『Skill Mana Stone Braising advanced to Level 4.』
『Strength Grade increased: E+ => D-.』
『Skill Corpse Fusion (Level 1) acquired.』
Joo Do-gyeom blinked at the system messages.
Mana Stone Braising.
One of the Chef of All Things’ Class Skills, it allowed him to melt Mana Stones down into a braising sauce and use it to increase his mana.
Yet this time, his Strength had increased instead of his mana.
It had risen so sharply that his Grade had changed.
It was rare, but not unheard of.
Sometimes a Skill’s efficiency surpassed the knowledge implanted in his mind.
Or, to be more precise, could it be that part of a Skill’s ability remained hidden instead of revealing itself in full?
The Boundless Heaven and Earth Divine Art, Joo Do-gyeom’s signature ability as the God of War, had also been such a martial art.
If he had to classify it, this too could be called a Hidden Piece.
After all, once he discovered it, new knowledge flowed into his mind.
‘Certain Mana Stones can greatly increase stats other than mana.’
That was not all.
He had also acquired another Skill.
In fact, this was what had truly surprised Joo Do-gyeom.
Corpse Fusion. Its effect was exactly as the name suggested.
‘It gathers and fuses nearby corpses, rebirthing them as a fused undead.’
Simply put, it was summoning magic.
More specifically, it belonged to necromancy and required nearby corpses as sacrifices.
From Joo Do-gyeom’s perspective, it was every bit as out of nowhere as his Class, Chef of All Things.
Still, he did not waste time wondering whether he could put it to use.
More Skills were simply better.
Even if he did not use one right away, it would surely prove useful somewhere.
At any rate.
At Level 1, Corpse Fusion created an undead with the size and power of an ordinary zombie.
Naturally, both its size and power increased with its Level.
By a simple calculation based on the knowledge in his mind.
‘Level 5.’
At around that point, he could create something similar to the Corpse Giant he had seen in the Zombie Burst dungeon.
‘Though with too few corpses nearby, its regenerative ability would be somewhat lacking.’
What more could he ask for?
And that was only at Level 5.
It meant that as its Level rose, he could create even more extraordinary things.
Once his thoughts reached that point, a hollow laugh slipped from his lips without warning.
“Hah.......”
Kim Han-yul had told him to take responsibility if she died.
Her words had made him wonder whether he should learn necromancy, and now, though it was not necromancy itself, he had acquired a similar Skill.
He suddenly found himself curious.
How would Kim Han-yul react if he used this Skill in the next dungeon they entered?
‘That should be quite entertaining.’
The smile on his lips deepened.
***
A week was neither long nor short.
Joo Do-gyeom made good use of the time he had left.
Personal training, managing and reviewing his leveraged investments, and so on.
Ah, incidentally, he had withdrawn all the money he had previously put into Jindo Coin.
‘It’s going to fall again now.’
Then why not bet on a short position?
One might ask, but there would not be much profit in that either.
It would decline only slowly, in small increments, over a very long time.
Joo Do-gyeom had plenty else to do besides investing, making it difficult to keep track of all that.
So his asset-management strategy was this.
‘Use my knowledge of the future to profit only where the outcome is certain, then walk away without looking back.’
In truth, that alone was enough.
Indeed, the amount he had made from his investment in Jindo Coin was already staggering.
His starting capital had been approximately 950 million won.
And now?
He had no reason to invest in cryptocurrency for a while and was curious, so he liquidated everything.
‘About 12.3 billion won?’
He had made more than ten times his money in one stroke.
For an ordinary person, it was enough money to completely change what was possible from that moment on.
From Joo Do-gyeom’s perspective?
‘It’s still not enough.’
There were several magic tools he wanted—no, absolutely had to obtain in this life.
Some of them already had owners and were available for purchase.
The first item he wanted most among them was.
‘Of course. The Formless Armament.’
Formless Armament, Myriad Forms.
It was an armament Joo Do-gyeom had obtained near the end of his life before Regression, in the final days of his time as the God of War.
Just as its epithet suggested, it had no form.
Literally formless.
