Two days had passed since he returned from the Administration Bureau. During that time, Ian had gone back and forth between his workshop and his home, spending his days in an utterly ordinary fashion.
He hadn’t really handled any commissions. It hadn’t been a lie when he said he would be taking a vacation for a while, so he intended to keep living like this at least until after Lunar New Year.
Naturally, there was no need for him to head home for the holidays. What was the point of a homecoming when he had no parents or relatives to visit?
His situation was different from a premium orphan like Lee Seoa. Unlike her, who had at least had parents when she was born, Ian had been an orphan with no one in the world since he was one year old. Far from receiving his parents’ love, he didn’t even know their faces, or whether he had any relatives at all.
Back then, he had been terribly ashamed of that, but now he felt nothing.
Of course. Live as an orphan for more than twenty years, and you became enlightened about all sorts of things.
“Hmm.”
Late lunchtime.
Ian roughly ordered a meal through a delivery app, tossed his phone onto the bed, and plopped down into his chair.
When he shifted his gaze to the wall, an aquarium filled with swimming fish entered his view. There weren’t that many fish, but the tropical fish, each with its own distinct colors, roamed freely through the enormous tank.
It wasn’t that he had suddenly taken up aquarium keeping as a hobby.
He had simply tried changing the environment of his workshop by following the advice the Deep-Sea Anglerfish—Kim Yul—had given him.
‘Even the sea of outer space falls under the category of water, at least. It should be of some minimal help.’
Most of the spells recorded in the Deep-Sea Travelogue were summons, and the rest were mainly offensive magic. There wasn’t really any delicate work that required the use of a workshop.
Even so, there was no great reason he had brought an aquarium into the workshop. It was just that, since he was furnishing the place anyway, he thought it would be nice to match it as well.
The biggest reason Ian had made a workshop was, of course, the Touch of Re-Creation. In order to create items of a high grade, the existence of a workshop was absolutely necessary, so having one wasn’t a choice but a necessity. That was why he had made the workshop, and he had succeeded.
However, it still fell short of being truly complete. Only after filling it with tools suited to the nature of his magic would it become the workshop of a competent mage.
So he had spent time placing a fairly wide variety of items where they belonged. He had put a brewing apparatus he had no intention of ever using in the corner of the table, and arranged books related to alchemy so they looked nice. He had also placed a few pieces of gold in a drawer.
Ian knew full well that the alchemy he used wasn’t ordinary alchemy. But this was the best he could do. In any case, it was magic classified as alchemy, so this should be enough.
If not, well, he would spend money again and redecorate the workshop.
He had plenty of money, so there was no need to be stingy. Since he earned it in order to use it when necessary, it was only right to spend generously on matters like this.
Having organized his thoughts that way, Ian put on his glasses and picked up the grimoire he had left on the table.
The Touch of Re-Creation.
Letters engraved like silver embroidery across the pure white cover.
Though they were not Korean, they somehow read as Korean. After running a finger over those words once, he slowly opened the cover and read the contents written inside. The Touch of Re-Creation turned its pages on its own, following his will.
‘It’s about time I tried a new alchemy.’
The last item Ian had made was the “Knowledge-Eating Paper.” It was an alchemical item that absolutely required a workshop to create, and its effect was quite good even among the items he had made so far.
Since the condition of a workshop was attached, the other items were likely to possess power similar to the paper.
As long as the materials weren’t too complicated, there would be no harm in trying right away.
Thinking that, Ian slowly turned the pages. He also checked whether there were any decent items that didn’t require the workshop.
Had he turned about ten pages like that?
Ian found an item that caught his eye.
[Chalice That Holds Souls]
[A chalice that extracts the soul from a corpse that has not been dead for long. The extracted soul may be used as a material, and some of its memories may also be viewed. This chalice can hold a total of three souls; if they are mixed and drunk, one’s number of egos increases.]
[Materials: 1 metal chalice, 300g of salt, 50ml of horse blood, 20g of bone powder, 50ml of holy water, 100ml of the owner’s blood.]
It wasn’t a bad item at all. The materials were a little complicated, but not impossible to obtain, and the effect was decent in its own way. Above all, the ability to view memories piqued his interest.
‘If I’d had this on the cruise, I could’ve killed the captain and searched through his memories. Since there’d be no need to interrogate him, there’d be no reason to show any mercy with my hands either.’
Tight-lipped enemies were always troublesome, no matter when or where. If there was a lot of information to uncover, interrogation or torture was necessary, but too much time was consumed there.
He did have magic that amplified pain. It wasn’t difficult to make someone foam at the mouth from a light cut with a knife. However, before torturing them like that, the process of capturing them was inconvenient in all sorts of ways. He had to hold back enough not to kill them, and if he did that, his re-creation magic was effectively sealed. The same went for summoning.
