Ares was, in the end, a game.

While forging the two Transcendence Twin Dragon Swords, Hyunsoo became certain of one thing.

If it weren’t for the Story Stone, the Twin Dragon Sword would have come out as Unique—or at best, an artifact hovering just shy of Legendary.

‘It might not have even reached that.’

In Ares, good materials were the foundation that made better artifacts possible.

Of course, having good ore alone didn’t solve everything.

You needed the right ratios.

Hyunsoo needed skill, while other blacksmiths needed powerful skills and blacksmith stat bonuses to support them.

In other words, to create a great artifact, multiple factors had to come together.

Hyunsoo’s skill alone was the best.

But his ability to acquire materials lagged so far behind that it couldn’t support that skill.

And the truly outstanding crafting materials were incredibly rare to begin with—hard to obtain at all.

Then he got a skill he never expected.

[Legendary skill. You obtain Gathering.]

Gathering.

Just hearing the name, it might sound like it merely meant getting something.

‘But it’s definitely the best skill—one that will completely cover my weak point.’

He’d been spewing “Waaaaaaah” like a broken machine.

Not knowing whether this was a dream or reality, he checked the skill again.

(Gathering)

Grade: Legendary

Level: 1

Penalty: None

Mana Cost: None

Effects:

·Applies to normal monsters and up through named monsters.

·Applies only to monsters you contributed to hunting.

·You can gather blacksmith crafting materials possessed by monsters that can be gathered.

·3% chance to gather.

·In the case of named monsters, the gathering chance increases, and you may obtain materials of a much higher grade.

·If the target is confirmed to possess gatherable materials, black light will flow out of them.

·From targets emitting ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) black light, you can glimpse what materials you can obtain.

It was the kind of skill that made you keep saying, This is insane.

‘A blacksmith uses countless things from nature as materials.’

You could give endless examples.

Tree-type monsters—ents—were known to inhabit the elves’ forest.

If you hunted an ent with its hard, high defense, Hyunsoo might be able to obtain ent wood, even if the odds were low.

Another example—he recalled the Ashen Wolf he’d hunted before.

The Ashen Wolf was an extremely powerful named monster.

Its level had been low, yet it was something no user in that level range could hunt.

And from a monster like that, you could obtain tough, excellent materials—like Ashen Wolf hide.

While imagining it all, Hyunsoo’s eyes went wide.

‘This is seriously insane.......’

In Ares, killing mobs sometimes dropped crafting materials.

But this meant you could obtain not just the common crafting materials everyone could get—

but completely different materials, too.

And the description line saying named monsters could yield higher-grade materials.

‘If it’s a Legendary monster... does that mean you get Legendary-grade materials?’

It wasn’t guaranteed.

But the possibility was open.

One image formed in Hyunsoo’s mind.

A dragon.

In Ares, most crafting materials could be obtained through quests.

But what if you hunted a dragon?

And according to the skill text, if the target was confirmed to have gatherable materials, it would show what you could obtain.

For example—

[You can obtain Dragon Scales.]

[You can obtain Dragon Teeth.]

Only then did Hyunsoo truly understand.

The power of this skill was on the level of the blacksmith god’s custom-tailored abilities—custom repair, emergency crafting, and the like.

First: just by hunting, he could secure materials on his own.

Second: he could obtain new materials other blacksmiths couldn’t.

Of course, the skill’s grade was Legendary.

But the condition written into it—

‘You have to contribute to the hunt to obtain it.’

Other blacksmiths couldn’t use this power easily.

Blacksmiths were weak, and the odds of them hunting named monsters were absurdly low.

But Hyunsoo was a strong blacksmith.

So unlike other blacksmiths, he could wield power that bordered on god-class.

GRRIIIP—

Hyunsoo clenched his fist.

The delusion he’d dreamed of—back when he was a blacksmith in reality—could become real.

Crafting with materials dropped by a demon... or a dragon.

Others could only sit there and hope such things would drop.

‘Not me.’

Hyunsoo held a bigger dream.

Someday, he would hunt a dragon—and make dragon armor or a dragon spear from its scales and teeth.

‘Dragon Spear, Dragon Armor, even Dragon Blade... damn.......’

But reality stopped him cold.

The public was curious whether dragons even existed in Ares, and CEO Lee Sejin had answered that before.

‘They exist. But it will take a very long time for users to reach the level required to raid dragons. It will likely take more than five years.’

That announcement was recent.

Users guessed—

‘Dragons are probably level 800 or higher.’

A dream that could only come true far, far in the future.

‘I should sleep and go see Dad.’

So he decided to shelve that massive dream for now.

And even if it wasn’t dragons, the materials he could obtain with this skill were limitless.

Hyunsoo logged out to sleep.

And at the time, he didn’t know.

A dragon might be level 800+... but there was a degraded version of a dragon that existed in Ares.

*****

While Hyunsoo fell into deep sleep—

the world was still overheated.

As the year was drawing to a close, World Ares—the daily paper dedicated solely to Ares—pushed out an article.

Master Craftsman Hyun. Rises as the one user.

The king’s seat changes hands.

It was like pouring hot oil onto an already blazing fire.

