Exactly three hours later, someone knocked on the door to his hotel room. Junhyuk opened the door and looked out to see Jiro standing there with Elise behind him.

He looked at them both and said, “Please, come in.”

Major Jiro looked at Elise going inside nonchalantly, a.n.a.lyzing the interaction between the two of them, and then, carefully and silently withdrew. Junhyuk watched Jiro leave and closed the door.

Elise looked around for an instant and then grabbed a bottle of champagne.

“Please, sit,” she said.

“I thought there would be no flying on Fridays!”

It wasn’t easy to find a plane on a Friday. With the incidence of abnormal narcolepsy, major accidents could occur.

Elise replied casually, “I don’t have a private pilot.”

“Did you just fly on a pilotless automatic plane?”

She poured some champagne on his gla.s.s and on hers as well.

“You became a hero?”

His path was the same as hers, so he answered without resistance, “Correct.”

“Did you fight as a hero?”

He nodded, and Elise was astonished.

“Congratulations!” she exclaimed as she tapped her gla.s.s against his and smiled.

“Thanks.”

“How can you drink with your armor on?”

He smiled and drank the champagne. Elise’s eyes widened at the sight of him drinking while armored.

“Is that a hologram?”

“Something like it.”

“Very cool!” She looked around, raising her hand as she asked, “Can I touch it?”

Junhyuk shook his head, answering, “Not possible.”

“Tsc!” She clicked her tongue and sipped on the champagne. “You brought me the Spatial Bag and a present?” she asked.

He nodded and pulled out a Ring of Promise. Elise stared at it.

“Is that the Spatial Bag?”

Junhyuk shook his head and said, “If you put this ring on, you can never take it off. When we both wear this ring, we can’t never break the trust between us.”

“Trust?”

“If you do, you’ll experience unimaginable pain.”

Elise frowned and said, “So, we need trust between us?”

He nodded.

“The present I’m giving you requires we trust each other.”

“The ring looks too big for me.”

He smiled.

“When you put in on, i’ll fit you.”

Elise took a moment to think about which finger to put it on and decided on the ring finger. The ring shrank to her size, and she stared at it in wonder. Then, she held her champagne gla.s.s again and said, “Fine. I trust you, which is why I put the ring on. Now, give me the stuff you promised me.”

Junhyuk gave her the Spatial Bag. She couldn’t see it with her naked eyes at first, but once he pa.s.sed ownership of the bag to her, she took it, and place her hand inside it.

“It’s hard to believe this. How is it possible?”

Elise put her champagne gla.s.s away in the Spatial Bag, and Junhyuk said, “I don’t know how they make Spatial Bags. Even those knowledgeable about magic seem to have a hard time understanding it. You also need a ton of material to make a single Spatial Bag.”

“Can we get those materials?”

“I’ll find out. They’ll let me know more if I ask.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Junhyuk continued, “And this is my present to you.”

He pulled out the crafting book, and Elise’s eyes beamed.

“The gift is a book? You are a sensible man.”

He laughed.

“I have to tell you a few things before I give you the book.”

“Do tell.”

“The things you made from the monster bodies were sold for cheap.”

“That’s because I used bloodstones to enhance the muscles on the glove. It’s basically the same as the original.”

Tapping the book, Junhyuk said, “The dimensional merchant bought your things and sold me this book. It’s a book on magic technology, and you’ll be able to make more elaborate items with it.”

“Does it have crafting recipes?”

“It has fifteen of them, but you must make your own recipes by using the basic ones. You have to be creative.”

Without worrying, Elise put her hand forward and said, “Give it to me.”

“After you read it once, it will automatically disappear. All of the information will go into your brain.”

“My brain?”

“And you won’t have to remember it.”

“That’s nice.”

Elise smiled and goaded him on, so he gave her the book.

“It was expensive.”

“It’ll do its job,” she declared confidently.

