The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor

Chapter 9 : Elemental Sculpturing Skill

So then, a serious incident occurred after releasing Koldeurim.

But before their sight was the treasures, so the war of Kallamore Kingdom and Kingdom of Haven was soon forgotten.

"How much are all of these."

"Ima pick up a weapon, if there"s none then I"ll take gloves with boosted Strength."

"There are Cleric"s gowns here too."

"Even Wizard"s robes too!"

There were a lot of goods so that made it hard for them to decide.

If they decided on one, another would pop up at some obscure angle of their line of sight and essentially turned it into a conflicted debate.

In addition, the Unique grade items in the vampire storage were at level 400 or more!

There were more than 450 items.

Although they were superior in performance, there were a number of them that wasn"t available for immediate usage.

Hwaryeong found a fan.

"Weed nim, please check it."

Since she did not have the necessary skill, every time she found something, she would hand it to Weed to check on its information.

"Identify!"

As expected of a Unique item, there were many effects given as well as a new skill.

In fact, for a level 400 weapon, it was not an outstanding item.

Though there was the option of reducing the usage restriction, so Hwaryeong could use it as is.

Weed returned the fan back to Hwaryeong who was jumping in delight.

"Ohh thank G.o.d. I can use it right away. This fan is really perfect."

"Though the performance is a bit..."

"But it"s beautiful so that"s fine."

Weed nodded.

"It"s a good choice."

It was a wise decision to select one and use it right now than having to wait until reaching level 400.

As of now, the number of those over 400 was very low!

With the option to decrease the restriction, the fan would always get a high price when selling.

Weed"s point of view was rather practical, but Hwaryeong"s view was rather simple.

"If it"s pretty then it"s fine."

As long as it could grab the attention of others, then the possibility of selling a rubber band for 1000 Won would increase.

Seeing how Hwaryeong chose her good, the others opted out and picked up items with level reduction option also.

Only the Geomchis didn"t care about the restriction and freely went about picking their favorite sword.

"The sword fits in my hand."

"I want a practical sword rather than an ornate one."

They picked up excellent swords but due to the level restriction, they couldn"t use it.

Pale once again thought about the Geomchis naivety and though they were causing trouble for themselves again.

"Geomchi2 Hyeongnim."

"Hm?"

"Shouldn"t it be better to choose a sword you can use immediately? And then later on you can get better swords, faster and stronger ones."

Pale inquired seriously and Geomchi2 replied back dully.

"That"s not all when wielding swords."

"Huh?"

"What makes a good sword? As long as you mind the sword with sharpening and cleaning; until you are able to use that sword, you"ll be forcing yourself to get stronger and preparing for the day you can use it."

The Geomchis picked up the level 400 weapons.

If they want to use those level 400 weapons, then they would have to get stronger faster.

The feeling of holding the swords in their hands was bound to be different from those bamboo blades they"ve held for years.

Having acquired those wonderful Unique grade weapons, their goals changed to one day being able to swing them.

Weed wandered around the treasury looking for a worthy weapon.

"Level 400 weapon..."

Since having the Blacksmithing skill, he didn"t have to care about those with the level restriction reduction options.

What was important was the strong attack.

"And then in the future, I can clean it up and sell it for a good price."

He carefully searches for weapons, though most of the being the already discarded by the Geomchis as they deemed them as modest swords.

However, Weed was still rummaging through the remaining swords as he could never absolutely deem them moot.

The use, price, preference, appearance, and usefulness in battle, he weighed all of them carefully.

"The 200 Won more expensive salt I bought at the market. I will not allow such a thing to happen again."

Endless regret about buying that on impulse!

Without forgetting the incident, he thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed all the weapons.

"What is this? Identify!"

Paskran"s Lance!

"Where have I heard this name before?"

The item used by Paskran, one of a kind Unique item in the world.

Weed"s head flashed a moment in the past.

"That"s right. I"ve seen a post about this on the Dark Gamer Union board."

The purchaser being a diamond rated buyer was looking for this stuff.

"The average price he usually pays was 2000000 Won."

Though filled with regrets, he refused to choose or think about choosing Paskran"s Lance.

Weed couldn"t use it since he did not learn anything outside of swordsmans.h.i.+p. (gained archery when started out, staff is just a stick to cast spells and smacking)

Although he was able to use the lance due to the Blacksmith"s characteristic, he could not utilize the addition effect given.

"Better pick a different weapon. I want something I can use while can still get a decently high price for it."

As a dark gamer, obtaining items to sell was important, but one"s growth still takes precedent.

Aside from the Paskran"s Lance, Weed found an old sword among the abundance of swords he looked into.

"Should a sword no good as this be in the treasury? Identify!"

The sword used by the Knight Koldeurim!

Severely worn, had holes in it for a long time, the durability was no good too.

