Chapter 11 : Chapter 11
Chapter 11 : Restoration
Upgrade walked a few steps ahead of Sal, pointing at various tables in the workshop.
She had decided to provide a private tour, thinking there was a high possibility Sal would spend a lot of time here in the future.
Sal tried his best to look at the back of her head as much as possible while she walked ahead, or focus on the workbenches she pointed to with her hand.
However, after seeing her armor, concentration became increasingly difficult.
Unlike the loose-fitting and practical work clothes, her armor was cool enough for people to go wild over.
Sal understood why the school had banned body-revealing uniforms for students.
Sal had absolutely no idea she was the hero Upgrade.
Upgrade was one of the few people who earned a hero's name as a Supporter, and possessed abilities befitting that reputation.
What confused Sal the most right now was the fact that he was replicating her ability, Upgrade, in a perfect form, and even witnessed its activation scene in person.
Sal was incredibly curious about what the necklace she wore was.
‘Is it a delivery substance? A device storing materials?’
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't find the answer.
Upgrade turned around and laughed loudly.
“Hey, do I need to give you an item to appraise for you to snap out of it?”
“Yes?”
Sal snapped out of it momentarily and started retracing what he missed.
Upgrade put her hands on her waist and made a sympathetic expression.
“You haven't talked to girls much, have you?”
Her tone was almost teasing, and Sal became obsessed with the thought that he had to refute.
“That’s unfair. You’re not an ordinary woman.”
Upgrade tilted her head slightly and made a thoughtful expression.
“Oh, not ordinary? Then what am I?”
Sal struggled to find the right word in his head, glanced at Upgrade, and eventually spat out the first word that came to mind.
“Just… prettier.”
Upgrade bit her lip, placed a hand over her chest, and turned her head.
She tried to hold back her laughter but eventually burst out, and Sal received the maximum sympathetic gaze she could show.
“I didn't even tease you yet, if this is how you react…”
She took a step closer and lightly cupped Sal’s chin with her hand.
“If I genuinely tease you, what happens to you then?”
Her face came right up to Sal’s, and a playful smile bloomed.
“Hm?”
Sal stumbled backward with his heart pounding.
Bumping into the workbench behind him with a thud, he apologized to the workbench saying sorry while backing away.
Whatever face he had left evaporated into embarrassment.
Upgrade burst into clear laughter once again, covering her mouth with her hand and gracefully wiping away tears forming in her eyes with her fingertips.
She looked at Sal with an expression of disbelief and said.
“Wow. I thought you'd be innocent but… didn't know it would be this much. Amazing.”
Other employees working nearby raised their heads one by one to look this way, and Sal realized more than half of them were women.
Upgrade whispered towards them as if conspiring.
“Our new appraiser is weak to flirting, apparently. So let’s not bully him with that, okay?”
All eyes in the room focused on Sal, and his face flushed red.
“You know, Upgrade is someone who takes even a little compliment as a love confession.”
A slender man approached with a bright smile.
He wiped off liquid that looked like green monster blood from his hands and held out a hand to Sal.
“You’re an appraiser, right?”
As Sal took his hand and nodded, the man took out a small stone and held it up high between two fingers.
“Could you take a look at this? Then I’ll teach you how to make Upgrade lose interest in you.”
Sal turned his gaze and saw Upgrade laughing with another female employee while looking at him.
“Alright.”
Sal muttered while activating his ability.
“I’m Sal.”
The stone was a core.
Cores exist in various shapes and sizes, but such things didn't matter at all when appraising their value.
What was important was the amount of magical essence stored inside and the refinement level.
Sal only had basic knowledge about essence and couldn't be called an expert on the refinement process.
But when it came to value assessment, he was more confident than anyone.
There was a pattern inscribed on the stone, hidden by the man’s fingers.
“Can I touch it?”
Sal reached out for the core.
Without hesitation, the man handed over the core.
“What do you see, Sal?”
He asked quietly, gathering other employees closer with his remaining hand.
Sal took a deep breath and slowly rotated the stone between his fingers.
His eyes were reading details impossible to capture with the naked eye, cross-analyzing with countless pieces of information stored in his brain.
“This stone is a core. At least Rare grade quality, but essence storage capacity is poor. The surface is smooth, meaning the processor refined it without knowing the value of this item, and traces of essence leaking are visible from these protruding parts. As a result, the value of this core has dropped to one-fifth of its original value.”
As Sal appraised the core, his mood started to worsen.
This seemed to be handed over not just as a simple test but to humiliate him.
A difference an ordinary appraiser, or even a student, couldn't notice.
How would a student feel if they excitedly appraised a core handed by a hero, only to be told they were wrong by that hero?
