Woo Yeon-Hee asked how long it would take me to be qualified to proceed to the Second Round of Privileges and then upgrade my Health, Sense and Agility to S-class.
“Under the assumption that I never fail and that we continue to upgrade… It’s a very close call.”
Woo Yeon-Hee replied as if she couldn’t understand, “You have more than ten years.”
“Well, maybe that’s too short.”
The maximum number of master boxes I could get in a B-class dungeon was three, and that was if I spent all my points. Assuming that I got the contents I wanted from the boxes and the number of stat points was within the average or above, I would need sixty-five master boxes to upgrade my remaining stats to S-class.
However, calculating all of this was unnecessary because it wasn’t guaranteed that the sixty-five boxes would give me what I wanted. Only those who the System favored would get such a result, but I knew it actually hated me. When I estimated this again with different probability odds and error settings, I came to the conclusion that we would need to conquer three hundred and seventy B-class dungeons.
Yes, I knew that I wouldn’t need a whole decade if I could attack A-class or even S-class dungeons instead. I had done that in the past to become stronger, but it wasn’t an option now. It was impossible now. After all, even the most powerful First Evil couldn’t target an A-class dungeon alone at the end of my past life. In the end, he ended up bringing an elite attack unit with him to A-class dungeons.
Woo Yeon-Hee actually ended up suggesting this exact idea, “How about… challenging yourself to attack an A-class dungeon…?”
Her voice shook towards the end, and it was a natural reaction as our B-class dungeon forays were already quite hellish. Her expression changed when my feelings became transferred over.
“We must die in the dungeon if we don’t want the demons to go out to the world.”
She was talking about the end even before the Day of Advent came. She wasn’t frightened, and it was reality. No matter how much she grew, her highest limit was the B-class dungeons. In fact, it was kind of ridiculous that the two of us could conquer one by ourselves. If it was possible, I would have paraded our achievements in front of the Eight Evils and Eight Virtues to crush their arrogance.
“Putting the elites of Revolucion and Tomorrow in one team…”
Woo Yeon-Hee stopped that line of thought as she knew they would just be a burden to us in the B-class dungeons. So, it was obvious that they’d be more than useless in dungeons higher than B-class.
“I want to ask you something,” she said.
“Go ahead,” I replied.
“Do you have to accomplish the conditions for the Second Round of Privileges before going into the Stage of Advent? Those particular conditions you mentioned before?”
“I can actually accomplish them in there.”
“Then, isn’t it something we can worry about when that day arrives? There’s no need to be stressed out now.”
I had not told Woo Yeon-Hee everything yet. When someone came to the decision to proceed with the Second Round of Privileges, the best timing to do so was right before entering the Stage of Advent. The official and hidden rewards offered by the executors were phased based on how long a person survived. Therefore, if I entered the Stage of Advent now, the time to achieve the Privilege conditions would be delayed, and it was likely that other Awakened would get stronger to a certain extent by the time I accomplished the conditions.
“We should keep the other Awakened in mind. As you know, it’s a battlefield. It’s an environment where everyone will figure out that my abilities have been reset in the middle of the fight, so the members of my group will be running for my neck first,” I said.
“So… you are saying that you should start the Second Round of Privileges before entering the Stage of Advent, right?”
Yes, she was correct. Once I came to my final decision, I had to start before getting in there. There were plenty of opportunities to grow on the stage anyway. It would be the icing on the cake if I had some time to develop, then enter the site, but oh well…
“You are the one making the choice, but I don’t know, Seon-Hu. That makes what we have done so far and what we will do in the future meaningless. If we add up the previous time, it’ll be twenty years in total. You’ll basically be wasting the twenty years you spent on developing your current power.”
The expression on her face was quite mixed.
“The Stage of Advent will last for a long time,” I suddenly said.
“Huh?”
“Ah, sorry. I must have forgotten to tell you. It will take quite a while. I guarantee that it won’t end within a year or two.”
This was clearly food for thought for her, but after thinking a bit, her face darkened considerably.
I continued, “The Stage of Advent is a place where people grow quickly according to their survival capabilities. To be exact, we will finish developing ourselves before entering. Our power level will remain the same throughout the tests, but the other guys will be busy catching up with us.”
“You…”
“Humans are scarier than monsters. I wish you could see what I saw.”
“What about the assassination quest?” she asked.
“What?” “The assassination quest where the System had identified you as a threat to everyone. What if people get it again when you become weak?”
She had a good point.
“I have you right now, but if that happens when I’m in the Stage of Advent…”
I let Woo Yeon-Hee see the back of my hand. Although it was impossible for me to walk around with the Sun Cape equipped, I always had Youxia’s Scimitar in its ring shape on my finger and Hermes’ Almighty Anklet on. Furthermore, the items that would come out from other master boxes would also be named after gods. Also, I could get another item by completing the S-class Accomplishment Rewards quest, which was still in progress. If I received points for stats from the boxes, it would shorten the time I needed to achieve the conditions, so I rather hoped for that to happen rather than obtaining more items.
“Can you bring your items with you?” For the first time during this conversation, Woo Yeon-Hee’s voice sounded bright.
I replied, “That’s the advantage of becoming an Awakened in advance.”
A smile lit up her face. “That’s good news, but it seems like you have already made up your mind.”
