Chapter 15. Preparation for the Raid
The day after the Awakener acceptance celebration party.
Lee Han-seong, who visited the Association, registered his party formation with the three promising talents and then imdiately used their equipnt exchange vouchers together.
While looking around the Association's equipnt warehouse, the three with Rare Equipnt exchange vouchers chose a ‘Dragon Scale Armor’, a ‘Mantle of Refraction’, and a ‘Belt of Protection’, respectively.
“You chose armor since you have Spirit Armants as weapons. Smart.”
“Well, yeah.”
Except for the Dragon Scale Armor that Park Seong-cheol chose, their appearances didn't look particularly defensive, but from Rare Equipnt onwards, the equipnt itself contained skills, so what skill was contained was more important than the appearance.
In the case of Jin Yu-seong's ‘Mantle of Refraction’ or Yoo Se-hee's ‘Belt of Protection’.
As could be inferred from the modifiers, they contained the skills and , which seed certainly useful for defense.
“It'll take a while to choose, so wait outside.”
“Alright.”
Since he already had the Demonic Sword of Gluttony as a weapon, Lee Han-seong also planned to choose armor.
Unlike the other three, what Lee Han-seong had was a Common Equipnt exchange voucher, so he could only choose common equipnt without skills.
‘Even if they are the sa common grade, not all equipnt is the sa.’
He knew from hearing before his regression that among the common equipnt in the Association's warehouse, there was equipnt comparable to Rare Equipnt.
Thump, thump.
Unleashing the skill, he looked over the armors.
How long had he been scanning the equipnt?
[?'s Breastplate> has been appraised.]
‘This is it.’
Finally, the equipnt he was looking for ca into view.
-Nyaha~!
[The Unnad Constellation recognizes the equipnt you have chosen and smiles.]
‘You recognize it, I see?’
As they shared mories from before the regression, he knew it would recognize it.
?'s Breastplate>.
The equipnt he found was not on a simple common-grade level.
“I'll take this.”
“Are you sure you want that one? It's a failed piece where the skill imprinting failed, so its durability should be lower than it looks.”
The existence of a modifier was a characteristic of Rare-grade equipnt.
Because the modifier was marked with a question mark, it seed to have been classified as a common-grade equipnt without a skill, but this was definitely Rare-grade.
“Yes. It's fine.”
Of course, Lee Han-seong was not the only one who realized that this breastplate was originally of Rare-grade level.
Appraisal-type skills were not unique to him.
It's just that even if they knew, if they couldn't use the skill, it was no different from common equipnt, no, they would have judged it as below-average common equipnt since its durability was lowered by the skill imprinting.
‘But that's only limited to this era.’
In the future, equipnt with modifiers marked with question marks like this becos a treasure that is impossible to find.
This is because a thod to overwrite the failed skill imprint with a new skill was belatedly discovered.
‘But for now, it's a thod only I know.’
A treasure rightfully belongs to the one who recognizes its value.
Well, it's his own path, so he'll handle it. The Association staff mber, unable to understand Lee Han-seong's choice, muttered and then nodded.
“As of this ti, this equipnt is owned by Mr. Lee Han-seong.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Lee Han-seong, with a smile leaking out, headed out of the warehouse.
Then, he ran into Kim Jin-ho, who was just entering the warehouse, and his smile vanished completely.
‘Looks like that guy ca to use his exchange voucher too.’
Just looking at his face made him feel disgusted.
However, Kim Jin-ho looked at Lee Han-seong with an unknowable smirk and then passed him to enter the warehouse.
‘Why is he smiling?’
He thought he would be regretting or feeling anxious about betraying him by now, but since he still looked down on him, sothing felt a little strange.
‘Is there sothing I don't know?’
After pondering for a mont, Lee Han-seong left the warehouse, shrugged his shoulders, and turned his attention back to the newly acquired breastplate.
The multiple lives gained through the Stigma Nine Lives, the History Alteration that could stop ti and gain ti for growth, and on top of that, the Destiny Awakening Skill Transcendence and the Demonic Sword of Gluttony.
Considering the abilities he had hidden as much as possible so as not to reveal them, he was confident he could overco whatever move that guy made.
And if the blank skill equipnt he just obtained was added to that, he could beco even stronger, so he had no ti to spare for soone like Kim Jin-ho.
***
‘What kind of skill should I put in it….’
The thod to put a skill into a blank skill equipnt was simple.
Using an empathy-type skill to synchronize deeply with the equipnt, then thinking of sharing one's own skill, it would automatically be overwritten onto the ?> skill in the form of that skill.
Therefore, the skills that can be put into equipnt are usually only the skills one possesses.
[The Unnad Constellation is curious about which skill you will put in.]
‘Just wait and see for now.’
The limit of skills that a Rare Equipnt could contain was the sa Rare grade.
