Damn Necromancer - Chapter 47

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Prodigal Necromancer (47)
Sadoryeon
‘The room is spacious and grand.’
The furnishings carry an air of antiquity.
One glance told him the room’s owner must hold considerable rank.
But there was another peculiarity: wine bottles lay scattered across the floor in profusion.
He turned to face the mirror.
His appearance hadn’t changed at all.
The skills and attributes in his Status Window remained the same.
‘Hmm…….’
First, he needed to assess the situation. After Ha-yang gestured for him to hide and watch, Kim Min-woo called out toward the door.
Kim Min-woo called out toward the door.
“Is anyone there?”
“Oh my! Young Master, are you awake?”
The door slid open to reveal someone with the unmistakable bearing of a servant, who bowed deeply in greeting.
“I shall bring your breakfast at once——”
“Never mind that. Close the door and come here.”
“Y-yes, sir……?”
“Quickly!”
With eyes blazing, Kim Min-woo spoke, and the servant rushed to shut the door and hurried over.
“O-oh, Fourth Young Master. W-what is the matter, sir?”
Fourth Young Master.
So he definitely held a position of high rank.
“Your name.”
“……It’s Jang Sam, sir! Jang Sam! Haven’t I been at your side for almost a year now? How could you not remember my name…….”
“My memory is hazy.”
“……Sir?”
“I drank far too much yesterday, I think.”
At this, Jang Sam tilted his head in confusion.
Soon after, catching sight of the wine bottles littering the corner of the room, he nodded with a look of reluctant understanding.
“Tell me what you know about my situation and this place. Even a simple overview would do.”
“Well…… to put it simply…… this place is Sadoryeon.”
[Keyword ‘Sadoryeon’ acquired.]
Jang Sam continued his explanation.
Sadoryeon.
A coalition of heterodox sects.
The Fourth Young Master, Baek So-cheon, was supposedly the illegitimate son of someone called the Sadoryeon Master.
“The Master had been searching for you constantly, and found you exactly one year ago. After that, you were brought here to Sadoryeon.”
“If I suddenly came rolling in like that, my situation probably isn’t very favorable, is it?”
“Well…… that is……”
“Speak honestly.”
“Since you arrived, you haven’t shown much of anything. Well, there is one thing……”
“And what would that be? Drinking wine?”
A nod.
Jang Sam nodded in affirmation.
“Yes. Your martial prowess has hardly advanced, and…… well, seeing you idle away for a whole year like this, everyone’s just accepted it by now.”
So incompetent that the others don’t even bother watching him closely—is that it?
That might not be so bad.
“Jang Sam.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“You said this place is a heterodox sect.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Then, would anyone bat an eye at raising corpses?”
“Corpses? Ah, you mean Corpse Reanimation or Spirit Summoning?”
“Something like that.”
“Of course not? The Orthodox Faction might raise a fuss, but we in the heterodox sects think nothing of such arts. Even the Demonic Cult would tolerate it.”
His profession in this world was Necromancer.
In a wuxia setting, one could be marked for death simply for summoning skeletons, and there’d be nothing strange about it.
‘Is that why I was placed among the heterodox sects from the start?’
At least there was that small mercy.
If the Demonic Cult had treated it the same way, all Skeleton Summoning would’ve been sealed.
Let me think through this clearly.
I’d become a young master of considerable rank in the Demonic Cult.
My name was Baek So-cheon, but it felt like wearing someone else’s skin over my own.
‘Well, that happens often enough in Gates.’
I let it slide.
Either way.
From what I could tell, I was being treated as a worthless fool.
‘So what now?’
What exactly did I need to do to clear this Gate?
I called to mind the Gate’s name.
‘B+, War of the Stars.’
It seemed like the kind of thing that made the top talents clash with each other.
Fight the other four young masters and raise my rank?
Gain recognition as a successor?
There might be another clear condition I didn’t know about yet.
“Jang Sam.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Has anything significant happened lately?”
“……Significant, sir?”
