Bearer of the Great Dwarf God's Quest
You are the quest bearer of the Great Dwarf God!
The quest has been updated!
The first floor of the tower.
True to its name, the Tower of Sulfur and the Furnace was a place choked with searing heat.
The tower's aura envelops you!
The heat makes it difficult to breathe properly.
You take damage from the heat.
The blast of heat that hit the moment he stepped inside made it clear no one could last long here.
A natural time limit, then.
As the heat damage stacked higher and higher, the tower might as well have come with a brutally tight timer built in.
"Clearing this place is going to be a real pain," Jinwoo clicked his tongue. "For anyone but me, that is."
Effect activated!
The fierce heat pouring off the tower was, for Jinwoo, something he could endure. On top of that, the Dragonstone Chain Scythe had pushed his vitality to an impressively high level.
And even if my HP starts dropping, I've got the Light Nature Rune.
Besides, Jinwoo was a man who lived closer to fire than anyone else.
"What kind of blacksmith gets scared of a little fire? If anything, this is perfect."
Fwoooosh—!
Heat rising from the floor. Flames billowing up here and there like smoke. In a place like this, forging would only be more fun.
Jinwoo took a careful look around the first floor.
"Before I even think about clearing the tower…"
The real priority was the quest the Great Dwarf God had given him.
I've got a spare hammer, sure…
But he wanted to use the Great Dwarf God's hammer.
They say a true craftsman never blames his tools…
But a great tool lets you make great gear.
No reason to settle for a lesser hammer if I don't have to.
Hawk's Eye
Towers were always riddled with mechanisms.
This one even more so, no doubt.
"The first floor is fused with a temple."
Through Hawk's Eye, the truth of the place became clear. This tower was built nothing like the two he had already cleared.
"The structure's bizarre."
It wasn't a normal tower layout at all. Sacred energy hung thick in places throughout.
"And it's not just ordinary sacred energy, either."
There was something cloying about it. Sticky.
"What do you all think?"
Jinwoo asked his thralls.
"This section is different."
"This.part.is.different.as.well."
His thralls had tower experience of their own, and they began chattering eagerly about what set the Tower of Sulfur and the Furnace apart.
"It.is.sacred."
First felt it most clearly of all.
Definitely.
Tower and temple fused into something deeply unnatural. In some stretches the sacred atmosphere of a temple prevailed; in others, dark energy lay thickly exposed.
Shaaaaa—.
"There are even places where sacred power and dark energy have completely merged."
Some sections kept the two forces separate. Others had blended them together.
Jinwoo studied those merged zones carefully.
"That's strange."
Very strange.
"They should be exploding."
Opposing energies never mixed. Under normal conditions, this state shouldn't even be possible. The moment they touched, they should have detonated.
"It doesn't feel like anyone's controlling them, either."
There was no presence actively managing the opposing forces. Sacred power and dark energy simply flowed… and yet they held a strange equilibrium.
No—more than equilibrium.
Balancing them is something I can do myself.
Jinwoo had done that plenty of times. Ice-Flame Refining Technique was built on precisely that principle—using opposing energies in careful balance to draw out the strengths of each attribute.
"They're mixed together naturally."
Beyond mere balance. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for them to blend.
Jinwoo kept watching the flowing power. Something stirred in the back of his mind—knowledge he needed. The Ice-Flame Refining Technique he had just learned felt exactly like this, and the limits of the techniques he already possessed sat right on this same fault line.
Merging opposing energies is hard.
It demanded control, and even then he had never felt he was using it to its full potential.
I only ever left it at the level of 'possible.'
Now it felt as though the thread that would unravel that limit was right in front of him.
"Hmm."
He almost had it—and yet the clue slipped through his fingers.
BOOM—!
A thunderous crash erupted from deeper inside.
"Kiiiiiieeek—!"
A giant flame bat wreathed in fire appeared. Not one.
Dozens.
Dozens of giant flame bats burst into view—and the ground shook almost at once.
"Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tskkk."
Something raced across the floor toward Jinwoo and his thralls with a grotesque scraping sound. Massive bodies. Skin that looked half-melted. Furnace lizards.
