"Estranya"
The crystal reacted to the keyword; a gentle light started to flow out. This was activating the crystal, or in other words, it was switching it on.
Other people would only know up to this step, but this was the real beginning.
Like how a DVD player needed its play button pressed after it was switched on, the crystal had its own procedures.
Han JinHo let his mana flow into the crystal. He first needed to see whether it was locked or not. Usually, information related to magic was considered precious and was thus protected with a lock.
He reminisced about how he had once used a lot of time undoing this lock in the past, but soon shook his head.
Now wasn't the time to feel nostalgic; he focused on the crystal.
"It's not locked?"
Was it a fortune, or a misfortune that the crystal wasn't locked? It was a normal crystal, which meant there was a low possibility for it to contain magic.
Information travelled from the crystal to his retina. It seemed that this crystal was made to show information to the person who activated it.
There were other methods like displaying a video on the ceiling, and showing a 3D hologram. Actually, it was Han JinHo's first time seeing this particular method.
"This is… a map?"
He mindlessly read the information that surfaced on his retina and saved it in his head.
When someone started manipulating mana, their brain capability would dramatically increase, and they could even remember sceneries like taking a photo.
After a while, the information transfer of the crystal was over. Han JinHo reactivated the crystal and rechecked the information once again.
"It looks like a map of a ruin."
First off, it wasn't just one map. It had several layers of maps.
The first two maps didn't have much worth. Those were maps that recorded the location of the ruin, which the creator referred to as a dungeon.
It might be obvious but, the map wasn't of this world - it wasn't a map of Earth.
A world totally different to Earth; a different dimension or a different planet. It was naturally only a small part of the world.
But, if he had been living in that world, he would've been able to locate the ruin from just those two maps. One of the maps showed the general location from a large scale, and the other map portrayed a zoomed-in version of the location.
The maps that came after that had the insides of the ruin in them.
The information in the crystal was the data which the maker of the ruin, in other words, the dungeon's creator had left behind.
"He wrote nothing on the actual items inside. There's only info on their locations."
It was a large-scale ruin.
Inside, there were even facilities that could help a person sustain for a long period of time; food and daily necessity storage, as well as a drinking source were placed within.
The ruin even had laboratories, and storages for weapons and magic goods.
The ruin creator and the owner must have been different people.
Otherwise, there would be no reason to not list the items that were inside the storages. Plus, the crystal kindly explained the method to opening the entrance of the ruin.
Judging from how the information on the guardian of the relic wasn't given, the creator was probably telling others to find those out themselves.
However, the traps placed inside the ruin and the offence magic systems that automatically attacked upon sighting intruders were written in detail.
"Now, all I need to do is to find the location of the ruin?"
The information inside the crystal wasn't a new magic, but it had more worth than magic spells.
According to his estimation, if he excavated that ruin, he would be able to find dozens of magic crystals.
While re-organising in his head, all the information that was inside the crystal, Han JinHo started to ponder on how to find the entrance of the ruin.
***
Waking up from a small nap, after spending all night surfing the internet, Han JinHo dully stared out the window at the light seeping through.
He had to get up asap and go to school, but his entire body felt sluggish and just wanted to head back to bed.
But he had to get up. He had a lecture today which could not miss any more.
He wasn't looking to get a remarkable score, and only wanted to fill the requirements for graduating. But finishing that requirements for graduating wasn't an easy task itself.
It was necessary to attend the lectures periodically, sit the tests, and he had to obtain higher marks than a set standard.
While having an expression full of hate towards life, he forcefully raised his body and went to take a shower.
After he washed up and wore his clothes, he walked outside without even carrying a bag. Since he already had the necessary items inside his inter-dimensional space, there was no need to carry something like a bag around.
He just had to be slightly careful when taking things out from the other dimension.
For some reason, the distance from the officetel to the school felt longer than usual.
Passing the entrance, he was walking down the wide road which led to the lecture room at the front, when suddenly a car drove past him.
It was a small yet expensive car - a model for two people from P Company.
