abcnovels
Chapter 92
Chapter 92
Chapter 92
Seating Eun-Ha beside the workbench, Se-Hoon picked up three identical mass-produced longswords and then walked over to stand in front of the furnace.
All three are Normal-tier. And from what I can tell, they won’t be anything special in terms of flavor.
To Eun-Ha, these would taste like baked potatoes sprinkled with sugar, a somewhat awkward combination that wasn’t completely inedible.
Let’s start lightly with the first one.
Done inspecting the mass-produced longswords, Se-Hoon immediately took one of them and started refining.
Clang! Clang!
He heated the blade, tightening the misaligned structure and making the mana circuit more dense. He then used a whetstone to sharpen the edge before quickly finishing up the refinement of the blade.
Good. That’s enough for this one.
Setting down the refurbished sword, he picked up another and refined it in a similar manner. Like that, he soon finished refining all three.
Now done with the refinement, he began the tempering process for one of them, picturing Miles Myers, the Mad Sword, in his mind to form the bond he had extracted before.
A person who opens his heart only to people who are related to his family. He’s someone who shows excessive aggressiveness in combat, but the root of the reason behind that seems to be something close to undervaluing his own life.
As Miles’s personality didn’t seem to be too different from before, it wasn’t very hard for Se-Hoon to create a fairly decent Fatestone based on the Miles he knew before the regression.
Moments later, a gently glowing yellow crystal formed in his hand. He inspected the almost weightless Fatestone before checking the information message.
[Fatestone - Nova Burst Stone]
[Tier: Advanced] [Quality: Awful]
[A crystal with a high concentration of light condensed inside.
Infusing it with mana releases the light within in an explosive manner, producing some thermal energy.
And if all of the stored light is released in this manner, it will be destroyed.
*Releases the stored light instantaneously]
This is exactly like the Mad Sword.
Finished reading the information message, he gripped it in his right hand.
[Bond Imprint ‘Nova Burst Stone’ has been activated.]
Shing!
A brilliant ray of light burst out of his hand. Taking it, he channeled it through the hilt and into the blade before plunging the entire blade into the cooling liquid.
Sizz!
Smoke and light densely leaked out of the cooling liquid, only thinning a moment later, when a notification message appeared.
[Bond Imprint ‘Nova Burst Stone’ has been exhausted.]
He pulled it out of the liquid.
Looking at the sword now, a new bright yellow pattern had been engraved halfway up the blade. Checking it, Se-Hoon ensured all the light had properly permeated inside and finished up the remaining work.
Then, when he was fully finished, he offered the three swords to Eun-Ha.
“These are...”
“Please try each and tell me the differences.”
“Okay.”
Picking up that he had refined these swords to test her tastes, her eyes lit up and she quickly sat down on the chair in front of the longswords placed on the workbench.
“Thank you for the meal.”
Thanking him sincerely, she bit into the first sword.
Crunch.
As she munched on the sword, her usually indifferent expression softened ever so slightly.
“Hmm... this is much better than it is normally. It has more umami... like it’s been properly cooked.”
“Can you try the next one right away?”
“Yes, sure.”
Crunch, crunch.
She promptly devoured the second sword.
Thinking for a moment, she said, “It’s similar to the previous one, but this one goes down the throat more smoothly. If I had to choose one to eat daily, I would prefer this one.”
“What about the charge rate of the Soul Furnace?”
“Let’s see... the charge rate...”
Closing her eyes for a moment, she answered him with a slightly surprised look, saying, “This one seems to be 1.5 times more.... How, though? There wasn’t that much of a difference between them...”
The charge rate of Eun-Ha’s Soul Furnace differed by 1.5 times, even though the forging process for the two was nearly identical.
At this new discovery, Se-Hoon’s eyes shone.
As expected, the actual performance of the equipment and her satisfaction don’t correlate.
He had slightly modified the swords within a range that shouldn’t have affected their performance, yet the charge rate had differed by 1.5 times. It convinced him that the judgment criteria of the Soul Furnace were quite specific.
So it depends on the taste... or more accurately, the potential it possesses.
The only difference between the two swords was that further refinements might be difficult for the second since it was almost completely refined.
