The fact that he had become an Admitty, the fact that he was in the production and support line, and the fact that he was S-rank were all lies.
But in truth, it wasn’t as if he had exaggerated an impossible ability. If anything, he had described it as far weaker than it really was.
It was like gaining the power of “Superman,” but thinking people might resist accepting that, so you told them you had become a “super soldier” like Captain America instead.
After thinking it over in his own way, he felt that, depending on how he spun it, he might actually be able to fulfill that role.
But one concern remained.
None other than safety.
He had received an enormous amount of wealth, and even a supernatural subspace storage, but Suho himself was still an ordinary person with a normal, fragile body.
The kind that would go down with a wet stab if someone stuck a knife in him.
So at first, he wondered if it would be better to hide the ability itself, and whether he should hide the wealth he possessed as well.
In fact, that was what he agonized over the most.
Simply selling things that made money, converting them into cash, and enjoying great wealth. That would be nice too, but more than anything, the most important thing was safety.
And when it came to safety, this was, without a doubt, the surest method.
“The protagonist hides his money.”
Kya, that’s the stuff. When in doubt, hiding things is the answer.
If you hide it, you won’t become a target, and there’s no need to worry about being put in danger.
But that came with the greatest drawback.
What else?
He wouldn’t be able to spend the money at all.
Money left traces the moment you spent it, so if you wanted to hide it, you had to not spend it.
Couldn’t he just spend it somewhere no one knew about?
What fun was there, what meaning was there, in spending lavishly on a deserted island?
In any case, he had gone and gained a fortune—no, not just a fortune, but an absurd amount of wealth. What use was it if he couldn’t spend it?
That didn’t seem right.
So first, he would obtain a proper identity,
come up with protective measures and wrap himself up in them,
and then he would enjoy spending money to his heart’s content.
* * *
All right, then what should he do first?
He had left the moving issue to the rest of his family,
and Suho focused first on securing means of protection.
“Big money brings big trouble... If I’m going to spend even more money from now on, I absolutely need some measure to protect me and my family.”
As he pondered it over and over, a good idea came to him.
It was the special auction house used by the Admittys who entered the Towers.
Commonly known as the “On-Tower Auction House.”
He had heard that all sorts of super-scientific, special, mysterious, and magical items that ordinary people on Earth could never obtain were listed there.
He had never seen it himself because he lacked the qualifications, but photos and posts uploaded to social media by attention-seeking Admittys circulated quite often.
“If I search the auction house, there’ll definitely be some good stuff. Protective gear, or accessories would be good too. Anyway.”
Even if he didn’t use the On-Tower Auction House, pretending to be an Admitty seemed to have many advantages.
A large amount of money absolutely required a means to protect oneself, and at the same time, to use a large amount of money comfortably, he needed an identity without restrictions.
A nouveau riche who could not disclose the source of his funds was highly likely to be subjected to all sorts of monitoring and tracking by the financial authorities. Regulations related to preventing money laundering and terrorist financing would come attached. It would become exhausting.
Was there no way to have an identity that made it plausible to explain the things he had obtained, that made him someone not to be treated lightly so people couldn’t easily pick a fight with him, and that would also let him enjoy all sorts of miscellaneous benefits?
As expected, the answer was Admitty.
Safety, authority, and legitimate proof of source.
This was the only way to catch all three rabbits at once.
“In that case, the remaining problem is...”
To be officially recognized as an Admitty, he absolutely had to go through the certification process.
Not only that, but even to use the On-Tower Auction House, he had to receive Admitty certification.
The certification itself was simple.
He just had to go to the “Alien Defense and Tower Management Agency” and receive Admitty registration and a license.
Strike while the iron was hot. This was the first step.
Suho got up without delay.
* * *
Admittys, who statistically awakened at a rate of only 0.01%.
Even if one searched all of South Korea, there were only around five thousand of them, so awakenings did not occur very frequently.
Moreover, an overwhelming number of Admittys had awakened during the early days when the Towers first appeared,
and after that, the number of awakened people steadily decreased.
As if there were a set number of slots and a certain number had to be maintained, when many Admittys died, the number of newly awakened people would often increase as well.
When he went to the inspection and registration room on the second floor of the Tower Management Agency located near Jonggak Station, there happened to be no one there.
Since there weren’t always awakened people around, apparently times like this happened too.
There wasn’t even an employee at the desk, so Suho had to contact various places to find one.
