Rapidly clearing the lower floors, the raid team had already destroyed the altar on the tenth floor.
After moving their base camp to the tenth floor, just before they headed up to the eleventh, Joshua asked,
“How is everyone’s condition? If anything feels even slightly off, please say so.”
The reason Joshua, who had never once asked after the team members’ condition, went out of his way to check this was because the tenth-floor boss, while not strong, was a fairly troublesome fellow.
But perhaps his concern was needless, because not a single person answered. They only glanced at one another and broke into faint smiles.
Kang Hojin, the shield warrior, replied,
“Well... what’s there to feel off about? It just feels like we’re doing some kind of tutorial.”
“Right. Honestly, the bosses at every tenth floor usually have something a little bothersome about them, but this time there wasn’t anything like that.”
When Seo Yunjae, the Clairvoyant, answered, voices of agreement came from here and there.
“Seriously, maybe this tower’s just kind of easy?”
“No way an eighty-three-floor tower would be.”
After murmuring among themselves for a while, they soon remembered the reason.
Their supplies.
In other words, the variables that were the potions overflowing in high and mid grades, and the S-grade Etherium embedded in their equipment.
The equipment that had mostly been embedded with B-grade Etherium, or A-grade at best, felt like entirely different gear once it was replaced with S-grade Etherium.
Every weapon and piece of armor they equipped had its efficiency increased tremendously, producing an effect that was like climbing several steps in level.
Not only that, unlike other raid teams who trembled and watched their teammates’ reactions every time they drank a bottle of potion, the fact that they had plenty of personally owned potions they could use freely gave them peace of mind.
And since those even included rare high-grade potions, it felt as though they were playing a game while holding extra lives in reserve.
“Let’s keep pushing straight up until about the thirtieth floor. I don’t think we need to exit unless the food supplies run out.”
“Very well. We’ll continue. Exploration movement formation!”
“Yes, sir!”
The raid team formed up in the formation they had drilled so uniformly and stepped into the portal leading to the eleventh floor.
* * *
‘An Elixir of Immortality?’
‘Yes, that is correct.’
‘If I drink that, I’ll never die?’
‘As I always tell you, there is no such thing as forever. However, the difference from the Elixir of Anti-Aging is clear. If the anti-aging elixir is taken continuously every ten years, it increases one’s total lifespan tenfold, while this elixir, called the Elixir of Immortality, requires only a single dose and increases average lifespan by a thousandfold.’
‘Eek? Then if I drink it, I can live as long as you Azure Dragons?’
‘In theory, yes. But it is impossible.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a human body could never withstand this elixir.’
‘Whoa...’
‘An elixir that the vessel cannot endure is nothing but poison.’
‘What the hell, then it’s just pie in the sky.’
‘Correct. In truth, the Elixir of Immortality is an elixir that even we Azure Dragons, a higher species and a long-lived race, cannot withstand. It is difficult to obtain, but all the dragons who managed to acquire it and attempted to use it died young. Far from gaining a thousandfold lifespan, they all withered away in sickness and died before living even one-tenth of their natural lifespan.’
‘Whoa...!? How is something like that an Elixir of Immortality? It’s an Elixir of Instant Death.’
Suho recalled a conversation he had once had with Rabi.
And he asked Rabi to give him one yang won’s worth of the Elixir of Immortality.
Rabi leapt in alarm, saying, “For a frail human, and a lower species at that, it is no different from deadly poison,” but Suho repeatedly reassured him that he absolutely would not drink it, and only then did he barely manage to receive it.
Naturally, it was an elixir that did not exist at all on Earth. Received at the maximum-value price, the Elixir of Immortality was a full thousand times more expensive than the already outrageously costly Elixir of Anti-Aging.
So the amount he obtained for one yang won’s worth was only one hundred million liters. That meant a single 300-milliliter bottle was worth three thousand gyeong won.
“What kind of insane price is this... Three thousand gyeong for one bottle?”
“That is how rare a substance it is.”
“Well, even so, it’s cheaper than runes. How much was one rune again?”
“They are valued at one thousand hae won each.”
“...Amazing. Really amazing. But Rabi, since we’re on the subject, can you lend me about a hundred of those runes?”
