I Became an SSS-Grade Time-Transcending Almighty Blacksmith - Chapter 101

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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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Chapter 101
Chapter 101
The Thousand-Jin Stone is hard.
Too heavy to use as equipment—but if you could bear the weight alone, it would be harder than any ore Toran had ever brought.
And Kim Tae-san’s armor would be no exception.
Clang!
I decided to craft it from Thousand-Jin Stone.
Kim Tae-san could wear armor made from Thousand-Jin Stone no matter how heavy it got.
And armor made that way would be extraordinarily durable.
The displayed Defense Power would be the same, but that’s merely a system metric.
It really represents the ratio.
So its actual efficiency would be tremendous.
Clang!
But as I said, the difficulty of shaping Thousand-Jin Stone exceeded imagination.
Still, I swung the hammer with all my effort.
[ Crafting has been completed. ]
[ Crafting Evaluation: S ]
[ You have obtained ‘Cheon-geun Helmet’. ]
I finished the helmet first.
Regrettably it’s only S-grade, but that’s enough.
[ Cheon-geun Helmet ]
Type: Helmet
Grade: S
Requirements: Level 30 or higher, Strength 300 or higher, Steel Guild affiliation
Description: A helmet forged from the legendary Thousand-Jin Stone, known to weigh a thousand jin despite its small size.
Defense Power: 175
Abilities: Weight Enhancement Lv 3, Fortitude Lv 2, Defense Lv 1, Resistance Lv 1
Since it was made from Thousand-Jin Stone, the item naturally gained the Weight Enhancement property.
Still, I found it a bit wasteful.
Weapons can convert weight into attack power.
But armor can’t do that.
However, there’s always a way.
I proceeded as planned.
[ Crafting has been completed. ]
[ Crafting Evaluation: S ]
[ You have obtained ‘Cheon-geun Armor’. ]
[ You have obtained ‘Cheon-geun Gauntlets’. ]
……
I had crafted armor for every part of the body.
Then the set effect came to mind.
[ You have created the Cheon-geun Armor Set. ]
[ A set effect has been applied to the Cheon-geun Armor Set. ]
[ Set Effect ]
1. Defense Power increases proportionally to the weight of equipped gear.
I could be satisfied with that.
Everything was going according to plan.
Using Thousand-Jin Stone naturally meant the Weight Enhancement ability would emerge.
I had thought it would be good to leverage that weight through a set effect.
And now the perfect set effect had materialized.
However.
‘Not yet.’
It wasn’t finished.
I asked Toran for more Thousand-Jin Stone.
Since no one had been mining it due to how difficult Thousand-Jin Stone was to use, I’d been able to get a large quantity from the start.
Still, Thousand-Jin Stone was one of the rarer minerals.
Its supply was inherently limited.
We exhausted all the ore veins Toran had scouted beforehand, but the yield was meager.
It didn’t matter though.
What I planned to make this time would require proportionally fewer materials than weapons or armor.
[ Crafting has begun. ]
Clang!
The moment the materials were ready, he swung the hammer.
Until now, he’d focused on shaping the Thousand-Jin Stone by stretching and folding it.
But now his attention shifted to compression.
It wasn’t easy, of course.
The Thousand-Jin Stone itself was a mineral of tremendous density.
To compress it further and increase that density was another matter entirely.
Clang!
Still, he didn’t mind.
With each swing of the hammer, he could feel the Thousand-Jin Stone compressing—minutely, but perceptibly.
The progress was subtle.
And it took considerable time.
Yet the Thousand-Jin Stone was undeniably being compressed.
And from that compressed stone, he shaped—
[ Cheon-geun Necklace ]
Form: Necklace
Grade: S
Restriction: Steel Guild Members Only
Description: A necklace crafted from the renowned Thousand-Jin Stone, which bears a weight of a thousand pounds despite its small size.
Ability: Weight Enhancement Lv 2
He had created the necklace.
Next, he crafted bracelets and rings in the same manner.
He used only Thousand-Jin Stone.
The compression alone demanded considerable skill, and the resulting pieces were rough-hewn in appearance.
But the outcome—
[ You have created the Cheon-geun Force Set. ]
[ Set Effect has been applied to the Cheon-geun Force Set. ]
[ Set Effect ]
1. Strength, Dexterity, and Health increase in proportion to the weight of equipped gear.
The set effect he’d envisioned had manifested.
Every piece was exactly as he’d conceived it.
And the set effect itself.
As satisfying a creation as this was—
[ From Jang Gang-cheol. ]
He sent it directly to Kim Tae-san.
