Chapter 604

Ding.

System

• You have gained enlightenment regarding Middle Dantian!
• Middle Dantian is partially activated!
• Middle Dantian activation: 10%
• The efficiency of all martial arts and internal energy has increased slightly, and you may occasionally exert strength beyond your limits!
• You have achieved the rare Achievement Waaah, I’m a Baby Middle Dantian!
• You have gained a large amount of EXP as an Achievement reward!
• Level Up!

Activated?

I hadn’t expected that.

It had been more than a month since I opened my Middle Dantian, but I’d had no idea it could do this.

And then, following the System notification announcing an unexpected reward, the news I had been waiting for arrived.

Ding.

System

• The range of Qi Sense is expanding!
• The target cannot be identified precisely!
• An unidentified, strange power is being sensed!

I hadn’t identified the target, but this wasn’t a failure. It was a success.

Something existed beyond this wall. Certain of it, I punched the wall without hesitation.

Boom!

The solid wall burst apart, revealing empty space.

Area A, hidden on the top floor of Ares Guild headquarters, was held in place by barriers, invisibility magic, and gravity magic. The government investigators must have known that too.

The problem was that they’d missed the most important thing.

No. They couldn’t have helped missing it.

I reached through the broken wall and ran my hand through the air. I felt nothing. It was empty, just as it appeared to be. The mana detector in Team Leader Choi’s hand remained silent.

But I was certain something lay beyond it.

Fwoosh.

Three jiazi¹ of Scorching Yang Qi transformed into flame. I silently looked down at my hands, bluish-white flames flickering over them, then closed my eyes and reached out.

What you see isn’t everything.

It was a matter of perception. I had to see and feel with my instincts, my senses, my heart—not my eyes.

I focused every bit of my attention and poured out internal energy without restraint. My partially opened Middle Dantian responded.

The flickering flames gradually settled, completely enveloping my entire hand.

Compression. True Form.

And then…

Crack.

I gripped the flow of qi in my grasp and tore it apart with all my strength.

Shraaak!

The air split apart amid the bluish-white flames. Force dispelled spells I couldn’t begin to understand, revealing an opening into another space.

The Skeleton King and Team Leader Choi stared blankly at the scene unfolding before them and muttered.

“He… tore it.”

“How in the world did you…?”

“When your body’s no good, your head has to do the work. Let’s go.”

“…Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

“Usually, yes.”

But I’m not usual.

At my casual reply, Team Leader Choi tossed the mana detector behind him.

Hmm. Having a good body really was the best.

It was a good thing we’d cleared the top floor in case something happened. Otherwise, we might have broadcast our entry into an unidentified subspace live.

Swoosh.

I stepped through the tall, narrow opening into a completely different world.

What the hell is this?

The space was vast and high-ceilinged, filled with a kind of elegance and extravagance I wasn’t used to. Team Leader Choi and the Skeleton King followed me in, too busy looking around to speak.

“That’s…”

Team Leader Choi walked across the soft carpet, his eyes trembling faintly. He studied a painting hanging in the wide corridor.

“Salvator Mundi.”

“Did you just call me Mundi?”

“No. That’s the painting’s title. Salvator Mundi. It’s a masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. Have you never heard of it?”

“I’ve heard it from my mom now and then. She’s from Gyeongsang-do.”²

“…”

“What’s that look for? Are you looking down on Gyeongsang-do? Team Leader Choi, do you have regional prejudice?”

“What? Regional prejudice?”

That hadn’t come from Team Leader Choi. The Skeleton King, who’d been looking around, butted in with an offended expression.

“Regional prejudice must be eliminated. As one born in the Demon Realm, I, too, agree with the wicked human.”

“Look at this undead bastard trying to bone in on the conversation. Stay out of it.”

“What the hell? I’m helping you, and you’re giving me shit?”

“The Demon Realm’s a different dimension, you bastard. That’s dimensional prejudice. You make it sound like it’s right next to Mount Jiri.”

“The Gate where I operated was in Bucheon. Of course, I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.”

“Are you actually insane?”

While I argued with the Skeleton King across dimensions and borders, Team Leader Choi had given up on our conversation and started opening doors along the corridor. He called out to us.

“Both of you, stop and come over here.”

The Skeleton King drew himself up like a scholar.

“This body is the lord of the undead. I do not listen to the words of a human steeped in regional prejudice.”

“Come along if you don’t want your ass kicked.”

I grabbed the idiot by the collar and hauled him over. One look through the open doorway told me why Team Leader Choi had called us.

“What is this…?”

Not a single light was on, yet the room was as bright as day. Magic Gems sat neatly arranged on display shelves.

Even the lowest-grade gems were A-grade. By my rough count, there were around five hundred of them.

How much money is all this worth?

