The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 47

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

47
Chapter 47 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
The rusted Elevator arrived at Basement Level 3. Without the administrator key Lee Jin-sung had provided, the door would never have opened.
Whoosh—!
The moment the door slid open, a wave of scorching heat crashed over us—like stepping before a blast furnace, or opening the door to a sauna at its peak.
“Ugh.”
Seo Eun-ha grimaced and staggered backward.
“What is this place? Why is it so hot? Did a volcano erupt?”
[Warning: External temperature exceeds 65 degrees Celsius.]
[Toxic gas concentration at critical levels.]
Lee Ji-young’s goggles blazed with crimson alerts in endless succession. This was no ordinary basement. Beyond the Elevator doors stretched a landscape closer to a massive Cave. The Ceiling soared impossibly high, and across the Floor, jagged cracks poured forth molten lava in brilliant crimson streams.
At the center stood a colossal mana Drilling Tower—ten stories tall—piercing the earth like a straw driven into the planet’s heart. It roared with deafening noise, pumping crimson energy up from the depths below.
“Something this massive… hidden for ten years…”
Park Jae-jung wiped sweat from his brow, adjusting his shield.
“Those Dominion bastards have nerve. Creating an active volcano beneath Seoul itself…”
“Moving in. Everyone check your respirators.”
I zipped my tactical jacket to the collar and inspected my gas mask filter.
“It’s so hot I can barely breathe…”
Han Su-jin gasped for air, her pale skin flushed crimson from the heat. Despite possessing the abilities of an S-rank Healer, her body remained as fragile as any ordinary person’s.
“Eun-ha. Could you activate the cooling?”
I spoke up.
“Already on it. I was about to suffocate anyway.”
Seo Eun-ha twirled her staff. Though a flame mage, she was equally masterful at heat control. The inverse of radiating heat was absorbing it.
[Thermal Barrier – Cooling Mode]
Azure frost erupted from her staff’s tip, enveloping us in its embrace. The oppressive heat shattered, replaced by a refreshing barrier of cool air.
“Now… I can actually breathe.”
Han Su-jin exhaled in relief.
We crossed the bridge while maintaining the cooling barrier, the crimson mana lava churning violently beneath our feet.
Screech. Clang. Clang.
Metal shrieked against metal. Excavation robots lay scattered throughout the Workshop—spider-like drilling machines, barrel-laden transport units. But something was profoundly wrong with them.
Crimson veins of mana circuitry bulged through mechanical seams, and where camera lenses should have been, organic eyeballs had been grafted into their sockets.
[Mutant: Mana-Infused Machine]
[Rank: C+ to B-Class]
[Traits: High-Temperature Emission, Self-Destruct, Infinite Power]
“The core energy has corrupted even the machinery. They’re identifying us as contaminants.”
Lee Ji-young surveyed the surroundings with her Truth-Seeing eyes.
[Intruders detected. Elimination protocol activated.]
Dozens of excavation robots pivoted in unison, their optical sensors locking onto us. Their drills and cutting blades whined to life.
“Quite the welcoming committee. And here I thought the heat was bad enough without adding exercise to the mix.”
Seo Eun-ha’s irritation was palpable.
“I’m breaking through. We’re going straight to the Drilling Control Room.”
Boom—.
The first to attack was a massive excavation robot. A drill the size of a house came hurtling down. Park Jae-jung didn’t dodge. The drill seemed poised to grind through his shield.
“Not a chance.”
Park Jae-jung cranked up the output of his Black Mamba Armor.
[Iron Fortress – Impact Absorption]
Crash! The drill embedded itself in the shield but failed to pierce it. Instead, as Park Jae-jung bellowed and drove the shield forward, the colossal robot was shoved backward.
“Eun-ha, the joints.”
“Got it.”
Seo Eun-ha could only use one hand while maintaining the cooling barrier, but that was enough.
[Fire Bolt.]
A compact, compressed flame struck the robot’s hydraulic cylinder with precision.
Boom—. With that sound, the robot’s legs crumpled and it toppled over.
I seized the moment to leap onto its back and aimed the Queen’s White Fang I held in my grip at its power core.
Squelch—!
“Purify.”
As the crimson mana infesting the machine turned pure white, the robot went still like a toy with its power switched off.
But they kept coming in endless waves. Drones rained laser fire from above while small bomb robots charged in for self-destruction below.
“Kyaaah!”
Han Su-jin screamed. One of the suicide robots had breached the cooling barrier and was about to detonate at her feet.
“No!”
I tried to throw myself forward, but I was already too late.
Ting—.
The Guardian’s vestment blazed with brilliant light.
