I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 6

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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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06
Moments later, a reward list unfolds before my eyes.
[Reward assessment complete.]
[All loot obtained from this floor will be automatically stored.]
[Crafting Materials]
▶ Giant Saw-tooth Fang (2)
▶ Swamp-pickled Giant Hide (1)
▶ Green Hide Fragment (4)
▶ Vampire Leech Fang (7)
▶ Small Bottle with Sticky Sap (2)
[Equipment]
▶ Old Corroded Greatsword (Inferior Grade)
‘Automatic storage? That’s convenient. But is this really all there is?’
Just as I was thinking the rewards seemed a touch underwhelming for all that fuss about readjusting compensation, the message continued.
[Special Quest Completion Reward has been granted.]
▶ Reward: D-rank Shadow Imprint Slot
※ This imprint slot can only inscribe skills of D-rank or lower.
[Outstanding performance has been recorded. Top-tier achievement bonus will be awarded.]
▶ Additional Reward: Endless Hunger
[You have conquered the Unknown Layer.]
[Base ability stats increase.]
[You have overcome a hidden ordeal.]
[Base ability stats increase further.]
They kept giving me things, but I couldn’t quite gauge the value of what I was receiving.
Truth be told, I didn’t much care either.
‘Well, I survived somehow. That’s what matters.’
I waved my hand through the air, dismissing the tiresome message window.
“Si-hyeon! Jin-chul! Have you both confirmed your rewards yet?!”
Park Jin-seong, who’d been collapsed on the ground with no strength left in his legs just moments before, approached with a grin stretched ear to ear.
Whatever he’d received, it clearly didn’t disappoint him.
“Ah, yes. For now, anyway. You look like you’re in good spirits, though.”
“Ha! Of course I am. How couldn’t I be? Since I awakened, I’ve never received rewards like these. I’ve struck gold thanks to you both!”
Park Jin-seong wasn’t typically the rigid sort, but this radiance was unexpected—though it seemed the rewards really had been generous.
“My goodness, forgive me. That’s not what I meant to say at all.”
After his stream of excited words, Park Jin-seong collected himself and returned to his usual composed demeanor.
He bowed deeply, then offered his thanks with genuine sincerity.
“I truly cannot thank you enough. Without you both, I’d have perished in the Tower with no body left to find. Thanks to you, I’m returning home in one piece. My gratitude knows no bounds.”
“That’s not necessary. We all went through it together, after all. Everyone made it out alive—that’s what matters.”
As I said this, my companion added a word from beside me.
“What did I even do? Si-hyeon here handled everything on his own. Regardless, Mr. Park, you’ve been through quite an ordeal yourself.”
“No, no. Having Jin-chul here was such a comfort.”
Park Jin-seong laughed softly, adding, “Of course, Si-hyeon’s performance goes without saying.”
“So, if you don’t mind—since we’ve shared this bond—might I ask for your contact information?”
A comrade who’d crossed the line between life and death with us.
I understood his feelings perfectly, but the timing was wrong.
“Look at your legs.”
“…My legs? My own legs?”
Park Jin-seong’s gaze naturally shifted downward.
Both his legs were dissolving into faint particles of light.
A clear eviction notice from the Tower—business concluded, time to depart.
A bittersweet smile crossed his face.
“Ah… I’m running out of time.”
I smiled back at him.
“We’ll meet again. If fate allows.”
Park Jin-seong vanished like smoke.
It seemed Kim Min-joo had wanted to offer her own thanks separately; she’d been quietly waiting her turn and now rushed to express her gratitude as time ran out.
“Thanks. Really.”
She waved her half-dissolved hand in an awkward farewell.
“I’m going!”
I waved back in return.
“I’m heading out.”
Kim looked up with a wry smile, though he was already fading.
“When you get out, how about some grilled pork belly and soju?”
“Ah, of course. A promise is a promise.”
“Ha, good. There’s a place nearby with great prices and even better taste—”
His words cut short as he vanished.
I stood alone.
“Guess it’s my turn.”