"Since the maximum durability fell, there"s no way to tell if this was the true damage."

If he went by the damage output itself, then the level requirement of the weapon would probably be around 50 or so to properly use the sword.

It couldn"t possibly be graded as a Unique grade item!

Looking at the level restriction was something ridiculous, Weed felt that the potential of this sword couldn"t just amount to this.

"Just like how a pearl is buried under all the mud. If I could get it back to the original damage then it is fine."

It was not an easy choice deciding on something unknown.

Repair to try to get it back to the original state!

Even though it was a shame to use the Mithril, it was worth a try.

"This valuable opportunity is a gamble I can not blow. With something like this, I"m going to start right away."

Weed immediately started a fire in the furnace.

The Blacksmith"s fire!

Two hours went by as he hammered away at Koldeurim"s Old Sword.

But beside from just knocking off the rusty parts, the lumpy golden part in between the sword didn"t give a response.

"Indeed...a Unique item."

Seven more hours pa.s.sed.

All the others were tired of waiting, so they left the treasury.

Only the Vampire guards remained watches while yawning away.

The fire"s smokes that expelled from the hearth were limited by its boundary, so those outside the repair weren"t affected at all.

Weed raised the output of the hearth"s flame.

Weed held a sweet potato toward the furnace to bake.

By the time the day had pa.s.sed, the color of the flame had changed to blue. Though still, there was no reaction from the old sword.

"Keuheuheuheuheu."

Weed"s obsession did not waver.

He had strengthened its center, but he did not recheck the sword.

His pride couldn"t let him do that with just that amount of hard work!

That was Weed"s source of endless strength.

"It"s a start. If I can go out to briefly rest my eyes for 20 minutes then I"m good. With that, I can hold out for at least a month."

Sitting in front of this poison waiting was nothing to him.

So while focusing on the frame before him, time continued to pa.s.s.

When the flame burned a complete white color, he put the old sword back into the hearth.

Jjijijik.

This time, there was a reaction.

With this, the blade was tolerable to the grinding.

With greater force than before, he consistently hammered the blade.

But because of the badly eroded shape it was in, he had to re-smelt the worn out sword again.

Working on a Unique grade level 440 was no easy task!

Ttangttangttang!

While continuously refining the sword, Weed kept hammering away.

And with its cooling, Weed added in the Mithril he obtained when he hunted.

As a result, after an additional of more than six hours of repairing, he was able to recover the sword.

"Identify!"

Brilliant options and attack!

The sword once owned by Koldeurim showed amazing stats.

"Jackpot."

Weed packed the Demon Sword.

A Grade A difficulty quest with reward of great weapon and may have even obtained contribution points to the Kallamore Kingdom; with these, his heart was lighter.

"Later ima go to Kallamore Kingdom and have him give me treasures or some supplies."

It feels like a loan shark leaving somebody"s house in the morning after having clearing them out!

Weed cheerfully left the treasury.

After Weed and his companion left the Vampire treasury, the place found its peace once again.

Dozens of scattered bags that used to contain weapons dizzily rolled about.

The remaining weapons were poor; so of course, n.o.body wanted to take the terrible lot.

At the end of the disturbance, only clouds of dust float about.

-Heumm, this guy wasn"t it as well, is there n.o.body eligible to wield me?

Surprisingly, the sword was thinking.

Self awareness Ego Sword!

Usually those with more than one kind of special property are known as magical items.

Rarer grade of those are things that have been granted special magic or properties.

On the continent, the rarity doesn"t exceed that of the highest degree Unique grade weapons or armors.

However, the disparity between those within the Unique grade is huge.

Such as the cane held by the Goblin Chief and the staff of the Archmage, the differences between them was as enormous as the distance between heaven and earth.

Among them, the Ego Sword is cla.s.sified as a premium grade weapon.

The sword itself remembers the experiences of combat.

Therefore, the next time it reencounters the same monster type again, it would speak of the mob"s weakness; and at the sword"s discretion, it may use skills or magic accordingly.

The level requirement was 520!

While people still can"t use the sword as of yet, the Ego Sword chooses a qualified master on its own.

Since it deemed Weed as one who was not eligible, it masked itself as nothing more than an ordinary sword.

In the Vampire"s treasury, within all the remaining swords laid the finest sword that chose to be left behind in the obscure darkness.

* * *

KMC Media had prepared an ambitious TV program called "Weed."

Started from the quest accepted in Seirun town on the Land of the Vampires to stimulate the viewer"s interests.

Viewers gathered because this was an adventure they could not perform on the Versailles continent. But later on.

-It"s irrelevant to us.

-Only show us this, we can"t get there.

However the show of the northern part of the continent was still tremendously growing in popularity.

Because the users were still in the dark, all kinds of events took place.

If it was a newly coming up town, then there would be cases where it called for the annihilation of the crowds of monsters attacking.

