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Chapter 4
“Not a bad start.”
I spread out the artifact fragments I obtained from the gate across the living room floor.
For my first haul, the results were pretty good.
Four artifact fragments.
Each with a different shape.
Now it was time to combine them and strengthen the dragon.
Dragon enhancement.
There was one unusual rule to it.
Artifact fragments in their original form could not be used for enhancement.
They had to be fused at least once before they could become enhancement material for dragons.
The enhancement efficiency was highest when an artifact was restored to its original form.
It gave a much higher enhancement percentage compared to using ordinary artifact fragments.
But to restore an artifact completely, you needed five fragments of the exact same type.
Unless you were unbelievably lucky, that was unrealistic.
The efficiency was slightly lower, but the best option was simply fusing random fragments together.
“Let’s get started.”
I already knew how to fuse artifacts.
And the method was ridiculously simple.
You just placed two artifact fragments neatly on top of each other and waited.
It did not matter if they were completely unrelated objects.
They would fuse no matter what.
Before my return, I discovered this absurdly simple method far too late.
I stacked a broken scabbard fragment on top of a shield fragment.
[Two artifact fragments are being fused.]
[You have obtained a Bronze Armor Fragment.]
A bronze armor fragment popped out.
“No matter how I think about it, this makes no sense.”
How did a scabbard and shield fragment become an armor fragment?
The result was completely absurd.
Still, it did not really matter.
What mattered now was that I could strengthen my dragons much earlier than before my return.
I fused the remaining two fragments the same way.
The original four fragments became two completely different fragments.
Now I could use them directly to strengthen the dragon.
First, summon the dragon.
[Summon Rank: E-Rank]
[Summoning an attack-type dragon using the Bronze Sword as a medium.]
[Summon Limit: 1/1]
“Grrrr…”
The Red Dragon carefully stared at the artifact fragments in front of it.
Even after fusion, they still looked rusty and worn out.
The dragon seemed to instinctively know those fragments belonged to it.
“Yeah, they’re all yours.”
I held out the two artifact fragments toward it.
[Enhancing E-Rank summon Red Dragon.]
[Enhancement Progress: 100%]
One hundred percent in a single try.
Enhancement progressed quickly at the beginning.
But the higher the rank became, the more artifact fragments were needed.
It felt similar to needing more experience points as your level increased in a game.
[The Red Dragon has been enhanced.]
A dragon strengthened step by step would eventually evolve into the next rank.
Literally all of a sudden.
If you kept calmly strengthening it, one day its rank would simply rise.
And when the dragon’s rank increased, my own rank rose with it.
From E-Rank to D-Rank.
From D-Rank to C-Rank.
Eventually, even to S-Rank.
Right now, I was still only an E-Rank hunter.
And not even a proper combat hunter at that.
Just a porter in a low-level guild.
I still had a long way to go.
“No new gates have opened.”
I searched again, but there were no additional gates available.
“Guess I’ll climb the tower instead.”
The Red Dragon was not the only dragon I could summon.
Depending on the artifact, I could summon different kinds of dragons.
Weapon-type artifacts summoned attack dragons.
Armor-type artifacts summoned defense dragons.
The Red Dragon I currently had was a pure attack-type dragon.
Its offensive power was incredible, but it had no support abilities like buffs.
In other words, I had no way to respond if I got injured.
No matter how strong my dragons were, if I died, everything ended there.
That was why I absolutely needed a defense-type dragon.
A defense-type dragon.
And the ancient armor-type artifact needed to summon it.
That artifact was also hidden inside the Tower of Trials.
***
Tower of Trials.
Second Floor.
The dragon’s wingbeats felt slightly more majestic than before.
The Red Dragon had been enhanced by one stage.
It waited for my command while staring at the goblins ahead.
“A-A dragon!”
“Kiiik! Kill it anyway!”
Who exactly was killing who here?
The goblins rushed toward the dragon in a large group.
Though judging by their expressions, they did not look very confident.
Had they ever fought a dragon before in their lives?
“Wipe them all out.”
There was not much for me to do.
I summoned the dragon and gave an attack order.
The dragon handled the rest itself.
BOOOOM!
The dragon released a breath attack from its mouth.
The explosion radius was slightly larger than the one I saw on the first floor.
More than ten goblins instantly turned into roasted corpses.
“Kiiik!”
Another group of goblins appeared in the distance.
“They’ve completely lost their fear.”
Even after seeing their allies wiped out in seconds, they still ran toward us.
“Grrrr…”
The dragon flapped its wings again.
There was no need to wait for the goblins to come closer.
The dragon flew toward them first.
Then it unleashed another Dragon Breath.
BOOOOM!
[You have successfully cleared Floor 2 of the Tower of Trials.]
[You have achieved the fastest clear time.]
“What? Cleared already?”
An absurd message appeared before me.
The floor was cleared with only two Dragon Breaths.
Was the tower always this easy to clear?
And not only that, it was apparently the fastest clear time.
Out of all the hunters who had ever cleared the second floor, I now held the fastest record.
