Chapter 67

Mental Education (1)

A system message appeared:

[Slot Activator (Rank: SS)]

– Item that allows users to open up three more skill slots.

‘Good! SS-Rank activator was hard to find even in the previous life.’

This item started with A-Rank, and even if it opened only one slot, it was a precious item that everyone was anxious to find. More than anything, an SS-rank! It was easy to mistake the SS-rank activator’s value, which opened three slots, as three times the A-rank activator that could open one slot. However, actual transactions did not take place that way.

Of course, it was sold at a price that was well over three times the standard. As the A-rank [Slot Activator] was also rare, because the supply cannot keep up with the demand, it saved time and effort to get three such items.

‘I don’t mean to sell it, of course.’

But that didn’t mean that I wanted to use it. I was still empty in all four slots given as soon as one Awakens.

‘I should give it to either one of the other two. Who needs this more, Hibiki or Nate?

Rather than Nate, who can solve all the battles with his unique skill, Hibiki would be a better choice to have it as she would get stronger as she learned more magic skills.

So, I decided to go back to the dungeon.

“Here.”

I handed over the thing in my hand to Hibiki. Upon hearing my explanation, she brought the beads near her heart, where the Mana core was. The gem melted and disappeared without a trace, like salt in water.

“How’s it?”

Hibiki checked the system message and nodded.

“My skill slots expanded to seven.”

She had already filled all four slots before entering the dungeon.

[Universal Mastery (Rank: A)]

[Fire Mastery (Rank: S)]

[Ice Mastery (Rank: A)]

[Lightning Mastery (Rank: B)]

Now that she has opened three more, she could collect all seven kinds of mastery. After that, she could upgrade her skill cards to a higher level along with the increase in Mana capacity.

‘Hibiki’s unique ability is, the more magic she learns, the stronger the synergy effect.’

She would be the first to collect seven types within a month of Awakening. Furthermore, she achieved that through a bridge, which was me. Still, the magic knowledge and spelling modification she was learning now was what the future Hibiki herself had already accomplished.

Like Nate, I was looking forward to her future, where she would gain strength and become stronger at a much faster rate compared to her previous life.

*

As we returned to Earth, Hunter of Gate Keepers, who was in a hurry to contact someone, saw us with a surprised look on his face.

“Seo Jin-Wook, Hunter!”

Looking at the time, it had been less than half a day since we entered the gate. He said in a quivering voice, with his mouth trembling, whether out of fear or an inability to speak well.

“H-how the hell did you clear?”

His irritated expressions were clearly seen, and his eyes were full of envy and astonishment.

“I can’t believe it.”

He was aware it was a difficult dungeon where people had to start the treasure hunt from the beginning again when the prophecy was reset while searching for the cubes. He also knew that some of the sculptures could only be found in the mountains, and since a dragon would kidnap the expedition member, if given an opportunity, the chance to Clear was continually given up in that dungeon.

“I will submit a detailed report to the Hunter Management Department later. Please take this first,” I replied, handing him the metal plate that had the changed prophecy.

“Oh, yes! Prophecy, I’ve confirmed it!”

He received it with a puzzled expression. After confirming the contents by [Analysis], I hoped that they would hurry to prepare for it without a doubt. It could not prevent the immediate collapse of the dungeon itself, which would explode as soon as the gate opened, but it would be possible to evacuate the people living there in advance.

‘Hunters will gather in advance and prepare for a massive monster hunt.’

Of course, we’d head there too, when that day came.

“And many corpses of the previous explorer Hunters were found in the lair on top of the mountain. We had no choice but to leave them there because we couldn’t bring them all down, so please report it to the Hunter Management Department.”

“What? Lair? You mean, where the dragon lives? How did you…?” He tilted his head, put his hands together, and brought his fingers to his mouth, clearly in deep thought. Finally, he concluded, “Ah-ha! It must have been the mechanism for the dragon to disappear from the dungeon after the Clear, right? That’s a relief!”

He didn’t seem to want to imagine that we had even hunted the dragon. Well, he’d soon find out where the dragon went. Not only this Hunter, but everyone in the world would.

*

The next dungeon did not require hunting. It was the last of three dungeons, as it was contracted with the Gate Keepers Guild for one-day use.

