Chapter 54
Chapter 54
“Ah, I see we haven’t explained it yet. For the first enhancement, you need 10 Stones.
For the second enhancement, it usually takes around 30 to 50 Stones.
As for the third… it depends on luck, but roughly around 100 Stones are consumed.”
They couldn’t state an exact number since it all came down to probability, but statistically, that was about right.
To reach +3 enhancement, it generally required at least 200 Stones to be safe.
Hyunseok thought casually.
‘So just clear a dungeon or two, then.’
So far, only two Slayers had mastered Advanced Exploration, at least, to Hyunseok’s knowledge.
Those two were Lee Chaerim and Lee Myunghoon.
Chaerim belonged to another guild, but whenever she discovered a Hidden Dungeon, she always called for Hyunseok.
As for Myunghoon, he was in the same guild, so Hyunseok naturally handled all the clearances.
Some days dungeons were found, other days not, but on average they cleared two to three per week.
Clearing a Hidden Dungeon granted roughly 100 Yellow Stones, and under the contribution-based distribution rule of the Dungeon System, most of it went to Hyunseok.
To him, that amount was nothing.
Jungsik swallowed hard.
‘His expression doesn’t change at all? You need nerves of steel for that…’
To Jungsik, 200 Yellow Stones were an astronomical treasure.
Actually, not just “astronomical”, literally worth billions.
Roughly 40 billion won. Enough for an ordinary person to live idly for a lifetime.
‘Is he… sponsored by some conglomerate family or something?’
Hyunseok, meanwhile, felt a little puzzled.
‘Is enhancement that difficult a process? I thought it was just about using the skill… Sure, it takes time, but his reaction seems a bit much.’
Hyunseok assumed Jungsik’s stammering and confusion came from the difficulty of the enhancement process.
Both were mistaken.
In any case, the enhancement succeeded.
The total cost, around 160 Yellow Stones.
The three from Polynet escorted him to the door, bowing at a full ninety degrees, begging him to use their services again.
The original service fee was 3 billion won, but Polynet insisted they couldn’t possibly charge that much.
They offered a “special VVIP discount.”
It was their way of securing a prestige customer.
Hyunseok paid with five Green Stones, a staggering sum worth over 700 million won.
At least, to the three Polynet staff, it was.
Jungsik muttered blankly.
“That man… he’s not a proxy. He’s a Slayer.”
“A skill that restores M/P… isn’t that something people usually avoid learning?”
“Exactly. It burns a ton of your own M/P just to restore a tiny bit of someone else’s. Who’d learn such an inefficient skill? Only an idiot would bother.”
“But that guy just used it, and restored all our M/P in one go.”
That impossible, “inefficient” example had just walked past them.
Usually, no Slayer learned M/P recovery skills, they were too wasteful.
But Hyunseok wasn’t bound by normal efficiency.
His HP and MP pools were enormous.
A Slayer with Hyunseok’s sheer reserves didn’t need to care about efficiency.
Even a small drain of his M/P was enough to fully refill another Slayer’s bar.
The youngest, Minho, mumbled blankly after Hyunseok left.
“C-could he be… a Platinum Slayer?”
“N-no way…”
The three froze like stone statues.
They all thought of the same man, the one who constantly created unbelievable outcomes.
The solo Cyclops Slayer, the solo Monster Defender.
“A Platinum Slayer… was just here.”
“H-hyung, this is huge!”
“What is?”
“Think about it! The number of Enhancement-class Slayers is rising fast, and will keep rising! And our shop was just visited by a Platinum Slayer! A Platinum!”
Indeed, the number of Enhancement-class Slayers was gradually increasing, and would only continue to do so.
For Polynet, having had a Platinum Slayer walk through their doors was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“This is huge. Let’s spread the word, advertise it everywhere!”
And so, the future global giant, Polynet, destined to become No.1 in enhancement services worldwide, took its first step toward that future.
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Hyunseok, meanwhile, was lost in thought.
The +3 Shield Skill Book.
Should he learn it now?
Or wait, strengthen himself further first, then learn it?
He couldn’t reach a clear conclusion.
‘No rush. I’ll put it on hold for now.’
He decided to store the Skill Book safely in his Inventory.
‘Maybe I’ll loosen up a bit.’
Recently, Hyunseok had been learning boxing.
