An Incurable Affliction
Jeon Jaewoo began feeding the remaining elixirs harvested from the World Tree into the flask one after another.
A soft hiss echoed from within, the liquid bubbling and churning before settling into the crystalline form of finished potions.
Fascinating, he thought. He had no grasp of the underlying principles governing the transmutation, but the result was undeniably miraculous.
"Still, if people can just take the elixir raw, is there any real point in brewing it into a potion?"
At Jaewoo’s casual question, the Lich King turned to him, staring with the weary disdain one might reserve for a hopeless simpleton.
"Creator."
"Yes?"
"When mortals fall ill, why do they not simply chew upon the raw roots and leaves of medicinal herbs rather than refining them into medicine?"
Ah. Fair enough.
Even so, Jaewoo felt the skeleton had no call to be quite so patronizing. Alchemy wasn't his field of expertise; a layman was allowed an obvious question now and then.
Regardless, the Homunculus’s utility went far beyond ordinary potion crafting. Whatever was introduced into its flask could have its properties and shape remodeled at will. It appeared that its Alchemy trait altered the intrinsic nature of the material, while its Body Transformation trait reconstructed the target's physical geometry.
For instance, if Jaewoo dropped a rough stone into the container and ordered it turned into gold, the interior would bubble briefly before yielding a nugget of solid gold sharing the stone's exact dimensions.
It really is genuine alchemy.
Weighing the freshly minted lump of gold in his palm, Jaewoo muttered, "If it's based on alchemy, how does it manage to transmute an elixir into a potion?"
"Refining base materials into gold is merely a metaphor," the Lich King explained in his archaic cadence. "Fundamentally, the trait of alchemy represents the authority to reshape the intrinsic nature and form of any substance."
"Sounds pretty similar to Heaven's Box, then."
"The Creator's trait operates at random and unconditionally elevates performance. That is where the distinction lies."
Moreover, the Homunculus did not require hours of processing time like Heaven's Box.
Captivated by the novelty, Jaewoo began testing the limits of its transmutation. Whatever went into the vessel, the Homunculus reshaped into whatever its master envisioned. When he tossed in tree twigs, garden soil, and even a few strands of loose hair, the diminutive figure transmuted every single item into shimmering gold. Nor was it restricted to gold; silver, copper, platinum, and various exotic minerals materialized just as effortlessly.
Yet the Homunculus's gifts were not without boundaries.
It could only transmute equivalent quantities of the provided matter. If a pebble was dropped in, it forged an identical mass of gold corresponding strictly to that pebble's volume and density. Furthermore, while shoving a wooden stick into the flask allowed it to carve out the likeness of an earth-and-stone golem, it remained an inert sculpture; it could not fabricate the autonomous processing core required to make an actual golem move. Above all, it could never produce anything whose grade exceeded its own innate traits.
"All right... then take this cup of plain water and turn it into a World Tree elixir potion."
Naturally, such a blatant shortcut was denied. The sacred energy harbored by the World Tree far surpassed the Homunculus's tier.
Damn it. Jaewoo clicked his tongue. He had briefly entertained visions of mass-producing world-shattering elixirs out of tap water.
Watching his master's crestfallen sulk, the Lich King shook his skull in sheer disbelief. "To expect common tap water to become an elixir of the World Tree... is your desire to reap without sowing not bordering on shamelessness, Creator?"
For that matter, Jaewoo still couldn't comprehend how bulky roots and fist-sized rocks managed to pass through the flask's narrow neck in the first place. As he continued tossing in assorted materials to create gemstones and gold, the Homunculus suddenly floated backward, withdrawing into the far side of its glass sphere.
"Hm? What's the matter?"
Inside the flask, the tiny homunculus had collapsed onto its seat, hugging its knees.
"You demanded far too much of it all at once," the Lich King said. "It is utterly exhausted."
Right. It had only just been born, and he had worked it like a sweatshop laborer.
In any case, while the Homunculus was undeniably an extraordinary summon, a practical dilemma remained.
The problem is, I don't really have anywhere to use it myself.
