“Got it! It was that easy!”
Sinhyeok, having returned to Elysia’s garden, grabbed any old weed.
“Transform it. Synthesis is the key.”
Yggdrasil’s words were right.
‘I synthesize my mana with the weed’s mana. The result should be directed toward increasing only the weed’s mana as much as possible.’
“Focus.”
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
He seized the faint mana of the weed and drew it inside his body.
‘I can’t leave it to the System. I have to do it manually as much as possible.’
If he left it to the System and used it carelessly, he couldn’t control the result.
‘Increase it. Toward increasing.’
[Attempting synthesis.]
[Failed.]
“Haaaah.”
Sinhyeok recalled what had happened earlier.
‘I have too much mana.’
The ratio was off, so it had been diluted too much.
“Let’s try taking a little bit at a time.”
This time, he tried a different method.
“Warrant Officer, you can go now. I’ll pick the elixir ingredients myself.”
Elysia appeared, her face covered in blood, and trailed off mid-sentence.
Seeing Sinhyeok concentrating, she formed a slight smile.
“How can someone look so beautiful when concentrating. Truly my savior. I’d love to catch you, put you to sleep, and give you to my mother.”
She squatted on the floor and watched over him.
“But you’re fast. I thought it would take quite a while to understand.”
Though it was faint and in a very small amount, Sinhyeok understood ‘Resonance’ and was accomplishing it.
“Hmmm.”
She stared fixedly at Sinhyeok, who was concentrating with his eyes closed.
‘Amazing. No matter how many World Trees I pulled out, Yggdrasil never appeared.’
“Why did she appear through you? She can’t appear carelessly.”
She was one of the absolutes who transcended rank and a very primordial being, so it was difficult for her to reveal her presence.
“What are you. Why are you enveloped by the First World Tree and a Dragon that’s hard to approach?”
“I got a bit of it!”
Sinhyeok shouted abruptly and opened his eyes.
The weed in his hand emitted a thick fragrance and a blue, pure energy.
‘Oh my, that oppa…… he’s crazy.’
Elysia was truly impressed.
She immediately clapped.
Clap, clap, clap, clap.
Sinhyeok took a combat-ready stance at the sudden sound of applause.
‘What the hell, all of a sudden?’
When he looked back, Elysia with dizzy eyes was clapping.
“W-why are you doing that over there?”
“I saw you while passing by.”
“Then why not just pass by……”
“I have to get off work too, so I can leave once the Warrant Officer leaves, right?”
“Ah.”
Sinhyeok jumped to his feet.
“Then I’ll get off work too.”
She was in high spirits and didn’t want to stop.
“But I’m a bit excited, so shall we try the next step?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve nicely taken your first step. Next is this.”
Elysia extended her hand.
She lightly inhaled a breath.
“Hmmm.”
When she exhaled the breath she had taken, the surroundings were filled with all sorts of fragrances and energies, amplified and scattering.
“This is Multi-Resonance. If you search in this state, efficiency doubles!”
Seeing her enjoying this so much, Sinhyeok was at a loss.
“Um, I need to get off work first……”
‘I-I need to run away.’
Her overly excited eyes were a little frightening.
“No, Warrant Officer. You can’t break the flow. Quickly, go~”
At her stern hand gesture, Sinhyeok creakily turned his body.
“Now, start with that! The elements! Feel all the phenomena of nature! Inhale! And exhale!”
“In, inhale! Ex, exhale!”
* * *
“Haaahm.”
Ichan scratched his stomach as he came out of the quarters.
“Sleepy.”
Since his brother didn’t come back yesterday no matter what, he had waited for a while but ended up sleeping first.
Grumbling as he walked toward the cafeteria, he saw someone drenched in exhaustion.
“Hm? Hyung?”
Sinhyeok was entering the quarters while letting out continuous yawns.
“You’re up.”
Sinhyeok passed by Ichan and headed to his room.
“I’m going to sleep. Haaahm, I’m so tired.”
“Hyung? What about food?”
“Not eating.”
He entered the room with his eyes almost closed.
‘Sleepy.’
He collapsed onto the bed just like that.
‘No mana, no stamina, no mental strength.’
His eyes gently closed.
Though his eyes were closing, a smile formed at the corners of Sinhyeok’s mouth.
‘Still, I gained something…….’
[Quest completed.]
[The trait Insight is added.]
[It is a trait that can intervene in the System.]
[System upgrading.]
[Additional functions have been added, applying detailed and in-depth explanation windows.]
[Explanation windows are provided for most skills and objects you touch or observe.]
‘Nice!’
He collapsed just like that.