While solving quests, new heroic sagas were created every single day.

The newscast that specializes in just the north has rating of 16%!

In contrast, the program "Weed" at it beginning was poor, having only accounted for 2~4% of the viewers.

It was easy to see the falling interests in the show as they were not part of the party in the Vampire Kingdom.

-Those idiots!

-Dumba.s.ses. Pigs.

-Look at how over the top they are. Haha!

-One eats over 10 whole servings.

The program "Weed" bulletin board was filled with just cynicism.

As shown before then, the mere actions of the Geomchis made it a fun sitcom.

It was somewhat enjoyable to the audience to see the loads of ingredients going into preparing the food only to disappear a moment later.

Masking the food to feed the group was funny too, but that was it.

So with that, the viewers.h.i.+p remained at a standstill after three episodes.

KMC Media was at the bottom of the audience"s favorites.

The production and the planning departments that were related to "Weed" were subjected to a written affidavit.

This was the affidavit most directors would write.

Director Khang"s written statement was different.

The level of intimacy was shown in the statement.

Director Khang maintained his withering integrity, but also, the manager of operations was a fan of Weed so he did not mind the ratings.

"Even monkeys can fall from trees. Failures too, have it good points."

The broadcasting station had expected the show to somewhat fold.

However, but the time the quests in Seirun ended, the viewers.h.i.+p rose to 5.5%.

With the Geomchi troops combat skills, and the highlights of Weed"s seriousness with Cooking, Sewing, and Blacksmithing skills to help out his party members, the audience increased.

And it was worth the wait having released their antic.i.p.ation to finally see the genuine Vampire Kingdom Todeum.

Those with the broadcasting station saw with Weed"s leaders.h.i.+p, the quests to Todeum also seen its end.

The planning committee, the production team, and all the others, witnessed the sensation of a Grade A difficulty quest.

Incredibly, the once rabble-looking group showed their years of training and indomitable fighting spirits for the quest"s triumphant.

In the station"s open dinner.

"Hurrah!"

"With this, I suppose my mind is comforted for a while."

"The quest still"s progressing in real-time so I still gots b.u.t.terflies."

The production staffs seemed to have lost weight and their face shown a pale-ish hue.

Now it was truly at the bottom of the ratings.

Because if that, they did not sell any advertising s.p.a.ce.

Each episode was organized to run for two hours; now, they were given just one hour every week to run the episodes.

But the next broadcast would be the adventure in Todeum, and while the broadcasters also deemed it an impossibility to solve the quest; they expected the ratings to rise with the scenes set to air.

* * *

The Vampire"s Kingdom Todeum.

Unlike the soothing quietness liking Vampires of Seirun, this was a colorful and bustling place.

Black magic school, underground relic dealers, a place to drink fresh blood at any time on everyday, etc.

There were lots of shops that fit the characteristic of Vampires.

"We sells broken wings of Unicorns."

"Pegasus" horn for sale."(I feel so trippy here, like it"s switched around. But that"s how it is on the raw.)

"Freshly received blood here, for the youngling."

Vampire merchants went around in their black capes.

Their arrogant deals made it thrilling for the spectators within Todeum.

Mapan checked the prices and his eyes lit up.

"Most component items and loots" prices are all lower than normal."

It was the time not long after the combat with the Unicorns and Pegasus.

These guys were selling miscellaneous goods at low prices, while art, handicrafts, and jewels were sold at high prices.

Mapan pulled out all of the carpets, furs, and jewels he had in stock.

"With so much jewelries how many am I going to sell? I wonder if I have enough to fulfill all the Vampires" desires. In comparison to here, the humans don"t pay nearly as much."

Mapan began to bargain and all of his quant.i.ties were sold off.

It was a huge victory of an investment; then on the empty carriage, he filled it with miscellaneous goods.

For Merchants, this moment was such a win.

"Euhahahaha!"

Within Mapan"s poignant laughter, Weed also hid a smile during the conversation.

Later Mapan will have to pay tax in Morata!

"Probably more Merchants and adventurers will have to stop by to pay taxes in Morata."

Weed had this secret expectation when he returns to Morata.

With the lot of Vampires, the quests they could receive from the easy Grade F or even to Grade B were available.

Since there was n.o.body else beside them, this was the golden land of quests.

"You humans who we fought with. These days, there were issues that popped up in the east. We were asleep so we don"t know what had happened. I"d like you to investigate."

With just those few words, quests of Grade C or B were released!

There was no way other people could come to Todeum, so it was a complete monopolization of quests!

"We will try to find out what"s wrong."

Geomchis and the party members had accepted the quest. Weed also tried to perform the quest.

"We"ll investigate things in the east and will come back."

But the Vampire shook his head.

"You cannot."

"What?"

Weed hesitated for a moment in this embarra.s.sing situation.

