Time to Flex
The whirlwind seventy-two hours were finally drawing to a close.
Our current client was an advanced technology consortium spearheaded by South Korea’s Suseong Group. I scribbled my signature across the final page of the contract with a flourish.
“Thank you very much for choosing to partner with us.”
“The pleasure is entirely ours. We are thrilled to have found such an exceptional partner, and we look forward to working closely with you moving forward.”
I exchanged a firm handshake with the head of Suseong Group’s delegation, and we traded official copies of the agreement. The contract totaled a staggering fifty trillion won. Under its terms, fifty-three units of the Magician would be delivered in phases, calibrated precisely to Suseong’s production line rollout.
During the detailed negotiations, Suseong had pressed for two specific conditions. First, they wanted the Magician customized to fit their proprietary assembly line dimensions. Second, they requested priority delivery of their contracted units ahead of any other nation. Adjusting the plate dimensions was child’s play for us, so I accepted without hesitation. The priority delivery clause was just as trivial to grant.
Did Suseong realize? Once the dimensions were locked in, manufacturing the physical units took nothing more than a few clicks on an MCT machining center. Securing ‘priority delivery’ didn’t actually put them noticeably ahead of anyone else.
Once our negotiations with Suseong wrapped up, the contracts with procurement delegations from other countries fell into place one after another. Our deal with Nylon Musk was among them.
True to his flamboyant reputation, Musk boldly ordered a hundred units of the Magician. Instead of paying in cold, hard cash, he offered a five percent equity stake in Teslam through newly issued common shares. I had wondered how he planned to drum up nearly fifty billion dollars in liquid capital, but seeing him pull this maneuver made me shake my head. Did he think Teslam stock was some kind of bottomless cornucopia? He was printing shares like the Federal Reserve prints greenbacks.
Still, the unveiling of the Magician had electrified the entire electric vehicle sector, virtually guaranteeing that Teslam’s valuation would soar. From our perspective, there was no reason to turn it down. After brief deliberation, we shook hands on the deal.
Musk hadn’t shown up in person for the signing. Instead, he sent a handwritten letter expressing his wish to ‘have another fascinating conversation soon.’ It was a nice enough gesture, but did the man really have to sign off with that ridiculous ‘Techno King’ title every single time? Now that our fortunes were tied together, reading it made me cringe so hard my toes curled.
With all official business finally concluded, the celebration began.
“To the roaring success of Arcane Technology’s very first step!” Hyung-jun hollered, raising his mug high.
“To success!” I roared back at the top of my lungs.
“Bottoms up!”
Clink!
Our glasses collided with a satisfying chime. Cold, crisp draft beer poured down my throat, washing away days of exhaustion and drawing a long, guttural gasp of pure satisfaction from my chest. Forget fancy vintage wines nobody actually enjoys—nothing beats an ice-cold beer! The high-and-mighty corporate moguls of the world had no idea what they were missing.
The table was groaning under a mountain of food: fried chicken, spicy sea snail salad, dried bar snacks, and greasy pub appetizers. We clinked our glasses again and again, chattering like madmen.
Where was Da-hye, you ask? I had sent her home early. What kind of degenerate lets a respectable young woman hang around two plastered guys late into the night? The ancient Confucian dragon dwelling deep within my soul would never tolerate such indecency!
And so, it was just the two of us, drinking like fish and reveling in our victory. After spending an hour taking turns praising each other’s brilliance, the conversation naturally drifted to tallying up our final haul from the Magician.
“So, how many did we end up selling in total?” I asked.
“Hold on… Suseong took 53, Teslam grabbed 100, Japan took 10, and European nations plus other territories bought 50. That brings us to an even 213 units.”
“Damn. We moved that many?”
“What was our original target again?”
“A hundred units.”
“We more than doubled our goal, didn’t we?”
“Hell yeah we did!”
I topped off Hyung-jun’s mug until the foam threatened to spill over.
“An absolute blowout. Drink up!”
“Damn right I’m drinking!”
