CHAPTER 301: CHAPTER301-GOD RANK SKILL CORE

As the awakeners’ strength continued to grow across the continent, the number of lingering souls in the Undead Lands was steadily diminishing.

Large numbers of awakeners had already moved on to the abyss, tirelessly grinding monsters there in pursuit of greater power.

Many of them had no idea that, in the time they’d been buried in endless monster hunts, the outside world had undergone earthshaking changes.

For example, the arrival of the Angel of Gold and Silver race—a world-shaking event—had gone completely unnoticed by a great many awakeners.

By the time they learned of it, Daniel had already stormed the Divine Realm itself and slain the Emperor of Angels.

As for the appearance of multiple demigods on the continent, the fact that the Divine Realm had been taken over by humankind, or even the sudden manifestation of the Tower of Reshaping—these were things they were even less aware of.

Yet all of this had unfolded in barely an hour or two.

It made some of them wonder—had the very fabric of the world changed? Or had they simply fallen too far behind the pace of this era?

Those who did hear the news found themselves struck dumb with shock.

No one could have imagined the world shifting so dramatically in such a short period. It left them with an uncanny, almost disorienting sensation, as if they had awakened to find themselves in an entirely different age.

"Am I seeing this right? We didn’t just spend years—maybe centuries—inside that labyrinth, did we?"

"What if... hear me out... what if the labyrinth distorts time? What if we only felt like we were inside for a short while, but in reality, hundreds of years passed outside?"

"You two are idiots. Do you not know how to check the time on your communicators? It’s been barely an hour. Stop spouting nonsense."

Faced with the scolding, many awakeners instinctively checked their devices—and froze.

The time matched exactly what had been said.

Yet still, the sense of disconnect gnawed at them.

How could so much have changed in the world in such a short span?

What was happening to their reality?

Tower of Reshaping

Daniel was not nearly foolish enough to spend all his time personally grinding silver-rank bosses.

From the beginning, he had arranged for one of his clones to handle that work. His true self had already returned to the Tower of Reshaping to turn in his completed task.

[Congratulations. You have completed the Reshaping Task. Supplementary reward is being issued.]

[Congratulations. You have received: God Rank Skill Core.]

[God Rank Skill Core]

Description: A core infused with unknown power. Can substitute for any one God Rank Skill synthesis material. Note: can only replace a single material per synthesis.

At first glance, Daniel’s eyes held only mild disdain.

The task had been simple, and the reward... hardly seemed extravagant.

A single God Rank Skill Core? What was he supposed to do with that?

But then, in the very next heartbeat, something clicked—and his eyes lit with sudden excitement.

How could I have forgotten about the God of Thieves’ dagger?!

With that weapon’s ability, a single God Rank Skill Core would effectively become twenty-one cores in his possession.

His breathing quickened slightly at the thought.

Normally, synthesizing a God Rank Skill didn’t even require that many materials, and many of the components were not especially rare.

Only a few select pieces—the key materials—were truly rare enough to be considered bottlenecks in synthesis.

Now, with the God Rank Skill Core in hand, he could bypass that bottleneck entirely.

He could simply upgrade the skill core via the God of Thieves’ dagger and use it to replace whatever material he lacked.

As his synthesis targets moved further up the rankings, more and more of the required materials were either impossibly scarce or outright unobtainable.

But with the God Rank Skill Core, all of that changed.

If he could gather all the basic materials for the top-ranked God Rank Skill, the core could stand in for the rarer, irreplaceable components.

His mind spun with possibilities.

If I went straight for the number one ranked God Rank Skill...

The thought alone was enough to send a hot surge of anticipation through him.

He had never expected a simple reshaping task to yield something this valuable.

And with his current strength, the God of Thieves’ dagger itself had grown more potent.

It wasn’t that the dagger’s inherent ability had improved—rather, his power had finally reached the point where he could draw out more of the weapon’s original potential.

At this level, he could split a single material into sixty separate portions.

Which meant... as long as he had the basic set of materials for the top God Rank Skill, the remaining rare components could be covered entirely by replicated God Rank Skill Cores.

The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t wait to see what came next.

Without delay, Daniel accepted the next reshaping task for his Star Upgrade Quest.

[Congratulations. You have accepted a new task.]

[Task Objective]: Clear 10,000 underground labyrinths at Level 60 difficulty (Hell mode), and secure the #1 spot on the labyrinth’s completion record for each one.

At that, Daniel’s suspicions were confirmed.

So that was the pattern—reshaping tasks were, in essence, strengthened versions of the Star Upgrade Quests he’d faced before.

Back when he first received them, such objectives would have been daunting—borderline impossible.

But for him now? They barely even registered as challenges.

Still, he couldn’t help but imagine what it would have been like if he’d been given such a task back when he was only Level 30.

Hopeless—that was the only word for it.

No, more than hopeless. It would have been a cruel joke.

The Tower of Reshaping was not his alone to use.

Since its construction, awakeners from across the world had flocked to the human northern frontier to see its effects for themselves.

Even the emperors of humankind’s long lineage were not idle—they were prioritizing the strengthening of their own abilities.

The first Human Emperor, for example, had already reached Level 200 thanks to his extraordinary talent.

Yet even someone as formidable as he had never completed every Star Upgrade Quest at the highest possible difficulty.

Now, he too was standing before the Tower of Reshaping, using it to perfect his Star Upgrade Quests.

When the first Human Emperor saw how much simpler the reshaped tasks were compared to the originals, a smile of satisfaction crossed his face.

This tower, he realized, was invaluable—it could drastically lower the mortality rate for awakeners tackling their Star Upgrade Quests, and it offered them a way to correct past failures.

No matter how hard a task had once been, once your level was high enough, it could become almost laughably easy.

Which meant there was no shame in waiting—taking on the easier tasks first, growing stronger, and only then returning to claim perfection.