The only Rare skill Lee Han-seong currently possessed was Overmind.
But he had no intention of putting Overmind in it.
‘I don't necessarily have to put in my own skill.’
The important thing was synchronization with the equipnt.
Using Overmind's Multi-Synchronization, he should be able to put in others' skills as well.
And as it happened, hadn't he ford a party with promising talents who had good skills?
Approaching the party mbers waiting outside the Association, Lee Han-seong grinned.
He was looking forward to putting a high-ranking spirit's rare skill into the equipnt.
“Right now, you want us to tell you the skills we have?”
“Well, since we're a party, sharing skills should be fine, right? We need to know each other's abilities well to raid a dungeon together anyway.”
Following Lee Han-seong's proposal, the party took a mont to share their skills with each other.
It started with Lee Han-seong.
“First, I have….”
27 common skills, 1 rare skill, 2 Awakening Skills, and 12 Destiny Awakening Skills.
Because Lee Han-seong first spoke about his own skills without hiding anything except for the Stigma, the others also revealed their skills without much hesitation.
Lee Han-seong listened closely to the rare skills of the three.
Usually, one gets two rare skills at 3-Star and 4-Star.
The three who had contracted with 5-Star and 6-Star spirits all had four rare skills each.
‘Park Seong-cheol's Chungmugong has , , , and .’
First, he excluded and , which were specialized for commanding a large number of troops and fleets.
He also excluded , which was linked to that summoned a turtle ship.
Among Park Seong-cheol's skills, was the most useful.
Even if not in a naval battle, the turtle ship itself could be used as a defensive structure.
‘Jin Yu-seong's Old Man of the Mountain has , , , and .’
, which grants physical force to shadows and controls them.
, which transfers damage to a shadow.
and , trained with hashish drugs.
As befitting the skills of a nad assassin-class spirit, all four rare skills had excellent utility.
Keeping all four skills in mind, he also examined Yoo Se-hee's rare skills.
‘Yoo Se-hee's Nightingale has , , , and .’
which prevents wounds from worsening, and which increases healing speed.
and , which enhance self-healing capabilities.
As befitting a healer-class spirit, it was full of recovery-type skills that affected combat sustainability.
‘It's hard to decide which one to choose.’
None of them were bad choices.
For now, Lee Han-seong organized his thoughts while explaining to his party mbers about the dungeon they were going to this ti.
“The dungeon we're going to is called [Crossroads of the Scale].”
“Crossroads of the Scale?”
The dungeon [Crossroads of the Scale].
“Its feature is two divided paths and the fact that the two paths are connected by so kind of law.”
A dungeon designed like a scale that weighs death, where as the number of deaths in one path increases, the path tilts, and if that tilt exceeds a limit, the path itself collapses.
“So, to raid it, we have to attack both paths simultaneously.”
“We'll have to split our forces and match our hunting speeds.”
“At that ti, we can connect our consciousness like last ti to match our progress.”
The level of the appearing monsters was 2-Star to 3-Star, spider and bat-type monsters that inhabit cave environnts.
Besides the monsters, there were so traps in the paths, and the level of the dungeon boss that appeared in the final boss room was 4-Star.
And the most important thing was that the rewards were excellent compared to the raid difficulty.
‘The party that raided this dungeon before my regression beca a hot topic after growing into a mid-tier party in an instant.’
Since a mid-tier party usually referred to a party where all mbers were 5-Star or higher Awakeners or contractors of 7-Star or higher spirits, most were ford by promising talents, but this one was different.
There were no promising talents, and it was just a party of 1 and 2-Star Awakeners with an average talent of a 3-Star vessel, but after raiding [Crossroads of the Scale], they grew rapidly and reached the mid-tier party level.
Naturally, their growth engine must have co from the rewards obtained from [Crossroads of the Scale].
‘If they, who weren't promising talents, could achieve that much, it would be much more helpful to us, a party of promising talents.’
However, since he couldn't explain how he knew about the rewards in advance, he finished the dungeon explanation, leaving out the part about the rewards.
“That sounds like a suitable first raid for us.”
“If we do well, we might even be able to achieve our 2-Star awakening there.”
Hearing the dungeon explanation, the party mbers renewed their motivation.
[The Unnad Constellation, looking forward to your awakening, recomnds .]
The Constellation, for whom Lee Han-seong's growth was its own recovery, also showed anticipation for this dungeon and recomnded a skill to imprint on the breastplate.
‘Shadow Craft… that would certainly be good.’
Considering the environnt of the [Crossroads of the Scale] they were going to, the most useful skill was Shadow Craft.
It was also a skill proven in its effectiveness as it was Jin Yu-seong's main skill.
Having made up his mind, Lee Han-seong moved to the location of the dungeon entrance he rembered.
And when they had almost arrived at the dungeon.
Woooong.
Using the excuse that the dungeon was getting closer, he activated and .