“Hmm? You are going in there?” The doorkeeper hunter snorted as if he didn’t understand, “Well, if you say you’ve already paid for it. All right. Be careful not to step into strange places!”

As we left the Hunter’s warning behind, the place we entered was a chaotically topsy-turvy world. The sky above our head was broken into pieces, like broken glass. And each piece had a completely different view. Many parts were constantly moving and pushing each other away as if repelled by some invisible force.

Nate was overly excited, “It’s like a scene from a movie!”

‘Yeah, the kind of movie where a jealous god tears up the sky as if it’s some photo he’s become tired of looking at.’

“It’s all mixed up. Even the directions.”

At first, what we considered to be the sky was only an extension of the land. Pieces of dimensions floated around everywhere. They clashed with one another and tangled, stuck together by forming a slight fused surface, or bumped into each other and passed in different directions.

“We have to be careful in going around, only picking places that have stopped moving.”

The path we walked on was a more stable area.

“In particular, never get close to a place like that,” I said, pointing my finger at the two-dimensional fragments that were interlocked.

Shhhhhhhhhh!

Rumbleeeeee!

The horizon, beyond the rough seafront, met vertically with the dark green lightning desert. If someone were to swim in that ocean, he or she would fall beyond the edge of the world into the desert. The sudden change in the flow of gravity’s direction would throw him into the middle of the lightning cloud, with seawater falling like a waterfall.

“Come on, follow me slowly.”

Even the [Stardust Wing] was not opened here because I would end up flying to an unintended place due to the botched gravity and direction.

Hibiki asked, “What is this place?”

“Sometimes, these types of dungeons come out. It’s one of the proofs that the system is never omnipotent.” I unraveled knowledge that people of this age still don’t know, “The middle dimension, which has a dungeon, is a space made from normal pieces of the dimension, like the Earth. The ecosystem shows a combination of life and environment that is not normally found in one dimension. Suppose you expand the dungeon boundary after the Clear and check out the larger area. In that case, that’s much more noticeable,” They listened intently as I continued the explanation, “I think this kind of middle dimension comes out when the combination is messed up.”

The system message shows the Clear condition as ‘unknown.’ I guess it was because we couldn’t proceed with the Clear in this state. This kind of dungeon didn’t even collapse, so it was just left alone. There were no monsters to hunt on arrival. This was because a proper ecosystem was not created. Monsters could only survive if they could hunt and eat.

We soon arrived at a place that illustrated just how messed up this ecosystem was.

“Tree?”

There was a small cluster of dried, twisted trees on a small island covered with gray soil. The tree roots that pierced the border of the fragmented ground were seen everywhere.

“It’s supposed to be dead, but it’s still alive with incredible vitality. But it can’t grow anymore in a place that lacks soil.”

I plucked out some trees carefully so that the roots didn’t get damaged. Trees were pure creatures and were not treated as items, so there was no separate system message.

After feeding the whole thing to the snake, I said, “Let’s go back to Earth.”

Nate’s face was glowed, “We’ve been to all three places, so we’re going home now?”

“No, we just walked around. We didn’t train. So as a bonus, just one more place.”

“Wow, that’s too much!” Nate complained to me with a teary face.

Hibiki coughed silently, but I didn’t even snort and moved right away, “Come on, let’s go!”

*

We got out of the gate and moved to the car. The next destination was the mountains outside of the populated area where normal people wouldn’t normally go. There was a gate there with neither the Hunter Management nor the Gate Keepers. Even if I used this dungeon for my personal use, no one would notice for a long time to come.

“What is here?”

“Undiscovered dungeon.”

Nate was amazed, the look on his face betraying his emotions. But I saw an unusual light in Hibiki’s eyes.

“Of course, this…”

“Yes, I’ll keep it a secret from the others.”

Nate tilted his head, “Why?”

Before I answered, Hibiki said, “All this is about preventing a ‘future’ catastrophe?”

The word ‘future’ has a strange emphasis. I nodded my head.

Weing!

As we stepped over the gate, gray ground surrounded us, as we had just seen in the messed up dungeon.

“Ah!”

