Chapter 55
The Heavenly Lake Workshop (4)
After another wave of monsters passed,
the apprentices and blacksmiths busied themselves trying to stabilize the core.
Meanwhile, Granny, the head artisan, and Sehyun gathered for an emergency meeting.
“…The real problem began when we tampered with the rift without understanding it,” Granny sighed, clutching the talisman in her robes.
“It, too, was part of the natural cycle. We broke the balance, and now the mountain itself is angry.”
Sehyun, watching her, was thinking about something else.
‘That talisman… it’s almost falling apart.’
The talisman was riddled with cracks, ready to crumble at any moment.
Seeing that, he finally understood why Granny hadn’t used it freely earlier when the imps had attacked.
Even holding it looked dangerous—it was barely hanging together.
“This was my own greed,” Granny muttered bitterly.
“I should’ve stopped using it when it first started to overheat.”
“Please don’t say that, Granny,” the head artisan said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“You only did it to protect us.”
The truth was, the talisman’s lifespan had long since ended.
Its original role was merely to help build the workshop beneath Mount Baekdu.
But it had been forced to suppress the unstable rift in the core far beyond its limits.
“You’ve done enough, Granny. You even passed your position to someone as lacking as me to keep things together.”
‘Ah… so that’s why,’ Sehyun realized.
Now, the timeline that had diverged from his previous life made more sense.
In his past life, Granny hadn’t stepped down from her position, and there had been no head artisan.
Naturally, the talisman hadn’t been this damaged either.
The key difference lay in the runaway rift.
Which meant the answer was simple.
“You’re sounding weak, Granny. That doesn’t suit you.”
Everyone looked up when Sehyun spoke.
“Weren’t you the one who told them not to settle for what exists? That if there’s no way, they should make one?”
Granny froze, then let out a quiet laugh.
“Hmph. You’ve got a sharp tongue, boy. Where’d you hear that?”
From you, Sehyun thought wryly. A hundred times, at least.
As he smiled to himself, Granny’s expression softened.
“So tell me—how do you plan to find a way?”
“First, we have to objectively review what just happened.”
Inside the core was another rift—
a chaotic rift, from which the imps had emerged.
“If we leave it alone, they’ll keep attacking the workshop. We barely held off the last wave. We won’t last much longer.”
Some of the blacksmiths were players, but that didn’t help much—
for the imps’ nature was Chaotic.
They absorbed attacks infused with astral power, twisting that energy back on itself.
If not for Sasha’s extraordinary strength, they might not have survived at all.
Then Kang Jia, who had been listening silently, blurted out:
“Then why don’t we just destroy it again like last time?”
“It’s not that simple,” Sehyun replied, rubbing his forehead.
“There are two main reasons why we can’t just erase it.”
The first: the rift had no boss monster.
That shouldn’t have been possible.
“It’s because of the chaotic nature of this one. It’s not drawing power from a boss’s astral core inside, but pulling astral energy from the outside to maintain balance.”
It was an improbable phenomenon, but luck had clearly abandoned them this time.
Normally, defeating the boss would close the rift—but if there was no boss, there was no way to seal it.
And the second problem:
“Even if we could destroy it, trying to close it now would be dangerous.”
The chaotic energy spilling from the rift had tangled with the lava’s astral power.
In this unstable state…
“Even a small disturbance could trigger a volcanic explosion,” Granny murmured.
“Still, we can’t just leave it,” Sehyun insisted. “The core will keep overheating until it destroys itself.”
A deadlock.
They couldn’t act—but they couldn’t stand still either.
Which left only one option.
“We’ll have to use the talisman, Granny.”
At Sehyun’s careful words, Granny closed her eyes.
“It might be the last time I ever use it…”
No one knew how many more times the talisman could endure.
If this plan failed, there would be nothing left to control the core.
Logically speaking, conserving it made sense.
The balance, for now, was still barely holding.
But holding onto it too long could be worse—
there might come a time when they needed it and couldn’t use it anymore.
So they had to act.
Only—Sehyun wasn’t planning to use it in the same way.
“Sometimes, to find a solution, you have to break convention,” he said.
“Break convention? What do you mean?”
“We’ll repair the talisman.”
“…What?”
Granny stared at him as though he’d lost his mind.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you even know what that thing is? You can’t just ‘repair’ a divine artifact.”
Sehyun knew why she reacted that way.
The talisman was a divine relic—
an ancient, sacred artifact whose workings no one could truly comprehend.
Normally, it could only be used with utmost care, never altered.
But to Sehyun, it wasn’t some unknowable artifact—it was a device.
“Do you remember the design for the Celestial Altar? The artifact blueprint?”
“Of course I do. That so-called artifact you were building… wait.”
Granny’s eyes widened.
The realization struck her.
The talisman and Sehyun’s artifact—
they operated on different principles, but achieved the same effect.
Which meant—
“It might not be possible to create one from scratch… but repairing it?” Sehyun smiled. “That, I can do.”
The blacksmiths gathered around the central core, exchanging doubtful glances.
“Can we really trust an outsider with this?”
“Does he even know how to handle the bellows?”
“Even if Granny ordered it, this feels wrong…”
In front of the furnace, with the talisman placed atop it, Sehyun stretched his arms and cracked his neck.
Just then, Kang Jia staggered in with a heavy sack.
The blacksmiths gasped when they saw what was inside.
“Ash powder?”
“Wait… that outsider knows how to use that?”
Sehyun scooped up a handful of the fine black ash and tossed it into the furnace.
The workshop erupted in murmurs.
But many still eyed him with skepticism.
“Don’t get too excited,” one muttered. “It’s not just about throwing in ash.”
“He might’ve noticed we use it, but without the proper method, it’s useless.”
