Thanks to Suho's unexpected gift, the Sanare Clan's combat power had skyrocketed.
The Sanare Clan's combat Admitti, numbering 120 in total, consisted of 1 S-grade, 15 A-grade, 80 B-grade, and 24 C-grade members. This composition alone indicated that it was an incredibly high-ranking clan.
Indeed, in the Clan Combat Power Assessment conducted by the Raid Force Assessment Agency, commonly abbreviated as the RFAA, the Sanare Clan ranked 3rd in Korea and 91st globally.
Excluding Suho, there were only nine S-grade Admitti in the entire country, scattered across different clans and leading their respective factions. Only the Cheondung Saja Clan—ranked 1st nationally—possessed two S-grade members.
The Cheondung Saja Clan was infamous as an extreme elite Admitti clan that accepted no members below B-grade, and as if reflecting that success, it currently held 17th place in the global clan market.
There was a considerable gap between them and 3rd-place Sanare.
Since Admitti didn't Awaken every single day, these rankings had more or less solidified and rarely changed. But this time, Sanare had undergone nothing short of a seismic shift in terms of combat power.
The items Jeong Suho had offered as tokens of gratitude were each and every one staggering.
Converted to money, they would easily exceed tens of trillions of won, but in truth, many were items that could not be obtained even with money.
Especially top-grade potions, S-grade Etheriums, and things like Starlight.
Of the items received this time, Lee Danbi decided to store only the top-grade healing potions, top-grade disease cure potions, and a portion of the S-grade Etheriums that weren't immediately needed in the clan vault. The rest, she distributed generously among the clan members.
Since everyone was desperate for upgrades to their weapons and armor, she handed them out, telling the members to do as they pleased—sell them to purchase higher-grade armaments, or socket the Etheriums into their current equipment.
The distribution was differentiated by rank, but she issued higher grades than individual capabilities warranted.
Each of the fifteen A-grade Admitti received one S-grade Etherium, while the 104 B-grade and C-grade members were each given one A-grade Etherium.
However, she established a clan rule that high-grade healing potions and high-grade regeneration potions would be distributed one per person to teams climbing and raiding the Tower.
Additionally, those with light-attribute equipment received an extra 50 grams of Starlight each, making those clan members the envy of everyone.
With this, Lee Danbi simultaneously boosted the Sanare clan members' combat power and quelled any dissatisfaction regarding the full-scale protection of Jeong Suho's family in one fell swoop.
Perhaps because they hadn't expected their Clan Leader to distribute such high-grade supplies so quickly, all the clan members rejoiced like children.
Some immediately sought out craftsman Admitti and headed to the forge; others glued themselves to the OnTower auction house. The entire clan was abuzz with delightful clamor.
Watching the scene with satisfaction, Danbi ascended to the lounge bar on the top floor of the clan building.
Accepting a glass of wine from the bartender, she sank into thought, settling her heart pounding with excitement and thrill and her complicated mind.
'This is only just the beginning.'
In truth, there had been almost no room for the Sanare Clan to grow stronger and rise to a higher position.
They had already reached their limits in every aspect: extreme training, teamwork honed through countless drills, equipment invested in up to the brink of their finances, trust built through long years of shared blood and sweat, and the systems of a mid-to-large-sized clan.
Precisely because they were a clan so cultivated, trained, and united, there had been little room for further growth.
In many ways, they had already reached the ceiling of their potential.
Sanare was one of the few clans in the Republic of Korea capable of raiding Towers up to the 75th floor.
The fact that there was no room for growth despite this meant that the other top-tier clans at a similar level were in the same boat.
And yet, meeting just one person, Jeong Suho, had changed everything.
'He is the core of this upheaval... I have to secure him...!'
A flame seemed to ignite in Lee Danbi's eyes.
"Yo, Noonim, why are you sitting here hogging the mood all alone? You should've asked me to drink with you."
Lee Seojun, an A-grade Admitti of Sanare and an ice mage, happened to come up to the lounge and spotted Lee Danbi.
"Ah, Seojun. I just have a lot on my mind."
"Come to think of it, Noonim, you're really amazing."
"What is?"
"I'm talking about Admitti Jeong Suho. When you first boasted about recruiting a newly Awakened S-grade production and support type, I actually scoffed."
"I failed, didn't I? The recruitment. You're right."
"But still, getting this close to him is no small feat. Being on these terms is a win in itself. Other clans probably haven't even managed to talk to him."
At those words, Danbi's eyes went wide.
"Yeah... you're right... Seojun, you're right."
"Huh?"
Lee Danbi shook her head vigorously.
"Currently, there haven't been any Tower eruptions in our clan's assigned sector, right?"
"Yes, not currently. The Administration Bureau hasn't contacted us about any either."
"Even if one does appear, there won't be a high-level Tower, right? So... I'm talking about a Tower high enough that I absolutely must go."
"Well... I suppose... that's true? We just cleared a 70th-floor one recently. It's not like those pop up often."
"Okay, good. Vice Clan Leader Lee Seojun."
"Damn... why are you calling me like that. It's scary."
"Why? What's wrong with calling the Vice Clan Leader 'Vice Clan Leader'?"
"You only call me that when you're about to give me a headache of a task."
"Ah, did I?"
Danbi rolled her eyes and played dumb.
"Anyway, it's not that. No, as Vice Clan Leader, look after our Sanare Clan carefully, take care of it, and manage it well. Even when I'm absent."
"Eek...? Noonim, where are you going?"
