Leveling with the Gods

Why didn’t he think of it sooner? Why didn’t he notice it earlier? 

For the next few days, the mysterious egg continued to occupy his thoughts.

‘Is it really the symbol of an Outer God?’

YuWon couldn’t sense anything. He started thinking maybe it was his imagination. For the Tutorial’s reward to be related to the Outer Gods… Not once did he nor any of his comrades ever think of this possibility. 

‘There’s no way to be certain yet.’

Tmp, tmp—

YuWon went outside for a walk.

‘But if it’s true…’

Would the thing that hatches from this egg be a valuable companion that helps YuWon…? Or would it bring destruction and ruin like the Outer Gods in his memories? 

There was nothing he could do right now. He couldn’t just throw away the egg, nor did he know how to hatch it at the moment either.

What he needed was time. 

“What a stupid, ridiculous gamble.” 

YuWon let out a baffled laugh. 

The egg of an Outer God? 

Most creatures that hatched from eggs recognized the being that was with them the longest during incubation and the one they saw for the first time after they hatched as their mother. That’s why some Rankers went through the trouble of obtaining eggs of mythical beasts to have them as companions. If they raised them right, a mythical beast could become a powerful ally. 

‘If I can properly hatch and raise this egg…’

YuWon stopped his train of thought, shaking his head.

‘Let’s stop dwelling on it.’

Overthinking things was a taboo. Right now, he had to focus on the object in front of him.

Tshhhhh—

YuWon entered Vulcaro’s workshop. 

“I’m here.”

“Wait just a minute.”

Fwoosh—

Vulcaro didn’t even bother turning his head to see his guest. He put the crystal in fire and started refining it with a knife. The crystal slowly started changing shape after it was blasted with intense heat. 

‘It must be unbelievably hard.’

This was the first time YuWon was witnessing the refinement process for a fragment of “the Big Three.” 

Normal refinement of crystals was done by slowly chipping away at them with a knife, but the fragment of the 「Helm of Invisibility」 couldn’t even be scratched without first being submerged in fire. 

Vulcaro carried on with the refinement. 

Some amount of time passed.

“Ngh.”

Vulcaro stretched his back before submerging the fragment in water.

Tsssssh—

The hot fragment instantly evaporated dozens of liters of water, filling the workshop with steam. 

“So you’re here.”

Vulcaro wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead with a towel as he walked over to YuWon. 

The two sat down on wooden chairs facing each other. 

“Yes. You told me to come over.”

“I have something to ask you.”

“Something to ask?”

“What type of weapons and armor do you use? If you use a sword, what type of sword is it? Is it long and thick? What kind of armor do you prefer? How light or heavy…?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I ended up with by-products from the Crystal,” Vulcaro answered as he pulled out a small bottle with black powder held inside. “I want to try making something with this.”

Powder that came from refining the 「Dark Divine Crystal.」 There wasn’t a lot of it, but its value couldn’t be underestimated. As the 「Dark Divine Crystal」 held such great powers, this powder was more valuable than most crystals. 

YuWon had no reason to refuse an item made from the Crystal’s by-product. 

‘Hades’s Scythe was made from the powder that came out while refining the fragment, but…’

“Don’t you need other materials?”

It wasn’t easy to obtain materials that could support the power of the 「Dark Divine Crystal.」 And knowing Vulcaro’s personality, he wouldn’t want to use this kind of material to make some half-assed item. However, YuWon didn’t possess any materials of that caliber yet.

“I don’t have any materials like adamantium, but I do have something similar. Since it’s not the refined Crystal, mythril should be enough to handle the powder.”

“Mythril…?”

“I have some on hand.”

Thunk—

Vulcaro got up quickly from his chair, knocking it over. He then walked over and grabbed rebar off the wall. It should have been pretty hot from the heat inside the workshop, but Vulcaro held it unphased.

“It’s about 1.8kg.* It’s not that much, but it’s enough to make equipment by mixing it.” 

*PR/N: 4lbs

Mythril wasn’t that hard of a material, but it was a rare mineral that possessed great mana conductivity, and depending on how it was crafted, it could even gain mana resistance. 

Inside the Tower, mythril was considered a pretty rare mineral. With just about half a kilogram, you could mix it with metal to make a pretty decent item. Yet here was Vulcaro, casually owning 1.8 kilograms worth. 

“1.8kg of mythril… That should fetch quite a price.”

YuWon currently had over 100,000 points, but that was nowhere near enough for 1.8kg. At the very least, he’d have to pay 300,000 points. 

‘I could pay for it if I exchanged the Asgardian bills for points, but…’

Counting the points that YuWon took from the Jackals, he currently possessed a total of 500,000 points. However, there was no way for him to currently exchange that many Asgardian bills into points. 

‘I guess I can only buy only a third of it.’

While YuWon was weighing his options…

“You can give me the money later. I’ll put it on your tab.”

“You’ll put it on my tab?”

It was a shocking offer. He was offering to put hundreds of thousands of points worth of mythril on a tab for a new player that had just arrived on the 1st Floor. 