One employee who had been summoned by phone came running over in a fluster.
“Ah... haa, I’m sorry. You said you awakened? I was taking care of other work...”
“Ahem, I guess there haven’t been many awakened people lately.”
“Yes, it’s really rare these days.”
The awakening procedure was simple.
It was information so widely known that everyone knew it.
First, you showed that you could enter a Tower.
Before beginning the conquest of the first floor of any Tower, you stayed in a waiting room, so you could come right back out.
So all you had to do was show the scene of entering the Tower and then coming back out. In other words, if you disappeared and reappeared as if teleporting, it became evidence that no one could doubt or fabricate.
Because abilities like teleportation or dimensional travel did not exist anywhere in the world, whether for Admittys or anyone else.
The problem was that even a genuine Admitty could only enter a Tower near the Tower itself, and one could not leave a specific Tower unconquered just for a test like this.
If they did, the conquest time limit would end and a Tower Break would occur.
So to solve this problem, people conducted research upon research, and succeeded in creating imitation Towers using the power of Etherium and other Tower materials.
Imitation Towers, which emitted wavelengths similar to Tower energy, had a physical form unlike real Towers, but depending on how they were used, they were more than adequate for temporary purposes.
Of course, they were naturally worlds apart from real Towers.
They contained neither monsters nor various resources, and were nothing more than technology that artificially imitated a tiny portion of the Tower waiting room environment.
In any case, an Admitty could manifest their awakened entry ability in front of this fake temporary Tower.
According to accounts from people with experience circulating around, when an Admitty attempted to enter here, they would be taken into a small, unidentified room of barely one or two pyeong, an empty room with nothing inside.
The awakened management departments of governments around the world used this as the basis for measuring Admitty awakenings.
And the registration of awakened rank and awakened class was done solely based on the person’s own testimony.
It would have been nice if there were another testing method, but since no one else could see the details of another person’s awakening, there was no particular solution.
Even so, there was no major issue.
After all, even if someone lied, it would be exposed quickly as soon as they began conquering a Tower, so it had no meaning.
Abilities could be observed to differ clearly according to class, and there were definite limits to the Tower floors one could climb depending on rank.
And false testimony regarding awakened rank and class was treated as a serious crime because it caused confusion in Tower conquests, and in the case of party conquests, could greatly threaten the safety of the entire team.
In such cases, the punishment was also severe.
Even without going as far as the law, punishment for a false rank was a terrifying matter that could happen on the spot.
You lied and said you were A-rank and began climbing a Tower, but you couldn’t go above the B-rank limit of the 50th floor, and were blocked from climbing the 51st floor?
That was something that could get you stabbed inside the Tower.
“Mr. Jeong Suho, your identity has been confirmed. Here is your ID... Then, please come this way, and could you show us your Tower entry? For your reference, I must inform you in advance that all inspection scenes are recorded.”
The employee, having caught his breath, said this while turning on the recording equipment.
When Suho stood on the spot marked with footprints, a cone-shaped structure the size of a refrigerator appeared before his eyes.
The way it was wrapped in bluish light looked mysterious.
“Yes, I just need to go in and come back out, right?”
“That’s right. Even if it’s only for one second, you just need to go in and return.”
“Understood.”
Suho disappeared without hesitation.
And what he entered was the subspace storage.
“Hello, Lavi.”
“Hello!”
Lavi flew over and greeted Suho warmly.
“Have you perhaps decided on the fifth item?”
“Uh, not that. I just came in for a moment. I have to prove that I disappeared from outside for a bit and then appeared again. I’ll go back now. See you later.”
At that, Lavi stopped Suho.
“Mr. Suho, please wait a moment.”
“Why?”
“The time ratio here and outside is different, so an adjustment is necessary. How long must you disappear outside?”
“More than one second?”
“Understood... Adjustment complete.”
“Oh? I can leave now?”
“Yes, goodbye.”
And then he reappeared in the inspection room.
The employee nodded and wrote something on the tablet chart.
“Yes, Tower entry has been confirmed.”
The employee raised their head again and looked at Suho seriously.
“What are your awakened class and rank?”
“Yes, first of all, I’m in the production and support line.”
“Production and support line... Congratulations. Among the support line, what is your specific class?”
A question Suho had never even considered came out of the employee’s mouth.
He had thought everything would be fine if he simply said “production and support line,” but a specific class...? What should he do about this?
When Suho stayed silent while his eyes darted this way and that, the employee pressed him again.
