Yu-hyun met with Choi Jung-mo and introduced him to Yoo Young-min. He then quickly changed the topic and told him about what he had experienced today.
âArtificial, a Mental Realm, you say?â
âIt sounds unbelievable, but itâs true. And the suspects are probablyâŠâ
âUnleashed.â
âDid you have a hunch?â
Choi Jung-mo nodded with a heavy face.
âNot completely. I just heard some intelligence that they were acting suspiciously lately. The religious group thatâs been making a lot of noise has calmed down a bit, butâŠâ
Choi Jung-mo glanced at Yu-hyun as he said that. Yu-hyun shrugged as if he didnât know why.
Choi Jung-mo didnât ask any further and continued.
ââŠFrom Africa, there were rumors about them, and they sneaked in here secretly. Iâve been watching them quietly, because I thought they would explode if I touched them, but their movements have become more suspicious lately. And now youâre telling me about an artificial Mental Realm. Phew.â
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if he had a headache just thinking about it.
âBut itâs a good thing that you found out in advance. Thank you for letting me know.â
âDonât mention it.â
âItâs better to know at least a little bit than to be ignorant and get hurt. Iâll have to raise the alert as much as possible. Sigh. How did they come to Korea and do this?â
âAnyway, thatâs all I wanted to tell you. And Young-min, weâll take care of him at White Flower Management.â
âPlease do.â
Compared to the information that Yu-hyun brought, the request to not send Yoo Young-min, the collector who specialized in long-range attacks, to the training camp was nothing.
He heard that he was a collector who specialized in long-range attacks, and if Yu-hyun cared for him so much, he must be a talented person.
âIf White Flower Management becomes stronger, Iâll have more reliable allies.â
Since they already had a solid trust relationship, Choi Jung-mo didnât bother to argue or ask for anything.
Thatâs when it happened.
âHey! Choi Jung-mo!â
An old man who kicked open the office door shouted Choi Jung-moâs name.
Choi Jung-moâs eyes widened as he recognized the man who came in with his white hair scattered.
âDirector Kim Hak Jang?â
âJung Mo! Look at this! I made it! I finally made it! Hahaha!!â
Kim Hak Jang immediately put the thing he made in front of Choi Jung-mo as if he was proud of it.
It was a silver metal cylinder. It was about 25cm wide and 1m tall, and there were still some texts that were not properly cleaned up on the outside.
Choi Jung-mo adjusted his glasses and said.
âDirector Kim Hak Jang. Donât you see that I have a guest right now? And what do you mean by saying that you made something? What is this?â
âThe invention of the century!â
Kim Hak Jang shouted without calming down his excitement.
âWith this, collectors donât have to risk their lives by entering the Mental Realm anymore!â
âNo, but what is this exactlyâŠâ
âItâs a bomb.â
It was Yu-hyun who interrupted their conversation.
âHuh?â
Kim Hak Jang noticed Yu-hyun for the first time.
He was so excited that he didnât even pay attention to Yu-hyun and Yoo Young-min. đłrđđwđbnđveđ.cođŠ
Kim Hak Jang was a weirdo and a loner who didnât care about anyone else.
But Yu-hyun recognized what Kim Hak Jang had made at first glance.
He secretly hoped that someone would appreciate his invention, so he couldnât help but be interested in him.
âYou know what this is?â
âYes. You combined a bomb and a âShredding Storyâ. Itâs not just shredding, but more like breaking the bonds. When it explodes, it doesnât produce flames from gunpowder, but forcibly breaks the bond between texts and invalidates the story itself.â
âThatâsâŠâ
He nodded his head before feeling doubt and shock.
Kim Hak Jang couldnât believe how this young man recognized his invention at first glance.
âWhatâs your name?â
âMy name is Kang Yu-hyun.â
âKang Yu-hyun? Hmm. It sounds familiar somehow.â
Kim Hak Jang stroked his chin as if he had heard the name before.
Choi Jung-mo sighed and took over the conversation.
âI told you before, Director Kim Hak Jang. Thereâs someone who can fight in the Mental Realm directly.â
âOh! Thatâs right! Donât tell me, youâre that Teller?â
âThatâs an overstatement.â
âHuh. Thatâs amazing. Well then. How does my invention look from your perspective as a Teller?â
Kim Hak Jang stored the name Kang Yu-hyun in his head perfectly and asked for his opinion.
He thought that he would easily understand the greatness of this item if he recognized what it was for at first glance.
