Whoosh.
A small resource probe emerged from the airship.
- Commencing resource survey.
Opsir began its full-scale resource exploration.
“Hurry along, now.”
- Scanning for mineable resources in the vicinity.
“Yeah, good work.”
Opsir and some personnel would confirm the surroundings.
“Then I’ll...”
[You must design the equipment.]
[Please indicate the desired direction.]
“I should at least make personal firearms and howitzers.”
[Searching data.]
[Classified ROK military data search completed.]
“Why do you have that?”
[Thanks to Soul Stream Memorize, we’ve been accumulating data across many fields.]
It was because the magic that faces the soul had eliminated the sanctuary.
“I’ll worry about the consequences later. But even with that...”
[Practical operation is impossible due to the gunpowder.]
“Right. Because of that. Anything else on the airship? It had some strange cannon attached. A laser cannon?”
[It’s a large ion particle cannon using plasma technology, but the materials supply for that tech is difficult.]
“Tsk, not easy.”
[I believe it’s best to replace gunpowder in low-difficulty conventional weapons with magic.]
[As a solution, I recommend utilizing the crystallization of magic currently developed on Earth.]
“Crystallization of magic? Sounds familiar. That’s that, uh...”
[It’s a technique perfected by Lucien Parel of the Smith Magical Tower, currently staying in South Korea, with the System’s help...]
“Ah! It turned out just as I expected, huh?!”
[Yes.]
“Ha, haha! I knew it.”
Shin Hyeok’s expression brightened at the welcome news.
He had expected it, but nevertheless, the technology had been developed quickly.
If that’s the case...
“Earth’s situation must have improved.”
[The current state of affairs seems to have improved somewhat.]
“We’ve got to step up too. So, we can replace the gunpowder with what you mentioned. But you can’t make that, right? Synthesizing even that would be a waste.”
[Correct. Someone would have to use Explosion magic all day long.]
“Magic, huh....”
Right now, aside from Shin Hyeok himself, the people capable of magic were...
“Heh heh. Everyone’s busy, I see.”
There was someone who could use magic and was particularly free lately.
“Malakai-nim~”
He looked back with a kindly face.
“Yes. What brings you, teacher?”
Malakai felt a chill seeing Shin Hyeok’s strange smile.
A truly gracious person, but occasionally unpredictable, which made him a little anxious.
Especially that peculiar smile.
“You must have leveled up, and I think you should be able to use 5th-circle Explosion now.”
“Heh heh. That’s right. Thanks to you, teacher, I’ve reached the 5th circle, something I never dreamed of my whole life.”
“Excellent! Then, there’s something you can do for me.”
“Hmm?”
With a puzzled look, Malakai was dragged along by Shin Hyeok and given an explanation.
“So, I just have to keep using magic up here?”
“Ding-dong-ding.”
After the brief explanation, Shin Hyeok immediately fled.
Watching Shin Hyeok suddenly move far away, Malakai grew half-anxious.
Left alone, he used magic atop a strange magic circle.
“E-explosion...?”
Malakai, with an uneasy voice, properly executed the formulas and the circle.
Soon after, instead of a huge explosion in the air, red crystals rained down with a rustle.
“Excellent!! A couple more times should do it~”
“Alright!”
Malakai stared in wonder at the falling crystals and checked his mana.
The situation was such that he could only use it a few times a day, so he paused to recover mana.
That’s when Shin Hyeok came running like fire.
“Fill your mana with this! There isn’t much, so please use it sparingly!”
What Shin Hyeok left behind was a box of the highest-grade mana potions.
“Heh, heh heh. Hehehehe....”
Malakai just laughed wordlessly.
Even staying still, mana rapidly refilled.
“Dammit....”
And so, even as his mana depleted, Malakai continued to use 5th-circle magic in succession.
Though his mana recovered, his mental strength grew dizzy, and he plopped down on the floor, yet he began to fire Explosions into the air repeatedly.
“Mm, doing a fine job.”
Shin Hyeok checked on Malakai, the factory diligently producing explosion crystals in the distance.
“You can handle the rest yourself, right?”
[Yes. I’ll take care of the remainder.]
[After the tractor fabrication is complete, I will proceed with making personal firearms and howitzers.]
[And if time permits, I’ll consider manufacturing military uniforms as well.]
“Yeah, take your time with the uniforms, but make the rest quickly. I’ll think about other equipment too.”
[Once you finish your concept, I will begin design work immediately.]
“Okay.”
Sitting in a quiet spot, Shin Hyeok thought of the magic bullets he had made before.
‘A small mana crystal in the warhead, Blue’s blood mixed with the gunpowder to induce instability upon firing so it explodes on impact.’
