Star's Essence
“Hooo—”
A long, thin breath slipped from Yujin’s lips. His breathing had always been steady; now it sank deeper still. A single draw of air would have been enough to last a full day underwater.
He opened his eyes by degrees. Clear irises came into view. Most people grew fiercer in the eyes the higher their mana climbed. Yujin was the opposite. He looked ordinary. What reaches the extreme returns to simplicity—return to the pure and the true. That was the light in his eyes now.
“All I can keep saying is ‘insane.’”
A dry laugh escaped him. He had muttered the same thing with every elixir he swallowed. Still he could not stop. The effects were outstanding—too outstanding. The growth rate he had first calculated had been left far behind. The mana total he had aimed for was already reached while he drank the West Wind Distillate [C].
After that he took them in order: Fresh Green Juice [C], Spirit Condensate [C], Flame Butterfly’s Mana Core [C], and Azure Moon Grass Crystal Fluid [C]. Six in all. The result was that his current mana had risen more than fourfold from what he originally possessed.
“Might as well call it five times.”
No wonder the laugh kept coming. Pure volume alone put him near the level of a hundred. That meant he could wield the Heavenly Demon set without the slightest restraint.
“Under normal circumstances this would have been impossible.”
He had been riding the constant help of the trait God-Infused Body [S]. A vessel large enough to accept mana that exceeded his level without strain, and durability that never flinched even as that mana ballooned. Without God-Infused Body [S] he never could have grown this far. He might simply have burst and died. Of everything the returned Yujin had gained, that trait might well be the greatest. No wonder it was S-grade.
“One left.”
His gaze dropped to the floor. The first prize he had claimed, the hardest to obtain, and the finest elixir available on the twentieth floor.
“Star Essence [C].”
A tiny stone, no bigger than a pebble. As though an entire galaxy had been sealed inside. Beautiful clusters of light circled within, radiating a mysterious air. Yujin slowly lifted his hand and picked up the Star Essence [C]. He had expected warmth from the soft glow; the opposite was true. It was cold enough to sting his palm.
“Last one.”
What would happen once he swallowed this as well? He could not name the reason, yet his heart hammered for no clear cause. A strong premonition told him the result waiting ahead would be nothing like anything so far.
“No point wasting time here.”
If he dawdled and the 3 No returned, it would get awkward. Seeing him alone eating something that looked better than theirs… especially Lee Sia. Park Ji-hoo and Vivian would not care much, but that one was different.
“She’d throw a fit and demand to trade for hers.”
Who the hell raised her like that? Yujin clicked his tongue inwardly and settled into position again—the most comfortable posture, the one that let mana circulate most freely. When he judged himself ready he did not hesitate; he placed the Star Essence [C] into his mouth.
Cold. The complete reverse of the West Wind Distillate [C]. Beyond cold—it was freezing. Lips, tongue, throat, esophagus: every place the Star Essence [C] touched was the same. His premonition had been right. This was going to be nothing like before.
Crazy…!
Pain so fierce he could not endure it crashed over him.
This—this was never mentioned?
In the first timeline Yujin had once climbed alongside a player who had taken the Star Essence [C]. Only one floor, true, but the man had been talkative enough to keep chattering nonstop. Most of it had been useless noise, yet the parts about the Star Essence [C] had been interesting.
—The moment it hit my tongue, an ecstatic sensation seized my whole body.
—It felt as if I had become the universe itself.
—Mana flowed through me like the Milky Way, my consciousness stretched endlessly, and so on and so forth, blah blah.
…He did not remember the details clearly. What he was certain of was that not a single word had spoken of this kind of agony. The man had claimed he sank into pure rapture. When he came to, his mana had risen and its nature had changed; he had been overjoyed.
So why?
The chill raced along his veins and flooded every inch of him. His joints froze solid; the pain felt as though they might shatter at any second.
Damn it.
This left the limits of endurance far behind. Even Yujin’s iron will made no difference. No human could simply endure the sensation of hundreds of millions of needles gouging out his insides. Even Jongmal would not have been able to take this.
“Grrraaaagh—”
Even the breath that escaped him froze and fell to the floor. On the verge of blacking out, Yujin still forced his consciousness to stay. He had no idea what would happen if he fainted.
What do I do?
At this rate he would become an ice sculpture. Taking the breath of a Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Dragon bare-bodied would not feel worse than this.
I—I have to find a method.
Skills came first to mind. But Yujin possessed none that could resolve the present crisis. Everything he owned specialized in cutting and crushing. A recovery skill would have helped… yet of course Vivian was away right now.
Next he thought of elixirs. Three remained—ones he had planned to dump roughly on the 3 No. If he ate them?
No.
