Test

“Semi-transcendent… That’s a term I’ve never heard before. Are you perhaps referring to the Half-Immortal Realm?”

“No, it’s different from that.”

Lucifer immediately answered Bruce’s question.

Unlike the users, Lucifer too had traveled through countless worlds to survive extinction.

Naturally, among them were worlds where martial arts existed, and he had fought against humans who claimed to have reached the Half-Immortal Realm.

“Half-Immortal Realm? A state of being half-immortal? That just refers to beings who have transcended human limitations and possess power equal to or surpassing transcendents.”

There are plenty of mortals stronger than transcendents.

In terms of pure strength, a transcendent who originated from an insect or beast would be weaker than an ordinary dragon.

“But no matter how powerful they are, mortals cannot defeat transcendents. Do you know why?”

“Because they can manipulate fate.”

“Correct. Transcendents who have obtained divinity can manipulate fate, and by extension reality itself, using karma. No matter how powerful an attack comes, if I change fate to make it miss, it will never hit. No matter how fast an opponent is, if I change fate to make my attacks connect, they’ll hit no matter where I strike. When I fought Han Yuseong, I used karma to manipulate fate so attacks wouldn’t reach my body.”

Fate that mortals can never change.

Yet Han Yuseong ignored that fate and landed his attacks.

This could only mean that Han Yuseong had used karma to manipulate fate.

“…Are you saying he became a transcendent?”

“No, that’s not it. Though he changed fate, I didn’t sense any divinity. Literally, the only expression I can think of is ‘semi-transcendent’ – neither mortal nor transcendent.”

Sensing the heavy atmosphere, Changwei asked in a low voice.

“Stop beating around the bush and tell me simply. So Han Yuseong. Can you beat that bastard or not?”

“Of course I can beat him.”

“Then…”

“That’s enough. Han Yuseong. You handle that bastard, Lucifer.”

When Changwei cut off Bruce’s words, making it clear he didn’t want to discuss further, Lucifer, who had been about to say something more, closed his mouth.

But numerous thoughts were racing through his mind.

Changwei seemed to think Han Yuseong couldn’t handle him because of the ‘semi’ prefix, but reality wasn’t so simple.

Although he hadn’t achieved immortality without gaining divinity, being able to handle karma meant he could definitely harm transcendents.

Woong!

Lucifer half-opened his eyes and focused his consciousness inward.

A transcendent’s strength is determined by the amount of karma they can handle.

Making people pray and torturing them wasn’t just to recover divine power and magic power – it was also to gain karma.

‘With this much, I could take down even fairly powerful transcendents.’

The amount of karma accumulated by twisting the predetermined fates of tens and hundreds of thousands of people and ultimately taking their lives directly was substantial, and it was still growing even now.

Though he didn’t know how much karma Han Yuseong had, he surely couldn’t have more karma than himself.

Lucifer forcefully shook off the anxiety settled in a corner of his heart.

* * *

Woong!

When he turned on the power, faint vibrations began along with text appearing on the goggles.

Though at first glance there seemed to be no problems, Yuseong shook his head.

“…The Type 99 Magic Engine isn’t properly converting power into magic power.”

“That keeps causing problems. Should we just remove the magic power engine and insert magic power stones instead? Are there any other issues?”

Swoosh.

As Yuseong took a red pen to the floating 3D blueprint of the goggles and started drawing lines, Sophia rubbed her eyes.

The number of lines drawn on the blueprint totaled 8.

Since there were 6 in the pre-revision version, this meant an increase of 2.

After sighing deeply for a while, Sophia spoke in a careful voice.

“Um, Mr. Yuseong. At this rate, we definitely won’t make the deadline.”

“Can’t we utilize the dimensional time ratio difference anymore?”

“We’ve already used up all the dimensions that I or Mr. Kasim know about.”

“…”

Stabilizing the goggles wasn’t as easy as they thought.

No matter how many errors they fixed, like a balloon, when they pressed one side down another would pop up somewhere else.

Despite working non-stop day and night fixing errors, they had made almost no progress stabilizing the mass production goggles.

“Should we just release them incomplete?”

“Absolutely not.”

“…Right.”

Through researching the goggles, they had painfully learned just how dangerous they were.

If they brushed it off as nothing and problems arose later with the dimension-crossing ability, allowing otherworldly beings or unknown viruses to cross over, the consequences were too terrible to even think about.

Yuseong looked at the world map floating on one wall.

The red dot moving from Beijing toward Korea.

Only 24 hours remained until Vimana’s estimated arrival time.

“Even if we started mass producing goggles now it would be tight, considering the time needed for users to clear quests and gather karma…”

Yuseong silently stroked his chin.

