I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 7

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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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07
“Ugh, I’m about to burst.”
On the walk home after dinner with Kim, my stomach was pleasantly full.
The night air carried a crisp edge to it.
I got off the bus and picked my way through winding alleys and steep staircases for what felt like forever.
Our place sat at the very top of Dal-dong-ne, so even from the nearest bus stop it was a long climb up.
‘I was worried I’d be too tired to eat properly, but… I did just fine.’
The food went down easier than usual—maybe because I’d been moving around.
Since I rarely got a chance to treat myself, I’d eaten my fill without holding back.
But when I went to hand over my card, Kim had already settled the bill.
‘Strange. I’ve never even seen his phone ring, yet he steps away saying he needs to take a call.’
I’d originally planned to get a free meal as compensation for the arrow wound, but Kim said since he already owed me his life, we could call it even.
— Come on, forget it. Adults always pay. Once you’ve made something of yourself, you can treat me then. And I’ll enjoy it with a truly happy heart.
‘Tch. I’d rather just pay myself.’
Kindness, whether large or small, was inconvenient. It had to be remembered and repaid.
One careless moment of forgetting and you became an ungrateful wretch.
Never mind the whispers about growing up poor.
“Ah, forget it. Next time I’ll get there first and pay the check myself.”
Before long, I reached home.
I pushed through the creaking door and threw myself straight onto the bedding.
“Ah… home.”
The blanket enveloped my tired body in its warmth.
After getting caked in mud, blood, and sweat running wild in the Tower, even the faint mildew smell seemed fragrant now.
It was strange—the moment I stepped out of the Tower, all the blood and mud that had clung to me vanished without a trace.
Some kind of systematic purification, apparently.
Though it wasn’t all-powerful; my ruined clothes didn’t get fixed.
‘Lost a perfectly good set of clothes. But I got good use out of them, so it’s fine.’
I sprawled out and stared blankly up at the ceiling.
Dead insect carcass under the light cover.
Wallpaper with mold stains that had been wiped away.
The same view I saw every time I lay here—utterly unchanged from yesterday.
“…Really does feel like a dream.”
Against that mundane backdrop, everything I’d experienced in the Tower seemed like an illusion.
That I—lying here in this moldy rooftop room—had actually climbed the Tower myself, traversed lush forests and wetlands, and cut down monsters.
Not long ago. Just a few hours back.
The fact that I’d killed something felt strange, and it seemed like a lie that I’d nearly died multiple times.
All of it unreal—except for one thing: that sensation of blade parting flesh and bone remained disturbingly vivid.
‘It was exhilarating.’
I mumbled to myself, my thoughts drifting back to the Tower unbidden.
“Status Window.”
[Awakener Information]
Name: Kim Si-hyeon
Highest Floor Reached: Floor 0
Possessed Skills: Shadow Mimic (Unique), Island (Unique)
▶ Shadow Inscription
└ Main Slot: Healing Touch (C− / Kim Min-ju)
└ D▼ Slot: Unimprinted
The message window appeared as if waiting for this moment.
The information for Awakener Kim Si-hyeon was still unfamiliar.
“At least Healing Touch and Island are still there… so this is it. The D-Rank slot I got as a Reward.”
When Island first manifested, it had said “created”.
I’d suspected as much, but seeing “Unique” attached to it meant it had become completely mine, separate from the Inscription slots.
“That’s good.”
I closed the Status Window with a slight smile, when a snippet of conversation I’d half-heard earlier suddenly flashed through my mind.
‘Now that I think about it, people at the next table were talking about something like the overall Reward… maybe I should look that up.’
Even by my reckoning, that final Tower-wide Reward had been pretty extraordinary.
Figuring there’d be some reaction to it somewhere, I pulled out my phone….
[Top News at This Hour]
[Breaking] Korean Tower Sees Unprecedented ‘EX Rating’ Debut! ‘Festival of Abundance’ Begins—72 Hours!
