D.I.O

Click.

While Yongno was looking over some papers at his desk and talking about this and that with Youngmin, Eunhye, dressed in a men’s business suit, and Miho, with her six tails trailing behind her, opened the door and entered the room.

Unlike Eunhye, who was walking calmly, Miho ran and jumped onto Merlin’s lap with a proud expression on her face.

“Merlin! Look at me!”

“Hey, you’re not a fox-species being anymore… You can’t just jump onto my lap…”

“Don’t talk nonsense and look here!”

With an excited expression, Miho sat with her hips on Yongno’s lap and her arms around his neck. Miho stared with wide eyes straight into Yongno’s eyes.

“…Jeweled Magic Eyes?”

“Yep, I regained them both! Hahaha, I didn’t think I could make new ones!”

Miho’s eyes were shining red. It wasn’t just that the color of her eyes changed to red; her eyes shone as if her eye sockets were inlaid with red rubies.

“That’s… amazing. And it’s not just one eye but both eyes.”

In the past in DIO, Miho had died in place of Merlin and given Merlin one of her Jeweled Magic Eyes in the last moments of her life.

Considering that the Jeweled Magic Eye was a spiritual organ with spiritual power, Yongno hadn't expected that Miho could restore her Jeweled Magic Eye. Since Miho had experience in developing Jeweled Magic Eyes once before, it wouldn’t have been strange if she were able to recreate the Jeweled Magic Eye again at some point much later on. Nevertheless, even if she were able to do that, Yongno had expected that it would only be one eye.

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah! Isn’t it great?”

“Yeah… If you can keep reproducing the Jeweled Magic Eyes after I pluck them out, we’ll be able to produce Jeweled Magic Eyes like a fully operational factory…”

“What sort of terrible thoughts are you having?!!”

Shouting something along the lines of ‘I hate you!’, Miho swung her fists at Yongno wildly.

Miho had been a high-ranking fox being in the past and was currently a capable magic power practitioner. However, Yongno was a being who was on the cusp of reaching the transcendence realm in DIO, so he was easily able to dodge Miho’s attacks although Miho was trying her best to strike him.

‘Hmm, is my real body around Level 13?

Yongno’s real body’s [spiritual powers],strength, stamina, HP, agility, and so on weren’t comparable with those of the body he possessed in DIO.

In fact, Yongno’s body in DIO was more like a biological weapon than a physical life form.

No matter how hard a person trained or tried, the limitations of their real physical body were clearly set and apparent. Training beyond this limitation would only overtax their body rather than lead to further growth.

This [physical] limitation had nothing to do with willpower or grit. It was just physically impossible for a person to jump a distance of ten to twenty meters or lift and throw an object weighing several tons with only a bit of effort. However, the [user’s body] provided by DIO’s system was different.

Unlike their real body, a user’s DIO body not only became stronger as they put in more effort, but it was also able to take advantage of system bonuses, such as the level-up bonus stats. (Of course, at some point, the body would cease to develop through simple training alone, but the upper limit of a DIO user’s body couldn’t be compared with that of a real body.)

Therefore, it was possible in-game for users with high HP to be unaffected by firearms or for users with high strength stats to throw a dump truck with their bare hands, even if they had not learned any technique or ability to do so.

So, what would happen once spiritual power was added to a user’s body?

Bam!

“Ouch!”

“I’m just joking around, so don’t get overexcited. Here, have some cake.”

“Ugh… Ah! Is it cheesecake?”

Miho, who had a disgruntled expression on her face just moments ago, became delighted when she saw a cake on the table. She was a young woman who liked meat, which fit the palate of a fox-species being. Yet, perhaps because she had been recreated as a girl in real life, she had since developed a sweet tooth.

“Oh, but Yongno… I can do almost everything I was able to do previously with these Jeweled Magic Eyes, but I can’t seem to do mind control like before. I can’t even do a simple hypnotization. It’s not like I’m being blocked or anything; it just doesn’t work. Is there something wrong with this planet?”

“Ah… that’s right. Someone banned psychological attacks from working on this planet.”

“Who?”

“If I had to guess, I would say that it's either the Celesti or the Netherworld. They’re the ones who are the most hostile toward the Noblesse.”

Of course, it wasn’t that difficult to interfere with the minds of today’s human beings, who didn’t have the mental defensive barriers that all users enjoyed in DIO.

In fact, Yongno, who was able to use spiritual power on Earth through the Seal of Heaven that Mary (who was now Snowflake Flower) had engraved, had traveled around the world and brainwashed the leaders of each country before the psychological attack restrictions were enforced.