Even if I dropped dead tonight, I’d die without a single regret! We emptied our five-hundred-milliliter mugs in one clean chug and tipped the inverted glasses over our heads to prove they were bone-dry.
“Two hundred and thirteen units… Just how much money is that?”
“Gross contract value comes out to ninety-five billion dollars. That’s valuing the Teslam shares at yesterday’s closing price.”
“That is completely insane. Pour another one!”
“You got it, buddy. Bottoms up!”
Perhaps it was the sheer adrenaline of dealing with sums so astronomical they felt fictional, but the beer slipped down our throats like pure water.
“A hundred and thirty-three trillion won in revenue across seventy-two hours… The outside world must be losing its collective mind right now.”
“Losing their minds? That’s putting it mildly. Check the press coverage. The internet has to be in utter shambles.”
“Oh, I have to see this. Let me look.”
I yanked out my smartphone and tapped straight into the major news portals.
[Triumph for K-Tech Startup! Arcane Technology Closes Mega-Deals Worth 133 Trillion Won in Just Three Days…]
[The Korean Tech That Captivated Nylon Musk: Arcane Technology Discloses Acquisition of 5% Stake in Teslam!]
[Oil Money Bets Big on K-Tech… AATF Acquires 1% Stake in Arcane Technology for $10 Billion… Hyper-Unicorn Born with $1 Trillion Valuation!]
[Suseong Group Overhauls All Electronics Lines with 50-Trillion-Won Investment… The Secret Behind the Quality Leap: Arcane Technology’s ‘Magician’?]
I let out an appreciative whistle. Even though I was the one who pulled it off, seeing the headlines in print sent a wave of unadulterated pride rushing through my veins. Eager for more, I scrolled down to the comment sections.
“Well? How’s that for breathtaking?” Hyung-jun asked smugly, leaning back with his chest puffed out.
“And don’t forget our personal side hustle,” he continued. “That one percent equity our Arab friends bought wasn’t newly issued corporate stock. You sold zero-point-nine percent of your personal shares, and I sold zero-point-one percent of mine. We walked away with nine billion dollars and one billion dollars in personal cash.”
“Insane,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Completely nuts. We are filthy, disgusting rich.”
“Praise be to our Arab benefactors! Drink!”
“Can’t say no to a billion bucks! Bottoms up!”
“Cheers!”
After finishing our third straight chug, a sudden realization struck me, and I murmured aloud, “Back when they first offered, I thought they were out of their minds. But looking at it now, aren’t those guys the real winners here?”
“How so?”
“They snatched up one percent for ten billion dollars. But look at our books today—we just booked nearly a hundred billion dollars in revenue in seventy-two hours. Think about how much higher our company valuation is going to rocket.”
“Huh. You’re right. I thought they were just careless oil barons throwing cash around, but those guys are total card sharks.”
“Gotta respect true hustlers. Pour another round!”
“Hell yeah! I’m drinking until I drop dead tonight!”
“Go ahead and drop dead. I’ll resurrect you with magic, so die with peace of mind.”
“Didn’t you say your magic sucks right now? How the hell are you gonna resurrect me?”
“Damn, you caught me. I was just gonna ditch your corpse and run.”
“You little brat! Drink! I’m going to drown you in alcohol!”
“Is that a challenge, Old Man Kim? Don’t blame me when your ancient liver gives out and you collapse!”
Trading playful jabs over overflowing glasses, my thoughts drifted back across the whirlwind negotiations. From Nylon Musk’s penetrating insight that pierced straight to the core of the tech, to the extraordinary foresight of our Middle Eastern investors—we had achieved unimaginable success, but the caliber of these global titans had left a deep impression on me. We couldn't afford to fall behind.
“Hey, Old Man Kim.”
“What?”
“We need to get smarter.”
“I’m already plenty smart, punk.”
“I mean smart enough so we never get outplayed by people like Musk or those oil princes.”