The creature's most valuable asset for ruin expeditions was potion crafting. Yet Jaewoo's front-line combat summons—Myeolgeom, the Lich King, and Novum—were mechanical constructs, undead, and elemental spirits. None of them had flesh-and-blood organs capable of ingesting liquid medicine. And Jaewoo himself was not yet in a position to fight directly on the front lines of Ancient-grade ruins.
[How about selling the World Tree potions to this nation's state authorities? Securing strategic concessions or administrative privileges in exchange would seem a productive enterprise.]
"The Commissioner of the Hunter Bureau would certainly drool over them," Jaewoo murmured, agreeing with Myeolgeom's mechanical counsel.
Just as he contemplated reaching out to Yoo Jeongtae, his smartphone rang with uncanny timing.
Seeing the caller ID, Jaewoo answered, "Yes, Commissioner Yoo. What brings you to call?"
—Hunter Jeon. Forgive the sudden intrusion, but... there is a grave favor I must ask of you.
"?"
Yoo Jeongtae's voice was noticeably subdued, weighed down by an exhaustion far heavier than his usual bureaucratic stress. Had another disaster struck?
"Is this regarding another ruin conquest?"
—No, it isn't that. Hunter Kim Yumin informed me that you possess exceptional healing capabilities.
"Yes. I used them during our raid on the Legendary ruin."
—I was wondering if it might be possible... for you to administer that healing power to a hunter under our Bureau's jurisdiction.
Someone at the Hunter Bureau is that badly injured?
Honoring Yoo Jeongtae's urgent request, Jaewoo made his way to the Hunter Bureau several days later. When he arrived at a secluded private entrance away from the prying eyes of the press, Commissioner Yoo was already waiting outside in person to greet him.
"You have arrived, Hunter Jeon."
"Yes, sir. I hope I didn't keep you waiting."
"Not in the least. The fact that you came at all fills me with immense gratitude."
As always, Yoo Jeongtae treated Jaewoo—a youth young enough to be his own son—with punctilious, almost reverent courtesy.
The patient for whom the commissioner had sought Jaewoo's aid was Han Seongjae, an S-rank magic-type hunter belonging to the Bureau. He was none other than the legendary figure celebrated as South Korea's representative supreme mage. During the recent subjugation of the Ancient-grade ruin, Han Seongjae had overdrawn his mana beyond its absolute limits to shield his comrades. The catastrophic burnout had severely fractured his mana circuits, leaving him comatose on a hospital bed.
When news of his collapse first reached the public, the entire nation rallied in prayer for his swift recovery, but insider reports painted a far grimmer reality.
"To be completely honest, I doubt my healing abilities can do much to repair damaged mana circuits..."
Flesh wounds and broken bones could be knit together with Healing traits. Status abnormalities such as lethal toxins or curses could be dispelled through Purification. Yet neither power was suited to rebuilding a shattered mana pathway. When a hunter excessively depleted their internal reserves, the structural degradation of their circuit was practically equivalent to cellular aging. Just as modern pre-Cataclysm medicine could perform complex surgeries and formulate drugs without ever curing old age itself, mana burnout was an irreversible, terminal condition.
Yoo Jeongtae sighed softly, dipping his head. "We are simply clutching at straws at this point. Even if it ends in failure, we beg you to at least try."
"Understood."
Of course, Jaewoo was not the one who would be casting the healing magic. Snuggled quietly within the fold of his jacket was Novum, the artificial elemental spirit.
Taking note of the pale, soft creature, Yoo Jeongtae asked curiously, "Is that the beast you have tamed, Hunter Jeon?"
……!!
Novum instantly squirmed in protest against Jaewoo's chest. To a noble elemental spirit, being dismissed as a crude 'beast' was an unforgivable slight.
Jaewoo held the wriggling slime firmly so it wouldn't lash out and coughed. "Well, something like that. But it's quite different from an ordinary monster, so I'd appreciate it if you avoided calling it one."
"……??"
To Yoo Jeongtae's eyes, no matter how one looked at it, the thing was an undeniable slime. What on earth did he mean by 'different'?
So Hunter Jeon's primary forte truly is monster taming...
Dismissing his idle curiosity, Commissioner Yoo quickly led Jaewoo into the intensive care unit.
Lying motionlessly atop the sterile hospital bed was a man fitted with an artificial ventilator, hooked up to an intricate web of monitors and intravenous drips pumping continuous stabilizing agents.
