The people on the monitors looked at Elise.

“Is artificial activation possible?”

Elise tapped on her tablet and answered, “Through the poring infection, artificial activations are more than possible. However, to be able to do it, we have to run human trials first.”

“Don’t worry about the experiments,” the old man said, and Elise nodded.

“Then, yes, artificial activation is possible through infection, but like last time, someone may develop an EMP power. Also, if someone develops a teleportation power, we won’t be able to hold them.”

“Don’t worry about the teleportation. We’ll make a lab in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Focus on the EMP and other potentially problematic powers.”

Elise took a minute to think and said, “If we have enough funding, we can try.”

The old man looked at Charles and asked, “How is your team of novices coming along in order to fight monsters?”

Charles answered with a smile, “We don’t have enough novices yet, but we are forming teams based on their basic powers. Five will make up a team, and we are putting three teams together right now. They are showing increased firepower against monsters, at least.”

Elise listened and asked, “Have they all returned from the Dimensional Battlefield?”

She did not oversee that project. The teams that would fight monsters were being called monster teams, but they would actually be agents for Pentagram. If they used their powers to attack, ordinary people would stand no chance. Their powers went beyond the laws of physics, and only other powered people could deal with them.

Charles frowned and said, “So far, 30 percent of the novices that went to the Dimensional Battlefield haven’t returned.”

“But that’s still a good number.”

They had more information on the battlefield, which increased their ability to return.

Charles stared at Elise and said, “Since we created the novice teams, the return rate has increased, and it will continue to increase.”

“That’s nice. If you need anything, just let me know.”

The old man shook his head.

“No. You focus on the weapons to use against monsters and the dimensional tears.”

Elise shrugged and answered, “I understand. Will do.”

Soon, the monitors went off one by one, and Elise’s eyes widened slightly as she murmured, “Right. We will wait and see who will laugh the last laugh.”

She went back to her tablet.

—

Junhyuk was watching the construction at his house. They wanted to finish the work within a day, and heavy machinery was brought in, so the result was satisfactory.

There was a twenty-meter tall crater in his house, and they carved the walls so that the crater was now cylindrical in shape. The sunroof could be open or sealed.

Junhyuk pressed a b.u.t.ton and was satisfied with the result.

“This is good enough.”

He turned around, and the decorating company’s CEO was smiling at him.

“You wanted it finished in a short time, so I had to hire a lot of workers and get the heavy machinery. It was quite costly.”

Junhyuk looked at the itemized list of costs, picked up his cell phone and wired the money. The CEO was glad to be paid right away and smiled widely.

“Call us anytime, and we will do our best.”

“If I need anything else, I’ll call you.”

All of the people left, and he looked at the floor. It hadn’t been finished meticulously, but it was still smooth, and he planned to plant the seeds there.

He pulled the three seeds out of his Spatial Bag and planted them to one side of the crater. That was to be his training facility, and he wanted to make mana and train at the same place. Junhyuk also planned on pulling the dimensional tears to that location so that he could train by killing monsters.

He planted the seeds and watered them, but as he looked at them, he frowned. The living spirit started moving again, slightly.

He put his hand over where he had planted the seeds and felt the seeds sucking the mana out of his body. His brow furrowed deeper. Meanwhile, the living spirit was trying to hold on to the mana as it spun around.

Junhyuk was losing mana slowly and in low quant.i.ties. It was the result of the tug of war between the seeds and the living spirit. However, the living spirit was still young, and eventually, it lost all of the mana to the seeds.

Maybe because they had absorbed the mana, the plants sprouted, growing quickly. They grew suddenly, and Junhyuk took a few steps back.

“It’s like Jack and the Beanstalk.”

The tree threes grew fifteen meters at once, touching the wall and taking over it as well.”

“They have nice adaptive skills.”

After reaching fifteen meters, they grew ten-meter branches which covered the sunlight coming through the window in the ceiling, and Junhyuk took a seat under the shadow of one of the branches.

He had lost his mana, but now the trees were quickly giving off mana. Junhyuk shut the window with the remote control and closed his eyes, feeling the surrounding mana.

Compared to the Dimensional Battlefield, there wasn’t enough mana. However, he now had a means to acquire mana, unlike before when he couldn’t raise the living spirit.

