“Wow. What is this?”
The Floor 41 reward basket was deeply satisfying.
20% contribution — 50,000 TC.
His sense of real-world money was starting to break down.
“Happy with it-nya?”
“Of course! But was it the Encouragement effect again?”
The Encouragement effect.
As he understood it, it triggered when the floor’s owner developed the feeling that they could actually clear the Tower.
“No-nya. This time it was the ‘Timekeeping’ effect-nya.”
“Timekeeping effect?”
“The effect you get when you dramatically reduce the time it takes to clear a floor-nya.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, this is the first time something like this has happened, so even Ragcho finds it a little unfamiliar-nya~.”
Ragcho made a question mark shape with her tail.
“Cute.”
“Is that a verbal tic-nya?”
“I’m just stating a fact.”
“Ahem!”
Ragcho looked away.
Even cuter.
He kept staring at her, unblinking, until she abruptly forced a sales window up in front of his face.
“Anyway, are you buying anything-nya?”
“Ragcho.”
“What is it-nya?”
“Our Ragcho. You were so busy today you left your conscience behind somewhere, didn’t you.”
The 5×5 sales window.
One lonely item.
……Why was she even pretending to give him a choice?
“……It’s still a good one-nya.”
Ragcho declaring something good — while looking away.
He reached out and touched the icon, which was a shoddy-looking box that inspired absolutely no confidence.
[Random Skill Book Box]
— Contains one randomly selected skill book, ranging from F-Rank to S-Rank!
“Oh. I thought these only came from loot boxes. They sell them too?”
“Of course-nya! This is something Ragcho worked hard to get-nya! I had a whole fight with Vehr this morning just to get this one-nya! And I won, which is how I was able to bring it-nya!”
Blue eyes looked up at him, wanting praise.
“Our Ragcho is amazing!”
“Nya~.”
Sway sway — the plump, no, fluffy tail started moving with greater enthusiasm.
Ragcho definitely had a certain something when you praised her.
“Are you buying-nya?”
Levels are everything. Skills are always better the more you have.
A near-slogan across Awakened Communities in every country.
F-rank to S-rank as the range admittedly made it a gacha box situation — but it wasn’t all bad.
Even if an F-rank skill dropped, as long as it was usable, ranking it up over time was entirely possible.
As always, what mattered was the price.
“How much is it?”
“A mere 50,000 TC-nya.”
Not a moment of hesitation — the answer came back instantly.
A mere 50,000 TC?
“Ragcho…… like I said before, it really does feel like the items always come out priced at exactly what I’ve earned.”
Same as last time. Same as now.
How did the price of what she was selling always match the TC he’d just received?
At this point, was it really so unreasonable to suspect she was calibrating her prices to extract every last piece of lint from his pocket?
A rational suspicion began drifting upward through his mind.
“That’s not it-nya…… it’s a misunderstanding-nya……”
Ragcho’s ears and tail drooped. Her front paws folded politely. Those blue-green eyes looked up at him, sparkling.
Was this scheming little cat trying to charm her way out of it again?
“Still — Woo-joo-nim is extremely lucky-nya. No matter how hard we try to stock expensive, high-quality items, most of the time it comes up as recovery potions and armor-nya.”
That was — he’d seen that. Not just heard about it, actually seen it.
Posts from Awakened furious that their Tower Merchant kept hawking recovery potions and armor day after day instead of the weapons or accessories they actually needed.
Even so, 50,000——
“The normal price for a Random Skill Book Box is 100,000 TC-nya. You should think carefully-nya.”
Right. This was an intruded Tower — so the 50% discount applied to everything.
“And fixed-rank Skill Book Boxes cost even more-nya. F-rank guaranteed and random are priced the same-nya.”
In other words: for the price of an F-rank confirmed box, she was offering one that could come out at any rank from that up.
“Our Ragcho is really working hard on the sales pitch today.”
“Ragcho always works hard-nya.”
“I’ll buy it.”
His current attack skills?
Rapid Fire — and that was it.
He used it constantly in place of basic attacks, sure, but he’d been wanting something more.
A hard-hitting skill with a long cooldown but real impact. Something impressive.
Intruding into other people’s Towers had calibrated his standards upward, which hadn’t helped.
Rankers like Seo I-an and Hong Je-hun — and even Hwang Gyu-beom running the mid-floors — they all had powerful single-target strikes, and those had looked both satisfying and impressive to watch.
“Thank you as always-nya~.”
Ragcho’s ears and tail perked up.
“Oh! Actually, Woo-joo-nim — would it be more convenient if I came a little later when you call?”
“Hm? Why, suddenly?”
“Ragcho can appear when Woo-joo-nim calls-nya!”
“Oh? Then yes, please.”
No reason to say no.
If he wasn’t pulled to Ragcho the moment the floor cleared, he could keep talking to the floor’s owner, or continue gathering for a while longer.
Meanwhile, at that same moment.
Seo I-an returned home in a perfectly clean state.
Inside the Tower she’d been encased in full armor — all she had to do was take it off, and she came back spotless.
“Ugh, I feel gross.”
She wanted to finish a workout and shower, so she headed straight for the private gym in her apartment.
