The Return of the Legendary Golden-Handed Blacksmith - Chapter 57

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

Episode 57
57.
Clang! Clang!
Jin-woo first selected which Int Orc he would craft new equipment for. Then he began making gear for them.
‘The guardians’ hides are tough. So a weapon that can smash through that hard exterior would suit them well.’
He was going to make something far more brutal than the club they were currently wielding.
‘A maul.’
Jin-woo selected mostly hard minerals from the Material Storage.
“Focusing on Northern Steel.”
The steel from the north was far harder than steel from other regions, thanks to the unique energy of the Northern Mountain Range.
Whoosh.
“If I layer rubies and apply Flame Engraving…”
Crackle-crackle.
As the Flame Engraving took hold on the maul’s head, powerful force began to flow through it.
“Attack power is being enhanced, not durability.”
Flame Engraving’s effect varied dramatically depending on how the gems were layered. Through a series of trials, Jin-woo had discovered the formula.
After applying Flame Engraving according to that formula, he carved in the Spell Inscription.
“Archak, archak.”
Spell Inscription also had the same mechanism as Flame Engraving.
Adding archak to archak created a pro-archak that amplified the power.
But the more layers he added, the higher the difficulty of drawing the characters. Yet the rising difficulty only deepened Jin-woo’s immersion.
-Your Immersion stat has increased!
-Your Dexterity stat has increased!
-Your Dexterity stat has increased!
Crafting, engraving, spell inscription.
Moving his hands in three different ways meant his Dexterity stat rose without pause. The bottleneck that should have come long ago never arrived.
-Your Dexterity stat has increased!
Jin-woo brought down his hammer one final time.
-You have crafted equipment!
-You have crafted SS-Rank Equipment!
-You have crafted a Northern Steel Flame Maul!
The finished product was a maul perfectly sized for the Int Orc.
“It’s done.”
The Int Orcs who had been waiting were struck by Jin-woo’s characteristic speed of crafting. They had continued to give him keen, piercing looks like Rigalren, but upon seeing the maul completed in an instant, they were astonished.
“There’s Spell Inscription… on it.”
“How can a human use Spell Inscription?”
First, they were shocked by the inscription.
“I was watching the whole time. But it was incredibly fast. Impossibly fast!”
Second, they were amazed by the speed.
“Try holding it.”
The Int Orc who took the maul grasped the handle with a sharp motion.
“Hrrgh.”
Third, they were stunned by the quality.
The Int Orc instinctively stepped back slightly and swung the maul.
Whoosh!
The maul fit perfectly, as if it had been made just for him.
“This was made for you.”
Jin-woo spoke to the Int Orc, who seemed hardly to believe it.
“Really, truly made just for me? Is it my maul alone?”
“Yes. It’s your maul.”
“Thank you, ah, I mean… thank you, sir.”
The Int Orc’s eyes softened.
The harsh, piercing gaze was gone.
After that, Jin-woo increased his pace of crafting.
-You have crafted equipment!
-You have crafted equipment!
This was practice.
‘To use Orc-ish Stone properly, I need to get more familiar with Spell Inscription.’
Jin-woo wanted to use Orc-ish Stone and Jade Stone at the highest level he could currently achieve.
So practice was necessary.
‘I can’t cut corners on Spell Inscription or Flame Engraving.’
Making equipment just to fill the numbers was meaningless.
He had to become truly comfortable with Spell Inscription and master the manipulation of the flames in Flame Engraving.
“Ching.”
“Thwang!”
Munji and Coco collaborated very naturally at this point.
With expressions that seemed to say ‘Not bad,’ the two began to acknowledge each other, if only slightly.
Clang!
Time flowed on like that.
* * *
Exactly four days.
-You have crafted equipment!
-Your Level has increased!
Jin-woo had crafted fifty pieces of equipment.
“Thank you, great warrior.”
They had started calling him “human,” then “Jin-woo,” then “Master Jin-woo.”
Now they called him “great warrior.”
“To have created fifty weapons and pieces of armor in just four days—truly, this can only be called by a word such as ‘great.'”
“Though we’re using them for the first time today, they feel like equipment we’ve carried for years!”
The Int Orcs who received equipment from Jin-woo were all without exception satisfied.
“Phew.”
Through crafting fifty pieces of equipment, Jin-woo had become completely proficient in Spell Inscription and Flame Engraving.
‘Flame Engraving is definitely polished well, perhaps because Rodin refined it directly. The finish is high.’
But Spell Inscription was different.
‘The finish is high, but there seem to be quite a few parts missing.’
Especially in the parts where spells were layered, there were clearly significant gaps.
Jin-woo tried to supplement and correct these gaps as best he could, but because something was fundamentally lacking, it wasn’t easy.
“Hmm.”
What remained now were 250 Int Orcs.
‘I don’t need to make new equipment for them.’
It seemed the remaining Int Orcs would only need some slight adjustments from him.
But upgrading in this current state felt pointless.
“Rigardo.”
Jin-woo sought out Rigardo.
Rigardo was in his tent, strategizing for the reclamation of the Northern Mountain Range.
Beside him was Rigalren, the tribal chief, who stood formally and bowed the moment Jin-woo entered.
“Greetings, great brother.”
Jin-woo gave Rigalren a light greeting in return.
Then he went straight to Rigardo.
“Rigardo, about this Spell Inscription…”
Jin-woo voiced his question to Rigardo.
Rigardo’s expression stiffened.
“You’ve already sensed it? Your suspicion is correct, brother. This isn’t perfect Spell Inscription. I learned this from my grandfather, but before I could learn everything, my grandfather went to the Land of Warriors.”
Rigardo spoke.
