Digging Through the Junk (1)

Even though it was only the first day of the semester, the Magic Engineering Workshop was already bustling with activity.

Just as combat-track students staked everything on their PvP assessment results and high conquest-battle scores, the production-track students threw themselves into crafting the finest items they could. Well-made pieces were featured in the academy catalog to earn their creators points, and some were even sold outside Dragon Slayer Academy. It was how they made up, with tangible results, for the practical evaluation points their lacking combat power cost them.

No wonder they were out for blood from day one, desperate to produce one more item—any item.

There was more than one workshop, and Workshop 1, used by the club's first-string members, had the finest facilities—and therefore the most users. Merely approaching it, you were assailed by the droning whine of machinery until your ears ached, while blue light flashed from every corner, nearly blinding you.

The higher the number on a workshop's door, on the other hand, the humbler the facilities—and the thinner the crowd. By the time I drew near Workshop 4, the noise had all but faded into stillness.

The door to Workshop 4 stood half open. From within came the faint whir of machinery and a ripple of mana. Peeking through the gap, I saw a student with his back to me, absorbed in tinkering with something. He held a different tool in each hand, and all ten of his fingers glowed a translucent blue.

Proof that his Magic Engineering skill was active.

Knock, knock.

I raised a hand and knocked. Loud enough to break his concentration, but pitched just soft enough not to be too irritating.

"Who is it?"

Still seated, the student twisted only his upper body toward the door, and his eyes met mine. I bowed first—anyone lingering in a place like this at this hour was a hundred percent a senior. A quick check of his tie pin confirmed it: third year.

"Hello, senior."

"New student?"

"Yes."

"Here to join the magic engineering club?"

"I'm interested."

It sounded like the same answer, but it wasn't. I was interested—just had no intention of joining.

Whether the third-year failed to catch the difference or noticed and simply couldn't be bothered, he plainly just wanted to get back to work.

"Then go look around Workshop 1. Why come all the way out here?"

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

I put on my most troubled expression.

"Actually, that's where I went first, but the seniors told me to look around Workshop 4 first and come back..."

"Ah... seriously."

The third-year's face crumpled in every direction at once. Who would be pleased to learn a chore had been dumped on him? And since it had been passed down from the first-string, he couldn't exactly refuse.

For the record, I had never once set foot in Workshop 1—but without a lie like this, he seemed likely to brush me off entirely, so the bluff was unavoidable.

Wearing the guileless face of someone who knew nothing, I asked,

"Would it be alright if I looked around?"

"...Take a quick look and go. I'm busy, so don't get in my way."

"Thank you! I'll be very quiet."

"..."

He flapped a hand at me and returned to his work. The tools whirred back to life, and his fingers turned blue once more.

Watching him sidelong, I gauged the level of his Magic Engineering.

B-Rank, by the look of it.

Even a faded lion is still a lion—shoved into the corner of Workshop 4 though he was, he was still a third-year at Dragon Slayer Academy. His signature skill had reached at least B-Rank.

He was the first target I had come here for.

Had he been below B-Rank, I would have had to trudge back to Workshop 1 and copy a skill separately, but thanks to this senior's unexpectedly high achievement, I was spared the second trip.

Now for the next target.

Playing the part of a freshman who had genuinely come to tour the workshop, I made a show of eagerly inspecting one corner after another—firing off "Wow! What's this?" and "That's amazing!" on endless repeat.

After a full circuit, I arrived at a mountain of junk piled high with items of unknown origin. There was so much of it that the heap rose to shoulder height.

Feigning wide, sparkling eyes, I asked,

"Senior, what's all this?"

"Just a bunch of failures."

Items abandoned mid-craft for every reason under the sun—a part broken during production, a result judged inferior to the draft, materials running short—were all piled up here. Workshop 4, in other words, doubled as a garbage dump.

I let my curiosity show, plain as day.

"Wow, there seems to be all sorts in there. Mind if I dig through it?"

"Do whatever you like."

Permission granted. It carried the flavor of a man whose irritation had blown past every limit and was simply letting words spill out—but permission was permission.

I began dismantling the mountain of junk. Armful by armful, I scooped the scraps off the top, stacked them to the side, and kept burrowing deeper. By the time several small mountains had risen around me, something caught in my hand.

Found it.

A cube a touch smaller than a soccer ball. Look closer, though, and it was in fact a fusion of countless fingernail-sized cubes.

This was a Cube—one of the methods by which magic engineering items were crafted. Each tiny cube was etched with intricate magic circuits, and arranging them in their proper positions completed the item. A kind of three-dimensional blueprint, in other words.

