The Return of the Legendary Golden-Handed Blacksmith - Chapter 384
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Episode 384
384.
MiTube.
A video was uploaded to Lizny’s official MiTube channel.
The thumbnail was simple.
Someone’s back, with a world in the background unlike anything seen before.
-Huh?
-No way.
-Is this teaser number two?
It wasn’t.
This wasn’t a teaser video.
-Insane.
-This isn’t a teaser, it’s….
-A public announcement!?
A public announcement.
A video announcing that Jin-woo’s series was coming soon.
-Thank you for your patience.
-At last, the legend of Jin-woo begins.
Along with the video, a post was made on the Lizny channel as well.
-Jin-woo: The Road to Legend.
-Initial release in 24 hours!
-The initial release will happen in 24 hours!
When people heard that EP1 of Jin-woo: The Road to Legend—the Elementia arc—would be released in 24 hours, they started spamming question marks frantically.
The announcement had only been made recently.
Very little time had passed since the teaser dropped.
And now they were saying it would upload in 24 hours?
-???????
-What’s going on here?
-Didn’t the announcement just come out?
-When did they even start preparing for this?
-They’re crazy fast.
-But Jin-woo only chose Lizny recently, right?
-Seems like they’ve been rushing since then.
-This is mad….
-I heard the JinTube editor joined them. That must be making a huge difference.
-Kyaaaaaaaa we’ve got so much to watch!
People were shocked by the speed but also genuinely delighted.
Jin-woo’s new series was causing a stir across every MiTube community, including SharkNet.
It started with questions about why Jin-woo had gone to Lizny in the first place, spiraling into arguments about whether it would fail or succeed—or maybe it would definitely flop. The comments were overwhelming.
The posts predicting failure even made it to SharkNet’s best popular posts.
-Jin-woo rides on platform strength.
-He succeeded because of Netflix. Lizny? Do you know how many exclusive series Lizny has already botched?
-Don’t you remember when they secured IPs from famous users and made series that flopped?
-Remember Max Head? Ranker number 32, the great knight Max Head? Lizny spent a fortune recruiting him and it was a total disaster, right?
Max Head was a user whom Lizny had spent big money to recruit, then hired a famous director to make content like a film.
Lizny naturally expected Max Head’s series to succeed.
He’d already appeared as a guest frequently on MiTube, earning massive view counts from it.
-I think that was around when Pendant’s content came out on Netflix.
-The prediction was that Pendant, being from the crafting industry, would flop, and Max Head would obviously succeed.
They thought a video from the crafting industry—not worth watching—would obviously fail.
But the results were the opposite.
Instead, the video of a common combat-class ranker didn’t attract people at all.
The hidden story and crafting narrative of the crafter proved far more compelling.
But some attributed it to the platform difference.
-Netflix muscled it through with capital.
-Jin-woo’s the same. He’s crafting-class, but his success is Netflix’s strength.
-Same as Pendant.
-Going to Lizny was a real mistake.
There were still plenty of negative comments, but they were all anticipating it too.
-Even if it doesn’t succeed, it’s nice to have something to watch.
-Nobody can trash Jin-woo’s content anyway.
Even those who disliked Jin-woo couldn’t criticize his content.
-Huh?
-Crazy.
-There’s a news article?
It didn’t stop at being an issue in every community on SharkNet and MiTube—it had now started appearing in the news.
Not an internet article.
It was on the 9 o’clock news.
-Good evening, viewers. I’m sure you all know about the fully immersive virtual reality game NewGen, which has maintained the number one position since its launch. A South Korean user named Jin-woo in that game….
It was news about him launching a new series through Lizny.
Alongside that came reports about how he had set records on Netflix and rewritten history.
-I didn’t expect it to make the news.
-It makes sense though. He broke Netflix’s records.
-When he was on Netflix, didn’t he break the Billboard charts too? Wasn’t that on the news?
-It wasn’t covered quite this extensively though.
It wasn’t just the news.
-Articles are coming out constantly right now.
-MiTubers aren’t taking it lightly either.
Everyone was riding the Jin-woo wave.
Especially MiTubers—there was barely a channel that didn’t cover Jin-woo.
-You know? South Korea’s pride, Jin-woo, is actually….
Mass-produced shorts about Jin-woo started flooding the platform.
-At this rate, he might end up on broadcast television.
-He might go on a variety show.
-That’s totally possible.
-He should definitely go on.
-I hope he appears on a game show.
-Me too!
Tick-tick-tock.
Time was flowing fast.
“Siiigh.”
Han In-gu’s production team was waiting for the results after getting some sleep.
The opening was crucial.
If they couldn’t hook people right away, everything would be over.
Their assumptions about Lizny were proving accurate—it wasn’t a particularly user-friendly platform.
Those accustomed to Netflix found Lizny difficult to use. If they couldn’t draw people in from the start, viewers would never pay for a Lizny subscription.
“It’s fine. We all did our best, didn’t we?”
Han In-gu said.
“If it flops, we’ll all just go work on fishing boats. What’s to worry about?”