“Because of that, I’ve been training in Spell Inscription by interpreting things my own way. That’s why. This Spell Inscription feels like something’s missing.”
In short, the transmission of Spell Inscription had broken to some extent by Rigardo’s generation.
It wasn’t Rigardo’s fault.
‘It seems his grandfather passed away before he could teach him everything.’
“Is there no way to learn it?”
“We have no books or records. So it can only be passed mouth to mouth. Without my grandfather, there’s no way to learn more.”
Rigardo too found this deeply regrettable.
But there was no way around it.
“Hmm.”
Jin-woo thought for a moment.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could teach you more, but the knowledge has been lost. If I had learned it all, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“No. The Spell Inscription you’ve mastered on your own is excellent.”
Jin-woo saw only the possibility of developing it further.
“Mm.”
In that moment, a method occurred to Jin-woo.
But it was delicate.
For the orcs, death was not literally death, but a return to the Land of Warriors.
“What if…”
Jin-woo looked at Rigardo.
“I…”
Rigardo’s face showed shock at what Jin-woo was suggesting.
“Would it be all right if I brought your grandfather back to life to learn Spell Inscription from him?”
* * *
Jin-woo was a Necromancer.
A necromancer, by nature, possesses the power to resurrect the dead.
“How?”
“I have such power. If you permit it, I can learn that lost Spell Inscription.”
“If it’s possible, then yes. But I ask one thing—please make sure my grandfather, who has been in long sleep, doesn’t suffer.”
“Of course. Don’t worry.”
Jin-woo confirmed from Rigardo the location where his ancestor was buried.
“Then it would be good if we all moved into the Northern Mountain Range.”
“A good idea. We’ll do that.”
The Int Orcs’ advance toward the north to reclaim their homeland had begun.
* * *
The Northern Mountain Range.
As Jin-woo advanced into the Northern Mountain Range, he tested the Necromancer skill Soul Sight in various ways.
‘Soul Sight basically allows me to see souls.’
To resurrect the dead, naturally he had to see their souls first.
‘I need a skill to revive just the soul, not the skill to put the soul into a skeleton and bring it back.’
“Assume formation!”
As the Int Orcs advanced into the Northern Mountain Range, they displayed formidable strength against the monsters they encountered.
Especially the orcs who received equipment from Jin-woo took the vanguard, and their destructive power was considerable.
Crash!
Crash-crash-crash!
The orcs wielding mauls in front suppressed the monsters, while those with greatswords and hammers in the second line delivered additional strikes.
So no monster could withstand their overwhelming destructive force.
“Ooooooo.”
“Owwwwwwwwww!”
The victorious Int Orcs raised their weapons high and roared.
“We can win!”
“We can reclaim it!”
The Int Orcs began to regard Jin-woo’s equipment like a savior. Actually using them made all the difference.
That he could create such equipment in an instant…
“The great warrior stands with us!”
“We have nothing but victory!”
Jin-woo, leaving those orc warriors behind, absorbed the souls of the monsters they hunted.
-You have obtained the soul of a Megaphone.
-You have obtained the soul of a Hunter Hawk.
“Can I resurrect just the soul without a body? Originally, a necromancer can resurrect the dead without a skeleton.”
Jin-woo tested various methods with Soul Sight.
-A soul has been revived!
“Ah.”
In some cases, the soul was revived and moved as if alive for a very brief moment.
-Failed.
But failure was more common.
“It seems conditions are needed.”
Jin-woo tested what those conditions might be.
And before long, they arrived at the Northern Mountain Range.
“Jin-woo, did you find what you wanted?”
“Not certain, but I confirmed what I needed to.”
Rigardo handed Jin-woo a parchment.
“This marks the exact location. In the Underground Stone Cavern. That’s where he rests. We’ll wait here. If we go deeper, the Guardians will surely notice us.”
The Int Orcs could advance no further.
Jin-woo took the parchment and moved deeper into the Northern Mountain Range.
“I’ll be back.”
* * *
“I tested it, and not every dead person can be resurrected.”
If that were possible, the necromancer ability could be seen as breaking the balance.
“Connection is important. I need a connection medium that can link me to the soul.”
This connection bore a striking resemblance to spell magic in many ways.
Spells too, like curses, become much more powerful when you create a medium to connect yourself and the target.
“Then this resurrection ability would work the same way.”
There had to be something to connect to.
“Something I can connect with…”
Jin-woo looked at his hands.
Hands inscribed with Spell Inscription.
And he had the Spell Inscription that Rigardo taught him.
“With this, I can make the connection.”
Deep within the Northern Mountain Range.
Jin-woo had arrived at the Int Orc tribe’s underground tomb that Rigardo had mentioned.
And there he was able to find the grave where Rigardo’s grandfather was buried. Jin-woo used his skill before it.
Shhhhhh—.
“Soul Sight.”
Jin-woo activated Soul Sight.
Then he saw a very faint soul.
With Spell Inscription as a medium, he could locate the soul.
“Done.”
-You have discovered a Faded Soul!
-A Faded Soul cannot be placed in a skeleton.
-You can summon a Faded Soul only once.
Faded Souls were those that could no longer be placed in skeletons.
Moreover, they could only be summoned once.
Once summoned, they could not be called again.
“That’s enough.”
But Jin-woo didn’t need to make a thrall.
Just for a moment.
Just for a moment, he only needed to summon him to this world.
-You have learned a new skill!
-You have learned the Response of the Dead skill!
-Temporarily summons the dead connected through a powerful medium!
“Response of the Dead.”
Boom!
With a thunderous sound, a hand emerged from the ground. That hand bore tattoos.

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