One Man Army

Chapter 168 [Episode 86] Fancy Fireworks 2

‘First, should I try to shine the light of synthesized synthesized Magic Engineering?’ (EN: Remember, successful upgrades and enhancements are celebrated by a flare of light in EL.)

Synthesized Magic Engineering was a synthesized general skill that Sang Hyuk had long ago chosen as his seventh general skill.

It was not possible to obtain this skill cheaply because it was made by synthesizing four skillbooks that were more expensive than you can imagine. (EN: In chapter 38, we find out that “High Speed Swimming” is created from “Swimming” and “Sprinting” common skillbooks. synthesized Magic Engineering is obviously created from 4 very expensive skillbooks, beyond the common grade)

However, Sang Hyuk had steadily commissioned them through Gold Mountain’s NPC buyers, and now he has collected exactly 23,700 synthesized Magic Engineering Skillbooks.

‘If this much, then it should be at least +8, right?’

It if were the other users, they would have been satisfied to get just +5, not +8, but Sang Hyuk was different

‘It is such a shame that it can’t be broadcast.’

In fact, videos of players enhancing equipment was a very popular type of broadcast content. In particular, as he had been collecting a lot of books for a long time and using them up in a  high-speed strengthening rush, then it would significantly boost his ratings.

But, unfortunately it couldn’t be broadcast.

First of all, if he broadcast it, then the Immortal, the Gold Mountain, and the relationship between them could be exposed and it could have a long-term impact on his plans by creating a sense of incongruity uselessly.

So, Sang Hyuk was filming the video, but didn’t intend to broadcast it.

Sang Hyuk, who had filled his empty virtual bag with the skillbooks of the synthesized Magic Engineering to max capacity, took it straight away to the Synthesizer NPC nearby.

Although he could strengthen items by himself, composing and enhancing skillbooks could only be done by those with the Synthesizer Skill.

To be honest, if he wants to increase his chances of success even a little, he could find a famous user who was making a name for himself as a Synthesizer, but if he does that, he will pay a lot amount of money, and moreover revealing this amazing strengthening rush to a player Synthesizer would make more work, so he just went to the NPC. (TL Note: it will be troublesome to explain to the other users how did he get these amazing things)

“Let’s start.”

After handing over all the skillbooks to the NPC, Sang Hyuk nodded and immediately began the strengthening process.

Of course, he put on the title ‘God of Reinforcement’.

He wasn’t the synthesizer, but the effect was applied to the things he commissioned so it certainly made sense.

Of course, there was no prefix or suffix effect, so he merely had to equip the title.

Swiiinng, flash! Flash!

Pajik, sshhhhh.

Succeed, succeed, failed, succeed, succeed, succeed, failed, failed, succeed…..

The successes and failures of the enhancement keep on going, but Sang Hyuk continued to nod repeatedly while watching the procedure emotionlessly.

The first amount which was handed over to the NPC was 5,000 synthesized Magic Engineering Skillbooks. Sang Hyuk thought that 5,000 volumes would never make +8. It meant that the chances of strengthening were low.

Then, as he expected, the 5,000 books turned to dust and disappeared into thin air in about an hour and a half.

It took more than an hour to enhance it even without resting so this procedure was not easy.

Sang Hyuk, who had cooly blown 5,000 volumes, handed in 5,000 more. Sang Hyuk wasn’t impatient.

In the end, the probability of the strengthening was dependent on EL’s RNG (Random Number Generator), so if he keeps on challenging then it would be done one day.

He also had prepared so many ingredients for it.

The reinforcement continued. The good news was that the Synthesizer NPC did not lose focus and continued strengthening.

If it was a user, he would have said that he was exhausted and couldn’t do it anymore, but because it was an NPC, he just kept on reinforcing without any words.

It burst, stuck and burst again….. the success and failure were repeated in front of Sang Hyuk’s eyes. Then after at least 17,000 volumes of synthesized Magic Engineering Outline Skillbooks became dust and disappeared like that, the fourth synthesized Magic Engineering Skillbook +8 appeared again.

Sang Hyuk had told the NPC to stop once it was +8.

He had stopped three times before, and each time Sang Hyuk shouted to challenge the +9 level and he had to watch the skillbooks disappearing like dust.

“Huuu….”

Sang Hyuk took a deep breath and slowly opened his mouth.

“We will do it one more time.”

When Sang Hyuk’s permission was given, the Synthesizer NPC attempted to strengthen it without hesitation.

Sssss, flash!

Phatttt!

Then it appeared the Synthesized Magic Engineering +9.

Then Sang Hyuk could smile pleasantly.

