Dismantling the Junk (1)

Students spent their points, first and foremost, on replays of other students' matches. Next came support tools for the conquest battles, and finally, entry to restricted training zones like the Special Meditation Rooms.

Normally, splitting points among just those three uses left almost nothing to spare, so there was no room to cast an eye anywhere else. But with enough points, the range of items purchasable from the student shop expanded dramatically. Weapons were naturally included in that.

Go Hyeon-woo checked the back of his student ID and answered. "I've scraped together about five thousand points."

"That's plenty."

He had poured every last point into the Special Meditation Room until I got him the Season Pass, and even so he'd already saved up that much again. Starting the conquest battle as its top scorer had earned him a fair measure of name recognition, and his overall skill had gone beyond merely promising and was closing in on the very top. There were probably a good number of people faithfully watching his replays.

Anyway, how best to put these five thousand points to use? It was true I'd brought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the subject up with weapons in mind, but there was something more important.

"First, let's buy three [Thermal Catalyst Reagents]."

At a thousand points apiece, that came to three thousand in total.

As the one footing the bill, Go Hyeon-woo naturally had questions. "And what might these be used for?"

"Crafting materials."

To be more precise, materials that went into magic engineering. Two of the reagents would go toward the items Go Hyeon-woo would need going forward,

"and the third is my crafting fee." I declared it without a shred of shame.

Even I had to keep myself fed, after all.

Hearing me out to the very end, Go Hyeon-woo handed over the three thousand points without a moment's hesitation. Passing the items into my hands, he asked in return,

"Is this enough for your fee? It seems far too little beside your efforts, Brother Kim."

Objectively speaking, a thousand points was practically a handout compared to the value of the item I'd be making him. To Go Hyeon-woo, who clearly wanted to give more, I shook my head.

"Later. I'm in no hurry."

He was the one who needed to solve the problems staring him in the face. His budget had also been slashed from five thousand to two thousand, leaving him strapped. For my part, rather than indulging petty greed now, it paid better to demand a larger cut of the dungeon rewards later.

I swiftly combed through the catalog and picked out an E-Rank and a D-Rank one-handed sword, one apiece.

"With what's left, you can buy this one and this one."

"Understood."

If you were choosing with durability front and center, nothing beat this 'Escort Agency series.' The fact that they handled much like his old F-Rank iron sword was another point in their favor.

Perhaps because of that, a few test swings through empty air seemed to be all the adjusting Go Hyeon-woo needed. "Not bad at all."

"Test them one at a time, starting with the E-Rank. Let's see how long they hold up."

"As it happens, two PvP matches remain to me."

Beyond the two he'd fought alongside me today, he needed two more random-queue matches to fill out this week's quota. He looked ready to grab a match on the spot, so I held him back.

"No. Let's call it here for today. You've overdone it."

"I can still fight."

"I don't doubt you can. But what if Jang Sam comes up as your opponent again?"

"……!"

And it wasn't only Jang Sam—the odds of drawing other rising-star-tier opponents were hardly small either. Even fighting at his absolute best, victory would be hard to bank on; in his present state, defeat was a foregone conclusion.

Go Hyeon-woo seemed to arrive at the same realization, and gave a small cough. "Ahem... I suppose the longing to try my new swords put me a little beside myself."

"The PvP matches won't come any too soon tomorrow. Today, devote yourself to nothing but recovery."

"Understood. That does seem the wiser course."

We settled his schedule: finish his treatment at the Infirmary, then hone his Core in the Special Meditation Room. With Go Hyeon-woo sent on his way, I pulled back up the notification that had arrived a little earlier.

Thanks to a spotless four-match winning streak, my reward was a C-Rank accessory selection ticket. I'd settled on my choice long before, so the picking took barely a few seconds.

A thin metal bracelet scattering a black luster—an item fashioned from high-purity Black Mithril worked into a band. Its performance, 'extremely high mana conductivity,' was the sort of thing that could sound vague depending on the ear. Worn on the wrist, its modest effects aided [Core] cultivation or hastened mana recovery.