“…Pardon?”
“You’re the most worried about this….”
“Fishing boats…?”
Han In-gu was quite tense as well.
This was the first project of the newly established production company.
Everything depended on how it unfolded now. They’d invested everything into this production, so there was no way to avoid the tension.
Among them, one person remained calm.
That was Dongwoo.
“Dongwoo, how can you stay so composed?”
“I’m used to it from MiTube now.”
Dongwoo said with a smile.
“This can’t possibly fail. Wasn’t it fun?”
“…It was fun, yeah.”
“But that’s….”
“Then that’s enough.”
Dongwoo said.
“Viewers will think what we felt. The initial performance might admittedly be lower due to Lizny’s accessibility issues.”
There was no need to be swayed by opening numbers.
“Once word of mouth really takes off,”
That’s when it would truly begin.
“The rankings might even reverse against Netflix.”
* * *
-Entering Sacra Island North!
Sacra Island North was the highest elevation on the island.
“Before Sacra became an Engineering City, there were many trials, I heard.”
The process of refining Rune Stones into Cores was no simple task.
Because of this, the previous generation of mechanical engineers had gone through countless processes and created materials essential to mechanical engineering: Magic Cores and Ether Cores.
“This place is where those waste materials were abandoned.”
Whoooosh.
The North was filled with discarded materials.
On top of that, there were places corrupted by mana, and where unconsolidated mana gathered and warped space itself.
“If you wander wrong because of the space distortion,”
Whoosh!
you could plummet off a cliff.
“Hmm.”
Jin-woo activated Eagle Eye.
-Eagle Eye activated!
“Concentrated mana gathered in one spot.”
A cream-colored stone lay on the ground, gleaming.
-Mana-Condensed Corrupted Quartz obtained.
“Nice.”
The Corrupted Quartz had lost its luster.
It was virtually worthless as material. If someone working with it let the corruption seep into their body, it would climb through their veins and kill them.
But that was only a problem for ordinary crafters.
For Jin-woo, it was perfectly usable material.
“Soul Forging.”
Whoooosh.
Jin-woo purified the spirit through Soul Forging.
All the corruption vanished.
“Good spot?”
Jin-woo summoned Speed.
“Speed. All those corrupted materials scattered on the ground. Gather them all up.”
“Yes!”
Speed collected every scrap of material in an instant. Jin-woo restored them to their original state through Soul Forging.
“Nice!”
Jin-woo gazed contentedly at the restored materials.
“Since these are materials I’ve never used before, the Rune Effect should be quite generous.”
In the distance, Jin-woo spotted a spire.
“If something happens inside that spire, I should be ready to handle it with these materials.”
-This is a Quest location!
The spire was the Quest location.
Screeeeeech!
But the moment he tried to enter, the clear sky began to turn ominous.
-Mana Storm approaching!
A storm of mana began to rage. Lightning erupted from the rushing winds and started destroying the surroundings.
Crack-crack-crack!
Lightning struck the spot where Jin-woo had been standing just moments before.
“The defense system is pretty sophisticated.”
All the temples Jin-woo had found so far had been abandoned.
Some had guardians, but generally they let him enter the temple itself.
“There’s an active guardian here, it seems?”
It was likely that a guardian of the great Necromancer who inherited the Twin God of Fire and Soul’s power was positioned there.
“Or maybe….”
The Necromancer themselves could still be alive.
‘When I promoted to Necro Master, Hephaestus was basically still alive too.’
He was in a state of being neither alive nor dead from his regret, but Necromancers were generally that way.
“Who’s in there?”
-The Twin God of Fire and Soul speaks of their legacy!
“A legacy, you say.”
In the next instant, lightning from the Mana Storm struck Jin-woo.
The lightning, saturated with mana, was intense enough to paralyze Jin-woo’s entire body in an instant.
Rumble-rumble-rumble.
The lightning from the Mana Storm was certainly enough to reduce Jin-woo to ash.
But Jin-woo endured it with ease.
“That works well.”
Thanks to the Faust Bone Helm he’d crafted.
The helm’s high defense and magic resistance meant Jin-woo took almost no damage.
And Faust’s Wings enveloping the bone helm also provided substantial defensive benefits.
‘Not just raw defense, but strong resistance to various status effects.’
Jin-woo grinned.
“That’s pretty good.”
Jin-woo looked at the spire bristling with shields and lightning, then summoned First.
“First.”
Whoooosh.
“My lord.”
“You see that spire? It’s got a barrier.”
Jin-woo grinned.
“With Cannon Form.”
Click.
First immediately shifted into Cannon Form.
Whoooosh.
“Fire.”
Whoooush!
Black energy gathered in the barrel, then discharged.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
The cannon fired in a straight line with a thunderous roar.
And then.
“Whoa.”
Jin-woo exhaled in admiration.
“That’s effective.”
He then advanced toward the shattered spire’s barrier.
“Most problems just get solved with enough firepower.”
If something was hard to solve, it was only because there wasn’t enough firepower.
“Going to find that legacy.”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————