Ares was entering its fifth year since launch.

And the seat Bahala had held without a single shake for three years... had changed.

And the “one” selected by Ares meant exactly that—

the user who exerted the greatest influence in Ares this year.

World Ares immediately held a press conference.

On the podium, Deputy Director Hanna spoke before hundreds of cameras.

“The easiest indicator for selecting the most influential users is the world message.”

World message.

A privilege only users the system acknowledged could ring.

A world message was something ordinary users could go their entire lives without ever triggering.

“Hyun rang three world messages over the year. First: crafting Legend Beyond Legends. Second: hunting a demon. Third: crafting the first Transcendence artifact and rising as the First Legend.”

Hanna’s words forced everyone to look back over Hyunsoo’s achievements this year.

At that moment, a Chinese reporter spoke.

“I believe you’re aware that Bahala rang a total of four world messages this year.”

Hanna nodded.

“Of course.”

“With only three, it doesn’t seem credible that Hyun surpassed Bahala.”

Another Chinese reporter piled on.

“I also think it lacks credibility. Since Deputy Director Hanna is Korean, we suspect this result may have happened for that reason.”

A rude question.

But Hanna stayed cool, her voice chic and lofty.

“The actual world messages were three, but we judge it as four. Because by crafting the first Transcendence, he became the First Legend. It was one act, but two world-message-class achievements—so instead of ringing simultaneously, they were compressed into one.”

The Chinese reporters still didn’t accept it.

“Do you also acknowledge that the probability of ringing a world message is higher in low-level ranges?”

“I do.”

Everyone knew it was easier to ring a world message in lower-level ranges.

“The higher the level, the harder it becomes to ring a world message. At high levels, they ring it by pioneering what nobody has done yet. Low-level users ring it by accomplishing what’s already been pioneered—far beyond everyone else.”

In other words, the Chinese reporter’s point was simple:

Is it really enough to surpass Bahala?

But Hanna was experienced.

“While it’s true the probability is higher in low-level ranges, what World Ares judged was how extraordinary those world messages were. Crafting Legend Beyond Legends is somewhat lacking, but hunting a demon and crafting the first Transcendence—becoming the First Legend—those values belong to the upper tier even among world messages.”

People even ranked world messages.

Among them, the ones the public broadly recognized as If you pull this off, it’s a world message for sure were classified as Tier 1.

The reason was simple.

Everyone knew it. Everyone tried it. And everyone failed.

And Hanna wasn’t generous enough to keep listening to a reporter’s bullshit.

‘Saying that even though you know Hyun caused the biggest ripple this year.......’

Hyun had likely become deeply hated in China.

Hanna turned sharply.

“Deputy Director, just one more word on whether this was fair—”

“......Are you avoiding the question!?”

“Deputy Director Hanna secretly made a deal with Korea—”

Hanna let out a short, incredulous laugh.

They were a daily paper too—but those reporters were a tiny minority in China.

In Korea, people had a word for them.

Trash reporters.

As Hanna walked out confidently, those few Chinese reporters churned out sensational articles.

Deputy Director Hanna. Korean-American. Was the “one of the year” fair?

Hyun has three. Bahala has four. Rank manipulation obvious even by world message count.

The Ares communities were heating up.

Because Chinese users were flooding into the Korean community.

Those assholes are doing this because they lost the continental war, right?

The whole world recognizes it, so why are you the only ones whining?

Alright, alright. Time to show them the power of Korean keyboard warriors.

Taiwan number one!

TAIWAN NUMBER OOOONE!

You don’t have Hyun~! You don’t~! YOOOU DON’T~!

In reality, most countries accepted Hanna’s announcement.

World Ares’s “one” was the user with the biggest ripple that year.

Meaning: this year’s biggest ripple really was Hyun.

But Chinese users kept harping on world message counts.

Come on! They said it couldn’t ring twice so it only rang once!

Agh!

The community only got hotter.

And there was one person who woke up, scratched his head, and stared at the chaos.

“Nice?”

It was Hyunsoo.

He woke up, and he’d become World Ares’s “one.”

The influence of being World Ares’s “one” was beyond imagination.

It took Hyunsoo—already in the spotlight—and launched him even higher.

And there was one reason Hyunsoo looked visibly pleased.

Chinese users had been swept up by those trash-reporters’ posts.

And the continental war loss had poured gasoline on it.

But in moments like this, if you produced a new proof—

you could flip even the Chinese over to Hyun’s side.

“Thank you, trash reporters.”

And because of this, Hyunsoo pulled out a card he’d obtained a long time ago.

He checked an old screenshot he’d saved.

The moment he saw it, a grin leaked out that he couldn’t hide.

‘Hehehehehe.’

Hyunsoo was sure.

That single line in the screenshot would turn even the Chinese into his subscribers.

Just like Hanna—and the trash reporters—had said.

If you ring a world message by accomplishing something everyone knows about, everyone has tried, and everyone has failed... it’s classified as Tier 1.

But this one?

This was practically what the world called a Tier 0 world message.

Why?

Because all 2.5 billion users had tried it.

The screenshot read:

[Congratulations.]

[You are the first user to succeed in breaking the wooden doll.]