Ordinarily, though, cubes mostly used 3x3x3 blueprints of twenty-seven pieces, or 4x4x4 of sixty-four. The one in my hand was 10x10x10.

A full thousand tiny cubes. Which meant this was a blueprint of such extreme grade that even master craftsmen of genuine renown wouldn't have dared attempt it.

The moment the cube touched my hand, a quest window popped up.

This was the start of a long, long chain quest. Sprinting here and there to investigate the blueprint, seeking counsel from seniors, instructors, and alumni, gathering craftsmen to join the build, diving into dungeon after dungeon for materials as routinely as eating meals, hunting down boss monsters for rare components... And at the end of that long campaign, the finished product:

The S-Rank item, the Life Cube.

An immensely powerful item, known among players simply as the "LifeCube."

Yeah, no thanks.

The problem was that the moment I accepted, I would be shackled to this quest alone for at least a year.

I declined the quest on the spot and stowed the cube away. My goal was the blueprint and nothing more.

I carried the cube over to the third-year, who had just managed to refocus on his work.

"Um, senior? I found this thing over there..."

"...?"

The senior, on the verge of blowing up at yet another interruption, caught sight of the cube in my hand. But his manner remained languid—he apparently assumed it was just the sort of thing you'd find in a junk pile.

"It's a blueprint, huh. What is it?"

"Isn't 10x10x10 something incredible? A legendary item?"

"It's only a legendary item once it's finished. That thing is just garbage. We can barely complete a 6x6x6, and some greed-drunk fool went and started this?"

And he was right—a blueprint that would never be completed was nothing but trash. Hence the way he eyed it like a worn-out shoe.

I kept up my act as a freshman burning with scholarly zeal.

"This looks so fascinating, though. Could I take it and pick it apart?"

"Take it if you want—it'll never be finished. If it could be, we'd have built it already."

"Even if I can't finish it, I'd like to study it. I sort of have a hobby of collecting things like this..."

The senior opened his mouth to say something along the lines of No way, kid!—then shut it again. Because of the item I had produced from my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠inventory at precisely the right moment.

The Heat Catalyst Reagent, purchased for 1,000 points. To anyone who lived and breathed magic engineering, no quantity of it was ever enough.

"Of course, just taking it for free would leave me feeling guilty—downright shameless, really. So I thought I'd offer this in return. Would that work?"

"..."

The senior's eyes wavered. His mind was no doubt spinning at full throttle by now.

The Heat Catalyst Reagent cost 1,000 points—what you'd earn from clearing a low-grade dungeon once or twice. But viewed from another angle, taking this reagent off my hands meant one or two fewer dungeon dives. It meant saving the time, the effort, the stress those runs would cost—and pouring all of it into magic engineering instead.

On the other pan of the scale sat a single piece of junk with no connection to him whatsoever. The fact that it was a high-grade cube blueprint gave him slight pause, but no one was going to complete it anyway, were they? Trash that, even if it vanished from this room, no one would ever search for or spare a thought.

A thousand points' worth of materials that would help him right now, versus one piece of garbage. A question with the answer already written.

The senior slowly reached out and took the Heat Catalyst Reagent.

"...Just this once, I'll make an exception. Normally nobody gets to walk off with things like this."

"Thank you, senior!"

"Don't breathe a word of this to anyone. It stays between us. If the club president finds out, he'll snatch it right back, you know?"

"Of course."

However much this junk amounted to trash, only the club president held the authority to hand it over to outsiders. And since he was passing it to me just to save a few points, he would naturally want it kept quiet.

I nodded along to his repeated admonitions.

"Well then, I'll be heading out. Thank you."

"Right, go on."

I bowed with impeccable courtesy one last time and slipped out, pulling the door of Workshop 4 shut behind me. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠From beyond it drifted a triumphant "Yes! A thousand points, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the bank!"

He had just sold a heap of garbage to some greenhorn freshman like a conman hawking river water—no wonder he was delighted.

But...

Was it really just garbage?

The first reason I had declined the cube's chain quest was that it devoured far too much time. It would be no exaggeration to call the first year the most critical period for laying a foundation, and burying myself in that quest would mean missing the chance to obtain far more important hidden pieces. My own growth would slow to a crawl, and I would be short on time to look after Go Hyeon-woo and Seo Ye-in.

And the second reason...

I was far too much of a veteran to need any chain quest.

Because I already know how to make it.

[22] The Support Ate It All