[International] “What on Earth Happened to Korea’s Tower?”…Global Awakener Community ‘Erupts’
[Column] ‘EX Rating’ marks the Tower’s new variable… A seismic shift in conquest strategy looms
“What? Surely this isn’t all….”
Every article was about me.
From the portal’s main feed to every news outlet, they were all churning out pieces about my conquest record.
The response had far exceeded my expectations—I was genuinely flustered.
‘That was the world’s first EX Rating? Just now?’
I’d vaguely assumed I’d be the first on that Hidden Floor.
But no. Apparently I was the first in the entire world.
Realizing the story had grown bigger than I’d thought, I skimmed a few of the news articles that caught my eye and scrolled through the comments.
― Money just falling from the sky while I sit here? Either way, total jackpot lol
― K-pop, K-drama, K-Tower, let’s go
The Festival of Abundance articles and foreign news comments were all brimming with jubilation.
“The column, though….”
― No clue what they’re even talking about, just happy the loot turned out great.
The moment I saw the column’s top comment, a laugh burst out of me.
‘The column’s the same way.’ I was about to scroll past when a sharper comment below caught my eye.
― So what they’re saying is that Hidden Floor and secret piece conquests are what really matter. Those stagnant players who just keep grinding the same floors over and over need to get their act together.
― New variable, my ass. The Highest Floor’s gonna be cleared by Shin Yu-seong anyway, and everyone else is just gonna scrape by eating table scraps. No point over-analyzing this. Once a conquest succeeds, the countdown starts again, so he’s probably just clearing it slower on purpose. It’s getting harder each time. A single day matters.
“…Hm, is that so? I thought I was being considerate. Guess I was out of line.”
The entire domestic Tower’s reward… I’d actually been allowed to choose it myself.
It was after all my allies had left and I was alone in the Tower.
To be precise, a three-day blessing was fixed, and they gave me two choices: either extend the blessing period by two more days, or extend the Highest Floor conquest deadline by seven days. I picked the latter.
‘The Tower is meant to be climbed, after all.’
That was my reasoning.
A blessing that all of Korea’s Awakeners could enjoy together sounded nice, but three days seemed like it would be enough.
‘I’m the one who went through all that. Might as well do what I want. The Tower itself told me to choose.’
Shin Yu-seong, the national hero, was probably right now fighting alone at the Highest Floor, bearing the fate of Korea on his shoulders.
All I wanted was to be of even the smallest help to him.
Even if he didn’t need it.
That was just how my heart felt.
If you get the chance to row on an armada, turning it down would be strange.
‘Whether those seven extra days helped or not doesn’t change anything. I can’t undo a choice I’ve already made.’
Curious about the reactions, I found myself logging into The Lobby, an anonymous Awakener community, for the first time in a while.
It was a place I’d checked in on occasionally since I made my living dealing with Awakeners.
‘Most other Awakener communities require authentication, so this was the only place I could really go.’
The tone was rough, but the people weren’t malicious.
Probably.
One post immediately caught my attention.
【Verified】 Got a high-grade weapon thanks to Festival Lord lolololol
▼ Comments
Anon1: So jealous. So who even is Festival Lord or EX Lord anyway? Shin Yu-seong? Kang Yu-jin? Choi Su-hyeon? Or maybe some hidden successor Baekya Guild’s been keeping in reserve?
└ Anon(OP): Dunno, fuck it, but my god from today on
【Chat】 But seriously, wasn’t the seven-day extension better than the loot?
Everyone’s going crazy over the gear, but it’s not just about good drops—we might’ve literally saved a country.
There was that whole rumor going around that the conquest would fail this time.
And people said that rumor came straight from Tower management.