That was because the equipment itself was engraved into the user’s soul like an imprint.
But at its user’s will, it could take any form as long as it remained a weapon.
Whether a sword, spear, saber, axe, bow, staff, mace, or anything else.
Hence the name Myriad Forms.
Since Joo Do-gyeom could learn and wield many martial arts, he could confidently say there was no better weapon for him.
‘Around this time, it should be on display at a magic-tool museum in France.’
Still possessing a physical form.
Still without an owner.
Although purchasing a museum piece seemed difficult, it would surprisingly be sold before long.
An incompetent magic-tool appraiser at the museum would deem Myriad Forms ‘not worth preserving’ and toss it into an American auction house.
‘Even so, I heard it sold for more than 50 billion won at the time.’
The reason was simple.
Before revealing its true nature, Myriad Forms currently took the form of a sword.
And aesthetically, the sword was extraordinarily beautiful.
It was beautiful enough to make someone hope there might be something to it, even if the appraiser claimed there was nothing.
No, even if it truly were worthless, some people would be satisfied simply to look at it.
‘That auction was...... three months from now.’
Could he turn his current assets into more than 50 billion won by then?
For a while, there would be no stocks or cryptocurrencies that could produce a major windfall.
He remembered several smaller opportunities.
‘But I’d have to keep watching them in real time even after leaving a dungeon.’
Inefficient.
He was not at a point where he could spend his time on such things.
He had to become even a little stronger.
He had to advance even a little farther.
There was no helping it if he wanted to prepare for Doom.
‘Good grief. Should I hire a capable asset manager?’
Perhaps there was someone like that if he carefully combed through the memories Vivienne had engraved into him?
He considered it, but no one came to mind.
And from experience, if nothing came to mind even after he felt the need for it, that meant no such memory existed.
‘This knowledge was probably based to some extent on my own memories in the first place, so of course.’
What reason would his past self have had to care about asset management?
“Tsk.”
He smacked his lips without realizing it.
If he missed the auction three months later, Myriad Forms would inevitably move far beyond his reach.
He would need to wait at least several years.
As his disappointment deepened, Joo Do-gyeom was looking at Formless Armament, Myriad Forms, currently displayed in a museum in France, on his smartphone when a news story at the very top of the portal caught his eye.
【Taeseong Group Chairman Lee Young-sik: Doing Everything He Can to Treat His Daughter.......】
At the same time, lights flashed one after another in Joo Do-gyeom’s mind.
‘So this was when it happened!’
The daughter of the chairman of Taeseong Group, one of South Korea’s leading conglomerates, had collapsed.
It was due to Mana Disease, a special illness born with the emergence of dungeons.
Anyone who contracted Mana Disease fell into a coma.
It was the backlash of mana suddenly appearing in a body unprepared for it.
The treatment was simple.
They only had to enter a dungeon and become a Hunter.
Then their body would naturally recognize that it was prepared, accept the mana, acquire a Class, and awaken from the coma.
There was only one problem.
‘A comatose patient can’t declare entry into a dungeon.’
Thus, they could not wake up.
In the present era, it was considered incurable.
But the future was different.
A special item.
‘Adam’s Apple.’
Using it allowed a person to awaken without entering a dungeon.
Aside from that, it was an unremarkable item with no other effect, but even by future standards, demand for it was surprisingly high.
As mentioned before, there were many people who wanted to become Hunters while minimizing the risks.
Thus, by future standards, Adam’s Apple cost around 100 million won.
Because anyone could enter a dungeon as long as they knew its exact name, and because it was impossible to monopolize one, more Hunters naturally began targeting it, establishing that price.
But by current standards?
‘No one but me knows which dungeon drops Adam’s Apple.’
It was information monopolized by Joo Do-gyeom.
Its value could be said to be tens of billions of won, if not more.
A smile rose to Joo Do-gyeom’s lips.
‘This is good.’
There was still time before the week Kim Han-yul had mentioned was up.
It was the perfect matter to resolve in the meantime.
There was only one problem.
