Chapter 100 One-horned tribe (10) (1/2)

A quest window appeared in front of Yeon-woo’s eyes.

‘Eight Extremes Fist? Yin Sword?’

Although he didn’t know what those two rewards were, the fact that he would be able to study Mugong under the Martial King already made the quest very appealing. But just as how attractive it appeared, the difficulty of the quest was also downright outrageous.

‘Create a Mugong within four days? How the hell…?’

Teaching himself a Mugong—though he had already considered it as plan B—was a task impossible to accomplish within just a few days. But despite this, Yeon-woo just clenched his fists,

‘Well, I’m going to have to make the impossible possible.’

Because anyone in The Tower would kill for a quest like this.

Besides, Yeon-woo could tell that this quest was the Martial King’s way of showing favor. He couldn’t just ignore it.

Yeon-woo accepted the quest with a nod.

Edora looked at him with a look of concern, but Yeon-woo’s determined eyes were burning brighter than ever.

“Now, where do I go?”

*   *   *

“This is the Skill Archive.”

Yeon-woo was guided to a group of buildings located at the far end of the village.

The Skill Archive was undeniably the largest of all the structures in the village. Four gigantic buildings were standing in a row, and the entrance was guarded by powerful warriors.

Despite being escorted by Edora, Yeon-woo still had to go through a thorough inspection before being allowed to enter the archive.

“We’re standing in front of the iron-tier Skill Archive. The one behind is the bronze-tier archive. You may freely read any book contained inside these two, but whatever you do, do not enter the other two archives.”

Edora sincerely requested of him not to stray from those two buildings, adding that even the royal family members could be executed for entering a prohibited area.

Paying heed to Edora’s explanation, Yeon-woo walked through the entrance of the archive. And as soon as he stepped inside the archive,

“Whoa!”

An exclamation of astonishment escaped Yeon-woo’s lips.

In front of him was the main hall connected to several endlessly long isles filled with bookshelves. And above him, he could see at least four more stories, which without a doubt had a similar structure to the first floor, all connected through a spiral staircase.

Yeon-woo was overwhelmed by the immense amount of books. It was proof of the long history of the One-horned tribe in The Tower.

“According to our history, the Skill Archive was built when Soho, the founder of the One-horned tribe, brought our ancestors to the world of The Tower. In this archive, we have all sorts of documents ranging from the skill tomes of all the Mugongs that our kind has created, to some magic scrolls, alchemy manuals, and many other ancient books.

Throughout her explanation of the Skill Archive, Edora’s voice was filled with a sense of pride.

Although Yeon-woo was nodding along as she explained, he couldn’t help but feel devastated.

‘How many books are there in here?’

Even at a rough estimate, this place contained millions of books.

Undeniably, some of these books were worth reading, but the overall majority of them were just miscellaneous books.

Even if he somehow managed to filter out all the worthless books, he would still have to waste a copious amount of time selecting books that would help him create his Mugong. And to top it all, this was just one out of two archives that he had access to.

Noticing Yeon-woo’s agony, Edora spoke in a worried tone.

“Oraboni, I’m….”

“Don’t be sorry. I know you can’t help me. I’m already grateful for what you’ve done for me. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be able to even enter this archive.”

Yeon-woo rolled up his sleeves.

Even now, time was ticking fast. He had to get started as soon as possible.

‘For now.’

Yeon-woo first cast two skills before scouring through the books.

[Combat Will]

[Draconic Eyes]

Just then, time around him started to slow down, and the world was soon filled with flaws.

‘I won’t be able to go through all these books in just four days. No, even if I had a lot of time, looking into every single one of them would take me a lifetime.’

Thankfully, Yeon-woo had an expedient he could resort to.

‘The ones that are invaluable must have been used by lots of people.’

Objects that have gone through several hands had lingering wills accumulated inside.

‘Which means, there will be lots of flaws concentrated on the important ones.‘

And just as he expected, a few of the books on the shelves appeared to have considerably large amounts of flaws compared to the others.

Yeon-woo swiftly picked the good books out of the lot.

While most of the books he grabbed looked very old and badly thumbed, some of them were surprisingly new or had been well preserved.

Despite having only wandered around one section of the archive, Yeon-woo had already drawn over three thousand books. After laying them all out on the floor, Yeon-woo began to skim through the titles and pick the books that he required.

‘The ones I need are Inner Cultivation manuals. That leaves the ones about Weapon Mastery and Footwork out of the equation.’

After discarding those, the pile had been reduced to around a hundred books.

Yeon-woo then plumped down onto the floor and began reading the books in earnest.

The first one he picked was the one that revealed the most amount of flaws.

However,

‘Naegong? Hyul? And what are these Gimaek and Danjeon all about?’

Yeon-woo couldn’t understand a single thing due to the use of terms he had never heard before.

It seemed like the One-horned tribe’s closed society lead them to utilize terms that were different from those commonly used in The Tower.

‘If I can’t understand it, I’ll just have to memorize it.’

Yeon-woo decided to shift his focus and memorize the whole book. Even if he couldn’t comprehend some of the words and concepts described in the book, he still had several books left to read. If he kept encountering the same words in different sentences, he’d soon be able to guess their meanings.

Fortunately, Yeon-woo’s ability to memorize things had been greatly enhanced due to Combat Will.

“….”

Realizing that Yeon-woo was completely absorbed, Edora slowly moved up to Yeon-woo’s side to see what kind of book he was reading.

When she skimmed through the titles of the books piled up next to him, she was so surprised she almost let out a gasp.

‘How did he only pick out those things?