Junhyuk trusted her, so he took his hand away from the book. Elise smiled and opened it. Suddenly, a blue light rushed out from the book and covered Elise. Her eyes sparkled and a look of wonder flashed across her face, and a satisfied smile crept across her lips.

“This is the best!”

Elise was acquiring a lot of information, and she cheered aloud. Junhyuk did not speak to her. He simply watched her absorb the magitek information. The book’s blue light did not disappear for a while.

After ten minutes, the light rushed into her. Elise smiled, and her eyes quivered from side to side, as if she were reading something. Junhyuk waited until she was done.

Elise closed her eyes and opened them again, and to him, her gaze seemed deeper.

She looked at him and said, “This is an unbelievable present.”

“Did you get any usable recipes?”

After some thought, she answered, “There are recipes that use bodies of B-ranked monsters. I’ll return to Korea and make those.”

“I was told you’d need a few other ingredients. Do you?”

She thought for a while and answered, “I need to smelt mana stones with a smelting furnace, and find a way to liquify blood stones with sunlight, but I can do those things without using the techniques in the book.”

Bebe had only glossed over things, and Elise continued, “However, I have to maximize output, so get me those things all the same.”

Doing those things would cost a lot of money, and she had talked about them so casually. She was impressive.

“OK. I’ll get them for you. In two weeks?”

“That’s fine. I’ll make the items with B-ranked monster bodies first. With this, I’ll be able to make new equipment.”

“I’m hopeful!”

Items with stats and buff would be much more expensive than those without. She couldn’t make everything, but she should make a lot of it so that he could earn more on the Dimensional Battlefield. He would sell the low quality items to the experts and novices.

Elise walked up to him and gave him a light hug. Junhyuk eyes widened, and she whispered in his ear, “I’ll return to Korea now.”

“Right.”

She let him go and added, “After I’ve finished the items, I’ll come back.”

“Give me a call.”

“The magitek information can’t be transferred to others. I learned about it just now. Transferring the information in my brain to others is an entirely different process. However, others can learn while I craft equipment.”

“Thanks.”

Elise shrugged and said, “They have great potential, so if I teach them, they’ll be of a.s.sistance to me.”

“Do look after them.”

Elise would work with Sungtae, Brita and Tirot combined, and her creative mind was beyond anyone else.

He said goodbye to her and lay on his bed. Junhyuk had been to the Dimensional Battlefield, and he was tired. His soul had done all the fighting, and although he had won easily, his soul was tired.

Junhyuk decided to sleep. It was time to rest.

—

It was Sat.u.r.day morning. He was looking at the people he had gathered.

“Many did not come back.”

Of the novices, five had fallen into comas. He was glad that all the experts had come back, but they were all tired. He understood what the experts were going through very well.

They had an extra life, but that was it. He knew how hard it was for them to stay alive with just one extra life. The experts seemed to be getting along with their heroes, which meant they wouldn’t die easily.

However, the novices were different. They only had a single life, and their powers weren’t great.

After finding all that out, Junhyuk had called Guardians. He frowned at the information and looked at the people on the screen.

“There are five in comas. Did you get my report?”

Eunseo nodded heavily.

“We checked. We found more novices, and they are heading to j.a.pan tomorrow morning.”

Junhyuk thought the situation was bad because there was no way to predict when more novices would die. He needed teams of experts.

He said, “Experts have higher chances of returning alive. We’ll need teams of experts instead of novices. Search for any experts hiding around the world,” and continued, “The delegates should work hard to locate those new experts. Even more novices might have turned up, so look into that too. I need at least two more teams of experts.”

The delegates nodded heavily. They knew some novices were missing, but they also knew more teams of experts were urgently needed.

Steve said, “I’ll look into it right away.”

“If I have enough teams of experts, training them lightly will be enough. After that, we’ll start attacking dimensional tears.”

His statement was a type of threat. If he didn’t get his teams, the tears would remain. The delegates all understood and frowned.

Junhyuk got up from his seat and said, “Hurry up.”