“And what if I end up running away without paying?”

“It’s my greed as a craftsman that makes me want to create a proper item with this. I’m offering this to you because I’m impatient. So if you end up taking the item and running away without paying, I won’t hold a grudge against you.”

“Still…”

“If you really wanna get technical about it, the item that you left me with is dozens of times more valuable than this mythril. Actually, you can’t even quantify the value of this item with points.”

Unsurprisingly, Vulcaro knew the true worth of the 「Dark Divine Crystal.」 And that’s also why he had decided to trust YuWon with his mythril.

“You trusted me for some reason, so it’s only fair I do the same.”

To put 300,000 points on a tab on a whim… YuWon had to hold back his grin. Vulcaro was still exactly as he remembered. 

“Look over there and pick some equipment. If there’s something you like, I’ll start production based on it…”

“I need a sword.”

Shing—

YuWon instantly pulled out a sword and handed it to Vulcaro with the handle facing towards the blacksmith. 

“The weight doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not so heavy that I can’t wield it, I’ll get used to it quickly. As for the shape and length, this is an adequate size.”

“A sword you say…”

Vulcaro carefully inspected the sword YuWon handed him. It was the 「Well-Sharpened Sword」 YuWon had purchased in the Tutorial. It was a simple, no-frills sword that wasn’t very difficult to make.

Vulcaro smiled widely with a confident expression.

“That’s actually my speciality.”

It was the first time he had smiled after meeting YuWon. 

* * *

A week later in the Olympus guild house located in the center of the city… 

Clack—

In the large yard of the house, Agamemnon was putting on his heavy, silver-tinted armor. His subordinates helped secure it in place and brought him his sword. 

“Is everyone here?”

“Yes, sir. We have gathered up all our players between the 1st and 10th Floors.”

“How many?”

“Around 200, sir.”

Agamemnon nodded his head to his subordinate’s reply.

200 players. That was a number equivalent to most mid-sized guilds. It had taken a few days to gather that many men. 

“As long as we do this right, we should be able to get off the hook for failing to manage the Jackals properly,” Agamemnon said with a resolute face. He then shook his head. “No, maybe even better. The Ruler of the Skies might even take notice of us.”

The Ruler of the Skies. Hearing that name filled Agamemnon’s men with hope. Even though they knew how dangerous the mission they were about to set forth on was, they were able to cover up their fear with anticipation. 

Agamemnon looked back at his men and smiled.

‘To think this kind of opportunity would come to me.’

A few days ago, he had been in despair, having learned that the Jackals had been completely exterminated. He was about to completely lose his position within Olympus and get demoted to being an ordinary player. 

Thankfully, the will of the Tower hadn’t abandoned him. No, instead it had presented him with an opportunity, similar to how players who made it through difficult trials were given great powers. 

“Where’s the location?”

“The location is…”

Agamemnon’s eyes widened at his subordinate’s answer. It was a completely unexpected location.

“No wonder he wasn’t found until now.”

His subordinate nodded his head at Agamemnon’s words.

In order to find ‘him,’ they searched every corner of the 1st Floor for a long time, but they had been unable to find even a trace. It was only now that they were able to locate him.

Agamemnon took his sword from his subordinate and fastened it to his waist.

“What about reinforcements?”

“Taking the Administrator’s intervention and the Tower’s restrictions into account, a suitable reinforcement has just arrived.”

“Good.”

Agamemnon mounted his horse and braced himself to set out. 

“… Let’s go.”

Clop, clop—

Clop—

Olympus’s army of hundreds of players, including Agamemnon, set out for their mission.

* * *

Slash—!

Thud—

A five-meter-long giant snake fell to the ground. With its belly sliced open, it twitched around, bleeding, until it went limp, the life extinguished from its eyes. 

[You gained EXP.]

[Heaven-Slaying Star’s completion rate increased by 0.006%.]

The completion rate slowly crawled up. 

YuWon swung his sword to get the blood off of it. 

On the ground, a relatively large, bloody mess of wolves and panthers laid dead. They were all prey that YuWon had hunted on the 1st Floor.

For the past ten days, YuWon had focused on hunting. It was partly because he didn’t want to just waste time while the refinement was being finished, and it was also to increase the [Heaven-Slaying Star’s] completion rate.

‘I guess I really can’t level up much on the 1st Floor.’

YuWon’s hunting speed was incredibly fast, but there was a limit to the amount of EXP he could rack up on the 1st Floor. After a whole ten days of hunting, he was only able to level up once. It was an extremely stunted pace, but he couldn’t get greedy and climb the Tower. 

‘In order to achieve a higher record, I need the refined fragment.’

So the only thing he could do right now was wait while increasing the [Heaven-Slaying Star’s] completion rate. 

As YuWon was about to continue hunting…

Ding—

… The player kit inside his pocket rang. 

Currently, there were only two people who knew YuWon’s player number—Hargaan and Vulcaro. 

YuWon sheathed his sword and checked his kit. 

The message… 

[Vulcaro: I finished the refinement. Come on over.]

… Was the news he had been waiting for.