Kim Hakjang, who was already drinking the soup of praise in his mind, couldnât help but twist his expression at the words that flew from Yu-hyun.
âItâs crude.â
âWhat, what?! Crude?!â
âSure, the idea itself is not bad. Although itâs formalistic, itâs okay to have some semblance of shape. But itâs not complete.â
Kim Hakjangâs face turned red with Yu-hyunâs harsh criticism.
How dare this teller, who knows nothing, undervalue his masterpiece like that!
Before Kim Hakjang could spit out his anger.
Yu-hyun opened his mouth first.
âBomb and shredding stories are good complements. A material worldâs time bomb that destroys anything and a shredding story that grinds anything. And you made the text neatly cut off, which is commendable. But this is not complete yet.â
Yu-hyun said that and reached out to the bomb.
The faintly engraved texts on the cylinder shone white and floated in the air like a hologram, and Yu-hyunâs hand touched them.
âHey, hey, what are you doing!â
Kim Hakjang didnât ask how Yu-hyun could touch the text with his hand. He was more worried that he might ruin his hard-made masterpiece.
âJust watch.â
Yu-hyun said that and activated [Engraving].
Yu-hyunâs finger moved over the arranged text like drawing a picture. He supplemented the letters between the roughly twisted texts and decorated them more neatly, and boldly cut out the unnecessarily stretched parts.
Like making an unorganized mathematical formula neat and tidy.
At first, Kim Hakjang tried to stop Yu-hyun, but when he realized what he was doing, he couldnât help but swallow his breath.
âOh my.â
His two clenched fists trembled.
It was not only the surprise that he did what he couldnât do so naturally.
But the joy of seeing the distant realm that he had longed for with his own eyes was the greatest.
âThere. Itâs done. Itâs crude because I made it on the spot, but it should be better than before.â
Yu-hyun showed him the bomb that he changed with [Engraving]. Kim Hakjang touched it with his trembling hand.
His two pupils turned into crosses.
He activated the skill to see and feel the story and text.
âOh my. It really became perfect. No. Not perfect, but at this level, thereâs nothing more to doâŠâ
âHow is it?â
âYo, you⊠No, who are youâŠâ
Instead of answering Kim Hakjangâs question, Yu-hyun finished talking about the bomb.
âItâs a pretty good item. If you explode this, you can erase the Mental Realm. The only thing that seems tricky isâŠâ
ââŠYou have to detonate it from inside.â
âThatâs right. You knew that too?â
âNo matter how much you do, you canât completely erase it by exploding it outside of the Mental Realm. To do that, you need to consume a lot of TP to make one. You have no choice but to minimize the cost as much as possible. Even then, mass production is not possible.â
Even if mass production is not possible, it does not mean that the value of this item disappears.
As long as you activate it properly inside the Mental Realm, you can erase it without satisfying the conditions and clearing it.
Like the disposal box in Celestial Corporation.
Yu-hyun admired that inspiration came up with that.
âHe came up with this and made it.â
He had never heard of such an item being made in his previous life. This must be a change that occurred as the flow of Earth changed.
âNot bad.â
An item that can forcibly erase the Mental Realm.
Of course, if the Divine Spirits find out, they will say that they want to take it easy or cheat or cowardly or foam in their mouths.
But from the perspective of someone who fights with their life on the line, there is no better item than this.
âBesides this. To explode it, a collector has to go inside with it.â
âThatâs right. There is no way to remotely detonate it from inside the Mental Realm. In the end, one collector has to go inside and blow it up.â
It was a groundbreaking weapon, but there were many conditions to use it.
Which collector would risk their life and go inside the Mental Realm to blow this up?
Unless they have a self-sacrificing personality, they would refuse outright.
âThatâs something to decide when we get there. Hmm. But does he still not know?â
Yu-hyun glanced at Kim Hakjangâs reaction.
He had changed the text that Kim Hakjang had engraved earlier and made it much more pleasing to the eye, but there was a little trap here.
A very small part.
A âmistakeâ that you had to overlook naturally without looking closely.
This was something that Yu-hyun deliberately left out without changing to check Kim Hakjangâs level.
He had a little hope that he might notice this, but Kim Hakjang seemed to have no clue.
âMaybe I expected too much from him because he made this thing.â
He had never heard of such an item being made in his previous life. This must be a change that occurred as the flow of Earth changed.
I thought it was time to tell him and move on.