However, once the Legion and Grotesque forces’ attacks on Earth began, the Noblesse decided to interfere and influence Earth directly, leading to all mental interference abilities being banned on Earth.

Essentially, someone had manipulated Earth’s [laws].

“Wow. Oh, my… If such a thing was possible… it would have to have been a transcendent being, right?”

“A transcendent would indeed be able to implement such a law… If they were a magic-power type of being, like a mage or shaman, that could [prepare] for a large-scale spell, they may be able to use sacrifices and a planetary-wide spell to implement such a law… But in this case, it would be reasonable to assume that a being of intermediate or higher rank intervened.”

“Intermediate rank—I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of existence that would be… Didn’t you say that a nine-tailed fox was a lower-rank god? Perhaps a ten-tailed fox would be considered an intermediate god?”

Seeing Miho’s perplexed expression, Yongno fell into thought.

He assumed that the being who placed the restrictive law on Earth was a transcendent being of intermediate rank, but the information he had was too little to use to identify anyone. Although Yongno was connected to the Netherworld and the Celesti realm to some extent, neither could be called a [close partner].

It was better to side with the Celesti, who provided Yongno help in this and that, than the Netherworld, which strictly obeyed Union law without any room for interpretation, but how could Yongno trust either of them completely? It wasn’t like either side had his best interests at heart.

After organizing his thoughts for a moment, Yongno suddenly turned his head and looked at Eunhye.

Dressed in a men’s business suit, Eunhye stood steadfast and undisturbed amid the tumultuous and raucous atmosphere. It was as if time had stopped for her; her straight and upright posture was as distinct as a figure in a painting.

“Come to think of it, did things go well?”

“Roughly. Your recipe for the artificial spiritual pathways has spread amongst the viable producers, and many have started production. The patents are also being fully recognized and enforced.”

“What about the production volume?”

“It seems like a low volume for now. In other words, like internal power users making handmade reinforced items, the producers need to spend a long time making each artificial spiritual pathway.”

The reason why Yongno was able to use mana on Earth, where spiritual pathways didn’t exist, was because he was able to execute Qi Heaven, which allowed him to materialize qi.

‘If Mary hadn’t taught me how to use Qi Heaven… I would be living a different life. Manifestation has a time limit, so what I can do with manifestation alone is limited. In the end, I might have been just another Master-level user enslaved by the state.’

However, whether by chance or inevitability, Yongno mastered Qi Heaven and succeeded in inventing Pathway to Hell, which was capable of [producing] tremendous spiritual power. These two things together made it possible for Yongno to mass-produce artificial spiritual pathways.

Then when people with special abilities became a reality through the application of artificial spiritual pathways, it also became possible for people to produce artificial spiritual pathways and exert superpowers, just like how Yongno had done with the Seal of Heaven.

“By the way, won’t most mages be able to create artificial spiritual pathways?” Eunhye asked.

“That’ll be difficult unless one’s a high-ranking mage. Mages who specialize in aligning and rearranging mana are incomparable to internal energy users when it comes to focusing and concentrating mana. Rather, it would probably be easier for chakra or aura users to create artificial spiritual pathways.”

Of course, Qi Heaven wasn’t the only way to realize the materialization of qi on Earth. In the case of the Formless Mind technique, which was an attack technique that martial artists who specialized in dark arts could use, it was possible to materialize qi when their command of the technique went past a certain level.

Nevertheless, there was no problem even if one didn’t learn this specialized technique. This was because learning any qigong technique would suffice.

Aside from Yongno’s Qi Heaven, there was the Heavenly Demon Cycle Qi, which was something that those who mastered Heavenly Magic Divine Technique would have mastered… or the materialization of qi that was used by aura users to make sword-shaped qi fly through the air…

After learning any of these qigong techniques to materialize qi and learning Yongno’s ‘artificial spiritual pathway recipe’, which was patented in that dreary name by Yongno, one would be able to create artificial spiritual pathways.

“Wasn’t it difficult to get patent recognition? I didn’t think your recipe would be in line with existing patent laws…”

“It wasn’t difficult. There were many countries that were anxious to look good for our Great Mage Merlin, especially the United States. They gave Yongno many concessions. Furthermore, many patent laws were newly created and added because of the need for spiritual sciences to develop,” Youngmin explained.

Originally, in order to register a patent, an applicant had to put their patent application through an international search and international preliminary examination. The applicant also had to submit a translated application to each respective country and undergo all kinds of verification and further examinations. Yet, for Yongno…