While synchronizing with the party mbers, he simultaneously attempted to synchronize with the breastplate.
He recalled the knack he had used when he empathized with the Demonic Sword before.
‘Imprint Shadow Craft.’
The mont the synchronization rate with the equipnt reached 100%, the ?'s Breastplate> reacted according to Lee Han-seong's will.
[The ?'s Breastplate> changes into the .]
[You have achieved the accomplishnt, ‘Equipnt Skill Imprinting’.]
Shadow Craft filled the blank skill slot, and he even obtained an achievent.
[The Unnad Constellation blesses your achievent.]
If it had been the blessing of a nad constellation, he might have been able to achieve a 2-Star awakening with this achievent, but the blessing of a yet-unnad constellation alone was not enough for awakening.
But that didn't an the Constellation's blessing brought no change at all.
[Conditions have been t, and the common skill blossoms.]
His inner vessel expanded slightly, and he obtained one of the new common skills he would have originally gotten upon reaching 2-Star, in advance.
A skill that could imprint a skill into any empty slot, be it equipnt or anything else.
It wasn't a skill that would be imdiately helpful in combat, but it wasn't bad.
‘My 2-Star awakening is not far off.’
He felt like he might actually be able to awaken to 2-Star in this dungeon.
As he activated the Breastplate of Shadow Craft as a test.
Saaar.
His consciousness spread into the shadow like ink, and the parts touched by his consciousness began to move with physical force.
Very slowly.
‘Tch. The proficiency is too low.’
The feeling of moving the shadow was awkward, as if a tail or wings had newly grown.
Because the proficiency of a skill engraved on equipnt is reset, his skill proficiency was near the bottom even if his synchronization rate was high.
But even with just that, the party mbers' eyes shone as they looked at Lee Han-seong.
“Wow. Did you just bestow my skill onto your equipnt?”
Because they were in the middle of Empathy, the party mbers were aware of the process of imprinting the skill onto the equipnt and knew of Lee Han-seong's achievent.
“You completed a failed piece into a Rare Equipnt…?”
“The thod is to raise the synchronization rate with the equipnt to 100%, how on earth did you figure that out?”
In fact, it wasn't that skills to raise the synchronization rate with equipnt to the max didn't exist at all.
When weapon skills reach a certain level, like or , skills that make one beco one with the weapon tend to appear.
But the weapons that one would beco one with like that were usually bound to be good weapons.
No one in their right mind would choose a failed piece as a weapon to make a part of their body.
Naturally, the thod of imprinting skills on failed pieces was difficult to beco known.
‘Of course, in the future, there was one crazy guy like that, and the secret of equipnt imprinting beca known.’
He couldn't explain that, so he mumbled his words.
“Well, I just happened to figure it out.”
At Lee Han-seong's nonchalant response, the party mbers' eyes narrowed as they looked at him.
Then, Jin Yu-seong rembered sothing and nodded his head.
“Right, this guy was a madman who synchronized deeply with all his spirits at the sa ti.”
“I can hear you.”
“Hey~, it's a complint. A complint. You know the saying, a genius can't beat a hard worker, a hard worker can't beat one who enjoys it, and one who enjoys it can't beat a madman?”
“Isn't that originally, ‘he who knows is not as good as he who likes, and he who likes is not as good as he who enjoys’?”
“Hey, as long as the aning gets across, it's fine. Why are you so picky?”
Confucius' words from the Analects were a bit changed, but he understood the general aning, so he didn't argue further.
The other two nodded their heads as if agreeing with Jin Yu-seong's words.
“Stop with the nonsense and get ready to go in. We're almost there.”
Feeling awkward, Lee Han-seong needlessly chided Jin Yu-seong and quickened his pace.
***
A certain mountain near Seoul.
Lee Han-seong's party arrived at a side of a hiking trail that had been closed due to tree-type Awakened Beasts encroaching on the path.
Whiiing-
An oval, shimring aura of blue light.
That was the entrance to the dungeon.
“This is it.”
“It looks like it was ford not too long ago.”
Unlike other public dungeons, the party mbers each comnted as they looked at the entrance, which had no manager or control facility whatsoever.
“There's really nothing here.”
“If soone saw this, they'd think it just appeared a mont ago.”
Muttering words that accidentally touched upon the truth, the party mbers moved their feet towards the dungeon entrance.
Thud.
Starting with Lee Han-seong, the entire party entered the dungeon's disconnected space.
.
.
.
A short while after the four entered the dungeon.
“To think there would be an undisclosed dungeon in a place like this. How on earth did that guy know about this?”
“Who knows. Aren't we just supposed to do our job?”
Two people who had been tailing them from a distance since the Association appeared in front of the dungeon entrance.
It was the fixer Kang Min, dispatched to deal with Lee Han-seong, and Kim Jin-ho, who had followed him.
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