Ascension Through Skills

[There’s no definitive answer for this quest. Your rewards will change depending on how you handle it.]

“How did you clear it?”

[In my world, I drove out the ancient god, but monsters remained. Survivors were being hunted down by those monsters. I gathered them, built a city, and eradicated the monsters. It took about… half a year.]

Lee Taeyeon had also spoken about the 77th floor before.

She said that people there distrusted one another.

Not just simple mistrust—she described it as a level where people no longer saw each other as human.

As if it were kill or be killed, she said it was a chaotic world where everyone sought to kill everyone else.

It was probably because the high god had corrupted their minds. He remembered her grumbling about how many items she had to use to clear it.

[Usually, people solve it with brute force. The quest's purpose is stability. As long as you can create a situation where people can somehow survive, even if their numbers are low and their minds are wrecked, it counts as cleared.]

[What will you do?]

“I don’t plan to do it that way.”

The world Taesan visited was almost identical to Earth on the brink of destruction.

It was a rehearsal for how to revive a devastated Earth. Taesan wasn’t only concerned with clearing the quest; he was planning to experiment with different methods.

“You should leave.”

As Taesan wandered around the city, a child approached him.

“This is a dying city. You look young and strong, so you’ll probably make it to another city somehow. They’ll accept you there.”

“I’m not leaving.”

Taesan answered calmly. The child shook his head in disbelief.

“You won’t be treated well.”

The city of the abandoned was slowly dying with no visitors.

In such a situation, someone young and strong like Taesan attracted attention.

Before long, everyone in the city knew about Taesan.

The people of the city looked at him with unfriendly eyes.

This was a place that couldn’t produce anything—only consume, day by day—a discarded city.

In such a place, a strong, able-bodied man was unwelcome. Instead, he was seen as someone who could pressure others with his strength and consume more food, making him an object of suspicion.

However, they didn’t drive Taesan away.

Everyone here had been deemed useless and abandoned. Thus, the people of the city were tightly bound together. While they distrusted Taesan, they didn’t exclude him.

But that didn’t mean they got along with him. The people kept their distance from Taesan.

Only the elderly and the children spoke to him.

Standing in a vacant lot on the outskirts of the city, Taesan stared at the ground in silence.

The land was contaminated.

Even makeshift farming wouldn’t work on this soil. In his previous life, there were items to neutralize soil contamination, which allowed limited cultivation, but those items weren’t available now.

“What are you doing?”

An old man approached, patting his back. Seeing Taesan holding a seed and staring at the ground, the old man guessed his intentions and shook his head.

“A seed? That’s a rare thing to have. But, unfortunately, it’s impossible.”

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t tried. After driving out the monsters, they had planted leftover seeds in the soil.

But nothing sprouted. The poison in the contaminated soil was too much for any seed to endure.

Thus, they abandoned all their seeds.

“Don’t be stubborn and leave, young man. This is our grave. There’s no reason for you to bury yourself here.”

The old man spoke bitterly.

Taesan didn’t respond.

He merely thought.

And reached a conclusion.

Kiiing!

A golden light radiated from Taesan’s hand. The old man, who had been watching absentmindedly, widened his eyes.

“…That is?”

The old man, who had lived through the war against the ancient god, remembered.

The terrible monsters that swarmed the sky.

And the mighty golden light that trampled them.

What Taesan held now was the same golden light.

“Encasing the entire city would be difficult, but…”

This small vacant lot could be easily covered in divine power.

The divine power expanded, blanketing the lot. The small space became Taesan’s domain.

Any foreign energy not permitted by Taesan was expelled. The contaminated soil was purified, beginning to regain its vitality.

“Oh… oh…”

Taesan scattered the seeds.

When he had embarked on the quest on Earth, he had brought several seeds.

The old man’s already wide eyes grew even larger.

The seeds sprouted rapidly.

Shoots emerged, followed by leaves.

Yellow kernels began to form, their green husks enveloping them.

In less than a few minutes, dozens of corn stalks filled half the lot.

In the gray, lifeless city, vibrant green plants grew proudly.

Taesan nodded.

“It works.”

He maintained the divine domain in a small area and activated makeshift farming there.

The cultivation was a success. With this, the city’s food problems could be resolved.

Since the soil itself was being purified, expanding the domain could also make their living spaces safe.

“Bring the people here.”

Taesan spoke to the old man, who stood frozen in shock. The old man didn’t move.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to. People who had seen the golden light began approaching cautiously. They gasped when they saw the corn.

“What is this?!”

“It’s corn! Corn!”

The people rushed at it, wide-eyed. Taesan didn’t stop them.

Word spread rapidly, and soon everyone in the city gathered.

They tore at the corn with desperate fervor. Though the small lot couldn’t feed everyone, it didn’t matter. As soon as the corn was harvested, more grew in its place.

“Oh… ohhh!”

A boy, who arrived late to the scene, exclaimed as he tore into a cob. He hastily peeled it and shoved it into his mouth.

“Ah…”

Since the corn wasn’t cooked, it was hard and dry, making it difficult to chew and swallow.

But it was fresh.

It wasn’t moldy or half-rotted like the food they were used to.

The boy, who barely remembered the time when he was an infant, felt something long forgotten.

