Nirvana

But things would be different if the goggles could be mass-produced.

‘Just from clearing one E-rank quest and one F-rank quest, I gained enough power to directly fight and win against multiple orcs.’

The rewards obtainable from quests vary and clear ranks differ for each one, so it can’t be generalized.

However, lacking quality can be made up for with quantity.

The main reason most users grew slowly wasn’t just because they didn’t care about clear ranks, but primarily because they spent time in reality pursuing wealth, fame, and power instead of doing many quests.

“Sophia, how often did you do quests before monsters appeared?”

“Hm? About once or twice a month, I think? What about you, Mr. Yuseong?”

“Whenever I had time.”

“Come on, that’s no fun.”

Though Sophia laughed thinking it was a joke, Yuseong was stating a fact.

Except when unavoidable circumstances arose or when training, Yuseong poured most of his time into completing quests, and thanks to that he was able to grow much faster than other users.

‘Though we’ll have to give up on high-rank clears, if we give them guns and have them mindlessly do quests while maintaining a level that doesn’t incur penalties to stay stable…’

They could mass-produce ability users with power surpassing existing Contractors and academy students.

And these would be ability users with overwhelming growth speed at that.

“This isn’t the time! We need to contact Mr. Changseok right now to secure a factory and mass-produce these goggles as soon as possible! If just 10% of Earth’s population, no, if 10% became users we could sufficiently block monsters. If 200 million people brought rare metals or parts just once a month… hehehe.”

“First calm down and listen to me. We can’t mass-produce the goggles right away.”

“What?”

Sophia, who had been wearing a crafty smile, slowly turned her head to look at Yuseong.

“What do you mean we can’t mass-produce them?”

“There are several reasons, but first is that these goggles weren’t made with pure scientific technology but with supernatural ability. Though we can somehow engrave the magic formations and patterns by machine, they need to go through an activation process, so large-scale production is difficult.”

“We can leave that to Mr. Kasim. For someone called a great mage, he should be able to activate about 100,000 by himself per day, no, since Mr. Kasim is an elder lich who doesn’t tire and has lots of magic power, maybe up to 300,000 if we run him 24 hours?”

Thinking of Kasim who seemed about to be forcibly employed at an ultra-black company that would make Industrial Revolution era factories look tame in comparison, Yuseong wiped away cold sweat and continued speaking.

“Second reason, we can’t use these as is. They need some modifications.”

“You mean the design? Well, making them exactly like this would be a bit…”

“The design needs changing too. But what I’m talking about isn’t design but performance. We need to put performance limiters on the goggles.”

“…Why?”

“Simple. Think about it. Is increasing the number of users necessarily a good thing?”

Sophia, who was about to answer that of course it was good, closed her mouth.

What would happen if the number of people who could freely cross dimensions and grow infinitely stronger increased?

Even taking a conservative estimate of growth speed, within 10 years most people would become strong enough to reach Three Weak level, and among them those with outstanding talent like Three Strong or Yuseong could aim even higher.

Would they all live quietly without causing problems?

‘No way.’

Sophia’s complexion turned ashen.

Even right now there are numerous people committing crimes using abilities.

Though it’s not a big problem now since modern weapons can still subdue ability users, it would become serious if the number of people with Three Weak level power increased.

What if someone like Carlos planted strange plants from another world in the middle of downtown?

What if a religious fanatic carried out terrorism at a nuclear power plant?

“We definitely need to put limiters on. We should also track what skills and items they purchase. How should we do it?”

“We could add a function to record the screens appearing on the goggles, or install a time limit so they must receive maintenance after a certain period of use, then extend the period if they’ve lived properly or confiscate or remotely destroy the goggles if they’ve committed crimes. The possibilities are endless.”

At the answer that came out as if she’d been waiting, Sophia’s lips quivered.

Putting limiters on the goggles’ performance and monitoring information was absolutely necessary.

The problem was who would take on that role.

The weighty authority to know everything – how much ability users had, what skills and items they possessed, whether users could continue using the goggles or not – and decide everything.

Whoever held that authority would gain power rivaling that of gods, unmatched by anyone in human history.

And at this rate, the person most likely to become the new era’s god was Yuseong.

“Just thinking about monitoring and restricting tens or hundreds of millions of people is terrifying. We’ll need to create a specialized group for managing users.”

A plain, matter-of-fact tone.

Sophia spoke as naturally as possible, trying not to provoke Yuseong.

“Do we really need to create a group? With AI help, I think one person could manage sufficiently.”

“If all authority is concentrated in one person, it could be dangerous if something unexpected happens.”

Sophia didn’t explain what that unexpected something was, and Yuseong didn’t bother asking.

