A space filled entirely with white.
Gnosis’s youngest, Yurian, walked straight between rows of bio-cultivation capsules.
Beyond the cylindrical reinforced glass of the capsules, lifeforms of all shapes lay curled up like children.
Yurian looked at the failures and smiled to herself.
*I don’t need things like this anymore.*
Because she had finally succeeded in creating an ‘Owner.’
The reason Yurian had sought out Hanloun was to share this joyous news, but—
Hanloun was on the phone with someone.
*Is he listening to an experiment report?*
Yurian paused briefly, waiting for his call to end.
But whatever he heard, Hanloun’s face contorted in an instant.
It was the first time she had ever seen him make such an expression.
*Why is he like that?* For a moment, her heart dropped with a thud.
Then Hanloun spotted Yurian and curved his lips into a slight smile.
*What is it?* Seeing the pretty dimples forming on his cheeks, Yurian’s eyes trembled anxiously.
“What is it? Nothing went wrong, right?”
“No. It’s something entirely unrelated to our work.”
Hanloun tilted his head, smiling, and stepped on the head of a failure crawling across the floor.
*Crack.*
Its head burst, and sticky blood pooled out.
Yurian furrowed her brow, but Hanloun’s expression was indifferent, as if used to it.
Hanloun stared intently at Yurian, who was not looking at the specimen.
As though reading the anxiety beginning to sprout in her since the call, he changed the subject.
“I’ve heard the gist. You said there’s good news?”
“The Core reacted. Only for a moment, but they said it linked with the Core as an Owner.”
Yurian clenched her fist tightly.
Hanloun gazed quietly at Yurian, unable to hide her joy at finally succeeding, and nodded.
*Swish—*
Along with his gesture, ninety-eight Cores soared through the air like stars and circled around Hanloun and Yurian.
Yurian’s eyes sparkled as she looked at each Core.
*The Cores of the new Tower.*
They were the databases that would compose each and every floor of the newly manifested Tower.
At a glance, they seemed near completion, but a tower could not be manifested with databases alone.
An existence on the level of an ‘administrator’ was needed—one capable of loading, modifying, and manipulating the Core’s data.
Until now, they had called this the ‘Owner.’
What Gnosis had been experimenting on all this time was the creation of Cores and the artificial link between Cores and Owner.
After endless research, they had succeeded in creating artificial Cores and producing subspaces similar to dungeons, but that was all.
It was impossible for a human to become the Tower’s Owner.
Therefore, Gnosis had repeated experiments to surpass human existence so that a human could become the Owner.
Of course, even that had been hitting a wall, but a small item created by a Korean genius had changed the situation.
Yurian opened her hand, revealing the **Criteito Reactor** she held.
It was the explosive mana generated the instant the Criteito Reactor activated that had made the impossible possible in a flash.
Now, it would become an existence that surpassed humans.
The Owner of a new world.
Yurian did not hide her expression brimming with anticipation.
The reasons those who had joined Gnosis came were all different.
There were those who joined thinking it would be a new source of income, and those who did so simply to sate their intellectual greed.
And Yurian had only one reason for entering Gnosis.
*Because I will be reborn as the Owner of a new world.*
Hanloun stared at the empty spot among the Cores, then tilted his head and met Yurian’s eyes.
[“Why?”]
[“All the formalities are done. You have to receive compulsory education.”]
*Is this the time to be talking leisurely about school?*
Yurian sighed in annoyance and turned her head. She really couldn’t tell what her Master was thinking.
[“Was that what the call earlier was about?”]
Talk of sending her to school?
But instead of answering, Hanloun asked leisurely,
[“By the way, Yurian. Where is Dominic?”]
[“I don’t know. That clown—where he goes or what he does.”]
[“There you go again.”]
Hanloun smiled softly and brushed Yurian’s hair back.
[“Find Dominic for me. For now, he must become the Owner of the 99th floor.”]
The Owner of the 99th floor was virtually the Owner of the Tower.
While the research was still lacking, Dominic, an SSS-rank, had to sustain the tower.
Yurian let out another sigh and waved her hand.
It meant she would comply reluctantly, since the plan couldn’t proceed smoothly without him.
[“Yeah, yeah. I’m off to find him.”]
Watching Yurian’s retreating figure, Hanloun skillfully hid his expression, but his hand gripping the phone was taut.
Lazy, who had finished the final commission, had turned himself in.
It would be a lie to say it wasn’t surprising, but rarely was there a more unpredictable person.
Since the commission had reportedly been completed successfully, was that a small mercy?
Lazy had nonchalantly announced the commission’s success while leaving a final message for Hanloun, the client.
[—Rather than that, I heard an interesting story, so let me tell you as a last commission service. There was a rumor that she had a child.]
Lazy’s voice had bored into his mind instantly, engraved like a brand.
*A child?*
But soon, Hanloun scoffed.
He knew clearly.
She had not wanted a child.
She had even said that if a child were conceived, she would have no choice but to erase it.
And Chloe Han was not someone to speak idle words.
So even while knowing it couldn’t be true.
Even while knowing that hope always betrayed him…….
Why did he always end up hoping?
Then, Hanloun’s eyes turned red like coral, and a system window rose.
[Title activating.]
His Title rose before his eyes.
At the same time, his heart became frighteningly calm.
As if the burning heat had frozen over in an instant.
Chapter The Child Unauthorized Raiders
A thinking chair leaves your backside aching.
Geuru, who sat on a thinking chair for the first time in his life, thought as much.
The child sat in an adult-sized chair pushed flush against the study wall, wiggling his bottom and pressing his back against the end of the backrest. His stubby legs forced his knees up onto the chair so that he settled into a pose with his legs stuck straight out.
At Geuru’s sudden movement, Mephisto, who had been dozing off on his head, started and fluttered into the air.
“Mephy, don’t doze off. Reflect.”
Geuru whispered sternly.
“Cheep……”
Mephisto pouted his beak and sat back down on Geuru’s head. He looked full of grievance, as though he had done nothing wrong.
Jurim had left him here with instructions to sit quietly and reflect, and was currently talking with the housekeeper Yeongran in the living room.
Though in truth, it was less a conversation and more Yeongran one-sidedly fretting over Jurim, who seemed out of it.
Geuru opened his eyes into narrow slits.
*Dad really is a bit weird.*
After the commotion at the Management Bureau, Jurim had seemed lost in thought the entire time.
He had also not answered for a long time when Geuru called for him, and had contacted Director Yun Seo-jun saying he had something to ask.
Why was that?
*Maybe it’s because Geuru did something really bad this time…….*
Sulking, his lip corners drooping, Geuru glanced past the half-open door, wiggling his ankles before putting on an act of reflection.
*Geuru’s mistake…….*
The time he ran around the Management Bureau holding a ticking bomb came to mind.
*It was fun…….*
It was as if the tick-tock sound echoed again in his ears. His heart thumped with excitement.
The tension that made his palms sweat and the dopamine!
*I want to do it again…….*
Geuru opened his mouth slackly before shaking his head vigorously.
*Ah, no. I can’t want to play. Reflect. Reflect…….*
But his thoughts began to chain together one after another.
*The birth of stars……. The Big Bang……. The chicken and the egg……. Two servings of chicks and Mephisto…….*
Before long, his small head was swept away by chaotic thoughts.
And at the end of those thoughts—
*Geuru, you have to make a new item.*
—was a resolution without rhyme or reason.