Most of the time when one"s unable to receive a quest, it is due to the lack of Reputation or level.

But Pale, Zephyr, or even the Geomchis could accept the quest without having being rejected.

"You have a special job to do."

At the end of the sentence, Weed"s eyes sparkled.

"Is it important work?"

"Yes. It is very important work."

Other colleagues weren"t in the Vampire"s selection. Only just Weed was chosen.

So the quest lying in wait must be something special!

At this moment, the party looked very enviable.

"This time as well, it"s Weed nim."

"Perhaps...the Vamp is implying it"s something we don"t have..."

Weed shown the party an apologetic façade. However, it was a rotten face to cover up the intense joy he was feeling!

Weed carefully asked the Vampire.

"What"s this adventure that I have to do? Just leave it to me and I will faithfully commit to it, even if it"s hard or even lonesome."

"It"s not an adventure so to speak. That"s not it. As you know, from our earlier battles, the city we live in has been severely damaged. Statues on the streets, and sculptures in castles too, has been significantly destroyed."

"......"

With the sudden talk of sculptures, Weed had an ominous feeling surfacing. Unfortunately, it wasn"t a mistake.

"My "Child Holding an Apple Figure" was also damaged. I woke up at night and the first Sculptor I remember is you... so as an exceptional human Sculptor, I have you repair the sculpture for me. Is it possible?"

Ttiring!

"......"

Weed was speechless.

An absolutely unwanted quest by profession!

The Vampire seriously asked.

"I realized that besides having attained an exceptional state in sculpturing to explore the land as a human, to sculpt would be impossible if you don"t have affection toward the work. So you won"t refuse my request, would you?"

Weed, of course, wanted to refuse.

"I"m sorry. What art is are pa.s.sion and creativity. I cannot accept this because I am busy dedicating my time to create new things."

If there were no other quests around the maybe he would; but he did not want to begin repairing sculptures with the plentiful amount commissioned quests with large rewards lying around.

Of course he"d take if it the compensation was a lot of money; but regrettably, the reward was just three Unicorn"s feathers.

The Vampire was considerably disappointed.

"Oh, I guess I got the wrong human."

Weed noticed and spoke gently.

"So instead of repairing, I want to help you out by investigating the east."

The Vampire shook his head again.

"You can not."

All other colleagues were able to accept while just Weed was denied.

"I would never entrust that to a human who won"t even repair a sculpture."

"......"

The situation had completely put him on the spot!

Along with Weed"s face faltering, the party members held their stomachs.

"Kikkikkik."

"Haha, so funny."

"Really interesting. I thought with everything Weed nim does, he was great; but he"s like this too."

Zephyr, Mapan, Irene, Maylon, Hwaryeong, and Seechwi were laughing.

Weed kept all their names in his memory so he could later in the future take his vengeance.

But now, the quest took priority.

"Actually, come to think of it, I"d like to repair the sculpture."

The Vampire bluntly refused.

"Didn"t you already refuse my request to repair a few minutes ago?

"If someone like Metson nim with such keen eyes to deem a sculpture is good, shouldn"t it be worth it for me to try and put it back together? New creation is important, but I want to see what kind of sculpture it is that retained Metson nim"s interests."

The Vampire cleared his throat.

"Hum! But human, it"s just something trivial to the eyes of the one was deemed as an exceptional sculptor."

"Artworks, sculptures, how can anyone tell whether it is good or bad? All I see in the sculptures are beauty and its n.o.ble values, not whether it could fetch a price or not."

"Yes, I truly feel what you do. Then, can I count on you to repair my sculpture?"

"I really want to work on it."

The party and Geomchis left to do the quest.

Weed also intended to work on the lowly compensated quest he received.

"I"ll roughly work on this and then follow up with the commissioned quest."

The sculpture the Vampire brought out was badly damaged.

The boy"s neck had broken off, ant it seemed as if something had tried to eat the apple as there were plenty of holes dug into it.

The torso and legs had minor incontinences, and broken off in many places due to having been hit by debris.

"I don"t know if I can attach the boy"s neck since the damage was too great. I need to take some additional steps in order to support the weight of it. It"s better to just replace the apple. If you give me three hours then I"ll finish the job."

His estimation was correct.

Weed, at the beginning of the process, created the dough-like hardening agent.

Component things, such as stones bonding agents use for constructions, are sold in the item shops or sculpture shops.

Even Todeum"s shops sold the item, and could even get them in their natural states.

Weed doesn"t make mistakes when he creates or fixes sculptures.

The reason why he didn"t buy them was because each barrel costs up to 2 Silvers!

The substance was limited to how much weight it could afford to support.

If he was to repair a large-scale sculpture, then he wouldn"t have used the thing at all; but for this purpose, he had an idea of what to do.

"First I need to help his head straight."

Weed nailed where the neck was broken off.