Nate nodded as if he knew what was going on, “Maybe it’s the same debris as the small island we saw earlier. It’s a mess in the middle dimension, but it’s a stable, large mass assembled here.”

“If you plant the tree here…”

“Yes, it will grow very well.”

Meanwhile, as soon as we entered, I could see Mana’s unique blue light coming from beyond the horizon, “When you came in, you saw it, right? The condition for this dungeon is the annihilation of the monsters.”

I pushed their backs.

“Before we plant the trees, we need to clear the ground first, right? All right, sweep it away!”

*

It was only 24 hours after the promotion review when the last dungeon was cleared; the tree was planted on the gray ground where the monsters had disappeared. After a long day, Hibiki and Nate fell asleep in the back seat of the car. No matter how one came to be a hunter, it was natural to become tired under so much activity and harsh training.

I glanced at them in the rear-view mirror. Deep in sleep, they snored silently with their heads pressed against each other, each head propping up the other. The sight of it permeated my mind with a strange feeling.

‘The relationship between them in their previous lives was completely different.’

Both of them had different personalities from when they met each other in their previous lives. For Hibiki, it was a complete turnaround.

‘They fought together for the same purpose, but in terms of personal relations, they were enemies to each other.’

However, in this life, I did think that the aspect of their relationship might be slightly different.

*

The next day, as soon as I woke up, I came down to the accommodation basement.

Boosh!

Blrgh….!

I made an artifact with all my heart and soul leaning on the memory of my previous life. I was making a barrier that completely blocked the heat from leaking out. In it, a high-temperature furnace that would never be extinguished if the Mana continued to be applied. On top of the fire’s flame, which could be used as a weapon, was a huge pot made of a material from an alien world.

Blrgh!

Smoldering away, inside the furnace, was a gold-colored metal. As soon as I received the statue from the Senator, I melted it down.

‘It’s useless to me in the form of a statue.’

The statue, made by residents of a dimension after the gods they served, was cast with precious metal containing holiness attributes. Just five kilograms of the metal could make a holy sword that could blow the neck of a decent mid-level demon. But then, the weight of the statue that the Senator got me was 0.5 tons!

The huge statue had to be melted for other purposes as well.

‘I’ll keep it like this for a while.’

I approached and grabbed the sword’s handle, which had its blade completely submerged in the molten metal, at the furnace’s center. I saw a system message that explained this item.

[Devil Slayer]

Item Description: It was said that a legendary being first used this sword to make mountain ranges out of the corpses of countless demons and make the ocean out of their blood. If you listen to the sword’s voice, you will learn the essence of the sword that the previous owners have learned.

※ Precautions: This sword amplifies and releases the user’s sword mastery and may take a long time to get used to it.

Immediately, there was telepathy that could not be converted to language. I remembered what it said when I first held him in my hand.

It said that ‘its senses were back.’ If it didn’t come in contact with an Awakened for a while, it fell into a deep sleep, but once Awakened, it could see, hear, and feel other senses. However, it would not be able to stimulate the sense of pain for obvious reasons.

So, I chose this method. A sacred metal furnace that attacked the existence itself, beyond just beating and scorching. It should be the kind of pain that would make it want to delete its existence.

Blrgh!

The name [Devil Slayer] sounded like a weapon of warriors fighting evil for justice. However, as the original owner’s identity suggested, the weapon was far from holy. Nevertheless, the names and descriptions of the sugar-coated item were enough to attract many hunters. Adding to it, the sweet words from the sword’s cognitive being made others unable to think that this item was dangerous.

Therefore, many people fell for the trick without knowing what it meant to be the sword’s true master.

‘In fact, the true owner of the sword is the spirit contained in the sword…. itself.’

Thus, the meaning of the phrase that the Awakened person would become the true master of the sword meant that it became one’s extended body, which moved like a puppet according to the cognitive being’s will. Some enjoyed this kind of wordplay and contract. Although they are called different names depending on the dimensions, the most common expression is ‘Devil.’

Blrgh!

I took out the blade completely, which had been submerged in molten metal. Only then did the combined telepathy hit my mind with a clear meaning. It was something that the sword gave off.

‘You…. Bastard worthy of being fried in fecal wateeeeeer!’

A desperate cry drenched in anger and hatred, called.

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. It is still under-educated.