The Return of the Transcendent Blacksmith - Chapter 44

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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-Grade Blacksmith’s Return, Episode 44
Elite Grade items were among the rarest of all, managed by the state itself.
And here one stood right before his eyes.
Park Je-hyuk’s eyes trembled at a sight he’d never dared imagine when he’d first asked Kim Jong-su for help.
“Well? Does it appeal to you?”
“O-of course it does. I want this spear more than anything.”
“I’m willing to give it. That’s why I came all this way. But only if you have something of equal value to offer in return.”
“If it’s money, I’ll pay whatever you ask. If it’s not enough, I can—”
“Money? Are you joking? Do I look like I came here for money? Can you pay more than what the state itself offers?”
The voice behind him turned cold.
Sensing danger, Park Je-hyuk hurried to apologize.
“I’m truly sorry. Then… what do you want from me?”
“Items.”
The spear before Park Je-hyuk’s eyes bobbed up and down.
“I’ll take items worth what this spear is worth.”
“I beg your pardon? But… how would you know what I have?”
“Dump everything in your Inventory onto the ground. I’ll take what I want.”
“Ah! What a clever approach!”
Park Je-hyuk nodded in admiration.
“Understood. I’ll open my Inventory right now and empty it.”
Park Je-hyuk began emptying items from his Inventory, stacking them neatly as he did so.
Watching him arrange everything with such care, Shin Tae-ho—the voice’s owner—frowned slightly.
‘A so-called Ranker, and he follows orders this well.’
“Done!”
Without turning around, keeping his eyes forward, Park Je-hyuk spoke brightly.
Careful not to let any displeasure color his tone, Shin Tae-ho replied.
“Good. Wait in front.”
“Yes!”
“…You don’t need to stand at attention. Just wait comfortably, without looking back.”
“Ah, understood!”
The moment Shin Tae-ho spoke, Park Je-hyuk, who’d been grunting in an awkward stance, relaxed his posture.
Shaking his head slightly, Shin Tae-ho’s eyes gleamed as he rifled through Park Je-hyuk’s items.
‘Just as I thought. He’s had it since then.’
Two items caught Shin Tae-ho’s eye in particular.
‘A Superior-Grade Lightning Rune and a Mandragora Seed. Truly, this man was beloved by fortune itself.’
Shin Tae-ho regarded Park Je-hyuk’s back with a newfound displeasure.
He too had gathered many fortuitous finds while climbing the Tower, but they paled beside these two.
Of course, he wasn’t foolish enough to resent Park Je-hyuk for that.
‘And after all, I only have these because Park Je-hyuk possessed them.’
The Superior-Grade Lightning Rune—the highest rank among runes.
And the Mandragora Seed, which alchemists would later hunt for desperately, their eyes bloodshot with need.
Holding both items, Shin Tae-ho spoke to Park Je-hyuk.
“I’ve chosen what I need. Transfer ownership of these items to me, and I’ll transfer ownership of the spear to you.”
Shin Tae-ho extended his arm, showing the two items.
Park Je-hyuk flinched momentarily, but then nodded.
“Understood. I’ll transfer ownership.”
[You have received ownership of the Superior-Grade Lightning Rune.]
[You have received ownership of the Mandragora Seed.]
Shin Tae-ho placed the rune and seed into his Inventory.
With ownership transferred, the items slipped in without resistance, settling smoothly into his Inventory.
“Good. Now I’ll transfer the spear’s ownership to you.”
At those words, Park Je-hyuk swallowed hard.
Soon a message appeared before Park Je-hyuk’s eyes confirming that the item’s ownership had been transferred.
But something seemed off.
“Wait… something’s not right here…”
He was supposed to receive only the Spiral-Bladed Long Spear.
Yet two items had been transferred to him.
Shin Tae-ho explained as if it were nothing.
“I give according to the price paid. Your worth to me was considerable enough for this, so there’s no issue.”
“But still…”
“You’ll need it, so don’t argue—just take it. Consider it a gift because I like your honesty. Now close your eyes, cover your ears, and count to ten.”
“Yes, understood. One. Two. Three….”
Even as Park Je-hyuk stammered in confusion, he closed his eyes and covered his ears, counting to ten as instructed.
Once he reached ten, Park Je-hyuk opened his eyes and pulled his hands from his ears, looking bewildered.
“But why did you have me do that?”
No answer came back.
Park Je-hyuk kept asking questions to himself, and only after ten minutes had passed did he cautiously turn around.
There was no one there, of course.
“Did… did he leave?”
Park Je-hyuk looked around and hurriedly gathered the items from the ground back into his Inventory.
It was then he remembered he hadn’t yet checked the second item Shin Tae-ho had given him, so he opened his Inventory.
“What did he give me? If it’s something I need, is it another auxiliary weapon? Or—”
As Park Je-hyuk muttered to himself, he checked the item and his eyes went wide.
He rubbed his eyes several times, but the item information in his Inventory didn’t change no matter what he did.
An item that had never appeared in this world before, that he’d never even heard of.
Upon seeing one Intermediate Healing Potion in his possession, Park Je-hyuk let out a silent scream.
* * *
The next day.
As Shin Tae-ho entered his private workshop as usual, Kim Jong-su greeted him.
“Good morning, Master. Did you meet well with Park Je-hyuk yesterday?”
“Yes. I gave him a useful item.”
“Ha ha ha. Receiving a spear made by Master himself—Park Je-hyuk the Challenger must be quite fortunate.”
During the week that Park Je-hyuk waited for Kim Jong-su’s contact.
Kim Jong-su watched from right beside Shin Tae-ho as he personally crafted the spear for Park Je-hyuk.
