Chapter 12
[Day One]
……The first day.
It had definitely been a blank sheet.
'Wait.'
When I turned my head, I saw the suppression talisman hanging beside the entrance.
So I couldn’t see it at the used bookstore earlier because I was wearing the suppression talisman. Now my spiritual power was touching it, and the writing was reacting.
I turned to the next page. There were letters there too.
It was densely written in Chinese characters, yet for some reason the meaning flowed into my head as easily as reading Hangul.
[Day One.
As of today, I have come under Master’s wing. I was just working the bellows by the furnace when Master, passing by, glanced once at my wrist and took me in on the spot. Where else could there be such honor?]
“...It’s a diary. Seriously.”
It was literally an apprentice’s diary.
It was about some person from long ago entering a smithy and beginning to learn the trade under a master.
The first few days were mostly about the work of the smithy.
[Day Two.
Today Master taught me how to read the grain of the anvil. He said the anvil’s surface wasn’t simply flat. There was a side that took the iron in and a side that bounced it away. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the difference.]
I kept turning the pages and reading the diary.
The early entries were about basic smithing tips and how to handle ores.
Even if it was inside a game, I’d spent ten years grinding away in front of a furnace.
Honestly, I was confident I knew the basics inside and out.
But just from reading a little, I could tell at once that the master in this writing had serious skill.
The depth and insight behind the lessons he tossed out so casually were anything but ordinary.
'...This.'
As if possessed, my hand flipping the pages grew faster and faster.
I sped through the twenty or so pages filled with basic smithing techniques.
There were many parts that matched the instincts I’d learned in the game, so I had no trouble understanding them.
The knowledge I already knew was recorded up to about the twentieth day.
And then, when I kept turning the pages.
[Day Twenty.
Today Master said that there is such a thing as sorcery in this world......]
“This is it.”
My eyes flew open.
It described the basics of sorcery.
It seemed the master had painstakingly taught a clueless disciple what sorcery was, from the very beginning, one thing at a time.
And the author who took down those teachings had also written down his own understanding and insights that came to him while listening.
“Ah... so that’s what it meant.”
The master’s lesson and the disciple’s realization as he fumbled along hearing it for the first time were laid out side by side on one page.
Thanks to that, just following the text made the two of them sink into my head as if they were explaining it right beside me.
……Well, well.
The corners of my mouth curled up.
The basic theories on sorcery that I still couldn’t properly understand no matter how much I flipped through those multi-million-won theory books earlier.
They were written on this page in an unbelievably intuitive, easy-to-understand way.
I quickly turned the page.
[Day Twenty-One.
Starting today, Master began teaching me how to handle and contain sorcery.]
And after that, it began to explain how to blend sorcery into smithing work.
That was when it happened.
Swish─
Over the page I had just opened, the black ink characters slowly began to ripple.
“...Huh?”
I rubbed my eyes once.
I hadn’t misseen it. The letters on the paper blurred and dissolved, then reappeared clearly again.
Into different characters.
[Day Thirty-Two.]
What the hell, the page changed on its own?
I was definitely reading the twenty-first day, but it had changed to the thirty-second day.
I tried flipping back with my finger.
It didn’t turn.
The paper was definitely soft, but it was as if someone were pressing hard on the other side of the page.
“......”
'Read it.'
It felt as if someone were saying that.
I dropped my gaze back to the page.
[…And today, he finally spoke for the first time about how to infuse that energy into iron—in other words, the very foundation of sorcery.]
No matter how beautifully you shape a vessel, if you cannot place intent within it, it is nothing but an empty vessel.
―Writing and patterns are nothing more than shells that hold spiritual power. In the end, they only have real effect when they meet the strong intent (思念) of the one who creates and uses them.]
If it can’t hold intent, it’s an empty vessel.
My hand froze.
Empty vessel.
......My talisman had just been exactly that.
[There is a sequence to imbuing intent. First, set your purpose in your mind, and only when that purpose is unshaken should you let spiritual power flow. If spiritual power goes out first, the vessel loses its intent and scatters.]
If spiritual power goes out first, it scatters.
......So that’s why.
I had just followed the diagram and dumped in spiritual power blindly.
I had never once etched into my heart any intent like 'what I would do with this talisman.'
What I was making now was an exam-passing talisman.
There was a face that came to mind.