Something felt wrong the moment I spoke.
My feet were still planted firmly on the Swampland.
Everyone else had dissolved from the bottom up like wet cotton candy, each at their own pace, but I showed no sign of it.
‘What else is there…?’
Maybe the Tower still had something to say to me.
Or perhaps it wanted to have a quiet conversation, just the two of us.
Messages appeared, answering my question.
[Global Announcement: Tower of Korea]
[The first EX Rank Clear record in the Unknown Layer within the Tower of Korea has been confirmed.]
[By the contribution of the Awakener who achieved this feat, a Blessing descends upon the entire Tower of Korea.]
‘Ah, I see.’
Those two letters—’EX’—caught my eye, and a smile escaped my lips.
I’d wondered why I wasn’t being sent out yet, but it wasn’t without reason.
[As a reward for achieving this feat, you are granted the authority to select a Blessing. Choose one option below to apply it to the entire Tower you belong to.]
“This… this was a bigger event than I thought?”
* * *
Underground situation room of the Tower Disaster Control Headquarters, under the Tower Special Management Agency.
Large and small screens filled the entire wall, casting every color of light as they relentlessly displayed the climbing status of the Tower of Korea.
Each piece of information was national classified material.
Yet all those gathered before such precious data stared at a single spot, as if by mutual agreement.
[Tower Collapse | D ― 25 | 14 : 12 : 51]
At the end of their gaze hung nothing but a digital clock.
The problem was the five characters attached before it.
‘Tower Collapse’. Because of those five words, Jung Jin-hyeok, the Headquarters Director, couldn’t tear his eyes from the clock. He tapped the table anxiously.
“…Still nothing?”
“Yes, Director. The Clear is still in progress within the Tower… Ah! Just as I’m reporting, word has come in. From Shin Yu-seong’s side.”
A sigh went through everyone in the room.
“Ah…”
Shin Yu-seong had returned from the Tower, but there had been no announcement from it.
This meant the attempt had failed.
“Damn it…!”
I’d believed this time would be the one, but another failure.
Jung Jin-hyeok squeezed his eyes shut.
“Hah…”
“Director…?”
“Yes, put him through.”
The line connected, and the face of a handsome young man appeared on the main monitor.
“You’ve worked hard. Shin Yu-seong.”
This was Shin Yu-seong—the nation’s strongest Awakener and its highest climber.
His face across the screen was etched with exhaustion.
— I’ve returned. As for the results… I’m sure you all know already, but I failed. I apologize. It’s a lack of ability on my part.
“Please don’t speak like that. This simply wasn’t the time. We still have more than a month of opportunity ahead.”
Jung Jin-hyeok tried to comfort Shin Yu-seong.
But even he couldn’t help the dryness creeping into his mouth.
His strongest hand had been played and lost.
No—his strongest hand had been played multiple times and lost each time.
Now there were truly no cards left in his hand.
“We’ll review the Clear footage in time… but let me ask first. In the end… will it really not work without ‘that’?”
Across the screen, Shin Yu-seong reluctantly nodded.
— Yes, without the Frost Giant’s Heart, I can see no way forward.
Shin Yu-seong’s gaze then shifted to his own waist, and the same thought struck both minds in the conversation.
‘Who could have foreseen that crafting the sword would become a fatal blunder…?’
A Legendary Sword forged by Korea’s greatest craftsman, its blade tempered from the heart of a Frost Giant.
‘Craft a weapon attuned to the boss’s weakness and place it in Shin Yu-seong’s hands.’ At one time, both Shin Yu-seong and the authorities had believed this was the optimal strategy.
A solution that had proven effective until now.
But this time, it wasn’t enough.
At his core, Shin Yu-seong was a swordsman.
He was fundamentally different from America’s Water-attribute Awakener who could conjure waterfalls from parched earth, or China’s Ice-attribute Awakener who styled himself the legitimate successor to the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
‘Not sustained indefinitely, but detonated in a single, overwhelming burst. Like Japan did.’
