Eight Seconds to Dethrone an Emperor

Floor 5 of the Tower of Despair, cleared.

And I took first place, no less.

Having already tossed a polite mental "thanks for the meal" to Mr. Luo Qin somewhere far across the sea in China, it was time for my prize. Come on, hand over the blessing, won't you?

"Hell yes!"

There it was: the blessing, Seal of Amplification. Did the effects match the rumors?

Ah... what gives?

There it was, etched in plain text: rewards obtained within the Tower of Despair. That was a bit of a bummer. I had quietly hoped I might be able to milk this inside the Tower of Transcendence too. Still, who was I to complain? From here on out, every single clearing of the Tower of Despair would yield double the mana stones!

And that wasn't all.

"Oh, baby! Now that's what I'm talking about."

I still had no earthly clue what they were actually used for. When I asked the golem, all I got was a blank, tilted head. Even so, EX-grade rewards were EX-grade rewards. Two whole Marks of Transcendence in one go! That was the sheer beauty of the blessing at work.

"Tsk."

Still, I couldn't help feeling a lingering twinge of disappointment. Deep down, I had let myself hope just a tiny bit.

The Tower of Despair and the Tower of Transcendence might bear different names, but they were both towers at the end of the day. It hadn't felt completely unreasonable to think the blessing might carry over... Was that just being too greedy?

Wait, what? It changed? How?

I hastily pulled up the window to check.

It really had changed.

The original description explicitly stated rewards obtained within the Tower of Despair. But now? It simply read all acquired rewards.

"Holy shit..."

What kind of absurd cheat was this Primordial Force? I thought it was just supposed to purify mana or something along those lines. It had the power to rewrite system blessings too? That was an absolute jackpot.

Wait a second.

If it applied to all rewards, without being chained to the tower... did that mean it worked on gates, dungeons, and raids as well?

"Nah, there's no way... right?"

No, somehow my gut told me it would. Everything about this felt deliberate. Doubling literally every single drop and reward across the board? Man, if that was true, I had just struck gold on a cosmic scale.

I ran some quick, rough mental arithmetic.

First off, the Tower of Despair was guaranteed double since I had just collected on it. The Tower of Transcendence? I had only cleared Floor 1, and the reward there had been rather ambiguous, so I put that aside for now. The real question was dungeons and gates.

Tapping through my phone screen, I skimmed the numbers.

"An F-rank gate averages around ten mana stones... and E-ranks yield about three times that..."

Okay. Assuming dungeons and gates truly received the double multiplier, clearing just an F-rank gate would net me an extra twenty mana stones a day. An E-rank? At triple the base, doubling it meant sixty stones. Naturally, higher-tier gates would pay out drastically more.

"Let's not get ahead of myself and start counting chickens before they hatch..."

Even if I capped my expectations at E-rank gates, how much was that? Sixty mana stones a day meant roughly three million won every single day.

"Insane. Absolutely insane."

Then again, who knew what else was out there? The golem had mentioned that the Arcana Market definitely carried an item for locating hidden dungeons and gates. The price tag? Exactly 200 mana stones. That had to be my very first priority. Back when I was scraping together five or six stones per floor in the Tower of Despair, two hundred had sounded like a distant mountain. Now, though? I might gather that sum in the blink of an eye.

Heh...

Was I actually about to start shoveling mana stones into my pockets by the truckload? Once I had that kind of wealth, I could learn all those high-grade skills I had only dared to glance at out of the corner of my eye. I could chug top-tier elixirs with fancy names like fruit juice. I could even strut around and talk down to that arrogant golem!

"Damn, just picturing it feels amazing."

That stony bastard had kicked me out every single time I ran out of mana stones. Just you wait, buddy. Your days of looking down on me are numbered. But before celebrating, I needed to test the waters first.

Tap, tap.

"Hmm."

I checked my phone's Gate Alert app, which tracked nearby danger zones and rift outbreaks. Silent as the grave today, as usual. Then again, this neighborhood had always been peaceful. Even before the last raid incident, months would go by without a single peep.

"Maybe I should look into moving."

Testing the blessing was one thing, but more than anything, I wanted to buy that gate-detection method the golem had talked about as soon as humanly possible. To do that, I needed mana stones right now. Wait. Why was I waiting around to hunt for them? If I needed them this urgently, couldn't I just buy some with cash?

I had spent years scrimping and saving every penny I could. It wasn't a staggering fortune, but at fifty thousand won per standard low-grade mana stone, liquidating my entire account would net me around one hundred and fifty stones.

"Oh, right!"

I slapped my knee. I still had the crafting materials awarded from that C-rank raid.

Those two items. Selling those off on the market ought to fetch a fairly handsome sum. If I combined my bank savings with the proceeds from those raid materials... I might not just reach the two hundred stones needed for the manual, but have enough left over to grab a couple of minor utility skills as well.

"Now that sounds like a plan."

The climb of Floor 5 by the unknown challenger, '???', had concluded in a staggering eight seconds.

Naturally, Awakened all across the globe learned of it the very instant it occurred.

The system broadcast had flashed simultaneously before every Awakened on Earth. And within minutes, the news detonated across internet communities worldwide like a cluster bomb.

The domestic reaction was nothing short of incandescent.

