The Cursed Blacksmith Who Regressed - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 32

He arrived at the workshop.

After the car stopped, Jang Hae-hyeon spoke with a worried tone.

“Still, you should rest a bit… You’ve been climbing the Tower all day, are you really okay? I’m worried you might be pushing yourself too hard.”

“I’m fine. There’s nothing to do even if I rest. It’s better to raise my skill levels instead.”

“Oh my… Who could stop our advisor? Still, please take breaks while you work. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Understood. Thank you for your concern. I’ll contact you again soon.”

He declined Jin Hyeon-geun’s offer to get out and assist him, saying it was fine.

When he opened the workshop door, the cursed items he had ordered from Jin Hyeon-geun were piled up in a corner.

He went over and picked one up to check its information.

[ Nemen’s Crimson Dagger ]

– Type: Item

– Restriction: Level 10 or higher

– Durability: 107/210

– Attack Power: 31

– Options:

1. Targets hit by attacks suffer ‘Minor Bleeding’ effect.

2. The dagger’s user enters ‘Minor Frenzy’ state proportional to the amount of blood the opponent sheds.

# A sword said to have been carried by the shaman Nemen.

# Filled with ominous energy.

# Has been appraised by an expert.

A common-looking dagger that could be used at level 10.

Based on the basic specs plus the option of 10 durability and 2 attack power increase per level, this dagger’s options could be considered relatively decent.

That made sense since it had better specs than average and also inflicted bleeding effects on hit targets, even if minor.

But at some point, people would have become excessively excited while using the dagger, and when they found it strange and had it appraised, the cursed option was discovered.

So it was passed around here and there until it ended up here.

All so-called cursed items are like this.

Either they have curse options from the beginning, or hidden options are revealed through appraisal.

Moreover, cursed items don’t sell well.

Because of a single curse option, no matter how good the performance, they’re treated like trash and passed around until they become junk.

‘But after the 2nd Great Upheaval, the usefulness of cursed items changes dramatically.’

The reason was simple.

After the 2nd Great Upheaval, the number of blacksmiths capable of disassembly repair increases tremendously.

That makes sense – if you could extract just the curse option from cursed items through disassembly repair, could there be a more efficient item looting method?

There couldn’t be.

Other industries aside, in this field where you have to make things directly, removing is easier than adding.

‘Of course, learning disassembly repair doesn’t guarantee you can always remove curse options well.’

Disassembly repair doesn’t always succeed either.

Success rates are given for most cases only up to enhancement repair.

From disassembly repair onward, it’s affected by skill level and Dexterity stats.

So to stably remove curse options, you need at least 50 Dexterity stats and must learn up to fusion repair to safely remove curse options without affecting the item.

And Choi Hyun was a monster among monsters – only level 30 but with 78 Dexterity stats and fusion repair mastered.

He couldn’t fail at option removal work that he used to do like eating meals in the past, even if he wanted to.

“Well then, shall we begin?”

Choi Hyun took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank it all at once, then unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

Then he sat in front of the pile of cursed items and summoned the Hammer of Repair and Hammer of Materials, placing them beside him.

He started with the dagger he had first picked up.

Clang clang clang!

As he began hammering the sword, the familiar dim and murky light began to appear, and contour-like lines were revealed.

When he focused on hammering those, the contour-like lines began changing into a grid pattern and the next skill activated.

[ Disassembly Repair is activated. ]

When disassembly repair activated, the familiar grid pattern immediately appeared densely.

He immediately switched to the Hammer of Materials.

Normally, he would have changed the form of the Hammer of Repair and then hammered the murky blocks to remove impurities.

That’s what disassembly repair is.

But what Choi Hyun was about to do wasn’t ‘repair.’

It was ‘gathering.’

Currently, Choi Hyun’s repair skill was in a state where he couldn’t raise it even if he wanted to.

Because 100 Dexterity stats was the condition for the next level up.

So what Choi Hyun was about to do was level up his material skills.

‘Based on high repair skills and Dexterity stats, raise the levels of gathering and processing skills to obtain Dexterity stats from the Achievements generated there.’

That was Choi Hyun’s strategy.

A strategy that truly prioritized efficiency.

Since he’d have to raise material skill levels eventually anyway, if he needed to raise gathering and processing skill levels, now was the perfect time.

[ Manual Dexterity is activated. ]

[ Super Focus is activated. ]

[ Basic Gathering is activated. ]

Choi Hyun, gripping the Hammer of Materials, hammered the blocks as if removing impurities.

He didn’t just hammer randomly despite having high Dexterity stats.

His gathering skill was still only 1-star after all.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The color of the block Choi Hyun started hammering was black.