So this is Hunter Han Seongjae.
As South Korea’s most prominent mage, his face had frequently appeared on television broadcasts, making him instantly recognizable to Jaewoo. Yet Jaewoo had never imagined he would lay eyes on the celebrated hero in such a pathetic, hollow state.
Even to an untrained eye, his condition was desperately critical. Commissioner Yoo’s panic had been no exaggeration. In an awakened hunter, mana naturally continued to circulate through the body; when the conduits were cracked, the unchecked energy constantly chafed against the torn tissue until wild currents ruptured the pathways entirely, leaking into the abdominal cavity and shredding internal organs from the inside out. Han Seongjae had been placed under a medically induced coma purely to suppress his mana flow to the barest minimum.
"Did this happen during the recent raid on the ruin?"
"It did. I repeatedly warned him not to overextend himself, but he drove his body to the brink of ruin to ensure his team made it out alive."
And the solitary Extra Clear Ticket earned from clearing the Wall of Void after that harrowing struggle had ended up in Jaewoo’s hands as payment for his intervention.
Now I'm starting to feel a little guilty.
Every second mattered. Jaewoo set Novum down gently upon the mattress beside the comatose mage.
"Novum. Please."
Receiving its master's directive, Novum began radiating a gentle, emerald-tinted aura of mana.
Yoo Jeongtae’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
...What an astonishing scale of healing energy!
To tell the truth, he had harbored heavy doubts when Jaewoo claimed a slime could perform healing. While there were rare beast tamers who bonded with recovery-type monsters, a slime endowed with such sublime restorative power was unheard of. Furthermore, the sheer purity of the mana pouring from it was staggering.
This surpasses the mastery of any high-ranking healer in the entire country...
Novum diligently channeled its healing currents deep into Han Seongjae’s prone frame, bathing his pale flesh in a soft glow.
"……"
Before long, however, the spirit turned its rounded body toward Jaewoo and swayed side to side in a dejected shake.
As feared, conventional restorative power had no effect. Whatever lacerations, broken bones, or lingering toxins Han Seongjae had suffered during the raid had already been thoroughly treated by the Bureau's medical staff. The sole fatal issue was the absolute burnout of his mana pathways. It was practically the identical state Myeolgeom had suffered when it shut down after taking the divine energy sphere head-on.
Jaewoo gave a resigned nod and scooped Novum back into his embrace.
"I'm sorry, Commissioner. It seems my ability can't resolve this either."
"...Is that so, after all?"
It had been their final glimmer of hope. A suffocating shadow of despair fell across Yoo Jeongtae's worn features.
Jaewoo genuinely wanted to help the veteran hunter recover if possible, but standard skills were powerless. And he certainly couldn't stuff a living, breathing human being inside Heaven's Box. Outside the ward, he had seen people who were evidently Han Seongjae’s family weeping in the corridor.
"Hmm..."
Jaewoo gathered his thoughts for a beat before looking up at the despondent official.
"Commissioner. To be honest, I recently obtained a certain potion."
Yoo Jeongtae's ears perked up instantly. The Hunter Bureau had already scoured the global market to secure every known high-tier elixir and potion, administering them all without yielding the faintest response. Yet if it was a concoction produced by Jeon Jaewoo—a transcendent existence who repeatedly shattered common sense—could there be a chance?
"Did you receive this potion as a reward from clearing a ruin?"
"No, the potion itself wasn't a ruin drop. You remember those World Tree elixirs I sold to the Bureau a while ago? I managed to brew a few of them into liquid potions."
Yoo Jeongtae’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Is he serious? He can even manufacture potions?
Possessing supreme healing and buffs on top of transcendent combat summons was absurd enough, but to harbor legendary production traits as well? Even coming from Jeon Jaewoo, it strained the boundaries of belief.
"I can't guarantee how effective it will be against shattered circuits," Jaewoo added casually, "but I thought administering it might offer some kind of breakthrough."
Before Jaewoo could even finish his sentence, Yoo Jeongtae lunged forward, clasping Jaewoo's hands with white-knuckled desperation as tears welled in his eyes.
"We will pay whatever astronomical sum you ask! Please, Hunter Jeon—you must sell that potion to the Hunter Bureau!!"