To the Korean public, Luo Qin was public enemy number one—the absolute pinnacle of unlikable arrogance. Whenever Korean Awakened were mentioned, he would openly dismiss them as vermin from an insignificant vassal state. Seeing such a man stripped of his prized blessing felt sweeter than downing an ice-cold cider on the hottest day of midsummer.

Luo Qin, the self-styled 'Heavenly Emperor'. Had no one tried to beat his nine-minute-and-thirty-seven-second clear before? Of course they had. Countless elite rankers from every corner of the world had thrown themselves at Floor 5. Several major nations had even poured state-level budgets and strategic resources into speedrunning teams to claim the blessing. The result, up until yesterday, had remained unchanged: an insurmountable, towering barrier that mocked the world.

Yet in a single morning, it had been pulverized. Not by a margin of seconds, but by a cosmic chasm.

And naturally, the man at the center of the storm—the World Rank 1, Alliance Leader of China's preeminent guild, the Heavenly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Martial Alliance—was observing the exact same reality unfold in real time.

Beijing, China. The headquarters of the Heavenly Martial Alliance.

In the innermost depths of the fortress-like complex lay the supreme strategic council chamber. Today, an oppressive, suffocating silence gripped the room.

"..."

Seven individuals were gathered around the polished obsidian table: the core executive elders of the Heavenly Martial Alliance, the highest-ranking directors of China's Central Awakened Management Bureau, and at the head of the chamber—

"Whew."

The World Rank 1 himself. The Heavenly Emperor, Luo Qin.

Every person seated here was an influential titan capable of making entire provinces tremble with a single word. Yet right now, not a single one dared to breathe aloud. The atmosphere was simply not one that permitted idle chatter. Only one man held the authority to break the silence.

"The blessing... has passed," Luo Qin murmured, his voice laced with cold venom. "And into the hands of an insect from some petty little country."

The moment he spoke, the dam broke.

"Insolent mongrels! How dare those vermin lay their filthy hands on a blessing belonging to the Heavenly Emperor?!"

"The Management Bureau cannot sit on its hands! The state must step in immediately and teach those wretched fools an unforgettable lesson!"

The cacophony flared instantly. Luo Qin's brow furrowed in distaste.

"Quiet."

"Our deepest apologies!"

The room dropped back into pin-drop silence. That was better. Mindless squawking served no purpose right now; what mattered was preparing the necessary countermeasures.

"What is the projected scale of damages?" Luo Qin asked, his tone flat.

"Immediately speaking, the quantity of intermediate mana stones acquired by the Heavenly Emperor will be halved," a bureau director answered hastily, sweat beading on his forehead. "Even when factoring in the effects of your Floor 30 blessing... this deficit is substantial enough to send shockwaves through our nation's advanced industrial sectors and national defense infrastructure—"

"Enough."

That was plenty. In truth, it was hardly an apocalyptic catastrophe.

"We simply need to dispose of him."

Was it mere coincidence that Luo Qin had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠maintained a monopolistic hold over eight blessings simultaneously? Not in the slightest. Over the years, blessings had changed hands more than once.

The threshold for qualifying—in other words, the criteria for carving one's name onto the leaderboard—inevitably rose over time. Even records set by Luo Qin's overwhelming might had been eclipsed on rare occasions. It wasn't frequent—perhaps once or twice every year, a freak genius would appear from somewhere across the globe.

Yet none of them remained on the board today.

"Dead men tell no tales, after all."

And more importantly, dead men left behind no records. The tower system wiped the slate clean upon a record holder's demise, returning the blessing to the next qualified survivor. Just like that Korean S-rank Awakened they had quietly erased beyond the border last year.

"That petty nation has forgotten its station and disregarded our warnings," an elder sneered, bowing his head. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠"It is only right that they be shown their place in blood."

"Indeed," Luo Qin muttered coldly. "Have you located him?"

"Forgive us, Alliance Leader. We have mobilized every available intelligence asset, but as of yet..."

An insolent rat clearing floors with consecutive EX ranks, bold enough to steal the Floor 5 blessing right out from beneath his nose. His identity remained cloaked under system anonymity for now, but that was of little concern.

"However, it is only a matter of time," the director added quickly. "In their country, anyone wishing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to function as an Awakened is legally mandated to register through their administrative system."

Precisely. No matter how much a worm might squirm, it could never escape the net of societal structure. What good were mana stones and high-tier monster remnants if one simply hoarded them in an inventory? They had to be sold. One had to liquidate assets to enjoy luxury, influence, and wealth—which was the sole reason commoners crawled through dungeons in the first place.

"The moment his identity is verified, mobilize immediately," Luo Qin commanded, his gaze chilling the chamber to the bone.

Every blessing on this earth belonged in his hands, and his hands alone.

Inside the dimensional expanse of the Tower of Transcendence, a heavy stone voice rumbled through the air.

"Yep."

I had done some research on the forums earlier. In the outside world, whenever an Awakened wanted to sell high-grade monster parts or purchase substantial quantities of mana stones, they were required by law to register the transaction with the Awakened Management Bureau. On top of that, the state took a hefty slice in registration fees and brokerage taxes. But here? This was an interdimensional merchant hub. Surely it could process standard monster loot, right?

Oh? It actually worked?

"Give me just a second."

Let's see. I pulled open my inventory window, ready to drag out the Elite Minotaur's horn and leather—

Wait... what?