Arena

As soon as we were back in the real world, I checked my board.

-Name: Kim Hyun-ho

-Class: 43

-Karma: +14,400

-Mission: rest until the next exam.

-Time limit: 99 days 23 hours

Since I had 600 karma, I got 13,800 karma from this exam.

It wasn’t an explosive amount like last time but it’s still pretty good.

‘The credit for getting rid of one of the 6 high priests.’

I asked Cha Ji-hye how much karma she received.

“Currently I am at 5,400 karma.”

“That’s a good amount.”

“Compared to the average examinee, this is a lot.”

True, it’s just that I get oddly high grades.

Cha Ji-hye raised her main skill, aura control, from intermediate level 5 to level 7. That used 5,200 karma. This time too she basically went all in on her main skill.

Intermediate level 7.

In Arena words, she’s at the stage of an aura expert.

With that she obtained a ground breaking change.

Paat!

Aura protective shield!

With a sufficient amount of aura and the skill to control it is what is needed for an aura shield and now she’s able to use it.

She looked at her aura protective shield and began to practice unleashing it quickly.

‘How should I use my karma prize?’

I have 14,400. That’s an insane amount of karma! This time around I’m going to have lots of fun shopping for skills.

I didn’t’ think it over too long.

I’ve already mastered a lot of skills so there aren’t that many skills that I can level up.

-12,600 karma to rise spirit summons (main skill) to superior level 4.

-Spirit summons (main skill): summon a superior spirit and express the power of nature, utilize power of nature yourself and the physical body becomes stronger.

*Spirits available for summons: Sylph, Kasa

*Superior level 4: summons time 13 hours, summon a superior spirit and express the power of nature, utilize power of nature yourself and the physical body becomes stronger, and you can understand animals’ emotional state and condition.

-Remaining karma: +1,800

First off, I raised my main skill, spirit summons, and with the remaining 1,800 karma I raised my animal taming from intermediate level 5 to mastery.

-Using 1,500 karma to animal taming (assist skill) to raise to mastery.

-Animal training (assist skill): gain the ability to tame animals. As the level increases, more complicated orders can carried out.

*Master: Tame 12 animals.

-Remaining karma: +300

The number of animals I can train has increased from 10 to 12.

And those 12 animals can understand complicated orders.

And on top of that an added ability. I can know the trained animals’ emotion and condition!

‘Shall I try it out?’

I took out the first rake eagle from my virtual space

“Baaaek?”

Coming out of the virtual space, number one looked around his surroundings.

Seeing a suddenly different environment, he’s confused. But then he looked at me and his emotions changed to delight.

Number one’s health status was in the best condition.

I can naturally feel number one’s emotions and condition. It’s not like there was a sign or something.

10 rake eagles is plenty though, I’ll fill the remaining two slots with other animals.

I’ll think it over a bit before deciding though.

After sorting my karma prize, I called Chairman Park Jin-seong. Now it’s time to push something else.

I took out my smartphone and called Chairman Park Jin-seong.

I’m probably the only one in this country that just gives a call to the wealthiest man on a whim.

-What is it?

“Are you busy?”

-You know I am and you’re calling at this hour? I told you to call Chief Lee for most stuff.

“Its something you’ll be very interested to hear.”

-Which is?

“What do you think about making a ranch that produces majeong?”

-…… what?

“You wouldn’t even have to deal with examinees, what would you say about having a continuous supply of majeong?”

-Is that possible?

“We can raise pairs of animals I brought from Arena, on an isolated island ranch.”

Only then did Chairman Park Jin-seong seem to catch on and was silent for a moment.

A while later, Chairman Park Jin-seong spoke.

-Can you meet tonight?

“Yes, where?”

-Come to my house.

“Are you inviting me to your home?”

-That’s right, quit the small talk, I’ll send someone at 10 pm to get you.

“Okay.”

That night, the car came from Jinseong group’s 3rd secretarial office.

With Cha Ji-hye, I boarded the car and we headed towards Chairman Park Jin-seong’s home.

The Jinseong group family home was in the middle of an expanse in Gangnam. An imposing and luxurious residence.

His front yard was like a school sports field.

On the left was a tennis court and to the right was a garden with a pond!

And from here and there all kinds of flowers were well groomed. I felt like I was in a foreign tourist destination.

Interestingly, while looking around the place, we were escorted by employees.

“Oh, they’re here?”

In comfortable training gear, Chairman Park Jin-seong welcomed us outside to a tea table.

People who looked to be housekeepers brought us refreshments. They were traditional Korean crackers but I don’t think they were sold anywhere nearby. Still, they were incredibly tasty.

I was busy eating crackers when Chairman Park Jin-seong said to me.

“Is what you said earlier possible?”

“Yes.”

“And how is that so?”

“My skill. Shall I show you?”

“Show me what?”

“The animals. I’ve brought 3 pairs from Arena.”

At those words, Chairman Park Jin-seong’s face changed.

“You were serious?”

“Did you think I wanted to meet you for a lie? Would you like to see?”

“Ahh, of course.”

Chairman Park Jin-seong called several of his secretaries over and gave them orders.

