Chapter 53 : A Well-Founded Misunderstanding
Chapter 53: A Well-Founded Misunderstanding
Both of my hands were throbbing.
Especially the tips of my fingers.
“Hold on, give me your hand.”
“…….”
“Your hand! Hurry……!”
When Diesel held his hand out, Betty snorted and began examining it.
“My goodness……. I’d only heard about this, but this is my first time seeing it……!”
“……What is it like?”
“All ten fingers’ blood points have been pierced!”
At her words, Diesel tried moving his hand.
His fingers tingled as if electricity were running through them.
“Normally, even having two on each hand—four in total—is already incredible, but all ten of your fingers are pierced! Do you have any idea how amazing that is?”
“…….”
“In the magic tower, the only person with Ten-Finger Blood is my dad!”
Betty, who had been extremely excited, suddenly grew thoughtful.
“Ah, maybe there are a few more? Hmm……. Some of the elders might have them. Anyway……! This is an incredible thing!”
“Hoo…….”
Diesel clutched his dazed head for a moment and sat down.
“Ten-Finger Blood, huh…….”
“How does your body feel?”
“Not bad. So how do I inhale now?”
“Huh? You’re already trying to go that far?”
Betty looked at Diesel with worried eyes.
“The sooner, the better.”
“That’s true, but……. Fine. It doesn’t seem like there’s a problem. Come on, follow me and get into position.”
She swept the dust off the concrete floor with her long tail and sat cross-legged.
Then she flipped her hands over, placed them on her knees, and spread her fingers.
“Close your eyes, and focus all your senses on the newly opened blood points at your fingertips. Slowly steady your breathing……. Try to feel the surrounding mana.”
I could feel the mana flowing through the air.
Its concentration wasn’t particularly high, but perhaps because no one had been around for a long time, it was quite clean mana.
“Now accept the mana through your fingertips. Just think of it as pulling it in.”
As Betty instructed, Diesel focused on inhaling mana through his fingers.
When the mana touched the new blood points, a unique, ticklish sensation spread.
He tried drawing it in, as if sucking it up through a straw.
At first it didn’t work well, but after a few attempts, he naturally grasped the trick.
“Wow……. You really are…….”
Watching Diesel succeed in inhalation right away, Betty exclaimed in admiration.
Having lived in the magic tower for a long time, she knew just how difficult this was.
‘Just feeling mana with your fingertips alone takes months…….’
“Ugh…….”
However, perhaps there was some pain each time he drew in mana, because Diesel grimaced.
“It’ll hurt a bit until you get used to it. You’re using an organ that doesn’t originally exist in the human body.”
“……I see.”
“Yeah. Fingertip blood points only exist in dragons. Since they’re blood points that grow on ten claws, they’re called the Ten-Claw Acupoints.”
To think such blood points had formed on him.
Diesel looked down at his hands, feeling unusually elated.
“Judging by your expression, it looks like you want to try condensing right away.”
“Yeah.”
“Alright. If we’re doing it, let’s go all the way.”
Betty, who somehow seemed even more excited than Diesel, continued her explanation.
And so, the night passed in some empty sprawl.
“……This concludes the closed-door meeting.”
The ten megacorporations that ruled the world.
In a crucial gathering where their representatives assembled, the end of the meeting was declared within a Matrix connected under strict security.
“Good work.”
“It ended quickly today.”
“The agenda was what it was.”
“Indeed. Re-establishing the standards for Electrosphere coordinates is an urgent matter.”
Several avatars rose from the round table and moved off, exchanging greetings.
The place they all headed toward was the star of today’s meeting—the Cheonrang Group.
“I’m pleased that this agreement was also concluded successfully. I hope this will allow our ties with Cheonrang to continue smoothly.”
“You flatter us. We are likewise honored to work together with the Gale Consortium.”
“At our Büland as well, we are greatly anticipating further collaboration with Cheonrang, especially regarding the new facility being constructed…….”
In that friendly conference hall, there was only one avatar left isolated.
It was Angelina Shirin of Podvig, the company that had just taken a heavy blow from Cheonrang.
