They didn't know exactly how far reaching Arema Steelworker's control over the Golems was, but Lee Shin-Woo and Jin tacitly agreed that they should remain careful while they were on the train.

Amid the odd silence, the train gradually began to slow down; it was announced that they'd arrived at their destination. They had traveled from the west end of the Empire to the south end almost instantaneously.

"Would anyone believe us if we told them?" Lee Shin-Woo wondered.

"Probably not..."

The Empire would be turned upside down if all heroes were able to use the subway system. That was how revolutionary it was.

Is the Undead Emperor unaware of this facility?

That must be how the facility had remained safe after all this time. By examining the Original Core, Lee Shin-Woo could tell that Arema Steelworker had extremely high authority over manufacturing Golems.

The Emperor must have trusted in his absolute loyalty to charge Arema Steelworker with the responsibility of manufacturing Golems and overseeing their whole operation. It would have been easy to trust the Golems since they were his servants, and he their absolute master.

"We're screwed," Jin suddenly said in a slightly trembling voice.

The place was teeming with Golems beyond the automatic door. Considering that they were all level 4 Bronze Golems armed with weapons, they must be built with Attack Type Cores.

But Lee Shin-Woo had already expected the over-enthusiastic welcome, and he activated his general administrator seal.

[General administrator confirmed.]

[Welcome.]

A few of the Golems spoke mechanically and greeted them. Lee Shin-Woo ordered them to stand in a line just to find out if it was possible, but it turned out they wouldn’t follow such a detailed instruction from him. A general administrator’s seal could only stop them from attacking him. No more, no less.

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped,” Lee Shin-Woo said. “Work hard and get through them. Oh, make sure you choose the right battle ground."

"You demon!"

Lee Shin-Woo made it clear that he would break the seal any minute from now, and Jin hastily stepped out of the train door to make sure that he would be facing one Golem at a time. Without giving Jin any more head start, Lee Shin-Woo shattered the seal. All the Golems turned their attention to them.

[Trespassers detected. Trespassers had infiltrated a critical facility. Reporting to code name, A.S.]

[Communication blocked. Assessing the situation. Proceed to eliminate the trespassers.]

Lee Shin-Woo had sensed the mana flowing through an entire area smothered when Arema Steelworker blocked the Golems’ communication. He realized then how Arema Steelworker had been ghosting the Golems.

He isn’t blocking communication for each Golem, but by region.

In other words, this area was now safe from Arema Steelworker's scrutiny. The moment he realized that, Lee Shin-Woo recreated the seal and ordered the Golems away. Jin's eyes blazed with indignation as he whirled around and yelled at Lee Shin-Woo, "Are you training me like a dog!?"

"I have to feed you something tasty before the training begins."

"Ugh."

Jin groaned when he saw the Bone Original Core Lee Shin-Woo had put aside for him like he had swallowed a lemon whole. Lee Shin-Woo beckoned him over, and Jin inched closer like a criminal being offered poison.

"Should you be taking that out now?" asked JIn.

"The communications are completely cut in this region. We can talk freely now."

"Really? By the way, Lee Shin-Woo. How the hell were you able to face a level 8 Golem and lie without even blinking!? That was a level 8 Golem!"

Jin was finally able to shout at Lee Shin-Woo. He was more shocked than awed by what his companion had done.

Lee Shin-Woo chuckled and replied, "Who cares? They lied to me too. They definitely are against the Emperor, but don't believe anything else they said."

"Really!? But they sounded like they were going to cry...!"

"Anyone can pretend to sound upset."

It seemed that Jin had taken everything at face value. Noticing the pitying looks from Lee Shin-Woo, Jin turned away and did his best to explain himself, "We aren't enemies. Why would they lie to us…?"

"There are things you have to keep from your allies as well. Although we have a common enemy, there's no guarantee that they would be our allies."

"You sure sounded confident in front of that Golem."

"Well, it’s imperative that we get stronger as quickly as possible. And I was able to hold myself against him because he doesn't know how fast we’ve been growing." Lee Shin-Woo responded ever so calmly. "In any case, we got everything we wanted; maybe even more. We now have a way to contact them."

