The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 123

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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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The Transcendent Blacksmith’s Return, Episode 123
Tower Dotcom had been ablaze with gossip in recent days.
It wasn’t the usual sort of rumor—someone climbing the tower and encountering Mystery, that kind of thing.

Details: Special Grade with 3 Unique Effects. One of them is Level 2. 7.7 billion won.
Attached to the post was an image of a refined shield, roughly the size of a laptop.
At the shield’s center was the distinctive pattern carved by northern dwarven craftsmanship.
Within that pattern, a small quantity of reddish liquid shimmered.
But contrary to what the poster had hoped to flaunt, the comments were mostly people tearing them apart.
-You traitor bastard. You sell National Points to line your own pockets?
-Bragging about this crap? Certified low-IQ behavior right there.
National Points were the monthly benchmark by which the nation met the tower’s requirements.
If a nation’s National Points fell short of that benchmark, the result was the emergence of Gates within that country.
For that reason, each nation’s Management Bureau had been offering sweeping incentives to both challengers and Awakeners still hesitant about attempting the tower.
So boasting about obtaining a fine item in exchange for those very points was bound to draw criticism.
Yet the poster held their ground in the face of countless rebukes.
⌎(Poster) What the hell? You’ve got to be able to keep yourself together to even climb the tower.
⌎Even so, you’re accepting every benefit you can get, and then you turn around and peddle National Points for personal gain?
⌎(Poster) Oh, what the hell has the nation ever done for me?!
As the replies piled up, the tone grew increasingly raw.
⌎(Poster) So what? Those pathetic subsidies? Fine, I’ll vomit that money back up—then give me some of the gear you hand out to Rankers! I’m up there busting my ass every month killing monsters in the tower! You call that kind of pittance a benefit?!
The poster poured out all manner of curses, venting frustrations held back for far too long.
That raw, pent-up anguish in their words slowly quieted the stream of critical comments.
Just as public opinion began to shift toward the poster’s side,
a comment with a different angle appeared below the thread.
-Then why not just buy the item in real life? Why sell National Points?
-Oh look, here comes another one who’s never even set foot near the tower ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Do you have any idea how much it costs to buy gear like that in real life? Tens of millions of won, minimum.
⌎Leave them be. Pearls before swine. They’ve never climbed the tower themselves, so they probably think all challengers are rich enough to treat tens of millions like pocket change.
“Hmm.”
Shin Tae-ho, who had posted a comment himself only to get thoroughly roasted in the replies, scratched his cheek.
And the commenter wasn’t even wrong.
‘Back then, I was locked away in the Blacksmith Workshop doing nothing but work. I didn’t have much sense of how other challengers lived.’
When Shin Tae-ho had first entered the Management Bureau’s Blacksmith Workshop, he’d been occupied simply processing assigned tasks.
As time passed and his skills grew, he gradually took on different work.
And by the time he was accepting personal commissions, even millions of won in his bank account had been a rarity.
‘Now that I think about it, I understand.’
Only a tiny fraction earned hundreds of millions and could afford decent items.
Everyone Shin Tae-ho had met so far was either a World Ranker or a rising star in a major Guild—hardly what anyone would call ordinary.
So what level of items did ordinary people actually possess?
The answer wasn’t hard to infer from the comments themselves.
‘So they’re thrilled with Special Grade items with one or two Unique Effects—lower even than most higher-tier gear?’
Grade didn’t always determine an item’s absolute performance.
By Shin Tae-ho’s assessment, items like that were among the very weakest of the Special Grade category.
The fact that such an item had been traded for National Points struck him as almost malicious.
‘More than anything else—that liquid visible at what looks like the item’s core. That has to be Cheonhyeol, the substance Kogalum showed me.’
Cheonhyeol—a miraculous substance of immense power from another world, the one he’d been told about.
Combined with what he’d experienced in his previous life: a future that was also a past.
Connecting the two, Shin Tae-ho could sense the terrible events looming on the horizon.
‘This will be hard to stop.’