▼ Comments
Anon1: Rumors my ass lol. It’s just the usual ghost story that pops up whenever we get close to a Highest Floor deadline
Anon2: You know how Tower works? Shin Yu-seong clears it anyway. Seven days? Thanks, but he would’ve cleared it without it. That’s facts
└ Anon3: Just the facts) EX Lord is above Shin Yu-seong. Shin Yu-seong is some immortal playing alone above the clouds, but EX Lord is literally our big brother shoveling money into our hands right now—is there even a comparison? lol
Every recent post and popular thread was swimming in this same atmosphere.
Countless anonymous Awakeners were lauding me… no, practically worshipping me. It was a bizarre sight.
“…Was it really this much?”
Just then, a notification chimed at the top of my phone screen.
[Ding dong! You haven’t forgotten, have you? Tomorrow’s the day your monthly rent comes out!]
“Ugh, already rent day? A whole month just flies by.”
Seeing that, my mood turned strange again.
Here I was, just an ordinary citizen in a rooftop room in Dal-dong-ne, trembling every month over 500,000 won in rent, and Awakeners pulling in hundreds of millions were all singing my praises in unison.
‘Come to think of it, the crafting materials I got from the Tower seemed like they might be worth some decent money….’
I opened my Inventory to check the items stored inside.
“How many would I need to sell to cover the rent… probably not even close, huh?”
The kidnapping event had set this floor apart from the ordinary first floor, but at the end of the day, it was still fundamentally tier one.
Besides the boss, there were only goblins.
Still, just in case, I logged into the Awakener item trading brokerage site and searched for “Massive Serrated Fang.”
It seemed like the most expensive of the crafting materials I had.
But….
‘What? Why is this so expensive?’
My eyes went wide at the search results.
[Massive Serrated Fang: 2,450,000 (Recent Trade Price: 2,500,000 won)]
Nearly five months’ rent for a single crafting material, not even finished equipment.
I’d hoped boss-drop items would fetch more, but this exceeded my expectations.
My heart hammered in my chest.
‘This is insane. No wonder everyone’s desperate to become an Awakener.’
I steadied myself and methodically searched for the prices of the remaining items.
‘Green Leather Fragments at ten thousand each, Poison Fangs at twenty thousand… and Sap Vials at eighty thousand won? Really?’
Even the poison-filled sap vials the goblins had used were worth decent money.
But the real treasure was something else.
“Wait, four… four million won…?”
The recent trade price for Giant Hide was a staggering 3.85 million won—and it was from today’s transactions, fresh as they come.
Curious why it was so expensive, I searched and found that it was the core crafting material for a cloak item called the Swamp Cloak, which specialized in stealth performance and was favored by job classes like assassins and archers.
‘If I sell all of this….’
Escaping this moldy rooftop room wouldn’t be just a dream anymore.
I swallowed hard.
There was still one more item to search for.
The Endless Hunger.
The tower had separately given it to me as a top-tier completion reward, so naturally….
[No search results found.]
“Huh?”
No matter how many times I searched, the result was the same.
I looked everywhere—not just the trading site—but found no relevant information, no speculation, not even a single account of someone spotting one.
‘The tower wouldn’t gift me garbage wrapped in pretty packaging… it must be rarer than I thought. What the hell is this thing?’
Unable to contain my curiosity, I carefully retrieved the item from my inventory, which I’d kept locked away until now.
I knew it would have no effect outside the tower, but I wondered if physically examining it might reveal something different.
“Ugh… it’s kind of grotesque.”
A black sphere the size of a ping-pong ball that fit snugly in one hand.
In my inventory, it had looked like just a black ball, but holding it now, it felt closer to an oil droplet or a clump of ink.
The liquid forming the sphere writhed and squirmed, almost as if it were alive.
“Item information.”
[Endless Hunger]
Description: An unquenchable hunger that can never be satisfied.
“…That’s it? What kind of description is that?”
There was no useful information, and everything—from its appearance to its form to its description—was far from ordinary.
“I don’t know. I’ll think about this later.”
I’d sell everything else, but this one I’d hold onto for now.
