The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Transcendent Grade Blacksmith’s Return Episode 1
A pine caterpillar must eat pine needles; a magpie that follows a stork will split its legs.
Two proverbs, yet they carried the same meaning.
Don’t overstep your station. Act according to your place.
This lesson had been the guiding principle Shin Tae-ho lived by all his life.
Shin Tae-ho’s awakened Class was Blacksmith.
Though it was not the Class he’d wished for, he devoted himself to the blacksmith’s work without complaint.
Always trapped in the smithy, his body drenched in sweat, metal shavings falling with every move.
The endless labor left no time to climb the Tower.
Yet each time Shin Tae-ho forged a weapon, Tower Challengers climbed higher.
And each time he crafted armor, the mortality rate among Challengers fell.
Then came that moment, midst the endless hammering.
The people bestowed upon Shin Tae-ho the reverential title: Transcendent Grade Blacksmith.
His body was worn, and it was not the path he’d once desired—yet Shin Tae-ho harbored no regret, no doubt.
…Not until the world became this way.
“…Damn it.”
A curse escaped Shin Tae-ho’s lips.
But there was no one left to hear it.
Beaten beyond recognition, Shin Tae-ho looked around with hollow eyes.
Beneath a sky roiling with black and violet,
countless corpses lay scattered.
Shin Tae-ho’s gaze swept across them.
A blade sharp and hard enough to cleave dragon scales glinted among the dead.
A Shield capable of deflecting railgun fire without a scratch lay nearby.
A Suit he’d reinforced to be as durable as the Shield itself, amplifying the wearer’s strength manifold.
…All of them, creations born from Shin Tae-ho’s own hands.
“Why? Why, in the end…!”
Shin Tae-ho covered his face.
Humanity never did climb the Tower.
But not for lack of strength.
The Human Traitors.
Overwhelmed by the Tower’s presence, they forsook mankind and willingly worshipped the Tower—madmen to the core.
The Tower fell because these lunatics drove their blades into the backs of Challengers who climbed to protect humanity.
Yet they, too, had once been human.
And so, they wielded without restraint the arms Shin Tae-ho had forged for mankind’s sake.
Worse still, Human Traitors had infiltrated the upper echelons of the World Government, granting them access to even finer weapons.
With those weapons, they slaughtered the noble Challengers who risked their lives ascending the Tower.
“Damn them! Damn them all!”
Shin Tae-ho’s fist struck the earth.
Thick concrete crumbled to dust.
“For an ending like this—for such a pitiful end, I…!”
Crouched upon the ground, Shin Tae-ho howled like a beast.
The countless arms he’d poured his soul into crafting for the world’s salvation.
That they had become instruments of destruction in the hands of the world’s destroyers—the reality of it threatened to shatter his mind with rage.
Thrumm—
The sky heaved.
With each pulse, an energy that had never belonged to Earth writhed like a wave.
The Tower’s Qi, once humanity’s hope for conquering it.
But as the Tower collapsed, that Qi poured forth across the globe.
Now it seeped through Earth like poison.
Poison only to mankind.
To the invaders who descended from the fallen Tower, it was oxygen—the very source of their strength.
Kuu-OOOAAARRGHHHH!!
A roar that seemed to invert heaven and earth shook the air itself.
Grinding his teeth, Shin Tae-ho raised his gaze.
Into the burning violet sky.
A presence so vast that distance could not be measured revealed itself.
Shin Tae-ho stared at it with bloodshot eyes.
“Arcanus…!”
The first Dragon Lord.
The mightiest dragon.
And the Dragon Lord who ruled them all.
Arcanus was descending through the sky, his eyes blazing like the sun as he looked down upon the world.
He was impossibly distant—far enough that she couldn’t make out the details of his gaze.
But she could feel it.
Right now, Arcanus was looking only at Shin Tae-ho.
Crack!
Shin Tae-ho gritted his teeth hard enough to break them, then forced himself upright.
Whisk-snap!
The Suit, rolling across the ground, wrapped around his body in an instant.
He’d made it himself, so he knew how to use it better than anyone else.
There was only one thing he’d made that he couldn’t understand: its true nature.
“I’m counting on you.”
Shin Tae-ho opened his inventory and withdrew the item sitting at the very top.
An item he’d made himself, yet whose function remained a mystery.
At the same time, it was the decisive catalyst that had earned him the title of Transcendent Grade.
[Unknown Core]
-Grade: Transcendent
-Description: A core that transcends the meaning of grade itself. Charging is required to activate its true abilities.
-Remaining Charge: 0.0001%
-Unique Abilities: ⌜Charge⌟, ⌜Unknown⌟, ⌜Unknown⌟
-Creator: Shin Tae-ho
Information with only one exception among its unique abilities—everything else remained shrouded in mystery.
But right now, this was the only thing Shin Tae-ho could rely on.
“I don’t know what you are.”
As he brought the core to his chest, a space opened between the Suit’s panels.
Shin Tae-ho secured the core to his chest and took up his sword and shield once more.
“Just this once—live up to your Transcendent Grade and help me.”
Whoosh-crash!
The dragons came streaking through the air like arrows.
Their maws crackled with energy condensed to devastating density.
Boom!!
A deafening roar erupted beside his ear, like thunder striking nearby.
The Breaths unleashed by the dragons hurtled toward Shin Tae-ho.
A Breath spanning several kilometers in radius—there was no dodging it.
Knowing this, Shin Tae-ho pressed his shield tight to his body and crouched as low as he could.
Boom-crash!
Fragments of shattered concrete melted away in an instant.
But as another Breath erupted in succession, the ground boiling like lava suddenly froze solid.
Lightning shattered the ice to pieces.
A tremendous wind blew the broken shards away.
Dragon Breath that could overturn all of Korea with a single attack.
