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“Eureka!” After a few steps, I heard the same sound I heard back at the entrance of the Bukhan Mountain dungeon.
Excited, I started swinging and kicking at the shield spell until it finally gave way with a loud crack.
—————–
[Low-grade Dungeon 83 has been discovered.
Congratulations, you have discovered a low-grade dungeon! You will be given your bonus!
All stats will be increased by 5 points.]
—————
“Awesome!”
A similar message as the one from Bukhan Mountain appeared in front of me. The low-grade dungeon boosted my Stats by 5 points. The message continued.
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[You have the special, Dungeon Seeker. You will be granted 1 point for discovering a low-grade dungeon. You will receive a bonus every 10 points.
Low-grade dungeon: 1 point
Mid-grade dungeon: 2 points
High-grade dungeon: 3 points
Current points: 2 points]
——————-
My Dungeon Seeker special was raised to 2 points, as well!
“I wonder if I really can’t enter the dungeon right now.” I had heard about the dungeon blessing preventing others from entering dungeons, but I never received the blessing before, so I wanted to see for myself if was true. I walked towards the entrance of the 83rd dungeon.
Ding dong! An alarm went off right away.
————-
[A dungeon blessing is currently in effect. You will be restricted from entering any dungeons while the blessing is in effect.
Remaining blessing duration: 27 days 13 hours 37 minutes]
————
“Tsk!” It felt like there was an invisible wall in front me, preventing me from taking another step forward. I felt a little dejected when the alert went off.
“Fine, I’ll let it go this time.” There was nothing else I could do now, so I turned to leave.
“Now then, should I head for Oksunbong now?” I practically slid down the mountain trail. I barely had enough time to make it to Jeju Island by the end of the day.
“Damn, I might not have enough time.” The next express bus was going to arrive in an hour and twenty minutes. I even thought about flying out from the nearby Wonju Airport, but it would be tough to plan around the flight times.
“Duh! I’ll just take a cab.” I slapped my forehead for forgetting about the obvious choice. “I have money to burn, anyway.”
———————-
I left the bus terminal, got in a cab and told the driver to take me to Danyang, Chungcheong. He frowned at my request, but as soon as I said 500,000 won, he practically demanded I get in.
It took him less than 3 hours to get there. Money does talk.
I headed straight for Oksunbong Peak. I arrived where I remembered the entrance was and punched the air like before.
I was rewarded with a resounding ting. “Hah! First time!”
I threw a couple more punches to break open the spell.
——————
[Low-grade Dungeon 83 has been discovered.
Congratulations, You have discovered a low-grade dungeon! You will be given your bonus!
All stats will be increased by 5 points.]
—————-
“Yes! That’s two already today!”
—————
[You have the special, Dungeon Seeker. You will be granted 1 point for discovering a low-grade dungeon. You will receive a bonus every 10 points.
Low-grade dungeon: 1 point
Mid-grade dungeon: 2 points
High-grade dungeon: 3 points
Current points: 3 points]
—————
Once I confirmed the alerts, I turned around to leave. Since I had already found out that the blessing wasn’t going to let me in, I had no reason to loiter around.
—————————
“I guess I’ll finish today with Jeju Island. I’ll even treat myself to some nice sashimi and take a break there.” I felt like I was obsessing over this now. I would rest whenever I could, but I couldn’t really relax completely.
The thought that I had to do whatever I could to stay ahead of everyone else was constantly in the back of my mind. Every time I tried to rest, I kept thinking that there was a chance that someone out there could be finding something instead of me.
However, yesterday, while I drank alone, a bunch of other thoughts flooded my mind. I let all those thoughts disorient me. I was too tired to push the thoughts away.
I thought about the hellish times from before I jumped into the Sea. I thought about how happy I was finding a Rank 3 item; I thought about how happy I was finally leveling up after days of grinding; I thought about when Lee Gangchan killed me more 100 times and how furious I was. I thought about so many things. Then I thought about what had happened since I jumped.
I thought about how emotional I was becoming the First Deva, how excited I was when I learned the Unrivaled skill at level 0; I thought about how I became the first to find a dungeon and to defeat a dungeon boss, how I found a Rank 6 and 8 item when I couldn’t even dream about them in my past life.
I was so much happier now than I was back then. All that happiness probably made me obsess more and more.
I didn’t want to lose this newfound happiness! I wanted to keep it forever! I wasn’t going to let anyone take it from me! I wanted more happiness!
All those pent up feelings exploded after meeting Oh Hyungjae.
“Hahaha.” I stopped midway down the mountain and turned around to look at the Oksunbong Peak.
“I’m so much stronger than I was before.” I used to not understand the saying that greed begets more greed, but now, I understood it perfectly.
“It’s not so bad to be a little obsessed.” I wanted to get stronger. I didn’t want to live the same eleven years I did back then.
I was the main character of my own story. If the world wasn’t go the way I wanted to, I was going to make it go at least 0.1% my way! The more power I gained, the more I wanted to make that happen!
“I’ll just use greed to feed my motivation. I won’t succumb to my obsession; instead, it’ll keep me fueled. I’ve already been through so much and I won’t get another chance like this. I can’t let myself implode just yet!”
This was the first time I had felt such a peace of mind since my return. I was going to use my greed and obsession to grow stronger! I wasn’t going to become prey to them!