Ttangttangttang!

At first glance, the cruelty of this is unmatched!

But it was essential to the repair, regardless of what it represents.

In fact, while carving Seoyoon, he had unearthly guilt spreading throughout his body as he sculpts her body.

At the sculpture"s completion, you would view it as beautiful; but the fact is that its creator would obsessively focuses on specific areas and tries to make it as good as possible.

In order to express the delicate body that is being sculpted, strenuous observation have to be made along with experiencing the delicate body parts.

That said, touching the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and b.u.t.tocks are musts.

Sculptors, or any other type of artists, in their lonesome freed environment, they would listen to their perversion in most cases.

Frankly speaking, for Weed also, in this portion, was not honorable.

When he sculpts Seoyoon"s face, her toxic lips would draw him closer.

And when he sculpts her b.r.e.a.s.t.s or posterior, his face would blush for no apparent reason.

Another enjoyable moment when sculpturing!

Weed too, was a dark man.

"There we go."

Weed then applied the bonding agent and placed the head where he nailed.

Then he nailed the head to attach, to ensure that it wouldn"t be able to fall off.

"Next part, the hand."

He carved another apple similarly to the one the boy was holding.

Due to the hardening agent"s quickness, the roundness of the apple wasn"t attractively well represented.

Minor damages on the torso and the legs were quickly covered up smoothly; the substance he made lasted till the end.

He had only intended to roughly repair the sculpture; but due to Weed"s nature, the moment he touches on something he has to complete it fully without a single loose end.

The Vampire was overjoyed since the repair was made excellently.

"Human! You human have potential of which we Vampires do not."

And Weed receives the quest reward of 3 Unicorn feathers.

Now he gains the condition to take up the quest again!

Weed receives the commissioned quest and tries to leave.

But the Vampire that waited for him to finish wasn"t just one.

Suddenly, there were hundreds of Vampires had gathered around.

"At our home, we also have a sculpture that is in need of repair, human. The Compensation being 15 Gold."

"Could you restore my broken statue? It"ll be difficult but I wish it to be restored..."

"The engraved sculpture on my wall was crushed. Quickly come and fix it!"

The Vampires stampeded in and commissioned quests left and right.

Weed"s face wrinkled with extreme prejudice.

The Vampires had no desire to give any combat quests.

And probably similar to what Metson did, they would deny him of all beside these.

"You have shown my people great power in our times of need. And has good tastes in sculpture. Then to you, I will get Todeum"s sculpture to regain its splendid past by just me."

The circ.u.mstance has already forced him to repair the sculptures and was unalterable.

The numbers of Vampire referrals had exceeded hundreds.

"If I finished all the repairs then the taste of compensation shouldn"t be so bad."

With that, Weed launched a physically laborious campaign.

The first day.

Eight sculptures were repaired.

Exterior corners were trimmed carefully, and the overall proportions matched.

The damages were many but since they were jus F quests, their degrees weren"t so hard.

The second day rose in difficulty.

In most cases, one Vampire would have several commissions, so various materials were needed.

Particularly, severe damages on wooden sculptures were hard for Weed to recover.

Grade E quest.

"I"d rather create new ones instead."

Weed a.s.sembled the remains of the sculptures, and similarly, recreated some parts.

Although having Sculpting and Handicraft were useful, having keen eyes were even more so.

While scouting and fighting the battles in Todeum, he had seen almost all of the decent looking sculptures at least once.

If it were Warriors then they would just regard sculptures as ordinary ornaments, just one glance and it was over with.

But Weed, as a professional Sculptor, meticulously looked at them to remember the details.

"Should always memorize so in a later time it could be used."

Memorization for imitation!

The memory served as a great strength when it can to restore the sculptures.

With the third day"s pa.s.sing, he had finished 29 grade E quests.

The levels of fame and reward were still poor.

"But still, there are even more sculptures that have yet to be repaired."

Weed"s sunken eyes filled with motivation.

In Todeum, there was an enormous amount of broken sculptures.

The works on the street were just stepping stones.

The quests to raise his levels and to gain items still weren"t available to him, but he still has sculpturing quests.

Experiences given from recovering the sculptures were little, but Fame and skill level improved as well.

With positive thoughts in mind, this was an unreal opportunity for a Sculptor.

Weed spent a month or so repairing sculptures in Todeum.

A plentiful of sculptor quests!

For the usual Sculptors, this would have been enough and needed to play around; but this was not Weed.

"Hurry or it might end. Must go get battle quests."

The sculpturing quests rewards weren"t too bad because it simply relied on hard work.

So, even on the smallest sculpture, he meticulously repaired it until not a single scratch remained.

He applied new paint at spots where paint chipped off, and newly created duplicate for those with damages too severe and impossible to fix.

The sculptured pieces!

All are based loosely on the Sculptor"s personality or sensitivity.