“Uh... Well, my specific class is... a bit unique.”
“Yes, that’s fine. Please tell me.”
“My class is... I-Item Collector.”
The employee’s eyes went round, and disbelief colored their expression.
“Item Collector? That... kind of class is the first I’ve heard of it...”
The employee tapped around on the tablet, then spoke again.
“There’s no record of such an awakened class being discovered anywhere in the world. Are you certain?”
Damn it. He was screwed.
What could he do? He had to brazen it out.
“Ahaha, right? To be honest, I was surprised too. But it just showed up like this, so I don’t really know what’s what either...”
“...I see. That’s right. That can happen. Admitty awakenings always exceed our common sense, after all. There could be any number of realms we still don’t know about.”
The employee seemed to be trying hard to accept it as fact.
“Then, Mr. Jeong Suho, what is your rank?”
“Uh... My rank is... S-rank.”
Once again, the employee’s eyebrows shot up high.
* * *
As they finished the Admitty registration, the employee reminded Suho several times.
They went on at length, explaining that false testimony regarding awakened rank and class was subject to criminal punishment as fraud, and that if damage occurred in a conquest team because of it, he could receive the maximum legal sentence of up to fifteen years in prison.
They also said that there was a correction and grace period for registration, so if there had been any mistake, he should come back.
He flinched a little when they brought up the criminal law, but Suho soon steeled himself.
He wasn’t going into a Tower anyway, and if so, there was no way he would be found out.
The employee in the inspection room was undoubtedly suspicious of him.
After receiving his registration certificate from the issuance department, Suho immediately returned home.
Still, no matter how he thought about it, it felt a bit much.
He had revealed himself to be nothing less than an S-rank Admitty awakened person, yet this was the treatment he got.
It felt so plain, like he had gone to an administrative welfare center to get a copy of his resident registration and was simply on his way back.
Well, what did it matter? It was all a lie anyway.
If he were treated well for a lie, that would be even more uncomfortable.
On the taxi ride back, he did not forget to sign up for the On-Tower Auction House. That had been the main purpose, after all.
It was a system where you could proceed with membership registration for auction house use only after entering the unique number on your registration certificate.
“Let’s see... Shall I see if there are any good items?”
A huge number of items, easily numbering in the thousands, had been listed in the auction house.
All sorts of accessories, weapons, and armor,
unique magical goods,
all kinds of materials that did not exist on Earth,
a true wonderland filled with mysterious items that came out of the Towers.
He confirmed that countless goods were being traded by category.
There were even various status boards showing information related to transaction types, from auction periods to items available for immediate purchase.
“Awesome... Wow, this is seriously fun.”
Suho lost himself in browsing the auction house, completely forgetting the passage of time.
Even when he got out of the driverless taxi, and even as he walked home, he couldn’t take his eyes off his phone.
“Wow, so this is Etherium. Fascinating. It’s pretty, all sparkly like this...”
At that moment, a thought flashed through Suho’s mind.
“Wait, that’s right. Why did I only think of items from Earth when I was choosing the thousand items...? I’ll have to ask Ravi later. Whether I can receive things that come from the Tower too... That’d be nice.”
Looking closely at the guide, the one Suho was using was the domestic auction house,
and there was a separate global auction house connected to the entire world.
However, the global auction house had somewhat more stringent requirements.
It required a certain degree of certification as a “high-ranking big spender,” such as one’s Admitty grade or cumulative auction house transaction amount, and it was not a place a newbie who had just signed up could use.
Another thing he newly learned while browsing the OnTower Auction House for the first time
was that auctions were not conducted in cash.
One could only participate in online auctions with points, and those points could either be purchased and charged with money by the user, or obtained by selling items.
The auction process went like this.
- When someone lists a specific item for auction, the auction house’s sales item collection team comes and safely takes possession of the item.
- When the auction start date arrives, the item’s auction proceeds through the online auction,
- and once the final bid is made, the auction house holds the paid points until the purchased item is safely delivered to the buyer.
- Only after the buyer confirms that they have definitely received it does the system transfer the points to the seller.
Since the OnTower Auction House was operated by the government, he had heard that such matters were handled very thoroughly.
Of course, since Suho had only just signed up, he had 0 points.
He opened the charging window to try charging some points.
“Whoa... Why is this so expensive?”
1 point was 10,000 won, and there were no smaller denominations at all.