Not long after—
Lee Seo-yun sent him a video of Kim Tae-san’s latest Gate clear.
At first, it had been a Gate below Kim Tae-san’s level.
Not anymore.
Now he was tackling Gates well above his own tier.
The sight of Kim Tae-san entering such a place—
“That’s impressive.”
It was a figure who lived up to the name Colossus.
Clad in heavy armor forged from Thousand-Jin Stone, not a scrap of bare skin was visible.
And in Kim Tae-san’s grip was a staff so thick it might as well have been a pillar.
All of it items he had crafted.
A surge of pride washed over him at the sight.
Kim Tae-san, outfitted like that, stepped into the Gate.
Boom—!!
And the Gate began to crumble.
This wasn’t exaggeration—it was literally collapsing.
The walls of the labyrinth-type Gate couldn’t withstand the weight of the Thousand-Jin Pillar and came apart.
The monsters that charged forward couldn’t endure it either and burst apart under that weight.
Yet through it all, his movements didn’t seem sluggish.
The equipment forged from Thousand-Jin Stone was extraordinarily heavy.
But Kim Tae-san’s unique ability rendered that weight completely irrelevant.
And then—
– Shriek!
Evading Kim Tae-san’s line of sight—
Monsters clinging to the ceiling launched a surprise attack.
It was certainly a powerful ambush.
Ting!
— What the…?
The monsters’ assault proved useless.
Full body armor, packed with not a single gap in sight.
With no apparent vital points to target, they couldn’t decide where to strike.
So they simply attacked the helmet.
But the claws that struck it bounced back pathetically.
No — pathetic barely described it.
The claws shattered.
— Kyaaaagh!
As the creature shrieked in agony,
Crack.
a colossal pillar came down and crushed it flat.
The boss fight was no different.
Kim Tae-san charged the boss monster, relying entirely on his armor’s defensive power.
He blocked its attacks with his body, held firm, and swung that enormous pillar again and again.
The boss monster couldn’t endure it.
— Gwaaaaah…
Thud.
It fell.
Truly overwhelming force.
I found myself thinking once more that taking Kim Tae-san as my first guild member had been the right call.
“Who should I recruit as the next guild member to complement him well?”
I pondered the question of my next recruit.
* * *
The guild founded by Kang Cheol-mangchi.
The Steel Guild.
Word that the Steel Guild was recruiting its first member became quite famous, and numerous Awakeners applied.
So many awaited the results with great anticipation.
[ Steel Guild’s First Member ]
The Steel Guild, founded by Kang Cheol-mangchi, has selected its first member.
An Awakener named Kim Tae-san, apparently.
— Who’s that?
— Never heard of him.
— Didn’t some pretty well-known rankers apply? Why’d he pick some nobody?
— What are the criteria?
— So who even is Kim Tae-san?
It was unexpected.
Everyone had assumed that a strong, famous Awakener would be chosen, given how many had applied.
But the name that came back was someone almost nobody knew.
Yet shortly after,
— Steel Guild channel is up
— Is it fake?
— Seems legit though
— For real?
the Steel Guild opened its channel.
The first video posted there was of the guild’s first member.
Kim Tae-san clearing a Gate.
It looked like a promotional video for the guild.
But then—
— What is that equipment?
— That’s intense lol
— Looks more like a monster than an Awakener
— Seriously lol looks like some Stone-armored Colossus monster or something lol
— It’s Stone-armored, not iron-armored lol
His appearance alone was striking.
Full body armor that covered him completely without a trace of skin showing.
But given the sheer size and thickness of it all, to any observer he truly looked like a Stone-armored Colossus.
— Can that thing even move?
– Just looking at it, you can tell it’s heavy lol
– It’s all bluster lol
Most of those watching this video were Awakeners.
As such, they knew.
How impossibly heavy that equipment must be.
You could tell just by looking.
No matter how much you invested in Strength, you couldn’t walk around in gear like that.
Even if your Strength was strong enough to move in it, fighting in such equipment would be impossible.
And yet.
The protagonist in the video.
Kim Tae-san, dressed in that gear,
Thud, thud, thud—
began advancing forward with steady steps.
As if proving its weight, each footfall thundered against the ground.
That alone was remarkable.
But what truly shocked the viewers came next—his weapon.
– Is that a weapon?
– Insane
– What’s that, a staff lol
– This is serious
– Is he actually able to use that?
– Maybe it just looks heavy but it’s actually styrofoam? Even if Awakeners are strong, that seems impossible.
A staff.
