UR Grade at Level 211
Suomi Monitoring Room.
GM Kim Nayoon sat grinning as she watched MeTube. The moment Jinwoo's video hit the JBS channel, it detonated—explosive viewership, a full-blown frenzy.
10.32 million views
"It's a one-hour-forty-minute video, and it's already past ten million!"
Sitting at number one on the trending list only kept the exposure snowballing. Across every community board, users were losing their minds over Jinwoo's tower clear.
"They're all stunned he was crafting inside the tower."
For Kim Nayoon—who already knew Jinwoo was Jin—it wasn't all that shocking. For everyone else, it was pure jaw-dropping insanity.
"How far is this going to go? Twenty-four hours aren't even up yet. Is this thing about to break the internet?"
What made her invest even harder in the video's success was simple: her own voice was on it.
The comments were full of praise for Kim Nayoon. Refresh. Refresh again.
"They noticed."
Kim Nayoon smirked. Her narration was packed to the brim with fan devotion. "In person, he's on a whole other level."
On top of that, she still carried every scrap of intel on Jin from the Eternal Sunshine days—and she had put all of it to work narrating Jinwoo's crafting.
She hit play one more time, just to bump the view count by one. On screen, Jinwoo was extraordinary.
"Seeing it firsthand… he really does look even more like a monster."
New Generation was a game that let you move almost exactly like reality. Eternal Sunshine, by contrast, had been full of constraints.
"His movements back then were probably stiff and choppy as hell." And with that choppy movement, he had forged gear that insane? "He was already the best even then."
Kim Nayoon scrolled through every achievement Jinwoo had piled up since. "This isn't overkill. This is just inevitable." A craftsman like that stepping into the free-moving world of New Generation simply meant his real talent finally had room to breathe.
Then—
[Notification]
[Notification]
Urgent alert messages stacked in.
"Oh! Looks like he did something in the capital?"
Jinwoo had already unlocked the Success achievement before. The capital was loaded with milestones, and Kim Nayoon was intensely curious.
"Capital blacksmiths are famous for being stiff-necked. Did he snag an achievement off them?"
She opened the alerts—and froze on the spot.
Achievement [Unique] Hall of Fame score updated to a number once believed utterly unreachable.
"Two hundred eleven?"
The level was so absurd it left her speechless. Two-eleven. For an ordinary crafter, that was the level where you had just scraped into S-grade—or, if you were fast, maybe SS-grade. And he had just hit UR.
"I thought… he might at least slow down."
Slow down? He had detonated and rocketed skyward. And there was another Logical message attached.
"Whoa."
Kim Nayoon checked the [Unique] Hall of Fame rankings.
"More than an eighty-point gap?"
Overwhelming. Simply, crushingly overwhelming.
"He's UR right now…"
Anyone looking at the existing scores could see it: the higher the grade, the tighter the gaps between competitors usually became.
"He's rocketing alone."
And Jinwoo's momentum showed no sign of stopping. Not even a hitch. It felt like he still had a long road ahead of him.
"Logical looks completely rattled."
How many times had he already blown past Logical's predictions?
"Jinwoo's shackles are off, Logical."
Who could possibly stop a free Jinwoo now?
"No one can dismiss him as a latecomer anymore. He's UR."
A natural disaster had just made landfall on the crafting ecosystem that had taken a full year to build.
"From here on is the domain of the Corrupted Dragon."
Barren land. The stench of sulfur and the lava-choked heat of Iron Helm made this place feel alien even by those standards. The ground shuddered without pause, and the surrounding volcanoes seethed and boiled.
Worse than I expected.
"It's gotten even worse. At this rate, Iron Helm is going to be swallowed whole."
Jinwoo nodded at Hairun's words. "I'll handle it and come back."
First. Pur. Mortus. And then Pin—Jinwoo summoned them all.
"So you had more retainers still…"
"Please head somewhere safe."
Hairun looked at him. "I'll wait and trust you. Don't you dare die. Absolutely not."