If the murky blocks of whitish light corresponded to ‘impurities’ that were somewhat lacking in item composition, black blocks were like ‘cancer cells’ that absolutely didn’t need to exist.

So among blacksmiths, it wasn’t uncommon to call blocks ‘cells,’ meaning cellular units.

After hammering like that for a while.

Crack-

The black blocks began falling like stone fragments.

He concentrated.

He touched delicately and hammered carefully.

And finally, when the black block was completely removed, no more black blocks were visible on the dagger.

“Whew.”

He put down the hammer.

His intended purpose was achieved.

Now he picked up the Hammer of Repair again and struck the grid lines with a bang! as proof that the work was finished.

[ Repair has been completed. ]

[ You have succeeded in repair. ]

[ Due to the effect of Enhancement Repair, the target has been completely repaired while some options have been improved. ]

[ Due to the effect of Disassembly Repair, unnecessary parts of the target have been removed and some options have been improved. ]

The work was finished.

Choi Hyun checked the dagger’s information again.

[ Nemen’s Crimson Dagger ]

– Type: Item

– Restriction: Level 10 or higher

– Durability: 280/280(210+70)

– Attack Power: 40.3(31+9.3)

– Options:

1. Targets hit by attacks suffer ‘Minor Bleeding’ effect.

# A sword said to have been carried by the shaman Nemen.

# Filled with ominous energy.

# Has been appraised by an expert.

# Unnecessary elements have been removed by a skilled blacksmith.

# The enhanced performance will disappear if durability falls below the original level.

A smile spread across Choi Hyun’s lips as he looked at the Item Information.

The option information had changed.

The description was somewhat different from the defense sword or silent sword he had seen before.

This was because he had removed the cancer cells but hadn’t removed the impurities.

But because of that, there was no change in the dagger’s size.

The 30% increased durability and attack power were a bonus.

Choi Hyun looked at what he had harvested from the dagger.

A pitch-black block.

This thing that looked like a nail with a blunt end was the curse option he had extracted from the dagger.

‘Curse options are usually traces of spells, remnants of thought entities, or rune fragments in most cases.’

Among these, spell traces and remnants of thought entities make up the largest portion.

The reason is that the option’s attribute is a curse.

Since curses are usually caused by spells or thought entities, rather than being added during the crafting process, they’re often enchanted onto finished items or naturally settle in them.

So most curse options don’t affect the item’s size unless it’s a special case.

He checked the information of the harvested curse.

[ Harvested from Nemen’s Crimson Dagger. ]

– Type : Item

# Traces of a curse harvested from Nemen’s Crimson Dagger.

The simple description made him chuckle.

In his previous life, he would have perfectly separated the curse attached to cursed items.

But now, while he succeeded in separating the curse option, he failed to harvest the curse option itself intact.

The reason?

Simply because his harvesting level and dexterity stat were low.

‘Still, if my harvesting skill reaches about level 3, I should be able to harvest most things properly.’

Choi Hyun carefully placed the separated curse to one side.

Although it wasn’t harvested properly and was still just at the ‘trace’ level, that didn’t mean it was useless.

Choi Hyun still had his processing skill left.

‘But I’ll work on processing after raising my harvesting skill level first.’

Now that he had made the first attempt, it was time to pick up the pace.

Choi Hyun picked up the next item and the repair hammer.

* * *

[ Disassembly Repair is activated. ]

[ Dexterity is activated. ]

[ Intense Focus is activated. ]

[ Basic Harvesting is activated. ]

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang…

[ Repair has been completed. ]

[ You have succeeded in repairing. ]

[ Due to the effect of Enhanced Repair, the target has been completely repaired and some options have been improved. ]

[ Due to the effect of Disassembly Repair, unnecessary parts of the target have been removed and some options have been improved. ]

…

Quite some time had passed.

Choi Hyun swung his hammer like a machine and separated curse options.

After curse traces had accumulated for a while like this.

[ Craftsmanship with solid fundamentals. ]

[ Your harvesting skills have become both faster and more meticulous. ]

[ Conditions have been met. ]

[ You acquire the skill ‘Quick Harvesting’. ]

[ Your trait begins to grow in earnest. ]

[ The skill ‘Material Hammer’ has grown and some information has changed. ]

[ You gain 2 Dexterity stats. ]

Information cascaded down.

Finally, he was able to acquire the second harvesting skill, Quick Harvesting.

‘I’ll go straight to level 3 harvesting like this.’

He invested the 2 bonus stats he gained into Dexterity.

This brought his Dexterity stat to 80.

Choi Hyun’s hand moved toward the next cursed item.

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