After going past him, the car suddenly came to a stop. The door of the driving seat was then pushed open, and a person got off.
It was Yu CheIn.
When he saw Yu CheIn waving her hand at him with a bright smile hanging on her face, he made a troubled smile.
"Sunbae-nim! Hello!"
Facing her slightly cheerful voice, he couldn't not give a reply.
"Ah, yeah. You came late."
"The first lesson today was cancelled, so I left a bit late. For some reason, I didn't want to leave early; I guess it was for this."
"You can't just leave your car here, can you? You have to park it at the parking lot."
"You're thinking of running away again during the time, right?"
"What do you mean, 'running away'… Why would I ever run away?"
"Get on, then."
"Huh?"
"You still have time, right? There's still 15 minutes till the lecture."
Han JinHo was speechless inside, as Yu CheIn's response was above what he had expected.
She even opened the door to the passenger's seat, and waited for him to get on as she kept on smiling.
He couldn't reject it when she was going so far to invite him, so he eventually got on the passenger's seat. Yu CheIn drove the car and headed to the parking lot nearest to the building where Han JinHo had his lecture.
Soon after, the two each got a coffee from the vending machine in front of the building and faced each other.
"Are you busy lately?"
"Un? I guess."
"I think it's harder to see you recently."
"Is that so? Well… I did have a few things."
Beating down the dudes that tried to abduct him and subordinating them, reversing the tides with the top-notch information gatherer Che MinYoung who was investigating him and re-contracting her, and punishing Jung SangPil, obtaining the invitation card and attending the secret auction.
All of this had happened in the short period of a few days.
Looking back like this, he had indeed been quite busy, since he was also making new items as well as training regularly in between.
Yu CheIn suddenly stared directly at him. Han JinHo avoided her eyes and slightly tilted his head, but she continued talking without giving up. After all, everything started with conversations.
It was all trivial talk but Yu CheIn was really happy, and talking in such a bright mood, Han JinHo also felt a bit better. He felt overall less troubled when talking with her.
However, until the end, he didn't discard his vigilance. He just had too many things to do right now, and all of them were dangerous things.
If he opened up even slightly, danger would poke its head through the gap.
"I have to go to the lecture now."
While saying that, he threw the empty paper cup into the bin.
"Okay. Thank you for the coffee, sunbae-nim. I'll buy it next time."
Han JinHo randomly nodded his head and headed to the lecturing room. Yu CheIn who was left behind silently gazed at Han JinHo's back before murmuring.
"He doesn't say, 'See you again' even as an empty promise."
She turned around with a slightly bitter face.
[TLN: It's difficult to translate, but Yu CheIn speaks to Han JinHo in a polite tone all the time, even in the last sentence after he was gone]
***
Han JinHo sat at the lecturing room with his eyes facing the front. He at least pretended to be listening.
But lectures were precious time periods where he would be thinking of other things.
He remembered the subordinated guys whom he had forgotten during the past few days. They had been given orders to create discord within their organisations so that they couldn't spend any attention on himself.
They were still whole-heartedly performing to their best. Slowly but surely, they were developing their powers. Not only were they creating trouble, they were also increasing and stabilising their influence within their organisations.
All of this was possible thanks to the funds Han JinHo provided. In this line of work, everything started with money, and ended with money.
Also, the three people had created a secret network to covertly cooperate with each other.
'How many days has it been? At this rate, it would take less time than expected to fully control the companies.'
The biggest factor was the discord formed within the organisations. Since the people endlessly kept each other in check, and fought one another, it became easier for the trio to stabilise their standing, while decreasing their organisation's power.
During the lesson, Han JinHo contacted them, inquiring about the current situation, and calmly organised the information.
Thanks to that, he didn't have to spend the time in boredom.
***
The day of Luina's auction had come.
Carefully selected items were put on auction, and everything was sold at an insane price. It seemed like all the unimaginably rich people around the world were attending.
The representative of Luina, Nicks, was overlooking the auction with a satisfied expression. In a bit, the thing he had been waiting for appeared on stage.
"The holy water is going on auction now."