But that mana conductivity was the very reason I'd set aside every other C-Grade bracelet and chosen this one. A small thing today—yet before long, it would return benefits worth well more than C-Grade.

I strapped on the Black Mithril Band. Next order of business: putting those three thousand points' worth of materials to use. I set my steps toward the Magic Engineering Workshop.

President Bong Jaeseok had already granted me leave to use Workshop 1, but at this hour its quota would be filled to bursting, without so much as a crack of floor to stand on. And since he'd used his authority as president to make an exception for me alone, I'd have to keep half an eye on the other members. The right move was to wait until around midnight, when things grew comparatively quiet. Of course, frittering away the hours until then went against my nature, so I intended to have every bit of groundwork finished beforehand.

In Workshop 4.

Workshop 4, whether on my first day there, a few days ago, or today, had not changed in the slightest. Inside, as ever, there was but one person: the third-year senior with whom I'd traded for the 10x10x10 cube blueprint.

"……."

Feeling my presence, he paused his work for a moment and looked back over his shoulder. He said nothing, but his expression was a close cousin to You again?

Doing my duty as the junior, I dipped my head first. "Good day to you, senior."

"Er, yeah. Hello."

He answered lukewarm as dishwater and returned to his task, laying the concentration on thick—as if begging me to lose interest in him. He'd taken his lumps from Bong Jaeseok over the cube blueprint, after all, so facing me was presumably a mite uncomfortable.

I, for my part, was not built to fret over such things. So long as I achieved the purpose that had brought me to Workshop 4, nothing else mattered.

First, the copy.

I sent [Great Palm Imprint] on its way, the skill that had served me briefly and to great effect. Melee attack skills were plentiful if you went looking; I could simply acquire a new one down the road.

Next, I drew near the mountain of junk stacked in one corner. By Bong Jaeseok's word, so long as I drew up and submitted the diagrams afterward, I was welcome to dig through it and use whatever I liked. A few more hidden pieces did lie buried within, but nothing as grand as the [Life Cube] remained. Forcing further excavation would yield too little to bother with.

The reason I was rifling through the junk now was another matter entirely. I need materials.

What I'd received from Go Hyeon-woo was an exceedingly small portion. To be exact, only the parts that 'required points' had been settled. Truthfully, hoping a perfectly sound item would spring fully formed from a single catalyst was greed, plainly. Naturally, more materials had to be gathered. And for the moment, this was the only place to obtain them without paying any real price.

The items composing this junk mountain were, for the most part, failures abandoned mid-craft for one reason or another. Put the other way around, the portions that had been 'in the making' were sounder than one might expect. And if those sound portions were dismantled with skill, the materials could be brought back to life.

The Magic Engineering Club knew this fact as well as anyone. Then why did this junk pile do nothing but grow with each passing day? Because the work of dismantling was tremendously laborious, that was why.

It began with determining just what item this half-baked hunk of machinery had once belonged to, what materials had gone into it, and at which stage the work had been cut short. Then one had to compose the fitting magic engineering formula anew and take the thing apart step by careful step, as if unwinding a tangled skein. At that point, you were better off simply sourcing fresh materials.

Of course, that wasn't true for me.

For someone who had rattled the [Life Cube] to completion in mere days, this didn't even rank as drudgery. To my eyes, the place looked carpeted with materials.

I plucked out only the useful bits, gathered them, and carried the lot to the workbench. The moment I cast Magic Engineering, my hands drank in a faint blue light. In that state, I worked the tools atop the bench and took the failures apart one by one. This was hardly my first or second go at such work, and my hands knew no hesitation. To any bystander, it would have looked as though I were sloppily waving the tools about while items detached themselves of their own accord.

On one side I sorted and stacked the perfectly good materials; on the opposite side, the garbage that could never be recycled. The more the work repeated, the more the junk dwindled, and the taller my twin mountains grew.