Junhyuk breathed deeply, taking in the mana. Meanwhile, the living spirit moved quickly, absorbing even more.

As he felt it move, he focused on training. He wanted to be able to stop it whenever he wished to.

Artlan had been able to interfere and put the living spirit to sleep, but now, he was the one who had to put the living spirit to sleep, so he felt it taking in mana.

The living spirit was flowing through his veins rather than his arteries, and he pushed his will toward it. The spirit was getting used to hear from him, and once Junhyuk put it away in his gut, he slowly opened his eyes.

“Whew!”

He exhaled deeply and balled his hand into fists.

Bang!

Air pressure exploded from within his hands, sounding loudly, and he smiled.

“This is it!”

The living spirit gave him power. It had a conscience of its own, but it couldn’t interfere with his every movement. Junhyuk trained again, focusing on being able to distinguish when or not to use the living spirit.

Whenever he wanted more power, he was able to push his will to the living spirit and get more power from it. He and the living spirit were getting used to each other.

Junhyuk looked at the time and frowned.

“It’s been a day already?”

He had planted his seeds on Sunday, and it was already Monday. Junhyuk sighed and raised his head. He hadn’t installed an elevator in the crater, just a ladder up to a hatch.

Junhyuk didn’t want anything getting out of there. He looked at the trees for one last time—the three of them moved as if they were alive—and walked over to them and touched them. They shook lightly, and he smiled.

“I’ll return soon. Stay here.”

He teleported to the top of the ladder, went up and opened the hatch. Once he got outside, he saw his nextdoor neighbor moving out, so he walked over and greeted him.

“I cleaned up the house.”

“Thank you.”

Junhyuk went inside and looked around. He had bought the previous house for the large bas.e.m.e.nt to practice, but the rooms and meals were the new house’s purpose. There, he measured the distance between the new house and the training facility.

“Hm.”

Junhyuk could only teleport straight there from one spot. He could only cover fifty meters with his teleport, so if he wanted to do it from inside the house, he had to go to the first-floor bathroom.

“I must practice my teleportation.”

He wanted to increase its distance.

“Just two won’t do.”

He had thought that two teleportations could get him out of anything, but in fact, that was not the case. After fighting the legend candidates, he realised that the two teleportations and the force field weren’t good enough.

“I need to increase the distance and multiple usage.”

Those two wouldn’t be easy to achieve, but as he looked at the new house, he scratched his head.

“I need furniture.”

Junhyuk wished he had a secretary. His company was under Max, and they couldn’t help him now.

“Nothing I can do.”

He had created Max, so he had to adhere to his own rules. Junhyuk took a cab and went to the mall on a big shopping spree. There, he bought things for his own room and the essentials.

After that, he put on his mask and went to GST.

He had delegated his duties to Sungtae so that he could focus on training, but from time to time, he needed to check up on Sungtae. Junhyuk entered the building and saw that the lobby had female receptionists.

They bowed toward him, and he stared at them and chuckled.

In front of the elevator, the security agents opened the door for him.

“The security team leader and the vice president are waiting for you.”

He nodded and got on. On the ninth floor, he got off to see Daesan and Sungtae. They bowed toward him, and he nodded and asked, “You got a team of secretaries?”

“Yes, we needed them. I’ll write a report. If you don’t like anyone, we’ll fire them.”

Junhyuk nodded and walked over to Ganesha. It was late, and only two people were still working: Tirot and Brita. Both of them had mana of their own.

Junhyuk waved at them.

“You heard about the poring infection?”

“Yes, is Ganesha working on it?”

“It is.”

Junhyuk looked at Sungtae and said, “We could have lost Seoul.”

“Whew! It’s a relief we didn’t!”

Junhyuk laughed and looked at Ganesha.

“Ganesha, do you have information on powered people?”

[There were three powered spotted on Friday.]

“Do you know their locations?”

[All information disappeared on Sat.u.r.day.]

“Really?”

He clicked his tongue. While he had been training, he had lost three novices. It could’ve been Doyeol or the government. Maybe even someone else.

“I can’t have everything.”

He was alone and he couldn’t do it all by himself, so he thought for a while and said, “Continue collecting information.”

[I understand.]

He had to continue training, so he needed someone’s help to gather the novices.