Just as the Korean Peninsula had it, the Japanese archipelago, too, counted its strongest Awakener among its swordsmen.
And Japan was climbing the Tower one month behind Korea.
The same floor. The same attribute.
Whether by fortune or misfortune, Korea had become a teaching tool for Japan’s Tower ascent, and Japan had used every answer Key derived from it.
But this time, Japan had found an alternative path.
Observing Korea’s struggles, they had discovered something new.
‘Cooking rice only to feed it to dogs. How could they even think of crafting a Potion from something as precious as a Frost Giant’s Heart….’
He’d dismissed it as madness, yet it had proven to be the answer.
Days ago, Japan’s strongest Awakener had drunk that Potion and severed the Dread Flame Avatar, validating the method beyond doubt.
So, in the end, Korea found itself needing another Frost Giant’s Heart.
The problem was that even if they could defeat the Frost Giant, and even if they wanted to—there was nothing left to defeat.
It had taken time for the Frost Spirit to evolve through the Golem stage into a fully formed giant.
Considerable time, at that.
No matter how formidable Shin Yu-seong was, he couldn’t accelerate the growth and development of life as decreed by the Tower itself.
So there remained twenty-nine days until that point.
With only one entry opportunity per day to acquire necessary items and slay the Dread Flame Avatar, they needed exactly one more day—thirty in total.
Which left them five days short.
Five days. Barely more than a week.
Yet those five days felt like an insurmountable wall.
In the grim silence, Jung Jin-hyeok ventured cautiously, “…If we could somehow obtain the heart within the deadline, what would you estimate our probability of conquest success to be?”
― If we could manage that… ninety-nine percent. No—one hundred. I’ll see it through. I’ll stake everything on it.
“Ah….”
A virtual certainty.
‘If Master Shin speaks with such conviction… then the heart alone is practically synonymous with conquest success….’
The situation was cruelly ironic.
The one who would lead the conquest brimmed with confidence, yet heaven itself denied them the time.
As the headache mounted, Jung Jin-hyeok pressed his temples and released a long breath.
‘Just five days….’
Those five days stood between survival and catastrophe. For want of them, twenty-five million in the Seoul Metropolitan Area faced erasure. As Moscow had been.
An Awakener’s miraculous power manifests only within the Tower.
The miracle of cleaving steel with a blade, of spewing flame from bare hands—the moment they step beyond the Tower’s threshold, such wonders vanish like mirages, leaving them no different from ordinary people.
Russia had sought to defy that law.
They had attempted to transform Awakeners into ‘weapons’ of the material world, seeking to possess them as state assets.
Under state direction, inhuman training, experimentation, and oppression had crushed the potential of Russia’s Awakeners in its cradle.
To escape this, Russia’s Awakeners had fled en masse overseas, and having lost critical talent and countless gifted Awakeners, Russia had faced the Tower Collapse—a calamity without precedent.
‘Since the Tower’s appearance on Earth, the whole world watched the first collapse unfold.’
The Tower did not crumble with thunderous, chaotic noise.
Quite the opposite—it vanished in silence.
In its place, only an immense darkness remained, swallowing everything within a radius of tens of kilometers.
‘Almost like a black hole.’
And thus Moscow, a metropolis of ten million, was erased from existence.
‘What’s the fuss? Nothing will happen to me,’ thought those who dismissed evacuation warnings and remained among the three million who stayed behind.
And now Seoul seemed poised to follow in its wake.
‘How could we possibly buy more time….’
Jung Jin-hyeok knew better than anyone that no such mechanism existed.
The Tower had never granted such exceptions before.
Yet he longed for it with a desperation beyond reason.
‘Time… if only there were just a little more time…!’
Anguish twisted Jung Jin-hyeok’s features.
Across from him, Shin Yu-seong’s smile turned bitter.
― We should announce the conquest failure now and begin evacuating the Seoul Metropolitan Area residents. We may not be able to prevent the Tower Collapse, but we must at least save lives.
“Yes… we must.”