He gave up the +10 challenge. There were still a lot of skillbooks left, but there was no guarantee that he could make another +9 again.

“Let’s call it a day.”

Sang Hyuk received the +9 Synthesized Magic Engineering Skillbook from the NPC.

[Skill] +9 synthesized Magic Engineering (Synthesized/General) – A better understanding of various magic machinery allows you to use some special Magic Engineering products and moreover it also improves the performance of things related to Magic Engineering.

Enhancement Bonus: (+2 Bonus: Vitality increases by 10.) (+3 Bonus: The duration of Aura Crystals increases by 3%.) (+4 Bonus: The durability of the Sky-grade ship increases by 2%.) (+5 Bonus: Mount Rocket Boosters [Mini Booster that increases the travel speed by 200% for 2 seconds] on shoes.) (+6 Bonus: The durability recovery speed of the Sky-grade ship became faster by 5%.) (+7 Bonus: Wearable Rainbow Contact Lenses [You can identify your enemy’s current health in seven colors].) (+8 Bonus: The energy charging rate of the Magic Armor became faster by 10%.) (+9 Bonus: Maximum usage time of Magic Armor increased by 10%.) Cooldown time: None (Passive) (EN: Yes, you’re reading it right, he got rocket boots. )

[Proficiency: 0]

Synthesized Magic Engineering was a general skill that would be essential for players aiming for the ranker position. Of course, it has not yet been disclosed that this skill even exists.

This was a secret general skill that had been learned by a few top-ranked players in person when they were able to face off against the Sun People in the Continent of the Sun.

“Synthesized Magic Engineering is done…. and the next thing is ‘The Art of Conversation’?”

After synthesized Magic Engineering, the 8th general skill that Sang Hyuk chose was the Art of Conversation.

At first glance, this general skill, which seems unnecessary, was unexpectedly an important skill.

Sang Hyuk had prepared about 19,000 books synthesized in advance, as he did for synthesized Magic Engineering.

It was less important than synthesized Magic Engineering, but Sang Hyuk was also going to make it +9.

* * * *

After four hours of hard work, Sang Hyuk was able to eventually get ‘The Art of Conversation +9’ skillbook.

He used 18,745 books out of the 19,000 books he prepared and it was risky.

But the important thing was that he succeeded.

[Skill] +9 The Art of Conversation (Synthesized/General) – With a marvelous Silver Tongue, you can lead the conversation to your advantage. However, the correction effects through the Art of Conversation skill does not work on another ‘player’.

Enhancement Bonus: (+2 Bonus: The favor of all NPCs increases by 2% except for some special NPCs.) (+3 Bonus: The favor of all NPCs increases by 3% except for some special NPCs.) (+4 Bonus: The probability of the NPC’s curiosity about your words increases by 10%.) (+5 Bonus: The probability of the NPC’s curiosity about your words increases by 20% [Cumulative 35%].) (+6 Bonus: When favor with a NPC rises, an additional 5% of favorability is given.) (+7 Bonus: When favor with a NPC rises, an additional 10% [Cumulative 15%] of favorability is given.) (+8 Bonus: When you hire NPC mercenaries, for 30% of them the starting salaries are reduced by 30%.) (+9 Bonus: The ultimate effects in Art of Conversation will work for any entity. The summoning duration for all your summons is increased by 30%.) Cooldown time: None (Passive)

[Proficiency: 0]

Due to the +9 effects, this was a general skill that had to be learned. Rather, the benefits of the high rank were better than the high rank benefits of synthesized Magic Engineering made earlier.

The rarity, and benefits of +9 were known publicly (and coveted by many) shortly before Sang Hyuk came back in time.

“Let’s finish with this General Skill.”

Honestly, he wanted to change some of the existing general skills, but it wasn’t that urgent now.

‘Awakening Skill Slot….. I have to fill it up first.’

The most urgent thing now was to create the Ancient Knowledge that will be inserted into the Awakening Skill Slot.

Of course, Sang Hyuk had already planned everything.

Even the materials were all collected, so all he had to do was to make them.

The problem was…. that this Ancient Knowledge was totally unordinary.

Originally, the Awakening Skill Slot was meant to be equipped with an easy and common ‘Ancient Knowledge’. By the way, after the Ancient Knowledge registered in the Awakening Skill Slot was lost after the time limit expired, a different Ancient Knowledge than the one registered before could not be mounted immediately.

If one wanted to mount something else, one had to ‘Initialize’ the Awakening Skill Slot for four days.