* * *
He shot up.
He truly shot upright.
Sinhyeok looked at the window.
“I didn’t sleep much.”
He had lightly defeated a mere all-nighter with a few hours of nap.
“Awakening definitely makes my body sturdier than before. I can endure this level of staying up all night easily.”
After some simple stretching, he left his lodging to go to work.
“But what’s going on outside? It’s noisy.”
When he opened the front door and went out, the Hongik Battalion members were lined up long in front of Priest Aizar’s house door.
“Hey Sinhyeok! Did you skip out and just wake up?”
“I worked all night and only slept a few hours.”
“Wow~ but you’re already going to work?”
Sinhyeok said with a proud expression.
“I’m devoted to the mission voluntarily to protect the country.”
“Kyakyakyakya, that’s hilarious, kyakya.”
Those in the corridor burst into laughter all together.
“But Warrant Officer, what are you doing there?”
Looking closely at the line, they were all people who had changed jobs to Priest or Paladin.
“Conversion. They say the chaplain here gives divine power without taking donations, so I’m switching over. Plus, they say he bestows authorities?”
“Ah…….”
“The Battalion Commander strongly recommended it. The country seems to want us to switch quickly too. If the numbers go down, the government’s tithes also decrease, so it’s all good.”
“I see.”
Sinhyeok shook his head as the very thing he had imagined finally came to pass.
“I’ll be seeing that scene again.”
As he left the quarters, he felt both anticipation and worry for Priest Aizar’s overwhelming proselytizing that he would soon witness.
‘He wouldn’t go that far here, right? It’s not like everyone is an idiot.’
“Ah, Aizar~ How gracious! To give divine power free of charge!”
Sinhyeok was speechless at the praise from a passing 2nd Lieutenant.
“Damn……. The world has gone mad.”
He went to work at the Quartermaster Corps before he could witness worse horrors.
He stopped by the administration office first to greet the Quartermaster Chief.
“Chief, I’m here for work.”
Captain Ryu Jihyeon glanced at him from where he sat.
“Why? Didn’t you want to sleep more?”
“I came out to see the special meal preparation through to the end. I’ll take a duty sleep after just this.”
“Very well.”
He urgently caught Sinhyeok before he headed to the workshop.
“Also, I’ll tell you again tomorrow anyway, but know this in advance. You’ll have one more task added.”
“Huh?”
“I heard it’s some kind of supervising work. The Battalion Commander will explain the details. Just know that.”
Sinhyeok nodded for now.
“Yes, sir!”
He went straight into the workshop.
Inside, Aurumstone was waiting with the door wide open.
“Why didn’t you come here!”
“Ack! I need to see this through too! Tomorrow is another day!”
“Ehh! What’s so good about that crazy woman! I know something even more amazing!”
“Got it! Tomorrow!”
Aurumstone watched Sinhyeok heading to Elysia’s lab with a disappointed face.
“I was about to show you something really fun right now. Tch.”
The dwarf closed the door and flopped onto bed with a thud.
“It’s boring without that idiot number two~ I don’t feel like working.”
* * *
“I’m here.”
Sinhyeok entered her lab.
Inside, Elysia was organizing the ingredients for the elixir she had just harvested from the garden.
“Oh my, you’re early.”
She welcomed him with a smile.
Sinhyeok gave an awkward smile and watched her from a distance of not one, but two steps away.
“So what are we doing today?”
“Now we have to make them into medicine.”
Sinhyeok stole a glance at the ingredients.
[A total of 34 types of consumable elixir ingredients have been discovered.]
[Would you like to open the explanation window?]
‘No.’
He was quite pleased with the benefits granted by the changed System and the trait called Insight.
She skimmed over the ingredients once and tapped on the workbench.
“Are you worrying about the recipe? Don’t elixirs usually have some complicated refining process?”
“Oh, no, it’s just an elixir for humans~ Why go through that kind of process? You just mix them up roughly and give it.”
That sounded extremely dangerous.
“Is that really okay?”
Elysia pointed to the garden that doubled as a field.
“Basically, the seeds planted are not dangerous to creatures close to the human body, that is, to humans. And since spirits purify it 24 hours a day, there’s no toxicity either.”
“Ah.”
She turned around and added more, looking at Sinhyeok with sparkling eyes.
A step forward.
“U-um, you’re too close……”
“Besides, the human race is very special.”
She poked Sinhyeok with her finger.
“U-um.”
He jumped back with a whoosh.
She explained the rest with a disappointed expression.
“Humans are the only race that can accept various elements.”
“Huh?”
