Chapter 16

Infinite Skill Copying with EX-Grade Interpretation Chapter 16

─Step, step.

An area quite a distance from the Scabbard Guild.

More precisely, I had stepped into territory managed by another guild and was simply following the address I had been given.

“Yuri said it should be around here.”

Most of the information about mana crystal processing had come from Yuri.

Among the countless things she told me.

There weren’t that many important points, though.

[Do you know how many people in the city can process mana crystals? Even when there are some, guilds compete to recruit them, so there’s always a shortage.]

There weren’t many people who could process mana crystals.

Apparently, the work itself was highly difficult, and the danger that came with failure made it difficult for craftsmen to emerge.

Had she also said the techniques were difficult to pass down?

Anyway, because famous guilds aggressively recruited such craftsmen first, ordinary people had little chance of ever meeting one.

Even the Scabbard Guild had failed to recruit a craftsman and was apparently anxious about it.

But.

“Ha... I didn’t expect her to take care of me this much.”

[Who do you think I am! I’m Yuri, famous for knowing everyone! A loooong time ago~ before he got recruited by another guild, I made some connections with a craftsman. If you say you came because I asked, he’ll hear you out at least once! Here, go to this address.]

Seriously.

I couldn’t help smiling as I followed the address.

I never knew life as someone’s benefactor could be this convenient.

I should keep maintaining a good relationship with the Scabbard Guild from now on too...

─Stop.

I arrived.

Looking at the building in front of me, I briefly checked the surroundings.

‘What is this?’

I checked the address again.

This was definitely the right address... but something was strange.

For a place where a craftsman lived, it went beyond shabby. The building looked half-collapsed.

All the windows were broken.

Even the door was split in half and looked like it would open immediately if I simply pushed it, without any lock at all.

‘I’ll know once I go inside.’

Something felt off, but the address matched, so I carefully opened the door.

“Excuse me.”

─Creeeak.

Just like the shabby exterior, the inside was also wrecked, with sword marks everywhere.

There was also a rotten stench inside, making me naturally frown.

At this point, it was becoming less of a suspicion and more of a certainty.

Something had gone seriously wrong.

“Ghk, what the hell. I said I’m not working... you bastards.”

“What?”

“Fuck. You only come looking for me when you need something. You fucking bastards!”

─Whoosh!

─Grab.

Without thinking, I caught the bottle flying toward the side of my face.

“If you’re not working, just say so. Why the fuck are you acting like this?”

I got angry instead.

Why the hell was he throwing a fit at someone who had just arrived?

I tightened my grip around the bottle and quietly glared at him.

Come to think of it, something was strange.

‘What the hell is with that state?’

The man looked far too young to be called a craftsman.

And one of his arms was wrapped in bandages, as though it were broken, while his face was flushed red like he had been drinking heavily.

That made me wonder.

“Is this the place where that processing craftsman lives? I was introduced by a hunter named Yuri.”

“Hmm? What... You’re not from the Blue Sky Guild?”

Blue Sky? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

The moment we realized there had been a misunderstanding, the situation settled down quickly.

“Haah, damn it. Sorry. A lot of bad shit has happened lately.”

As though his head hurt, the man let out a deep sigh, opened a new bottle of liquor, and put it to his lips.

I naturally took the seat beside him and continued talking.

“Can you do the processing?”

“Sorry, but I can’t... because most of the processing was handled by my father.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah... though he died last week.”

The shocking words left me speechless as well.

The craftsman died? What the hell was he talking about?

Apparently Yuri hadn’t known either, because this was the first I was hearing about it too.

“Last week? Wait, what happened...”

“I don’t know either. Some weird guys in suits barged in at night, trashed the shop, and then my father... Look at me. Those bastards did this to my arm too.”

The word suits made my eyes widen.

Don’t tell me...

My bad history with those bastards flashed through my mind.

But one question arose.

Why?

Why would they kill a processing craftsman? Why? For what reason?

Their incomprehensible behavior made my head throb for a moment too.