"Starting today, I'm going to be Jeong Suho's dedicated bodyguard."
"What, why all of a sudden. Right now, teams are taking turns guarding him on rotation. Does the Clan Leader herself have to..."
"Tsk, there's a reason for everything, you idiot. Even if teams guard him on rotation, they'll just watch over him from a distance like shadows."
"Well, of course. The client has his privacy."
"That's the problem. How are we supposed to get close to him like that?"
"Aha... so to get closer..."
"Exactly."
"Ah... Noonim, could it be that you want to get personally closer to Admitti Suho..."
Thwack—! Crunch!
"Kuhk!"
Lee Seojun's head snapped back from the lightning-fast flick to his forehead.
Of course, she had probably held back, but the forehead flick of Lee Danbi—an S-grade Admitti and a melee dealer who was a swordsman—was strong enough to crumple steel.
Lee Seojun, an A-grade high-level ice mage, had wrapped himself in a shield at light speed, but it shattered like a thin window pane, and the damage went straight through.
Clutching his forehead, which was red and swollen, Seojun staggered back several steps.
"You... crazy... are you trying to kill me, Noonim!?"
"Hah, s-sorry... you were saying something so ridiculous..."
Lee Danbi was fine in every other way, but she had a problem: if someone embarrassed her too much or made her flustered, unfiltered, uncontrolled impulsive actions came out.
Lee Seojun nearly experienced true team-kill that day.
* * *
"Let's see..."
Suho was assessing his means of protection.
Androids Minsu and Minji, Joshua, and the Sanare Clan were still engaged in protection activities, and it would take time to finish manufacturing, receive, and set up the additional 1,000 androids he had ordered; the B-grade Hero-rank ring he had purchased previously, [Tempered Light-Ray Ring]; and the A-grade armor he had received this time, [Elasthrin Silk Armor].
With just the ring and armor he possessed, he felt he could likely block not only random knife attacks but also indiscriminate gunfire or even bomb terror attacks, but against an Admitti, they were paltry.
'If by any chance I were truly isolated alone, I wouldn't have a way to defend myself...'
Of course, he could escape into his subspace warehouse, but he wanted to secure means of counterattack beyond mere protection and escape.
With that goal in mind, Suho immersed himself in design, diligently drawing on a tablet in the study inside the Dream Village within his subspace warehouse.
After a long while, he seemed to have formulated a plan and called for Rabi.
"Rabi, what's the hardest metal in the universe?"
"The meaning of 'hard' is quite diverse..."
"Just keep it simple—hard! That is, high hardness and high strength."
"The metal with the highest hardness and the metal with the highest strength are different from each other."
"Then something with both high."
"Among those balanced with both high properties, the hardest metal is MagLite."
"Hoo, that's a new one. It's harder than Adamant, right? Or Starlight?"
"Of course. It possesses strength and hardness over 500 times that of Adamant and over 200 times that of Starlight. It is a metal impossible to destroy through ordinary means."
"Perfect. Give me that. MagLite."
"Shall I generate MagLite as the 25th item in Jeong Suho-nim's Cheonyangwon?"
"I've confirmed. Since this is the first time too, it'll be set to maximum value, right?"
"Correct. As it is a metal never before observed on Earth, it has been set to maximum value, appraised at 10 billion won per 1 kg, and a total of 1,000 trillion tons has been generated."
"Wow, this is pretty expensive? So about 100 times the price of gold?"
"About that much. Since it is 100 times the value of Orbelun."
Having received 71 gyeong liters of [Intermediate Healing Potion] as the 24th item earlier, it was already the 25th item.
He felt anew that it was amazing he had already chosen twenty-five different items.
"Alright, then Rabi, carve the MagLite according to this drawing."
Rabi fluttered over and peered at the drawing on Suho's tablet.
"Hmm... is this a cage?"
"Oh, right. Close enough!"
What Suho had requested was a cage with five sides blocked—excluding the floor. It was a perfectly cubical metal cage with an incredibly dense structure, so tight that not even a single mouse could slip through.
The sizes varied: 2 meters, 3 meters, 4 meters, 6 meters, 8 meters, and up to 10 meters in width × depth × height.
"Is this for capturing and confining enemies?"
"It depends on how you use it. I can use it to trap enemies, but also to protect myself from danger."
"Hoo..."
"What do you think, not bad, right?"
"That is an extremely cumbersome method."
"Tch."
Pouting, Suho jutted his lips out and went back to drawing something for a while.
The completed result after another long while.
"This. Rabi. Look at this."
"What is this?"
"It's a weapon."
What Suho had designed was a chunk of metal in the shape of a pencil, with its center of gravity oriented downward.
A piece roughly 2 cm in diameter and 10 cm in length, with the very bottom designed to be sharp and pointed. The center of gravity was designed to always point downward.
"Make these out of Orbelun. A lot. As many as possible."
The pencil-shaped metal rods made of Orbelun were small and sharp but were expected to weigh a hefty 63.3 kg each.
They were the perfect dropping weapons.
He could simply drop them, but he had designed them to fit perfectly into the grooves of the cage, so he could confine something inside the cage and rain down a storm of steel.
"When you say 'as many as possible,' do you mean to use all 10 gyeong tons' worth?"
"No, no! Not that much... Ah, that was close. Let me see... Then... just make 100 million for now. 100 million."
"Understood."
He would have to arm himself step by step. So that he could fight even alone.
Though such a thing should never happen, one never knew what life had in store.