I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 31

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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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31
Clang-clang-clang!
The moment his blade met mine—not the same technique, not the same move as before, but a new one against my unpredictable counter.
As his sword came down at my neck with lethal intent, I crossed Night Serenade against it and twisted.
He knew this move well enough.
But what came next was different.
Rather than simply parrying and sliding the blade aside, Night Serenade’s crimson edge slithered up along his sword like a serpent.
He panicked and tried to wrench his blade free, but it was already too late.
“Not so fast!”
In the instant his sword grazed my ear by a hair’s breadth, the fangs of the scarlet viper aimed straight at his heart.
Crack—!
The moment the venomous fang pierced through his armor, both he and I went perfectly still, as though we’d made a pact.
He understood, just as I had.
The tide of our long blood feud had turned.
“Ban… jin… gun…?”
“Didn’t want to die together, so I tried a little variation. Not bad, right?”
“Brilliant… sword. Superb….”
A moment ago he was just a mindless beast, and now he offers praise as he dies.
“But… why…?”
It was my swordsmanship, yet why was his execution more perfect?
Why could someone who’d only watched for a few minutes come away sharper than the original—than me?
“There’s an old saying: the student surpasses the master.”
It wasn’t meant as contempt.
I hadn’t just copied the form—I’d grasped the underlying principle and applied it in new ways.
“A… mon… ster….”
“Monster? How rude. There’s a better word for it. ‘Genius,’ for instance.”
“Gen… ius…?”
“Yes.”
Strange, speaking it aloud from my own mouth.
But I won’t deny it.
Since entering the tower, I’ve come to understand.
This is no mere trick or technique.
“Gen… ius….”
His crimson eyes dimmed slowly, like a dying flame.
As I shifted my grip to finish it—
“Car… dia.”
He whispered it in a voice grown fainter still.
“…What?”
“Car… dia… sword… art.”
A name for the technique, suddenly spoken here.
I understood at once.
What he meant.
‘So even if I stole the technique, at least let me know its name.’
Is this what knights are like?
Either way, I owed him a debt.
I decided to grant him this last wish.
“Yes, I’ll remember—Cardia.”
Only then did his crimson gaze scatter soundlessly into the void. Completely.
I could have sworn he smiled at the end, but perhaps it was just my imagination.
Click.
I sheathed Night Serenade and offered a farewell.
“Thank you for the lesson, teacher.”
To my first sword instructor.
* * *
Messages floated into view.
[Objective Complete: You have defeated ‘Living Armor Cryx.’]
[Mission Updated.]
[Final Objective: Defeat ‘False King Goldin.’]
Ah, finally. Time for that annoying one.
“Well, the knight is done for. Now only the king remains?”
“Screech, screech! Shriek!”
The moment I glanced toward the Jade Throne, the creature trembled like an aspen leaf and scurried behind it.
Earlier, when it had something to rely on, it wouldn’t budge an inch—now it was desperate enough to squeeze through a mouse hole.
“Sigh…”
It thought it was hiding, but the edge of its cloak jutting out from behind the throne was almost comical.
The intelligence of a snot-nosed child playing hide-and-seek, thinking that if it couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see it either.
“…so this is what a Floor 10 Trial looks like.”
I had no idea what connection led Cryx to serve this thing, but I genuinely felt sorry for him.
‘My master at least had some style to him.’
Thump, thump.
“Found you.”
It ended in just a few steps.
This pathetic game of hide-and-seek with neither the will to hide nor the will to seek.
It must have felt me approaching, yet it couldn’t even run—just stood there with its head buried, trembling.
I drew my blade without emotion.
“Over.”
Rasp.
The severed head rolled cleanly across the floor and came to rest against my feet with a soft thud.
[You have defeated ‘Pretender Goldin’.]
[You have completed the special quest, ‘Trial of the Throne’.]
The hardest Trial since Floor 3.
Thank goodness I survived it somehow.
“Phew… it’s over.”
After a brutal battle, finally came the sweet hour of reward.
‘I wonder what they’ll give me this time.’
I’d hoped for something special, not just the usual things.
Floor 10 should count for something, shouldn’t it?
‘That’s just my wishful thinking, though. The Tower doesn’t care about my circumstances…’
The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.
Just as I tried to empty my mind, a shadow beneath my feet began to writhe.
Slither.
‘Oh, this pattern…!’
A shadow writhing in all directions, its tendrils stretching toward a single point.
Just like when I obtained Super Regeneration on Floor 5.
“Yes! This is it.”
I turned my gaze eagerly, following the black tendrils on the floor.
“Huh?”
Something about the direction seemed off.
“…wait, this is right? This one?”
Not Cryx, whom I’d fought so fiercely against, but the corpse of Goldin lying beneath the golden Jade Throne—that’s what the shadow was pointing to.
The result was different from what I’d expected.
“Shadow, think about this carefully. Look at it—there’s nothing to eat here. You sure? No regrets? Is this really it?”
I tried persuading the shadow somehow, though I doubted it would work, but it was useless.
Despite being my shadow, it ignored me entirely and lunged to devour Goldin’s shadow.
“Stubborn thing. So Cryx was just a preliminary objective, and this one was the real target…”
Well, what can I do?
Might as well let it have this much.
“Fine, fine. Eat up, eat.”
Crunch! Crunch-crunch!
There it was—faced with prime beef, my voracious shadow devoured inferior scraps without hesitation.
I never raised it to be this way, yet its taste in food was remarkably cheap.
“This never gets old.”
Before my gluttonous shadow, Goldin’s essence vanished like a single meal consumed.
Once the shadowless corpse was left alone, a welcome black message window appeared.