In addition, the works of art had historical values so the chance to work on them wouldn"t happen again.

Although only modestly challenging and weren"t at all complex, they were something rather handy to Weed.

"I"ve gotten so many different experiences."

If it was an evil looking monster, then it would be represented by a monster model.

The mentor-less Weed"s instilled his own interpretation as it evolved.

Uses of Handicraft to raise the maximum precision of the fundamental likeness of objects!

By crafting duplicate of a work by another Sculptor, the gain was great.

"In this way, I can make sculptures like this too..."

Weed did not understand some of the sculptures as to what they depicted.

Women that resembled the land, sky, and sun were carved.

If the women were the expression of attractiveness, then the other object accentuates the meaning of it.

Exquisite harmonizing beauty!

Whenever he restores these types of sculpture, the Handicraft proficiency rises.

"When I create Cla.s.sic or Magnum pieces, the increase in proficiency is unparalleled; but this is fairly good."

Weed"s Sculpturing and Handicraft skills were in Advanced level 4!

The two skills were at 54% and 42%, respectively.

At the beginning when his started learning how to sculpts, the Handicraft skill improved very rapidly; but having attained the Advanced stage, it hadn"t increase at all.

"For even more advanced sculptures, it alone was not even enough for Handicraft?"

Weed could only guess.

With only just Sculpturing, Handicraft skill is very difficult to master.

n.o.body has ventured to achieve Handicraft Mastery yet!

Even when creating sculptures, or to take advantage of other production skills, and even in battle; the impact of Handicraft is enormous.

"To master Handicraft for just combat cla.s.ses is highly unlikely."

One would rather to go through the process of upgrading the cla.s.s to gain much stronger attacks.

After having completed 2nd job advancement, the Knights or Warriors statistically would have an increase in stamina and higher damage output.

Despite the Geomchis low levels, their attacks are very excellent.

Weed too, although not on the weak side, but the speed of his growth through battles isn"t something comparable to theirs.

His Handicraft and Sculpturing stats could be obtained through creating sculptures.

With these given points, his combat effectiveness wasn"t pale comparing to the Geomchis.

Aside from the Stamina, Physical Resistance, and Strength, the will to fight without a single break was just as high.

"Give Life to Sculpture, Sculpture Blade, Sculpture Destruction Skill, Shape-s.h.i.+fting Sculpture. Even with all these my melee isn"t comparable to the Sahyeongs..."

In essence, all of Weed"s combat capabilities were Sculpture based.

The ability to understand one"s character is important to one"s growth.

Weed"s growth was optimized according to his characteristics comparing to everybody else.

So it was hard to find an opponent who was akin to him at the same level.

And even the learned life-skill Fis.h.i.+ng skill boosted his health and vitality to an extraordinary level for his profession.

He also has manufacturing skills such as Sword Grind, Armor s.h.i.+ne, Ironing; the likes the normal Sculptors would ever see.

"I gotta gain more experiences. The experiences acc.u.mulated in the various fields can affect the Handicraft Mastery."

In addition, the Understanding of Sculptures skill rose very rapidly.

Having repaired more than 300 sculptures, the skill suddenly reached Intermediate level 7.

At the rate that it was going, just a bit more and it may reach Advanced level.

If that was possible then he could morph into the fairytale like monster.

"Giant Weed. Not bad!"

Weed with a satisfied smile moved his hands busily repairing the sculptures.

And if the Shape-s.h.i.+fting Sculpture growth was also just as fast, then it could compensate for the lowly stat Sculptor cla.s.s.

"Puchihihihihihit!"

Weed broke down in a vulgar laugh. One that was similar to days when he was the Orc Karichwi.

While the Vampires who were carefully watching the scene.

"Crazy."

"He"s not normal."

"I should keep in mind to never drink that human"s blood."

* * *

The time on Versailles continent has reached two and a half months.

Geomchis and the party were surprised whenever they returned to Todeum.

Sculptures that were destroyed changed into those in perfect form.

When viewing Weed"s efforts, there was no way to describe their admiration.

Even the pious minded Pale said.

"He"s not human. How can you honestly work like that? I thought it was impossible to finish repairing that many sculptures..."

Hwaryeong eyes twinkled.

"I think a man who doesn"t give up and devoted is so great."

Weed"s endless source of willpower was already formed even since he was 10.

At the valuable critical period of one"s lifetime!

He learned life from suffering under the hands of the loan sharks.

Money!

Miasma! (A noxious atmosphere or influence)

Persistence!

To describe Weed without mentioning these three things would make him obsolete.

So nearing the end of two and a half months, all the sculptures in Todeum that required repairs were finished.

The achievement was incredible.

The hard repair sculpture quest of Grade B!

As of now, the level of his Sculpturing skill was in the late Advanced level 4, and his Handicraft was the same.

