-DING
At last, the message he had been waiting and waiting for arrived.
“Haaaa…”
Jeon Jae-woo narrowed his eyes to the tiniest of slits and checked the message with painstaking care.
‘Please… please…!’
==
Interview Results Notification
Hello, Mr. Jeon Jae-woo.
First, we would like to sincerely thank you for applying to our company and demonstrating your outstanding abilities. At the same time, we regret to inform you that we will not be able to move forward together. Our company has carefully considered your…
==
In short, the message was telling him that he had failed the document screening and could fuck off.
“Fuck.”
Without bothering to read the rest, he cursed and closed his phone.
The job market these days was nothing short of hell.
He had failed to find employment yet again. This marked his seventieth failure—a monumental number, if there was anything worth commemorating about it.
Jeon Jae-woo was already twenty-six.
He had been a full-grown adult for quite some time, yet he was still an ordinary unemployed man without so much as a single line of work experience to put on his résumé.
He was, quite simply, a hopeless freeloader who did nothing but grow older while consuming food and money.
The frustration made him want to scream at the top of his lungs.
Unfortunately, the soundproofing here was atrocious, so the neighbors would immediately start cursing at him for making too much noise.
Not only did Jeon Jae-woo’s studio apartment have terrible soundproofing, but his neighbors were awful as well. For the sake of his own well-being, keeping quiet was the safest option.
It was a miserable life when he could not even let out a proper scream, but what could he do?
When you had no power, all you could do was swallow your frustration and endure it.
After lying there in a daze for some time, Jeon Jae-woo eventually dragged himself upright.
“…This is not going to work.”
There was no one left he could ask for money. If he could not get hired by a company, then he would have to take a part-time job at a logistics center and earn money somehow.
He had heard that logistics center jobs had become far more grueling than they used to be.
‘What could happen besides dying?’
-DING.
Just as he made that new resolution, another notification sounded.
Startled, he hurriedly picked up the phone he had just closed.
Could it possibly be belated news that he had passed somewhere…?
Contrary to his hopes, however, his phone remained silent.
Come to think of it, that notification just now had not come from his phone.
“??”
Only then did Jeon Jae-woo raise his head and notice something floating before his eyes.
[Congratulations. You have awakened a new Trait.]
“…I awakened a Trait? Me?”
Unless he had gone insane, this was unmistakably the notification window said to be visible only to Hunters—the message congratulating someone on their Awakening.
His heart began pounding wildly once again.
‘Did I really obtain a Trait? Does that mean I have awakened as a Hunter?’
Monsters, Gates, and everything else that had once served as the backdrop of Hunter fiction, one of the popular genres of web novels.
A great deal of time had passed since those things ceased to be merely the setting of genre fiction and became part of the real world.
By now, Hunters killing monsters had become an entirely ordinary part of modern life.
Of course, monsters were still far beyond what ordinary people could handle, but their existence itself no longer inspired much of a reaction.
And more recently, things known as Ruins had begun appearing as well.
If someone succeeded in being the first to clear one, they would gain ownership of that Ruin and be set for life. They were gold mines in the truest sense of the term.
And only Hunters capable of wielding Mana could enter those gold mines.
In any case, Jeon Jae-woo’s heart was pounding so fiercely that it felt ready to leap out of his chest.
The pain of yet another failed job application had already vanished without a trace.
This notification window was worth infinitely more than an acceptance letter from some pathetic little company.
Not once since the Great Cataclysm had being a Hunter ceased to be considered one of the greatest professions in existence.
Hunters were indispensable to the continued survival of nations.
To ordinary people, they were objects of envy and admiration, while at the same time enjoying a status that effectively made them the legal equivalent of modern-day nobility.
“C-Calm down.”
Jeon Jae-woo eventually regained control of himself and started by taking a deep breath.
At this rate, his heart might actually burst.
There was no question that awakening was one of the few genuinely happy things to happen to him in recent years.
But he could not let his expectations soar too high.
The greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment that followed.
What would he do if he had finally awakened, only for his Trait to be the lowest possible grade?
Statistically speaking, the lowest-grade Trait was the most likely outcome.
After all, only one person in ten among the entire population awakened at all, even if one included those with the lowest-grade Traits.
“All right. Just awakening at all is already incredible. Whatever Trait I got does not really matter.”
Of course, it would be even better if he had awakened a good Trait. But if not, so be it.
In truth, it mattered immensely.
Deep down, he was hoping for something above B-grade now that he had awakened at all. If he allowed himself to be even greedier, he wanted an A-grade Trait.
‘I heard Hunters with A-grade Traits start at an annual salary of 100 billion won…’
Trembling like a leaf, Jeon Jae-woo opened his Status Window.
For an awakened Hunter, the single most important piece of information was naturally their Trait.
That was because the grade displayed beside a Trait directly represented the Hunter’s own standing.
“……???”
The instant he saw his Trait, however, an involuntary gasp escaped him.
Jeon Jae-woo swallowed hard.
He rubbed his eyes again and again, checking whether he had somehow misread it.
But no matter how many times he looked, he had not.
The Trait Jeon Jae-woo had awakened was—
[(Sealed) Heaven’s Box – Transcendent]
[Ruins Currently Cleared – ]
[Number of Ruins Available to Clear (12)]
Good heavens.
It was not B-grade.
It was not A-grade.
It was not even S-grade.
He had awakened a Transcendent-grade Trait.
Hunter Traits normally ranged from E-grade upward through D, C, B, A, and finally S-grade.
However, there was supposedly another level beyond those—a stage considered impossible to measure even with the Status Windows available to Hunters.