“Traces of attempting a self-charging rune are also visible, but it's an absorption rune, not self-charging. Consequently, it became a useless item absorbing only the appraiser's concentration instead of essence. For example, a gullible appraiser?”
Sal raised his head and looked at the man, saying.
“So, do you want it back? Or do you want to hear more details about how much you ruined this stone?”
Silence filled the room.
Sal looked around at the employees surrounding him.
He wondered if he should have held back a bit more, but it was already too late.
These people were heroes, university instructors, and seniors.
But Upgrade had an expression of unable to hide her surprise.
Seeing Upgrade’s face like that, greed arose.
Sal gripped the core again.
Since he received everyone’s attention anyway, he decided to use it properly.
If they were people he would work with in the future, he had to earn their respect.
Sal quietly deactivated Upgrade’s ability and pulled up his mother’s threads.
The only difference was that he removed his mother’s knots to make it the highest version of Restoration.
He knew it was excessive.
‘A bit childish?’
It was.
But he didn't care.
Sal turned his head to the man who handed the core and said.
“Never mind. I’ll fix it for you.”
Sal pushed all his power into the threads and focused on the core in his hand.
The core began to glow white, pulling in the mana flowing from Sal’s fingertips.
Every single groove was restored to its original form, but while maintaining the pattern as is, he refined the pattern with essence controlled by his eyes.
Gritting his teeth and going through the final calibration with his appraisal ability, Sal deactivated the ability.
The core had grown too large to pick up with fingers, and Sal held the core with both hands.
Whether due to fatigue from using the restoration ability at maximum output, only heavy sincerity remained in Sal’s tone without playfulness.
“Rune engraving and refinement exist to increase the value of an item. This core was Rare even in its original state, but since the correct self-charging rune was added and calibrated to have no essence leakage, it would be closer to Epic grade now.”
Upgrade approached Sal in an instant and snatched the core from his hands.
With a tap on her pendant, one hand changed into a precision claw, and she began to inspect the core precisely with various tools.
“Francis, check this right now. Gosha, look at the essence leakage status.”
Sal narrowed his eyes and glared at Upgrade.
‘Meaning they can’t trust me? After inviting me to this workshop, they intended to mock and ignore me in the end?’
If his appraisal ability hadn't been this strong, he might have missed the essence leakage too.
‘If that happened, everyone would have laughed at me, right?’
Sal looked at Upgrade one last time and completely engraved her skill into his mind.
Since it was the second replication, the threads were composed much more smoothly.
All eyes around were focused on the restored core, and Sal was now exhausted with both this workshop and the employees.
Now having copied the Upgrade skill and having a workbench in his room, he had no reason to rely on them anymore.
Whether due to fatigue or inner anxiety, he no longer wanted his work evaluated.
Sal briefly put his hand on a nearby workbench to balance himself, and quietly returned to the Silver Cohort.
He had to find his group again.
***
“Damn it, it really is Epic.”
Upgrade gasped, inspecting the core for the third time.
“Gosha, how’s the status?”
Upgrade gained certainty from the thumbs up flown from the other side of the core.
“Really? No leakage either? That’s nonsense… Francis, what about you?”
She looked back at the rune expert, and he was staring at the core in disbelief.
“…Perfect.”
Upgrade deactivated her ability with an expression as if she would dance on the spot.
It was an item she absolutely couldn't afford with her salary, but she had to get her hands on this somehow.
This core was much superior to the one she wore around her neck, and her ability automatically began churning out numerous blueprints utilizing this core.
But she pushed those designs aside and maintained focus.
She couldn't believe the fact that she witnessed a newly admitted freshman accurately piercing through and appraising a broken core with attention deficit.
That alone was amazing, but he perfectly restored the core and even precisely calibrated the rune.
Upgrade looked back at the scene where light flashed in Sal’s eyes and his hands became tools of essence.
It was the most marvelous among the moments she had seen.
"Okay, I admit it. This one is completely your win. Still, can I pester you for a discount occasionally…?”
Upgrade turned around, but Sal was nowhere to be seen.
She looked around, but others also seemed bewildered not knowing where Sal went.
Taking a few careful steps, Upgrade went back along the path they came, wondering if Sal got lost.
Scanning the line of workbenches, she looked around.
When she returned to the main area, countless students were roaming around tables pouring out stupid questions.
Finally spotting Porge, the head of the workshop, Upgrade walked to him.
"Porge, didn't you see the student who was with me? The kid with the Silver Token."
Porge snorted.
"That was already two groups ago? The kids here now are the Black Cohort. It'll be over soon."
He turned around and walked away as if it was no big deal.
Upgrade’s head became complicated, making it difficult to concentrate.
She knew reviewing the work took time, but did it take that long?
