The feeling of awakening was dynamic.
First, he was startled by the sudden system message that appeared before his eyes and bounced around in excitement,
and then he was startled a second time by the changes filling his body.
The first was the exhilaration of sensing aether.
He could feel the flow of aether.
It was like living without even knowing the air around you existed, only to suddenly feel, see, or even perceive the resistance of a particular gas within it; he became clearly aware of the aether he had never felt before.
He was dazed by that sensation for only a moment. What came next was the change brought on by his awakened class.
He had never experienced any other class, so he could not know what they were like, but in Suho’s case, having awakened as a Crafter, all kinds of knowledge related to crafting flooded into his mind.
Blacksmithing, woodworking, leatherworking, tailoring, alchemy, enchanting, cooking, architecture... countless techniques and pieces of knowledge seeped into his head all at once.
“Hooah... So this is the power of a Crafter...”
As if he had devoted tens or hundreds of years solely to such work, Suho muttered while feeling an enormous amount of information being downloaded into him in a short period of time.
‘So that’s why combat types can suddenly wield such incredible combat sense and skills...’
For a moment, he even envied combat classes. What would it be like if combat techniques and abilities were engraved into him, just like this immense knowledge now pouring into him?
Just imagining it was thrilling.
But there was something Suho did not know: his “broad expandability according to his rank.”
Most awakenings were limited to a single ability.
Even if one awakened as an S-rank crafting class, it was the same.
One class possessed only one skill.
An S-rank blacksmith, an S-rank tailor, an S-rank chef... things like that.
There had never been a case where skills blossomed across every field like Suho’s.
Of course, with no way of knowing this, Suho simply marveled as he accepted the knowledge flooding in.
Knowledge and techniques from various crafting fields all seeped into him, and finally, the ability called “Aether Crafting” was engraved within him, bringing it to an end.
Feeling thoughts and a perspective completely different from only a few minutes before, Suho quietly looked down at his hands.
He could sense the aether flowing everywhere around him like air, and from the aetherium, the dense aether they emitted felt so vivid it was as if he could touch it.
‘I can feel it... I’m certain I can make something by operating this aether.’
Countless pieces of crafting knowledge had entered him, but it was not anything standardized.
It was simply boundless possibility itself.
When he thought of the abilities and characteristics of an item he wanted to create, various options corresponding to them came to mind.
For example, if he thought of a sturdy defensive item capable of blocking a powerful damaging attack, a shield, a shield generator, a breastplate, and the like would all come to mind at once.
If he chose one among them and decided to craft it, the necessary materials and aether came to mind, and at the same time, every process required to make it appeared.
It was a strange and astonishing feeling, as if an editor needed for item crafting had settled inside his head.
This was undoubtedly an incredible ability, but if he had not had enough aether and materials, the limits of what items he could craft would have been miserable.
Had that been the case, he might have despaired in burning frustration over an ability that was like a pie in the sky.
Fortunately, Suho had enough materials for any field.
‘Phew... What now? Do I have to go back to the Administration Bureau and re-register my ability?’
As he had experienced once before, if it was not an ability he was going to hide and never use anyway, it was more convenient to have it officially certified in advance.
Then what should he say? Would saying a second awakening had occurred be enough?
But in this world where S-rank was the highest rank, would they even understand if he said EX-rank? And how would they take it if he said his awakened class was “Undying Crafter”?
After pondering various things, he ultimately decided to keep this part secret.
He had already secured more than enough status anyway.
He was already, in both name and reality, the only Admittee of his kind in the world.
Even if something more were added to that, it was not as though he would be respected more or taken care of more.
At most, he would only be targeted even more.
If it became known that he had the power to collect items as well as a Crafter ability that could make anything, what benefit would there be besides making an already appetizing prey give off an even richer savory aroma?
Above all, the most noteworthy change was that he could now “enter the Tower.”
That was important.
S-rank Item Collector — fake awakened name,
EX-rank Undying Crafter — real awakened name.
As he wrote the two down and looked at them, a smile crept onto his face.
