Chapter 181
A quest suddenly appeared.
Park Chanwoo tilted his head.
‘…Repair all these Golems?’
Golems.
Combat dolls made of materials such as rock or metal.
Powerful weapons that move autonomously when their master gives an order.
They are difficult to create, and few can handle them. Yet, they are even more difficult to fight against.
They have excellent durability that cannot be scratched by ordinary attacks.
They do not fear destruction and will continue regenerating unless their hidden core is destroyed.
Dark Guardian, Death Golem, and Nightmare.
These three sacred treasures were called the ‘Dream Golems’ by those who handled Golems.
‘The Golem Meister said it takes a year to make a single Dark Guardian.’
The greatest Golem humans could create was the Dark Guardian.
In the past, there were only three artisans recognized as ‘Golem Meisters’ up to the end of the century.
That meant they could, at best, produce three Dark Guardians a year, even with the finest materials and their utmost effort.
Death Golems and Nightmares were impossible to make at all.
If a Golem Meister saw this place, they would probably faint and drool on the spot.
The problem was that every one of them was broken.
“……The core is fine.”
Park Chanwoo looked over the broken Golems and stroked his chin.
The magic core, the heart of a Golem, showed no signs of external damage.
In fact, it was so intact that it was suspicious.
Even without a master, a Golem can move on its own using the magic stored in its core.
Normally, they would repair themselves until the magic in the core was exhausted.
However, despite the clear presence of residual magic in the cores, the Golems had collapsed and remained broken.
‘Magic interference.’
He recalled the contents of the quest again.
It had said that something powerful inside the Secret Laboratory was interfering with magic.
“Damn it.”
Whooooosh—
Magic swirled, then scattered like wind.
‘I can’t use magic.’
As expected.
The magic itself was being scattered.
It was an extremely powerful form of magic interference.
‘It seems to only interfere with magic that is manifested externally.’
However, his internal magic was intact.
It did not greatly interfere with the magic that made up his being, circulating through his body like blood with every heartbeat.
But the moment magic was released externally, it became incomplete and scattered at once.
‘These things broke because the magic in their cores can’t be released.’
Unlike humans, the Golem’s core is the Golem itself.
The external material that makes up a Golem is like armor protecting the core.
Everything else is magic.
Movement, repair—everything is operated by the magic engraved into the core.
If they cannot use their magic at all, it is inevitable that they will break down and stop.
‘I have to eliminate whatever is causing the magic to scatter.’
The easiest way to repair the Golems was to remove whatever was inside the Secret Laboratory causing the interference.
Park Chanwoo approached the inner wall of the Secret Laboratory.
At the same time—
“Hmm.”
He frowned.
It felt as if his blood were hardening as he stepped further inside.
What on earth could be interfering with magic to this extent?
‘There’s another door.’
There was a door that would not open, even with Special Administrator authority.
Strange Rune words were engraved on the front of the door, clearly indicating a ‘password’.
‘You need to know the password to enter.’
Even someone with authority could not pass through without it.
It showed how thoroughly Ahetta had constructed this place.
In short, it meant there was something incredibly important beyond that door.
…What could it be?
He couldn’t just input anything at random.
Doors of this type usually activate security measures or lock permanently if the wrong password is entered.
‘There’s also the option of destroying the door itself.’
Swish!
He gripped Baal’s Sword.
Then swung it hard.
Shwaaaaaack!
Clang—!
The sword only left a faint scratch before bouncing off.
Judging from the sting in his wrist, it was clear that destroying this door with ordinary physical force was impossible.
Just then—
Ting!
《Brings up the explanation given to the ‘Special Administrator’.》
《To open the ‘Door’, you must combine the Rune words to match the password.》
《If you get it wrong more than three times, the ‘Door’ will be permanently sealed.》
《To forcibly destroy the ‘Door’, an attack power of 2 million or more must be applied in an instant.》
…Of course.
It was another help message left by Anubis.
But an attack power of 2 million was out of the question.
His current attack power hadn’t even reached 10,000.
If he couldn’t even use magic freely, breaking the Door was a pipe dream.
‘The total attack power has to be applied in an instant. It doesn’t say it has to be my own strength.’
He turned around.
The broken Golems.
…To break this door, it seemed he would need the help of those Golems.
‘……Which means I have to repair them somehow.’
However, Park Chanwoo was not a Golem Meister.
He had never handled Golems in his past life.
He had simply envied Golem users countless times.
If there was any silver lining, it was that he only needed to induce the Golem cores to use magic smoothly.
If repairs were possible, that alone would be a significant gain.
He would earn a massive amount of experience and all sorts of rewards.
‘Let’s do it.’
Park Chanwoo nodded and approached the Dark Guardian that looked the most intact.
Judging by the relatively light layer of dust compared to the other Golems, this one seemed to have moved until quite recently.
He slowly examined it, as if admiring a work of art.
First of all, there were no marks of external damage.
The problem, again, was the core.
Park Chanwoo touched the core near its chest.
‘The core is working.’
When his hand brushed against it, he felt the inherent magic actively circulating inside.
It reacted to external contact.
If that magic could flow outward and connect to the Golem’s outer shell, it would begin repairing itself.
In the end, it came down to magic.
Park Chanwoo thought for a moment, then cut his finger with his sword.
Drip, drip.
Blood dripped down, wetting the floor.
He stared intently at the drops soaking into the ground, then nodded.
‘The magic solidified in my blood isn’t scattering.’
He understood.
How to use magic here.
Park Chanwoo widened the wound.
Then, he infused the flowing blood into the Golem’s core.
Next, he drew out the magic solidified in his blood, thinning it into thread-like strands, and connected them to the Golem’s outer shell.
Countless blood threads spread out from the area around the core and linked to the outer shell.