That would only pour oil on a burning house. This looked like a mana rampage; more elixirs would fan the flames into a storm.
Then what the hell am I supposed to do?
All he had left were a sturdy body and a vast sea of mana. Those two things alone…
Body? Mana?
Something flashed through his mind.
My body is off the scale.
He felt as though even his capillaries were freezing, yet nothing broke. This flesh carried an S-grade trait. Its durability did not lose even when measured against Jongmal.
And the mana? It had already been greater than that of same-level players; six C-grade elixirs had piled on top. Their interaction had produced an unexpected surge, leaving him with nearly five times his former total.
Body and mana. If he combined those advantages, could he not suppress the rampage of the Star Essence [C]?
I have to try!
No time to deliberate. He had to do something before consciousness failed. A sliver of possibility existed; he would act first and think later.
Yujin wrenched every scrap of mana upward. It was the first time he had done so since returning to the past. The last time he used Heavenly Demon’s Footsteps [B] on Zygote, it had not been by choice.
KWA-DU-DU-DU-DUK—!
Bones twisted and gave out a bone-chilling noise. The rampaging Star Essence [C] collided with Yujin’s mana and birthed a massive shockwave. That nothing fractured in the process was solely thanks to God-Infused Body [S].
Yujin spread every last drop of mana throughout his body. At the same time he wrapped it around the essence. The Star Essence [C], now cold as the absolute zero of space itself, resisted. Even when mana several times stronger crushed it from every direction, it held.
Does that make any sense?
No matter how high-end a C-grade elixir the Star Essence [C] might be… who would have thought it could withstand Yujin’s full power?
Damn it. Am I going to have to use that after all?
He recalled his final resort: Reversal [B]. An item that could invert everything for five minutes. Use it and the abnormal state of the Star Essence [C] would return to normal; in that window he could absorb the mana completely.
Yet he hesitated. Not merely because he hated wasting it. One of the things Yujin despised most was holding something back until it turned to shit. Still he paused, because:
I already decided what this is for.
There was something that could only be done if he still had Reversal [B]. He had to save it for that moment. That was why he had never drawn it even when Flower Keeper’s fists were flying at him. Even when death itself loomed he had refused to take it out.
After running the numbers countless times in his head, Yujin finally set the use of Reversal [B] aside.
Let’s see who dies first.
It hurt like madness, his mind was growing distant, and he genuinely felt he might die—yet for now he was still all right. Only at the absolute last moment, when death could no longer be avoided, would he reconsider. Not now.
Instead he chose something else. With a violently trembling hand he reached for Chunbae’s mouth. The little creature was shaking too; chill kept pouring from Yujin’s arm. That it still clung on spoke of either loyalty or sheer dullness. From inside Chunbae’s maw Yujin pulled out a single object: a pill the size of a fingernail.
◈ Upon ingestion, slightly increases Luck for 1 hour.
The effect matched the name—simple. The word “slightly” appeared in the description, yet Yujin knew better. “Slightly” was never merely slight.
He swallowed the fingernail-sized pill. Crunch—. It was hard to get down his throat, so he chewed. Soft rainbow light bloomed and wrapped his body. Luck itself had settled upon him. Only one hour. In that hour Yujin decided to stake everything on fortune.
They say luck is seventy percent and skill is thirty, after all.
Once more he coiled his mana around the Star Essence [C].
Crunch— CRA-DU-DUK—!
Still the same. Perfect deadlock. Neither side could overpower the other. Stalemate again. At this rate he would never endure the rampage…
“Huh? What’s this now?”
At that exact moment someone stepped into the private annex of Chwiwolru and spoke in a bewildered voice.
“Unnie, what the hell is that crazy bastard doing right now? Did he freeze to death? In this weather?”
A voice so familiar it made him shudder. Yujin laughed inwardly—kuh-kuk.
So… this is how it works?
A method he had never even imagined. Had eating the Lucky Pill [C] made them return right now, or had the fact of their return already been decided and that was why he swallowed the pill? He could not tell which came first in the chain of cause and effect. One thing alone was certain.
This thing’s effect is ridiculous.
With a trembling neck he barely managed to lift his head and look sideways. Setting aside Lee Sia—who still wore a face that understood nothing of the situation—he slowly blinked at Vivian. She met his eyes for a moment, then nodded.
Flutter—
Dollar bills scattered through the air.
Financial Healing [C]
Financial healing began. Brilliant light bored into Yujin’s body and shattered the balance. The frenzied Star Essence [C] calmed at once; the mana that had been crushing it swallowed the essence whole in a single gulp.
And at the same time—
Crunch—, CRA-DU-DUK—!
Yujin’s flesh twisted and began to transform.