A Masterpiece of Extreme Defense
“Hooo…”
“How long has it been?”
“One hour and forty minutes. The runtime is over.”
One hour and forty minutes had passed.
The total runtime of the video uploaded to the JBS channel was one hour and forty minutes. Anyone who had started watching the moment it went live would have reached the end by now.
“From here on, the real reactions will start pouring in.”
Proper feedback was finally about to arrive. PD Han Ingu closed his eyes. His heart was hammering like mad.
Ding! Ding—! Ding—! Ding—!
That was when the work PC erupted with a frenzy of notification sounds.
The response was explosive. At the same time, the view count rocketed upward like something possessed.
Sharknet community.
Even on Sharknet, where the mood had been mostly negative, first-hand reviews from people who had actually watched began to appear.
Every post flooding the community carefully skirted full spoilers—enough to spark curiosity even in the people who had sworn off “viral bait.”
The “just watch and you'll know” line started pulling aggro in the opposite direction.
And so the view count kept climbing.
One million. Five million. Ten million.
Click—. Click-click-click-click—.
The numbers spun upward with manic speed.
And then—
JBS editing room.
PD Han Ingu and his team—who had been cutting until the absolute last possible second—were crushed under bone-deep fatigue. But the moment they saw these results, the exhaustion vanished as if it had never been there.
“We did it…”
Everything was flipping on its head.
“We did it!”
No one had seen this coming.
“I thought it would do well, but…”
“This is way too well, isn't it!?”
“This is basically Jinwoo carrying us the whole way.”
The raw footage had been that good. All they had done was edit it without falling short of the source material.
“Overseas viewers are hopping on right now. This is going to work.”
At best they had hoped for five million views. In less than a day, it had already hit ten million.
“We might actually beat… Slayer!”
“A necromancer…?”
Hairun stared at Jinwoo with wide eyes after seeing the thralls he had summoned.
“Something like that.”
Hairun's gaze moved to the thralls Jinwoo had called forth—then, a moment later, locked onto their equipment.
“Don't tell me you made all of that yourself?”
“Yes.”
“!”
Only then did Hairun's eyes go wide, as if every piece had finally clicked into place.
“Equip the gear you craft on your own thralls… that's clever. Ridiculously efficient! You don't need feedback from anyone else! And the chance of getting betrayed by someone you armed drops to zero!”
Hairun was genuinely impressed.
“Khhh. Incredible. Truly incredible.”
Jinwoo casually wiped under his nose with a fingertip.
He gets it, of course.
Hairun, of all people, would understand. He had just been attacked by the Agent Guild. One wrong step and he might have spent the rest of his life as a slave forging gear for someone else. From Hairun's perspective, Jinwoo's method was nothing short of salvation.
“The thralls wearing the gear fight for you themselves…!”
There was no fear of being used and discarded.
Hairun stepped closer to the thralls.
“Insane—this is insane! You made this out of Orihalcon? And this… what is this? Wait—World Tree…?”
“Yes, that's right.”
“Hahahaha—! Ripping the elves' treasure right out of their hands! When does that ever happen! They never give that stuff to outsiders!”
Looking at fine equipment was always a pleasure.
“So that's why. That's why you asked if bone could be carved!”
“Yes. I wanted to learn.”
“Hmmm. Then I'll look into that separately. There's bound to be someone among Iron Helm's blacksmiths who can teach it.”
Hairun rolled his shoulders.
“In that case, I don't have much more to teach you. I can still give you feedback on Deep Smithing, though.”
Jinwoo took up his hammer.
Materials I could never work before. With this flame, I can use all of them.
He could finally handle materials that had been beyond him. Jinwoo laid them out on the workbench.
◈ Sky Stone — [SSR+]
◈ Basago's Essence — [SSR+]
◈ Basago's Bone — [SSR+]
The time had finally come to put those SSR+-grade materials—ones he had never been able to use properly—to real work.
“Those materials…”
Hairun's eyes went wide for a moment.
“I couldn't work them because of the flame.”
Jinwoo settled on what he would make first.
“I've already made enough weapons.”
He had given First and Pur two powerful weapons between them. As a result, their combat had been relentlessly offense-oriented.
I'll make armor.
Dark Knight King. For a class of that standing, he deserved at least one suit of armor worthy of the name.
Whoooosh—!
Jinwoo fed the Sky Stone into the fire. With his previous heat, even melting it properly had been a struggle. But the moment it entered Hairun's forge—
“It's melting.”
Jinwoo smiled.
As expected. Dragon's Flame.
Heat fierce enough to dissolve even that stubborn Sky Stone with ease. Only now could he truly work it.