“Then how about joint management by existing users?”

“That seems reasonable.”

Actually, Sophia’s original goal was to entrust management to representatives elected through democratic procedures worldwide, but since that might irritate Yuseong, she decided to back down for now.

‘There’s plenty of time. If I convince the other users and change things slowly one by one…’

“And the third and final reason. Special energy is needed to make the goggles so mass production is difficult.”

“Since you used the word ‘special’ it’s probably not internal energy or magic power. Does it use energy sources like spirit power or chakra?”

“Karma.”

“…”

Sophia turned to stone, staring intently at Yuseong’s eyes.

At first she laughed or muttered it was an unfunny joke, but seeing Yuseong’s unwavering eyes, Sophia swallowed dryly.

Karma.

Energy that all users have but none can handle.

Power approaching omnipotence that can defy causality and change reality at will.

Power that absolutely cannot be handled even in worlds with high Civilization Grade, that only transcendents can use.

“…Really?”

“Really.”

“…Have you become transcendent?”

“Not that, but I somehow obtained a skill that can handle karma.”

“No way that’s a lie… no, I’m sorry.”

Yuseong had no reason to tell an obvious lie.

Karma was needed to create and maintain the goggles.

And only Yuseong could handle that karma.

“…Congratulations. You’ve become the god of the new world.”

“The new world, what?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Sophia gave up on management by many and acknowledged Yuseong’s absolute power.

In a situation where only Yuseong could make the goggles, having a hundred or thousand managers meant nothing.

Unless a transcendent was born on Earth, Yuseong could reign forever.

“So how much karma points does it take to make one pair of goggles?”

“1,000 points. And they need regular recharging too.”

“That’s much more than I expected?”

Hearing 1,000 points, Sophia made an ambiguous expression.

Considering the points needed to make one pair of goggles it seemed surprisingly cheap, but thinking about the number of goggles humanity needed, it was impossibly expensive.

Just making 100,000 would take 100 million karma points.

Add in regular recharging and it’s an astronomical price.

“We can’t make many then. First, may I ask how many you can make right now?”

“1 million.”

“1 million… What? How many did you say?”

“1 million.”

In the short time it takes to drink a cup of tea, who knows how many times she was surprised.

“Wait, wait a minute. 1 million means 1 billion karma points, did you calculate wrong?”

“The calculation is right. I currently have slightly over 1 billion karma points.”

Sophia looked at Yuseong with an astonished expression.

Though it varies by difficulty, the average karma points she gets from clearing one quest is around 4-5 million.

But 1 billion karma points?

“That’s an amount I’d need to do 200-250 quests to gather. No, are you going to use all those karma points to make goggles?”

“Can’t be helped. What’s important now is humanity’s survival.”

“…Lord Yuseong.” ^[1]

Sophia, who had been wearing a slightly displeased expression since bringing up the god of the new world, looked at Yuseong with moved admiration.

To unhesitatingly throw away 1 billion karma points for humanity’s sake.

At this point she felt he deserved to be a dictator.

Meanwhile, Yuseong inwardly let out a sigh of relief.

‘Seems I fooled her well.’

Yuseong had actually told one lie.

The karma points needed to make goggles wasn’t 1,000 points but less than half that.

Except for initial activation, afterward they could use the karma points users gained from clearing quests as power.

The reason for lying was simple.

It was to expand his influence and extract more than the karma invested from users.

‘I have to make the goggles anyway. Then I should exaggerate the production costs as much as possible to make users feel indebted to me.’

From what he saw last time, Bruce didn’t understand and handle karma.

It only seemed like he handled karma because his Universal Vision skill used karma as fuel.

Meaning only he could make the goggles.

The more goggles he made, the more people would think he made tremendous sacrifices for humanity and feel indebted.

“We should meet Mr. Kasim right away to prepare. Please send me back to Earth.”

Yuseong grabbed Sophia’s hand and awakened the power of the crest to move to Earth.

Woong. Woong. Woong.

As soon as the scenery changed, his smartphone started ringing madly.

Since radio waves couldn’t be received in Dragonia hidden in dimensional gaps, accumulated messages arrived all at once when returning to Earth.

Yuseong calmly took out his smartphone and started checking messages.

‘As expected, useless content.’

When something truly important happened, users didn’t send messages but posted to the community.

Yuseong, who knew there were no major problems on Earth after checking the community, quickly flipped through screens.

“Naturalization offer, guild invitation, monster subjugation… Hm?”

Yuseong’s eyes narrowed while checking messages.

Among hundreds of messages was one that caught his attention.

-Nirvana: I want to talk.