âBro, this is a bit weird, donât you think?â
Yoo Young-min, who had been quiet until now, stepped forward.
Kim Hakjang and Choi Jung-mo looked at him with a puzzled expression, while only Yu-hyun showed interest in his eyes and urged him to continue.
Yoo Young-min scratched his cheek with his finger, feeling slightly burdened by the sudden attention.
âWell, um. You see this part here. Between the action points of [Cutting] [Crushing] [Exploding], the connecting text that smooths them out is a bit loose, donât you think? Thereâs a subtle but strange part here.â
âWhere exactly?â
âHere.â
Yoo Young-min pointed his finger at the countless letters carved on the cylindrical pillar, precisely catching the âerrorâ.
âThat canât be!â
Kim Hakjang exclaimed incredulously and immediately scrutinized the text of the part that Yoo Young-min pointed out.
And then, he had no choice but to admit it as he opened his eyes wide.
âItâs, itâs true? How, how did youâŠâ
How did you notice it?
He didnât have to hear the rest of the sentence to know what he was asking.
Yoo Young-min smiled awkwardly.
âI just saw a weird part.â
At that response, Choi Jung-mo couldnât help but admire him.
He vaguely thought that the collector that Yu-hyun brought wouldnât be ordinary, but he didnât expect him to catch an error that even Kim Hakjang couldnât notice.
Moreover, Yoo Young-min went one step further.
âBro. Can I fix it a bit?â
âSure.â
âWhat, what?!â
Kim Hakjang was shocked and almost fell over. âSeeingâ something with your eyes and âtouchingâ something with your hands are two different abilities. The latter was much harder than the former.
But Yoo Young-min said he would do it very easily.
And it wasnât a bluff.
âMy goodnessâŠâ
Yoo Young-minâs hand touched the letters. The glowing letters were grasped by Yoo Young-minâs hand and slowly changed shape at his fingertips.
The skill [Craftsmanâs Dexterity] that Yoo Young-min possessed was activated.
A cheat-like skill that could not only make things but also touch and modify the text that made up the world.
Kim Hakjang was on the verge of fainting when he saw it.
âItâs done.â
The process was over and what was completed was a different thing from what Kim Hakjang had brought at first.
The appearance was the same, but the âstoryâ contained in its contents was much more refined, detailed and clear than before.
Kim Hakjangâs eyes lost focus.
He looked like he had lost his soul.
Yu-hyun felt a bit sorry for him.
âDid we go too far?â
From Kim Hakjangâs perspective, two people he didnât know had modified his masterpiece without permission and even produced a better result than he did. And they were much younger than him.
Overwhelming talent.
People who face that huge wall eventually lose their hearts.
Kim Hakjang, who had been doing this for a long time, must have felt it more strongly than anyone else.
âWe were lacking in consideration.â
Kim Hakjang was definitely amazing.
He had a book with a hint of gold in it. The cover was brilliant silver and the potential for development was faint gold.
The path he had walked until now must have been solid.
âBut the world is wide and if you think about the future you will face, that alone is not enough.â
People like Kim Hakjang were in the top 1% from an absolute perspective.
But those 1% of people had to realize something.
Above their heads.
There were people in the top 0.0001%. The existence of those who were beyond comparison.
It would be hard to accept. Anyone would be like that. People who thought they were the best and had pride would bow their heads and settle for the present reality after hitting a wall once.
That was what most people did.
âAmazing.â
But the words that came out of Kim Hakjangâs lips were completely different from what Yu-hyun thought.
âReally amazing. How did you come up with this? Thatâs right. This way, the loss of power will be reduced much more and the directionality can be clearly set.â
A mumbling that sounded like he had lost his soul.
It wasnât the voice of someone who had collapsed and given up.
Rather, it was full of Divine Spirit that suited someone who had fallen into his own world while looking beyond a bigger stage.
âThis guy.â
He didnât collapse.
Even though he ran fast and hit a wall, even though he felt pain and hurt because of it.
This man didnât lose his willpower.
He couldnât hide his anger though, as he bit his lip.
Yu-hyun saw a fiery flame burning in the eyes of this old man who had reached 60.
âWhatâs your name, young man?â
âHuh? Iâm Yoo Young-min.â
âYoo Young-min.â
He repeated the name several times and hammered it into his head as if he would never forget the names of Yu-hyun and Yoo Young-min.
âNext time, Iâll surprise you guys. Definitely.â
He left the office with the thing he had made, ending with those words.