Long story short, the more complete the equipment was, the higher its evaluation.
I need to research this more.
It was hard to be sure with just this one instance, so he decided to look into it again another time. Keeping the newfound information in mind, he looked at Eun-Ha, who seemed profoundly confused, again.
“Please try the third one now.”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
Nodding her head, she calmly picked up the third sword.
“...”
Just by lightly gripping it, she already felt a difference, causing her to feel an odd palpitation.
But it only made her pause for a moment; she bit into the longsword with one swift motion.
Crunch!
The instant the fragments of the blade seeped into her body, her eyes widened.
Fwoosh!
Her usually calm hairtips flared up instantly, giving off a bright crimson glow. It was a reaction unmatched by the first two swords.
Swiftly inhaling the remaining bits of the blade, she slowly opened her mouth.
“This one is... completely different from the first two.”
“How so?”
“It tastes like an entirely different dish that’s made out of the same ingredients. To give an example... it’s like the baked potato has turned into potato chips.”
Typical refinement is just like adding some seasoning or spices... but the Bond Imprint changes the recipe itself. Se-Hoon was quite fascinated by her assessment.
In the past, he hadn’t been able to perceive the taste of equipment, so the method to match her tastes was unclear. But now it was clear that the effect of Fatestones, like Miles’s, was better than he had thought.
“So, what about the charge rate?”
“The charge rate is worth about... 1.5 to 2 Advanced-tier pieces of equipment.”
A single Normal-tier piece of equipment had managed to charge the near equivalent of Advanced-tier ones. While it might have just been because the Advanced-tier pieces of equipment mentioned were of the Awful quality, the statistics themselves weren’t negligible.
Hmm. I’m beginning to get a feel for it, thought Se-Hoon, pleased with the satisfactory outcome of understanding more about Eun-Ha’s tastes.
Meanwhile, Eun-Ha was reminiscing over the taste of the sword, a soft smile on her face.
“...yes. It was really delicious.”
[The subject ‘Ryu Eun-Ha’ has felt like you deeply empathize with her.]
[A Fatestone has been formed for the subject ‘Ryu Eun-Ha’.]
A level two Fatestone had been formed.
Seeing the soft smile on her face, the result of consuming somewhat mundane Normal-tier equipment, made Se-Hoon curious.
Was she always so expressive? Before the regression, he would rarely see such rich emotions on her face.
As he curiously watched her, the memories of the past began to overlap with his view of her.
The memory of Eun-Ha, with a severed left arm and a hollowed-out chest, gazing at him with dimming eyes.
Who then uttered, while revealing a hint of bitterness for the first time, “I regret eating your equipment...”
Those were her last words, ending when her last Fatestone finished seeping into him while he clutched her right hand.
With that Fatestone, he had managed to forge new equipment to defeat the Destroyer of Light that had killed her, never forgetting her last words.
Why did she say she regretted it?
While he never fully understood what was going on in her mind, for the first time, he clearly understood that she truly regretted eating his equipment through the Fatestone that had seeped into him.
As the doubt consumed him once again, memories long passed began flooding his mind.
[Activating Awakening Dream]
The scene before his eyes washed away like water in an instant.
“Lee Se-Hoon?”
Wondering what happened to him, Eun-Ha puzzledly looked at him.
Hearing her voice, Se-Hoon figured out that everything just now was a recollection from the past. He closed his eyes for a moment to clear his mind.
“Shall I prepare the rest of the swords like I did just now? Would that be alright?”
At his suggestion, her eyes widened and she nodded excitedly.
“Yes, I would gladly eat them all up if you did so.”
“Okay. I’ll go a lot faster this time since there’s still a lot left.”
Taking the chance, he rolled up his sleeves, heating up the stack of mass-produced equipment and hammering away all of the distracting thoughts.
The present is more important than the past.
It was crucial that he made sure both Eun-Ha and himself didn’t leave any regrets this time. With each sword he refined, he hammered his determination into his mind. In the end, he refined over thirty mass-produced pieces of equipment and fed them all to Eun-Ha.
Fwoosh!