That was the Transcendent grade.
It was also a grade possessed by the tiny handful of Hunters considered the very best in the entire world. Every one of them was said to have at least one Transcendent-grade Trait.
At this point, his heart had gone beyond merely pounding. It felt as though his chest might explode.
A Transcendent-grade Trait.
Was it really acceptable for an unemployed nobody like him to awaken something like that?
No, that was not the issue.
What if he died after finally awakening a Transcendent-grade Trait?
Even if he felt as though he might drop dead at any moment, he had to cling desperately to life.
“But… what exactly does this ability do?”
He had been so stunned that he had not even checked what the Trait actually was.
Jeon Jae-woo examined the Status Window again and tilted his head.
The name of his Transcendent-grade Trait was remarkably strange.
Granted, it might have been stranger for a Transcendent-grade Hunter Trait to have an ordinary name, but still—Heaven’s Box?
‘Does it literally mean a box from Heaven?’
If the Trait was called a box, perhaps its ability was to draw random items out of one.
As if on cue, a brief explanation appeared beneath the Status Window.
[(Sealed) Heaven’s Box – Transcendent]
This is a weapon used during the Great War of ancient Earth. Insert any materials to amplify their capabilities by anywhere from several times to several thousand times, then fuse them together to create a new weapon.
“……??”
What kind of explanation was that?
It was full of vague nonsense about some ancient Great War, and even the usage instructions merely said he could put any materials inside to create a new weapon.
“Hmm. I suppose I should experiment with it first and figure out exactly what kind of Trait it is.”
As a general rule, awakened Traits were only supposed to be used inside Ruins or Dungeons unless special circumstances applied.
However, if his Trait was related to creating things, it did not seem as dangerous as a combat-oriented Trait.
More importantly, he could not stand not knowing what his Trait actually did.
-HUMMMMM…
Upon awakening, he had instinctively learned how to activate his Trait.
‘So this is the Mana I have only ever heard about.’
Jeon Jae-woo felt the unfamiliar sensation of Mana throughout his entire body.
He certainly felt as though something had changed after awakening.
He had not obtained a Martial-Type Trait or anything of the sort, yet it felt as though his overall physical abilities had improved.
Jeon Jae-woo immediately activated Heaven’s Box.
-THUD.
“……??”
A moment later, an actual box dropped onto the floor at his feet.
Jeon Jae-woo stared intently at the newly created box.
But no matter how long he stared at it, it looked like nothing more than a black box.
Aside from being black, it was not particularly different from an oversized delivery box.
“…Is this seriously it?”
A hollow voice escaped him.
This thing was supposed to be a Transcendent-grade Trait?
If something like this qualified as Transcendent-grade, then elemental magic Traits such as Fire, Wind, and Earth, which fell around D- and C-grade, looked a hundred times better.
Did it perhaps have an ability where, if he shoved the box over a monster’s head, it would show the monster Heaven?
‘Was I so shocked that I misread the Trait’s grade?’
But when he checked his Status Window again, the grade clearly said Transcendent.
Jeon Jae-woo calmed himself down and read the Trait description once more.
[(Sealed) Heaven’s Box – Transcendent]
This is a weapon used during the Great War of ancient Earth. Insert any materials to amplify their capabilities by anywhere from several times to several thousand times, then fuse them together to create a new weapon.
Hmm.
If he put any materials inside, it would create a weapon by amplifying the capabilities of those materials.
In other words, using the Trait required him to put something inside the box?
“Anywhere from several times to several thousand times…”
If that was true, then it certainly sounded powerful enough to deserve the Transcendent grade.
Judging by the lack of a more detailed explanation, it seemed to operate like some kind of randomized draw system. In any case, its ability was apparently to amplify the properties of the inserted materials to an extreme degree.
But did that mean the resulting item would be completely random even if he inserted the exact same materials?
There was not even anything resembling a recipe telling him what materials would produce what result. Would he have to discover those combinations himself by repeatedly using the Trait?
Heaven’s Box.
Although, with its pitch-black surface that looked as though it might suck him inside, it resembled a Hell’s Box more than anything else.
In any case, Jeon Jae-woo stared at the box and thought for a moment.
‘Would ordinary soil work?’
Without giving it much thought, Jeon Jae-woo went and fetched a flowerpot from his apartment.
The plant he had once been growing had died long ago. All that remained was an ordinary pot of soil he had never bothered to throw away.
-RUSTLE
Jeon Jae-woo emptied every last bit of soil from the flowerpot into the box.
The moment the entire pile of dirt had fallen inside—
-CLUNK.
“? Damn, that startled me.”
Heaven’s Box closed automatically.
[Time Remaining Until Production Is Complete 23 : 59 : 57]
Judging by the countdown timer, production had genuinely begun.
Seeing his Trait actually function was rather fascinating.
“Wow. This really works?”
However, judging by the timer, it seemed he would have to wait nearly a full day for the production process to finish.
‘I am curious about what will come out, but this takes longer than I expected.’
Then again, he had only put in ordinary soil that could be found in any household, so there was no reason to expect anything impressive.
Of course, the explanation implied that, if he got lucky, the amplification could reach hundreds of thousands of times, but that was merely a possibility. The odds of it actually happening would surely be low.
The result of his first attempt would probably be something like a clay figurine.
“Well, none of that matters as much as the fact that I awakened in the first place.”
Leaving behind the box filled with soil, Jeon Jae-woo began happily contemplating how he could make use of his Trait from now on.
And exactly twenty-four hours later.
A being that should never have appeared in the human world did exactly that.