And behind them—
"So. We have guests."
A giant rose through coils of smoke.
You have encountered the Charcoal Giant, guardian of the Tower of Sulfur and the Furnace!
The power of the swallowed temple has been twisted!
The fusion with the temple. That was why a mid-boss monster had appeared on the very first floor.
"Interesting."
The first monsters I meet are a mid-boss pack?
Jinwoo eyed the three types. Under ordinary circumstances this would have been a disaster. Running into a mid-boss before you even understood a tower's difficulty was the definition of a death sentence.
Jinwoo, however, was delighted.
"I've never seen any of them before."
All three were completely new. New monsters meant new materials.
"And they look damn strong."
Shaaaaaaa—!
The Charcoal Giant leading the bats and lizards was every bit as massive as a mid-boss should be. Of course, Jinwoo had a thrall of his own with a colossal frame.
Bon.
That enormous bulk was larger still than the so-called giant standing before them.
The Charcoal Giant looked their way and tightened its grip on a massive saw-toothed greatsword.
"Oh."
Jinwoo eyed the rough-edged blade and allowed himself a faint smile.
"That looks fun."
Making a crude greatsword of that style had its own pleasures. Sometimes you deliberately forged the edge that way; other times you ruined a clean edge on purpose.
Less about cutting. More about tearing.
The Charcoal Giant and dozens of monsters waited. Jinwoo's thralls waited for orders. Jinwoo lifted his scythe and stepped forward at an unhurried pace.
He had no intention of using his thralls this time.
Time to see if it suits me…
And whether he had forged it well.
"You all sit this one out."
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—.
Dozens of monsters came at him from the air and from the ground. Jinwoo spun the scythe and walked calmly into them.
He was wearing ordinary armor. True, he had a UR-grade ring and necklace, but if those monsters truly committed to killing him, they could manage it.
Jinwoo felt no hesitation.
"I just have to dodge everything."
His focus was locked entirely on the Dragonstone Chain Scythe. This was the perfect chance to put it through its paces. The idea of taking a hit never even entered his mind as a possibility.
Swoooooosh—!
Still spinning the scythe, Jinwoo whirled in a full circle. The giant flame bats diving at him were cut cleanly in half in an instant. Dozens of them, harvested in a single stroke.
"Works great for drive hunting, too."
Jinwoo was thoroughly satisfied with the Dragonstone Chain Scythe's power. The chain's range attacks, in particular, had a versatility he hadn't fully anticipated.
"The attack power is higher than the Orichalcum Light Sword, sure—but the feel of it is even better than the numbers suggest."
The Orichalcum Light Sword was SSR+. The gap between that and UR+ was starkly clear.
"And it's not the level or stats carrying me."
Jinwoo was still only in the 200s. His Strength and Dexterity were abnormally high, but not high enough to one-shot tower monsters on their own. That monstrous power was coming entirely from the Dragonstone Chain Scythe.
He reeled the chain scythe back in a flash. The furnace lizards were already in close range.
"Kieeeeeek!"
As a furnace lizard charged, Jinwoo activated a skill.
"Crystal Barrier."
He raised his ring, and a barrier formed.
Shaaaaaaa—!
THUD—!
The glittering crystal barrier stopped the furnace lizard's charge cold.
"Kiek."
The lizard staggered to a halt, then lashed out with a tongue coated in flame.
Snap—!
Dozens of furnace lizards whipped their tongues like lashes, and cracks began to spider across the crystal barrier.
"I figured it'd shatter."
That it had only cracked under the assault of dozens of furnace lizards was more than he expected.
"Nice."
At this point, calling it a mere accessory felt wrong.
"This is straight-up armor."
The furnace lizards whipped their whip-like tongues again and shattered the crystal barrier completely.
Crystal Barrier has been destroyed!
I've still got one more barrier.
The Dragon Tooth Necklace held Dragon Shield—but Jinwoo didn't use it.
No need right now.
The instant the barrier broke, he stepped forward. The first exchange had been ranged. Now it was time to test close combat.
Swoosh—!