“Hmm.” Hyung-jun closed his mouth, perhaps feeling the weight of the exact same thought. After a quiet beat, he nodded slowly. “You’re right. We have to become sharper. We’re going to be dealing with the apex predators of the world from here on out.”
“Exactly. The pride of Gwanaksan rests squarely upon your shoulders.”
Hyung-jun, his face flushed bright red from the alcohol, glared at me with an aggrieved pout. “Hey! Why are you leaving yourself out of this?”
“Uh… well, I’m the magic guy, remember?”
Hyung-jun dropped his head onto the table with a groan. “Damn it all. What a rotten, unfair world, not giving me any magical talent!”
“If the world is rotten, you wash it down with beer. Come on, clink!”
Ah, the booze tasted sweet tonight. Wonderfully sweet.
I skewered a plump sea snail with my fork and chewed thoughtfully as Hyung-jun lifted his head back up.
“Now that we’ve wrapped up this massive hurdle,” he asked, “what’s the next move?”
“Our next move…”
I searched through my alcohol-hazed thoughts.
“First, we need to handle deliveries, right? Even if the manufacturing is easy, we still have to put in the craftsmanship. We need to calibrate each unit to match their specific assembly lines and use cases.”
“That’s not a plan, that’s just standard operational duty. What happens after that? Have you thought about what comes next?”
“Well… I need to train.”
“Train?” Hyung-jun tilted his head, eyeing me curiously.
“Yeah. Magic training.”
I set my glass down and looked him in the eye.
“Let’s be honest. The Magician only succeeded because the stars aligned and the application happened to fit modern industry perfectly. With my current level of magic, there are infinitely more things I can’t do than things I can. If we want to push forward into the future, I have to raise my Circle.”
Our original blueprint had been simple: use my magic to solve colossal technological bottlenecks that stumped the modern world, and reap an easy fortune. In truth, we had achieved that goal today. The personal wealth the Arab royal fund had handed us was more than enough to spend lavishly for ten lifetimes without ever working another second.
“Still, we can’t just kick back and do nothing.”
“I agree with you on that.”
Above all else, I had achieved the realm of a 9th Circle Archmage. Even if it felt like a lifetime spent in another world, that profound truth hadn’t vanished from my soul. A true seeker of truth naturally looks toward higher peaks and deeper abysses. Park Ji-hyuk’s existence could never be divorced from the pursuit of magic.
So what was the conclusion? I had to climb higher. No matter what obstacles stood in my path.
“Raising your Circle, huh… Isn’t there a shortcut to level up faster?” Hyung-jun asked.
“Earth’s environmental mana is thinner than a ghost’s breath. What do you expect me to do about it? You think I don’t want to level up faster?”
“Fair point. If that’s how it is, nothing we can do. Let’s just drink.”
“Now that’s brilliant thinking. Pour it!”
I raised my mug and took another hearty gulp before smacking my lips. “Actually, speaking of shortcuts… it’s not like I don’t have an idea.”
“Really?” Hyung-jun peered at me through bleary, drunken eyes.
“There’s this mineral called a Mana Stone. Think of it as a magical battery. If I had one of those, gathering mana would be a breeze.”
“A Mana Stone? Dude, that’s straight out of a fantasy novel. If you knew about something like that, why didn't you use one from the start?”
“Because I need to actually have one to use it! How can I use it when I don't even know where to find one?”
I felt as indignant as an actor blamed for missing an event he was never invited to. For all I knew, the mineral didn’t even exist on planet Earth!
I tore into a piece of fried chicken with savage vengeance to vent my frustration. Hyung-jun watched me chew for a second before speaking up.
“So our immediate objective is to track down a Mana Stone?”
“Nope.”
“Huh? Didn’t you just say you need a Mana Stone to raise your Circle?”
Looking at his puzzled expression, I raised my index finger and wagged it slowly side to side.
“It would be a crime against humanity if we just went straight back to work after pulling off a miracle like this. We need to flex.”
The time had finally arrived for some truly excessive, unapologetic spending.