— The conquest can continue after that. We still have twenty-five days, do we not? Time-wise, obtaining the Frost Giant’s Heart will be difficult, but… I’ll do everything I can over these remaining twenty-five days. At the very least, I’ll prevent the collapse.
Shin Yu-seong’s determination to push forward with conquest never wavered, even as he discussed the evacuation of residents.
That unwavering resolve steeled Jung Jin-hyeok’s own conviction.
“Yes, sir. Leave the rest to me. I will ensure that every single citizen is evacuated without exception.”
It was the moment South Korea confirmed its abandonment of the Seoul Metropolitan Area—home to twenty-five million of its people.
[System Announcement: Tower of Korea]
[An EX Rank conquest record has been confirmed for the first time in the ‘Unknown Layer’ within the Tower of Korea.]
[The Tower of Korea receives a blessing through the contributions of the Awakener who achieved this feat.]
[Swampland’s Abundance]
[All rewards within the Tower will become more abundant.]
▶ For seventy-two hours, the loot acquisition rate increases by 1.5 times.
▶ For seventy-two hours, the frequency of lowest-rank loot decreases, with the lost amount redirected to increase chances of obtaining higher-rank loot.
▶ The conquest time limit for the Unexplored Highest Floor is extended by seven days.
‘…What!?’
Before Jung Jin-hyeok could process anything else—before even his role as head of the Tower Disaster Control Headquarters—the system announcement scrolled across his vision as an Awakener.
Startled, he shot to his feet.
Bang!
“…!”
He wasn’t the only one shocked.
Shin Yu-seong, facing him, had his eyes wide open as well.
“Did you… see that?”
— Yes, I did.
Just then, someone in the operations room let out an excited shout.
“S-seven days extended! Director! It’s true! We’ve confirmed it—the conquest deadline has been extended to thirty-two days!”
The conquest deadline had been extended.
In the face of an unprecedented situation, even those who had witnessed the message directly could barely speak.
Then that single utterance became the spark that set the operations room ablaze.
“We can do this! If we have more time, the conquest is—!”
Someone leapt from their seat with a cheer; another embraced a colleague, and they both swayed and danced, chanting “We can do this!” over and over.
In the midst of it all, Jung Jin-hyeok sank back into his chair and released a long, shuddering breath of relief.
‘A miracle… it’s a miracle.’
A literal miracle.
Moments ago, they had been on the verge of abandoning the Seoul Metropolitan Area for the sake of just five days. Yet the deadline had been extended as if by providence—exactly as much as they needed, and perhaps a little more.
Precisely what was required, and then some.
Like always, the people going about their peaceful lives, trusting vaguely that someone would prevent the Tower’s collapse.
Could they ever imagine?
How close South Korea had just come to abandoning Seoul itself?
‘They wouldn’t know. They shouldn’t know. That’s why we exist.’
But Jung Jin-hyeok knew.
South Korea had just been saved by someone whose name and face would forever remain unknown.
‘This is no time for sentiment. Well, it is, but I can’t afford to indulge in it.’
The moment of exultation passed quickly. Jung Jin-hyeok quietly raised one hand.
“Your attention, please.”
That soft, measured command cut through the noise as if a switch had been flipped.
The celebration ended there.
With every eye upon him, Jung Jin-hyeok swept his gaze across the room, his eyes cool and sharp above his wire-rimmed glasses.
“Let’s get back to work.”
Relief was never meant for them.
Their role was to bring relief to everyone else.
“Locate this person. As of today, this is the top priority until I give further notice.”
The quiet war resumed.
A war that no one should know about, that no one would ever know about.
I Stepped on a Shadow and the Skill Was Copied
Author |
Killingpart
Publisher |
(주) Samyang C&C
Chief Editor |
Editorial Department
Published by |
(주) 삼양씨앤씨 – 드림북스
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서울특별시 강남구 봉은사로114길 28, 광성빌딩 7층
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G720:N+A063-20260703072
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blog.naver.com/dreambookss
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@dreambookss
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No part of this book may be used in any form or by any means without written permission from (주) 삼양씨앤씨 – 드림북스.

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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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