Lee Shin-Woo had said that they would only use the train, but as they came and went, the Golems would inevitably take an interest in them again. Arema Steelworker knew that as well.

Lee Shin-Woo’s final goal was to constantly use the train to impress the Golems, gain their trust, and ultimately forge a deep connection with them. If it's possible, Lee Shin-Woo wanted to form a contract with them as well.

Frightened, Jin asked, "Doesn’t that mean we’ll remain in their sight, and they’ll be watching us?"

"That’s how life is. Isn't it a worthwhile cause for us to take on the risk?"

"You're really bold, aren't you..."

"If I weren’t, I wouldn't be able to act at all. Hurry up and come over here."

"Damn it. I hate things that hurt."

Lee Shin-Woo had his fill of Jin's admiring gaze and placed the Bone Original Core on his forehead. Like an oral surgeon about to perform root canal surgery on a patient, he lied in a gentle voice, "Let me know if it hurts. Bone Reinforcement!"

"Ughhhhhhhhhh!"

Of course, there was not much Lee Shin-Woo could do even if Jin said that it hurt. At most, he could put a hand on Jin’s back and share some of the pain through their connection, helping him fully absorb the core. Since Lee Shin-Woo had already absorbed a core before, it was quite easy for him.

[Strength has increased by 2, and Magic by 3.]

"What a goldmine," Lee Shin-Woo muttered.

Although he'd absorbed the information from an Original Core, there were quite a bit more newfound memories in this one.

[You cockroaches. Why don't you just give up?]

[Our duty is one of honor. This is all for the sake of the Emperor.]

"Hoo."

"Gahhhhhhhhh."

Lee Shin-Woo took away all of the memories Jin couldn't handle, while a massive amount of knowledge about mana and how it can harmonize with the body poured into Jin’s mind.

It was ridiculously easy for Lee Shin-Woo to absorb this core compared to the last one, but it seemed from Jin’s gritted teeth that he was having a hard time.

"It hurts! Just a little... Just a little slower, please!"

"If I slow it down any further, you'll lose all the memories. It'll be tough, but endure it a little while longer."

As expected, Lee Shin-Woo couldn’t do anything even though Jin was in pain. Jin should've known from his experience visiting the dentist! He would cry in protest of Lee Shin-Woo’s betrayal if he could. As it was, all he could do was take it as all the information within the core got shoved into his brain. It had lasted for less than five minutes, yet it felt like an eternity.

"Ugh, ugh..."

"You alright?" asked Lee Shin-Woo.

"No, I’m not alright!"

After he had finally finished absorbing the core, Jin dry-heaved like Lee Shin-Woo had done even though nothing would ever come out and gritted his teeth.

"How much did your stats increase?" Lee Shin-Woo gently asked.

"Strength by 9, agility by 15, endurance by 7, and magic by 13... Plus, most of my skills have increased by 2 or 3 levels each..."

"It was good that you absorbed it, right?"

"Yeah. Damn it..."

Even when taking into consideration the skill that tripled the growth of Jin’s agility, it was still a ridiculous amount of stat points to earn. The Original Core really was a goldmine.

Of course, the cores would become less and less effective the more they absorbed, but it remained an attractive reinforcement material nonetheless. Lee Shin-Woo looked at the swarm of Golems outside. With clear excitement, he said, "By the time we clear every stop on the map, we should both be level 5."

"I'm not going through another Bone Reinforcement for the next month."

"Shouldn't we aim for level 6 in a month?"

"No, you demon!"

How much information could there be for Jin to still be off-kilter and unable to totter around normally? Lee Shin-Woo knew just the thing to do in this situation.

"Now, go out and fight."

"You’re the devil himself!"

"The information in your head hasn't been fully organized yet, so you should adapt to the knowledge and experiences by actually using them in battles. I've already gone through this before, so you should listen to me."

"Ugh..."