Remaining seated, she burned the sight of those exchanging after-talk into her eyes.
‘Like wild dogs.’
Street dogs that would immediately rush in and tear apart anything that staggered even slightly.
A collapsing Podvig must have been an irresistibly sweet prey to them.
As if sensing Angelina’s gaze, Jin Hui-ryeong, an executive director of Cheonrang Electronics, approached.
“We are deeply sorry about the incident that occurred at Podvig’s Moon Base.”
“…….”
Then the other nearby avatars also gathered around her and began talking however they pleased.
“I pray for the repose of the former head of the Magic Engineering Department. He wasn’t someone who should have gone like that.”
“I heard Chairman Vlad was also on the moon at the time—was there no damage?”
“We hope for a swift recovery. Well, Podvig is the world’s best in the aerospace field, so I’m sure you’ll handle it just fine.”
“By the way, has it been clearly determined who was behind it? There mustn’t be a second terror attack.”
The meaningless condolences soon turned into thinly veiled remarks between Cheonrang and Podvig.
“At least it’s fortunate that Cheonrang’s lighthouse was unharmed. If even that had been destroyed, just imagining how much chaos would have hit the Electrosphere is terrifying.”
“Cheonrang really does seem excellent at Electrosphere security. While Podvig was in such turmoil, Cheonrang suffered no damage at all, right?”
“But these days, even in aerospace, isn’t Cheonrang catching up to Podvig at a frightening pace? Just looking at the last seminar, the technological gap had narrowed quite a bit.”
“We are still far from sufficient.”
Jin Hui-ryeong smiled faintly.
Then she bowed her head toward Angelina.
“In that case, we’ll be on our way. Let’s meet again next time.”
As she turned away, she glanced back once more.
“Oh, and…… it’s late, but congratulations on your promotion. Head of the Magic Engineering Department.”
“…….”
“Shall we head back as well?”
“Let’s.”
With Jin Hui-ryeong in the lead, the avatars disconnected from the Matrix one by one, and the remaining Angelina also roughly severed the connection.
“Hoo…….”
A luxurious office somewhere in Moscow.
She awoke from the Electrosphere connection chair that was still emitting cold air.
Angelina spoke while looking at the secretary who was draping a blanket over her.
“Proceed as planned. Establish a communication link with that fixer.”
“Yes.”
“Immediately.”
A terror that occurred in a place where it should have been impossible.
The internal investigation concluded that the destruction of the lighthouse was the work of the Witch of the Electrosphere, but there had been another incident that day as well.
An incident in which a Podvig agent was murdered inside the Moon Base’s server room.
Although they were unable to learn much about the intruder, it wasn’t difficult to infer who was behind it.
‘Those who benefit the most from this incident…….’
The corporation that had seized the enormous hegemony Podvig once held.
‘The Cheonrang Group.’
“The connection is ready.”
“…….”
At the secretary’s words, an avatar appeared before Angelina’s eyes.
[So it’s finally starting in earnest?]
[That’s right.]
[Understood. Then let us first review the details of the job again.]
No one could screw over the great Podvig and then laugh it off as they pleased.
Those bastards had to be shown clearly.
What happened when you messed with Podvig.
[What kind of job is this time?]
To do that, we had to gouge out the place that would hurt them the most.
Angelina knew a target perfectly suited for that.
[Sabotage of goods.]
[The operation location is…….]
Angelina Shirin ground her teeth audibly as she issued the order.
[The mana power plant of Neo-Asadal.]
“Wha……?”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
Inside Kang Da-hee’s home.
I spoke to her as she bared her pale nape toward me.
“Lend me your Matrix.”
“But for that……. Ngh…….”
“Yeah. You’d have to tell me your front door key and your Matrix access code.”
“…….”
“You don’t want to?”
Along with a question whose answer was obvious, I crushed yet another virus gnawing away at Kang Da-hee’s body.
This time, however, no moan like before escaped her lips.
“It’ll only be for a moment. Just a few hours after you leave for work.”
“I’m sorry, but no matter how much it’s you, Dr. Meyer…….”