As an E-Rank hunter.
I remembered my previous life.
Back then, I never achieved records like this on the lower floors.
If anything, I spent most of my time desperately running from monsters.
But now, on the very first day after awakening, I had already set a new tower record.
Of course, having already experienced all 100 floors before, clearing the tower itself did not feel particularly exciting.
But setting records on the first day after awakening was a different story.
I could feel my heart starting to race.
At first glance, it looked like I had returned under the exact same conditions.
But because I already possessed all the information, the actual conditions were completely different.
It felt like a veteran player creating a new account just to experience the beginner stages again.
A veteran who already knew the fastest route for leveling from the very beginning.
“Good. At this pace, I’ll reach the fifth floor.”
There was a reason my target was the fifth floor.
The second ancient artifact obtainable from the Tower of Trials was hidden there.
***
[You have successfully cleared Floor 5 of the Tower of Trials.]
[You have achieved the fastest clear time.]
I quickly cleared all the way to the fifth floor.
Every single floor ended with a fastest clear record.
I could admire the records later.
“Was the artifact somewhere around here?”
The tower’s internal structure was exactly the same as before my return.
Following my old memories, I picked up a small shield buried beneath the ashes.
The second ancient artifact of the Tower of Trials.
The Bronze Shield.
Even though it was only an artifact found on the fifth floor, its usefulness was undeniable.
It was the summoning medium for my second dragon.
With this, I could now summon a defense-type dragon as well.
The defense-type dragon.
The Gold Dragon.
***
After returning home, I summoned the Gold Dragon.
Just like the Red Dragon, it appeared in a small form.
But unlike the Red Dragon, a faint golden aura flowed from its body.
The aura was weak for now.
But I already knew just how magnificent that golden light would become later.
E-Rank summon.
Gold Dragon.
Its main abilities were various buffs.
And incredibly powerful healing magic.
Clearing the tower and stopping villains were important, but healing injured hunters was just as important.
If its buffs were applied at the right moment, injuries could be prevented in the first place.
This dragon was every bit as important as the Red Dragon.
Especially for preparing against the true disaster that would come after the 100th floor.
At this point in time, there were no world-shaking villains yet.
Only pathetic villains who targeted porters and weak hunters.
Since I was also a porter now, I needed information about them.
Hunter Community.
Countless posts appeared there every single day.
Most were useless nonsense, but occasionally useful information showed up.
Though today, instead of useful information…
[Holy crap. Did you guys see that someone broke the records from Floors 2 to 5 all at once?]
[There haven’t even been any new awakened hunters lately, so how is there a new low-floor record?]
[Did some S-Rank awakener appear or something?]
[No way. If that happened, the whole world would already know.]
“Hahaha…”
No matter how I looked at it, they were talking about me.
The community was flooded with posts about the fastest clear times I had set in the Tower of Trials.
And honestly, it made sense.
I had not beaten the previous records by a few seconds.
The dragon simply flew around and cleared entire floors with a few breath attacks.
Of course people would lose their minds over that.
“But I was trying to find information about villains…”
Unless someone broke the highest floor record itself, the identity of the hunter setting new records remained hidden.
So most of the posts were just people guessing who it might be.
Nobody would ever imagine the person was an E-Rank hunter.
After scrolling for a long time, I finally found a different topic.
[That’s not the real issue. Did you guys know America is catching up to Korea?]
A somewhat unusual post caught my attention.
America was catching up to Korea?
What did that mean?
I opened the post.
The explanation was simple.
America had apparently matched Korea’s tower record.
At the moment, Korea’s highest cleared floor was the 80th floor.
The number one record in the world.
Meanwhile, America had only recently managed to clear the 70th floor.
But now, within just a few days, America had climbed all the way to the 80th floor.
They had tied Korea for first place in the Tower of Trials.
“They cleared ten floors in just a few days?”
That was unusual.
Unless something major happened, it was impossible not only to overcome the previously blocked 70th floor, but also to catch up with Korea’s record.
There were probably only two possibilities.
Either someone obtained an incredibly powerful weapon.
Or a ridiculously talented new awakened hunter appeared.
But in the end, none of it mattered.
Every country except Korea would eventually be destroyed anyway.
Japan would fall at the 92nd floor.
America would fail at the 93rd floor and trigger a great catastrophe.
The rest of the countries were even worse.
Even America, which climbed ten floors in a matter of days, would still end up stuck at the 93rd floor.
That would be the point when I would need to begin moving internationally.
Because the great catastrophe coming three years later was far too large for Korea to handle alone.
Until then, not a single country could be allowed to collapse.
Because everything after the 100th floor of the Tower of Trials was the real beginning.
“Well, I did get some new information…”
But the villain-related posts I originally wanted to find had been completely buried under these two major topics.
“Ding.”
At that moment, my smartphone notification rang.
The Gaya Guild community.
New gate information had been updated.
And since I received the alert, it meant they needed a porter.
“Perfect timing.”
For gate orders, my answer would always be yes.