Then afterwards, people vacated around us. 𝗳r𝗲𝙚w𝐞𝚋𝘯𝚘ѵ𝗲l.𝑐oｍ

“Show me. Is it something noisy by chance?”

“Don’t worry.”

From my virtual space I took out just one animal.

An animal I caught in Arena.

It’s a Big Rat.

The Big Rat was a large rat with red fur. The size was about your average Jindo dog.*

(TN: About 20 inches tall, weighs 40-60 lbs.)

Moving in groups, they destroyed trees and crops, even eating livestock.

In Arena, if even a few of these Big Rats were discovered, the lord there immediately dispatched soldiers that day to eliminate them. That’s how bad they were.

It’s because if by chance they end up reproducing, it would be a huge disaster for the area.

Because of that they were treated as monsters even though they were clearly just rodents! Thus, a subject useful for my growth skill.

I’ve brought 3 pairs of these things back.

“Hoo, this is an Arena animal? This rat is the size of a calf.”

Chairman Park Jin-seong looked at the passed out Big Rat with a sparkling gaze.

Curiosity filled his old eyes.

For Chairman Park Jin-seong, he’s seen a life form from the Arena that he can never go to, there’s no way he wouldn’t be interested.

“It looks like a rat, does it behave like one too?”

“You’re right. It eats everything with no issues and breeds quickly.”

“Sounds dangerous……”

“We’ll have to let them loose on an island to be raised. A sturdy steel wall need to be wrapped around and outside entry has to be tightly controlled.”

“So you’re saying that they reproduce quickly so that’s all the more majeong to be made.”

“Even if they are just F level majeong, large quantity production is possible.”

And there was one more thing I was betting on.

-Growth acceleration (synthesis skill): accelerate the growth speed of the animal you are raising. The acceleration of growth differs according to level.

*Master: grow up to 3 times the limit. Applies to animals that have completely matured as well.

If I raise them, they’ll be three times as big!

Wouldn’t that mean the majeong will be triple the usual amount too?

If they grow that big, there was also the added advantage of being easier to catch.

If it was a smaller rat it could hide here or there and be hard to hunt down but if it’s the size of a large dog then it would be easier to find.

The big rat can be killed with one bullet so regulating their population didn’t necessarily require an examinee either.

“Later, when the exams are all cleared and the exams disappear, we can continue to harvest majeong.”

“Hmm……”

Chairman Park Jin-seong looked at tentatively at the knocked out Big Rat that was just breathing up and down.

“If I invest in this, I won’t be able to get high class majeong.”

“Yes.”

“But I can always continuously harvest large quantities of majeong……”

As if he was rolling abacus beads, Chairman Park Jin-seong had his eyes closed and was deep in thought.

I returned the Big Rat to the virtual space. Someone might see it.

And then I added this to Chairman Park Jin-seong.

“I have ridden a majeong car created by the Maglun family.”

“The MSM series?”

Of course Chairman Park Jin-seong knew about it. It seems it’s a famous product in this business world.

“Yes, the MSM-2. Even using the lowest grade majeong it rode well and traveled far.”

“That is true. Because majeong has high energy efficiency is why it’s in the spotlight.”

“So then Jinseong Group’s primary popular electronic items don’t need high grade majeong right?”

“To be fair, unless it is a power production facility, I don’t need high grade majeong but……”

Chairman Park Jin-seong’s words continued.

“There is always that much risk. Firstly, is properly breeding it possible. Secondly, does propagating on Earth still create majeong? Those two things are unclear.”

“Breeding them isn’t hard. Maintaining them so they don’t escape the barrier is more important. And as for the second matter, we’ll just have to give it a try.”

“Hmm, it does seem worth the effort.”

Chairman Park Jin-seong made his decision.

“But it can’t be done by ourselves, we need to collaborate with the government. Is it okay for the government to join this venture?”

“Yes, we’ll need the cooperation of the government to properly control them, so.”

I’m not really trying to make money on this.

I want to gift our country future economic power and in return for that, win the wholehearted cooperation of the government and Jinseong group.

So that the examinees can properly focus on clearing the exams.

That day, I obtained Chairman Park Jin-seong’s cooperation.

And the next day, I got a call from Chairman Park Jin-seong, and the government signed off on it too.

When they heard of a way to safely harvest majeong forever, the excited government immediately began searching for a suitable island for the Big Rat ranch.

“I don’t know if this is the right thing to do.”

“Why do you think that?”

Asked Cha Ji-hye.

“……”

I couldn’t answer her.

‘We have given you a choice at every crossroad. Choosing which road is always the examinees, no, the human’s right.”

“Understood? What is important is your decision. That is the most important thing in the exams.”

The baby angels’ words kept getting in my head. It was too significant to just pass through one ear and out the other.

The idea that the world would change depending on my decision was terrifying.

My decision would affect not just me but that it could be the key element in making a definite influence on the whole of the exams. It was free floating anxiety.

The exam, and to the gods and angels, what I mean to them, made me anxious.

It could just be my over-inflated ego but I got the feeling I was more than a mere examinee.

And that was an immense burden.