NOVEL NEXT Chapter 45 - A New Residence (1)
Chapter 45: A New Residence (1)
With just one selection match, Baek Jin-woo had become a national hero.
Hooong, hooong!
Yet, he never neglected his training.
As always, he moved to the open field, released his summons, and steadily worked on his physical exercises.
– If you focus too much on strength training, you might become stronger but not agile, and you’ll lose flexibility. Balance is the most important thing, my lord.
“Okay, okay.”
Even as sweat poured down, Baek Jin-woo maintained his posture with a fierce determination in his eyes.
‘The truth is.’
The reason Baek Jin-woo could exhibit such overwhelming performance was just one thing.
‘The standard in Korea is too low.’
If he were in a country where the One Heaven, Five Emperors were active, or even a mid-tier country, he might not lose, but he wouldn’t be able to dominate every moment.
‘Hun-gyo and Dol-dol’s damage output would have fallen short.’
Lamba?
She’d be fine for at least another ten years, thanks to the Graduation Rune he had equipped her with.
The problem was the other summons.
They were only equipped with mid-tier or high-tier runes enhanced to a reasonable level.
‘It’s about time I started preparing proper runes.’
The first step was the 20th floor of the Tower of Trials.
There, he could craft another guaranteed B-grade summoning scroll and summon the legendary fraudulent summon, the “Rune Dwarf.”
‘I should start upgrading the weekly dungeons to higher levels too.’
Summons specialized for weekly dungeons, such as the Combat Sheriff, Priest of Radiance, and Lava Drake, had also reached a decent level.
With the deep training provided by Hun-gyo, they had even acquired new skills. Now, he could aim for higher levels quickly.
Every morning.
Baek Jin-woo would receive Yoo Ji-ah’s reports at the open field.
It served as a greeting, workout, and work report all rolled into one!
Essentially, YooBaek’s shareholder meetings were being held in the mountains daily.
After assisting with training under Hun-gyo’s guidance, Yoo Ji-ah used the towel she brought to wipe away her sweat.
“Here.”
Baek Jin-woo pulled out a cold bottle of water from an icebox and tossed it to her.
“Hoo-ah, hoo-ah. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Gulp, gulp.
The way she drank, her throat moving as the water went down, looked like a scene straight out of a celebrity’s commercial.
“Ahh, refreshing. Jin-woo.”
“Yes?”
“It seems like it’s about time to move the open field.”
“Oh?”
Baek Jin-woo widened his eyes.
He had heard that the training grounds were being renovated, but was it already finished?
“It should be done in about a week.”
Much faster than expected.
All thanks to Baek Jin-woo.
Since he became famous, construction companies had poured all their equipment and manpower into the project with everything they had.
“We’re also preparing for your family to move in.”
“You’ve been working hard without a word.”
“No, no! Jin-woo, you’re the one working hard. Oh, and…”
Yoo Ji-ah, who was waving her hand modestly, brought up the next agenda.
“The government has promised massive support funds.”
“Oh? How much?”
“One trillion won per national team member from the national treasury! And as a special benefit for the captain, an additional one trillion, making it two trillion! They’ve scraped together 11 trillion in total. It’s unprecedented.”
“What.”
Trillions?
And two trillion for him alone?
Once, Korea had set a budget exceeding 600 trillion won, but these days, they were struggling.
Economic stagnation due to the World League’s lowest-ranking position had taken its toll.
National debt was still enormous, and there were mountains of things to spend money on.
Even in such circumstances, they had scraped together 11 trillion won.
This showed just how desperate the government was about this World League.
“But there are conditions.”
“Conditions?”
“The allocated budget must be approved by the headquarters and strictly used for player development. And, of course, you can’t take the support and defect to another country.”
“Ah, that’s only natural.”
He had no intention of misusing the people’s hard-earned tax money for personal purposes.
There were plenty of runes, summons, and materials he needed to buy anyway.
Also.
He had no desire to betray the country where his family lived.
“And one more thing.”
“There are quite a few conditions, huh?”
“Haha, well, it’s a lot of money, after all…”
Well, that’s true.
It wasn’t just a lot of money—it was in the trillions.
“What is it?”
“There will be a mandatory weekly national team gathering. As the captain, you’ll have to lead the other nine national representatives in training and practice matches. You’ll probably need to coach them for at least 10 hours each session. That’s likely the responsibility tied to the additional trillion.”
“Once a week, for 10 hours…”
The truth was, he was about to get quite busy.
He needed to set up the weekly dungeons and climb the Tower of Trials.
But?
If there’s money involved, that changes things.
Providing consultation was something he could easily do.
“When would that be?”
“That’s up to the national team to decide, but if you decide, everyone will probably follow.”
“…They’d follow my lead?”
“You don’t know, do you? Haven’t you seen the rankers’ interviews?”
“I haven’t.”
At first, he had tried some ego-searching a few times, but he gave up.
The reason?
There was too much.
Every community, the whole world, was talking about him.
Even while reading, new posts kept resetting the page.
After an hour, he felt queasy and turned it off.
Who cared what the world thought?
‘What matters is myself.’
Right now, it wasn’t nearly enough.
A national hero?
JinuGod?
The current Baek Jin-woo had recovered less than 10% of his past glory and strength.
“Here, take a look at this article.”
Yoo Ji-ah fiddled with her phone and showed him.
It went something like this:
[Player Baek Jin-woo Is My Idol!]
[Korea’s No. 1 Ranker Kang Gun-ho: “If you dismiss Baek Jin-woo just because you’re a ranker, then you’re a fool. He’s already proven himself and is the best ranker.”]
[Arirang’s Deputy Guild Master Orang: “The thing I regret most about missing the selection is not being able to receive Baek Jin-woo’s coaching!”]