I couldn’t even begin to guess. And the five S-grade Magic Gems shining brightest on the top shelf were treasures you’d struggle to obtain no matter how much money you had.

“So all of this…?”

My voice trailed off. Team Leader Choi gave a small nod.

“Lee Jungryong definitely stole them. From what I’ve seen so far, the other rooms are the same.”

“This is fucking insane…”

“Not only Magic Gems, but also gold bars, diamonds, bonds, and other valuable assets. There are even countless works of art believed to have disappeared after the Great Cataclysm.”

He was right. Every door we opened on either side of the corridor revealed treasures of immense value, or treasures you couldn’t put a price on at all.

The calculator in my head had broken down long ago.

I expected him to have plenty stashed away, but… he really took a hell of a lot.

After the Great Cataclysm, Gates and Magic Gems had become a second source of oil money—no, something greater. Major Guilds had gained enough wealth and influence to overshadow powerful corporations.

Everyone, myself included, had assumed Lee Jungryong was immensely wealthy. No one could have guessed he’d hidden away this much on top of what had already been uncovered.

Vault.

The word flashed through my mind.

Right. This was the private vault Lee Jungryong had built and passed on to Go Jun.

But we couldn’t forget that this place was a prison as well as a vault.

A prison meant to hide one person from the world.

Its only two guards were dead. Beside me, the new owner of this space was walking toward the final door.

Step. Step.

At the end of the long corridor, Team Leader Choi approached the firmly shut door. He couldn’t hide the tremor in his steps.

“Hoo.”

He took a quiet breath to steady himself. I stepped ahead of him and brought my hand down like a blade toward the door, where an enormous flow of mana gathered.

A streak of flame cut through the air.

Slice! Boom!

The spells fell away, and the alloy door split to either side. Darkness and bitter cold, as though they’d been crouching beyond it, swept over us.

Whoooosh.

An inexplicable chill ran through me. I had reached the realm of Unaffected by Cold and Heat, yet I shuddered. Even the Skeleton King, a being born of death and cold, trembled.

Only one of us did not.

Step.

Footsteps rang strangely loud in the darkness. Team Leader Choi walked on without a word, all trace of trembling and hesitation gone.

More than twenty years.

A child had become a boy, and a boy had become a young man. He’d lost his parents early and been separated from his maternal grandfather without knowing why. Now, at last, he had returned to his place and stood here.

To meet his only blood relative and learn the truth.

“I missed you. I always have.”

Step.

His footsteps continued forward until, at some point, they suddenly stopped.

Before him stood a large oval mechanical capsule connected to countless wires. It looked like something out of a science-fiction movie, a device made for hibernation. A coffin made for someone still alive.

Hoo.

Team Leader Choi’s breath fogged the dust-covered glass. His long fingers trembled as he wiped it clean.

“I wanted to see you.”

As the dust came away, a face emerged. It looked older and more worn than in the photographs online.

Yet the resemblance to Team Leader Choi was unmistakable. He spoke softly to the old man.

“Grandfather.”

Team Leader Choi kept everything strictly secret. For now, no one besides the Skeleton King and me could know, and I agreed wholeheartedly.

There was one minor complication.

“Keeping a secret is easy enough. But I have two conditions.”

With the resolve of an independence activist, the Skeleton King laid them out.

“First, take me to a club. Second, give me one of the S-grade Magic Gems in there.”

Team Leader Choi readily agreed to the first. The second gave him pause, so I offered him a simple alternative.

“There’s a better way.”

“What is it?”

“How many S-grade Magic Gems do we have right now?”

“There are still five left.”

“Then let’s beat that bastard up and make it six. We can keep the secret and secure an additional S-grade Magic Gem.”

“…!”

“…!”

The Skeleton King, who had demanded his terms with the spirit of an independence activist, became a pro-Japanese collaborator and cooperated, and we reached a dramatic compromise by agreeing to take him to a club.

But for the most important matter—what to do with Cheon Taemin—we had no choice but to ask someone for help.

“We can’t keep my maternal grandfather here forever. We need to move him somewhere else.”

“The problem is moving him without anyone noticing…”

Neither a pocket enchanted with spatial expansion magic nor my Inventory could do it. The Immortal Hero, Cheon Taemin, was very much alive.

After thinking it over, only one answer remained.

“We have to move him using teleportation magic.”

What mattered was who performed it.

Someone we could trust completely. Someone who wouldn’t tell a soul even after learning the truth. Someone sympathetic to the unconscious Cheon Taemin and to us, who could continue helping us…

“Only one person comes to mind.”

“I imagine we’re thinking of the same person, Mr. Jin.”

So I made a call.

“Can you come to Korea for a bit?”

—Hey, Jin. I’m busy too. There’s a mutated Gate right now—

“Team Leader Choi wants to see you. A kiss is totally possible.”

—I’ll come right now.