[Absolute Defense]
A transparent sphere enveloped her, perfectly blocking the explosion’s impact and heat.
“…Huh?”
Han Su-jin blinked and looked around—she was unharmed.
“Don’t panic!”
Seo Eun-ha shouted.
“Didn’t Tae-hyun say the clothes he made can even block S-rank magic?!”
“Ah… yes!”
She nodded, courage returning to her.
[Saint’s Blessing – Area]
As Han Su-jin extended her hand, golden dust descended upon us. Fatigue vanished as if washed away, and the cracks in Park Jae-jung’s shield repaired themselves in real time. With the healer’s fear dispelled, our party’s endurance surged visibly.
“Excellent. I’ll push forward with this momentum.”
After that, it was one-sided. Park Jae-jung carved the path ahead, Seo Eun-ha incinerated, and I purified the cores. Thanks to Lee Ji-young’s analysis, we avoided the traps as well. After more than ten minutes of breakthrough, we reached the base of the central drilling apparatus, having torn through the mechanical legion.
At the dizzying height of the drilling tower’s peak, a glass control room was visible. But something blocked our path—not a mere machine. A colossal gatekeeper forged from lava, steel, and ten years’ worth of accumulated resentment.
“Kuoooo.”
It rose from the Lava Pool.
[Boss Monster: Corrupted Core Guardian]
[Rank: A-rank]
“…What the hell is that.”
Seo Eun-ha looked up with an exasperated expression.
The creature was a moving mass of magma over five meters tall. Stab it with a blade and it melted; shoot it with fire and it grew larger. An opponent we couldn’t strike, couldn’t burn—the natural enemy of our entire party.
“Those Dominion bastards.”
Park Jae-jung ground his teeth.
“They sent machines down to mine underground resources, and those machines fused together to create this monstrosity.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I adjusted my gauntlets and secured them firmly. The purification energy gathering at my fingertips trembled with anticipation. The stronger the opponent, the more brilliantly my abilities shine.
“We need to show why we came all the way down here.”
I grinned at my teammates.
“Are you ready? Let’s carve this thing up too.”
As the Corrupted Core Guardian opened its maw, instead of sound, a brilliant crimson stream of magma erupted like cannon fire.
“Scatter! Evasive formation!”
My teammates dispersed in all directions.
Boom—
The steel bridge we’d been standing on was struck by the magma breath and melted instantly. Watching the metal slag drip down, Seo Eun-ha’s face went blank with disbelief.
“Insane… You want us to take that head-on? Even grazing it would vaporize us.”
“Magma means physical attacks won’t work. And it absorbs magic too.”
Lee Ji-young shouted urgently.
It was the worst possible matchup. Park Jae-jung’s shield specialized in physical defense, and Seo Eun-ha’s magic was fire-attribute. Throwing fire at fire was like pouring oil on flames.
Thud. Thud. The Guardian charged at Park Jae-jung, swinging its massive magma arms.
“Come on! Bring it on, you hunk of slag!”
Park Jae-jung cranked the Black Mamba Armor to maximum output and raised his shield.
Splurch!
Instead of a dull impact, came a wet, squelching sound. As the Guardian’s fist struck the shield, it flowed like liquid, enveloping the shield and attempting to swallow Park Jae-jung’s body whole.
“Ugh… it’s burning.”
No matter how heat-treated the armor was, there were limits to withstanding magma exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius directly. The armor’s surface glowed red-hot, and the smell of the shield’s coating burning filled the air.
“Jae-jung.”
Han Su-jin extended both hands.
[Saint’s Prayer: Pain Blockade]
[Area Heal]
Her white light enveloped Park Jae-jung, regenerating his charring skin in real-time. But this was merely a stopgap measure; if we didn’t cool the heat, he’d be roasted alive within moments.
“Eun-ha. Forget attacking—cool it down! Freeze the whole thing solid!”
“I’m trying. But the firepower is just too intense.”
Seo Eun-ha gripped her staff with both hands, trembling.
[Blizzard Storm]
A raging blizzard erupted from her staff, hammering the Guardian.
Ssssshhhhh—!
An enormous volume of steam exploded outward, obscuring my vision. The lava’s surface began to harden into black crust, only to melt back to crimson as the heat from within reasserted itself.
‘This won’t work. Simple cooling isn’t enough. It’s connected to Earth’s Core. It has infinite power.’
I fixed my gaze on the corrupted core gleaming at the center of its chest. I had to destroy that. But with its body in a fluid liquid state, even if I drove my dagger through, the core would simply escape.
‘It needs to solidify. Completely solid. Hard enough to shatter.’