He wasn’t particularly skilled, but his athletic instincts made up for it, and he trained diligently.
When he arrived at the gym and was about to start training, a woman approached him.
“Hello there.”
‘She’s approaching me deliberately.’
❋ ❋ ❋
Her name was Cha Heeseon.
The gym Hyunseok attended had plenty of young members, mostly men.
So, when a woman showed up, she naturally drew attention.
And if she was attractive and had a good figure, the attention multiplied.
If she had both a pretty face and a great body… attention didn’t just gather, it exploded.
In that sense, Cha Heeseon was the center of attention today.
Which meant she was new, it was her first day at the gym.
She was quite proactive, exuding natural charm.
In plain terms, she was flirtatious by instinct.
Someone quite similar to Hyunseok, who was himself adept at charming women.
She initiated conversation, asking him to demonstrate stances, subtly brushing against him during explanations.
Though Hyunseok wasn’t exactly a boxing expert, they chatted and became friendly quickly.
Making friends, especially female ones, was easy for Hyunseok.
And Heeseon seemed to belong to the same social species.
After the workout, the two left together under the envious stares of the other male members.
They decided to grab a simple dinner, which naturally turned into drinks afterward.
It was 8 p.m. — still early.
They ordered beer… and then soju.
Heeseon drank confidently, strong tolerance, and she even mentioned she smoked, though she refrained since Hyunseok didn’t.
She was twenty-five.
“By the way, Hyunseok-oppa, aren’t you really popular?”
“That’s rich coming from you.”
“Heh, well, I got confessed to just yesterday.”
“Figures.”
Hyunseok chuckled faintly.
‘Yeah, that face, that body, that attitude… she must have a line of guys chasing her.’
Despite her confident talk, every time their eyes met, she’d glance away shyly.
To a stranger, she’d seem bashful, genuinely modest.
‘Those little gestures… too natural. And she’s skilled at subtle physical contact.’
Her reactions were perfect.
Even at dull moments, she laughed brightly, locked eyes with pretty smiles, then darted her gaze away again.
She even wiped Hyunseok’s lips with a tissue, claiming something was there, though whether anything was, who knew.
If Hyunseok had been inexperienced with women, he might’ve fallen for her completely.
But he wasn’t that type.
‘Still… something feels off.’
Back in his younger days, he’d been the one charming girls left and right, even proud of it at one point.
That made him sensitive to weird vibes, and he sensed one now.
‘She’s too easy. That’s suspicious.’
Beautiful, confident women often carried emotional voids, love-deprived types.
But Heeseon didn’t feel like that either.
She was confident, self-assured.
‘Then maybe she’s just craving sex?’
No, he didn’t sense that either.
He couldn’t be sure what her intention was yet, but his instincts told him, something was off.
He made up his mind.
If he were still in his mid-twenties, he’d have probably flirted hard, aiming to end up in a bed or a motel.
That script was practically encoded in his mind.
But now, at thirty, though only just, he had composure.
Financially stable, self-assured, he no longer chased women out of hunger.
He didn’t feel desperate, certainly not enough to ignore a bad feeling for the sake of sex.
Then, a specific thought struck him.
‘Wait… she’s acting like she already knows a lot about me.’
He let the conversation flow.
The more they talked, the clearer it became.
‘She seems to like me, but what’s her goal?’
At first, she seemed to have approached him with intent.
Now, she showed hints of genuine interest.
And then,
“Oppa, actually… I’m a Slayer.”
She revealed it smoothly, step by step.
According to her, she was a Combat-type Slayer, fairly successful and well-paid.
By 10 p.m., Hyunseok decided to call it a night.
He could’ve gone further with her easily, but that sense of unease lingered, and he didn’t want to ignore it.
‘Why did she keep emphasizing she’s a Slayer?’
That was what bothered him most.
She mentioned it repeatedly, emphasized it.
‘She said she’s with the Korean Union. But that’s obvious for any Korean Slayer… So why stress it?’
Hyunseok excused himself to the restroom.
There, he contacted the Korean Union, inquiring whether a Slayer named Cha Heeseon was registered.
The Korean Union had a direct line to Hyunseok, they responded immediately.
“There’s no Slayer named Cha Heeseon in our records.”
Hyunseok’s eyes narrowed.
‘So she was trying to give me a hint…’
(End of Chapter 54)
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— Translated by Prime Works —