Quick warmup done, she was about to step onto the treadmill for cardio when——
“Hm?”
Her second phone started blinking silently.
The name on the screen: Minor Spam.
Probably the Association employee — Yun something.
Then her main phone started ringing.
“Yeah, what.”
She flipped the second phone face-down and answered the main one.
[You finished just now?]
“Yeah.”
[Congratulations on clearing Floor 41!!]
A sincere congratulation carried in Park Si-woo’s steady voice.
“Congratulations for what. I wasn’t the first.”
What if she’d set an overwhelming fastest-ever record and been the first to clear? How would that have felt?
How? Absolutely perfect, that’s how.
The faint bitterness in her mouth was her own fault. She clicked her tongue briefly.
[Still, you saw the time right! How did you do it? The average has been in the forties-minute range. Fastest record was apparently in the high twenties? Even overseas outlets are going crazy right now!]
But unlike her, her old friend Park Si-woo was very excited.
Enough to make you think he was the one who’d set the record.
“Hey. Is it already making the rounds?”
[If you’re in Korea even foreign Awakened hear Korean Tower notifications, so probably, yeah?]
“Oh right.”
[Anyway — what should I tell people? It’s definitely going to come up when you see them.]
By “people,” he meant Association figures.
He was also Association-affiliated — an official employee.
All Enchanters operated as Association staff.
Less out of a sense of mission, more for easier access to materials.
“Why later and not today?”
[I’ve got some things, so after this call I’m going straight into the workshop.]
For an Enchanter, going into the workshop was functionally synonymous with you cannot reach me for the foreseeable future.
“Just tell them whatever. You’re good at making things up.”
[Am I, though? Anyway, what specifically should I make up?]
“Just say I hit Level 100 today and got an incredible skill. Tell them you didn’t hear the details.”
Floor 41 record.
Even to the person who’d set it, it was remarkable.
Overseas outlets were already covering it, and she had missed calls stacked up — things were circulating domestically too, by the looks of it.
“How’s public opinion?”
[Oh, they’re going wild. Poured everything into Hong Je-hun and you closed the gap anyway — Association incompetence this, Association incompetence that.]
“Ha! Good.”
Most countries spread their investment across Awakened more broadly.
Because if one person fell, the next had to be ready to step up and continue climbing.
Korea didn’t operate that way.
Korea alone felt like it funneled 50% of all resources into whoever was ranked first.
Skimmed another 45% somewhere in the middle. Sent the remaining 5% to everyone else.
What that meant in practice:
When Hong Je-hun — the one receiving the Association’s full backing — did well, it became a testament to how well the Association had cultivated him.
When anyone else did well, it became the miracle of an individual who had thrived despite the Association’s neglect and indifference.
And Seo I-an found the Association’s system — the one that demanded those individual miracles — deeply unacceptable.
She believed the Association should exist for Awakened.
And she believed the people running it needed to be replaced, root and branch.
[Speaking of which — you already hit Level 100?]
A voice bright enough it was hard to match rang through the gym.
“Of course not! My level isn’t moving!”
For reference: Tower floor number × 2 was considered the safe level benchmark.
And in most cases, Awakened ended up climbing without having reached that benchmark.
The experience required to level up grew exponentially as the numbers climbed.
[Huh? Then you got a skill book? That’s incredible!]
The cheerful voice echoed off the gym walls.
“You’re so gullible. Come on, you think that’s real?”
But knowing that getting caught in a lie stung longer than cutting it short, she told the truth.
[Then I guess you met the rabbit.]
“Yeah.”
A record no one had seen before.
Obviously something had happened in that Tower — and the most plausible explanation was meeting the wandering merchant rabbit.
She agreed without hesitation.
[I kind of figured. Whether it’s you that’s impressive or the rabbit, honestly.]
“Honestly, it’s the rabbit. That thing is something else. I’d kidnap it and monopolize it if I could.”
She meant it.
The rabbit always found a way — through methods no one would have thought of.
Just opening a path would be more than enough. But not just any path — a shortcut. No, an actual expressway.
If she could have it for herself.
Aiming for Korea’s number one wouldn’t be the ceiling anymore. World number one would be within reach.
And if that happened: a world tour. Climbing Towers across the globe.
Clearing every Tower herself — that was the best case.
Even if she fell short of that, she could at least buy time for the next generation of Awakened to grow.
That was the second-best case.
[Oh, I’m a little offended, to be honest.]
His voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
“You? Why?”
[I’m arguably the second-best Enchanter in Korea, and it sounds like all the attention is going to the rabbit.]
“Shut up.”
A light snicker came through from both sides of the call.
“You’re already exclusively mine — what are you complaining about?”
The conference room on the twelfth floor of the Association building.
At one end of a long rectangular table, team lead Oh Won-taek had buried his face in both hands.
“Why is it always at once like this……”
Everyone in the room watched his reaction carefully.
For good reason. Two things had already gone off simultaneously — the rabbit situation and the Awakened Kim Woo-joo situation.
And today, out of nowhere, a third: the Awakened Seo I-an situation.
A Tower clear time so absurd it didn’t even register at first — under five minutes.