In truth, “Item Collector” was also nothing more than a downgraded expression of the “Cheonyangwon item manifestation ability,” so it was not a completely nonexistent ability.
Whether it was a fake awakening or a real awakening, both were still in the crafting and support line, but it all depended on how he used them.
If it existed in the universe, he could obtain any material,
and if it could be made from those materials, he could craft even things that had never existed in the universe.
“Phew...”
Just imagining all sorts of things made his chest feel as if it would burst.
And that was not all.
There was no need at all to go to some specific workshop to test his awakened crafting ability, nor to go through the hassle of acquiring a building to set up a workshop.
Suho had the subspace warehouse.
No matter how large a project he undertook, he would never lack space,
no matter how large an object he made, he would never have difficulty storing or putting it away,
no matter how much trial and error he went through, he would never lack materials,
and no matter how many failures he had in crafting, he would never lack time.
At this point, Cheonyangwon’s subspace warehouse felt almost as if it had been prepared for this very awakening.
Thinking that he should tell Rabi, who would be worried that he had lost his sight, about the awakening, Suho returned to the warehouse.
When he explained why he had been unable to see, Rabi was astonished.
“I hadn’t thought of that... A system window... I see.”
Rabi, who had been deep in thought about something, opened his mouth.
“By the way... this is extremely strange. You say an EX-rank awakening occurred?”
“Yeah. It said EX-rank Undying Crafter. Why?”
“Because with a human vessel, it is impossible to receive an EX-rank in any field. There are various qualifications in the universe for specific activities. It may be the qualification to enter the Tower, but there are also qualifications to travel through galaxies, to enter a black hole... there are a great many kinds.”
“Oh... So there are things like that too.”
“All such qualifications are assigned ranks, and among them, the highest rank that a lower species like humans can receive is S-rank. That is the extent of the innate human vessel. But EX-rank... Hmm...”
Rabi tilted his head this way and that, then shook it as if every assumption was absurd.
“Then what’s the ‘Undying’ modifier I received?”
“That... is the even stranger part. We would have to confirm it to know more precisely, but when ‘undying’ is mentioned in a qualification, it generally includes, first, drastically slowed aging; second, rapid wound healing; and third, immunity to disease.”
“Slowed aging? How much? Even now, I can live to a thousand if I just keep taking anti-aging elixirs.”
“It will not be on that level. I suspect you may live at least as long as a long-lived race like us.”
“My god... Y-you mean I’ll live a hundred thousand years...?”
An infinite life enjoyed with infinite wealth...
If Qin Shi Huang saw it, he would weep with envy, but Suho was frightened first.
They said that sometimes death was the premise that made life life, yet he might not even be able to die as he pleased.
Great-grandchildren? Forget great-grandchildren—he would be left alive alone even after their children, and their children’s children, and even the children of those descendants all grew old and died.
“What the hell...”
Suddenly, as if something had occurred to him, Suho slapped his knee.
“Right, that’s it. There’s the instant-death elixir. You said even your Azure Dragon Tribe couldn’t handle the instant-death elixir.”
“It is the elixir of immortality, but...”
“Anyway. You said every kid who drank it died before living even one-tenth of their lifespan, let alone having it increase by a thousand times. If I get tired of living, I’ll drink that too. Then I should be able to die within ten thousand years.”
“Hmm...”
Considering Suho’s body, which had shown strange growth and changes, Rabi thought that perhaps he might actually be able to digest the elixir of immortality if he took it.
If so, his lifespan of one hundred thousand years would extend to one hundred million...
But he did not bother saying that out loud.
For now, it would be troublesome for him as well if the warehouse owner’s mentality started to wobble.
“So, Rabi, your opinion is that both the EX-rank and the undying part are strange? Hm, but I guess Crafter itself is common...”
“That is not common either.”
“Why? There are a lot of crafting-type Admittees on Earth too. Doesn’t that mean there are a lot of Crafters?”
“For Crafters, it is normally proper for the exact technique to be mentioned. As in, what kind of crafting ability it is. The fact that it simply says Crafter means it encompasses everything without restriction. It is like how, when one obtains a driver’s license in the human world, the type is specified in detail. But this is as if it is merely written as ‘driver.’”