An item rare enough that no market price had formed yet—that was exactly the kind of thing where you could end up getting cheated if you weren’t careful.
Until I learned something relevant about it, I’d keep it tucked away in my inventory.
Cradling the precious thing carefully, worried it might break, I moved to cup my left hand in my right—and then, in that instant—
Slither.
My shadow twisted like a snake.
It was the moment my right hand’s shadow fell across my left.
“…Gasp!”
I saw it clear as day.
My shadow had moved on its own.
Shadows can move, of course, but this was different—it had moved of its own accord, like a living creature.
Then a message appeared before my eyes.
[Contact with ‘Endless Hunger’ detected.]
[You can enhance your Unique Ability ‘Shadow Mimic’ by consuming ‘Endless Hunger’.]
Only then did I understand what this item was for.
‘An enhancement item… that’s what it was.’
But consuming meant it would disappear.
Perhaps the only one of its kind in the entire world—this treasure that’s worth calling by name.
‘…Should I just sell it?’
Strengthening my Awakener ability? Whatever it does, it won’t be peanuts.
If I play this right, poverty ends entirely.
Maybe I could spend the rest of my life without lifting a finger, living comfortably in a warm home.
Just yesterday, that was a future I wouldn’t have dared to dream.
‘Is that really what I want?’
The unbidden thought made my head turn.
Beyond the small window of my rooftop room, a tower rose sharply in the heart of Seoul.
‘It was dangerous, I nearly died. But why….’
For some reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes from that tower.
The few hours I’d spent in that tower today felt clearer than a lifetime of memories before it.
Those moments, vivid and brilliant with all the colors of the spectrum—so different from the colorless days I’d spent struggling just to keep the cobwebs from my mouth.
Just thinking of them made my heart race.
‘This much is certain. I have talent. The talent to climb that tower.’
I felt it not from the fuss of outsiders talking about world records and such, but from my own chest.
That I had aptitude for this, and that I enjoyed it.
‘…So why not try it properly?’
It would be dangerous, but it was worth the risk.
For the wealth and fame that would follow if I survived, and to grasp this strange, unfamiliar emotion.
All hesitation faded, and a small smile leaked through.
“Right, I can’t just eat one golden egg and call it done. That tower must be full of things like this.”
My deliberation was over.
I murmured my decision quietly.
“Strengthen it.”
To make this golden egg my own sustenance.
[You consume ‘Endless Hunger’ to strengthen your Unique Ability ‘Shadow Mimic’.]
As if waiting for only that choice, the shadow in my hand writhed like a living creature and swallowed the item whole.
“…I still can’t get used to this.”
Before, the shadow had waited patiently for darkness to fall, but this time it flowed backward from beneath my left hand, rising up onto my palm.
Sluuuuurp.
Soon the black sphere sank into the shadow and faded, and the shadow—now sated—returned to normal.
Then a message appeared, announcing the enhancement results.
[Your Unique Ability ‘Shadow Mimic’ has been strengthened.]
[A sub-attribute of your Unique Ability, ‘Shadow Predation’, has been unlocked.]
[Delicious Scent: The hunger-driven instinct pursues its prey.]
※ The stronger or rarer the skills a being possesses, the more intense and alluring the scent it emits.
[One Bite: You consume the shadow of a defeated target and temporarily inscribe one of its signature skills.]
※ A temporarily inscribed skill vanishes after one use.
※ You can only ‘One Bite’ one shadow per floor.
[???: This ability is still sealed. It will be unlocked when certain conditions are met.]
On my first day as an Awakener—torn into this tower to claw my way toward survival—I made a decision.
I would live differently now.
Not as an Awakener, but as a Climber.
Just step on a shadow and the skills copy themselves
Author |
Killing Part
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Samyang C&C Corporation
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Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C Corporation – Dream Books
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Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — The contents of this book may not be used in any form or by any means without the written permission of Dreambooks.

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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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