As soon as holy water appeared up on stage, everyone's eyes in the hall brightened. At a frightening speed, the price rose.
Luina took 30% of the final price as the commission fee. It was truly an enormous amount, but the company considered it reasonable to receive that much commission.
In addition, the sellers also didn't have any dissatisfaction towards the high commission fee. Luina was the best auctioning company, and prided over having the most number of guests.
The price of holy water easily exceeded 100 million dollars, and the momentum had yet to stop.
"This… might set an unprecedented record."
While muttering, Nicks looked towards four people who were fiercely competing with each other. The moment it went over 100 million dollars, most of the guests gave up, leaving only four people.
Two from the four seemed like they would be dropping off soon, but the other two gave off a strong aura indicating their will to not back off.
Nicks remembered a few recent rumours.
The successor of a clan that had a strong hold on the international economy had come to contact with an incurable disease. They were undoubtedly trying their best to hide the case, but such rumours would inevitably be leaked.
The two people who were competing down there were in fact, not people from that clan; they just wanted to get on the good side of the clan.
"They're idiots."
Would such an amazing clan not be able to find holy water?
"Well… holy water is still holy water."
Even if it can't completely cure the disease, it would still be able to reduce the symptoms by a large degree and momentarily grant their health back.
That's why the clan wasn't zealously seeking for holy water but a more, foundational healing method.
But he could still understand their feelings, and besides, even if they weren't zealously looking for it, they still wouldn't be unhappy about others gifting them holy water.
"Go up. Go up some more."
As a result, the price of holy water was still climbing up.
***
During the next few days, he didn't have any lectures, so he stayed in his workshop, but on this day, he came to school after a long period of absence.
As he was walking to the lecturing room, the alarm in his smartphone rang.
Diring.
Han JinHo checked his phone; it was a message which informed him of the money that was transferred to one of his foreign accounts.
The amount, however, exceeded the wildest of his imaginations.
"Woah."
He unknowingly spilled a hollow laugh.
An abnormally high number was written on it.
Translator: Rain27 Proofreader : Uptime
"Estranya"
The crystal reacted to the keyword; a gentle light started to flow out. This was activating the crystal, or in other words, it was switching it on.
Other people would only know up to this step, but this was the real beginning.
Like how a DVD player needed its play button pressed after it was switched on, the crystal had its own procedures.
Han JinHo let his mana flow into the crystal. He first needed to see whether it was locked or not. Usually, information related to magic was considered precious and was thus protected with a lock.
He reminisced about how he had once used a lot of time undoing this lock in the past, but soon shook his head.
Now wasn't the time to feel nostalgic; he focused on the crystal.
"It's not locked?"
Was it a fortune, or a misfortune that the crystal wasn't locked? It was a normal crystal, which meant there was a low possibility for it to contain magic.
Information travelled from the crystal to his retina. It seemed that this crystal was made to show information to the person who activated it.
There were other methods like displaying a video on the ceiling, and showing a 3D hologram. Actually, it was Han JinHo's first time seeing this particular method.
"This is… a map?"
He mindlessly read the information that surfaced on his retina and saved it in his head.
When someone started manipulating mana, their brain capability would dramatically increase, and they could even remember sceneries like taking a photo.
After a while, the information transfer of the crystal was over. Han JinHo reactivated the crystal and rechecked the information once again.
"It looks like a map of a ruin."
First off, it wasn't just one map. It had several layers of maps.
The first two maps didn't have much worth. Those were maps that recorded the location of the ruin, which the creator referred to as a dungeon.
It might be obvious but, the map wasn't of this world - it wasn't a map of Earth.
A world totally different to Earth; a different dimension or a different planet. It was naturally only a small part of the world.
But, if he had been living in that world, he would've been able to locate the ruin from just those two maps. One of the maps showed the general location from a large scale, and the other map portrayed a zoomed-in version of the location.
The maps that came after that had the insides of the ruin in them.
The information in the crystal was the data which the maker of the ruin, in other words, the dungeon's creator had left behind.
"He wrote nothing on the actual items inside. There's only info on their locations."
