Chapter 1
I drank 26 cans of energy drinks and got TS'd into a beautiful girl.
And then I added a little blood-vomiting and fainting to the mix.
Squish!
"W-what...?"
My view was lower than usual.
Blonde hair flowed down to my waist.
My voice was frighteningly high.
"A girl...?"
Staring at my reflection in the mirror, now a woman, I murmured in a shrill voice.
But it didn't take long for me to realize what had happened.
As if it had been waiting for me to speak, a translucent status window appeared before my eyes.
Flash—!
"H-hyaa?!"
[ Status Window ]
- Class: Alchemist
- Trait: Drug Addiction (EX), Drug Resistance (S)
- Skill: Transmutation (A)
"A s-status window...?"
Yeah, it was a status window.
The thing only the Awakened could see.
And now it had suddenly appeared right in front of my eyes.
With no warning whatsoever.
Shit, what the hell is going on?
Ding!
[ You have achieved the most foolish accomplishment in history, one that defies common sense! ]
[ Concerned for your mental state, the Tower is granting you an awakening bonus. ]
[ You have awakened as an Alchemist. ]
[ You have acquired the trait Drug Addiction (EX). ]
[ You have acquired the trait Drug Resistance (S). ]
[ You have acquired the skill Transmutation (A). ]
"What."
System messages appeared, as if they'd been waiting for just this moment.
Maybe they'd piled up while I was unconscious, because they came cascading into view until they covered my eyes.
The tone was strangely mocking, but...
That wasn't important right now, so I'd let it go.
The meaning of all this was clear.
"I... awakened...?"
I'd become one of the Awakened.
And all from drinking 26 cans of energy drinks.
As soon as I realized that, I picked up my phone.
"A top post...!! This is top-post material...!!"
So what if I'd awakened?
I still had to do what needed doing.
*
*
*
To cut to the chase, I didn't make it to the top posts.
[ This IP has been blocked. ]
"Shit... Why on earth...?"
I haven't the faintest idea why I got blocked.
How badly did they want to crack down on anonymous posters?
...It's not like I can't guess why, but this kind of heavy-handed treatment is a problem.
They blocked me just for posting one gross pic.
If they're going to do that, they could at least tell me how long the block lasts.
"At this rate, I might just post gore on a fresh alt account?"
Of course, I wasn't planning to do anything right away.
Maybe thanks to that post briefly making the top posts yesterday, I'd become Awakened Gallery's superstar overnight.
< Awakened Gallery ⓜ >
[ What happened to that anon from yesterday? ]
[ Shit, you Nguyen bastards, unblock anonymous posting ]
[ Can someone who isn't even Awakened drink 26 cans of Monsta? ]
[ Honestly, he deserves to die lol ]
[ Don't slander my friend 39.7 ]
"A topic this huge, and I'm not even Awakened...!!"
Well, like most galleries, when has Awakened Gallery ever actually talked about Awakened-related topics...
Still, it was rare for a non-Awakened user to become this much of a hot topic.
"I need to post a quick proof of life and make the top posts..."
Who knew when the mods would lift the ban on anonymous posters.
Now that I'd awakened, maybe I should finally make a proper account.
Pssht!
Thinking that to myself, I popped open a can of Monsta I'd taken from the fridge with my tiny hands.
You might wonder if I could really get that down right now, after nearly dying from throwing up blood while drinking energy drinks...
But now that awakening had made me a refined watashi, caffeine was no longer enough to knock me out.
[ Drug Resistance ]
- Rank: S
- Ability: Grants resistance to all types of drugs.
An S-rank trait, Drug Resistance.
Just as the name suggests, it's an unprecedentedly overpowered trait that grants resistance to every kind of drug.
I didn't know exactly how far that resistance extended... but at least I probably wouldn't throw up blood just from drinking too many energy drinks anymore.
Thanks to that, I could finish off the four cans left out of the original thirty. It really was an S-rank trait.
And that wasn't the only trait I had.
"Gulp, gulp... Ahh!"
[ You have consumed a new drug. ]
[ Energy Drink ]
- Rank: D
- Details: A drink made by combining artificial sweeteners and caffeine. Grants a mild stimulating effect when consumed.
[ Addiction rate has increased by 1%. ]
A system message appeared right after I downed a can of Monsta.
Honestly, this one felt more like my main ability than Drug Resistance.
Even among the renowned S-rank Hunters, few people had an EX-rank trait.
[ Drug Addiction ]
- Rank: EX
- Ability: Consuming drugs increases your stats in proportion to your addiction rate.
- Addiction rate: 1%
An EX-rank trait, Drug Addiction.
Just from the name, it sounded like an ability that'd have me going tra-la-la-la~ while smoking weed every day.
To put it simply, it's an ability that goes: take lots of drugs, get super strong!
Every time I took a drug, my addiction rate went up, and so did my stats. It was a straightforwardly overpowered ability.