[Shadow Consumption Complete.]
[Essence Available for Consumption]
▶ Essence of Deception
“…well, that’s it?”
I never expected there’d be only one choice.
Though, honestly, it suited him well.
There stood the creature, a wretch no better than a Floor 1 goblin grunt, yet adorned with a Cloak and Golden Crown, playing at kingship.
“Right. Something’s better than nothing. The man deserves no pity either way.”
I took the one reward without hesitation.
“Why ask? There’s only one. Give me the Essence of Deception.”
[Absorption complete.]
[You have acquired a new skill through an unknown pathway. You permanently obtain ‘Persona (B)’.]
“Hm?”
B-rank? A B-rank skill?
That thing—Goldin—had actually given me a B-rank skill.
I immediately checked the effect of the newly acquired skill, caught off guard by the result.
[Persona (B): Overlay a mask to disguise yourself. You can manipulate your own information and layer false data atop it.]
※ Higher-tier detection skills may see through the disguise.
※ All applicable camouflage and concealment effects are slightly enhanced.
Now it made sense.
“So that’s how a creature with nothing managed to hold the Jade Throne on Floor 10.”
I’d wondered how it kept Cryx—that fearsome monster—as its subordinate and pulled off the entire charade. It must have borrowed the power of this skill.
“…This is good.”
Better than I expected.
My combat power was worthless, yes—but this skill was exactly what I needed.
The ability to steal someone else’s skill by merely brushing past their shadow once.
If anyone found out about that, I’d become a public enemy overnight.
But with this skill…?
‘I could become anything.’
No more just claiming to be a fresh-faced healer and hiding my status window—I could make my status window actually *display* that way.
With this power, that troublesome Awakened One registration would be a breeze.
Once I registered myself as an Awakened One, the annoying complications would dissolve.
No one would ever look at a healer who only had ‘Healing Touch’ and think they were hiding some grand power.
“This is the real deal.”
Goldin—I’d expected nothing from that creature, yet at the very end, it left me an extraordinary gift.
“You little bastard. I owe you one.”
I was about to pat the severed head in gratitude, but the image seemed too grotesque, so I let it be.
“Right. Consider that not gratitude—that’s a teabag.”
Results beyond my hopes.
Pleased, I skimmed over the remaining rewards and was turning to leave when—
Whirrrrr—!
“Hm?”
My inventory suddenly began vibrating like it had gone mad.
“What now?”
I hurriedly opened my inventory, and a bundle of black papers came bursting out in a rustling cascade.
“Oh—!”
They were the Mysterious Black Pages—the ones that had appeared steadily as rewards ever since the Trial began.
“…Oh! Finally?”
[All scattered pages have gathered together.]
I didn’t know what they were, but since they came as rewards, I’d been keeping them with a vague sense that “someday they’ll be useful.” Now, at last, they were about to reveal their purpose.
Whoooosh!
Nine black pages suspended in the air began swirling violently, sticking to each other, overlapping, merging—
Snap.
—and in an instant, they collapsed into a single thin book with an antique black leather cover, which tumbled softly into my hands.
[Your unique ability ‘Shadow Mimic’ is being strengthened.]
[A sub-trait of your unique ability, ‘Shadow Library’, is now unlocked.]
“…Library? Not ‘shelf’?”
It amused me that a mere single book was presuming to call itself a library, but there was no question that this was no ordinary object.
“Let’s see what this is.”
Driven by curiosity, I opened the cover, and white letters began to bloom like ink across the pitch-black pages, inscribing words before me.
[Corridor of Memory]
Every skill that has passed through the Shadow Imprint Slot is automatically recorded in the library.
[Imprint Reconstruction]
You can replace the skill currently equipped in the Shadow Imprint Slot with any skill recorded in the library. (Limited to once per day)
“Wait… could it be…?”
With trembling hands, I turned the next page, and the entire path I had walked appeared rendered in text.
“Ha, I see why they call it a library.”
[Stored Skills List]
▶ Healing Touch (C― / Kim Min-ju)
▶ Covert Movement (D / Lee Do-hyeon)
▶ Flash Slash (D― / Kim Jin-chul)
▶ Beginning of Training (D― / Shin Yu-sung)
▶ Flame Resistance (E+ / Jo Jun-hee)
They looked humble now, but they were the best I could manage with what I had, and they earned their weight in gold—these precious abilities that kept me and others alive.
Looking at them gathered like this, the moment I imprinted each one burned vividly in my mind’s eye.
One of the skills seized my attention, and I stopped.
……
My first skill. Flash Slash.
Back when Kim Si-hyeon was an Unawakenend One dragged into the tower, the skill I first stole to survive—to save others.
The prototype of Flash, and the beginning of Kim Si-hyeon the Awakened One.
‘Curious feeling.’
Was this what it felt like to open a dusty old photo album you hadn’t touched in years?
‘Probably… yes.’
Of course, I’d never had an album to reminisce over, but somehow I understood anyway.
What others thought when they gazed at faded photographs.
“My own album, then. Not bad at all.”
That was enough sentimentality.
I laughed softly and snapped the book shut.
“I can’t concentrate on reading anymore. The light’s too bright.”
A golden gleam had been tickling my eyes for a while now.
Following that light, I turned my gaze and there it was—a golden portal standing boldly, waiting for me to step through.
I didn’t need anyone to explain it to me.
I knew what lay sleeping beyond.
“Alright… let’s go. Floor 10.5. It’s been a long time coming.”
Open sesame.
Just by stepping on a shadow, and a skill gets copied
Author |
Killingpart
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(Co.) Samyang C&C
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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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