Chapter 23

‘Well, at least it seems to have gotten a synergy with the Five Elements Art. The “partial” part is gone, so that’s something.’

But since most of his other skills were already at 100% Proficiency, he couldn’t tell which ones had provided the synergy. Of course, he could make an educated guess. Metallurgy and Enchant were both crafting-type skills, so those were the most likely candidates.

‘Anyway…… let’s see what I can actually do with it.’

He scanned through the entries one by one. Before long, he’d learned what the Enchant skill could do.

‘Just as I expected. Though there are a few surprises mixed in too.’

Most of it fell within his expectations. He could enchant bullets, arrows, and all sorts of other things.

‘First I need to figure out how Enchant actually works. Only then can I decide what materials to enchant with what.’

If it was a skill like Metallurgy that required Jaeha to carve magic circles himself, then he’d have to stick with arrows going forward. Using bullets wasn’t a huge burden, but carving magic circles onto arrows was far easier than carving them onto bullets. Mass production was easier that way too.

But if it was a skill that simply activated on use, unlike Metallurgy, then mass production would be much simpler.

‘Could even use plastic.’

For mass production, plastic would be far better than iron. If he was going to make exploding arrows and the like, plastic was much better suited for large-scale manufacturing.

‘Enough idle thoughts. Time to test it out.’

Jaeha pulled out one of his Steel Arrows. Then, holding the arrow, he activated the skill.

‘Enchant.’

A light similar to when an item was completed burst forth, and a window appeared.

[Crafting complete.]

[Due to insufficient Proficiency, damage is reduced by 30%.]

‘Even 75% Proficiency isn’t enough, huh.’

He was a bit puzzled, but if the system said so, there was nothing to be done. And then another window appeared.

[The Proficiency of ‘Enchant’ affects the types of enchantments available. However, each type has its own separate Proficiency.]

After a moment of thought, Jaeha understood what the window meant. The Proficiency shown when checking the skill info affected what kinds of enchantments he could perform—like Fire Arrow or Ice Arrow—and each of those, like Fire Arrow and Ice Arrow, had its own separate Proficiency.

‘So in the end, unless I make a certain number of each, I won’t get the full firepower. Got it.’

Since he was planning on mass production anyway, Jaeha wasn’t too bothered.

‘Alright. What should I try first?’

There were several things needed for mass production. First, the four basic elements: fire, water, earth, and wind. And it seemed that combining elements produced various additional attributes.

Fire and wind combined made flame, water and wind made ice—there were a great many attributes.

The attributes that appeared once the Enchant skill’s Proficiency exceeded 50% were the others. The most notable ones unlocked past 50% were Explosion and Penetration.

‘I should probably raise Proficiency for Explosion and Penetration first.’

After deliberating for a long while, Jaeha soon crafted one of each type of arrow.

‘Time to hit a dungeon.’

Jaeha packed up the enchanted arrows and headed for a dungeon.

* * *

He decided to test them on Ogres, which had sturdy constitutions. And since Sarlinga was a bow with a fire attribute, enchanted arrows would overlap with its effects—plus, monsters died in one hit almost every time he used Sarlinga.

So to conduct a proper experiment, he’d picked up an ordinary bow instead of an item.

Once his preparations were complete, Jaeha sent the footage to Herb Gramps and started recording video to upload on MuTube.

‘Fire first.’

Jaeha nocked a Fire Arrow and loosed it at the Ogre.

Swoosh—

The arrow flew through the air, no different from an ordinary one.

Thunk—

The arrow struck the Ogre. The moment it embedded itself, the Ogre began to roar.

Whoosh—

The arrow flashed for an instant, then began spewing fire. Startled as flames suddenly burst from the wound, the Ogre frantically rubbed at its burning arm with its hand.

But the deeply embedded arrow had no intention of coming out, and since it kept spewing fire, the flames went out and reignited over and over.

‘Next, wind.’

He loosed a wind-enchanted arrow at the Ogre.

Swoosh—

The arrow pierced straight through the Ogre’s tough muscle.

‘Must be because it’s wind. It seems to add even more force to the sharpness.’

Next was a water arrow.

Splash!

Just in case, Jaeha loosed an arrow at the head, and as expected, water poured down over the Ogre’s head. He nodded.

‘Last one, earth.’

He’d had a rough idea of how the others would work. But he had no sense of how earth would behave. So Jaeha immediately loosed an arrow enchanted with earth’s energy.

Swoosh—

Thud!

Crunch.

He shot the arrow at the knee. The moment it struck, the Ogre was forced to its knees by the arrow’s power. Then dirt poured out of the arrow. As a result, the Ogre’s leg was severed by the earth spilling from the arrow lodged in its knee.