It was a large-scale ruin.
Inside, there were even facilities that could help a person sustain for a long period of time; food and daily necessity storage, as well as a drinking source were placed within.
The ruin even had laboratories, and storages for weapons and magic goods.
The ruin creator and the owner must have been different people.
Otherwise, there would be no reason to not list the items that were inside the storages. Plus, the crystal kindly explained the method to opening the entrance of the ruin.
Judging from how the information on the guardian of the relic wasn't given, the creator was probably telling others to find those out themselves.
However, the traps placed inside the ruin and the offence magic systems that automatically attacked upon sighting intruders were written in detail.
"Now, all I need to do is to find the location of the ruin?"
The information inside the crystal wasn't a new magic, but it had more worth than magic spells.
According to his estimation, if he excavated that ruin, he would be able to find dozens of magic crystals.
While re-organising in his head, all the information that was inside the crystal, Han JinHo started to ponder on how to find the entrance of the ruin.
***
Waking up from a small nap, after spending all night surfing the internet, Han JinHo dully stared out the window at the light seeping through.
He had to get up asap and go to school, but his entire body felt sluggish and just wanted to head back to bed.
But he had to get up. He had a lecture today which could not miss any more.
He wasn't looking to get a remarkable score, and only wanted to fill the requirements for graduating. But finishing that requirements for graduating wasn't an easy task itself.
It was necessary to attend the lectures periodically, sit the tests, and he had to obtain higher marks than a set standard.
While having an expression full of hate towards life, he forcefully raised his body and went to take a shower.
After he washed up and wore his clothes, he walked outside without even carrying a bag. Since he already had the necessary items inside his inter-dimensional space, there was no need to carry something like a bag around.
He just had to be slightly careful when taking things out from the other dimension.
For some reason, the distance from the officetel to the school felt longer than usual.
Passing the entrance, he was walking down the wide road which led to the lecture room at the front, when suddenly a car drove past him.
It was a small yet expensive car - a model for two people from P Company.
After going past him, the car suddenly came to a stop. The door of the driving seat was then pushed open, and a person got off.
It was Yu CheIn.
When he saw Yu CheIn waving her hand at him with a bright smile hanging on her face, he made a troubled smile.
"Sunbae-nim! Hello!"
Facing her slightly cheerful voice, he couldn't not give a reply.
"Ah, yeah. You came late."
"The first lesson today was cancelled, so I left a bit late. For some reason, I didn't want to leave early; I guess it was for this."
"You can't just leave your car here, can you? You have to park it at the parking lot."
"You're thinking of running away again during the time, right?"
"What do you mean, 'running away'… Why would I ever run away?"
"Get on, then."
"Huh?"
"You still have time, right? There's still 15 minutes till the lecture."
Han JinHo was speechless inside, as Yu CheIn's response was above what he had expected.
She even opened the door to the passenger's seat, and waited for him to get on as she kept on smiling.
He couldn't reject it when she was going so far to invite him, so he eventually got on the passenger's seat. Yu CheIn drove the car and headed to the parking lot nearest to the building where Han JinHo had his lecture.
Soon after, the two each got a coffee from the vending machine in front of the building and faced each other.
"Are you busy lately?"
"Un? I guess."
"I think it's harder to see you recently."
"Is that so? Well… I did have a few things."
Beating down the dudes that tried to abduct him and subordinating them, reversing the tides with the top-notch information gatherer Che MinYoung who was investigating him and re-contracting her, and punishing Jung SangPil, obtaining the invitation card and attending the secret auction.
All of this had happened in the short period of a few days.
Looking back like this, he had indeed been quite busy, since he was also making new items as well as training regularly in between.
Yu CheIn suddenly stared directly at him. Han JinHo avoided her eyes and slightly tilted his head, but she continued talking without giving up. After all, everything started with conversations.
It was all trivial talk but Yu CheIn was really happy, and talking in such a bright mood, Han JinHo also felt a bit better. He felt overall less troubled when talking with her.
However, until the end, he didn't discard his vigilance. He just had too many things to do right now, and all of them were dangerous things.