Understanding of Sculptures. .h.i.t the Intermediate level 9, and readily able to reach the Advanced stage any moment now.

Since crossing the mid threshold of Advanced level 4 of his Sculpturing Skill, he heard mysterious sounds coming into his ears.

-Please sculpt me.

-I want to see the world.

-If it"s you then you should be able.

-Be strong, c"mon!

Whenever he repairs the sculptures, he would hear these voices.

Not just one of them, he heard several mysterious voices.

"Is this the Vampire"s joke?"

Whenever the voices appeared, Weed would jump upright and turn around, but there was no one.

The Vampire"s Stealth skill, the ability for them to conceal and roam around, especially at night, was incredible.

Weed did not throw that suspicion out even if the visibility of the plaza was as clear as day.

-Me...please sculpt me.

The mysterious voices seemed to be coming from his immediate vicinity.

-Please, do me. Please carve my appearance.

He kept his eyes open and looked around, but there was no visible Vampire.

They have a general tendency to sleep during the day, so there was no reason for any of them to be around.

The vivid whispers seemed to be coming from right beside him.

Occasionally, the voices also sounded ominous.

-C"mon, sculpt me! I"ll kill you. I"ll kill you all!

-Do you want to have power? If so then carve me. Keukeukeukeuk. As a piece, I"ll bring h.e.l.l to the world.

-You"re angry. Be angry. I"ll do everything to take revenge on those that hara.s.sed you.

The dried and wretched men"s voice could be heard.

Having heard dozens of voices in his ears, Weed was annoyed.

"You want me to sculpt what?"

He did not know the ident.i.ties of the voices to his ear.

They on their own went on and on without a single story asking to be carved just like a herd of children.

As if Weed knew what to sculpt to satisfy their wishes.

"I really don"t know."

While not having a single clue of what to do, Weed sculpted.

He carved out human beings, men and women.

Having repaired a lot of sculptures, he could produce Masterpieces from his keen perspectives.

However, the unidentified voices revealed their disappointments.

-That"s not it.

-These aspects are not me.

-I thought you were a competent Sculptor.

For a while, there was no sound to his ears again.

Then, midst of repairing the sculptures, they came and whispers.

They want to be carved!

While being afflicted with these, Weed finished repairing all the sculptures.

As reward for the quests, he gathered from swords for Knights, gloves, armors, and a huge amount of loot.

Where one would drop them and nod off, he survives by adapting!

So then, Pale party and the Geomchis were standing before all the works by just one Sculptor.

They were completely overwhelmed.

"The Emperor of physical labor."

"The fallen G.o.d of hard work."

As if she understood something, Maylon nodded.

"The Weed of CoM. No reason why this shouldn"t be the case."

If the goal is too much; instead of giving up, move your body and solve a bit at a time.

Such continual effort will build up and eventually, the quest will be squared away.

Weed told the party.

"Done. Now I can go along to do them."

The Geomchis looked away and tried to whistle.

Pale and the party members looked sideways at each other.

"Pale nim, go ahead."

"I"d rather Hwaryeong nim do it."

"I don"t want to say that to Weed nim and be hated."

"But still, we need to give him an explanation..."

Finally, Pale went.

"Will you go hunting?"

"Yes. I finished preparing. I obtained many ingredients while doing the sculpture repair quests in Todeum. I"m ready to cook. I gained a lot of grinding wheels too. We"ll be ready anywhere."

While staying in Todeum, Weed had firmly prepared to go to battle.

But Pale broke his expectation and confessed as there was no round-about way to do it.

"Sorry, Weed nim. Actually, we broke all the decent quests."

"......"

Weed"s face contorted.

The face was the worst Pale had ever seen!

Nevertheless, he couldn"t help but to explain.

"We did all the Grade C and D. The follow up hunting quests were easily achieved."

"What about Grade B quest?"

"We were quite successful with them too..."

"......"

"Though actually, there were a few that we couldn"t do."

"Is that so?"

Weed"s face dramatically lit up. But again, Fail"s voice resonated with depression.

"We were blocked from accepting them. They didn"t become quests because it was essentially from the other side. And several others, the risks were too high. We have had too many of Geomchi nims died, so we gave up cause we couldn"t move any further."

During the time when Weed wasn"t around, they were hooked on quests.

In exchange for accepting the worrisome Vampires" commissions, the paid reward and high level quests made them gleeful.

So instead of raising their levels solely through battles, they tend to do quests together as they were twice as efficient.

While receiving quest experiences, Fame, and compensations, their activities were wide spread among the Todeum"s Vampires, and the range of their activities increased.

The quests set the foundation for them with the Vampires! Then there were quests to negotiate with small ethnic groups also!

In between the Vampires" slumber to awaken period, they had to find new grounds for the groups while avoiding the Vampires to escape their oppression.

Find a safe area for them.