With two of his main spells sealed, it would be extremely difficult to steer a battle in his favor. In that respect, a chalice that made it unnecessary to consider whether the opponent lived or died was quite appealing.
‘Let’s make one as a test for now.’
Thinking that, Ian marked the “Chalice That Holds Souls” and continued reading through the grimoire.
After reading intently until just before his food arrived, he was able to narrow things down to about three items, including the Chalice That Holds Souls.
They were items called the [Blood-Seeking Compass] and the [Veil of the Mortal Realm], respectively.
The Blood-Seeking Compass was exactly what it sounded like: a compass. If smeared with a specific target’s blood, it would show that person’s location until the owner of the blood died, and allow other mysteries to identify his location. Even without smearing blood on it, if the scent of blood entered a certain radius, the compass would react.
As a side effect, while using the compass, the owner would also draw the attention of aberrations, but that wasn’t much of a drawback.
After all, he had quite a few ways to deal with aberrations.
The Veil of the Mortal Realm was a kind of cloak. When worn, it allowed the user to move into the gap between reality and the hidden side of the world for a certain period of time, escaping the eyes of both sides. In simple terms, one could think of it as an invisibility cloak.
Its duration was five minutes, and it was disposable, so its efficiency wasn’t very good, but its performance was still fairly excellent. For the moment, it was an outright superior version of the coat’s magic, which only allowed him to escape the sight of those without reason.
Among the three, he decided to make the compass first.
Its materials were nothing more than one ordinary compass, blood, a few leeches, and a few pieces of aberration flesh, so it was easy to make. And since he currently had no proper means of tracking, it didn’t seem bad to prepare one in advance.
‘I can just buy a reasonably good compass, and get the leeches from the cartel.’
Something out of the ordinary? If he searched the cartel, it would roughly show up. It would be expensive, but since he had a steady income, there was no need to worry too much about it.
In any case, he had to spend more than five million won every month. Alchemy itself was a money-guzzling darling, so he probably wouldn’t need to get too obsessive about that either.
“Grrrnn…”
Having organized his thoughts, Ian stretched, then picked up the lunchbox that had arrived at his door and lightly took care of a meal. He generally tried to cook for himself if possible, but ordering in like this every once in a while wasn’t bad either.
After finishing his meal, he immediately purchased the items necessary for alchemical production. Since he would eventually have to make the other two items besides the compass as well, he bought the things needed for those in advance too.
The materials he purchased through ordinary shopping companies would arrive tomorrow or the day after at the earliest, and the things he paid for through the cartel would fly to his house in twelve hours.
Until then, he had nothing in particular to do, so Ian spent time in moderation before returning home.
He lay down on his bed and took out his phone. He connected to the community as usual and familiarly skimmed through the popular posts. Among them, there was one post that mentioned Ian.
[I saw the newbie today.]
[Deep-Sea Anglerfish]
He looked a lot more normal than I expected. But his actual way of talking was so different from how he talks on the community that it felt kind of weird.
Oh, where I met him is a secret.
[Recommendations 15] [Not Recommended 0]
[Comments]
-Why are you the only one who gets to meet him?
ㄴDeep-Sea Anglerfish: He said he doesn’t want to see a musty-smelling man like you.
ㄴYou bitch.
-TamingMaster: Was he a koja?
ㄴDeep-Sea Anglerfish: He was a man who smelled nice.
ㄴTamingMaster: (Mage punch con)
ㄴDeep-Sea Anglerfish: Your inferiority complex is ugly.
ㄴTamingMaster: What inferiority complex? I have three wives.
ㄴWormInYourEar: Three wives (while turning an eight-foot-tall ghost, a Kongkong ghost, and a banshee into limb-amputated dolls)
-UnicornLoveDog: Was he a virgin?
ㄴDeep-Sea Anglerfish: Piss off.
ㄴUnicornLoveDog: lol
It was a post written a few days ago. Ian wondered whether he should leave a comment, then simply moved on. Since she hadn’t said they met at the Administration Bureau, there was nothing particularly bothersome in it.
‘Come to think of it, we didn’t exchange contact information separately either.’
Well, there would be another opportunity, so he wasn’t too hung up on it. Ian thoroughly read through the rest of the popular posts, then loosened his stiff wrist.
It was then. The phone in his hand suddenly vibrated briefly as a call came in.
The caller was Han Yuna. They had exchanged numbers, but this was the first time she had called him like this. They hadn’t even exchanged the common sort of message, so it was a little out of the blue.
‘What’s this about?’
Without thinking much of it, Ian answered the call and brought the speaker to his ear.
“Hello—”
“Mr. Shin Ian!”
Before he could even finish speaking, Han Yuna’s voice rang out loudly. Ian frowned at the ear-ringing volume, and she immediately continued.
“Could you pretend to be my boyfriend for a bit?!”
“……?”
Ian’s face twisted in a subtle way.