Not impossible, exactly.
But the opportunity cost of abandoning his own work to prevent it was simply too steep.
Moreover, if he stepped forward to solve this problem, there was a real risk the situation would deteriorate further.
Precisely because he understood the gravity of it all, Shin Tae-ho couldn’t bring himself to decide easily.
Ding dong.
A message popup appeared over the Tower Dotcom screen.
Seeing the familiar name, Shin Tae-ho tapped the popup and his message app opened, displaying what had arrived.
-Shin Tae-ho! Hope you’ve been well? The tower opens soon! Don’t get hurt and make it through!
-Shin Tae-ho! Please climb carefully with Yong-ryong-i!
Shin Tae-ho, reading the messages, let out a quiet laugh.
Bianca and Choi Yu-hwa had continued to exchange greetings like this before climbing the Tower each time, even after parting ways with him.
In fact, Bianca seemed to have taken a liking to life in Korea, and was still staying with Choi Yu-hwa in a hotel suite.
Shin Tae-ho tapped the screen and sent a reply to the group chat.
-Yes. Please be careful climbing as well. As for me, I’ve already cleared the Trial, so there’s nothing to do.
-Huh? You cleared the Trial?
-Do you mean you cleared the Floor 16 Trial?
-Yes. Both of you, climb carefully.
-Wait, hold on! How did you clear Floor 16 when it hasn’t even opened yet?!
Shin Tae-ho moved to explain the situation in response to Bianca’s astonished message.
But his hands, which had been typing a reply, stopped as Yong-ryong-i appeared carrying a bag as large as his own body.
“Yong? What’re you doing, Yong? Aren’t you ready?”
Yong-ryong-i, who had stuffed snacks into the bag along with a Tablet containing videos to watch and plenty of Power Banks, tilted his head in confusion.
Yong-ryong-i’s eyes narrowed at the sight of Shin Tae-ho, who hadn’t prepared despite this being the day to enter the Tower.
“Don’t tell me… just like last time, you’re planning to say you were actually going to enter later, right?!”
“That’s not it.”
Shin Tae-ho sighed at the sight of Yong-ryong-i, whose eyes were wide with suspicion.
“You seem surprised because I’m not putting on Armor. This time, there’s no need to wear it. I’ve already cleared the Trial.”
The Trial he had received on Floor 15 was one where two Trials were bundled together as one.
Shin Tae-ho and his party had cleared Floor 15’s Trial by finding the Dwarf informant.
And by safely returning that informant to the city, they had also completed the Trial for Floor 16, which they were about to enter.
Only then did Yong-ryong-i, who understood what had been said, nod before his expression turned to shock.
“Wait, Yong! So you don’t even have to enter the Tower, right?!”
“No. I still have to enter the Tower. There’s work to do.”
Shin Tae-ho checked the time and lifted the shocked Yong-ryong-i into his arms.
Right on cue, a message window appeared announcing that Floor 16 had opened, and Shin Tae-ho entered the Tower while carrying Yong-ryong-i.
[Entering Tower Floor 16.]
[You have already cleared the Floor 16 Trial.]
[You may exit the Tower and still have access to Floor 17.]
Shin Tae-ho nodded, confirming that the Trial completion had been properly reflected in the message window.
Yong-ryong-i, who had been cradled in Shin Tae-ho’s arms with the bag slung over his shoulder, pouted.
“You should’ve told me in advance! I packed this bag so carefully for nothing!”
“No. I’ve cleared the Trial, but there’s work to do here, so I won’t be leaving. You need to consume some Energy as well.”
Shin Tae-ho answered while gently stroking Yong-ryong-i’s head as he grumbled.
Yong-ryong-i, whose eyes had been closed with a sulky expression, was startled by his soft touch.
“Work? So you’re not leaving right away?”
“Right. This time, I think I’ll stay in the Tower and use up the full amount of time I’m allowed.”
Shin Tae-ho had left Floor 15 yesterday.