This time he gripped the scythe's haft and brought it straight down. The lead furnace lizard was cleaved in half in a heartbeat.
"Oh."
The power of Dragonstone was no joke.
"You're not weaklings, are you?"
Not a single monster in the Tower of the Avatar of Evil had been weak so far. Jinwoo checked the materials from the furnace lizard he had just killed.
"SSR-grade?"
The grade alone proved how strong they were.
"Dragon Swarm."
Crackle—.
Red lightning flared outward and punched through every furnace lizard at once.
"K-kiiiieek……."
The charging lizards seized up mid-lunge. The Charcoal Giant watching from the rear flinched and bellowed.
"That power…! You're of the Dragonkin!"
The Charcoal Giant advanced on Jinwoo with menace, but Jinwoo methodically finished off the furnace lizards still paralyzed by Dragon Swarm first.
"So the Dragonkin still live. Good. Very good. I will offer you to the Great One and become His right hand! Kekekeke."
"There's a race called the Dragonkin?"
"Don't play dumb. That power just now is the power of the Dragonkin! You're no dragon, so a human who wields a dragon's strength must be Dragonkin."
That race exists here?
It definitely hadn't existed in Eternal Sunshine.
"Do any of the Dragonkin happen to have excellent craftsmanship?"
"They are masters of every form of magic. I've heard there are craftsmen among them who specialize in enchantment… Wait—no."
The Charcoal Giant suddenly stamped its foot hard.
"Wretch. You tried to beguile me with Dragon Tongue!"
"Impressive. You broke free of that."
"Kekeke. The power of fire burns all things."
Thanks for the useful information.
The Charcoal Giant stepped forward. Heat poured off its massive frame, threatening to melt everything around it.
"You gave me good intel," Jinwoo said, driving hard off the ground, "so I'll turn you into good gear."
His elevated Strength stat made a world of difference in how he moved.
CRACK—!
Crafting meant complete control over every ounce of force in the body.
Whether it's the hands…
Or the feet. It didn't matter. When it came to controlling power, Jinwoo was free.
In a blink he was right in front of the Charcoal Giant, every scrap of strength concentrated into his arm.
Just once.
To the absolute limit.
How far would UR-grade equipment carry him in the Tower of the Avatar of Evil?
And beyond that—
I'm just curious.
Purely, simply curious how strong it really was. Base attack power of 14,500, plus the mountain of special offensive options stacked on top of it.
Swoosh—.
Jinwoo carved a diagonal line across the Charcoal Giant.
"With that tiny little scythe—"
This was a different class of foe from giant flame bats and furnace lizards. The Charcoal Giant sneered and took the blow head-on.
Shhk—.
The Charcoal Giant's body began to tip.
Fatal Strike!
The tower's mid-boss, the Charcoal Giant, dropped below ten percent health in an instant.
"Guhhk…! Kuh…!"
The Charcoal Giant staggered back in shock. The catastrophic damage to its torso left it barely able to move. But then smoke rose from every inch of its body, and its health began recovering at high speed.
"Solid healing. Drawing recovery from the tower's heat, are you?"
Jinwoo walked slowly toward the retreating giant.
The Charcoal Giant couldn't believe it.
"How… how…"
That much power should never have come from such a small scythe. Backing away, the Charcoal Giant stared at Jinwoo.
Jinwoo looked exactly like the reaper of death itself—scythe in hand, come to claim a life. The Charcoal Giant's legs gave out and it sat hard on the ground.
"Thanks. That told me everything I needed to know."
Jinwoo slowly spun the scythe.
Whoosh—. Whoosh—. Whoosh—.
Every time the blade tore the air, the Charcoal Giant's body shook.
"So this is what UR+ feels like."
Thwick—!
Jinwoo flung the chain scythe with perfect precision.
Thunk—!
The blade buried itself dead-center in the giant's torso.
Shaaaaaaa—.
The Charcoal Giant's body crumbled where it stood.
◈ You have slain the Charcoal Giant!
Jinwoo checked the materials from the fallen Charcoal Giant.
"Huh?"
And there it was.
Something burning.