“Could put in other things besides mana. Or maybe it doesn’t have to be a magic bullet.”
Shin Hyeok lay on the grass for a moment, thinking.
“There are plenty of threatening weapons other than bullets. Like white phosphorus bombs—weapons like that wouldn’t be bad.”
One dreadful thing came to mind.
“Fire that won’t go out.”
[It can be manufactured. The ship is equipped with devices that can extract and produce those components.]
“And if we mix that in too.”
He pointed at Factory Manager Malakai, who was busily producing explosion crystals.
[I believe it would become a highly threatening weapon.]
“Make it and store it safely inside the ship. And, any other things?”
[What type of weapon are you referring to?]
“Nuclear bomb?”
[Available.]
“Feasibility of manufacture?”
[It depends on the survey results. We need to secure the key components, uranium or plutonium.]
“Search for that too. If things get desperate, we’ll use everything. Now’s not the time to be picky.”
- Yes. Understood.
The matter was immediately relayed to Opsir.
“Well then, ughhh.”
He stretched.
“Is everything pretty much done?”
[You only need to wait.]
[Please preserve your mental strength for production.]
“Haah, that’s the problem. What’s the point of being able to make anything if I can only make a few per day?”
[Shall I recommend materials for the enhancement and development of mental strength?]
“Oh, give me whatever. Just exclude anything related to training.”
[Excluding keyword: training. Re-searching.]
[……...]
Quite some time passed.
Thirty minutes, an hour.
“Hey, Mr. Akashic? Very busy? It’s taking way too long.”
[Search halted.]
[No data found.]
[Please reset the keyword.]
“...….”
That’s basically a “I don’t know” message.
“So you’re just saying there isn’t any.”
[Correct.]
[The most recommended method is developing and training the upper dantian using the Samjae Gong.]
“I’ve told you, that works like crap.”
With a dazed face, Shin Hyeok asked about all the tasks he had entrusted to Akashic.
“How long will it take to finish making the things I mentioned through synthesizing?”
[Estimated 15 days. It may take longer depending on the production quantity.]
“Ugh. Too long.”
[It cannot be shorter than this.]
“I know. In the end, I’m the problem. The answer is ‘transcendence,’ right?”
Breaking past the limits of the human species.
Easier said than done—it’s not something so simple.
[‘Transcendence’—if you mean strength that goes beyond the limits of a species—has a very high probability of being the answer.]
“How does the System express that?”
[Level. Reaching approximately level 500 generally signifies that one has reached the species limit and stands at its boundary.]
‘Then Blue is...’
That meant Blue, the dog lying sprawled out in front of the castle, giggling and playing with the kids, was practically such a being.
“Hmm... level is an answer, but.”
[Status Window]
Name: Bu Shin-hyeok (LV.67)
Class: Alchemist, Nottdrasil Administrator
Strength: 546
Agility: 415
Vitality: 654
Mana: 1054
Mental Power: 214
Traits: Mana Coagulation Body, Blessing of the Supreme Dragon, Akashic Cabinet
‘It’s risen a lot.’
In the end, there were just two options.
“Either power-level, or find another way.”
[I recommend transcendence through leveling up. It’s the most viable method.]
“That’s right. But ugh, I hate it.”
Contrarian streak.
Typical rebel.
He always wanted to go in a different way, just like that.
“I want to go differently.”
[Tsk tsk.]
Two quite peculiar consonant letters were output.
“Hey, what’s that?”
[……@#$%& There was a brief error.]
‘Nah, that’s definitely not an error.’
It was the moment Shin Hyeok’s suspicion turned to certainty.
“Anyway, I’m going to find another path. First, pull up all the data on the mind and on synthesizing.”
[……Outputting 1,285,243 documents.]
At the overwhelming volume, Shin Hyeok hastily shouted again.
“Only the highly credible ones!”
[Sorting documents.]
[Prioritizing materials that best match the request.]
[Outputting 345,124 documents.]
“Dammit.”
[I sincerely wish you success.]
“Tsk. You’re a person, aren’t you?”
[Proceeding with the design of the white phosphorus bomb.]
[Due to excessive usage, I will be unable to respond for a short while.]
[I will output the data.]
Countless documents scattered into the air.
“That’s definitely a person. A person pretending to be an AI.”
No answer came from Akashic.
“Alright. Let’s take a look.”
Lying comfortably, he tapped one.
“Contemplations on the Mind.”
When he pressed it, it was a bunch of stale, theoretical content.
Talk about what the mind is, what it’s based on.
“Pass.”