“Really...? So there isn’t a single ordinary thing about it.”
“That is correct... And perhaps partly due to the influence of undying, it seems there have been some changes to your body as well, Suho-nim.”
“Me? What changes?”
At Rabi’s words, Suho entered a building in Dream Village and stood in front of a mirror.
“Holy... What is this?”
Suho had always been called a handsome young man wherever he went, but the person reflected in the mirror was not on that level.
His skin, now clean without a single blemish, was like a baby’s,
and his height, which had been in the late 170s, now seemed to be at least 185 centimeters.
Though he had not exercised in particular, he could feel changes in his musculoskeletal structure from his broad shoulders and straightened back.
“This is weird...”
Turning his body left and right and moving his head as he looked around, Suho muttered.
At this rate, people would ask where he had gotten surgery.
As he scratched his head roughly over the troublesome assumptions, he asked Rabi one thing he had been curious about.
“By the way, the way I awakened. You remember that genius recipe, right?”
“...You mean the suicidal mixed sludge.”
“In terms of the result, that recipe was right, wasn’t it? Don’t you think? Then could I awaken someone else with the same method?”
“...There are too many variables, and it is an unverified method, so honestly, I cannot predict it at all. It is similar to a random hacking attempt in an algorithm. It is like randomly trying passwords and happening to get it right by chance. Someone else might awaken too, but there might be no change whatsoever, and depending on the case, they may suffer fatal injuries or die.”
“Holy......”
“Whatever it was, it seems an incredible amount of luck was involved.”
“I do have pretty good luck. I even won that event given to one person in a million years in our universe.”
“...I cannot deny that.”
Suho’s luck was truly unprecedented.
Curious about his renewed body, especially the undying part, Suho went back out of the subspace.
Inside the subspace, he could barely find a way to even get injured.
He wanted to make an extremely large wound, but he did not have the courage.
Even if he had rapid healing, it would still hurt.
Deciding to check with a simple cut wound, he took out a knife.
Then he took out several bottles of top-grade healing potion and set them beside him, sterilized the knife, and held it in one hand.
“Phew. Let’s do this lightly.”
He rolled up one sleeve and drew the blade straight across, and blood spurted out.
“Ow...... Huh?”
Before the blade had even entered his arm and left it, the first spot it had cut had already healed completely and returned to normal.
The healing speed was so fast that it was difficult for his eyes to follow the real-time recovery. Blood had no chance to fully seep out before it stopped.
It looked less like skin and more like regenerating rubber.
“Wow... At this rate, surgery will be impossible now...”
He was immune to disease, so there would be no need for surgery anyway...
In any case, it was a fascinating change.
“Again... Yap. Yap.”
It was the same no matter where he scraped with the knife. Whether it was his arm or his leg, the moment he cut it, it healed, and only a tiny amount of blood came out compared to the depth of the wound he had intended.
“What if it’s a blow strong enough to sever something? Would that part grow back? Or would it just reattach? Hmm...”
He was curious, but he didn’t have the confidence to experiment that far.
For now, this was enough.
* * *
“Uh... S-Suho?”
The members of the Sanarae Clan who entered Suho’s penthouse widened their eyes when they saw him.
Why are these people here... Ah, right.
Suho had spent a lot of time struggling to awaken and doing this and that, but most of that time had been spent in the subspace. In reality, not much time had actually passed.
So now, after the attack by the assailants, everyone had gathered at the penthouse as planned.
But what shocked Sanarae’s A-rank Admittees was something else entirely.
They had confirmed over the phone that everyone was safe, but the change that had occurred in Suho in such a short time was hard to believe.
“Suho, your height...”
“Y-Your skin’s gotten really pale too... What happened to you...?”
“Ahem, hm... Maybe it’s because I got some good rest...?”
“......”
It was an absurd answer, but Lee Seojun shook his head hard without thinking any deeper about it.
This wasn’t the time to talk about such things.
“Suho, we need to move. They’ll come again.”