Because of this, he understood just how exceptional the spear was, how skillfully and carefully it had been made.
And having watched from beside him, his admiration for Shin Tae-ho, whom he revered as his master, had naturally deepened.
‘Meeting Master was truly great fortune.’
As Kim Jong-su gazed at Shin Tae-ho with reverent eyes.
Shin Tae-ho was reflecting on his meeting with Park Je-hyuk.
‘Park Je-hyuk. I hardly knew him back then, but he’s genuinely pure-hearted.’
At this point in time, Shin Tae-ho was not yet the master blacksmith he would become.
All he did was mass-produce items at his own Blacksmith Workshop just to get by.
Because of this, Park Je-hyuk’s pure nature, witnessed yesterday, had been a fresh shock to Shin Tae-ho.
‘If there were only Challengers like Park Je-hyuk—ones who put the world first and act with integrity—maybe I could have focused on crafting weapons like before.’
Of course, that was merely naive hope, the kind only an innocent child without knowledge of the world would hold.
Having seen the Tower destroyed by a human traitor, Shin Tae-ho no longer had the heart to work as he once did.
Yet he wasn’t so rigid as to refuse making weapons for anyone, fearing they’d be misused.
‘Making weapons only for Challengers like Park Je-hyuk might not be a bad idea.’
“By the way, Master—he didn’t suspect your identity or anything, did he?”
“Of course not. I even wore a Mask just in case, though it turned out to be unnecessary.”
Shin Tae-ho chuckled softly, looking at the Mask placed to the side.
It was the Mask he’d used yesterday, serving both to disguise his voice and to prepare for the possibility that Park Je-hyuk might turn around.
‘Even if he tried to track me, Tower.com doesn’t keep logs, so he’d never find me.’
Tower.com was thoroughly secured precisely because it was a community used by the entire world.
Moreover, whether by design of the site’s creator from the start, who was wary of misuse, or by some other reason, user tracking was equally impossible.
If there were any information about the creator or administrator, countries would have already lobbied or threatened for it.
But like the founder of cryptocurrency, their identity remained hidden—known to no one.
‘This method. It’s useful.’
Shin Tae-ho thought it over carefully.
He had deliberately prepared his personality as a concept when meeting Park Je-hyuk.
Even if he were to encounter himself as a Tamer one day, Park Je-hyuk would never suspect it was the same person who’d made the spear.
‘If another case like Park Je-hyuk comes up, I’ll have to use this method again.’
As Shin Tae-ho was thinking this.
A cheer erupted from outside the workshop where the blacksmiths were working.
At the unfamiliar commotion, Kim Jong-su looked confused and opened the door.
“What’s all this noise about?”
“Master! Look there! Look at that!”
The blacksmith standing closest pointed at the large TV monitor installed in the Blacksmith Workshop.
A real-time news article was being broadcast as breaking news on the screen.
⌜Breaking news! Ten minutes ago, Park Je-hyuk, the former Ranker who challenged the 66th floor, has overcome the trial and successfully ascended!⌟
“Gasp—!”
Kim Jong-su’s eyes widened in astonishment as he read the news.
Surely Park Je-hyuk hadn’t challenged the 66th floor again the very next day, even with such a fine weapon?
A week ago, Park Je-hyuk had still been struggling with severe pain from incomplete post-surgical recovery.
To Kim Jong-su’s knowledge, only one person could make such an impossible thing real.
“Master. You don’t mean…?”
As Kim Jong-su turned his head, Shin Tae-ho, standing at an angle where the blacksmiths couldn’t see him, gave a slight nod with an impassive expression.
Realizing his suspicion had been correct, Kim Jong-su trembled.
The weapon alone was one thing, but to heal Park Je-hyuk from death’s door in a single day?
‘Just who is my master?’
“What do you make of it, Kim Jong-su?”
Shin Tae-ho, observing the cheering blacksmiths, asked casually.
Kim Jong-su swallowed and answered.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Only the weapon changed, yet Challenger Park Je-hyuk was able to clear the 66th floor, where he’d nearly lost his life. That means his shortcoming was never his skill—it was his equipment.”
Shin Tae-ho, who had been gazing outside, turned his head slowly.
From beyond came the joyful cries of the blacksmiths, hammers ringing against anvils.
The dark shadow that had hung over the Blacksmith Workshop was gone entirely, replaced by Park Je-hyuk’s flushed face as he gave his interview.
And Shin Tae-ho, who had shaped this entire moment, met Kim Jong-su’s eyes with a gaze as solid and unwavering as iron.
“This is the blacksmith’s calling, and true strength.”
“-!”
Kim Jong-su trembled.
It was no tremor of fear, but a chill of enlightenment.
Unlike Shin Tae-ho’s stillness, Kim Jong-su’s eyes trembled as if shaken by an earthquake.
Overwhelmed, Kim Jong-su spoke as if entranced.
“Could I too… become like you, Master?”
The question came falteringly, his voice trembling.
The answer that came back was, as always, the opposite of what he feared.
“Of course.”
It was only one phrase, yet no further explanation was needed.
Feeling the sting behind his eyes, Kim Jong-su turned his gaze again to etch this scene into memory.
‘I will. I must create a moment like this with my own strength, using the teachings I’ve received from my master.’
At first, he had sought out Shin Tae-ho simply hoping to develop his true skills.
But now, by showing him directly a landscape he had never even glimpsed on his own,
Shin Tae-ho had become far more than a teacher of technique—he had become a true master who shaped the course of Kim Jong-su’s entire life.
Continued in next chapter ▶
The Transcendent-Grade Blacksmith’s Return
Author
Bong In Haejae
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing House
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260227067
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited, and violations may result in criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscripts.

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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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