And thus, there were now a total of six Soul Contract in Sungchul’s possession.
The sixth and the last empty slot was finally filled.
Sungchul opened up status screen – Soul Contract and checked the list.
[Soul Contract – 6 slots]
- Soul Harvester ([Legend] Vitality Leech 15%, Vitality restored from fallen enemies)
- Thunder Shield ([Legend] All Magic Damage reduced by 50% / Negate all mental attacks below legend rank)
- Eye of Truth ([Legend] Negate all blessings below Epic rank / Identify all items, consumables, and skill details)
- Soul Storage ([Epic] Can store 1500 different items)
- Deceiver’s Veil ([Rare – High Tier] Conceals status window)
- Spirit of Steel([Mythic] Negate all mental attacks of all tiers, prevent instant death, Resist the Heavens)
‘Hmm. I guess I won’t be needing the Deceiver’s Veil anymore. I’ll have to replace that one if a replacement comes by.
Sungchul had made good use of it for a long time now. But now that he had no need to hide his strength anymore, it was no longer an appropriate Soul Contract for him any longer.
Anyways, he was done examining the main item. He turned his attention to the next issue at hand.
It was about the unexpectedly low number of Dungeon Token.
Sungchul addressed the master of the dungeon who was still standing where he stood earlier. There was an obvious level of disappointment mixed in his voice.
“There seems to be too few Dungeon Tokens.”
To this, the masked man scratched his head and replied in his characteristically bright voice.
“That’s because it’s the most we can give now. The reason why we skipped the 9th trial is because it’s pointless. But don’t worry too much, because in return I’ve used my position as the dungeon master to make sure you get more than enough reward in the ways of the Will stat.”
The reasoning was as follows.
“We’re out of God’s Dirt.”
The status point reward could be granted using the innate powers of the God’s Dungeon, but the item rewards from the dungeon’s token shop was granted by the use of a material called God’s Dirt.
“God’s Dirt is created by the power of god. But the world has changed dramatically since after we were buried underground, and we no longer receive anymore from the outer world.”
Dungeon master calmly explained the current situation.
Since the supply had been cut off, there can’t be any furhter distribution.
“If it’s about god, they still exist.”
Sungchul said.
“Are you talking about the five principal gods?”
The Dungeon master replied in a cold tone of voice.
“Are they gods?”
Sungchul asked.
The dungeon master shrugged and replied in a skeptical tone of voice.
“Well, I have no idea, if they really are gods or not. The important thing is that those five principal gods do not support or send anything to this place called god’s dungeon.”
A rather ambiguous answer. The Dungeon master seemed like he would refuse to give a definitive answer.
“…”
Sungchul lost any desire to pry any deeper than that either. Instead, he returned to the main subject at hand.
“If its God’s dirt, I have some on me.”
He opened the jacket and handed the black stone to the dungeon master.
The Dungeon master seemed to show a bit of an interest to the fragments for a moment, but he shook his head and returned the fragments.
“I can’t use such unholy knock off like this.”
He refused flat out.
“That’s that, but whoever created such a disgusting object… It’s one thing to imagine such a grotesque concept. But to actually carry it out… even I who were sometimes called the demon of blood couldn’t have thought to commit such an atrocity of this degree.”
The dungeon master couldn’t hide his distaste of the fragment.
“Whoever made that knock off has to be a special kind of fucked up.”
“…”
It was unfortunate but that was that. The dungeon master has spoken.
“Then were all of the tokens in that one hidden trial all fakes?”
Sungchul uncharacteristically asked a prying question as if he had lingering regrets.
“Of course!”
The dungeon master let out a thunderous laughter.
“But you should still be able to buy the item you were interested in.”
“Hmm?”
“Your tokens were preserved thanks to me, remember? The entry cost for ultimate trials.”
There were thirty something thousand tokens in Sungchul’s possession.
Including all of the tokens he earned from the final trial, the exact count ended at 31,081.
“Mmm…”
It was not a satisfying amount. But in other hand, it had its own silver lining.
‘This isn’t how I wanted it but I guess I have literally emptied this dungeon of everything it could offer.’
In some ways, it was a complete clear of the dungeon.
However things may be, it was finally time to go on the long awaited shopping.
Sungchul returned to the Blanch Plaza and proudly headed towards the dungeon shop.
Marakia who normally was oblivious to social cues but somehow masterfully attuned to opportunities for free scraps began to prowl around Sungchul’s vicinity like some seagull around seafaring ship.
“What could you possibly be up to without me I wonder?”
‘Annoying.’
“Ugh~. Go away!”
Bertelgia snapped at him but Marakia refused to make distance.
Sungchul returned to the Fairy Shaeloc’s dungeon token exchange shop and put down all the tokens he had.
“Ugh… what?!”