"……."

In the midst of it all, I felt eyes on my back. It took no guessing—the third-year senior was stealing glances my way. Before he was my somewhat awkward acquaintance, he was, first and foremost, a magic engineer. He would surely have heard tell that I'd completed the 10x10x10 cube. The rumor had stayed contained only because I ran my business underwater and at lightning speed; to a magic engineer, the crafting of the [Life Cube] was a feat worthy of the word legendary. And now the author of that legend was busily kneading junk again—curiosity had no choice but to stir. What magnificent thing is he making this time?

For a spell he seemed to hold back for the sake of a senior's dignity, but at last, unable to master his curiosity, he drifted casually closer. Whether he'd caught some warning from Bong Jaeseok or not, his manner of putting questions to me was exceedingly delicate.

"So, um... what are you making?"

"Dismantling. I'm after a few materials."

"That tiresome chore?"

"Tiresome or not, some things simply must be done."

Of course, for all my words, it wasn't tiresome in the least. With work, the greater the yield against the effort, the higher the spirits rise. Everything I touched spat out an item—this much toil was nothing.

"Mind if I have a look?"

"Yes, by all means."

He sought my leave before inspecting the materials. Well, the man wasn't entirely without grace. In truth, I could have swept it all straight into my inventory; the piling-up out in the open had been quite deliberately for display.

He picked the materials apart this way and that, then let slip a gasp ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of admiration.

"You dismantled these, and the materials came out this clean? They're practically brand-new!"

Between being crafted and then taken apart, these materials had been subjected to magic engineering twice over; some small damage would have been only natural. Yet scarcely a defect could be found in them. They were pristine enough to carry straight into the crafting of other items without suffering any penalty to performance. The skill bore the dignity of an old master who had raised S-Rank magic engineers by the dozen, and so the dismantling done by my own two hands was perfection itself.

"……."

The senior kept darting me envious looks. The materials spread before his eyes made his mouth water, but following my example and dismantling junk himself was beyond his daring. He knew that at his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own level of skill it would take an age, and that the odds of damaging the materials mid-job ran high. For him, there was nothing for it but to watch, smacking his lips.

The mood seems about ripe.

I had shown off the clean materials on purpose, and reaped my harvest of envy. Time, then, to move to the next stage. Still manipulating the magic engineering tools, I opened the subject as if it were nothing.

"Senior, would you care to trade for a few of these materials?"

"These here?"

"Yes. I'll rate them cheap for you."

"Suits me fine."

The senior lit up at my offer. He'd been eyeing the fine-looking materials, and here I was opening a barter at a bargain—there was no reason on earth to decline.

"What is it you need, exactly?"

"A [Cooler], a [Central Axis], some [High-Tensile Wire], and..."

As I recited the list of items I needed, the senior handed over what he could part with and gathered up a few of the materials ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the table. Tallying up everything now in my possession: One down.

The first of the three items I meant to craft in the Magic Engineering Workshop. Every material for Go Hyeon-woo's item was now assembled. The pieces that cost points had come from Go Hyeon-woo, a share had been covered by dismantling the junk, and the last few holes had been plugged by my trade with the senior. All that remained was to carry it over and craft the thing around the time Workshop 1 freed up.

"Hey, but about this... Bong Jaeseok won't have anything to say about it, will he?"

His glee at landing materials so easily lasted but a moment before an anxious cast crept over him. Having a precedent of being chewed out by Bong Jaeseok, he seemed to fret it might happen twice.

"We got permission for all of it. There'll be no problem."

"Hmmm... even so, I feel uneasy all the same."

"We're not committing any crime here, are we? If you're that uneasy, why not simply get permission for this too, right now?"

"...You think so? Then I'll send him a message?"

On the spot, the senior fired a message off to Bong Jaeseok, briefly condensing everything that had just occurred. And before long—

— BANG!

Bong Jaeseok came charging through the door of Workshop 4.