Maker of All Things

Hairun explained to Jinwoo exactly how he had put Deep Smithing to use.

"I paid a little extra care when purifying the extracted soul. And my spirit, Dust, happens to hold a power quite similar to Deep Smithing itself."

"……Hmm!"

Once Deep Smithing had been taught, Hairun was the master and Jinwoo the disciple. Now the situation had flipped completely on its head.

"I see. So that's another way it can be applied!"

It was the sort of revelation that might have wounded a craftsman's pride, yet Hairun felt only gratitude.

"You showed me something I never saw. Something I never even imagined!"

Thanks to Jinwoo, Hairun was forced to look at Deep Smithing all over again. He had polished the technique alone for so long that he had come to regard it as finished—complete.

But completion was not always a blessing.

"I thought it was finished, that there was nowhere left to go."

Finished meant finished. Nothing more to add, nothing left to strip away. What could be more dull than that?

"But it wasn't. It wasn't finished at all."

Hairun smiled instead.

"Did that elf Mire smile the same way I am?"

"Yes. She beamed."

"So she didn't send you to me purely out of spite, then!"

With that, Hairun gave his hammer a casual twirl.

"On to the next, then. You've learned Deep Smithing, so it's only proper you receive the title of All-Thing Crafter yourself!"

Flawless Mire. And All-Thing Crafter Hairun.

"Deep Smithing extracts the soul and purifies it, yes? To extract it you must first understand the material—and once you understand a material, the number of things you can work with multiplies. Like this, for instance."

Hairun produced a slab of Drowzen steel blackened by corruption. Darkness energy had thoroughly tainted the metal.

"Normally this would be unusable."

He gripped his hammer. In a blink he extracted the soul, purified it, and forged a shield right then and there.

"I can convert any material so that I can work it. Corrupted, ruined—doesn't matter."

As he spoke he hauled out heaps of otherwise worthless stock.

"Of course I can't change the grade itself."

At its core, Deep Smithing simply made the unworkable workable.

"That's why they call me the All-Thing Crafter."

It's an even better ability than I thought.

Materials were precious. In this world there was no such thing as a truly useless material.

"And beyond that—"

The name carried another meaning as well.

"—I can craft every kind of equipment imaginable!"

Hairun brimmed with confidence. Deep Smithing, Fire Build—those, it seemed, could be learned easily enough. Hard to believe, yet Jinwoo had picked them up without trouble. This, however, was different.

"I can make everything!"

He declared it with absolute swagger.

"Swords, spears, bows, axes, shields, armor… and that's not all! I don't discriminate with materials either—wood, cloth armor, leather armor! I handle the lot of them."

The confidence was earned. The moniker All-Thing Crafter had not been given lightly. Hairun truly could craft an astonishing range of gear. It was an enormous advantage.

"What do you want to learn? What do you want to make? I'll teach you everything. I'll make sure you can craft it all!"

The only problem was that his student was Jinwoo.

Jinwoo could already craft everything as well.

"I'm fine, actually. I can make all of those myself."

"?"

Hairun blinked hard.

"Swords and spears and bows and axes? Shields too? Armor? Or even…"

"Yes. For the most part. Ah—wait."

Jinwoo considered for a moment, then named the one thing he did want to learn.

"Are you any good at carving skeletons?"

"That… I can't do…"

Hairun's head drooped. Bone equipment was one thing—he could manage that. But crafting actual skeletons? That was beyond him. Worse, Jinwoo could already produce even more categories of gear than Hairun himself.

"So the All-Thing Crafter isn't me. It's you."

No—this surpassed even that title.

"At this level… you're the Crafter of All Things Under Heaven and Earth."

Hairun pressed a hand to his forehead.

"Mire…"

He murmured the elf's name under his breath.

Rumble—rumble—rumble—!

The building shuddered again.

"Is it always this seismically active?"

"It's gotten worse lately."

"Then we don't have much time."

Jinwoo pointed toward the material warehouse.

"Mind if I use the storeroom?"