If he opened up even slightly, danger would poke its head through the gap.
"I have to go to the lecture now."
While saying that, he threw the empty paper cup into the bin.
"Okay. Thank you for the coffee, sunbae-nim. I'll buy it next time."
Han JinHo randomly nodded his head and headed to the lecturing room. Yu CheIn who was left behind silently gazed at Han JinHo's back before murmuring.
"He doesn't say, 'See you again' even as an empty promise."
She turned around with a slightly bitter face.
[TLN: It's difficult to translate, but Yu CheIn speaks to Han JinHo in a polite tone all the time, even in the last sentence after he was gone]
***
Han JinHo sat at the lecturing room with his eyes facing the front. He at least pretended to be listening.
But lectures were precious time periods where he would be thinking of other things.
He remembered the subordinated guys whom he had forgotten during the past few days. They had been given orders to create discord within their organisations so that they couldn't spend any attention on himself.
They were still whole-heartedly performing to their best. Slowly but surely, they were developing their powers. Not only were they creating trouble, they were also increasing and stabilising their influence within their organisations.
All of this was possible thanks to the funds Han JinHo provided. In this line of work, everything started with money, and ended with money.
Also, the three people had created a secret network to covertly cooperate with each other.
'How many days has it been? At this rate, it would take less time than expected to fully control the companies.'
The biggest factor was the discord formed within the organisations. Since the people endlessly kept each other in check, and fought one another, it became easier for the trio to stabilise their standing, while decreasing their organisation's power.
During the lesson, Han JinHo contacted them, inquiring about the current situation, and calmly organised the information.
Thanks to that, he didn't have to spend the time in boredom.
***
The day of Luina's auction had come.
Carefully selected items were put on auction, and everything was sold at an insane price. It seemed like all the unimaginably rich people around the world were attending.
The representative of Luina, Nicks, was overlooking the auction with a satisfied expression. In a bit, the thing he had been waiting for appeared on stage.
"The holy water is going on auction now."
As soon as holy water appeared up on stage, everyone's eyes in the hall brightened. At a frightening speed, the price rose.
Luina took 30% of the final price as the commission fee. It was truly an enormous amount, but the company considered it reasonable to receive that much commission.
In addition, the sellers also didn't have any dissatisfaction towards the high commission fee. Luina was the best auctioning company, and prided over having the most number of guests.
The price of holy water easily exceeded 100 million dollars, and the momentum had yet to stop.
"This… might set an unprecedented record."
While muttering, Nicks looked towards four people who were fiercely competing with each other. The moment it went over 100 million dollars, most of the guests gave up, leaving only four people.
Two from the four seemed like they would be dropping off soon, but the other two gave off a strong aura indicating their will to not back off.
Nicks remembered a few recent rumours.
The successor of a clan that had a strong hold on the international economy had come to contact with an incurable disease. They were undoubtedly trying their best to hide the case, but such rumours would inevitably be leaked.
The two people who were competing down there were in fact, not people from that clan; they just wanted to get on the good side of the clan.
"They're idiots."
Would such an amazing clan not be able to find holy water?
"Well… holy water is still holy water."
Even if it can't completely cure the disease, it would still be able to reduce the symptoms by a large degree and momentarily grant their health back.
That's why the clan wasn't zealously seeking for holy water but a more, foundational healing method.
But he could still understand their feelings, and besides, even if they weren't zealously looking for it, they still wouldn't be unhappy about others gifting them holy water.
"Go up. Go up some more."
As a result, the price of holy water was still climbing up.
***
During the next few days, he didn't have any lectures, so he stayed in his workshop, but on this day, he came to school after a long period of absence.
As he was walking to the lecturing room, the alarm in his smartphone rang.
Diring.
Han JinHo checked his phone; it was a message which informed him of the money that was transferred to one of his foreign accounts.
The amount, however, exceeded the wildest of his imaginations.
"Woah."
He unknowingly spilled a hollow laugh.
An abnormally high number was written on it.
Translator: Rain27 Proofreader : Uptime