“Yeah, everything went to hell after those bastards showed up. My father... this shop, everything. And those damned guild bastards too. There’s no one in this world you can trust... right?”

“Guild?”

“Yeah, those Blue Sky Guild bastards. When they wanted to recruit the master craftsman, they were all polite. Then Dad dies and suddenly what? We don’t need you anymore, get lost? Fuckers... Then they even cleaned out every mana crystal left in the shop. Haah.”

Guilds were organizations that pursued profit by nature.

They often used people like tools and discarded them for greater profit.

Apparently, the man before me... no, this entire family had been used by a guild and then thrown away.

It was unfortunate, but I couldn’t even really criticize them for it.

For people living in this city, this was practically everyday life.

─Gulp.

Perhaps he had finally vented all his resentment, because the man simply raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply, relying on the alcohol.

The more I heard, the less I could smile.

Unlike what I had hoped for, my schedule had become badly tangled.

At this rate, I might not even get a chance to have the mana crystal processed.

“If you’ve heard everything, get lost. There’s nothing left here to rob anyway...”

“...”

His face red from finishing the liquor, the man simply tried to go to sleep.

Leaving him behind, I slowly began walking away too.

Was there really no other way?

Was I supposed to leave such a valuable item untouched and let it go to waste?

What a shame.

No, I didn’t want to give up like this.

Was there no other method?

At least some clue about how to do it...

─Tap.

My footsteps stopped, and my gaze fixed on a certain place.

A corner of the shop.

My eyes settled on what looked like a small room.

─Gulp.

Like a bee drawn by a fragrance.

As though something were calling to me, my feet naturally moved.

I had felt this sensation before.

In the Tower... I had definitely felt something similar.

“A workshop?”

What appeared at the end was a small workshop that seemed to have been used by the craftsman in the past.

Tools required for processing were scattered everywhere.

And perhaps because someone had worked there for a long time, traces remained on the floor where a person had repeatedly sat.

And.

[Recognizing the soul of a processor.]

As expected...

The craftsman’s soul was still lingering in this workshop.

I couldn’t tell whether it was the soul of the craftsman who had died last week.

But I could feel something like obsession lingering here, so I simply looked upon the soul as though accepting it.

[Interpreting the memories engraved into the soul.]

The memories of craftsmen flowed into me.

Techniques accumulated over generations were passed down to sons and daughters.

The memories of skills passed down through the generations began engraving themselves into my body.

And.

The regret of the final craftsman, who had failed to properly pass down the techniques inherited through generations, seeped into me.

[The craftsman’s experience is engraved into your body.]

[You have acquired the skill ‘Mana Crystal Processing (C+).’]

“As expected... I knew there’d be a way.”

Following the memories of the soul, I took out the mana crystal I had kept in my pocket.

If there was no craftsman, I could just do it myself.

“Might as well give it a shot.”

_____________

As the alcohol slowly wore off, the man quietly opened his eyes.

His name was Tome.

A man who had fallen into despair and lost all motivation after his father died a week ago.

“Ugh... my head. I’m thirsty.”

Before he could even recover from the grief of losing his family, too many things had happened.

The guild abandoned him, and his home was destroyed.

All that remained was the guild’s eviction order.

He might soon be driven into the back alleys where vagrants lived, and all he could do was laugh hollowly at his situation.

He simply searched for alcohol, cursing his misfortune and trying to forget it even for a moment.

─Scrape.

─Scrape, scrape. Creak.

But a familiar sound stopped his footsteps, leaving him momentarily dazed.

It was a familiar sound.

There was no way he wouldn’t recognize a sound he had heard for decades.

The distinctive slicing sound produced during processing work.

He had always loved that sound.

As though lured by it, he gradually moved toward its source.

It was clearly strange.

There should have been no processing sounds coming from this empty house.

Even so, his footsteps did not stop.

“This is...”

The workshop.

The place where his father had always stayed up until dawn, immersed in his work.

But after his death, familiar sounds were now coming from the workshop that had remained unopened.

─Creeeak.

He quietly opened the door and looked inside.

