Reward

Thump!

As soon as I got home, I quickly tossed aside the saber I’d been carrying on my back.

“Hah, hah. Ugh, I’m out of breath.”

Now that I was free of the weight pressing down on my whole body, I finally felt like I could breathe again.

“This thing’s ridiculously heavy.”

What kind of weapon was this, to be so absurdly heavy?

I regretted ever looking down on it, thinking a saber couldn’t possibly be that heavy.

It really was ridiculously heavy.

You’re wondering why I didn’t just put it in my inventory? That’s only looking at half the picture.

Putting a saber away in my inventory was out of the question.

A saber belongs strapped to your waist!

'Looking cool is serious business.'

Why else would the old Super Robots have eagle, lion, or tiger faces on their chests? Because they looked cool.

The same went for sabers and swords. Why not put them in your inventory? Because they look cool!

Of course, I couldn’t wear the saber at my waist in this body, so I’d obediently carried it on my back instead.

“I should’ve just used magic from the start.”

I bitterly regretted my idiotic decision to walk rather than waste precious mana, when the distance wasn’t even that far.

If I could, I would’ve smacked myself hard on the back of the head.

By the time I regretted it, I’d already walked quite a way. It felt awkward to use magic, and I didn’t have a single penny on me for a taxi.

In the end, I had no choice but to walk the whole way, come what may.

“Ugh, I feel gross.”

I was soaked in sweat from head to toe and looked like a complete vagrant.

And with those baggy clothes that didn’t fit me at all thrown on haphazardly, I looked even more pitiful.

“No wonder people keep coming up to me looking like this.”

Anyone who saw me probably thought I was some child being exploited for labor in the twenty-first century.

Maybe that was why passersby kept talking to me whenever they had a moment.

“Hey, kid, is something wrong?”

“Hey, is this some kind of punishment or something?”

I’d left the Tower during the height of rush hour. I’d assumed everyone would be too busy going about their day to pay attention to anyone else, but...

'I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this much attention in my life.'

Aside from stirring people up on the gallery, I’d never had this many eyes on me in real life before.

Of course, I did stand out quite a bit.

A sweaty little girl struggling along with a ridiculously huge saber as big as she was? If I’d seen that, I would’ve wondered what was going on, too.

“...”

Of course, I had nothing in particular to say, so I just kept my mouth shut and stared straight ahead.

“If someone’s threatening you, can you tell me?”

“That’s right. You can trust the adults.”

With my lips firmly shut, the exact opposite of what I expected happened: more people started gathering around me.

It was the first time I’d realized just how interested people in this country were in others.

“Hey, if you can’t talk, just nod.”

“If there’s someone scary around, tell me. Your big sister’s a pretty well-known Awakened, you know? So don’t worry.”

At some point, the story had turned into me being unable to speak and getting exploited by some heinous Awakened bastard.

“Ah!”

“She vanished!”

I just bolted, even though I had to use the mana I’d gone to such lengths to conserve.

The situation was hardly ideal for explaining to everyone, 'I’m not being exploited. This weapon was my reward for clearing the Tower.'

There was no way they’d believe me. They’d probably think I was some deranged kid who’d snapped after putting up with the exploitation for too long.

'Ugh.'

Whatever the case, thank goodness I managed to get away safely.

Just imagining what might’ve happened if they’d kept me there made me shudder.

“Phew.”

I took a quick shower and changed my clothes.

Now that I was in this body, I rather liked how I could just throw on a single T-shirt and be done with it.

'Though drying my hair is a bit of a pain.'

But that wasn’t a big problem right now, either.

Whoosh.

“Oh, it works!”

A fireball. Or a Flame Orb.

It was a basic first-tier offensive spell, one I hadn’t been able to use before because I had no mana. Now it came naturally, as if it had always been that way.

No, I could do more than just cast the spell.

“Yah.”

Whoosh!

I could even change the shape of the Flame Orb however I wanted.

Spell shaping.

Normally, you couldn’t do that until you reached the second tier, but for some reason, it was incredibly easy now.

“So this is the Heavenly Demon?”

Damn it, was Heavenly Demon really short for 'genius mage' after all?

I felt better than ever. The structure of magic came naturally to me, and I could instantly tell how to handle mana efficiently.

“I’m actually better than before.”

Even though my understanding of magic was about the same, being able to use mana made a world of difference from when I’d been helpless without it.

However...

Pfft!

“Ah.”

The Flame Orb that had been flickering atop my finger fizzled out with a sound like air escaping.

“Ugh.”

I’d been in the middle of drying my hair. I guess I still couldn’t keep it going for long.

I could use mana now, but my Nine Yin Severed Meridians and mana depletion syndrome hadn’t been cured, so there was a clear limit to how much mana I could use.

If an ordinary first-tier mage had 10 mana, I had maybe 3 at most.

Of course, even that was a huge improvement over before.

Anyway, I could use magic now.

Besides...

“This sovereign’s true worth doesn’t end there.”