Marakia’s eyes seemed to bulge out of his skulls. He flapped his wings and landed on the shop table to gawk at this mountainous pile of tokens with his beaks wide open and his eyes sparkling.
“You’re in the way.”
Sungchul pushed Marakia off to the side.
“Piiii…”
Marakia tried his best to resist and remain. Sungchul felt like if he were to put any more strength into his push, Marakia’s neck might snap, so he just let him be and turned his attention to the shop keep instead.
“I wish to trade.”
“Hoo.”
Shaeloc’s eyes grew wide.
“It’s been forever since the last big spender yeyo!”
Sungchul first bought the item he had wanted.
“I want the Second Inner Flames.”
He immediately got the Second Inner Flames.
“It will be 22,250 tokens… yeyo!”
Shaeloc expertly took 22,250 tokens and brought it deeper into the shop.
What remained was 8,831 tokens.
Marakia brought his face so close to the tokens that his beaks were nearly touching. Bertelgia saw this had said her piece.
“What do you think you’re doing? You thieving cat.”
“It’s probably closer to a seagull.”
Sungchul revised Bertelgia’s metaphor as he continued to gaze into the shop.
“Please give us a moment yeyo. A high value item takes a long time to convert yeyo.”
There was circular hole facing the sky in the shop where light seemed to be collected and transform into an item.
‘Hmm. So this is how items are created using the God’s Dirt?’
Sungchul felt that the process was somewhat similar to alchemy. Including the fact that the raw material included the God’s Dirt. But despite using the same raw material, this method seemed to be giving off rather holy atmosphere, which was a difference if strictly spoken.
Eventually, the item Sungchul wanted was fabricated within the shop.
And like its name might suggest, it took on a form of a burning flame.
“Here is your Second Inner Flame yeyo!”
“Hoh.”
It wasn’t hot to touch.
“Uwah…”
Marakia watched on, looking jealous with his beaks wide apart.
“…”
Sungchul thoroughly ignored Marakia’s gaze as he grasped the flames of the Second Inner Flame.
[You have used the Second Inner Flames.]
[A brand new path for magic has opened within your body.]
Sungchul watched the text that appeared before him as he experienced some subtle changes take place inside of his body. But there was nothing he could point to and say that changed for sure.
“Hoh. So that’s what you bought.”
There was a sound behind him.
Sungchul was a bit surprised but didn’t show it and quietly looked behind him.
It was the unnamed man. The Master of the Dungeon.
The masked man was holding a rut sack as he blatantly watched from behind Sungchul.
“What are you doing?”
Sungchul asked bluntly.
“People watching.”
He said before he turned to look at an alleyway. There was the forgotten man, Dilllo Buron, watching in terror.
“Why is he like that now?”
Bertelgia remarked bluntly, which led to the Dungeon master bursting out laughing and replying.
“The Nahak were rampaging around the time this dungeon was sealed underground by traitors. It’s an unavoidable consequence of the traitors forcefully sinking floating islands which were the homes of the Nahak. Wouldn’t anyone throw a fit if their homes are taken from them?”
“…”
“Either way, if you’ve bought that, go visit the Palace of Wishes. You should give some work for those useless Genies to do once in a while.”
His way of speaking was slightly off putting but he was right.
Feeling that there were more interferences than just Marakia, Sungchul put the rest of his tokens in his pocket with Marakia watching before heading into the Palace of Wishes.
“I shall be back in a bit.”
“Please come back whenever, yeyo!”
The Palace of Wishes was located directly next to the shopping district.
Standing before the gates to the palace, the gateway automatically opened for Sungchul.
Beyond the doors, Sungchul was able to see a fountain adorned with gems and amethysts and excessively luxurious gold and platinum décor that awaited him within.
‘So this is the Palace of Wishes.’
Sungchul had long since earned entry into the Palace of Wishes but had intentionally avoided coming here.
Though he was a man with powerful strength of will who earned Soul of Will, he repeatedly demonstrated he had no resistance to impulsivity when it came to shopping.
‘I am my own most terrifying enemy at times.’
He was well aware of himself.
He was fully aware that had he come here with pocket change instead of meaningful amounts of money, he would have probably blown his precious earnings on useless spells like Fairy Lights and such.
‘But now I have Second Inner Flames, and a bit of tokens left over.’
Sungchul felt proud of his will power as he walked into the palace filled with gold and gems.
But then he heard a familiar cry behind him.
“Piii!!”
It was Marakia.
Unlike Sungchul, Marakia had only managed to complete two Ultimate Trials and therefore had not satisfied the requirements to gain entry into the Palace of Wishes.
“Me too…Let me go too! I want to gain knowledge of magic too!”
Marakia reached out and begged but there was nothing Sungchul could do about it.