Mapan"s quest was to procure supplies for these ethnic groups.

So within two months, they established a new order at Todeum.

Within the Vampire dominated land!

These minorities cultivate their lives in peace dwelling in caves or forests.

Quests to hunt dangerous monsters, necessities, or lost children were given.

Having already almost exhausted all the quests in Todeum.

And as the situation continually changes, new original quests were given.

The best advantage of Royal Road.

Even now, when there was no quest readily available; until the new order needed to be fully established, no big event will happen right away.

Grade F or E, or quests that were for beginners, they didn"t accept them if they were outside the requirement of their commissions.

The Vampire Kingdom Todeum was as vast as the Versailles continent, and the number of quests they could accept was limited, so they had to cut some out.

Weed said quietly.

"I only got quests to fix while you guys got good commission quests."

"Yea, well...I guess. But Weed nim also got a lot of quests."

Weed also acquired a lot of Fame; he regained about 2/3 of the Fame lost while hunting the Unicorns and Pegasus, and also got to develop his Sculpturing Skill further.

Advanced level"s proficiency was indeed hard to increase. And the requirement to do so wasn"t just a few.

Still, Weed"s stomach aches.

"How come ever since I came to Todeum, I"ve not received a single good commission..."

With the remark of regret made, Pale couldn"t come up with an excuse and was speechless.

In good conscience, it was Weed that attracted them to go come to Todeum or else they wouldn"t have.

In the middle of all sorts of jobs; from castle to castle, he still fought and with him, the Grade A difficulty quest was a success.

Weed"s impact during the ordeal was absolute!

Although he was disappointed that the party went and abandoned him for two and a half months, it was unavoidable.

Keeping that in mind, Pale felt it the most since he obtained the most points during the course of the quests.

But if they didn"t do the quests, they along with the Geomchis wouldn"t have had anything to do.

Not knowing when the repairs might be finished, they couldn"t just idle around indefinitely waiting on him to finish.

So they rushed through the quests without minding him at all.

Weed started looking around toward the Geomchis and asked.

"But Sahyeongs."

"Hmm?"

"The number of Sahyeongs seems to have reduced a lot."

"Well, some died midst of the fighting yo."

After having finished fighting the Unicorns and Pegasus, the number of Geomchis remained was 174!

During the course of doing the quests, the number steadily declined and now, there were only 102 people remaining.

Along with these Geomchis, they could do something together.

While their level was also highest amongst themselves, Geomchi2 and the other teachers also survived.

Weed decided.

"With this now, we can"t afford to take on anymore quests."

The Todeum that was dominated by the Vampires, was a modest Kingdom.

Nevertheless, more quests still remained.

With Weed"s Fame and his ability to raise Familiarity, with just a twist of the dried-up quest towel, he could wring out a few acceptable quests.

Grade B still remained, and even A could also be hiding somewhere.

However, too much of the Geomchis died.

With no Bandages left, even with Sword Grind and Armor s.h.i.+ne, it was impossible.

He could not see the benefit of Cooking either, even if the remaining people had the best development.

This was a terrible sacrifice.

"We have to stop here. If anymore of the Sahyeongs died, then we"ll be too weak. And we won"t able to climb the most important place."

With that decision, Weed looked up to the highest tower in Todeum he had to repair.

"There is one final thing we can do."

The ancient building, the Tower of Heroes!

As the unnamed Vampire has said, the Intermediate Training Tower was located somewhere.

Weed"s body burned.

In the City of Heaven Lavias after having separated from Dain, he went through the Beginner Training Center.

Where he learned how to Yell and increased his strength by 50 or so.

"About 3800 people pa.s.sed the Basic Training Center. And 400 among them pa.s.sed the Beginner Training Center. And after that, I bet many more went through the training centers."

Even the large number of Geomchis made it past the Beginner Training Center, and they accepted the Martial Artist profession.

On the Versailles continent, information among users isn"t something secretive.

Because of them, Lavias have already been open to the public so quite a few numbers should have pa.s.sed the Beginner Training Center.

"I"m not interested in how many people have pa.s.sed the BeTC. The Intermediate Training Center is important. I can catch up to those who are ahead of me with this."

The condition poses by Todeum made the Intermediate Training Center here very difficult.

Whatever test is waiting in there, a death spells expulsion from here. Meaning only one opportunity to pa.s.s through the test!

In Continent of Magic, Weed was the G.o.d of War. Every battle he led he won, he became the absolute existence.

That Weed"s blood boiled as if it had resurfaced.

Weed spoke.

"Before climbing the Tower of Heroes, there is work needed to be done."

His voice was filled with strong conviction of resolution.

"First, I have to dismantle the loot"s tower."

"......"

The piled high mountain of spoils that created a large sculpture!

Even if the j.a.ptem was only worth just 1 Copper, Weed would not ever let it go.