Chapter 10: Groundwork (1)

The aftereffects of the ritual had ended.

Jinseong's body was healthy, and no aftereffects remained.

If it had been before the regression, I would have immediately performed another ritual.

In the past, he had repeated rituals as soon as his body recovered, saying he would check unidentified magical rituals at every opportunity.

Seeing this, a close mercenary colleague had scolded him, saying, "It's not like a game character using skills as soon as the cooldown ends, what are you doing?"

Now that has no meaning.

It wasn't that his personality had changed.

Jinseong's past and future.

Time had twisted and turned, and now Jinseong had returned to the past, but he wasn't much different from when he had eventually burned his body with unidentified magic, unable to overcome the side effects of sorcery.

No matter where the flame blooms, its essence is no different, so even if the body changes and time changes, if the mind and soul remain the same, the essence remains unchanged.

He would learn any unidentified magic he discovered and perform any unidentified ritual he found alone. After all, magic was his everything, his life itself.

Only now, he had realized.

The fact that doing as he did in the past would only result in a flame that bloomed for a moment.

Having already built the foundation, what I need now is a robust body and wealth.

A robust body.

It was an expression used in many places.

In gyms, in the military, on construction sites.

If one were in a job involving manual labor, they would have definitely seen this expression.

But the 'robust body' Jinseong needed meant a slightly different body than the commonly used expression. The body he was trying to create wasn't simply a physique created through physical training.

Robustness. The best foundation forged by knowledge and talent.

If it had simply ended with building stamina and muscle, Jinseong's past life wouldn't have ended so futilely.

Being a mercenary was a job where the body was one's asset.

Especially since mercenaries were treated as 'consumables that can be bought with money', literally much easier to use than soldiers, they often needed to have stamina surpassing not only regular soldiers but sometimes even special forces.

After all, in the midst of fierce battles where one's head could roll at any moment, the only thing that could protect one's life was one's own stamina and force.

As such, Jinseong's body in the past was quite excellent.

He carried not only firearms and grenades but also various materials for magic, so he wasn't inferior in stamina even to average mercenaries.

Moreover, since he knew numerous recovery magical rituals, he didn't need to worry much about injuries.

No, he shouldn't have had to worry...

His kidneys burst.

His lungs shrank.

His intestines were cut in half.

His testicles lost their function, and he became impotent.

The extremities of his body rotted, and mold grew on his body.

Recovery was useless.

The burst kidney returned, but burst again.

The shrunken lungs shrank again.

Even if the severed intestines regenerated, the exact regenerated parts turned into cancer masses.

No matter what method was used, the mold grew back, and the body continued to rot.

The lost reproductive ability never returned.

Even if the body was healed, it was only for a moment.

The human body couldn't withstand the continuous recovery and injury, and the untrained interior left scars that continued to cause problems. Jinseong's body could overcome diseases but couldn't eradicate their roots, could heal injuries but couldn't completely return to its original state.

Seeing this, one of his close colleagues frowned as if finding it terrible and said:

『 Hey! Mad sorcerer! You're from a good family, why are you wallowing in this gutter? You could use your family money to learn all the sorcery you like. Spend money lavishly, use connections abundantly. Get information! How great is that? 』

It was when he had barely returned after suffering greatly, getting involved in the European civil war.

Perhaps it was a question thrown because he was confident they were close enough.

If not that, it might have been a probing question, like 'answer if you want, if not, forget it'.

What was certain was that that donkey-like human must have been confident that Jinseong would answer the question.

But Jinseong answered the question like this:

『 Magic can be obtained that way, but if done so, transcendence cannot be achieved. 』

The colleague laughed at those words, saying 'That's bullshit'.

But Jinseong held onto that thought regardless of whether his colleague laughed or not.

Even during the harsh mercenary life, even as the world was falling apart.

Even later when he was killed by Chinese berserkers.

Even when he became a despised existence, avoided by everyone as a parasite sorcerer.

And even until the moment he burned his own body due to the side effects of recklessly learned sorcery.

He didn't regret his path.