At Suho’s words, Rabi’s eyes flared.
“Why, why, why would you need runes?”
Rabi’s reaction, as if to say, “How can you give something and then take it back?” was quite cute, and Suho chuckled.
“Look at you trembling. Good grief, I’m not taking them. I said lend me, and I meant it. I’ll just hold onto them for a few hours and give them back. How’s that?”
“I was not trembling. Well, even if you did take them, you would be completely unable to use rune energy, so I am not worried at all.”
“Okay. Then lend me some.”
And so he borrowed one hundred runes from Rabi,
and made a pool out of “Everglow Wood,” a mysterious tree that had the effect of restoring vitality and emitted light on its own.
When he asked Rabi to carve raw Everglow Wood into a bath about five meters wide, three meters long, and one meter deep, it looked like a large hinoki bath.
Though, of course, it was an “Everglow Wood bath” whose effects could not be compared to a mere hinoki bath.
On the bottom of the bath, he spread a large amount of EX-grade Etherium and SSS-grade Etherium carved into beads about two centimeters in diameter, filling it to a height of about twenty to thirty centimeters.
And here and there, he also mixed in the one hundred runes he had borrowed from Rabi.
Rabi’s expression while he was doing all this was truly a sight to see.
Perhaps Rabi had thought he had grown used to Suho’s eccentricities after witnessing them all this time, but this strange act seemed to feel like the greatest of them all. With a subtle expression in which shock, confusion, and doubt were all mixed together, he kept flitting around nearby.
Or perhaps it was because Suho had put in his one hundred runes.
“Now, Rabi, fill this bath with the Elixir of Immortality, the Elixir of Anti-Aging, highest-grade healing potion, highest-grade regeneration potion, and highest-grade disease-curing potion mixed in a ratio of 1:1:1:1:1.”
“...What... in the world......”
“Why? Are they things that shouldn’t be mixed? Will they explode or something if you mix them?”
“That is not the case, but... in truth, there is no precedent for mixing these liquids in such a manner...”
“Right, right, then we can just create the precedent now. Anyway, mix them for me.”
Though dumbfounded, Rabi filled the Everglow Wood bath just as Suho had asked.
What kind of recipe was this?
He had no idea. In truth, it was not any recipe at all.
Suho, driven by stubbornness and spite, had simply thrown together every expensive, supposedly excellent thing he could find at random.
The elixir-potion water, with all sorts of things mixed together, turned a deep blue like the depths of the sea.
And thanks to the light of the self-luminous Everglow Wood, the blue water also gave off the impression of a dark, resplendent gemstone.
“Well... it’ll be fine, right...?”
When he dipped a finger in, it was far too cold, so he brought over a portable water heater and an electric heating rod and warmed the liquid filling the bath.
After waiting a bit, the hodgepodge water of all kinds of elixirs and potions had grown hot before he knew it.
“This should do.”
Suho stripped off all his clothes and, completely naked, plunged into the bath.
Since there was the Elixir of Immortality in it, he did not forget to wear a face mask used for snorkeling so that he would not swallow even a little.
“Uuuuugh... This is nice.”
The Etherium spread across the bottom crunched underfoot like smooth pebbles on a riverbed.
“Haa... Just how much is this whole bath worth in money...?”
Rabi, who had been wearing an indescribable expression, fluttered over and sat on the edge of the bath.
“Rabi, do you want to come in too? It’s nice and warm. You weren’t wearing clothes to begin with, so you can just hop in.”
“I refuse. No thank you. I am fine.”
“Suit yourself if you don’t want to. It’s really nice and hot, though.”
Suho dove beneath the surface of the bath and scooped up both hands full of the elixir and potion water along with the bead-like Etherium.
“Heh... If I revealed just this to the world, the whole world would be turned upside down.”
“Not a single one of these things could be handled on Earth.”
“True. I want to just release them all like crazy, but it isn’t easy to release things as much as I want. This world is smaller than I thought...”
Thinking of a world that shook greatly even from small factors and broke easily even from small changes, he felt bitter.
Clatter, clatter, clatter...
The sensation of the bead-shaped Etherium spread thickly over the bottom clattering under his feet did not feel bad.
Suho threw off the snorkeling face mask and lay still on top of the bath, letting all the strength leave his body.