Those Breaths rained down in relentless succession, targeting only Shin Tae-ho.
At last, the Breath ceased.
The dragons, aware of their own power, were certain of Shin Tae-ho’s death.
But then.
“Done already, you lizard whelps?”
From within the crater where countless Breaths had fallen.
Shin Tae-ho, who’d endured every single attack, was standing with his eyes wide open like a beast.
Before the startled dragon could even react properly.
From Shin Tae-ho’s outstretched hand, aimed at the dragon, a burst of concentrated energy was released.
Whoosh!
Boom!!
Crack!
The dragon hit by the energy fired from the Suit fell from the sky.
The dragons’ eyes went wide.
This situation made no sense to them at all.
Just as the dragons began gathering their strength in fury, preparing to unleash their Breaths again.
From far away came a roar of a different dimension entirely—one that dwarfed all of theirs.
Roooooar!!
At Arcanus’s cry, the dragons scattered in alarm.
Beyond the vanishing dragons, Arcanus’s massive form filled Shin Tae-ho’s vision.
Despair flickered across Shin Tae-ho’s eyes.
He stared at Arcanus’s gaping maw.
He could tell.
That Breath was on an entirely different scale from the dragons here.
A hundred times stronger?
No—a thousand times?
He couldn’t even fathom it.
The thought crossed his mind that it might bore straight through Earth itself.
“So this is where it ends.”
His resolve crumbled.
No—it had been broken from the start.
The Tower had already fallen.
That wouldn’t change, even if he killed every last dragon here.
Then why keep struggling like this?
If he simply gave up everything now.
Let that Breath take him—painlessly, mercifully—
“Fool.”
Crack!
Shin Tae-ho bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.
The searing pain jolted his clouded mind back into focus.
Give up?
Throw away the fruits of so many Awakeners’ desperate struggles and sacrifices only to end in surrender?
“Never.”
A low sound rumbled from his throat.
The Suit wrapped around his body shifted form.
The plating that had protected his chest and abdomen fell away.
Instead, the Suit concentrated on his arms and legs, pushing his strength and striking power to their absolute limits.
Shin Tae-ho glanced at the core, and its remaining charge displayed.
—Remaining: 0.93%
“Pathetic lizards. You’ve been firing off your Breaths this whole time and this is all you managed?”
Shin Tae-ho spat the words out with contempt toward the dragons.
But it wasn’t sincere.
Rather, it masked his revulsion at their power.
Despite every method he’d tried, he’d never pushed the charge beyond 0.0001%—yet now it stood at this level.
And even absorbing dragon Breath in such quantities, the core still wasn’t even at 1%.
What in the world was this core?
“Fine. Better this way. I’ll use this core to absorb and annihilate every last scrap of your Breath. Then I’ll use that power to end you.”
The energy held in the core flowed into the Suit, lifting Shin Tae-ho’s body skyward.
In an instant, he rocketed toward Arcanus.
Arcanus, who had been watching silently, opened its maw wider still.
A deafening roar tore across the sky!
Sound itself vanished.
The blast was so catastrophic his eardrums ruptured.
The Breath was so titanic that Arcanus disappeared from his field of vision.
But Shin Tae-ho did not yield.
“Rraaaaahhh!!”
A roar that was part scream, part battle cry tore from his throat.
Simultaneously absorbing the Breath through the core and channeling every charge into a counterattack.
The core’s remaining percentage surged and contracted like a rubber band, stretching and compressing.
Yet the disparity in power was unmistakable.
“Ughhhh!!”
His body was burning away.
Or had it already burned completely?
He couldn’t feel anything anymore.
He couldn’t even tell if he was alive or dead.
In the deafening silence, he could only feel endless agony as he continued charging and attacking in endless cycles.
‘If only I’d known they were Human Traitors from the start.’
Perhaps because death drew near.
Suddenly, regret from the past flooded through Shin Tae-ho’s mind.
‘If only I had restricted the weapons so that only chosen individuals could use them.’
‘If only I had never crafted them at all.’
‘No….’
Rather.
If I had refused every plea and climbed the Tower myself, trusting in my own potential.
Wouldn’t I have been able to reach a different ending?
At some point, the pain vanished.
Nothing could be heard or seen.
He couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.
But if he was still thinking, didn’t that mean he wasn’t dead?
A hollow laugh escaped at the absurdity of it.
Still, he had done everything he could.
Even if he had failed and shattered, he never surrendered.
So when he was about to release even the consciousness he clung to so desperately,
something familiar rose through his sightless darkness.
What is that?
The instant the question formed,
a ticking sound suddenly echoed from somewhere.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The second hand’s ticking roared as loudly as Dragon Lord Breath.
What’s this suddenly?
So loud.
It’s all over now—why am I hearing a clock’s sound out of nowhere?
As his irritation climbed,
Tick—!
The ticking of the Regression Orb, which had been ringing like a heartbeat, fell silent.
“This goddamn thing!! What is this irritating clock sound…huh?”
Shin Tae-ho’s eyes snapped open the moment he heard his own voice.
He pushed himself upright and froze, eyes darting around the cramped space.
A narrow room. A worn desk.
And stacked on that desk, textbooks on certification exams.
A landscape he hadn’t seen since becoming a blacksmith.
Yet it was a landscape he knew all too well.
“This is… before I awakened….”
Before Shin Tae-ho could finish speaking,
Ding!
[Congratulations. You have been chosen as an Awakener.]
[Complete the Tutorial to unlock your latent Class.]
Along with the notification, the message window that had once completely overturned his life long ago reappeared.
Continued in the next episode ▶
The Regression of a Transcendent Grade Blacksmith
Author
Sealing Unsealed
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing Company
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227067
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reprinting and reproduction are prohibited, and violations may result in criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscript.

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