Jinwoo left Hairun behind and stepped into the wasteland.
You have entered the Wasteland.
Corrupted energy weakens your body.
You have been afflicted by Shadow Wing's Curse.
The instant they crossed the threshold, the master of this dead land—the Corrupted Dragon, Shadow Wing—laid a curse that sapped Jinwoo's entire legion.
"Appreciate the welcome."
Every curse became a buff.
"Not bad hospitality. This place either."
Jinwoo mounted Pin and shot forward. Mortus flew on streams of dark energy. First summoned a skeletal steed and charged. Only Pur ran on two legs.
"I will grow even stronger…!"
Jinwoo's legion tore through the wasteland at full speed. But it wasn't long before a pack of monsters appeared.
A glint—
"Huh?"
He had planned to ignore them and push on. Monsters were monsters, but with the whole region one eruption away from catastrophe, the Corrupted Dragon came first. What snagged his eye, though, was a mass that gleamed pure black.
"…A golem?"
Not just any golem.
"Obsidian golems…!"
He could not simply walk past that gorgeous obsidian. Leaving it behind would be professional malpractice as a craftsman.
"Hmm. Looks like dwarf work."
Guardian golems forged long ago, now twisted by the Corrupted Dragon's power in the wasteland. Jinwoo lightly gripped Pin's shoulder. The bird, racing at full tilt, responded instantly—slowing, then descending gently to the ground.
"No choice. You thought the same and stopped too, right, Pin?"
"Pin—?"
"Yeah, yeah. We can't just leave something like that. We've got to clean it all out."
Jinwoo grinned. "Leave that behind and you'll get punished."
He hopped down from Pin and snapped his fingers.
"Domain Declaration."
Domain Declaration
Darkness flooded outward in a dense tide. This was no longer the wasteland. This was the land of the Necromayster—Jinwoo's land.
"Your. Orders."
"Please issue your command!"
"Pin—!"
Jinwoo pointed at the obsidian golems. "You know the drill. Damage them as little as possible."
Then he said, "Hunt."
First moved first. Where the Orichalcum Lightblade had once been the star, the Sky Stone Basago Armor now stole the show. First dropped into the cluster of golems in a blink and waited for their attacks to come.
"Do. Not. Damage."
Top priority: keep the obsidian intact. So he took the golems' crushing blows head-on, without flinching.
The corrupted obsidian golems hit hard—hard enough that Mortus nearly panicked for a second. Dark emission swept the dust and smoke of their strikes away.
"Are you all ri—"
Mortus stopped mid-sentence. There was no need to ask.
"I. Am. Fine."
Clad in Sky Stone Basago Armor, First took essentially zero damage. Even against the golems' tremendous force, his defense simply outclassed them.
"Not bad at all."
Watching from the rear, Jinwoo smirked.
The golems wound up for another barrage. First still didn't dodge. He shifted his stance instead, inviting the hits so they could strike him cleaner. Techniques hammered down—and First did not so much as sway.
The golems made a strange sound, rattled by how wrong this all was. The moment one tried to open distance—
"You. Cannot. Flee."
Their turn now. The Orichalcum Lightblade slid home with surgical precision into a joint. Light died in the golem's eyes, and it crashed down.
As First opened the assault, Mortus followed. Dark energy lanced out in needle-sharp spikes, designed to leave the obsidian untouched. Only the golem itself needed killing. Pin raked with steel wings held vertical, striking joints alone.
Obsidian golems toppled helplessly one after another.
"Pin!"
Pin scooped up the byproduct and darted to Jinwoo, offering the stone.
"Oh. It shines even more up close. Even prettier."
While the three retainers finished the remaining golems and gathered obsidian—
"I—I haven't arrived yet! My apologies!"
Pur skidded in late, hands flailing in panic. Blue light blazed in his eyes the moment he entered the Domain. Running the whole way had left him behind; even strong as he was, the three retainers after their upgrades were simply that fast.
"I'll be right there!"
"It's already over."
Pur's face crumpled.