“That feels uncomfortable? Yeah. I understand.”
Her hesitation was only natural.
It was bad enough to ask for the key to a home where she lived alone, but to demand the Matrix password she treasured most on top of that.
Even as I made the request, I knew full well it was unreasonable.
That was why I threw out the compensation I had prepared in advance.
“Then how about this—on the condition that I won’t charge you for the remaining treatment costs?”
“……!”
At my words, Kang Da-hee flinched in shock.
‘Her balance is probably in tatters by now.’
The treatment fees I had demanded so far were not something even a regular employee of a megacorp could easily bear.
It wasn’t that I had deliberately overcharged.
Rather, my treatment fees were far cheaper than market prices.
Removing a highly infectious virus like ‘Midnight Blossom’ was a task that carried great risk even for a tech doctor, and the compensation required was not cheap.
‘Though it’s not much of a threat to me.’
If she continued paying such large sums, only two futures awaited Kang Da-hee.
Either she failed to eliminate the virus and lived her entire life trembling in anxiety.
Or she borrowed from dangerous back-alley loan sharks and became a debtor.
Both led to the same miserable ending.
“Really…… you’ll just treat me?”
“Yes.”
“Until the virus is completely removed?”
“As long as you keep lending me your Matrix.”
“Then the vaccine chip you prescribe separately is…….”
“I’ll knock down the price on that.”
“…….”
As Kang Da-hee’s deliberation dragged on, I spoke indifferently.
“If you don’t like it, forget it. I’ll just buy myself a Matrix with the money you paid me.”
In truth, that would have been extremely troublesome.
To begin with, owning a Matrix under an individual license was not easy.
Completely occupying a space in the Electrosphere wasn’t something money alone could solve.
“Alright…….”
In the end, Kang Da-hee gave the answer I wanted.
“From when should I lend it to you?”
“Obviously starting tomorrow. That’s possible, right?”
At my question, Kang Da-hee gave a bitter smile.
“It should be…… possible…….”
‘Hoo…….’
After finishing Mana Meditation in my bedroom, I opened my eyes from my composed seated posture.
‘Good.’
Since receiving the new training method, my magical aptitude had been increasing day by day.
Before I knew it, the mana condensed in my mana core had grown, and I had just reached the target point I had set for myself.
‘With this…….’
There were many ways to gauge a mage’s level.
The most common was the numerical ‘level’ that broadly represented the capabilities of not only mages but all other professions as well.
Since Kang Da-hee held a doctorate-level terminal degree, she could be considered a Level 3 mage, and Siena, the spirit mage who had once been the head of Black Water’s laboratory, was Level 4.
‘And Kaztikan was Level 5.’
But there was a far more intuitive way to assess a mage’s ability than such levels, and that was…….
‘Stars.’
Mana stars formed when a certain amount of mana accumulated in the mana core condensed into nodal points.
The brilliant light they emitted illuminated my mana core.
‘I finally completed one.’
With ordinary Mana Meditation, it would have taken years more of training to complete this, but thanks to the various secret meditation techniques I had recently learned from the magic towers, I was able to finish it quickly.
‘They did say that up to one star was relatively easy.’
I still had a long way to go.
My goal was far too ambitious to be achieved with just a single star.
And with each additional star, the difficulty of forming the next one increased exponentially.
‘Still, if I had that catalyst…….’
The catalyst said to be inside Neo-Asadal’s mana power plant.
If I could obtain that, I could easily stack another star.
‘Even then, it would still be far from enough.’
How many stars could I ultimately create?
It was said that from four stars onward, one surpassed the realm of humanity.
Perhaps I could even challenge the realm of six stars, which no one had ever reached, beyond the five stars possessed by archmages.
As I was lost in such thoughts, Ar swayed her tail and approached me.
〈Master, an incoming communication is arriving.〉
“From who?”
〈The dumpling shop owner.〉
“Connect it.”
Soon, a familiar voice reached my ears.
[Get ready.]
Boss Kim, uncharacteristically, got straight to the point.
[The job I mentioned last time—its schedule has been set.]