Not only Shin Tae-ho, but also Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Han Ji-hyun, who had promised to help him, were on Floor 15 until yesterday.
After waiting a moment, three Energy signatures were detected by Shin Tae-ho’s Energy Sensing.
“Shin Tae-ho, hello! Hi there, Yong-ryong-i~?”
Amaterasu, who entered first, greeted the two of them warmly upon seeing them.
Following her came Tsukuyomi with a tired expression, and Han Ji-hyun, whose expression was as blank as always.
“Hello to everyone, Yong~.”
Yong-ryong-i, nestled in Shin Tae-ho’s arms, waved one hand in greeting.
At Yong-ryong-i’s greeting, Tsukuyomi’s face brightened for a moment, but he quickly cleared his throat and turned away.
“Yes. Hello.”
“When someone greets you, you should look at them, Yong!”
Yong-ryong-i pointed out Tsukuyomi’s action of turning away and scolded him.
Tsukuyomi, caught off guard by the unexpected criticism, cleared his throat again before properly greeting him.
“My apologies. Let me greet you properly. Hello, Yong-ryong-i.”
“You didn’t seem very happy when you greeted me just now, Yong.”
…….
As Yong-ryong-i let out a snort and pouted, Tsukuyomi’s body trembled slightly.
Shin Tae-ho apologized on his behalf and said a word to Yong-ryong-i about behaving with courtesy, but the one he had teased.
The reason Tsukuyomi was trembling was not because he was angry at Yong-ryong-i.
‘How is he getting cuter the more I look at him…?!’
Yong-ryong-i’s appearance in human form was undoubtedly that of a beautiful girl whom everyone would agree with.
On top of that, he didn’t have any rough edges and even had a pleasant voice.
With his tendency to come first and strike up conversations, Yong-ryong-i had become like a ray of light in Tsukuyomi’s otherwise grueling life working in the Mine.
Amaterasu, who saw through the reason for Tsukuyomi’s trembling, smiled softly.
‘Tsukuyomi, you’re still a sucker for anything cute, aren’t you~.’
Shin Tae-ho, who had been instructing Yong-ryong-i on the matter, turned his head toward the three of them.
“As you saw in the message window, we’ve already cleared this floor’s Trial. You’re all free to leave whenever you’d like.”
“Yes, well, that’s true. But what are you planning to do, Shin Tae-ho?”
“I have work to do here, so I’m staying in the tower.”
Shin Tae-ho answered Amaterasu’s question honestly.
At his answer, Amaterasu smiled softly and nodded.
“Then if you’d just give me permission, I’d really like to help you mine the Mine again this time. Would that be alright?”
“Ah, miss.”
Tsukuyomi grabbed Amaterasu’s collar in alarm.
They’d practically lived in the Mine for weeks on Floor 15, and now the Mine again?!
Shin Tae-ho, too, shook his head with an uncomfortable expression.
“Your help last time was more than enough. Why don’t you go out and rest well until we enter Floor 17?”
“No, I want to do it because I like it. And I don’t think my apology has been sufficient yet.”
‘We mined over a ton of Towerinium — and it’s still not enough?’
Shin Tae-ho looked at Amaterasu in bewilderment, then flinched.
“Please, just let me help you one more time!”
Amaterasu gazed at Shin Tae-ho with eyes shining brightly.
In sharp contrast, Tsukuyomi, who stood a step behind, looked at Amaterasu with eyes full of despair and horror.
As Shin Tae-ho flinched at their starkly opposing gazes.
Han Ji-hyun, who had been quiet until now, also raised a hand and spoke.
“Me too. Please. I want to mine more.”
“…Very well.”
Shin Tae-ho nodded and turned to the side.
He didn’t have the courage to face Tsukuyomi, whose eyes were turning toward him slowly and lifelessly, like something out of a horror film.
To be continued ▶
The Transcendent Blacksmith’s Return
Author
Bong In Haejae
Publishers
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Contact Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227067
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or duplication is strictly prohibited. Violation may result in both criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes submissions of precious manuscripts from writers.

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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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