“…”
Sungchul didn’t hesitate for a moment as he abandoned Marakia to his fate and entered into the Palace interior.
Boom.
As he continued in, the open gates closed shut and perfectly cut off the sound of Marakia’s voice.
“Then shall we begin shopping for Magic?”
Bertelgia sounded excited like this was for her.
Suungchul had a faint grin as he observed the unfamiliar being that approached him.
‘Are those the genie?’
It was the first time Sungchul had a member of the species of genie.
They had blue skin with shining eyes that lacked pupils. They also shaved the front half of their black hair and grew the rest long.
Most importantly, they gave off a sense of powerful magical energies.
“Welcome to the Palace of Wishes, Challenger.”
The genie greeted him.
It was a voice filled with soft and peaceful intelligence
Sungchul bowed to him slightly before looking around.
“How are things done here?”
“If you let me know what spell you would like to learn, we shall summon the appropriate Genie to assist you. Or perhaps it would be better to summon everyone preemptively since it has been long since our last guest. More importantly, it appears you have the Second Inner Flames.”
It was then that Sungchul discovered that there were magical formations shining within the Genie’s eyes. They must possess the Soul Contract Eye of Horus, which enables them to see others’ Status window
The Genie looked at one portion of Sungchul’s Status window before speaking.
“Before that, it seems as though your magic window has not been organized. Do you not utilize magic very often?”
“No, I do. But it hasn’t been long since I’ve learned how to use magic.”
Sungchul’s status screen for magic was in quite the disorganized state. It didn’t bother him until now since he had so few spells under his belt anyhow.
“Since you have obtained the second Magic Fingerprint, I could modify your status window accordingly with your permission.”
Sungchul had no reason to refuse.
“Please open your status window.”
Sungchul did as instructed. The Genie approached Sungchul before touching the screen with its hands. And shockingly, the screen Sungchul had always assumed was visible only to himself was reacting to the Genie’s hands.
“Ho.”
Sungchul expressed his surprise at witnessing something he had never seen before.
“Genies are special beings that cannot be found in the outside world. They can only be found in places specifically permitted by god!”
The Dungeon Master appeared behind Sungchul suddenly and laughed as he showed off his knowledge.
‘This man. He really likes to get his noses into people’s business.’
Sungchul suppressed himself from speaking out words that were threatening to jump out of his throat as he waited for the Genie to finish what he was doing.
“There, it’s now organized.”
The Genie announced.
Sungchul was able to see that among his status screen, the magic screen was updated with a new layout.
[Magic]
- Light Magic (Main)
Glare – 3rd Circle
Meteor – 5th Circle
Star Light – 7th Circle
- Blank (Main)
- Misc
Fairy Light – 1st Circle
Fly – 2nd Circle
Incantation Formation – Middle Class
“If you would like to see the runes of the Incantation Formation, you can open a separate window to view.”
The Genie added.
Anyhow, the disorganized magic screen was now set in order. It looked much better now.
“Didn’t know you could do such things.”
Sungchul said with admiration in his voice.
He also noted that the title of “Cosmomancy” had been changed to Light Magic.
‘I guess that schools of magic are human concepts. I guess it should be no surprise to me that for Genies that existed since tens of thousands of years, they might have a different terminology for things.’
Now that the status screen was put to order, it was time to learn new spells.
Sungchul closed his status window and turned his gaze towards the Genie. As if reading his mind, the Genie put on a beautiful smile as he clapped his hands.
The claps reverberated within the domed palace of gold and jewels, followed by winds billowing in from all sides.
Sungchul watched as a large number of lamps came and landed within the palace, carried by those magical winds.
“What’s this?”
The lamps were between the color of gold and platinum, decorated and covered with gems of all colors and sizes.
The center genie clapped once more and spoke with a dignified voice.
“Now, you sleepy heads. A guest has finally come to visit after all these years. Stop sleeping and wake up, everyone!”
At his echoing bidding, the lamps that had been arranged in a circle around Sungchul gave off gray puffs of cloud before revealing the beings hidden within them.
There were a total of eight Genies.
They looked similar from one to another, but each of these primordial beings had distinct characteristics as they locked their pupil-less eyes upon Sungchul.
“What magic do you wish for?”
The Genies spoke in unison.
Each of the Genies produced an image of the magic they could bestow to show what they could grant, from fire, Ice, wind, light, darkness and more.
‘This is quite something.’
Sungchul felt the blood in his veins start to heat up as he asked the center Genie.
“How many tokens do I need to learn a spell?”
“The cheapest of them all will require around 5000 tokens. The cost of the Genies’ services are very expensive.”
“5…5000 tokens?!”
Sungchul thought about his total earnings.
He currently carried with him just around 9000 tokens.
With it, he could only afford to learn a single lowest ranking spell.
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