chapter 149
Screeeech.
A car stopped in front of Do Cheol-ya’s workshop and two people got out.
Lee Hyun and Kim Min-jung.
For the record, the two had at least agreed to a truce for the time being.
“Old man, are you here?”
Ba-dang! Ba-dang!
Along with the familiar heat, the regular clanging of hammer strikes rang out.
As always, Do Cheol never stopped hammering metal.
Does he ever rest?
“We’re here, old man.”
Ba-dang! Ba-dang!
Do Cheol seemed completely focused on the weapon he was making and paid no attention to them.
But that was a very familiar sight to the two.
“I’ll look at the weapons.”
Kim Min-jung left first, thinking the conversation between Lee Hyun and Do Cheol would take a while.
She headed to the place where Do Cheol kept only large swords — things like zweihänders or bastard swords.
It seemed she was choosing a gift for Eom Gi-seon.
“The more I look, the purer his hammering technique is.”
Ba-dang! Ba-dang! Ba-dang!
“And the way he pours his intent into every strike… If he had been a warrior rather than a smith, he would’ve achieved great things long ago.”
Sun Wukong’s evaluation of Do Cheol was very high today as well.
‘Intent? Are you saying the old man might not be human…?’
“No way. I suspected that at first too, but he’s definitely human. Then again, if you nitpick, he’s not entirely just a man.”
‘…?’
Lee Hyun didn’t quite know what to make of that.
Sun Wukong was staring intently at the iron Do Cheol was forging and spoke.
“Have you ever heard of the saying ‘all streams return to the source’?”
‘I’ve heard it in broad terms. That all flows eventually become one…’
“It’s originally a Buddhist term. It means that all currents and waves eventually gather in the sea. There are countless Buddhist sects and their teachings on Zen vary, but ultimately they all head toward nirvana.”
Sun Wukong’s eyes shimmered a little.
“This smith is the same. Once skill reaches a certain level, it becomes spiritual. A master who has reached a high level can imbue his image into a weapon. But a grandmaster beyond that can put the weapon owner’s image into the weapon. And—”
Screeeech!
When the crimson-forged metal entered cold water, it steamed white vapor.
“A true sage who has surpassed ‘levels’ can awaken the innate image a weapon should possess. This fellow has already reached that position.”
‘…!’
“The more I see it, the more I covet it… Really, why don’t I ever have him make one of my sacred relics sometime?”
He’d said something similar before. Sun Wukong looked genuinely contemplative.
Lee Hyun felt a strange mix of emotions.
Sun Wukong admired Do Cheol that much — and Do Cheol kept helping him — so Lee Hyun felt even more apologetic.
“Old man, I have a problem.”
Lee Hyun approached Do Cheol cautiously.
Ba-dang! Ba-dang!
Do Cheol dipped the metal back into the forge and resumed hammering.
“All the teeth have broken.”
“…….”
The mechanically repeated hammering stopped in an instant.
“I’m sorry.”
Do Cheol quietly raised his head and looked at Lee Hyun.
A lifetime spent by the flames had darkened his skin; his face was weathered and fierce. His gaze was more intense than the blaze in the furnace.
He still said nothing. But Lee Hyun understood that meant he should show the axes.
“Here’s what happened.”
Lee Hyun took out the iron axe heads — the Shikcheol, Galyuk, and Gyohyeol — and set them on the floor in order.
They lay shattered into fragments, so destroyed they could no longer even be called axes.
Do Cheol picked up the shards one by one and inspected them carefully.
Then he said, “They were punished by heaven.”
His voice cracked like scratching a metal plate with a nail.
Lee Hyun heard a tone in Do Cheol’s voice he hadn’t heard in a long time.
“You can tell that from them?”
“Metal doesn’t lie.”
Do Cheol gave a terse answer, then fixed his gaze on Lee Hyun.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Thanks to the teeth you made for me, I’m fine. I’m just sorry they ended up like this.”
“No need to apologize. They simply fulfilled their purpose. They’re satisfied too.”
A weapon’s proper state is when it has completed its role.
Lee Hyun felt odd, weirdly comforted by that.
Do Cheol tossed the fragments back onto the floor and said, “But we can’t reuse these. When something departs, it departs; when something new comes, we should welcome it warmly.”
Lee Hyun nodded.
“Yes. That’s why I came to commission a new weapon.”
“What will you make?”
“A heavy weapon.”
“A heavy weapon?”
The heat in Do Cheol’s eyes flared even hotter.
“Yes. I drew a design — could you take a look?”
Lee Hyun unrolled sheets of paper from his inventory and handed them over.
Do Cheol wiped his soot-covered hands with a towel, moved closer, and examined the plans meticulously. A loupe rested on the bridge of his nose.
Sun Wukong hovered close, watching.
“You want something unusual? Even though it’s an axe, it’s very different from the ones you used before. That kind of thing will be very tricky to handle.”
A heavy weapon: huge and massively heavy arms and armaments.
Usually that means very large swords or hammers, but Lee Hyun’s design was much larger than those.
A shaft the height of a person.
At the end, on both sides, were broad, massive axe blades like the doors of a fortress.
It was a weight and size that made “swing” feel wrong — you’d “bring it down” more than swing it.
A weapon fit for ancient mythical warriors.
“I was gobsmacked when I first saw it; imagine how the craftsman feels.”