The real highlight was my overwhelming combat ability. You could practically call magic an extra.

Powerful enough to grind the earth to dust with a single punch.

As far as I knew, not even star Awakened like Super or Blood Demon could pull off a feat like that.

“Heh heh heh.”

The thought made a laugh slip out of me.

“If things keep going like this, I’ll be rolling in money... Heh heh.”

Do you know how much a star Awakened makes in a year?

Even a rough estimate put their base income at several billion won. Add in all the extra revenue that came with the title of star Awakened, and they could easily make tens of billions.

They were saviors carrying the future of humanity on their shoulders.

No matter what anyone said, if they failed to climb the Tower once a year, humanity would be doomed.

That was why top-ranked Awakened received astronomical support, enough to make anyone’s jaw drop.

If they fell, humanity had no future, so people poured every available resource and every bit of capital into them.

“Being a billionaire isn’t just a dream anymore!”

My dream, one I’d never forgotten, before or after awakening.

It was to become rich and live lavishly, showing off my success for all to see.

That was the only, rather pathetic dream Lee Jian had ever cherished.

“But now that my appearance has changed this much...”

Would it really count as revenge if I showed off how well I was living as a little kid?

It was something I’d have to think about.

'The important thing is showing that I, Lee Jian, succeeded. But I’m still me, and yet I’m clearly not the same person I used to be.'

“Hmm.”

Well, there was no way to get my old body back right now anyway, so thinking about it more would only give me a headache.

“More importantly...”

It was time to take the first great step toward the Lee Jian Millionaire Project.

“Heh heh heh.”

Without realizing it, I rubbed my hands together like a toady and started taking out the loot I’d carefully stored in my inventory, one item at a time, beside the saber I’d struggled to carry home.

“I can’t believe the rewards alone filled up my inventory.”

The inventory issued to every Awakened had five slots in total.

A fixed pocket dimension that could neither expand nor shrink.

Of course, it had the fatal drawback that each slot could hold only one type of item. On the other hand, you could store an unlimited number of items as long as they were the same type.

But I never expected that just putting in the rewards for an SSS-rank clear would fill up all that precious space.

“Two skill books, one B-rank mana stone, and one recovery potion and one mana potion.”

And that gigantic saber taking up a corner of my room, too.

It was an almost absurdly generous haul.

“I’ll keep the mana potion, and sell the recovery potion and mana stone tomorrow.”

I briefly considered keeping the recovery potion, just in case, but decided I probably wouldn’t need it after grinding the first floor on Nightmare difficulty into dust.

“I’ll use the saber myself.”

[Ink Saber (墨刀)]

[Grade : Rare}

[A saber forged from black iron. It does not break easily.]

The description was incredibly simple.

Compared to the auto-defense, self-repair cloak Josh 'Super' Richard received for clearing Nightmare difficulty with an S+ rank, this weapon only had 'sturdy' going for it, but...

“I like it.”

It fit perfectly in my hand. I liked it so much I didn’t have the slightest desire to sell it.

“Now all that remains are the skill books.

Skill books.

For an Awakened, skills were the alpha and omega. They were the flower of the whole thing.

To use magic as an example, ordinary magic was like a musket: you had to load it with gunpowder and a bullet, light the fuse, and fire. Magic cast through a skill, on the other hand, was like a modern automatic rifle that skipped all those complicated steps.

That was why having lots of skills meant having more types of weapons to use on the battlefield.

“I could learn one myself, I suppose...”

But learning the other one, too, felt like overinvesting a bit.

“In times like this...”

Wizard Gallery was the place to go.

Getting blocked? No problem. A seasoned Wizard Gallery regular always had their next move ready.

[Title: Emergency, emergency!]

[Posted by: Cheon,Ma]

Guys, guys, if you had two skill books, would you learn both, or sell one?

[Comments]

Anon: Fuck, you scared me.

Allah's Magic Wand: This bastard’s got an alt account too, for fuck’s sake.

Roombound Archmage: Come to think of it, this bastard’s a Heavenly Demon too.

ㄴ Cheon,Ma: ? What are you talking about?

ㄴ Roombound Archmage: Man, you need to spend more time online.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

They weren’t giving me the advice I’d asked for, just spouting all kinds of incomprehensible nonsense.

After that, one similar comment after another showed up, until finally someone posted something useful.

Black*Demon*Blade: If it were me, I’d learn both.

ㄴ Cheon,Ma: Why?

ㄴ Black*Demon*Blade: Maybe not for other classes, but for mages, learning even one more skill can mean the difference between life and death. Just learn it. If you’re a Wizard Gallery regular, you’re better off learning it and climbing one more floor of the Tower.

“Oh.”

That’s pretty convincing, actually.

They had a point. For an Awakened, it made sense to invest boldly and climb even one more floor.

“In that case...”

There was no reason to hesitate.

I immediately set the two skill books down side by side on the floor and reached out.

“Learn!”

Flash!

A swirl of light flared up.

[You have acquired a skill.]