"Of course! I've stockpiled countless materials. Help yourself!"

"Thank you. I'll make full use of them."

And with that, Jinwoo proceeded to clean out Hairun's material stores.

"But why skeletons, of all things?"

The more Hairun learned about Jinwoo, the more astonishing the man became. He couldn't help but wonder—why use skeletons at all?

"Well."

Shhhhhhh—

A vast surge of darkness energy exploded outward from Jinwoo. First and Pur appeared, scattering shadow in every direction.

"Uh…"

"I happen to have a rather interesting class."

Netfelix.

The moment Slayer's video dropped, the reaction was explosive.

Slice—!

The way he swung his blade—elegant one moment, ferocious the next—held every viewer's gaze captive.

It opened at number three on day one and claimed first place by day two.

Then, on that second day, OBC's video dropped as well.

Slayer was a dealer; High-tech was a tank. Their completely different charms hit the audience hard and clean.

How the absolute top-tier rankers conquered a tower—everything was laid bare on screen.

Both Slayer's earlier release and High-tech's later one received rave reviews. Side by side, the two networks' videos claimed first and second place.

After watching both videos, most people concluded that the ratings war between networks had narrowed to a two-horse race between KBC and OBC.

Of course JBS still had a fighting chance. Jinwoo's JinTube was performing rather well, after all.

Everyone had been curious how the absolute top dealers approached combat. The Netfelix release scratched that itch perfectly.

Inside a cramped little office—

"Nobody's expecting a thing from us!"

"Then let's show ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them what we've got."

PD Han Ingu was rallying his team.

"Make it crystal clear he's not 'just a crafter'!"

"Focus hard on the necromancer abilities!"

"And when he's crafting, the effects and the edit timing…"

The strong reception to KBC's and OBC's Netfelix videos only energized Han Ingu's crew further. Those two videos were pure tower-clear footage. Jinwoo's was a tower clear as well—only executed in a completely different fashion. That meant they still had a shot.

"We can win this."

The other two videos were polished, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no question—but they didn't feel revolutionary. If anything was revolutionary, it was Jinwoo's. Watching him command minions like a true necromancer, equipping those same minions with gear he himself had forged, and then perfectly conquering the tower—even after endless hours of editing, the footage still left them stunned. On top of that, Jinwoo's current momentum was terrifying.

"Look at Jinwoo's MiTube numbers. They're insane. Something's brewing."

"We have to ride this wave!"

The growth trajectory of Jinwoo's newly launched MiTube—JinTube—was nothing short of alarming.

"Who's editing these? Is Jinwoo doing it himself?"

"No way. If he were, even ten bodies wouldn't be enough."

Only two videos were up on JinTube so far. Both were high quality, and the view counts matched that quality.

"Done? Finished?"

"Almost. We should be able to launch today at 13:00!"

They powered through the frantic morning and locked down every last note on the final cut.

"Setting the premiere!"

Thirty minutes from now, Jinwoo's video would premiere as an exclusive first release.

"We need five million views minimum."

Runtime: one hour forty minutes. That was feature-film length. Hitting five million on a video that long would be a genuine smash hit.

"It's live!"

On the JBS channel, Jinwoo's Maze Mist Tower conquest video went public.

They had deliberately mirrored the JinTube title style, then added the hook that the man everyone knew as a crafter had actually cleared a tower. Because it was a network channel, they couldn't go full clickbait—but the curiosity bait was still solid.

"We've done everything we can."

Dark circles hanging nearly to his jawline, PD Han Ingu closed his eyes and pressed his palms together. All that remained was prayer.

Between JinTube and the auction house, Jinwoo already commanded a cult following, so comments poured in quickly.

No one—truly no one—held any expectations.

The title of the uploaded video clearly read "Tower Conquest Record."

The second people saw the title, the negativity flooded in.

Curious why on earth they would choose such a title, viewers hit play at once.

It wasn't bait.

And it went far beyond simply walking in.

The sight was utterly shocking.

Inside a tower where countless monsters constantly hunted for his life—

Jinwoo was crafting.