“Yes. Tell me anything that comes to mind.”
“In that case…… it would be the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly?”
[Keyword acquired: Dragon-Phoenix Assembly!]
“The Dragon-Phoenix Assembly?”
“Yes. Rising talents from all three factions gather and compete. It’s held once every hundred years.”
Interesting.
This looked promising.
“What defines ‘rising talent’?”
“The Demonic Cult, Murim League, and our Sadoryeon each designate ten. That’s how you get officially recognized as a rising talent.”
“I’m not one of them, am I?”
“……Of course not?”
“How do I become one?”
“You’d have to prove yourself somehow.”
Ah.
I was starting to see the shape of this.
Just then.
Jang Sam asked carefully.
“Surely you’re not planning to participate in the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly, Young Master?”
“Why not?”
“Well, it’s not impossible, but…… being nominated might be quite difficult right now, don’t you think?”
“Why’s that?”
Jang Sam scratched his head and explained.
“You see…… Sadoryeon operates on a Point System.”
“Points?”
“Yes. Sadoryeon distributes Mission Tablets. Completing one raises your points. They’ve been doing this for a year already.”
“So plenty of people must’ve racked up points by now.”
“……Indeed. The First Young Master has already surpassed ten thousand points and holds the undisputed first place.”
“How many do I have?”
“……Zero, naturally?”
This was ridiculous.
“What’s the tenth-ranked person at?”
“The Fourth Young Master holds tenth place with three thousand eight hundred points.”
“That so?”
“Yes. Everyone’s been working on missions with fierce determination since a year ago. Catching up to that would seem…… well, impossible.”
Jang Sam watched my expression carefully and spoke with hesitation. I nodded.
‘Well, something like this has to measure up to B+ difficulty.’
This was a Gate more challenging than defeating the Sadoryeon Master himself. I’d never expected an easy difficulty.
Of course, even if I didn’t pursue this Dragon-Phoenix Assembly thing, there would still be a way to escape.
The Middle Ground existed as a magical exit hatch.
‘But……’
There’s no reason not to participate in the tournament.
If I were the type to give up so easily, I wouldn’t have attempted a clear run in the first place.
‘Right. The Dorim Guild’s been hiding all their information.’
He recalled what the guild master had said.
Right after the clear.
They’d explained that this place was related to martial arts.
‘But they never went into specifics like this.’
The Dragon-Phoenix Assembly?
He’d never even mentioned the Dragon-Phoenix by name—just taken on guild missions related to martial factions and worked through clears with the other members without details. That’s all he’d ever said about it.
There was no way he could’ve obtained a ring of that caliber from something so trivial.
‘He definitely would have participated.’
He suspected that ring was a reward for achieving some meaningful result in the tournament.
“Just to clarify something.”
“Yes?”
“If I beat the Fourth Young Master, do I get points? That sort of thing?”
“…Yes?”
“So if I prove I’m stronger than whoever’s been racking up points, can I just take all their points at once?”
“Ah, no? If that were the case, there’d be no point in accumulating points at all…?”
“That’s nonsense.”
“…Young Master. I, Jang Sam, speak with sincere devotion. But this level of self-awareness…”
“Stop. Don’t go on.”
“…Yes.”
Jang Sam’s face fell immediately. Kim Min-woo didn’t care.
“So, I doubt a tournament of that scale would be held bare-handed. What are the prizes?”
“Third place receives rare materials. Second place receives rare martial arts. And first place receives…”
Jang Sam’s eyes sharpened at once.
“First place?”
“…I’ve only heard this through rumor, but they say it grants Ascension. Something that serves as a clue to Ascension.”
“…Ascension?”
Kim Min-woo’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He’d heard that word before.
When he’d entered the Gate teeming with orcs.
―Squeak! You stupid fools! How could you forget the name of that person who underwent the Ascension Ritual!
It was something the sorcerer Bekthar had said. He’d claimed that after Mutak-ta ascended to the heavens, the entire orc kingdom had collapsed.
The name was the same.