“Uhh… uhhh…”

The boy chewed through tears. The others weren’t much different. Everyone wept as they devoured the corn.

Not long after, their hunger subsided, and only then did their reasoning return.

“Why is there corn growing in a place like this?”

“No, more importantly, what is that golden light covering the land…?”

Their confused gazes turned toward the old man and Taesan, who stood blankly before them.

“Old man, what’s going on here?”

The old man looked at Taesan instead of answering.

The people’s attention shifted to Taesan. Ignoring their stares, Taesan opened his inventory.

“Let’s see if this one works.”

Taesan scattered black seeds over the remaining space. The observers’ pupils dilated.

Vines began to grow.

The fruits expanded rapidly. Before long, the remaining half of the lot was filled with large, sturdy watermelons.

The people’s expressions mirrored that of the old man—utter disbelief.

A silence filled with astonishment enveloped them.

Afterward, the atmosphere shifted rapidly. Taesan was no longer just a suspicious young man who had appeared out of nowhere.

Taesan became the master of the abandoned city.

In a place that had produced nothing and was slowly dying, the sudden resolution of the food problem made it impossible not to follow him.

[Makeshift Farming. That’s quite an intriguing skill. How did you even come up with getting something like that?]

The ghost sounded amazed. The Labyrinth wasn’t a place to live; it was a place to conquer.

Basic sustenance was sold in shops, so the ghost had never needed to cultivate anything.

Only players in the unique situation of returning to Earth had acquired such skills.

Taesan asked the boy:

“Are there any livestock here?”

“Uh, this way.”

The boy hesitated as he led Taesan. Along the way, he kept stealing glances at Taesan before finally asking:

“…Did you really come here to save us?”

After seeing Taesan produce food, some people began to whisper cautiously that he might be the savior of the world.

They speculated that he was a savior sent to guide them in this desolate world.

Some even whispered that he might be an emissary of the gods.

The elderly especially supported this idea, claiming to have seen similar powers in the past.

Taesan replied:

“Something like that.”

The boy’s face lit up.

“Knew it!”

The boy seemed thrilled that his thoughts were confirmed.

Inside the small animal pen he led Taesan to, there were two emaciated pigs.

Too weak to move, they simply lay there, barely breathing.

“Oh no, nobody’s been taking care of them.”

The boy hastily threw some corn to them.

The pigs, their noses twitching, wobbled over and began devouring the corn.

“We’ve been feeding them scraps just in case, but they were reaching their limit. We were planning to butcher them soon… but now that we have corn, maybe we can… get some meat…”

The boy’s eyes sparkled. Taesan also had something in mind.

Makeshift Farming only worked on plants.

It didn’t apply to raising livestock.

In his previous life, he hadn’t paid much attention to this. Survival had been too challenging to be picky about food.

But to ensure a sustainable future, meat would be essential.

And in large quantities.

As he stared at the pigs, Taesan pulled out various materials from his inventory.

Blue flowers, green leaves, and other diverse ingredients.

Taesan had collected materials for alchemy and small-scale environmental alterations whenever he had a chance.

While most of them were used in battles, some were left unused because they had no combat applications.

Among them were materials with growth-accelerating effects, which he had kept unused until now.

But now, things were different. Taesan prepared the materials.

“Huh?”

The boy looked on in surprise as the materials seemed to combine, drawing out a mysterious power.

Taesan focused.

The alchemy he had learned from the Gremlin was now being properly applied.

Kiiing!

The harmony of the materials completed, and the power of alchemy enveloped the pen.

The pigs, which had been slowly nibbling on corn, suddenly let out piercing squeals.

“Squeeaaaak!”

“Ahhh!”

The boy covered his ears in panic at the ear-splitting noise.

“Huh…?”

The pigs’ flesh began to grow rapidly. Their eyes turned a glowing red.

One pig let out a bellow and tackled the other. The boy grew even more flustered.

“Wha… what’s happening?”

“This seems to work. I just need to refine it a bit more.”

Taesan confirmed that alchemy could aid in the reproduction and growth of livestock.

The only problem was sourcing the livestock.

With Earth in ruins, finding proper animals was nearly impossible.

“Maybe I could get them as a reward from the Labyrinth?”

[No one’s ever asked for something like that… but if you want it, they’ll probably give it to you. Try asking as a service after clearing it.]

The possibility of livestock reproduction was confirmed. Taesan summoned Minerva.

“Wow, this place is practically dead.”

“Can you purify the air here as well?”

Contaminated air impacted life itself. While Labyrinth players could endure it with their strengthened bodies, newborns couldn’t.

Minerva, the King of the Wind Spirits, governed nature itself. The possibility seemed high.

“Hmm… It depends on the situation, but since the power of the high gods is mostly gone, it should be possible.”

Minerva closed her eyes and focused her power. Slowly, the wind and air currents began to change.

At that moment, the people realized it. The polluted air was clearing, and breathing suddenly became easier.

The contaminated air was being purified.

“It’s working.”

“But I can’t do this on a large scale. The pollution is too severe. At most, I can manage this city.”

“For now, that’s enough.”

People gradually began to learn about the various things Taesan had done.

They started following him even more.

The city, once on the brink of destruction, was now being restored—entirely by Taesan’s hands.

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