Lee Yu-jin.
My only little sister, who had an exam coming up soon.
I picked up the fine brush again.
I spread out a fresh sheet of talisman paper and closed my eyes before touching the brush this time.
This is an exam-passing talisman.
Yu-jin’s exam. I know all the hardship you’ve gone through, staying up all night in that cramped study room.
Please don’t make a mistake and fail—solve everything you know, guess the rest, and come out without regrets.
I firmly set that desperate wish in the center of my chest.
And slowly, I carried that feeling on my spiritual power and let it flow to the tip of the brush.
Swish―
Drawing the circle.
Filling in the pattern.
Placed the Chinese character in the center.
The moment I lifted the brush tip.
Vwoooom―!
It was incomparable to the tiny tremor from before.
My spiritual power was drawn into the center of the talisman and settled neatly within the circle traced by the red line, beginning to spin gently.
Not a trace of energy leaked out.
It was perfectly contained, radiating its own light.
“......Hah.”
A laugh escaped me.
I looked back down at the diary in my hands.
Just over thirty pages.
And I had only read that much.
The basics of sorcery that remained vague and unfathomable no matter how much I rifled through those expensive theory books.
had all come flooding into my head.
Even the practical principles that had been blocked up were suddenly opened by those few short lines.
And more than anything.
What just happened... the book had definitely turned the page on its own.
The book knew where I was stuck and opened to show me first.
But that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Because there was still a long way to go in the diary.
What other secrets might be written after this.
......And what page it would open to next time.
I couldn’t even imagine it.
I set the brush down and stroked the diary on the desk once more.
[Apprentice Diary.]
I couldn’t stop smiling.
A cursed object? You’ve never seen one end well?
Well.
“......I guess so.”
I think I got one hell of a book.
***
Clang……! Clang……! Clang……!
A bright metallic ring filled the underground workshop.
The furnace already had scarlet flames flickering inside.
I placed the heated iron on the anvil and continued hammering in rhythm.
I was matching my hands to the tools of the real world.
It was like a kind of calibration that perfectly synchronized the sensations from the game with my real-world body.
Clang-! Clang-! Claaang-!
The recoil traveling up my wrist.
The grain of the iron stretching.
Even the angle at which sparks flew.
Every single one matched the motions I’d pictured in my head without even the slightest deviation.
It was the first time I’d properly held a hammer since the day I first went to the old man’s smithy.
How long had it been since I’d felt this?
It felt like everything had finally returned to its place.
It felt good to be alive.
A thrill flowed quietly through my veins.
Sssshhh―!
As I shoved the glowing piece of iron into the quenching trough, a crisp hiss rose along with white steam.
“Phew.”
I took off my gloves, flopped down in the chair in front of the workbench, and wiped the sweat from my forehead.
That was when it happened.
“I’m back~!”
Creak, thunk.
With the sound of the heavy iron door opening, Seo Ji-an came in with a lively voice.
She had a pleasant smile on her face.
“I’m back~”
She even hummed a tune, as if she was in a good mood.
She gave a sidelong glance at the cooling piece of metal on the workbench and asked.
“Oh my, what were you doing? The workshop’s nice and toasty.”
“Ah, just getting a little more familiar with the equipment―
I replied, wiping the back of my neck with a towel.
“I was just tinkering with a few things. Did you take care of everything okay?”
“Hehe~”
Seo Ji-an gave me a mischievous, smiling look in response.
Then she took a luxurious jade tag out of her bag and set it down on the table with a tap.
“Ta-da―! Take a look.”
On the surface of the jade tag, a cloud motif was engraved along with the two characters [Tianshan].
“As of today, Do-hyun-nim, you’re a mystic craftsman affiliated with the Tianshan Sect (天山派), one of the major players in China’s sorcery world! How’s that? Pretty convincing, right?”
You already finished arranging the cover identity?
It hadn’t even been a few days since I’d left the workshop.
“You really do work fast.”
“I told you I’m a veteran in this business. Ahem.”
Seo Ji-an put both hands on her hips as if to show off and shrugged.
“That’s not all~!”
This time, she took out the latest tablet PC. After tapping the screen a few times, she slid it toward me.
“Now that the cover identity is done, it’s time to get down to business. I’ve sorted through nothing but nice, lucrative requests for you, Do-hyun-nim!”
