I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 9

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

09
The surroundings crumbled away in a soft cascade.
Once the veil peeled back, the landscape before me bloomed into something perfectly suited to the word “wasteland”—a vast expanse of barren yellow earth stretching to the horizon.
All that met the eye were a few goblins in the distance.
Each was armed with crude wooden spears and clubs.
‘No metal… three of them, I think.’
I’d heard that most Awakeners just entering the first floor recommended killing at least one with an ambush or ranged strike before engaging properly.
‘Do I really need to go that far?’
Three goblins?
‘Well… at least I can test out my new skill.’
When I’d stepped on the shadow of that Tower operative I’d just met, I’d inscribed a new skill called Covert Movement.
Into the fresh Imprinting slot I’d received as a reward.
‘There was something with a blade that smelled tempting….’
A Grade B skill I’d never seen before: Toxic Blade.
I’d cleanly turned it down.
With Island already in my arsenal, there wasn’t enough merit to sacrifice Healing Touch just to pick up another attack skill.
Grade A might be another story.
This was settling for second best.
[Covert Movement (D): Blend into your surroundings to minimize your presence.]
[Deactivates automatically upon aggressive actions, jumps, or use of other skills.]
‘Covert Movement.’
As I activated the skill, I felt myself become part of the natural world itself.
‘The feeling’s good enough. Let’s see how it actually works.’
One of the goblins had drifted away from its companions, standing alone at some distance.
‘That’s the one they kill first on the first floor. Let me try approaching it like this and giving it a quick end.’
I held my breath and crept toward it in silence.
One step, then another.
From more than a hundred meters away, I closed the distance slowly until I stood mere paces from it.
‘It still doesn’t notice?’
I could practically hear my own breathing now.
Either way, Covert Movement had passed the test.
‘Time to make it hurt.’
I spun and slit its throat from behind.
Slice!
Island—the blade that had once split the massive Swamp Tyrant’s skull in half—sank into the goblin’s neck.
Instant death, naturally.
Its head was no longer its own.
Covert Movement had served its purpose.
Only when their companion’s head flew did the other two goblins spot me, shrieking as they charged from across the field.
“Keruk!”
“Keruk!”
“Take your time. I’ve got something to do first.”
The shadow of the dead goblin beneath my feet rippled uneasily.
“Is it this?”
I didn’t need to be told what came next—I already knew.
I shifted my foot and stepped squarely on that shadow.
[New shadow contact detected.]
[Target: Goblin]
My shadow writhed of its own accord, then lunged forward and took a bite from the unstable goblin shadow with a snap.
“…Oh.”
[Shadow of target consumed through ‘One Bite.’ Temporarily inscribing the primary skill ‘Throw (F).’ (Expires after one use.)]
Just one bite, plain and simple.
Any careless consumption would make me sick, yet here I was, tearing shadows from goblin corpses.
‘So this is the endless hunger everyone mentions. Not very impressive.’
Either way, that completed my test run of One Bite.
“But Throw means I throw something… oh, perfect.”
The spear the first victim had gripped in its hand—carved crudely from wood—proved ideal for the task.
The two remaining goblins pumped their short legs furiously as they charged at me still.
I gripped the spear and took aim at one goblin’s head.
Thanks to the Throw skill’s effect, my stance fell naturally into the javelin throw form I’d seen at the Olympics.
Let me focus for a moment and aim… Throw!
“Hah!”
The spear left my hand and arced through the air before striking the target dead-on.
Thwack!
“That’s quite the cracking sound…”
The target had long since toppled over, its head pierced clean through.
“F-grade Throw—not bad at all.”
A shame it was single-use, though.
Still, this served as a decent instruction manual for One Bite.
‘This could prove useful, depending on how I employ it.’
Right now it’s a goblin’s throwable, but as I climb higher in the Tower, there’s no telling what might appear.
‘Could there be boss-type items?’
No rule had forbidden it, so why not? I’d figure it all out eventually.
One remained.
“Your turn now.”
* * *
I killed the last one with my blade alone, forgoing any skills.
A performance test.
“…this thing is something special.”
How cleanly it cut through—far better than I’d expected.
The descriptor “dull and corroded” attached to the item name seemed almost mockery.
‘I should have someone appraise this.’
Either way, Floor One was finished.
Only I remained alive in the barren wasteland.
“Looking back on it now, this is almost laughable. The difficulty is like this, and they locked a non-Awakener in here?”
Were the goblins I’d met in the swamp yesterday unusually strong, or were these ones simply weaker?
No, it didn’t feel like that was it.
‘I’ve grown stronger.’
One skill, one experience—the gap was immense.
‘At this pace… I could climb one floor a day for a while.’
If Floor One was only this difficult, I could handle several floors in a single day.
Too bad the Tower’s rules allowed only one floor per day.
“Too easy. Tower.”
Everything tends to get easier once you’ve survived the hardest part.
* * *
A stream of messages flowed before me.
[You have conquered Floor 1 of the Tower.]