Porge stopped and added one more word.
"Ah, and speaking of which, guess you're not like before either. That kid with silver eyes said this?”
Upgrade nodded slowly, thinking about what Porge intended to say.
"I asked that guy. If he was going to take the crafting class you teach. Wow, never saw such a fast rejection in my life.”
Upgrade looked at Porge with eyes of disbelief.
“When I pushed a bit more asking for the reason, he said you weren't his preferred style of person. Didn't know he'd say that to a hero. Is he the type to ignore Supporter classes or something? Haha."
Porge burst into laughter and crossed the workshop floor, faithfully answering other students' questions.
Upgrade bit her lip tightly and recalled the whole situation again through Sal’s perspective.
“Arrrgh! Such fucking bullshit…!”
Then she poured all kinds of curses on herself and painfully vomited out a suppressed scream.
“Whoa, wait a minute. You’ll scare the kids, Upgrade. What, what is it?”
Porge walked back and looked at her with a face full of worry.
Quite a few students also looked at her with confused eyes.
Some of them were not because of her explosive reaction, but simply fixed their gaze on the existence of hero Upgrade itself.
Conscious of the gazes, Porge took her and left the place.
“What did I do, Porge? I ruined everything. That kid must be detesting us right now.”
Porge’s expression seemed to say ‘Calm down, it probably isn't that serious’.
But Upgrade confessed the whole situation before hearing those words.
“The kid approached me. He was separated from his group. Fine, that can happen. I just explained as usual. Workshop operation method, class curriculum, stuff like that.”
Porge nodded. Upgrade raised her head to face Porge and stepped closer saying.
“But then that kid took out and showed me a Silver Token. Do you know whose it was? It was Vila’s! He was a kid who signed a contract with the Reavers Guild. How amazing and tough must he be? Plus, he's an appraiser. So I asked him to look at my gloves. To check if he was really good.”
Porge raised both hands and stealthily stepped back, but Upgrade moved with him and kept talking.
“But he, he’s really fucking good. Not at student level already. He saw through everything inside the gloves. So I got excited too and showed him my hero suit. Looking at the kid's face, he totally fell for it. So I teased him a little. He’s a kid who’ll work with us in the future anyway, and since he totally fell for me, I just wanted to use that to take the lead. He’s a student!”
“Upgrade, calm down for a sec—”
“Yeah, the joke was a bit one-sided. But seeing a kid I thought would be tough react so innocently was so cute. I was going to stop soon too… but that problematic son of a bitch ran out holding that core.”
“…Marcus.”
Porge corrected quietly, but Upgrade didn't accept it.
“Yeah, fuckwit Marcus. Marcus heard the kid was an appraiser, brought that weird core, and tried to play a prank. I tried to stop it too. But the guys stopped me saying they just wanted to see what happens….”
“In the end, it turned out you tried to humiliate him.”
The disappointment in Porge’s voice stabbed Upgrade’s chest.
No matter how much she tried to rationalize, the fact that they were the villains didn't change.
Porge tapped Upgrade’s shoulder lightly and smiled to reassure her.
“I’ll talk to Marcus. If we make him apologize to that kid, maybe the kid will be interested in the class again. But I don't think Marcus is the only one who needs to apologize?”
Upgrade steadied her breath and looked at Porge with meaningful eyes.
“That core couldn't fool the kid. That kid finished appraisal in seconds and told us everything that was wrong. Listening to that, we lost our minds. Honestly speaking, it was totally cool. I really wanted to hug him.”
Upgrade let out a hollow laugh and continued.
“But he went one step further. Said he has a restoration skill too. His eyes flashed, and the broken core turned into a completely new item.”
“What? Does that make sense?”
“If only that was it? No leakage, rune engraving perfect, core stable, and it’s even recovering essence by itself right now! We are… creators. How can we maintain rationality?”
“Can’t.”
“Right, so as soon as he finished work, everyone rushed in to check. We were looking at it until just now.”
Porge’s brow furrowed deeper.
“Restoration, appraisal, and silver eyes? Seems like the successor of the Argento Auction House?”
Upgrade closed her eyes and quietly bowed her head.
When Sal said his name, she was so distracted by the damn token that she didn't notice the meaning at all.
Porge clapped his hands and said.
“Okay, stop blaming yourself. If something is broken, think about fixing it. Give Sal priority for enrollment, and offer the class for free too. Add some materials, a personal workbench, and mentoring directly from the best hero.”
Porge pointed at Upgrade, and she nodded, taking off her flannel shirt and tying it around her waist.
Porge guessed her intention immediately seeing that.
“Going to find the kid now?”
Upgrade glanced at the door on the other side of the workshop and said.
“He should be registering skills by now. I’ll be back soon.”