“Hmm, take goblins for example. Goblins are a race very developed in the element of wood. That’s why they’re weak to elements like iron.”
“Oh.”
Sinhyeok found the unfamiliar concept fascinating.
“From the perspective of us elves, the various races distributed throughout the universe are usually not balanced, but are born with focused elements.”
She took two more steps toward him and poked him again.
“No matter which planet or world, the race called humans is the same. They accept any element. That’s why it’s fine to give them anything~ That’s what I mean.”
“I see.”
Sinhyeok checked the ingredients laid out on the workbench.
“So you just mix them all together?”
“No, it’s still a problem if it’s skewed toward one element. The people taking this are Awakened. If they’re excessively exposed to incompatible energies, it could be difficult, so we have to make it close to void.”
“Ah.”
Having finished her thought, she went out to the garden.
“I’ll go pick a few more. Please wait a moment.”
Sinhyeok thought as he waited.
‘Void, so that means a state without any element, right?’
It referred to the state of ordinary mana that generally existed in the atmosphere.
She came in and laid out a few more ingredients.
“This should balance the ratio. The key is to match them so they mutually generate each other, not too much and not too little.”
Sinhyeok listened carefully to her explanation.
‘This will be useful someday.’
She laid them out nicely and inspected them.
“Done. This should be enough. Now we just need to wash and purify them, then extract only the medicinal properties.”
She called a spirit.
“Undine~”
A ball of water came rushing over from the field with a splash.
“Wash them. Gently, okay?”
The water sloshed.
“Hmm-hmm, hmmm~”
She hummed as she waited for the washing to finish.
Sinhyeok watched together and asked her.
“If we make a custom elixir for an individual, is the process different?”
“Excellent point. It’s very different. Simply put, you know the Korean medicine clinics on Earth?”
“Yes, yes.”
“It’s like the tonic medicine they make there. It has to be tailored to each person’s constitution.”
“Aha!”
Since washing remained, Elysia gave additional explanations to Sinhyeok.
“You learned Resonance.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You use that to find the element suited to that individual. And what they’re lacking too. You check the mutual generation relationships well to fill them, and conversely sometimes use incompatibility to amplify.”
“Ugh, that’s hard.”
Sinhyeok temporarily shut down his brain at the increasingly difficult explanation.
“It’s not easy. Of course, you can only do this when you can draw out another person’s Resonance.”
“Ah, so at my level.”
“It’s difficult. Once you’re more used to it, I’ll tell you the recipe for making elixirs and Elysia’s special body-modification drug.”
She looked at Sinhyeok and smiled very brightly.
‘Body modification?’
“You’re curious about this too, right? Right? Right?”
Sinhyeok hurriedly answered at her rising madness.
“No.”
“Ah, what a shame.”
Seeing the washed ingredients, she approached them.
“I’ve matched all the ratios now. Want to take a look with Resonance?”
At her suggestion, Sinhyeok used Resonance.
All the herbs on the workbench began emitting thick fragrances and radiating energy.
“Now, adjust it bit by bit. If you resonate too strongly, the herbs’ energy will all fly away.”
“Yes.”
Looking at the workbench in this state, all the ingredients’ energies harmonized and felt ordinary.
Only one thing was different. That they felt unusually vital.
“How is it?”
“It’s ordinary. The fragrance is gone, and the energy no longer has any special element.”
She looked at him disappointedly. Sinhyeok quickly added.
“But it feels unusually vital.”
“Ding-dong-dang! That’s the point. It’s our clan’s special recipe. A common element universally applicable to living things—emphasizing life itself.”
“Then it’s done.”
She emphasized the ingredients laid out in order.
“Remember this well. This is the order. This is the chain of mutual generation, the circle of life.”
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water.
“That’s easy.”
“You’ll be able to make good use of it later.”
She stretched, ready to wrap up.
“After this, we just need to mix in a bit of Mother Tree sap and grind it.”
“Hm?”
The Mother Tree she was referring to was currently a sprout.
“This makes things ambiguous. Without sap, we’d have to use a magic stone. Then the recipe gets complicated.”
‘The role of the magic stone is that of a catalyst.’
“Is the sap added to connect everything smoothly?”
She looked at Sinhyeok, who had guessed correctly, with surprise.
“Oh my, you know that too?”
“Yes, I happen to know this too.”
“Hohoho.”
She let out an awkward laugh.
“We could use a magic stone. But that needs to be refined once. That’s very annoying. Should I call that dwarf bastard?”
Sinhyeok gave an awkward smile at her suddenly violent remark.
“No. May I try it? I think I can do it with my ability.”
“Hmm? Yes?”