Sun Wukong crossed his arms and let out an awkward laugh.
“This isn’t a weapon, Inseok. It’s more like siege equipment.”
Lee Hyun smiled without a word.
In fact, he’d expected that reaction.
Lately, every time Lee Hyun fought he’d had the same thought:
‘My axes are too light.’
At first, right after curing the Freezing Ring, he hadn’t felt that way.
Do Cheol’s teeth were already brutal weapons on their own.
Weapons that would devour you if you let your guard down.
So Lee Hyun kept them sharp and used them to deliver that brutality to his enemies.
But after he rapidly grew, broke through his four-year-ago level, and his stats changed completely — and when his Duelist style fully awakened — Do Cheol’s teeth no longer stimulated him.
He kept using them because they fit his hands well, but there were many things to improve.
‘I want them heavier so I feel the weight in my grip.’
‘I want the blade thicker so the impact feels solid.’
‘I want longer reach.’
Each time he consulted Do Cheol and made small adjustments, but the fundamental craving didn’t fade.
So he decided to change his approach entirely.
He would steer his combat style toward something more aggressive.
‘My Duelist focus, Do-eok-shi-ni’s aura, and physical stats are all concentrated on destructive power. So it makes sense to push that to the extreme.’
Two goals:
Speed.
And destruction.
Speed and weight are power.
If he made a weapon as large and heavy as possible, his strengths would be amplified.
Normally such a weapon would slow your speed, but Lee Hyun’s strength exceeded most high-rankers, so that didn’t apply to him.
‘The presence on the battlefield would be terrifying.’
He imagined the spectacle of himself standing on the battlefield with a great axe.
Most rankers wouldn’t endure a single hit.
Not because they could withstand it, but because the weapon would break first and their body would be split apart.
‘But what if I attach a chain so I can swing it farther?’
He would be an absolute monster swallowing the battlefield.
So he and Sun Wukong stayed up all night designing a weapon specialized to the direction he intended to grow in.
A weapon tailored to his future development.
It might be too heavy to handle immediately, but it would become a disaster for enemies.
This was the new weapon Lee Hyun wanted to make.
“With this, you’ll dominate the field purely with physical presence and not be outclassed.”
Do Cheol said, and Lee Hyun nodded.
“Yes. If we mix in an arcane core with destructive attributes, the destructive power will increase manifold.”
“Hold on. Stand there.”
Lee Hyun stood at attention as instructed.
Do Cheol examined him with a gaze hot enough to melt metal.
He felt Lee Hyun’s muscles, tested his wrists, and then nodded.
“Good weapon idea. I don’t know who advised you, but they’re an excellent teacher.”
Do Cheol had even sensed the hidden advisor’s presence — that there was a teacher involved.
“Ehtham, did you see? This master is that good.”
Sun Wukong proudly showed off like a child.
“Is this the only weapon? That won’t be enough.”
Do Cheol also knew the axe was meant to be part of a set.
He truly was a remarkable man.
“Yes. I’ll need more. Depending on the situation, other weapons will be necessary. Here are the other designs.”
Lee Hyun produced several more design sheets.
One was slightly smaller than the great axe and likely specialized for melee combat with a blade on only one side — a battle-axe.
The other four were throwing hand-axes about the size of Do Cheol’s teeth.
Six in total.
“A walking siege engine, really — siege equipment.”
Sun Wukong shook his head and summed it up well.
Actually, Lee Hyun’s physique didn’t match those weapons at all.
He was rather slim — showing such armament might add a sense of grotesque contradiction and increase the psychological pressure on the enemy.
“Can you make them all?”
“That depends not on me but on the materials.”
“…?”
What did he mean?
Do Cheol looked Lee Hyun in the eye.
“We lack materials.”
“Oh.”
“Even Do Cheol’s teeth required only three axes, but they consumed a lot of resources. I practically spent my entire savings. But this…”
“Just the great axe alone will require several times more than what went into Do Cheol’s teeth. It must be solid, strong, and probably forged from a single piece.”
Do Cheol nodded.
“And the arcane core adds destructive properties. Not many metals can withstand that. To obtain materials for this, even putting forging aside, the raw material cost alone will likely be in the billions.”
It was laughable — a weapon costing easily over ten billion.
Only then did Lee Hyun realize his world had become very different from ordinary people’s.
“Will this be insufficient then?”
Lee Hyun opened his inventory wide and dumped out everything inside.
Clatter—
“……!?”
The spoils he’d gained while fighting the Heaven Sect’s apostles spilled across the floor. At least a dozen sacred relics tumbled out.
Most of them belonged to high-ranking deities.
A lot had come from Nata giving a lot when he died twice — a tree that gave freely.
Besides those, Lee Hyun had collected many other items along the way.
‘So even the old man can be surprised?’
Seeing Do Cheol’s astonished face for the first time made Lee Hyun inwardly pleased.
“…….”
Do Cheol looked over the sacred relics carefully, then nodded.
“This should be enough. But for the remaining base materials…”
“I’ll take it on credit.”
Do Cheol briefly frowned, unconvinced, but soon clicked his tongue lightly.
He agreed.
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Do Cheol didn’t reply.
It seemed that preparing a new weapon would require a lot of work.
‘Should I thank Okhwang for this?’
Lee Hyun smiled as he watched Do Cheol’s back.
He wondered what kind of weapon would welcome him.
He was already excited.
