Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 266

[☆★◇◆Scrooge’s Alchemy◇◆☆★]

[Class: Eternity (Upgradable, Rank SSS)

Penny @Pinchers! ? The Alchemy of the Incarnation, Kim Scrooge’s Vision.

Ingredients are cheap and the production scale is huge!

You too can be rich! Low investment ? High value◆ Opportunity to spend!

True▲efficiency! Save★ as much as you can! Now all dimensions want you!]

The description was subtly different. Also, it seemed that Scrooge’s ban had been lifted while Ji-Cheok had been upgrading the skill.

‘I found out about this after I became a God, but the Like Points I spend on a skill go to the God who created the skill. In other words, Scrooge made some money from my skill upgrade… But who is this guy?’

[[GodTube_superstar] says hello to [Scrooge].]

Ji-Cheok sent him a message, but he got no answer back.

‘Hm… He’s suspicious in more ways than I can think of. Well, who cares at this point…he’s useful.’

“Scrooge’s Alchemy.”

He used the skill immediately, and his power triggered alchemical changes to the staff that were visible right away.

The staff began to transform from an old-fashioned Wizard weapon into something that looked straight out of a cyberpunk movie. What had been wood turned into metal, and the jewel at the top split into six stalks shaped like antennas. At the end of the antennas, LED lights glowed, and on top of the staff, a round bead floated, pulsing with electricity.

‘Wow… What is this…?’

[Mana-Forged Beginner’s Talent-Blooming Staff by [Creator_of_magic]

[Class: SS

A staff forged by God [Creator_of_magic] and reforged by God [GodTube_superstar] that allows a Wizard's talent to blossom.

When powered by mana, the staff grants the Wizard talent to individuals within a fairly large area.

The level of talent varies depending on the individual’s natural potential, but the staff will always grant the individual talent one level higher than their potential.]

Something crazy had been created! Increasing someone’s talent by a full level was insane. That basically meant transforming ordinary people into gifted ones, gifted people into geniuses, and genius people into absolute monsters!

‘Holy… This will surely work. It has to.’

He took out the staves from his Shadow Pouch and immediately used his skill on them

His plan to train Wizards and cultivators was in effect.

‘Let’s go!’

? ? ?

Kim Gun-Woo. Age 32.

He had failed to get into any universities in Seoul but had been at least lucky enough to get into one that was in the metropolitan area. He had tried his best to get a job, but he had been unable to get into any big corporation, so he had joined a smaller company.

Every day, it was a nightmare. The majority of small and medium-sized enterprises had high labor intensity and no proper benefits. He had to work overtime every day, and the boss’s daughter, who did not know anything about the company, would always screw up and blame it on him.

Even though he wanted to quit and switch to another company, he didn’t have the guts, because he couldn’t afford to pay his mother’s medical bills.

He barely had any money saved up, so his future seemed bleak, just like his dating life. His younger brother wouldn’t get his life together and had bet his entire life savings on Bitecoins. Gun-Woo had not heard from him at all. The kid might’ve run away or died for all he knew or cared.

Thinking about his brother and mother, Gun-Woo sighed and took out his phone. Today, he was lucky enough to find an empty seat on the bus on his way to work, so he sat down.

As usual, he decided to read a web novel, but an ad caught his eye.

?Do you want to be a Wizard Hunter? Jungjin has opened a Wizard Hunter Awakening School!?

“That’s the fakest shit I’ve seen in a while.”

Becoming Awakened required a very special and expensive item called the Awakening Stone. There were grades of Awakening Stones, and even the lowest grade was known to be worth hundreds of millions of won. Naturally, such an item would not be available to a commoner like Gun-Woo.

That was why scams that promised Awakening Stones would pop up from time to time, reminding him of his own miserable life.

“You sons of bitches, I’m going to report you all—huh?”

He noticed that the ad said ‘Jungjin.’

“Are they crazy? They’re impersonating Jungjin? Oh boy, they are in for a world of pain.”

Jungjin was a fast-growing company with the one and only Um Ji-Cheok as their most elite Hunter as well as their Production Director. Even though Jungjin was growing at an exponential speed, the company was privately held, so no one could buy stocks. If the company went public, people were bound to make a fortune just from piggybacking on their success!

Jungjin had come to dominate the world’s potion industry in just a couple of months, and it also produced dimensional barrier generators to keep the world safe! Of course, they were unquestionably making tons of money too.

Naturally, Gun-Woo was curious as to what kind of crazy bastard would impersonate a powerful company like that. With that in mind, he tapped on the ad.

“Huh?”

As soon as he did that, he saw that Um Ji-Cheok was, in fact, in the ad.

?Everyone! I will make you into a Wizard!?

It was really Um Ji-Cheok, with his signature smile and a strong slogan! Gun-Woo watched the ad mesmerized.

Then he jumped up from his seat.

“Hey! Let me get off here!”

Going to his work was the last thing on his mind right now. It was more important to go to the school that Ji-Cheok created!

‘A Hamtori-suit-wearing, hamster-ball-rolling lunatic who wanted to save the planet is going to turn me into a Wizard! I can’t miss that!’

? ? ?

‘What is a Wizard? Better yet, what is magic?’

Wizards all described magic as math expressed in sensory terms. This was because they had to bend the laws of the world to perform magic, which required sophisticated mathematical calculations.