On the screen was a document neatly organized like a proposal.
[Compiled Request Proposals]
I scrolled through the tablet screen.
― [B Construction] Request to make iron stakes for suppressing the water-vein ghost at the site of a new headquarters building.
(Estimated price: over 80 million won)
― [Powerful ruling-party lawmaker] Request to make protective talismans and accessories for warding off nightmares and curse attacks.
(Estimated price: over 50 million won)
Construction companies... politicians...
'...The price tags are all insane, aren’t they?'
I’d seen on the news that tycoons and politicians go crazy for superstitions, but the scale of this world was beyond imagination.
No matter how far I scrolled down with my finger, requests kept streaming on and on.
“Have requests piled up this much already?”
“Ah...! Well, there were already a lot sitting here to begin with.”
Seo Ji-an explained with shining eyes.
“The true masters who can carve spell circuits are all monopolized by the Four Great Families, right? They only take jobs for their own families, or insanely expensive easy jobs. It’s basically collusion, plain and simple.”
In summary, her explanation was this.
Since the families had monopolized the craftsmen who could carve spell circuits, they only picked the expensive, easy jobs.
On top of that, in most cases their price was high while their actual ability didn’t live up to it.
In other words, it was a market overflowing with money but with no one to make the things, so requests just kept piling up.
'...So the supply is bottlenecked.'
I was scrolling down with my finger, skimming through various requests.
[Politics]
......
[Construction]
[Advertising]
My gaze lingered on one section.
[Food Service]
......
[Custom Commission Requests]
“Wait a second.”
“Huh? Did you find something you like?”
I pointed at one line on the screen with my finger.
“You get requests like this too?”
― [Rabiang O-Star Restaurant] Request for a custom-made chef’s knife for the head chef.
“Ah, that one...”
Seo Ji-an made a slightly embarrassed face.
“One of our VIP customers is a big shot in the hotel business. He’s having it made as a gift for his head chef, so for a normal request it does pay pretty well. But since it isn’t a request from the sorcery world, the price per piece drops a bit. That’s why I tucked it toward the back.”
Even if the unit price was lower.
[Request fee from 5 million won—negotiable.]
Five million won for a single knife.
No matter how I looked at it, that was already plenty.
A stake to suppress water veins, or a protective talisman, things like that.
Well, it wouldn’t be impossible if I tried.
But since this was my first request.
My sorcery skills were still shallow, so I didn’t have the confidence to pull off something that grand perfectly on the first try.
The first request should be something easy after all.
Besides, there was also something I wanted to test.
“You can keep looking and decide later......”
“I’ve decided. My first request will be this one.”
Seo Ji-an blinked for a moment as if surprised by my words.
Then she seemed to fall into deep thought on her own.
'...So from the broker’s point of view, she’d rather I pick the higher-paying one?'
She seemed disappointed that I’d passed over the tens-of-millions-of-won requests and chosen the 5-million-won knife.
As I was thinking that, Seo Ji-an lifted the corners of her mouth and smiled meaningfully.
“...Aha. So that’s it.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“I think I know, Do-hyun-nim. You don’t have to say it. I’m someone who knows enough about this line of work.”
Soon her eyes sparkled.
“I knew people like you, Do-hyun-nim, wouldn’t be moved by money! The kind of craftsman spirit that pours your soul into a single knife...!”
Then she gently closed her eyes and nodded over and over as if she had convinced herself of something.
“After all, a debut work should be a knife. Before making your full-on debut in the sorcery world, you’re first trying to build your reputation properly with the blacksmith’s basics—a knife!”
She seemed to have badly misunderstood something.
There was no need to spell out with my own mouth that I was still a little scared of the sorcery side.
I cleared my throat lightly and gave an evasive reply.
“Ahem, well. The basics are the most important thing.”
“That’s awesome! Then I’ll contact Rabiang right away and set up a meeting!”
Seo Ji-an took out her phone, humming to herself.
A knife was something I could make with my eyes closed.
The problem wasn’t that.
―Writing and patterns are merely shells that hold spiritual power. In the end, they only truly work when they meet the strong intent of the person who creates and uses them.
The line I had read in the apprentice diary wouldn’t leave my head.
If there’s no fixed form for holding intent.
Then...
The corners of my mouth slowly rose.
For this request, I happened to have something I wanted to test.