Would the chairman of one of South Korea’s leading conglomerates meet someone as insignificant as Joo Do-gyeom currently was?
‘No. That’s not right.’
The Taeseong Group chairman’s love for his daughter was famously exceptional.
He was desperate enough that anyone could see it from the expression in the news article.
He must have been willing to grasp at even a straw.
With the answer in hand, Joo Do-gyeom decided on a direct approach.
After all, he had nothing to lose.
***
Lee Young-sik, the chairman of Taeseong Group, stared at his gaunt daughter on the hospital bed with a heavy expression.
She truly was the apple of his eye.
After his beloved wife died in a car accident, she was the only direct blood relative he had left.
Though he had brothers and sisters, how could any of them compare to the daughter born of his own seed?
That child had already lain in the hospital for two years.
He had disclosed it to the public only a few months earlier, but in truth, after watching his daughter lie unmoving for so long, his heart had rotted until it was falling apart.
Naturally, much had happened in the meantime.
He had hired renowned healers and curse-breakers. He had also assembled several Hunter teams and sent them to explore dungeons, asking them to investigate anything that might help with her treatment.
Yet all of them had failed.
Not a single method had opened his bedridden daughter’s eyes.
As the time dragged on, swindlers interested only in the money he offered began swarming around him.
Flies blinded by greed.
They had made a mockery of both his ailing daughter and his feelings.
Naturally, their ends were unpleasant.
Lee Young-sik was a legendary figure who had risen to the position of chairman as the third son, not even the eldest.
He loved his daughter more than anyone, but his cold-bloodedness made a human life seem trivial.
Those who crossed the line died with their limbs torn apart.
Because that was what Lee Young-sik had wanted.
As a result, the number of flies had certainly decreased.
The problem was that the number of people willing to come forward and treat his daughter had also fallen sharply.
The Hunter teams he had operated for years remained hard at work, but there was no knowing when they would find an answer.
Still, he could not abandon hope.
He would not give up.
‘Somehow......’
He would restore his daughter to the way he remembered her.
Without fail.
At that moment, as Lee Young-sik clasped his daughter’s thin hand between both of his, the light of resolve burned fiercely in his eyes.
“Chairman, I have something to report.”
The Chief Secretary knocked lightly on the door and called to him.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Chief Secretary Kang Tae-woo appeared. After bowing in greeting, he continued.
“We were contacted by a man who claims to have information on an item that can cure Mana Disease.”
“What do you make of him?”
“His credibility is not high. He claims it could even lead to a major business opportunity, but our investigation found that he has not yet been a Hunter for even a few months.”
“I see.”
Lee Young-sik nodded.
He rose from his seat and said,
“Let us meet him.”
Joo Do-gyeom’s prediction had been correct.
Lee Young-sik was willing to grasp at even a suspicious straw.
Even if the man was a swindler, it did not matter.
‘If he intends to make a mockery of us......’
All Lee Young-sik had to do was make him meet the same end as the flies who had previously been reduced to gruesome wrecks.
As he looked away from his daughter, nothing but cold remained in his eyes.
***
Lee Young-sik, the chairman of one of South Korea’s leading chaebols.
Joo Do-gyeom met such a man more easily than expected.
The moment Joo Do-gyeom sat across from him, Lee Young-sik spoke with cold eyes.
“Joo Do-gyeom, was it? I will warn you in advance. If you came here to play some clumsy trick, get up and leave now. This will be the last mercy I can offer you.”
His voice brimmed with wariness and killing intent.
Sensing his feelings in those sharp words, Joo Do-gyeom replied in a calm voice.
“You need not worry. There is no chance my information is wrong.”
“And if it is?”
“Then you may take my life. If you are confident enough.”
His calm remained unwavering to the very end.
And it was not only his voice.
His pitch-black eyes were utterly still.
‘Even while speaking of his own death.’
Lee Young-sik’s eyebrow twitched involuntarily, and a somewhat ferocious smile crossed his face.
Then he nodded and said, “I will hear you out.”
At the very least, he was no mere nobody or greenhorn.
Lee Young-sik had become certain of that much.