However, that definition was what the ‘real’ Wizards would say. It was different for Wizards who use magic from the System. They just had to learn the skills and use them. They did not calculate or study things like the so-called ‘real’ Wizards did.

Of course, that did not mean they didn’t do any math or were dumb. Actually, most of the people to whom the System gave a Wizard job in the first place were people already inclined toward becoming a ‘real’ Wizard.

In that sense, the thing that Ji-Cheok had created gave people who were not even close to being Wizards the gift of wizardry and Awakened them as Wizards.

However, it did not just happen instantly. It still took work… a lot of work.

“182 times 981!”

“178,542!”

Ji-Cheok was watching the classroom from the security camera. There were five students in the class and one teacher. The teacher was asking students questions of multiplication and division—based on rote memorization, of course.

“What is 870 divided by 5?”

“174!”

Flash!

The body of the man who answered 174 started to glow. He had Awakened!

‘Since magic is like doing math with your body, I’m cramming the math into their heads as they used to with multiplication tables.’

The classroom where that lesson was being taught was within the sphere of influence of the staff he had created, so as the students kept on cramming multiplication tables, they Awakened. Even if they were not particularly gifted, they could at least become low-class Wizards.

Within a week of speaking to Jung Gyeong-Yeong, everything from preparing the classrooms to advertising and recruiting students was done in one fell swoop, and now the fresh Wizards were being Awakened smoothly. The schools did not need to be in the heart of Seoul, so they had bought some buildings in areas where land prices were relatively cheap and set up a bunch of classes.

Within a week, they had built twenty-five schools, all of which were made with his money, and he planned to build seventy-five more.

They were also planning on building schools in rural areas, and their plan to train Wizards for the entire nation seemed like it would be a resounding success!

With only tens of thousands of Hunters in Korea, mass-producing Wizards like this would cause Hunter inflation, but Ji-Cheok did not care about that. As the world was about to end, inflation was the least important thing in his mind.

“YESSS!”

“Did you really Awaken?”

“Congratulations, Mr. Gun-Woo.”

Students and teachers alike were clapping. Gun-Woo wiped away a tear and raised his hand.

“Fire.”

A flame appeared in his hand!

It seemed that when a Wizard first Awakened, they would gain the skills of the so-called four elements: earth, fire, water, and wind.

“Thank you!! Thank you so much, teacher!”

“Hahahaha! It was nothing. If you want to thank someone, thank Dean Um Ji-Cheok. He’s the one who made this all possible.”

.

“I see! Thank you, Dean Um Ji-Cheok!”

[You have received 10 Likes.]

Ji-Cheok was happy to see that the students were so excited. Also, the Likes gathered from their admiration were pretty neat.

“Now, Mr. Gun-Woo, you should move on to the intermediate class, where you will learn new skills and receive combat training. Oh, and don’t worry about the money. You know that we can give you a Hunter loan from Jungha Loans, which is an affiliate of Jungjin, right?”

“Of course. Should I go there right away?”

“Yes! You can leave now.”

The teacher rang the bell, and a receptionist came and took Gun-Woo out. People were looking at him with envious eyes.

But for Ji-Cheok, who was watching them from a screen,

“Hm…I dunno… I feel like a villain…”

If it wasn’t for Jungha Loans, he wouldn’t have felt this way… The interest rate was very low, and they could pay it off quickly after becoming a Hunter, but still, something was not quite right.

“Nope. This is not the time to worry about that.”

He stood up. Now that he had made sure the school was running smoothly, it was time to start on the elixirs.

Just as there were elixirs that increased the Qi of cultivators, there were also elixirs that permanently increased the power of Wizards. To make things even better, the elixirs that increased Wizards’ power were inexpensive compared to those that granted Qi.

The reason was not that complicated—the elixirs for Wizards did not provide any health benefits. Elixirs that directly improved health were popular with everyone, and rich people would pay tons of money to get their hands on them. However, Wizard elixirs only increased Mana, so they were only popular among Wizards.

That did not mean they were objectively cheap, but at least they were relatively cheap. And, of course, Ji-Cheok could mass-produce them, thanks to his mighty Divine Alkahestry and Alchemy.

Um Ji-Cheok’s Universal Production Machine MK4 had this skill by default, and he was already making a bunch of elixirs for increasing Qi. He just needed to switch to making Wizard elixirs.

‘I wonder which would be better?’

?Master.?

‘Oooh! My dear advisor, Cheok-Liang! What’s up?’

?The operation is fifty percent complete. From now on, they will automatically continue mining, processing resources, crafting, and expanding without me.?

‘Good. Excellent! You should return immediately then.’

?Yes, Master!?

Cheok-Liang appeared beside him with a flash of light.

?I am back, Master. In exactly eighty-seven days, Antarctica will be completely trapped.?

This meant that the Mana Ignition Pillars and the defensive towers would completely surround Antarctica. Just the sound of it was terrifying.

“Good work. I apologize for asking as soon as you got here, but…

?It is obviously better to have more of those universal production machines. From what I remember, the limitations on maintaining summoned entities have been lifted, no??

“Yes, you’re right. Okay, good. Then let’s look for a good place to build some factories.”

?Yes, Master.?

Just as he was about to cross space with Cheok-Liang…

Ring! Ring!

His phone started to ring, so he took it out of his pocket and saw an unexpected person calling him.

It was A/B.

‘What the hell does he want?’

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