At this point, only two options remained.

One was abandoning Korea and running away.

There was no law saying that the people using mass production goggles had to be Korean.

While Changwei was tied up in Korea, he could release mass production goggles in America or India to secure karma.

However, this would invite worldwide condemnation.

Though the fundamental reason was different, Changwei was currently heading to Korea with Vimana because he had led the users in attacking China.

And now the one who caused this situation would run away?

“…Ugh.”

Yuseong involuntarily shuddered.

Even if Changwei simply returned, he would face intense criticism and might attack Korea in anger, dealing irreparable damage to his image and losing the initiative battle hopelessly.

‘That absolutely can’t happen.’

Normally he wouldn’t care about image, but this was different.

Although criticism was fierce, many people supported Changwei’s cause of human survival and the Human Alliance.

If he ran away here, he would become a terrorist who tried to destroy the Human Alliance, humanity’s hope, while Changwei would become a worldwide hero in contrast.

Even if he ran away later, he had to fight for now.

Then only one option remained.

“Sophia. From now on, make regular goggles.”

“By regular goggles you mean…”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Goggles without the downgraded version, I mean.”

“Didn’t you say that was dangerous?”

“We’ll distribute the goggles first, settle things with Changwei, then collect and destroy them using excuses like ‘they’re prototypes’ or whatever.”

It sounds like a decent idea at first.

But after thinking for a moment, Sophia shook her head.

“How many goggles are you planning to make?”

“As many as possible. We need as many users as possible to gather maximum karma points in a short time.”

“Using spare parts, we can produce over 50,000 goggles from now until Changwei arrives. Can you collect all of those back?”

While it might be possible with dozens or hundreds, 100% recovery would be impossible with tens of thousands.

With no time to install tracking devices or destruction magic in each of tens of thousands of goggles, some would inevitably leak.

However, Yuseong was resolute.

“We’ll accept some leakage.”

The goggles they failed to recover might return as bigger problems later.

But that was later.

Die now, or die later.

If forced to choose between the two, Yuseong was the type to unhesitatingly pick the latter.

After pondering for a long while at Yuseong’s firm answer, Sophia finally nodded.

Everything moved quickly after that.

Regular goggles weren’t more difficult to produce or require special materials compared to mass production goggles.

The only difference was the magic formations and patterns inscribed inside.

If they wanted to, they could make them right away with Sophia’s 3D printer.

“I’ve only made 10 for now since we need to test if they work properly first. If there are no issues after testing, I’ll start production right away.”

After receiving the goggles from Sophia, Yuseong immediately headed to the Korean Contractors Association headquarters.

Bang!

There was no time to waste landing on the ground and taking the elevator back up.

Yuseong jumped from Dragonia, aimed for the Korean Contractors Association headquarters, burst through the roof and landed in the conference room on the top floor.

“What, what is this?”

“An attack?!”

“Which bastard dares… Wait. H-Han Yuseong?”

The people who had been startled and confused by the sudden situation fell into disarray upon recognizing the intruder’s identity.

Ignoring them, Yuseong casually looked around.

Kang Changseok sat at the head seat with a dumbfounded expression, and to his left and right were gathered all the guild leaders of Korea’s top guilds and notable experts.

With a 12km-long flying fortress, four heroes, and an angel demonstrating unbelievable divinity heading toward Korea, they naturally had to gather in one place to discuss countermeasures.

After a moment of silence, someone pointed at Yuseong and shouted.

“Ha! Now you show up! The country is on the verge of ruin because of what you did! Illegally infiltrating another country and committing indiscriminate terrorism? What were you thinking doing something like that? How are you going to take responsibility for this!”

Though it might be obvious, not all Koreans supported Yuseong.

Whether for personal or political reasons, there were people who disliked Yuseong, and the man currently pointing and ranting was one of them.

“Issue an apology statement right now and take responsibility for this situation…”

Boom!

The man who had been approaching and pointing at Yuseong was embedded in the wall with an explosion.

The people looking back and forth between Yuseong extending one finger and the motionless man closed their mouths as if by agreement.

-Are you crazy? What are you doing?!

At Kang Changseok’s sudden sound transmission, Yuseong waved the goggles he was holding.

-What’s that? Did you complete the mass production goggles?

-No. These are regular goggles. We couldn’t possibly meet the deadline for mass production goggles.

No detailed explanation was needed.

Kang Changseok could grasp the situation from that one line.

-You came to test them?

-Though it’s comparing small potatoes, the people here are still stronger than ordinary ability users. Should be able to test quickly.

Bang!

Kang Changseok banged the table to focus everyone’s attention before speaking.

“Everyone please calm down and listen to me for a moment. This is a very important matter.”