Whoooosh—!
He waited until the intense heat had turned the Sky Stone a deep, glowing red.
Now!
He pulled it out at the exact right moment.
“Hah.”
The Sky Stone had gone red to perfection. Jinwoo lifted his hammer.
Fire Build.
Flame wrapped the head of his hammer.
“Oh!”
When Jinwoo drew the Sky Stone free, Hairun watched with open astonishment.
“That material—isn't that Sky Stone! Hah, that stuff is notoriously difficult to work. Even with Fire Build, it doesn't come easily…”
“It's fine. I've handled it before.”
“…You've handled it before?”
Hairun looked thoroughly baffled.
“Didn't you say your heat was insufficient? That Sky Stone… shouldn't melt under anything less than serious firepower.”
“Yes. Even so, I managed.”
Jinwoo brought the hammer down.
Clang—!
The Sky Stone deformed under the blow.
“!”
Hairun had never seen Jinwoo hammer in earnest. When Jinwoo had worked Droizen Steel, he had held back his strength—and the metal had reshaped so quickly he had barely swung a few times. Watching a true, full-force strike now, Hairun couldn't stop himself from marveling.
“Of course you could handle it… with that!”
Hammer work of that caliber would have let him shape the material even with inadequate heat. Pure physical ability alone.
“You took something that shouldn't have been workable and forced it with nothing but those strikes.”
Clang—! Clang—!
And now proper heat and Fire Build were stacked on top of that.
“To think Sky Stone would yield this easily!”
Hairun had worked Sky Stone himself. Having powerful heat was not enough to make it easy—it was only the starting line. Standing at that starting line, he had pounded day and night for three full days just to fashion a single light bow from Sky Stone.
And yet Jinwoo was treating this same material as if it were Droizen Steel.
Clang—!
Easily.
Clang—!
Almost casually, the Sky Stone reshaped under Jinwoo's hammer. Hairun found his gaze stolen by that flawless rhythm. If there were a textbook for hammer work, Jinwoo's strikes right now would be the illustration. Determined not to forget a single detail, Hairun watched without so much as blinking.
Clang—!
Sky Stone has a natural buoyancy as its base property.
He already understood its traits thoroughly.
Perfect for an orb.
But as armor, that buoyancy became a problem. It would lose weight and could drop in defensive power. Sky Stone alone could not make a proper suit of armor.
But if I use bone as the frame…
And not just any bone—the bones of Basago, the Incarnation of Evil, to pin the weight down.
Basago's Bone.
Build the base from SSR+-grade bone, then layer Sky Stone over it. And he planned to cut and set Basago's Essence into the center.
That way I can keep the strengths of both materials.
And, more than anything, it would look magnificent. Combine the unique color of Sky Stone with the heavy presence of Basago's bone to create a skull armor.
He's already a skeleton.
Putting a skull over a skull.
Good on top of good.
Clang—!
Jinwoo sank into full focus. Hairun stopped speaking entirely.
Spell Imbuement — Grutem
The power of a defense-raising spell began to layer over itself. At the same time, Jinwoo poured Hepales Smithing into the work without limit. The root of Hepales Smithing had always been extreme defensive power.
Hepales remade this technique for Extreme Defense. That's the core of Hepales Smithing.
So when forging armor, the true value of Hepales Smithing finally showed itself.
Clang—!
Extreme Defense.
Jinwoo imagined it—the overwhelming attacks that would come for First, and First standing firm against every one of them.
Clang—!
That wish sank into the Sky Stone.
Shhk—.
It sank into Basago's Bone.
“Kyeng—.”
“Pyororong—!”
At some point Coco and Dust had been summoned, and they poured their strength into the three materials.
Shaaaa—.
When Jinwoo stretched out his hand, souls were drawn from all three materials at once.
Deep Smithing proficiency has increased!
He purified the extracted souls.
Materials purified!
Extreme defensive power—and over that, once more, he inscribed the spell of defense.
Hairun watched the fierce power pouring from Jinwoo. Harder. Stronger!
And then, for a moment, Jinwoo's hammer stopped.
More precisely—it did not stop. It restrained itself.
He could have struck with even more intensity, even more force. Instead he delivered only the exact amount of power the Sky Stone needed right then. That beauty of control entranced Hairun completely.
Ding—!
◈ You have crafted UR-grade equipment!
The Great God of the Dwarves congratulates you on your feat!
Quest updated!
Level increased!
Craftsmanship stat increased!
Focus stat increased!
Hepales Smithing proficiency increased!
Hepales Smithing level increased!