Jin didn’t have a choice and ended up following Lee Shin-Woo's orders to the letter. Whenever the seal stopped radiating light, the Golems would make announcements in their monotone voices and swarm up to them in droves. It was a small comfort that none of the Golems were equipped with long distance weapons.

[Repelling trespassers.]

[Aiding. The space is narrow, and we cannot afford to damage the critical facility. Standing by.]

"Steel Body!"

Countless Golems were coming up to them! Jin instinctively activated Steel Body as he fought them off. His body was reinforced much faster and with much more ease than before thanks to the Bone Original Core!

"Gaaaah!"

"Ooh."

Following his instincts, Jin kicked the Golem right in front of him and stomped on it, and then he twisted around and swept away the Golems behind him with his hind legs in one swift motion. His legs had become as sharp and heavy as an axe through Steel Body, and all the Golems were flung away by the kick!

"Good, you're doing well! Now you can take on the majority of the Golems here on your own!"

"Grrrrraaaaah!"

Jin used Lee Shin-Woo's cheery comments to fuel his anger and went on a rampage! Worse, it dawned on him that Lee Shin-Woo was right about digesting the accumulated knowledge during battles, which pissed him off even more!

Meanwhile, Lee Shin-Woo marveled at the complete transformation Jin had gone through in such a short period of time, especially concerning his movements in combat.

Oh, he's doing much better than I'd expected.

Jin hadn’t started out talented, but after establishing a contract with Lee Shin-Woo and getting thrusted into all kinds of situations because of their connection, he ended up exceeding his own limits. Their contract had brought about a miraculous growth!

Lee Shin-Woo wasn't even aware of that. After realizing that Jin was more skilled than he’d expected, the only thought in his wicked mind was that he could push Jin even more from now on.

"Hoo, Hooo..."

It'd been 10 minutes since the battle started. Eventually, Steel Body leveled up once more, and Jin could finally drop his front legs. There were no enemies left.

"Hey... I took down all of the Golems!" Jin exclaimed.

"Wow, there were at least fifty of them. Nice job."

"I really want to kill you right now."

"I’ll let you kill me once. That’ll leave me with 96 lives."

Lee Shin-Woo calmly retorted as he collected the loot. Then he applied bone powder on the parts that were cracked and scraped on Jin's body like he was rubbing an ointment before activating Bone Reinforcement. Jin twisted around like it was itchy.

"A good amount of Perium is dropped, but there are a lot of cores as well. I counted 52 Attack Type Cores..."

"Is that enough for you to complete one Original Core?” asked Jin.

"Well, it’ll depend on our luck."

Lee Shin-Woo had already figured out the composition of an Original Core, but combining the replica cores to create another Original Core was a different issue entirely. The purpose of reinforcing the core wasn't to match the dislocated sections, but to restore the sections that were lost by combining two cores with similar characteristics. Naturally, there was a chance that the process could fail.

"It’s fine though,” Lee Shin-Woo said. “There should be a lot more Golems out there."

"Some of them would’ve been taken care of by the other heroes."

"Don’t jinx us like that," Lee Shin-Woo scolded Jin for saying something that might bring them bad luck before leading the way out of the passageway, all the while keeping the general administrator’s seal on one hand.

"Why do you keep creating the seal and then erasing it?" Jin asked, confused.

"I'm practicing."

"You’ve already succeeded in making it several times, though."

Lee Shin-Woo chuckled.

"That's not it."

"Huh...?"

"I feel like I might be able to use it somewhere else..."

Honestly, there was another reason Lee Shin-Woo wanted to keep in touch with Arema Steelworker and his Golems. He wanted them to share their plan with him, but catching their attention just seemed much too passive an approach.

Lee Shin-Woo had opted for something more proactive like he had always done. To succeed...

"I want to obtain higher authority than just an ordinary administrator…"

Lee Shin-Woo's eyes gleamed, and the red goblin fire in his eyes shone wickedly. He was thinking back to the seal Guillotine Steelworker had created to unlock the door. Jin couldn’t do anything but laugh when he finally realized what Lee Shin-Woo's true intention was.