This penalty was to prevent abuse of the Awakening Skill Slot by preventing the players from switching the Ancient Knowledge to fit the situation, rather than using it for the intended purposes.

For this reason, Sang Hyuk intended to use one Ancient Knowledge constantly.

But that Ancient Knowledge was not normal and certainly not easy to get.

“The Ritual of the Thunder…. With this, I can cover for the absence of an active attack skill.”

Sang Hyuk had his four soul holes filled with the ‘Shadow Knight’, ‘Elementalism’, ‘Card User’, and ‘Giant Blood’.

But in fact, Sang Hyuk was not 100% satisfied with this choice. Of course, after a lot of thought, it was a choice he made using all of the EL knowledge he has, and it was the best configuration when he first thought about it.

But there was certainly a little difference between theory and practice.

As he continued to use those four souls throughout his play, he was able to find many shortcomings, and there were two lethal shortcomings.

First, the number of active offensive skills was insufficient. In particular, as you can see there is no offensive skill that specializes in ‘wire’ as the main weapon and he almost always used general offensive skills as an expedient.

This was the part where Sang Hyuk always got frustrated.

And the second one was, the Giant Blood. Sang Hyuk admitted that it was an obvious mistake to choose the Giant Blood.

Of course, the Giant Blood itself was excellent. However, by now Sang Hyuk and the Giant Blood were slightly out of focus.

It helped a lot in terms of defense, but Sang Hyuk had now abandoned the defensive build in raid or PvP in favor of a high speed attack style, forgoing defense and relying on pure offense to win.

In this way, of course he didn’t like Giant Blood.

However, because it wasn’t something he could change because he didn’t like it, Sang Hyuk was forced to admit his mistakes and used his abilities to make the most of it.

Anyway, in that sense, ‘Ritual of the Thunder God’ was an Ancient Knowledge which was a must for Sang Hyuk.

This Ancient Knowledge was a type often referred to as Martial Arts.

To be precise, it was a kind of Martial Arts that used “Thunder”.  This technique dealt sonic/concussion damage by creating spheres of vacuum in the air, and damage was inflicted when the spheres violently imploded due to atmospheric pressure.  Sang Hyuk intended to use it to complete his own wire combat method.

Everything was perfect here.

However, in order to do this, he had to keep loading the Ritual of Thunder God on the Awakening Skill Slot….. By the way, the Ritual of Thunder God was a hidden Ancient Knowledge that could be created with a very low probability from a combination of the Divine Thunderbolt skillbook, which is the highest ranked Martial Arts skill, and the Heavenly 72 Whip Techniques skillbook, which is a first rank Martial Art skill.

The very low probability mentioned above was only 0.5%.

In other words, it was an Ancient Knowledge that was not easily obtained even if he knew how to do it.

Even Divine Thunderbolt and Heavenly 72 Whip techniques were not easy to obtain, so making the Ritual of the Thunder God itself was quite difficult.

But, did he have faith in that 0.5% probability and roll the dice?

In fact, the Ritual of Thunder God was an Ancient Knowledge that wasn’t appropriate for the Awakening Skill Slot at all.

Hidden Martial Arts such as the ‘Ritual of Thunder God’ was usually known to users through quest and when players learned how to get the Ritual of the Thunder God, it was clear that they would never put it in the Awakening Skill Slot.

But, Sang Hyuk was different.

He already knew about the Ritual of Thunder God in the first place. Because one of the progamers he liked the most used it as one of his main soulskills.

Anyway, he knew exactly how to make it. Therefore, he planned it from the beginning and kept on buying these two books of Martial Arts….. Divine Thunderbolt and Heavenly 72 Whip Techniques.

Since he has been collecting them for almost a few years, he has collected about 22,349 volumes of Divine Thunderbolt and 31,734 volumes of Heavenly 72 Whip Methods.

Theoretically, there are about 22,000 volumes of Ritual of the Thunder God that could be made.

If so, even with only 0.5% chance, the results suggested that more than 100 books of Ritual Thunder God could be produced.

In addition, Sang Hyuk had the item skill, ‘Great Luck’.

So he was confident that he would pull out more than 100 books no matter what.

Even if you used up one skillbook a month it would be 100 months.

It meant that it could be used for almost 10 years in a row. If this were enough, putting the Ritual of Thunder God in the Awakening Skill Slot didn’t seem to be a problem.

“Now, should we make them now?”

Sang Hyuk, who smiled as he watched the Martial Arts books stacked in front of his eyes.

He was thinking of drawing at least 150 books of Ritual of Thunder God today.

Chapter 167 [Episode 86] Fancy Fireworks 2 – End

Edited by Userunfriendly