[Carpe Diem’s Executives: “From now on, our guild’s role model is Baek Jin-woo.”]
Ugh.
It’s embarrassing.
Why are they all praising me like this?
“Jin-woo, you’re aware of the JinuGod phenomenon, right?”
“…”
For a moment, Baek Jin-woo’s expression hardened slightly.
But Yoo Ji-ah didn’t seem to mind.
“Among domestic rankers, they already see you as JinuGod. You’ve proven your skills and have symbolic value too. It’s a situation where they can’t help but follow you.”
“I see.”
Seeing Yoo Ji-ah’s expression, Baek Jin-woo realized something.
‘She’s 100% confident about this.’
Someday, he’d have to reveal the truth.
But doing so to the world felt premature.
It might be okay to start with Yoo Ji-ah, though.
They were in the same boat, after all.
“What do you think, Ji-ah?”
“Yes?”
“Do you really think I’m JinuGod?”
“…”
Yoo Ji-ah pondered over the question for a while before eventually nodding.
“Honestly… I had my suspicions from the start. It was mostly circumstantial. But now, I’m fairly certain.”
“Haha.”
Baek Jin-woo scratched his head.
Well.
She was smart, and if she didn’t realize, she’d be a fool.
‘Why did I have to choose the nickname JinuGod?’
Now that he was an adult, it was an incredibly embarrassing name.
It made his hair stand on end.
“Yes, that’s right. Actually, I did play using the account JinuGod during Battle of Summoners. I’m sorry. I lied about only playing for a year to avoid standing out in the beginning.”
“Of course…!”
“But I don’t want to confirm it publicly yet. At the very least, I want to do it after regaining about half of my former strength.”
There’s nothing more dangerous than fame without power.
While speculations about him being JinuGod were inevitable due to his name, officially confirming it was a different matter altogether.
“I understand what you mean.”
“I’ll set the national team gathering for Saturdays. We should rest on Sundays.”
“Oh, okay! I’ll let the rankers know!”
“And.”
“Yes?”
“For the time being, I plan to focus on the 20th floor of the Tower of Trials.”
“…The 20th floor.”
For reference, Rachel, the world’s No. 1, was on the 29th floor.
It had taken her three relentless years to get there.
In Korea?
There wasn’t a single ranker who had cleared the 20th floor.
Yet, here he was, confidently declaring that he would clear it.
‘Chills.’
Yoo Ji-ah felt her whole body tingle as if she might go mad.
Is this what it feels like to witness a living legend making history right in front of you?
“Got it! If you need anything, contact me directly anytime!”
A week passed.
First, he successfully set up his routine for the advanced weekly dungeon runs.
‘I could run the top-tier dungeons too, but…’
The efficiency was too low.
It took too much time, so it was more cost-effective to run the advanced dungeons quickly and repeatedly.
At this point, no player in the country was likely farming the top-tier dungeons.
Naturally, he achieved the highest domestic records!
As a reward, he received 21 advanced summoning scrolls.
“Summoning scroll inventory.”
He muttered, and a window appeared.
[Summoning Scroll Inventory]
1. Advanced Summoning Scroll x 21
2. Ultimate Summoning Scroll x 1
He had sold off the remaining low-grade scrolls through Baek Ah-jin.
As for the ultimate scroll, he planned to save up as many as possible and open them all at once.
And.
To prepare for the 20th floor of the Tower of Trials, there were two conditions to meet.
‘Hun-gyo’s semi-graduation rune and Explosive Dragon’s Flame.’
The Flame skill, in particular, was crucial.
Flame is the third stage after Chain and Transformation.
If Chain allows him to stack Explosion Dragon Waves repeatedly, and Transformation lets him modify those waves,
Flame enables him to unleash all the accumulated waves in one powerful strike.
The boss on the 20th floor was the king of all vampires, the primordial vampire, “Dracul” (S-grade).
He was weak to fire, so he needed to burn him down in one shot with Flame.
‘First.’
Since the Explosive Dragon hadn’t even mastered Transformation yet, let alone Flame,
‘I should start with Hun-gyo’s semi-graduation rune.’
Graduation runes could only be achieved after obtaining the Rune Dwarf.
For now, he would have to settle for the semi-graduation rune.
And.
Baek Jin-woo had a staggering 2 trillion won at his disposal.
He intended to invest it all in Hun-gyo.
“There’s a top-tier ‘Universal’ rune.”
– Ah, the Universal Rune! I know it! It’s super famous!
Baek Ah-jin’s voice flowed from the phone.
“Get me that. Work with Ji-ah. As many as possible.”
– What? You want me to get that?
She sounded flustered.
And understandably so.
[Rune]
[Grade: Top-Tier (Rare)]
– Limited to 100 worldwide.
[Set Effect: Universal]
– Equipping 6 increases all stats by 500% and adds 10,000 HP.
– Grants 2 additional stat options.
[Level: 1]
[Stat Increases]
Strength +12%, Intelligence +12%, Stamina +12%, Agility +12%, Critical Hit Chance +10%, Critical Damage +20%
Like Lamba’s Light-Speed Rune, it was a limited rune.
Not only did it boost all stats evenly, but the attached stats were also absurdly good.
Furthermore, while runes typically had a maximum of 4 stats, this Universal Rune had 6.
It was the ultimate versatile rune, capable of drawing out the best performance from any summon.
– That’s ridiculously expensive. And there’s no supply.
“Exactly.”
Baek Jin-woo smiled.
“We’ll have to buy it above market price.”
The rune was incredibly popular.
So much so that even nations were scrambling to acquire it.
– How many do you need…? Six, obviously, to get the set effect, right?
“No.”
Baek Jin-woo shook his head.
“Eighteen.”
What he needed was exactly three sets.
The reason for that would be explained later.