[Conquest evaluation: S+]
[Basic Stats improve each time you conquer a new floor of the Tower.]
[Basic Stats increased.]
[All spoils from this floor are automatically stored in inventory.]
[Crafting Materials]
▶ Green Leather Scraps (2)
▶ Tough Green Leather (1)
[Equipment]
▶ Oak Club (Low Grade)
“Oh? Equipment dropped too?”
I opened my inventory at once and checked the options for that piece of gear.
[Oak Club]
Grade: Low
Classification: Blunt Weapon
Description: A crude club carved from wood by a goblin.
Poor craftsmanship, but the impact is solid.
It wasn’t anything extraordinary, but that was beside the point.
“Low-grade weapons go for about 300,000 won, so a goblin’s club might fetch 100,000 or 200,000? Not a bad start.”
Just a few minutes of swordplay had netted me what would take all day of honest work to earn.
No wonder everyone wants to become an Awakener.
Though admittedly, it is the profession with the highest fatality rate in the world.
“Let’s see—the material items are scraps and leather. The leather looks like the high-grade version of the scraps.”
Materials-wise, the haul was quite respectable.
The truth was, the spoils of battle mattered less than what deserved closer attention—the rise in Basic Stats.
‘They said you only get it when you conquer each floor for the first time, not from repeated clears.’
I’d already received it twice as a reward for yesterday’s kidnapping event, but I hadn’t understood what it was, so I’d done some studying on my own.
If skills and items gave Awakeners their individuality, these stat increases represented the fundamental weight class.
Even if someone brawling with goblins on the first floor suddenly acquired excellent items and skills, could they handle a flying dragon belching fire fifty floors up? Probably not.
These Basic Stats were what made that correction.
Of course, not every Awakener grew stronger in the same way.
Even with the same stat increase, growth patterns differed depending on their initial Awakening abilities.
One person’s strength surged, another’s mana rose, and yet another’s movements quickened.
‘…In my case, it seems like warrior-type growth?’
My body felt curiously lighter, brimming with vitality.
‘Yesterday I couldn’t tell the difference because I didn’t understand it, but now that I know and receive it, even 1 point feels noticeable. But the Conquest grade is unexpected. An S+ rating?’
I’d spent considerable time experimenting with each new skill and piece of equipment one by one before clearing.
So I didn’t know how long other people struggled on the first floor, but by my standard, that was it.
‘If I’d wanted to clear fast… maybe one minute? No, I could’ve managed it in under thirty seconds.’
Just now, I’d spent over a minute alone using Covert Movement to approach the first goblin.
‘Is time not that important in the grade? Or do they weight content more heavily than time?’
The moment I thought exactly that, a new message flickered before my eyes.
[The Tower’s Gaze grants a new opportunity to its observation target. ▶ Gaze’s Favor (1)]
“Hm?”
The Tower’s Gaze. It had kept surfacing in my mind since the kidnapping incident, and seeing it here again was oddly welcome.
“No ordeal this time, just an opportunity? Could that even work?”
Either way, the reward had arrived, so it was natural to check its effect first.
[Gaze’s Favor]
Description: A small fragment infused with the power of the ‘Gaze.’
Effect: Upon consumption, you gain a Basic Stats increase equivalent to that granted by conquering one floor of the Tower.
The reward for clearing an entire floor, contained in a single item.
“This really is an opportunity…!”
Despite the grandiose description, it was just a pill.
No description could have been more apt.
Since it was an item meant to be consumed for effect, the Tower seemed to have put some care into it.
‘The consumption part does give me a slight pause….’
But there’s no way it would give me something strange.
Though it frightened me a little when it issued ordeals, it wasn’t a malevolent entity based on what I’d experienced.
“Thank you. I’ll consume it well.”
I offered my thanks first.
It was called the ‘Tower’s Gaze’ and all, so it was probably watching me from somewhere.
Gulp.
The moment I swallowed it whole, a message appeared immediately.
[Your Basic Stats increase.]
‘Fast-acting.’
With this, I’d reached Basic Stats 4.
Having only just ascended to the first floor, I now possessed the same level of ability as an Awakener who’d conquered four floors and was facing a challenge on the fifth.
‘About the same level as Jin-cheol then. I’m not sure if this is okay.’
Either way, since it was being given freely, refusing it felt wrong too.
With that, my business on the first floor was done.
Perhaps afraid I wouldn’t leave, the sky of the Barren Wasteland had already begun to crumble in the distance.
“Already driving me out? Cold of you.”
More time had passed than I’d expected.
Yet I couldn’t just waste that remaining time.
“In that case… it has to be that.”
It was the right moment to commission the equipment crafting I’d been planning all along.
* * *
At that same moment, at the highest floor of the Tower in South Korea.
“Damn it. Another failure in the end.”
Shin Yuseong barely managed to stand, using the blade he’d driven into the ground as a brace.
The space around him resembled hell itself.
A river of magma flowed across the floor, and sulfurous smoke rose in acrid plumes.
Monster corpses scattered about everywhere completed the hellish scene.