The worldwide Floor 41 clear time.
Average: in the forties. Fastest record up until now: high twenties.
The person who held the high-twenties record had benefited from not just raw power but a highly favorable elemental matchup, apparently.
“Did she pick up?”
Oh Won-taek raised his head slightly and directed the question at Yun Jin-gi.
“As you know, sir……”
Meaning no.
She doesn’t pick up Association calls.
“What about asking Enchanter Park Si-woo? Did anyone try?”
The one person she could be reached through, even though he was Association-affiliated.
“He’s also not reachable right now, sir.”
“Why?!”
“He went into the workshop, sir. Said he’s making something.”
“Oh no.”
Oh Won-taek looked up in genuine alarm.
He’d thought three things had blown up at once — it was four.
For reference: the workshop was something close to a sacred, inviolable space within the Association.
The place Enchanters went to combine materials and produce items — if their focus broke for even a moment, all the materials dissolved. Absolutely not to be disturbed.
“A weapon, I wonder?!”
While other items took a day or two, weapons ate through three days to nearly a week of work.
“He went in without saying what it was, sir!”
“Of all the times for this to happen! Good lord…… what do we even do……”
Oh Won-taek looked up at the ceiling this time instead of his desk, and covered his face.
The gesture seemed to speak for itself.
“Could Awakened Seo I-an have met the rabbit on Floor 41? I think that’s possible.”
The female employee who had met Woo-joo when he came to register spoke up.
“That might well be it. Actually, that seems more credible than anything else. Honestly — a Floor 41 clear in under five minutes? Search the whole world and you won’t find a precedent.”
When the Floor 41 clear notification had gone off this morning——
Everyone in this room had probably thought the same thing.
It was just that implausible.
“Team lead!”
This time it was Yun Jin-gi.
“What.”
“The wandering merchant rabbit appeared suddenly. And around the same time — Awakened Kim Woo-joo emerged out of nowhere and started showing results. Could there be a connection?”
“……The timing is suspicious, I’ll give you that.”
Oh Won-taek lowered his hands from his face and looked at Yun Jin-gi directly, signaling him to continue.
“It’s just a hypothesis, sir, but — what if the wandering merchant rabbit isn’t an NPC, but an Awakened?”
A plausible-sounding theory.
But there were a few things that didn’t quite fit.
“Towers don’t allow joint entry without a party arrangement, do they.”
“That could be Awakened Kim Woo-joo’s trait, sir.”
“No one in the entire world has had a trait like that until now.”
“It could be a new one that just appeared. And maybe that’s why the wandering merchant rabbit only shows up in Korean Towers.”
Even as he said it, Yun Jin-gi wasn’t certain.
But it was the kind of thought that nagged — could it be though? — and since they were on the topic, he’d said it.
“That’s actually a possibility.”
Oh Won-taek found himself almost hoping it was true.
The rabbit and Awakened Kim Woo-joo being the same person?
That would let him resolve two issues at once.
And Seo I-an’s impossible Floor 41 clear time?
That might end up explained along with everything else.
If so: three birds, one stone.
The more realistic sequence of events was probably that Awakened Kim Woo-joo had met the rabbit on Floor 2.
But if there was even a 1% chance the other hypothesis was true, confirming it was their job.
“Yun Jin-gi!”
“Sir!”
“Try to reach Awakened Kim Woo-joo first. If possible, arrange for him to come into the Association.”
“Yes sir!”
“And Jo Yun-jin.”
“Yes!”
“Keep an eye on when Enchanter Park Si-woo comes out of the workshop, and keep trying to reach Seo I-an in the meantime. She won’t pick up — but there’s a small chance she answers by accident.”
“Yes sir! Understood!”
[Name] : Kim Woo-joo
[Level] : 18
“Definitely feels like levels slow down as you get higher — even with high contribution, the level gain is noticeably less.”
He was home, looking at his status screen with mild dissatisfaction.
[Strength] : 11 (7+4)
[Intelligence] : 11 (7+4)
[Agility] : 4
[Luck] : 0
Unspent stat points = 0
Quick stat allocation done — inventory screen.
[Use the Random Skill Book Box?]
Obviously!!
This was the highlight of the day.
He pressed YES and the box flashed with light.
[Skill Bloom!]
[Skill ‘Elixir God’ obtained!]
Elixir God?
Some kind of debuff skill that weakened opponents?
[Elixir God] — S Rank
A medicine I am, and medicine am I — you are Elixir God (藥化神) incarnate!
Potions, elixirs, and similar items can be used up to 2 times in succession!
Effects apply at double potency when stacked!
Reading the description — this was clearly not a debuff that weakened enemies. It was a buff that supercharged him through consumables.
That’s not bad……
It wasn’t the attack skill he’d been hoping for — but Rapid Fire buffed by double-stacked elixirs?
Climbing Towers smoothly should be more than feasible.
He’d raised Strength to boost his base attack. He’d raised Intelligence until mana was no longer a concern.
And above all — that description looked sparse, but this was an S-rank skill.
If EX-rank Intrude was doing its job, S-rank should be no different.
The details would only become clear from actually using it — but the potential was there.