Then his body floated up.
The hodgepodge water seemed denser than ordinary water, with greater buoyancy. It felt strange how easily he rose to the surface with only a little relaxation.
Since he was inside the subspace warehouse, there was nothing in the sky.
There was not a single cloud, nor the sun, moon, or stars; it was merely blue. But looking up at it like that felt good.
Suho lay blankly on the water, his thoughts bouncing here and there.
During the revenge against Russia, with North Korea, and during this recent attack as well...
Suho’s attack methods using his subspace ability and masses were mainly specialized for wide-area strikes and ambushes.
Because of that, in a situation where he faced a truly powerful ability user in peak condition head-on, it was difficult to use those attacks.
Just as his strengths were clear, so too were his limits.
‘Ha... I want to get stronger too... I want to Awaken too.’
Whatever the case, what mattered was that the thing Suho had been so eagerly hoping and waiting for was not happening.
It had already been a long time since he had entered the super hodgepodge, and the water had now cooled to lukewarm,
but nothing had happened.
“Fuck... Why doesn’t it work for me... I exposed myself. To ether...”
Suho fell asleep without realizing it, his body floating in the cosmic-scale money-wasting bath.
* * *
How many hours had he slept?
When he woke up, his vision was blurry.
Since there was no way something like this could happen inside the subspace warehouse, Suho assumed he was dreaming.
“Rabi? Rabi.”
There was no answer. At some point, the bath had grown ice cold.
Splash—
He planted his feet in the bath and stood up, trying to get out, but his vision was so blurred that he could not tell where anything was.
“Ow.”
Because he could not see well, he slammed his shin into the edge of the bath steps before barely making it out.
Everything around him was silent.
“Rabi! Rabi? Where are you!”
When he shouted at the top of his lungs, an answer came from far away.
“Huh? You’re awake?”
Rabi moved through space in an instant and approached, asking,
“When did you wake up?”
“Just now. Rabi. Right now... am I inside a dream?”
“No. This is very much reality.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s a dream... I can’t see well right now.”
“Pardon? That cannot be.”
The thousand-yang-won subspace warehouse was a space customized and provided solely for Suho.
At the very least, for Suho, it was an absolutely safe place.
No disease, accident, or threat could befall him here.
But the owner of the subspace warehouse had gone blind?
Even for Rabi, it was a bewildering matter.
“H-how is it that you cannot see?”
“It’s just blurry, like there’s fog in front of my eyes, and there’s something white blocking my vision.”
“Hmm... For now, try drinking a highest-grade healing potion. And it would be best to drink a disease-curing potion as well.”
Besides that, Rabi fed Suho various other things too.
But there was no improvement in his symptoms at all.
“Could it be... that you swallowed even a little of the Elixir of Immortality?”
“No, I really didn’t drink any. I only soaked my body in it. I didn’t drink a single drop of the liquid in there.”
“Hmm...”
Since Rabi showed a serious expression for the first time, Suho felt strangely intrigued all over again.
For a while, he tried every measure Rabi told him about, but none of them had any effect, and his vision remained blurry.
What was going on? Fear suddenly gripped him.
“This is too strange... I should at least go to a hospital.”
The powerful effects of potions could not be compared to hospital treatment at all... but what could he do when potions were not working in the slightest?
He would have to borrow the power of modern medicine.
Deciding to visit an ophthalmologist, Suho hastily gathered his clothes, put them on, and left the subspace warehouse.
At that moment,
Flaaaaaash───
As soon as he left the subspace warehouse, a status window filled his vision.
The thing that had been covering his eyes spread wide open and transformed into system messages that filled the space before him like augmented reality.
“U-u-u-uwaaaah.....!”
The system window, which had been unable to open inside the subspace due to interference from the time ratio, had opened the moment he left the subspace warehouse.
“Whoa......”
Suho, who had fallen over in shock, soon came to his senses and read the contents of the message that had appeared.
The message in the system window was simplicity itself, a very short and brief phrase.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You have obtained the qualification to enter the Tower.
Awakening Grade: EX-grade
Awakening Class: Immortal Crafter
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Uwaaaaaaaah!!”
Suho clenched his fists and sprang to his feet, letting out a cheer.