“I am the luckiest man on Earth. I won’t let myself be hasty, or let my obsession corrode me! Lee Jiwon! You can do this. You can do anything you want. AHHHHHHH!!!” I shouted out my dark feelings at the mountain.
Ahhhh~
The mountain echoed back as if it was cheering me on.
“Let’s go! I’m going to pig out. I’m going to make that mid-grade dungeon mine! Hahaha!”
Hahaha~
The Oksunbong Mountain laughed with me.
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I got to Chungcheong Airport in the late afternoon and took a plane to Jeju Island.
“I should rest once I find the dungeon at Baengrokdam.” It was going to gnaw at me if I took a break before finding the dungeon.
Why would I leave alone such a tasty treat when it was right in front of me? There was no reason to leave it for later. I had to take whatever I could, whenever I could!
“Let’s see, now. I think it was somewhere in the middle of Baengrokdam.” I had less information about this place than the other dungeons, so finding the exact location was going to be my mission.
“Well, no matter.” Baengrokdam was growing darker by the minute, but it was no trouble to me.
I sprinted around the perimeter, occasionally swinging at the air.
—————————-
“Hmm, it should be somewhere here.” I had checked for about twenty minutes, but I had yet to find any sign of the spell.
“Whew. Let’s continue for thirty more minutes.” I didn’t want to go away empty-handed, and so I went around the perimeter carefully once more.
Ting!
“Yes! Got it!” I found the entrance about three kilometers away from where I initially thought it would be. “That’s a relief. If I started from the other side, I probably wouldn’t have found it today.”
I started punching where the entrance of the dungeon should be until the spell gave way. It wasn’t any stronger than the spells at the low-grade dungeons. and broke in about the same amount of time.
————–
[Mid-grade Dungeon 35 has been discovered.
Congratulations, You have discovered a mid-grade dungeon! You will be given your bonus!
All stats will be increased by 7 points.]
————-
My stats rose by 7 points this time. That was 35 points in all! That was like gaining three and half levels!
“Perfect. There’s nothing better than finding dungeons!”
The Dungeon Seeker message soon popped up.
————–
[You have the special, Dungeon Seeker. You will be granted 2 points for discovering a low-grade dungeon. You will receive a bonus every 10 points.
Low-grade dungeon: 1 point
Mid-grade dungeon: 2 points
High-grade dungeon: 3 points
Current points: 5 points]
—————-
“That’s five points now.” I still had 5 more points to go to get that reward. “At least I’ve been making good progress so far.” I still had to find the low-grade dungeon at Eulsukdo, but getting this far today was satisfactory.
“I found three low-grades and one mid-grade, so that should mean my stats were raised by 22 points each.” That meant 110 stat points in all! “That’s so much for a bonus. That’s the same as 11 levels. I gained 11 levels pretty much for free, hehehe!”
It was a small amount compared to my current stats but the more I accumulated, the stronger I’d be.
“There’s no way I can give this up!”
——-
I happily climbed down Hallasan Mountain and took a cab to the Kaltz Hotel, the largest and ritziest in the area.
Their cheapest room was 470,000 won a night, but that didn’t matter to me.
“Now to take it easy and have a nice meal. That should be my priority.” I left the hotel at around ten and went to a nearby 24-hour seafood restaurant. I ordered their most expensive dish and pigged out. Later, I returned to the hotel to end my day.
“Oh, that’s right. I should reserve a flight to Busan.” I called the front desk to book one for me at eleven in the morning.
———————————
“He’s in Jeju right now?”
“Yes, Miss Song.”
Song Haein and her assistants set out to look for Lee Jiwon at her grandfather’s behest, but hearing that he was at Jeju surprised her.
“What’s he doing there?”
“We’re not completely sure, either.”
“Huh…I doubt he’s the kind of person to just go for fun…” The Lee Jiwon she met at Store 72 didn’t seem like the type of person to go on a vacation just like that. It was getting stranger by the minute.
“I’m positive he has a reason…” She was sure he was there to gain something. She had grown more suspicious after what Marie told her back then.
“Whew…this is annoying! I’d really like to meet him in person, rather than just call him up. I should have gotten his number instead of just leaving like that.” Of course, she had Lee Jiwon’s number and his address on a note. She could call him right now, but many people were sensitive about that.
People had every right to be put off if they felt they were investigated without their consent. It was an outright invasion of privacy.
“I’m not saying that he’s like that, but I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot with him…” Song Haein contemplated to herself.
At that moment, Song Haein’s private assistant for the last ten years, Kim Sungryul, entered her office.
“Miss Song. Someone booked a flight from Jeju to Gimhae International for 11 AM under Lee Jiwon’s name.”
“Gimhae… he’s going to Busan?”
“Yes. It seems to be that way.”
If the plane was flying from Jeju to Gimhae, then ninety-nine times out of a hundred it was flying to Busan.
Song Haein sighed. “Is he actually touring the country or something?”
She shook her head at Lee Jiwon’s unpredictable movements around the country. She couldn’t understand his actions at all.
“The flight will take about an hour,” Kim Sungryul informed her.
Song Haein lifted her head. “Then he should arrive at Gimhae by noon. Let’s prepare to meet him there, then.”
Song Haein had planned to eventually meet Lee Jiwon and ask him for his help, but her grandfather told her that she couldn’t fail. She knew she had to be cautious in her approach!