Next, I tossed the empty energy drink can toward the pile I'd gathered in a corner of the room.
Clang!
"Ready, Al?"
It was a name that sounded like my little brother's soul was lodged inside it.
In reality, it was just a heap of aluminum cans piled high.
I immediately used the Transmutation skill on the stack of aluminum cans.
"Trace on──"
...No, wait.
"Transmutation."
Fwoosh!
As I finished my not-quite-an-incantation, light burst from my hand, and the cans piled up began to stick together.
It looked a lot like the Chibaku Tensei Pain uses in that famous ninja manga.
Before long, the cans, writhing like clay, gradually took shape, until a crude sword about two handspans long was complete.
[ Transmutation ]
- Rank: A
- Ability: Uses mana and catalysts to transmute matter.
An A-rank skill, Transmutation.
Unlike the traits before it, this was a rather old-fashioned skill.
Apparently, quite a few people in Korea had this skill.
Wasn't it mostly blacksmiths and other crafting-type Awakened who had it?
"A one-handed sword was too much, after all... This is more like a dagger."
I murmured as I turned the dagger I'd made this way and that.
Maybe because my proficiency was low, the quality wasn't all that great, but the blade had a decent edge.
All in all, it was usable enough.
For a first attempt, I was pretty satisfied.
"Well, that's enough checking out my skill for now."
After finishing my brief skill test, I immediately turned my phone back on and checked the gallery.
[ This IP has been blocked. ]
"...Ugh."
The gallery's assistant moderators must have been pretty pissed off, because there was no sign they'd lift the block.
They were even nasty enough not to tell me the reason or duration of the block.
At least my IP hadn't been added to the permanent-ban notice, so maybe they'd unblock me eventually...
"So what?"
I couldn't use the gallery right now.
For an Awakened Gallery addict like me, using the gallery was serious business.
If I went even one day without it, thorns would grow on my tongue.
What? How important could using the gallery possibly be?
Wasn't it just an unhealthy, harmful website full of losers talking nonsense?
Wow... **you hit the nail on the head**.
But let's draw the line at one thing here.
Using the gallery isn't simply a matter of spending time on an online community.
It's a form of 'cultural production' conducted anonymously, behind the scenes.
In other words, using the gallery is a religion.
As they say, losing one's faith means death...!
...Actually, I was just going through withdrawal from the lack of dopamine.
Well, even if that weren't the case, I had no intention of waiting around for the block to be lifted.
"Now that I've awakened, there's no reason to stick around Awakened Gallery."
< Awakened Gallery ⓜ >
Awakened Minor Gallery.
Commonly known as Fake Awakened Gallery.
It was a gallery made by people who'd entered the Tower dreaming of turning their lives around, but failed to awaken and wound up with their lives in the gutter.
A text-gore dump for posts by pathetic, jobless young losers who couldn't even awaken.
Not that there were no Awakened there at all, but their numbers were ridiculously low.
In short, it was like the Fantasy, Old Games, or WoW galleries outside the Tower.
Though I wasn't sure those places still existed.
"Then where's the real Awakened Gallery, if not Fake Awakened Gallery?"
How stupid. The real Awakened Gallery isn't a gallery.
It's closer to a kind of 'Awakened community' than a gallery.
...I mean, that's what Awakened Gallery was supposed to be in the first place.
It wasn't an internet gallery at all, but a 'system' that only the Awakened could use.
[ I want to awaken too ]
[ Posted by: Anonymous (39.7) ]
I want to get into Tower Gallery and post from my status window too
- Anonymous: Can you even awaken?
└ (OP) Anonymous (39.7): 🖕
- Anonymous: Upvoted for consistency
- Sogatamyeontanso: An Awakened community? That is kind of a gallery too... right?
└ (OP) Anonymous (39.7): Can you post from your status window????
└ Sogatamyeontanso: Awaken first, then come back
└ (OP) Anonymous (39.7): 🖕🖕🖕🖕
Awakened Community.
Commonly known as Tower Gallery.
...Calling it Tower Gallery makes it sound like there ought to be a Bottom Gallery too. Just a truly shitty name.
It was a community for the Awakened, made for them by the System itself.
No electricity, Wi-Fi, VPN, or Tor needed. The so-called status-window gallery.
The sort of thing you'd expect to see as a cheat ability in a web novel.
[ Awakened Community ]
And since I was now a bona fide Awakened myself, I could use Tower Gallery.
However, there was one condition for using it...
[ This feature is available starting from Floor 1. ]
The reason it was called Tower Gallery.
It was because only Awakened climbing the Tower could use it.
In other words, if I wanted to become a popular user on Tower Gallery, I had to climb the Tower.
"......"
That made no sense whatsoever.
Risk my life and climb the Tower just to use a gallery?
A place where even grown men died at the drop of a hat, with this frail, soft body?
That sounded completely insane.
"Let's do it right now."
And that was exactly the sort of thing someone like me could never resist.