Elise had called for him suddenly, so Junhyuk stopped training and headed for her lab. He had been training with Sarang, so they both entered Elise’s lab. She had asked them both to come.
Elise showed them a scarlet set of armor. Just by looking at it, Junhyuk knew that it had been made with Kalgroan’s red scales.
“You’ve created an item already?”
Elise replied with a smile, “I failed four times before I succeeded.”
That meant that her success rate was at 20 percent. Junhyuk thought he should get Elise more intelligence runestones. She needed other runestones as well, and he would have to spend a lot of gold on her, but with more intelligence runestones, she could craft more items.
“What can it do?”
Elise shrugged and said, “It can withstand heat of up to five thousand degrees celsius. Even gunshots can’t scratch it.”
“How does it compare to other items?”
“The Wolf Warlord’s claw won’t work against it either.”
“You mean it’s stronger than items made from A-ranked monsters?”
“Yes, but I haven’t tried it on yet.”
Junhyuk was curious about it as well. Elise crafted items, but her items did not always carry abilities with them.
Looking at her, he said, “You should put it on.”
“Should I?”
“Of course!”
Elise did not know if it had any abilities, but her Ghost White Tiger Cloak had a stealth ability, so she was hopeful.
She put on the red armor, and since it was made with magitek, once she did, the armor shrunk to fit her perfectly.
Junhyuk remained curious, and Elise moved around and said, “This has an interesting ability.”
“What is it?”
“Wait.”
She punched at him hard. Junhyuk didn’t know what Elise was doing, so he simply stared at her fist. Her hand was encased in flame.
Thunk!
Junhyuk wasn’t damaged at all since Elise wasn’t carrying any attack items. Her punch was not one of her powers, but he was impressed.
“What did you do?”
She took a step back and kicked him. She kicked hard, and Junhyuk was able to see under her skirt when she raised her leg. Her foot was also on fire.
Junhyuk blocked her kick and pretended not to notice her panties.
“Is that a passive ability?”
Some items carried passive abilities. Her own glasses had a passive ability. In any event, he was surprised by her fire kick.
Elise smiled and answered, “All of my attacks deal an extra 3 percent fire damage.”
Junhyuk’s eyes beamed. Elise was saying that every attack while wearing that armor would deal an extra 3 percent damage.
He turned to Sarang, but she shrugged and said, “I have affinity to lightning, so it probably wouldn’t benefit me.”
After pondering it, Junhyuk nodded.
“You’re probably right.”
It seemed like one had to have affinity to fire to be able to wear the armor. If one had affinity to water or ice, the armor would be completely useless.
He turned to Elise, and she started thinking aloud, “I spent a huge amount of materials as crafting ingredients for this armor. On top of that, I used both dragon’s blood and magitek to finish it.”
Humanity had just managed to kill an S-ranked monster, and Elise had been able to craft a scale armor with its blood. However, the rate of success was low, and she had spent a lot of time and materials on it.
“I’ve completed the recipe. Next time, my chances of success will be greater. However, they’ll still only be around 33 percent,” she said.
That would be more than a ten-percent increase.
“How long does it take you to craft one?”
“At least six hours, but I have a recipe now, so it’ll be the right work.”
Junhyuk nodded and asked, “Have you looked into the dragon’s heart?”
Her eyes beamed at the mention of it, and she said, “I wanted to talk to you about it.” She walked deeper into the lab, toward an enclosure with a glass window. The dragon’s heart was inside it.
Junhyuk could tell that it was the heart because of the immeasurable quantity of mana he could feel from it. His own living spirit carried far less than the heart.
He turned to Elise and said, “I’ve never seen that level of mana.”
“Correct. The mana trees are completely useless in comparison. The purity of the mana within the heart is even greater than that of the mana from mana stones.”
“Can you use the heart?”
“I have asked Gongon about it, but he isn’t telling me much.”
It was only natural that Gongon would be hesitant to answer all of Elise’s questions.