“Thanks to you.”
She shrugged. “Well, you don’t need to thank me. All I did was listen to you.”
Looking at her was like looking at myself in a mirror. My emotions were all over her face, and they repeatedly appeared and disappeared. Thus, that was how I could tell what I really wanted.
“Yes, thanks to you.”
Her eyes began to relax, and I was sure my own expression was the exact same.
Anyway, the System allowed the top ten Awakened to proceed with the Privileges, but I was the only one who could be qualified to even start it now. Moreover, I didn’t want to obtain the Privileges before going into the Stage of Advent, as the opportunities I could encounter there would be quite helpful.
I had once mentioned that choosing the moment you entered the Stage of Advent as the beginning point of the time reversal was appropriate if the only reason for returning to the past was to become stronger. That was the purpose of the Stage of Advent. The nice guides and terrible executors were all bullshit, but their rewards were valuable. If I broke through the limit with the Second Round of Privileges, the only individuals I had to be wary of were the Seven Demon Kings, not the other Awakened.
Then, Woo Yeon-Hee brought up her work one beat faster than I could.
“I’m fine. I’ll hand over the medical corporation to my brother because you know… Ten years from now we will be busy. We are only going around the dungeons, right?”
It was easy for her to say it now, but a whole decade of repeatedly conquering dungeons and taking brief rest breaks would be as long as the Stage of Advent. In other words, I would take another precious thing away from Woo Yeon-Hee. For the next ten years, she would never be able to have a romantic relationship with anyone…
“I’m sorry. There is a lot going on here, so we will occasionally pause our conquests, but most of the days will be devoted to dungeons,” I answered.
“All right. You are saying you’ll give me a break. We’ll visit Las Vegas once in a while, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, we’ll go every time you succeed in upgrading your stats because we will need a break then.”
“Then… let’s cheer to this!”
Clink!
***
On the way back to Seoul, Woo Yeon-Hee suddenly said, “If you achieve the conditions earlier than expected, I’ll help rebuild you. So, just follow after me.”
She chuckled as if she was delighted just by the thought of it. She had completely forgotten that my items would help me greatly. If the possibility of them being taken away or destroyed was excluded, then items were more important than one’s capabilities. Well, this case only applied when one’s capabilities had developed to a certain extent.
She continued gleefully, “I will raise you well, okay? Hehehe.”
“Woo Yeon-Hee.”
“Yes?”
I intoned seriously, “You are in your mid-thirties. Who laughs like that at your age?”
She rolled her eyes. “Look at my skin. Who would even guess that I’m in my thirties? I haven’t lost even a bit of elasticity.”
Woo Yeon-Hee poked her face with an index finger. Then, she didn’t stop me from touching her face. She would become more powerful the more time she spent with me, but that reason alone didn’t reduce my feelings of guilt towards her. The reason for living was to be happy, and survival was more meaningful when there was better happiness.
However, there wasn’t a speck of happiness in the hours we spent struggling through the darkness, facing loathsome monsters, and getting covered in their blood and guts.
The tip of my index finger touched her cheek, and she said while looking at me, “It has always been my choice. There’s no need for you to feel sorry regarding that day you contacted me and now either.”
She was always like this. In fact, she was pretending to be remarkably cheerful to soothe me. Not all the Awakened with mental attributes were like this. Woo Yeon-Hee was a special girl.
***
Woo Yeon-Hee was looking outside the window now, and she must have had lots of thoughts while looking at the distant land. I turned my head to the window as well, and Wall Street was quickly disappearing from my line of sight.
It was no longer important for me to be aware of future economic trends. The subprime crisis had exploded at a larger scale than it did in the past, and my capital had been thrown into countries where the bomb fell. The flap of a butterfly’s wings was not a good comparison. Instead, it was more akin to a dragon ascending to heaven. It was impossible for anyone to predict the future unless they were a god.
However, I knew I could guarantee one thing: that the future would never go against me! My current wealth, and the power that came with it, would permeate the entire world. Furthermore, the money that I would generate from there would grow so tremendously such that no one could ever attack me.
Some had estimated that the Rothschild family’s properties were worth at least five quadrillion. In the past, when I had worked on Wall Street, I had once believed so as their power was formidable. They had exerted power on the U.S. financial world by printing dollars and determining interest rates.
However, they weren’t that great when I ran into them in this life. The rumor regarding their total wealth was the result of people multiplying the property growth rate of six percent per year with their wealth of six billion dollars in the 1850s. In truth, it was impossible to increase one’s assets by six percent every year for more than a hundred years.
Nonetheless, just because the way people came up with five quadrillion was fantastical, it didn’t actually mean that the number itself was fake. Sooner or later, conspiracy theories about our group would spread around. This was because our group’s wealth had spread widely around the world after the subprime crisis, and it had reached the point where it was impossible to estimate exactly how much there was. Those who dealt with the original conspiracy theory would try to use the same formula they had used to estimate Rothschild’s assets.
Five quadrillion? For the Rothschilds that rumor was false, but hmm… Would the number still be a fantasy on the day the products my companies sold had their prices go back up to the a recovered market rate? Would the five quadrillion be a myth then too?
Within the financial empire that I had created, there would come a day when even I would have difficulty tabulating it all. In fact… It was already too hard.