But having traveled back in time and regained a healthy body, there was no need to repeat the past exactly.

Humans were creatures that learned and developed from past mistakes.

The reason I couldn't achieve transcendence was due to the limitations of my body.

The overlapping side effects of mercenary life and magical rituals eventually made even momentary recovery impossible, and despite using all sorts of methods, he could barely cling to life.

This had been due to the limitations of Jinseong's extremely weak body.

From the beginning, trying to endure everything with an ordinary person's body was bound to cause problems.

But it's difficult for a sorcerer to create a robust body.

Even in martial arts alone, there were few people who had a 'robust body' by Jinseong's standards. There was a reason why internal cultivation, which accumulates qi and wields supernatural abilities, was more popular than external cultivation that trains the body, but besides that, training the human body to its limits was a very difficult task. It was a field that required professional knowledge beyond simply gathering and training qi.

Just looking at the details, it required at least university-level knowledge.

Telomeres related to lifespan.

Synapses related to reaction speed.

The immune system related to resistance.

Adrenaline and endorphins closely related to combat.

The liver related to detoxification.

.....

....

...

The countless elements that make up the human body, which would be endless if listed.

Among these numerous elements, Jinseong wanted lifespan and resistance.

I am a sorcerer. Therefore, any physical ability beyond what's necessary is mere greed.

The sorcery he mainly used was primitive sorcery and forgotten sorcery.

Unlike modern sorcery that had removed symbolism and minimized side effects, so-called 'refined' forms, it was sorcery with severe side effects but also great countereffects. Because of this, if he was prepared, he could substitute abilities needed for combat like reaction speed, memory, or regeneration ability as much as he wanted.

When constructing, the foundation is most important. But I cannot practice that, which is truly regrettable.

The problem was that Jinseong currently had no way to strengthen his immune system and telomeres.

Money and connections.

The reason was simple.

He had no money and no connections.

To be precise, he lacked the money and connections to approach the inner circle that knew how to strengthen the immune system and telomeres.

Only the super-rich who have accumulated power along with long history can approach it.

A very long time ago, perhaps since humans first started forming tribes.

Those with power wanted to maintain their authority for a long time and feared the poison their political opponents might feed them. Along with this, longevity techniques and detoxification techniques developed brilliantly, but still, the desires of the powerful were not satisfied.

And now.

In modern times, their desires have somewhat come to fruition.

"ॐ-"

The information age, brilliantly developed science, capitalism where money can do anything, an enormous population of 7 billion, and geniuses popping up not infrequently.

All these factors combined to produce a method to significantly strengthen telomeres and the immune system.

But there was no way the powerful would release this to ordinary people.

Naturally, this 'amazing secret that extends lifespan and eliminates worry about poison' circulated only among the wealthy and powerful, becoming knowledge only for them within an iron fortress that ordinary people couldn't even approach.

Lifespan, immunity...

The most important was immunity.

Lifespan would become meaningless if transcendence was achieved, so it didn't matter, but immunity was necessary.

Without immunity, there was a high possibility of meeting the same end as before.

"First, I'll need money."

Connections, money, power.

These three were one body.

If you had just one of the three, you could somehow obtain the other two.

Jinseong took out a cylinder from his bosom.

A cylinder engraved with a bluish eye-shaped form.

"Heads, heads. Where is the shiniest gold?"

As he whispered to the cylinder, bringing it to his mouth, the eye-shaped form bulged out as if alive and glared at him.

Crunch!

The eye soon became a mouth. The thing that was like the mouth of an elongated fish opened wide and bit Jinseong's hand hard with teeth protruding up to the palate. Then, only after consuming the blood flowing from Jinseong's hand for a long time did it seem satisfied and turn into smoke, returning into the cylinder.

What remained was the eye shape that had turned gray and golden smoke shining brightly, visible only to Jinseong's eyes.

Jinseong began to walk, following the golden smoke.

*                     *                     *

"This is auspicious."

Jinseong smiled crookedly as he looked at the shabby building.

On the second and third floors of the shabby building, signs read 'Daemo Capital' and 'Sambon Money'.