Or rather, something that looked more like a pillar than a staff.
As Kim Tae-san advanced, wielding that absurdly heavy-looking weapon,
his basic information came into view.
[ First Guild Member of Steel Guild ]
Name: Kim Tae-san
Level: 30
The viewers received another shock.
– Level 30?
Level 30.
His Strength wouldn’t be that high, then.
How could an Awakener at that level possibly wear such heavy equipment?
Even a Level 100 Awakener would struggle to equip something like that.
And there was one more thing.
– Wait, isn’t that where Stone Bears spawn?
– Yeah, definitely a Stone Bear hunting ground
– Stone Bears are places where Awakeners Level 30 and up need to form full parties
– Solo runs are hard even at Level 40
– He came here alone?
The Gate that Kim Tae-san was challenging far exceeded the level of difficulty appropriate for someone at his revealed tier.
To enter a place like that alone without forming a party—
it was madness.
That’s what they thought.
“ROOOAAARRR!”
The first monster appeared.
A creature with a body hard as stone, parts of it literally covered in stone hide.
The moment the Stone Bear emerged,
Crack!
The Stone Bear, struck by Kim Tae-san’s weapon, didn’t even have time to cry out before it was sent flying into the distance.
The result was instant death.
Its stone hide was completely shattered, and blood streaming from its mouth made it clear the internal damage was catastrophic.
Witnessing this,
– ……?
– Insane
– What just happened?
– Did a Stone Bear just get sent flying in one hit……?
– Isn’t a Stone Bear supposed to have incredibly high Defense?
– He killed it in a single strike?
– This makes no sense;
The viewers were stunned.
Any Awakener who knew Stone Bears would understand.
Just how powerful a monster Stone Bears were.
For a level 30 Awakener to fell one in a single blow was, no matter how you looked at it, utterly impossible.
And then, the Stone Bears that appeared next.
Bang, bang, crash!!
They were struck by Kim Tae-san’s weapon and sent flying.
Crushed.
Flattened.
The chat froze for a moment — every viewer was in shock.
And shortly after.
“Roooooaaarrr!”
The boss monster appeared.
A bear whose body looked hard as steel instead of stone.
This time too, without hesitation.
Crash!!
Kim Tae-san swung his weapon.
An enormous impact.
But then again, a boss monster is a boss monster.
It endured the attacks somehow and struck back at Kim Tae-san.
Thud!
– He can tank that?
– Wait, that was a boss monster attack?
– Even a shield warrior at level 30 couldn’t endure the Iron-Armored Bear’s attacks;
– How does someone have attack power that high AND defense power that high……?
– That’s broken, absolutely broken;
Kim Tae-san endured the boss monster’s attacks.
Crash!!
He swung his weapon again and attacked the boss monster.
Fighting solo, the battle was fierce enough.
But in the end, the boss monster couldn’t withstand Kim Tae-san’s strikes.
Whimper—
Its steel-hard hide crumpled grotesquely, and it collapsed, unable to hold on any longer.
Seeing this.
– Insane!!!
– What a legend lol
– Where has this rookie been hiding all this time!!!?
– Stone-armored Colossus, Kim Tae-san!
– Kim Tae-san! Kim Tae-san! Kim Tae-san! Kim Tae-san!
– That’s a tank right there lol
– Too cool
– Yeah, that’s it! That’s what we needed!
The viewers erupted in admiration.
The sight of him doggedly pressing forward, smashing every monster that lunged at him, filled those watching with a thrilling exhilaration.
From that single video alone, Kim Tae-san was gaining an enormous following.
Moreover.
Most of them knew.
– Kang Cheol-mangchi is crazy;
– Kang Cheol-mangchi’s name is no joke
– Just King God Hammer
– What are you talking about, King God General Emperor Majesty Gorgeous Precious Beautiful High Class Elegant Luxury Classic Genius Wonderful Lovely World Top Class Hammer.
– Is this the power of Kang Cheol-mangchi’s exclusive equipment……?
– I want to join the Steel Guild too!!!
– So jealous ㅠㅠㅠ
– Just a King Maker
– Kang Cheol-mangchi isn’t called King Maker for nothing
– So if someone gets chosen by Kang Cheol-mangchi, they automatically become a king, right?
– Steel Guild, joining for sure!
– No cutting in line! Get in queue!
– Kang Cheol-mangchi picks people like you? Haha, seriously, could you please pick me too
The footage now visible on screen.
The fact that Kim Tae-san’s combat video was none other than Kang Cheol-mangchi’s handiwork.

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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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