Seeing her vividly flickering hair, indicated that a reasonable amount of energy had been absorbed, he approached her and asked, “Dean, could you gather some flames in your hand?”
“Oh, sure..”
Incongruous with her relaxed expression, she rapidly drew up her mana, her palms reddening as flames began to burst.
Likewise, Se-Hoon also drew up his own fire mana, summoning Scarlet Flame Wheel, and wrapped her hands with it.
“Wait wha...”
“It’s okay. Just try to let the flames flow out as slowly as possible.”
“...Okay.”
Reassured by his confident words, she nodded and slowly released the flames.
Ssss-
The Scarlet Flame Wheel channeled her flames deeper within Se-Hoon, who managed to maintain the intense and highly volatile Blazing Flame by circulating it within his body.
Maybe it’s because I’ve already used Iron Desire with Bond Imprint before that things are going more smoothly than in the past...
Upon receiving all of the flames, he slowly detached his hands and spread them open, showing a flame dancing around his palms. Around it was a ring of circulating scarlet-colored flame, keeping it under perfect control. The sight astonished Eun-Ha.
“How did you...”
She couldn’t believe that the flame that usually raged uncontrollably when transferred to another had been tamed.
Instead of responding, Se-Hoon examined the flame and asked, “Could you bring the Dragon Lung Stone and my hammer here, please?"
“Ah, yes!”
She fetched the two materials that were on the workbench. Looking at the materials in her hands, Se-Hoon first focused on the Dragon Lung Stone.
“Please place the Dragon Lung Stone in the center.”
She hesitated for a moment, but then nodded and placed the stone in the center.
Walking up to it, he wrapped his hands around it, engulfing the Dragon Lung Stone in flames and quickly turning it into molten metal.
“This is... alchemical forging, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I thought it would be a good match with the flames.”
It didn’t matter that a slight error in using this method could damage not just the impurities inside but even the power source of the ore, the Ore Essence, because such mistakes were unlikely with his vast amount of experience with it.
The Ore Essence of the Dragon Lung Stone should be at the deepest point. Then, it should be the Scarlet Flame Wheel and Blazing Flame in sequence...
Arranging the three components in his hands in a mold-like shape, he looked at Eun-Ha.
“Now, insert the red side of the hammer here, and on my signal, please activate the equipment skill, Elemental Convergence.”
“Understood.”
With a nod, Eun-Ha grabbed the Black Flame Hammer and placed the red side as instructed inside the flame in his hand.
Sizz!
One side of the Black Flame Hammer heated up, slowly merging with the mold Se-Hoon had created in his hand. Then, when the mana circuit he had mapped out in his mind was fully imprinted—
“Now!”
Paang-!
All of the materials fused with the Black Flame Hammer. Making sure that the burst of air and flames properly seeped into the hammer, he slowly removed his hands, revealing a naturally engraved pattern of flames on one side of the hammer.
Standing back, he admired the unexpectedly clean result.
[The equipment ‘Black Flame Hammer’ has been transformed into ‘Forgefire Hammer’.]
A new notification message popped up.
[Forgefire Hammer]
[Tier: Hero] [Quality: Excellent]
[A hammer forged by refining Dragonite.
Coated with the special flames absorbed by the Dragon Lung Stone, it can generate powerful flames capable of melting ores.
It can also amplify the elemental mana applied to each side.
*Amplifies the elemental mana applied to each side.
*Enables the use of the skill ‘Elemental Convergence’
*Enables the use of the skill ‘Forgeflare’]
“Woah...”
Observing the hammer that turned out better than he had expected, he truly felt how much he had grown since he first regressed.
It’s not perfect, but it’s halfway there.
At this level, he might be able to use this hammer even in combat.
“Gulp.”
Suddenly, a loud sound resonated from in front of him.
Looking up at the source, he saw Eun-Ha gazing at the Forgefire Hammer with a peculiar look.
“Dean?”
“...”
“Uh... Dean?”
Feeling uneasy due to having to repeatedly call her, he watched her raise her head and meet his eyes. She looked like she was pondering something.
A moment later, with a slightly shy expression, she carefully opened her mouth.
“Just one bite...”
“Nope, absolutely not.”