Sreuk.
Sreureureuk!
……He successfully ‘linked’ them.
The magic of the core began to flow along the blood threads he had created.
Soon, the shattered outer shell slowly began to mend.
Ting!
《This is an amazing level of magic bonding ability.》
《You have completely repaired the ‘Dark Guardian’!》
《Experience needed to Level up increases by 10%.》
《The awakened ‘Dark Guardian (90Lv)’ considers you its master.》
‘It’s done.’
He felt a bit dizzy, but Park Chanwoo smiled faintly.
Repairing just this one had required about 0.5 liters of blood.
‘It’ll take some time to fix them all.’
Due to his super-regeneration and amplified regeneration ability, his blood production was also fast.
However, using such a crude method, repairing nearly a thousand Golems would still take at least seven days.
-Are you the new master who awakened me?
At that moment, the Dark Guardian spoke to him.
Park Chanwoo blinked in mild surprise.
“Could it be that you have a self?”
A Golem with a sense of self.
Weapons do not have self-awareness.
They are just dolls that follow their master’s orders.
Yet this one was speaking to him.
-It appeared at some point. Because of something in the center of this Secret Laboratory. It gave me a self, and at the same time, it broke me.
……Not only does it interfere with magic, it also forcibly creates self-awareness?
He had never heard of anything like that.
Calming himself, he asked,
“Aren’t you the Golems Ahetta brought here to guard this place?”
-That’s right. But he abandoned the Secret Laboratory. After that, we were left to decay for a long time.
“He abandoned the Secret Laboratory? Why?”
-Ahetta was researching something inside this Secret Laboratory. But even after many attempts, he never succeeded. We were suffering. Only Anubis took care of us.
“…Anubis took care of you?”
Grand Commander of Death Anubis.
He had lost his memories as an old god and craved only death. It was hard to imagine such a being looking after Golems.
So he asked again, unable to believe it.
The Dark Guardian replied.
-He knew we had self-awareness. He also knew we were in pain from the magic interference. Only he pitied us as we slowly died. But even he couldn’t repair us.
Suffering and dying.
Those were not words a mere Golem should be saying.
It seemed they didn’t just have self-awareness; even those concepts had been added to them.
-The blood you infused into my core has powerful magical properties. The idea and technique of connecting that blood magic so densely is also remarkable.
It was a sudden compliment.
Park Chanwoo shrugged.
“You flatter me.”
-Neither Ahetta nor Anubis could repair us. Only you have made it possible. I believe you can complete the ‘something’ inside.
“You don’t know exactly what it is?”
-Anubis called it a Transcender’s thing.
A Transcender?
God-like beings of the Transcendent Abyss.
No one knew where they had come from.
Not even the demons.
‘Transcenders are those who were in the Abyss even before the demons appeared.’
Some said they were the old masters of the Abyss.
Like the dinosaurs of Earth that had long since vanished.
Others said they were the most important NPCs that permeated the Abyss itself.
But there was one thing Park Chanwoo knew that others did not.
‘Transcenders value honor… karma.’
They recognize only ‘honorable people’ and are deeply related to the Hall of Fame.
The Transcenders of the Transcendent Abyss were so powerful that even demon lords with the rank of demon king could not lay a hand on them.
A Transcender’s thing.
‘Ahetta must have had his eye on it.’
Now he understood why Ahetta had built a Secret Laboratory with such tight security.
Transcenders were beings that could not be measured by the ordinary concepts of the Abyss.
Anything that belonged to them would also exist in ways completely different from those ordinary concepts.
If another creator discovered it, rumors would spread instantly and attacks would be inevitable.
Which only made him more curious.
About the Transcender’s thing within.
What kind of object could give Golems self-awareness and cause such an extreme level of magic interference?
-I ask that you take care of my friends. You… my new master.
Park Chanwoo nodded.
“Don’t worry. I’m going to repair them, whether you ask me to or not.”
He had gained 10% experience for fixing a single Dark Guardian.
There were 899 Golems left.
If he repaired all of them…
‘This is a chance for explosive leveling.’
How many Levels would he gain?
Park Chanwoo quietly smiled.
He felt ecstatic just imagining it.
—
“…This isn’t it?”
Black Dragon Ataraxia tilted his head.
He had entered the ‘Eternal Land’ through the Abyss opened by the Black Witch, but finding the Secret Laboratory Ahetta had built was not easy.
“This is the fifth time.”
“Are you sure you’re even looking properly?”
“There’s not that much ‘Eternal Land’ left.”
The witches complained.
There were lands clearly showing the traces of having been devoured by Divine Creatures.
The Secret Laboratory would be somewhere within the remaining, nutrient-poor land.
Ataraxia was stumbling about as if completely clueless.
“Are you doubting my abilities?”
Ataraxia frowned.
Hostility flared toward the witches who doubted him.
His posture made it clear that if they provoked his pride one more time, he was ready to fight.
‘I already have a rough idea where it is.’
Of course, he was only pretending not to find it.
His tracking ability was unmatched.
No dragon could compete with him in that regard.
Naturally, he had already formed a decent idea of where the Secret Laboratory was.
However—
‘I can’t let them interfere with Sephiro.’
He didn’t know exactly what the Black Witch was after, but if she was searching for it while neglecting both the Star of Arrogance and Wish, it had to be something extraordinary.
Something enough to catch Sephiro’s interest.
And Sephiro was much more important than any order from the Black Witch.
He had no intention of interfering with Sephiro’s amusement.
Therefore, he intended to stall as much as possible, keeping the witches away from the Secret Laboratory.
“……Ahetta hid the Secret Laboratory with all his heart. It’s impossible to find it in one go. But there’s nothing in the Abyss I can’t locate, so just trust me and follow.”
Ataraxia calmly lied to the witches.