Around a day before Jack and his group made it all the way to the Red Giants village, they were traversing a certain mountain path that would have led them directly to the village in under an hour. Then what took them a whole day?

It was simply because while they were walking around the mountain, Izen heard a certain something groaning in pain, and so Carus and Jack decided to check it out. Carus was mostly keeping Izen safe, as she still wasn't the best at controlling her own skills and abilities. Anyhow, that's rather not important right now.

As Jack traversed down a crack in the ground, trying to find out the source of the noise, he soon came face to face with it in a dimly lit cavern. The sunlight leaked into its body as it breathed heavily. The poor creature was near death already, and he kind of felt bad for it. Even if Jack felt bad, that wouldn't change the fact that he was scared sh*tless. The creature had scales all over his body and eyes much like a snake. Of course, if only it had wings, it could have been considered a whole dragon.

Yea, it was a drake, a drake that had been seemingly “killed” by the red giant chief, and its dead body was thrown into this cavern. Well, what they didn't know was that Jack would find the guy here, and even worse for them, the dragon had no energy to protect itself. And that's how the giant creature was added to Jack's army. Of course, he also made sure to take the dragon's scales, as they can be used to make some great stuff.

[You have killed an intermediate V creature.]

[+2000 merits]

[A rank-up trial has been allotted.]

[Please complete the following trial to rank up within one week.]

Back in the present, Jack was enjoying just standing with his arms crossed and watching. In all honesty, he was missing out on a lot of equipment as of now, as he sighed and spoke while enjoying the view of his drake destroying the army of the red giants.

“Skill tree”

[Skill tree: Jack Hoff

Rank: inferior V (ready for rank change)

Class: Blacksmith

Title: Blackjack

Inventory: Aquamarine fangs, Obsidian Flaming Armor, Rhuthras Hammer, Storm Boots, coin of ???.

GENE SKILL:

Devil's deck (intermediate): the user is able to shuffle a deck of cards, excluding the king, queen, and jack for now. Whatever card the user lands on will grant him a certain effect.

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The heart heals any injury or status condition the user may have received.

Diamond creates a protective barrier around the user.

Club provides users with a physical boost in all their physical capabilities.

Spade: anything the user has killed can be summoned to aid them in battle.

The number on the card drawn determines the strength of the ability or its effectiveness. The spade summons will be automatically assigned a number based on their rank between 1 and 10. New summons can be exchanged with old ones, but the numbers will always be decided via strength.

There is a cooldown between drawing cards, and when the next card is drawn, the effects of the old card are replaced.

The queen is now available. The queen's effect varies per card.

Class Skills:

Identification: this ability allows the user to identify the nature of any material and its natural compatibility, its rank, its average price, etc. This ability can be used on other creatures to see their skill page if they have any, and if they don't, it can be used to see their rank and skills if they have any.

Extra skill:

Gigantification: the skill can be activated to turn the user into a giant, their size growing by several times. However, the duration of use is only 5 minutes, and the cooldown is longer. Any magic the user uses as a giant will be more destructive, but it will also consume more mana. The user's items will also increase in size upon activating the skill and decrease when it ends.

will of greed: “Be greedy jack." The skill allows the user to go past their limits and force their body to work in conditions it should be able to. As long as the user isn't technically dead, they can move and fight as much as they wish; however, the pain will only be up to ten times worse.

GENE TRAIT

Devil's Hand: The user has increased luck while gambling, but their luck is reduced while doing anything else. The user can also use this skill for longer by just increasing the size of one part of the body instead of the whole body.

Merits: 33,750]

In all honesty, nothing much has changed except the glowing, ready-for-rank-up part next to his rank; he, by any means, did not see that coming. He had to complete a whole ass mission to reach the next rank, which was annoying as it was, but there were other rulers who had probably done it already, which pissed him off. As for what his mission was, well, won't you know it?

[Rank-up Trial: Blacksmith's Heart

Time: one week

Reward: rank upgrade to intermediate grade

Description: forge a great-grade or above item. A unique grade counts.

Penalty: unable to rank up for a month]

Well, it looked simple enough, right? Except it was not, and in no way was it even possible for him. Great grade was one grade above intermediate, and they were asking him to forge a weapon two grades above him. Well, it didn't need to be a weapon, but still, that was not a joke.

From what he learned in his time in the dungeon, being able to craft one grade above you was considered pretty good already. But two grades?? That was some prodigy sh*t, and unfortunately, he wasn't one. He didn't pay any mind to this either, as he was going to try if he got home in time. Otherwise, he can just wait a month.

Meanwhile, as Jack was having his whole internal monologue, the red giant with the battle axe tried to rush him. Unfortunately for him, Carus wasn't letting him go. As soon as the red giant changed his attention to Jack, Carus took the opportunity and grabbed him by his waist, giving the giant a giant suplex into the ground, creating a crater under them as the whole ground shook. Jack simply sighed, looking at Carus. and spoke

“Show off..”