“Should I ask Bebe?”
“Probably,” Junhyuk replied and turned to Sarang.
She smiled at him and said, “Vera might know something, but I also know she hasn’t studied magitek.”
“But Vera still knows a lot about artifacts. She’ll know how to use the heart.”
“True. I’ll call her.”
Sarang attempted to contact Vera right away, and looking at Elise, Junhyuk said, “You should make more of that armor. We need to have it priced.”
Elise nodded and asked, “After I make another, can I keep one for myself?”
“Sure!”
She smiled and said, “I’m using the cores for weapon development.”
“A weapon?”
She turned a monitor on and continued, “I have the basic schematics already.”
Elise was showing him the plans for an orb. It looked a lot like one of Tuelus’ weapons. Pointing to it, she said, “The core can supply an unlimited amount of energy, so I’m making a small weapon with it. Of course, I’m crafting it with magitek.”
“Hm… We might find a way to boost all of our regular attacks that way.”
“Yes. I’m expecting great things from it, but I can’t say what will happen yet. I’ve barely finished the schematics for it, so I won’t be using it in tomorrow’s battlefield.”
“You don’t have to rush.”
“Right. I’ll focus on making another set of red armor.”
Sarang walked up to them and said, “Dragon hearts are usually used in weapons manufacturing. Vera wants to talk to you, Elise.”
“Thanks.”
While Vera conversed with Elise, Junhyuk had nothing to do. He didn’t want to interfere with the conversation since he didn’t understand it. He knew nothing about magic.
Junhyuk stared at the dragon’s heart. All he could see was a massive concentration of mana. He had his own mana reserve, but he was stunned in the presence of the dragon’s heart.
He couldn’t believe he had killed a dragon with that much mana inside it. He was sure now that he had only managed to do it because of his items and the others who had supported him. But, the powered humans had died en masse. Thanks to their efforts and sacrifices, however, there hadn’t been a lot of civilian deaths.
Junhyuk was extremely frustrated with Eltor, the manager who had let loose a dragon on his people.
While Elise talked to Vera, Junhyuk got bored and told Elise that he was leaving. She waved at him indifferently. He didn’t want to stay in the lab anymore, so he went to Guardians HQ. New items were nice, but he needed to focus on training harder. His enemies weren’t limited to just the Dimensional Battlefield.
—
On Friday morning, Elise entered his room. They knew they would be summoned. She had dark circles around her eyes, which made him worried about her.
She handed him a set of red armor and said, “I got lucky and was able to make another.”
It took six hours to make one, so if Elise had failed, she would’ve lost that time. The materials would be wasted, sure, but time was more precious at the moment.
Junhyuk put the armor inside his Spatial Bag. He would sell it. He was more interested to know if he could attach powers to scrolls. He had a lot planned for the upcoming battlefield.
Elise sat on his bed and asked, “Can I stay here with you?”
“Of course.”
She lay on his bed and gathered her breath. Junhyuk watched as she fell asleep, exhausted from her lack of it.
Junhyuk took her goggles off, and while she slept on the bed, he sat on a chair. Time would stop for him, but she would spend at least an hour like that. He wanted to let her sleep.
Sitting on the chair, Junhyuk reminisced about many things. He also thought about Aksha’s swordsmanship and went over it in his head. Suddenly, a blinding light pounded against his eyes, and he covered them.
Junhyuk opened his eyes slowly and saw someone standing before him. Ariel was smiling as she looked at him.
He checked his gold. They had already subtracted the 100,000G for Vera.
“Was the gold sent to Vera?”
[Yes.]
He nodded and summoned his items, saying, “OK. Deployment time.”
[Be sure to win!]
Junhyuk waved at Ariel, who gathered both her hands in a cone around her mouth and shouted, [Hero Junhyuk Lee deployed!]
When he walked outside, he saw the others and the minions. Everyone was already there, so he walked toward them.