Then, a thought flickered through my mind. A principle I’d grasped over the past week while fusing materials in the Workshop. Attunement was a technique for merging different substances into one. So conversely—couldn’t I forcibly separate or fix the properties of substances already mixed together?
Lava was a mixture of rock and heat. If I stripped away its fluidity here…
“Park Jae-jung. Just ten seconds. Hold onto its arm and don’t let go.”
“Ten seconds… understood. Aaahhh!”
Park Jae-jung didn’t flee. Instead, he threw his arms around the Guardian’s dripping limb. His armor sizzled and burned, but he didn’t retreat. It was the pride of a tank.
“Eun-ha. On my signal, maximum output with the cooling rounds. Straight at its chest.”
“Got it. I’ll dump everything in one shot.”
I sprinted toward the creature’s massive form. The Guardian spotted me and raised its opposite hand. A house-sized chunk of lava plummeted toward my head.
“Su-jin. I trust you.”
I didn’t dodge. Crash!
Just before the lava fist engulfed me, a transparent sphere materialized around me.
[Guardian’s Blessing – Absolute Defense]
The lava scattered in all directions. I burrowed into the creature’s body without a scratch.
“Now. Eun-ha.”
[Frost Nova]
Seo Eun-ha brought her staff down. A wave of blue cold slammed into the Guardian’s chest. Its surface temperature plummeted, and black scabs began to form.
“Kraaaagh!”
It writhed in agony, its movements growing sluggish.
I seized the moment and pressed the Alchemist’s hand against its chest, directly onto the blackening stone.
[Attunement: Forced Solidification]
I poured my core energy into its body. My will was singular.
‘You are no longer flowing lava. You are cold stone. Stop. Harden.’
Uuuuuung—
Blue light emanated from my fingertips, spreading across its entire form. I blocked the heat rising from Earth’s Core with my mana and forcibly bound the liquid molecules together.
Crackle. Crack.
Something miraculous happened. The flowing lava transformed into gray stone in an instant, solidifying rapidly. Its arms, legs, torso—the Guardian became a colossal statue, as if it had gazed upon Medusa’s eyes.
“Gr… ugh… ack…”
It tried to move, but its frozen joints refused to obey.
“Success!”
Park Jae-jung shook off the hardened limb and cheered.
“Not yet! It’s not completely solid!”
I drew the Queen’s white fang and aimed for the core hidden within the cracks still glowing red at the center of the stone statue’s chest.
“Eun-ha. A platform.”
Seo Eun-ha conjured an ice pillar that shot upward. I leaped off it, twisting my body mid-air, channeling all my weight and gravity into the tip of my dagger.
“Shatter.”
Craaaash—
The dagger struck the creature’s chest, slamming against the obsidian-hard surface.
“Purify.”
A shockwave erupted from the blade’s tip, spreading throughout the creature’s entire body. Its forcibly hardened form had become catastrophically fragile.
Crack. Crackle.
A single fissure was the beginning. That crack spread across its entire body in an instant.
Crash.
The sound of massive glass shattering echoed through the space as the Guardian’s body crumbled into thousands of stone fragments. Between those shards, a corrupted core pulsing with crimson light tumbled free and rolled across the floor. It was perfect destruction.
I landed and gasped for breath. Smoke rose from my gauntlet.
“Is it done?”
Seo Eun-ha asked carefully.
The core that had fallen to the floor pulsed irregularly for a moment, then lost its light and transformed into a pitch-black stone.
[A-rank Boss Fallen Core Guardian defeated.]
[Massive experience gained.]
“Yes. It’s over.”
I wiped the sweat from my brow and gave a thumbs up.
“Whew—”
Han Su-jin collapsed in relief, while Park Jae-jung lowered his tattered shield and sprawled flat on the floor.
“Boss, what was that just now? I’ve never heard of magic that turns lava into stone?”
“It seemed theoretically possible, so I just tried it. We got lucky.”
I laughed it off, but my hands trembled violently. The mana consumption had been extreme. Yet the sense of accomplishment was exhilarating. We had defeated an A-rank Boss—and overcome the worst possible matchup to do it.
“Let’s move quickly. This isn’t over yet.”
I pointed toward the Central Control Room visible beyond the Guardian’s collapsed remains. Red warning lights flashed frantically beyond the glass windows.
[Warning: Core pressure threshold exceeded.]
[Time until detonation: 15 minutes.]
The Guardian had fallen, but the time bomb it had been guarding remained active. I had to stop the curse Dominion had left behind—the Earth’s Core overload.
“Hurry. If we can’t shut it down within 15 minutes, all of Zone 9 will be wiped off the map.”
We pushed our exhausted bodies to their feet and began running toward the Control Room.

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