There was a very high probability of some connection.
“Ascension—does that mean something like achieving Immortal Ascension?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself. But one thing all martial artists know for certain.”
“What’s that?”
“Whoever obtains the clue to Ascension has always risen to the rank of Supreme Under Heaven. That’s why it’s called the object that summons the Bloodshed Catastrophe…”
“…The Bloodshed Catastrophe?”
“The Dragon-Phoenix Assembly becomes truly itself when it ends. That’s when a war of blood begins. The reason is simple: the clue to Ascension. Who in this world wouldn’t covet such a thing?”
“Wait a moment.”
He raised his hand.
“Go ahead, Young Master.”
“If it’s such a precious object, why would the Three Factions offer it as a reward? Who’s actually giving it?”
“Heaven bestows it.”
“And the Three Factions hold the tournament to obtain it?”
“Yes. If they don’t hold the tournament, there’s no reward to be had.”
His eyes creased.
This seemed far more complicated than he’d anticipated.
“If such a precious object exists, wouldn’t even a master like the Sadoryeon Master covet it?”
“Of course, Young Master. The rising talents who participate in the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly aren’t going there to obtain the clue to Ascension.”
“Then why?”
“To present the reward to those above and, in return, to gain many things.”
“…Do the second and third place winners also offer up their rewards?”
“No. They don’t desire it to that extent. Only the clue to Ascension is coveted like that. But it’s no hardship—when you present the clue to those above, each faction bestows rewards worth more than second and third place combined.”
I see.
So first place means your prize gets taken no matter what.
“Then the First Young Master would have to surrender his reward too, if he happened to take first?”
“Yes. The Sadoryeon Master has likely finished his discussion with you. The same applies to the Young Masters. If you place within the top ten and are permitted to participate…… the Sadoryeon Master will make you a proposal.”
The structure was quite fascinating.
“Right. Setting that aside for now—so if someone takes first place, that’s when all three factions go to war, isn’t it?”
“That’s likely what will happen this time as well.”
“……How does anyone survive?”
“Hah. You needn’t worry about that too much.”
“If our faction wins, the Orthodox Faction and Demonic Cult will gang up on us. How am I supposed to not worry?”
“In any case, all three factions are prepared to absorb that level of casualties when holding the tournament. Besides, first place isn’t actually a target.”
“Because they hand the rewards up the chain?”
“Precisely. So it’s far more common for people to rush after the second and third place prizes. You won’t find many madmen foolish enough to target the Sadoryeon Master, the Murim League Master, or the Heavenly Demon.”
“Do we know anything about what the Clue to Ascension actually looks like?”
“Rumor has it that it resembles a round orb. About this size?”
“I see.”
He had a rough grasp of it now.
One thing was certain: the Dorim Guild Master hadn’t taken first place.
He could be sure of that.
If he had claimed first, it had to be one of two things: he’d surrendered the Clue to Ascension, or he’d fled the Gate without giving it up.
‘Neither makes sense.’
If he’d run off without handing it over?
The Clue to Ascension, or whatever it was.
With something that people claimed could decide the title of Supreme Under Heaven, there’s no way the future Dorim Guild Master would have been this weak.
If he’d surrendered it?
He would have received many rewards in return. Yet the Dorim Guild Master’s skill was pathetic by comparison.
‘He didn’t even display any remarkable martial arts.’
Not the first place prize, the Clue to Ascension.
Not the second place prize, martial arts manuals.
‘So he obtained Ring materials from the third place prize?’
The impression was that he’d acquired rare materials and somehow managed to craft the Ring.
‘If merely third place yields that much…….’
Second and first place hardly bore mentioning.
They had to be extraordinary rewards.
‘The Clue—I’m taking it for myself.’
Hand over such a precious treasure to those above?
That algorithm didn’t exist in Kim Min-woo’s mind.
Good things had to be monopolized.
Unconditionally.
‘First…….’
Securing participation eligibility was the top priority. He’d need to find out exactly what that mission entailed.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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