“Even skilled blacksmiths can’t ignite that with ease.”
Sehyun chuckled quietly.
Their pride hadn’t changed at all.
It wasn’t simple arrogance—it was confidence born from mastery.
And they weren’t wrong.
The ash powder couldn’t be ignited unless both the right heat and a specific balance of astral power were applied.
Which was why the lava beneath Mount Baekdu was so vital.
‘It can supply both heat and astral energy simultaneously.’
He turned the valve controlling the lava flow.
‘Margin of error: within five degrees. Bring it to 1,080°C first.’
When the temperature rose sufficiently, he adjusted the valve to let only a thin stream of lava flow.
A few blacksmiths clicked their tongues.
“See? He’s doing it wrong.”
Normally, after heating to 1,080°C, one was supposed to switch to a separate heating system—
keeping the astral energy constant while increasing the temperature.
But—
‘Why bother? I can just stabilize the astral energy myself.’
Blue light gleamed from the chain bracelet on Sehyun’s wrist.
The “Valley of Ashes” absorbed excess astral power from the lava,
allowing the heat to rise without disturbing the energy balance.
Within a 5-degree margin, the temperature climbed to 1,440°C.
And then—
WHOOSH!
A dark flame burst to life.
“By the stars… he really lit it!”
“That’s pure black fire!”
The ash burned into Black Flame, using astral power as its fuel—
the key to why Heavenly Lake weapons could conduct such power.
‘It burns away every trace of existing energy, leaving a perfect vacuum in the material.’
Once emptied, the material could be filled with new astral energy—
that was the essence of their craft.
Sehyun’s purpose was the same.
‘I’ll burn it clean… and write a new myth into it.’
This was the first step, the Black Phase of the alchemical process.
“Next!”
“Yes, sir!”
Kang Jia handed him a pouch filled with long metallic shards.
Without hesitation, Sehyun tossed them into the furnace.
“What is he doing now?”
“No way… is that—”
A layer of frost formed over the furnace.
“What madness is this? He’s cooling the forge?!”
To let the furnace cool was taboo—it meant the workshop’s heart was dying.
The blacksmiths shouted in alarm—
“Wait.” The head artisan raised a hand.
“Something’s different. That kind of sudden drop in temperature… it’s not cooling—it’s reversing.”
Sehyun grinned. “Good eye.”
FWOOM!
A dazzling white flame erupted.
“That’s… white fire?!”
The blaze was as radiant as snow—
White Flame.
Sehyun thrust his hand into it. Despite its brilliance, the core of the flame felt warm—like body heat.
It wasted no energy, transferring heat only to the intended material.
“White Flame… I never thought I’d see it in person. What did he use?”
“Maybe it’s the same material as the talisman?”
“Impossible. The talisman was made from Reverse Scale—the throat scale of a divine dragon!”
They were right—
a legendary material said to have been taken from a sleeping dragon beneath Hallasan’s White Deer Lake.
“No one could possibly get that now!”
“Then what else could produce that kind of reaction?”
Sehyun just smirked.
A moment ago they’d mocked him—
now they were begging for answers.
Kang Jia whispered to him,
“She really didn’t like it, you know. Took ages to shave it down.”
“I’ll toss her a carrot later,” he said lightly.
The material they’d used—
a mythical metal forged in ten thousand years of summer’s fire, and tempered in ten thousand winters of ice.
The Horn of a Unicorn, also known as Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron.
A material worthy to replace even the Reverse Scale.
The molten Cold Iron flowed into the cracks of the talisman, sealing them completely—
the White Phase was complete.
Then Kang Jia held out a pouch of glittering gold dust.
“This is the gold dust we gathered in the desert.”
He threw it into the furnace—
WHOOOSH!
Brilliant golden fire erupted—Yellow Flame.
When the talisman was drawn from the golden blaze, glowing like molten sunlight,
everyone fell silent in awe.
CLANG! CLANG!
Sehyun hammered it, reheated it, and repeated the process.
With each cycle of forging and re-tempering, the Cold Iron merged completely with the talisman.
‘Now… the final phase.’
He drew a blade and sliced his palm.
‘To restore a divine relic, I must inscribe a myth into it again.’
Watching the blood drip, Sehyun recalled an ancient story—
a myth every Korean knew.
The Legend of Dangun.
He mixed his blood with the ash and cast it into the furnace.
FWOOOOSH!
Scarlet flame roared, hiding everything inside—Red Flame.
The Black Phase had emptied the talisman.
The White Phase had reforged it with Cold Iron.
The Yellow Phase had stabilized its form.
Now, the Red Phase would engrave a new soul into it—through his blood.
When the fire finally began to fade—
“D-did it work?”
“This should be enough. Bring it out.”
The head artisan carefully lifted the glowing talisman with tongs.
It shimmered with an iridescent jade light, still pulsing with heat.
Everyone held their breath.
Granny’s trembling hands accepted it.
“It looks… flawless,” she whispered.
“Shh! Let her focus.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
Before she even spoke the incantation, astral energy swirled around her.
“Heavenly gods, hear me.”
The astral power of Mount Baekdu surged toward her like a tide.
This was the Talisman of the Celestial God, said to grant blessings to those who seek to bring good to the world.
When Granny had first come to this mountain decades ago,
she’d used this talisman to create a workshop—
a place to forge weapons for those who fought to seal the world’s rifts.
‘It feels the same… as that first time.’
As if she herself had become young again.
When the wave of astral power swept across Mount Baekdu and faded, Granny opened her eyes.
“…Perfect,” she murmured.
There was no room for doubt.
“You’ve done it, boy,” she said, smiling faintly.
“You’ve repaired a divine relic.”