“Ugh, somehow I feel bad about that one.”

Jaeha shook his head slightly. Then he pulled out more arrows to test: a flame arrow mixing fire and wind, an ice arrow mixing water and wind, and a storm arrow mixing wind and earth.

The flame arrow was powerful enough to melt the Ogre’s flesh with ease. The ice arrow froze the flesh itself. When he shot a normal arrow into it, the ice shattered and the Ogre’s body broke apart.

Finally, the storm arrow, the moment it embedded itself in the Ogre’s body, kicked up a whirlwind with a howl of wind. It wasn’t an especially great storm, but since the arrow was lodged in the Ogre’s flesh, the body couldn’t withstand it and was sliced apart.

‘Each one has its own efficiency. Flame and storm have high killing power on their own. And ice doesn’t show overwhelming lethality, but it freezes solid enough to be shattered by a normal arrow, so it seems good in terms of utility. They’re all usable in their own way. The others all showed effects and efficiency matching their names—now come the real stars.’

Smiling, Jaeha nocked an explosive arrow onto the bowstring. Taking aim, he loosed it immediately.

KABOOOOM!!

A massive explosion raged with a thunderous sound. Jaeha had shot the arrow toward a cluster of five Ogres. As a result, all four Ogres nearby were caught in the blast and sustained fairly serious wounds.

Dust was still billowing in the air, so he couldn’t get a clear picture of the situation. He waited quietly until the dust settled. After about ten minutes had passed, the full carnage of the explosive arrow was revealed.

The body of the Ogre that had taken the arrow directly was nowhere to be seen, and the body parts of the four Ogres nearby were scattered all around.

‘The effect is certainly real.’

The ground was also heavily gouged out. The results were satisfying. At this level, even if it couldn’t pierce through, it could easily punch through the tough carapace of a hard-shelled insect.

‘Piercing can’t be tested here, so I’ll skip that.’

There wasn’t much else left to check.

‘The rest is enchanting magic itself.’

He could learn magic right this instant if he wanted. But learning magic was incredibly tedious. To properly study magic, he’d need to learn anywhere from dozens to hundreds of spells at minimum.

On top of that, magic was divided into circles. And each circle had as many as dozens of skills. Granted, the higher circles had only a few attack skills, but that wasn’t the case for the lower ones.

‘It’s not just one or two related skills. And the mechanism is that you need fire skills to learn the higher-tier fire-related skills.’

That was the annoying part of magic. Wanting to learn a 5th-circle spell didn’t mean you could just learn it as you pleased. To learn a 5th-circle spell, you had to fully master the 1st through 4th circles first.

‘Magic…… I’ll hold off on that for now. Anyway, the four-element enchantments are enough for the moment.’

His laziness kicking in, Jaeha cleaned up and headed home.
Chapter 21

Back home, Jaeha rested for a bit before calling Seungho over.

“What.”

Seungho, who had been gaming in his own room, came to Jaeha’s room at the call.

“Take a look at this.”

Jaeha showed Seungho the video of his experiments with the enchanted arrows. Seungho quietly watched the footage as Jaeha played it.

“Whoa.”

After watching the whole video, Seungho let out an exclamation.

“I’m going to make these and sell them.”

“For real?”

“Yeah.”

“But with something like this, even ordinary people could go into dungeons and do hunting.”

“Yeah.”

“What happens if someone uses this in reality, outside a dungeon?”

“Since it’s made through the system, it’s managed.”

“Managed?”

“Yeah. We can make it so unregistered people can’t use them, and we can even restrict them to specific areas.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. If we make it so they can’t be used on Earth, they’d only be usable inside dungeons.”

“Whoa, nice.”

“I haven’t decided on the price yet, but I’m going to sell these publicly.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. So edit that video and upload it.”

“Been a while since I did video work.”

“I’ll give you the signal within a few days. Upload it then.”

“Got it.”

With that, Jaeha saw Seungho out and called Herb Gramps.

<What is it.>

“It’s done. I’ll send you the video, so take a look.”

<Fast work. Alright.>

Jaeha nodded and sent the video right through the call.

“The system sure is convenient.”

With that, Jaeha waited for him to watch the video.

<Impressive.>

“Right?”

<Well, from my position, the effect far exceeds what I expected, so I’m pleased.>

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

<It seems too dangerous. After all, we’ll have to sell these to various countries and guilds, won’t we?>

“No, it’s fine. I said something similar a moment ago. We can set where they can be used, and unregistered people won’t be able to use them at all.”

<Convenient. Didn’t know it could do that.>

“Well, it was made through the system, after all.”

<I see. Understood. So how do you plan to sell them?>