Most were pedantic and didn’t quite resonate.
“You’re a pass too.”
Shin Hyeok rummaged through them for a long time.
“Not much that’s useful.”
What he had learned so far was...
“Just that a human’s mind is closely tied to the soul, and martial arts conceptualize it as the upper dantian.”
The Samjae Gong that Shin Hyeok had learned was a method of accumulating energy in all three dantians.
Of course, Shin Hyeok used it in a completely different way.
“Moving from the middle dantian—the mana heart—to the upper dantian and settling it there, that’s precisely mental power increase.”
[Correct.]
“But the proportion of energy that settles in the upper dantian that way is extremely minimal. So just training mental power or leveling up is faster.”
[That is also correct.]
“Stop interjecting and do your own work. Unless you’re going to help me.”
[……Some decent data just came in.]
“Oh?”
[It’s an actual case from another planet. The story of conjoined twin psychic espers.]
Something quite interesting came in. Shin Hyeok listened closely.
[They’re conjoined twins sharing the lower body and most of their nerves. They awakened psychic abilities.]
“Oh, and?”
[It was observed that the strength of their abilities was over five times greater than other psychics.]
“Isn’t that just because they’re talent freaks?”
[So, a certain organization conducted inhumane experiments related to this.]
“Ah...….”
[If it’s unpleasant to hear, shall I output it as a document?]
“No, I dislike that even more. Keep going.”
[So, they kidnapped two psychics who could only use simple telepathy. They performed human modification surgery to alter their bodies and nervous systems to be shared.]
“Ugh...….”
[Multiple test subjects died, but they observed that the two survivors’ psychic abilities had improved several times over compared to before.]
The story was shocking, but strangely familiar.
‘I know something similar to this.’
[You have a similar skill, Administrator.]
“Soul Link!”
[Correct. The key point is that the mind, as it is shared, possesses the property of growing exponentially stronger.]
Listening to Akashic, Shin Hyeok tapped his head repeatedly.
“Something’s coming to me. A brilliant inspiration.”
Tap, tap, tap.
Lost in thought, Shin Hyeok kept tapping his head.
Let’s just think of it simply, like computer parts.
“If mental power is the CPU, then two cores would run faster than one, right?”
[That’s obvious.]
“Then we just increase the CPUs!”
Laughing, Shin Hyeok grabbed the head of I Chan, who was sprawled out sleeping next to the World Tree.
“What!?”
“This would be faster, right? It’ll be easier, and we can synthesize more than now.”
[……...]
Shin Hyeok wore a slightly bitter smile.
“I’ve thought of a decent concept. Based on this, I think I can overcome the limits of mental power.”
[There are numerous difficult issues.]
[Firstly, Soul Link can only be activated on a target with deep bonds and a sense of fundamental sameness.]
“Brainwash and modify them. Force the bond into existence.”
[Brainwashing has limits. Additionally, how will you address the sense of fundamental sameness?]
“Synthesize it. Turn them into a familiar or pet of mine. That’s pretty much how it happened with the priest ahjussi, and that’s why it worked.”
Apologies to him, but looking at the priest ahjussi and Namgung Jincheon, you could tell.
Once they went through that touch, a forced bond and sense of fundamental sameness formed.
[…….]
[Second, those who can wield the mythical ability of synthesizing are rare...]
Shin Hyeok interrupted again.
“Then I can split my skill through synthesis and insert it into them. I’ve already done that.”
[Tch.]
[Then it is possible.]
Akashic gave up.
Shin Hyeok smiled a smile of victory.
“Find an appropriate species. Among the demons.”
[I will refer to the data from the last battle and select demons specialized in the psychic field.]
“Good. This time, we’re the ones who should invade. The tractor manufacturing?”
[It was completed just now. It can be used a total of 10 times.]
“Proceed with making the rest. Substitute the gunpowder with those explosion crystals. Make 100 firearms, and plenty of live ammunition accordingly.”
[Which would you like to produce first, personal firearms or howitzers?]
Shin Hyeok thought for a moment before choosing the latter.
“Let’s go with the latter for now. Finish the howitzers first.”
[Beginning howitzer production.]
“Good. Everything’s going smoothly. There’s one objective for the next battle!”
Prisoners, of course.
But there was one problem.
It was that he was somewhat unfamiliar with that particular field.
‘Tch, black magic would be perfect for this sort of thing.’
[Some black magic texts are stored in the archives. Shall I share them?]
“Oh, really? Nice! Then, I’ll ask for the brainwashing side of things.”
[Searching related materials.]
[Found a total of 135 documents.]
“Let’s go through them one by one. See if there’s anything worth referencing.”