four straight hours, lashing, retracting, and snapping the golden wire. Only when four hours had elapsed did a faint glimmer of satisfaction touch his expression.

"Getting there."

To an outside observer, his mastery would have seemed uncanny, yet by his own unforgiving metrics, plenty of gaps remained.

The rest will have to come from live combat.

He could not afford to idle here whipping empty air forever. Now that his foundational toolkit was assembled, he needed heavier prey to forge it into something lethal.

With this setup, I should have no trouble clearing the Snake Cave.

The Snake Cave remained virgin territory where the vast majority of players had yet to breach even the entrance. A sprawling subterranean labyrinth, it featured no fewer than twenty-two distinct entry fissures. While vanguard players were currently scratching at its outer perimeter, the cavern would soon eclipse the Valley of Phantoms as the premier goldmine of the region.

Sanghyuk tracked down one of the cave's most remote, uncharted entry points, located farthest from Falcon City. His immediate goal was to reach the deep inner nesting ground of the Giant Snakes.

Giant Snakes were the premier quarry of the subterranean warren. Manageable to fell and generous in their drops, they yielded a hefty bounty of Karma alongside crucial alchemical reagents. Registering the cavern's geographic coordinates into his newly purchased Marking Book, Sanghyuk slipped past the fissure without hesitation.

Serpents of every shape, size, and venom profile writhed through the shadows in such overwhelming density that anyone squeamish would have fled screaming. Fortunately, Sanghyuk felt no revulsion toward reptiles, marching inward with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cool detachment.

Snap, shred!

With a subtle flick of his wrist, the Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone Whip whipped outward. Ten serpents lunging in unison were instantly reduced to diced ribbons, as if caught inside an industrial meat grinder. Depending on the torque and snap of the stroke, the whip cleaved flesh as cleanly as a legendary blade.

As expected, nothing sweeps the Snake Cave quite like a wire.

Around his boots lay the butchered remains of well over a hundred vipers. In close quarters choked with mob swarms, wire weapons boasted unmatched clearing efficiency. Wielding a short blade invited blind bites and deadly venom, while drawing a bow meant getting overrun before the arrows could stem the tide.

Surviving the depths demanded wide-area suppression, and a properly manipulated wire could butcher entire clusters in a single sweep.

The Serpentfolk should be appearing any minute now...

The true rulers of the subterranean caverns were the snakekin known as Serpentfolk. These hulking monstrosities reared their serpentine lower halves upright, wielding twin muscular arms like human warriors. They were a fixture of mid-tier progression. While this particular cave held only rudimentary ranks like Serpentfolk Soldiers, Archers, and Warriors, the future Tower of Serpents—their sovereign kingdom—would unleash far more horrifying variations.

The slithering masses crawling near the surface were little more than guard hounds bred to whittle down intruders.

While awaiting his first encounter, Sanghyuk continued blending incoming waves with methodical precision. Hovering before him was a Floating Light Stone he had grabbed from a general merchandise vendor before departing Falcon City, bathing the damp corridors in daylight.

The enchanted stone followed its master automatically, making it an indispensable asset within subterranean labyrinths. He pressed deeper into the winding gloom. The twisting terrain was notorious for trapping parties in looping dead ends, yet Sanghyuk navigated the maze as though reading a blueprint etched across his retinas.

He held no physical map, of course. No regressor, regardless of mental fortitude, could memorize every subterranean crevice. What he possessed instead was decades of visceral experience. He recognized the systemic geometry and generation patterns inherent to these cavern complexes, letting him bypass deceptive turns with minimal detour.

A few corridors later, his first target emerged: a Serpentfolk Soldier towering several heads above him, lunging forward with a crude iron spear leveled at his chest.

Hisssss!

The frenzied beast thrust its spear forward, but before the iron tip could cross his guard, Sanghyuk sent the golden whip gliding into the air. The wire wrapped around the shaft in a tight, gleaming spiral.

Whi-i-ish—clang!

Centrifugal momentum ripped through the coil, tearing the spear from the monster's scaly grip and hurling it ceiling-ward. To the beast, the sudden disarm was bewildering; to Sanghyuk, it was basic mechanics.

In the very instant the spear broke free, Sanghyuk stiffened the whip's segments into a rigid line and drove his arm straight ahead, executing a thrust that matched the piercing trajectory of a rapier.

Thwack, cr-r-rack!

The hardened golden bone pierced clean through the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Serpentfolk's skull, shattering the bone beneath.

Perfect.

Watching the corpse collapse in a dull heap, Sanghyuk offered a faint, satisfied nod. The Ten Thousand Year Golden Bone Whip obeyed his will without the slightest drag.

Its potential was truly limitless.