That meant 10,000 points was 100 million won,
and, good heavens, the auction house was absolutely full of items worth hundreds of thousands or millions of points.
On rare occasions, there were even items that reached tens of millions of points.
“Uh... wait a second, this is unexpected... First, if I’m going to buy everything my family might use...”
He figured he would need to charge about ten million points to start, but charging that with cash would cost a staggering 100 billion won.
No matter how much gold, silver, and treasure Suho possessed, turning that much of it into cash would be no small hassle.
“Wow... this won’t do. It’s way too cumbersome and annoying... I’ll just sell something on the auction house. I can earn points by selling.”
What would be good to sell?
Suho had plenty of things like gold, platinum, and diamonds, but he could not put ordinary items that did not come from the Tower up on the OnTower Auction House.
There probably wouldn’t be anyone who would bother buying such things with points, either.
The easiest item after all was the mysterious ore imbued with mana, “Etherium.”
* * *
“Ravi. Ravi.”
“Yes, Suho-nim! It’s good to see you.”
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“Please ask me anything.”
“That... when I choose the thousand items. Can I only choose things produced on Earth?”
“Oh, no. Anything within our ‘27,174th universe’ is possible.”
“Really? Then can I choose items that come from the Tower too?”
“Of course.”
“Great! Good. Then for the fifth item I receive... I’ll choose Etherium.”
“Understood. However, Etherium is treated as a different substance depending on its grade. Which grade of Etherium would you like to receive?”
“Uh... huh? Really? Then give me one of each grade.”
“I will do so. Jeong Suho-nim’s fifth through thirteenth items have been provided as one yangwon’s worth of Etherium for each grade.”
“Thirteenth? Why are there so many?”
“It is Etherium ranging from the lowest E grade to the highest EX grade.”
“W-wait, hold on! Tell me the Etherium grades.”
“Yes, the grades of Etherium are E-D-C-B-A-S-SS-SSS-EX.”
“My god......”
Suho could not close his mouth.
What Suho knew as common sense was that S-grade Etherium was the highest grade. This was information basically everyone in the world knew.
But there were three more grades above that?
“No..., Ravi. As far as I know, Etherium above S grade has never been discovered on Earth yet...”
“Yes, that is correct. That has been confirmed.”
“Then how are the prices set for SS, SSS, and EX grades...? There shouldn’t be any market price on Earth at all...?”
“That is correct. Since Etherium of SS grade or higher has not yet been observed or used on Earth, it is difficult to set its value according to Earth prices, so it is automatically set to the maximum value.”
“Maximum value...? There’s such a thing?”
“That is correct. If you request the provision of a substance that has never been observed on Earth, it is unavoidably set to the maximum value.”
“Then that... maximum value, how much is it?”
“It differs by item. In the case of Etherium, per 100g, SS grade is valued at 10 trillion won, SSS grade at 100 trillion won, and EX grade at 1,000 trillion won. Accordingly, 100 billion tons, 10 billion tons, and 1 billion tons have been provided for each.”
“Aha... those prices are astronomical... and the quantities are still astronomical too...”
Suho fell into thought for a moment.
But no matter how much he thought about it, putting Etherium of SS grade or higher, which had never appeared on Earth before, up on the auction house did not seem like a wise move.
It would undoubtedly cause a huge ripple, a tremendous commotion.
The whole world would be in an uproar, asking, “Where on earth did this out-of-standard Etherium come from!”
And they would become frantic trying to find out who the seller was.
Ah, just thinking about it made exhaustion wash over him.
Suho quietly withdrew and materialized only ten 100g pieces of S-grade Etherium, then left the warehouse.
The S-grade Etherium, each about the size of a finger joint, glowed with a brilliant red light. It was mystical, like light shining through a ruby.
Since S-grade Etherium was an item with price records on Earth, its price had been set at 10 billion won even in the subspace warehouse, and one yangwon’s worth, a total of 100 trillion tons, had been provided.
The numbers were becoming less and less impressive to him.
The items piled high now felt like nothing more than a distant cosmic backdrop.
“Phew... But there are no transaction records for S-grade Etherium in the auction house... I searched through the last several years and there’s nothing. Still, they said there were records of it trading for around 10 billion each in the past, so I guess I can set the starting price around there.”
Suho decided to think of it simply.
Then he listed ten pieces of S-grade Etherium for sale on the domestic OnTower Auction House and closed the dedicated app.
Thinking, “The auction house’s collection team will come pick them up soon.”