From the aftermath of that battle, Shin Yuseong bore not a single unblemished inch across his entire body.
“Gasp… huff….”
Rough, ragged breathing torn from his lungs.
Among the charred remains of expensive gear, his flesh had burned past any salvageable point and now seared with each movement, and he’d sweated so profusely that his vision swam—he might collapse at any moment.
By contrast, the monster before him—his final objective, the “Incarnation of Blazing Terror”—remained entirely intact.
Less a monster than an inferno made manifest.
A towering wall of flame wearing the shape of a man, burning with brazen defiance.
A bitter defeat.
Another line was added to Shin Yuseong’s long ledger of failures.
‘I’ve mapped out every pattern the boss has. I could dodge it with my eyes closed. So why can’t I succeed?’
If only there were a way to close the distance—if only—then the Conquest wouldn’t be difficult at all, but that inferno kept him at bay no matter what he tried.
Even him, South Korea’s strongest Awakener.
A crushing sense of defeat and helplessness.
Since first ascending the Tower, Shin Yuseong had never felt so utterly powerless.
‘So in the end, I can’t do it without the Frost Giant’s heart. Or rather… not without those seven days.’
Even now, the second hand ticked on relentlessly, counting down toward the Tower’s Collapse.
During the last crisis, he’d cursed the passing of every single second with a bitterness he couldn’t describe.
Thirty days were needed.
But only twenty-five had been given, and that mere five-day gap meant South Korea stood to lose most of the Seoul Metropolitan Area.
If he delayed announcing the Conquest’s failure any longer, even evacuation would become impossible.
Then, just before he could tell the public the grim truth, he had appeared.
Pungyojwa—an unforeseen variable.
That mysterious Awakener, called by a name that sounded almost like a joke, had reversed the countdown to annihilation that had never once been halted except through Conquest—he’d turned back time itself.
The world celebrated that gift of seven days, but Shin Yuseong understood clearly.
Those seven days were no ordinary week of routine life—they were the single move that could save South Korea.
‘If those seven days hadn’t come… in the end, my strength alone would never have stopped the Collapse. No matter how many times I challenged over the remaining span, nothing would change.’
Until now, he had held the Tower’s Collapse at bay with his own two hands and protected the nation.
But this time, he found no remedy within his reach.
The moment he realized that—that defeat, that helplessness.
No one else could comprehend this feeling.
No one but Shin Yuseong himself.
‘…The Gaze is gone too, then.’
That presence had first appeared around the time he’d begun ranking among the nation’s top ten Awakeners.
Ever since, the Tower’s Gaze—that fickle companion—had been his steady climbing partner, but now even it had fallen silent.
As if it no longer watched over him at all.
‘It’s moved on… looking for someone else.’
It was obvious who that someone was.
‘That nameless Awakener.’
A bitter smile twisted across his lips.
Like an aging lead actor being pushed from the stage, watching from the wings as a new protagonist took the spotlight.
South Korea’s strongest. Its guardian. The Sword Saint.
In that moment, every title, every accolade turned to dust.
‘Is this where the era of Shin Yuseong ends?’
His grip on the sword tightened with a sharp, audible snap.
‘No. No, that’s not it. I still have my part to play.’
Strength alone was not enough.
If strength were all that mattered, then those who came before him would have held their throne just as his predecessor had—until the day they buckled under the weight or abandoned the nation for their own safety.
‘This mad, broken world needs hope. Or rather, a symbol of hope.’
The belief that even if the present is a cesspool, the future might yet improve.
The will to drag a weary mind and body to work, to protect the ones they love.
In a world set to collapse in a hundred days, who could afford to dream such a future?
The world needed a pillar—someone people could believe in, who would let them dream of tomorrow.
A throne only granted to those who stood at the Tower’s peak and bore a nation’s fate upon their shoulders.
That was what Shin Yuseong understood the throne to be—that which he had been guarding.
‘I cannot leave it vacant.’
Therefore, he could not permit the emptiness of this lonely throne.
Until that unknown Awakener grew strong enough to seize this place through his own power, or to inherit it, someone had to hold it.
‘Perhaps when that day comes, I won’t want to let it go.’
Shin Yuseong laughed—a soft, self-deprecating sound.
“The Sword Saint is hardly worthy of the title. A sage? I’m nowhere close to that either.”
The honest heart of Shin Yuseong the man, not the Sword Saint.
Gratitude was gratitude, but as a climber, he still wanted to remain the strongest.
Fire blazed anew in those eyes as he adjusted his grip on the darkened blade.
“You’d do well to steel yourself, junior. This old relic won’t surrender so easily.”
South Korea’s mightiest had no intention of relinquishing his throne.
Shadow stepped on and skill copied instantly
Author |
Killing Part
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Editor in Chief |
Editorial Department
Published by |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – DreamBooks
Address |
7th Floor, Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeunsa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
UCI |
G720:N+A063-20260703072
Blog |
blog.naver.com/dreambookss
Twitter (X) |
@dreambookss
Submissions |
[email protected]
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – DreamBooks.

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