“Who exactly are they?”
“They are...”
Lee Seojun and the rest of the members were of the same mind.
Lee Seojun and the others agreed that the assailants’ identity was OAE, the Gray Oath Enforcement Corps.
They had all thought the same thing when they saw Ryuji Takeda draw the Ethereal Blade.
“More importantly... how did you escape, Suho?”
“I escaped into the subspace, of course.”
“Then you also don’t know what happened to them afterward.”
“Oh, I dealt them a fair bit of damage. I almost managed to get rid of them, but they had helpers. There were more people we didn’t see. Not just one or two, either—an entire large organization came in a swarm. The rest of them rescued those two and took them away.”
“...You almost got rid of them? What on earth... happened...?”
The five A-rank Sanarae Clan members looked pale with disbelief, but Suho didn’t bother explaining in any more detail.
Lee Seojun’s expression grew even more grave at Suho’s words.
“If they came in numbers, it’s even more dangerous. They definitely won’t withdraw just like this. For now, this penthouse is dangerous. The building doesn’t have any reinforced sections, and there are too many infiltration routes, so it’s disadvantageous for defense.”
“Then where should we...”
The five clan members exchanged opinions for a while, but there was no place that satisfied every requirement.
A place with at least basic reinforcement work done to the building, limited entrances and exits, and a well-established security system.
At first, the Sanarae Clan building was brought up, but because combat Admittees were always stationed there, its security was surprisingly lax.
Nor could they trust a hotel.
As their worries deepened, Suho made a suggestion.
“Let’s go to the TDM building.”
“Hmm...”
“Oh...”
“That’s a good idea.”
The TDM building was primarily a place where high-value transactions took place, and it also temporarily stored rare items. Since many employees were stationed there as well, its security level had been set quite high.
It wasn’t enough to withstand an actual battle, but it had also undergone a certain degree of basic reinforcement.
And aside from the main hall, which was used as the primary trading area, and the parking area, the TDM building also had quite a number of residential zones where people could eat and sleep.
For now, they activated the security system at the penthouse and left only the security androids stationed there. Then everyone moved their residence to TDM.
Not only Suho and his family, but also Seongsik and his family, Narae and her family, Joshua’s family, Danbi’s family, and so on... To eliminate any elements that could become weaknesses if attacked or threatened, they began a large-scale relocation.
TDM’s transactions for the week were temporarily suspended, and all residential spaces in the building were activated.
In many ways, it made the completion of Elysium Heights feel all the more regrettable.
At the same time, it was also a moment when Suho’s mind began racing over which parts of Elysium Heights would need to be reinforced, and by how much.
From that night until the following afternoon, countless people moved their residences to the TDM building,
and all of the Sanarae Clan’s Admittees emptied their own building and gathered at TDM.
The Tower Management Bureau and the Admittee Protection Office also dispatched security personnel made up of Admittees, though they were not high-ranking.
The Sanarae Clan members also pulled in friends and acquaintances from other clans in preparation for a possible battle, and the military provided support in the form of a battalion-sized special forces unit.
Multiple layers of defensive lines formed inside and outside the TDM building, turning it into a complete fortress.
That was how infamous OAE was, and the actual threat they posed was of the highest level.
So many high-ranking tower-related figures and skilled Admittees had disappeared or lost their lives at their hands that “if you become OAE’s target, you will definitely die” had become accepted truth in the Admittee industry.
The most vicious and dreadful terrorist group in the world, a public enemy watched with burning eyes across the globe, had marked Jeong Suho, the most important Admittee in South Korea. It was only natural that the government’s alert level soared to the extreme.
Even they would not be foolish enough to attack a place putting on such a fortress-like defense and show of force.
The only problem was that such a militant show of force could not be maintained forever.
Everyone had their own lives, after all. Living in seclusion was only possible for a short time.
‘A few days will be enough.’
Suho decided to make active use of the precious time the Admittees and the government had bought him.
How convenient was it that he had a perfect target on which to field-test items made with EX-rank crafting?
His entire body itched at the thought of making something.