And there.

“Dad...?”

He saw a familiar back.

No, the back itself was different.

But the hands moving busily through the processing work and the eyes that shone brighter the more deeply they concentrated looked exactly like the father he had respected.

Memories he had forgotten resurfaced.

‘I always just watched from behind.’

He had no talent for processing and couldn’t inherit the technique, but he had always watched from behind.

It was a dream he had respected and hoped to someday fulfill.

─Clench.

The longer he watched, the more his chest hurt as though something were stabbing deep inside, but he didn’t want to leave.

Just a little longer.

Even if it was through another person, he wanted to steal one more glimpse of his father’s back.

No, if only for this moment, he wanted to forget the horrible reality for a little while.

─Scrape...

─Scrape.

─Tick.

As the work dragged on, perhaps concentration began to fade, because the pace slowly started to slow.

Eventually, he couldn’t just stand by and watch any longer, so he moved.

If only for today, as though briefly returning to the past.

As though experiencing those brilliant days again, he quietly approached the man working and reached out his hand.

“The tool is too worn down. Switch to this one.”

“What?”

“I’ll sharpen this tool again, so keep focusing.”

It was always the same.

Just as he had once watched his father work from beside him and assisted as a helper, he now helped with this man’s work.

It was the best thing he could do to keep this dream going for even a little longer.

For this moment, no, one final time, he would dream again as a craftsman’s assistant.

_____________

The moment the man suddenly volunteered to act as my assistant, the speed of the work began increasing to a strange degree.

Even the processing work that had been difficult at first became more natural as proficiency accumulated over time.

Eventually, the exterior of the nearly spherical mana crystal began changing shape, with multiple patterns forming across its surface.

[Skill proficiency is accumulating.]

[The skill ‘Mana Crystal Processing (C+)’ changes to ‘Mana Crystal Processing (B).’]

After concentrating for so long, the tips of my fingers were stinging, and my breathing had grown rough long ago.

My head hurt.

My fingers hurt.

Even so, I didn’t want to stop.

It was almost finished now, so just one last...

─Crunch.

“Done!”

The moment I said it.

─!!

Brilliant light poured out from the patterns engraved into the mana crystal, as though cheering for me.

At the clean success, I unconsciously turned to the side.

The craftsman’s son was smiling along with me, celebrating.

“Wow... I’ve never seen a mana crystal shine like this before.”

“Of course. Look who did it.”

“No, seriously, I’ve never seen anything like this. With this much energy... If you used it in a magic tool or something else, you could make something incredible.”

His words naturally brought a smile to my face.

Right. Now all I had to do was use it.

Thinking that my efforts had finally borne fruit, I clenched my hand and briefly celebrated as though praising myself.

[Using the ability ‘Interpretation.’]

[Processed Highest-Grade Mana Crystal]

─Contains an enormous amount of mana.

─The magical attribute contained within the mana crystal is lightning.

‘Lightning... If I embed this in a sword or something, would lightning come out? Or should I leave it with Yuri and have her make a magic tool?’

I was thinking about how to use this valuable item.

How could I squeeze the maximum benefit out of it?

Hmm.

[The skill ‘Spirit Arts (B)’ reacts to the mana crystal.]

“Hmm?”

Spirit Arts suddenly activated.

The small white spirit buzzed around me excitedly, acting especially affectionate as though it were happy.

Then, just as it did around me.

It began flying around the mana crystal.

What is this thing trying to do?

More importantly, why is it suddenly acting like this?

For a moment, I could only stare blankly back and forth between the mana crystal and the spirit in confusion.

And then.

─Chomp.

─Gulp.

“Hey, hey! Spit that out!”

“Wh-what the hell is this!”

The spirit suddenly swallowed it whole.

Fuck, what the hell is happening?

No, what do I do? My mana crystal...!

That was when it happened.

─!!

A change began occurring in the spirit, and the tiny spirit that had looked like a small dot gradually began growing larger.

Before long, electricity was coiling around its body.

[The spirit has evolved.]

Huh?