Junhyuk was back in the sp.a.w.n room. Now, he wanted to collect his winnings and bet on the Champions’ Battlefield.

He turned to Ariel, and she smiled and said, [Congratulations on your victory! Your victory reward is 200,000G.]

After inspecting his equipment, he asked, “OK. By the way, I have a question. Has Elise’s team been formed?”

[Yes. It has been formed. Another dimension gained a champion, so Elise has a team now.]

She would go to the Champions’ Battlefield, and Junhyuk was sure that she’d win easily. Elise could fight two champions by herself. Her weapon’s attack stat was very high, and it honestly felt like Elise was breaking all the rules when it came to gear.

Junhyuk thought for a moment. He hadn’t bought any items this time, which meant he had a lot of gold in hand.

“What’s the return for betting on Elise’s team?”

[Her team is new, so the return is very high. Right now, the odds are five to one, so you’ll get five times what you bet. However, that may change by the day of the actual battle.]

“Is the battle next week?”

[Correct.]

Junhyuk trusted Elise implicitly. She would definitely craft more gear within that week, so Junhyuk wanted to bet half of everything he had on her.

He hadn’t had a chance to sell the items he had picked up, so even if he lost the gold he was betting, he could get back to what he had.

“I’ll bet 500,000G.”

[500,000G?!]

“Is that a problem?”

[Oh, no! It’s possible. Your bet of 500,000G on Elise’s team has been received.]

Junhyuk smiled and said, “OK. Take me home.”

[Yes. I’ll see you next week in the spectating room.]

He nodded while the bright light covered his line of sight. Junhyuk slowly opened his eyes and saw Sarang sitting up on the bed. She combed her hair with her fingers and smiled.

“We’ve won again.”

He nodded and replied, “It was difficult, but we did.”

“Whew! Things are getting tougher.”

Junhyuk thought he had outstanding items. They had all cost him a lot, and he had two legendary sets active: the Vampire Lord set and the Pure Golden Knight set. Even then, the enemy team had not been easy to defeat.

Aside from having expensive weapons, they probably had expensive gear as well.

“We might not be able to visit Bebe for a while because of them.”

Junhyuk hadn’t had time to see the merchant. If he had wasted time doing that, the allies could’ve lost. They had to gain a sizeable advantage if their goal was to visit Bebe.

Ronga, Yagi and Garu’s combined attacks made him furious. Garu, who had the power to make him useless, even more so.

“Garu’s ultimate is definitely an ultimate. I died one too many times without being able to do anything.”

Whenever Garu taunted, he received barely any damage from other sources. That way, the enemy hero could kill at least one allied hero by himself.

Junhyuk wished he had a bit more defense, but as he was now, Garu could kill him if he taunted.

Elise was still sleeping, and looking at her, Junhyuk said, “It would be nice if Elise’s nullification field could distinguish between allies and foes.”

Her nullification field was a high-ranking power. She could even negate his force field with it. But, her power affected everyone, so the allies couldn’t make use of it constantly.

Looking at Sarang, he asked, “Did you hear about Elise’s new team?”

“Yes, I have. Once I heard about it, I went all in.”

“All in!?”

Sarang smiled and said, “Elise will win. She has her gear.”

“How did Bebe price your weapons?” he asked.

Sarang pulled out her orb and said, “Mine is 1,500,000G, so Bebe was willing to pay 750,000G for it. Elise’s weapon was 1,800,000, and Bebe wanted to give her 900,000G for it.”

“Refurbishing cores is expensive, so it’s nice that the weapons are highly priced as well.”

With a few more weapons, Junhyuk would have an astronomical amount of gold.

“Bebe won’t buy more than five of them.”

“Why?”

“It’s a matter of scarcity.”

“Huh?!”

Elise’s weapons dealt a lot of damage, so they had to be rare. Even his enemies might get their hands on her weapons if there were many of them. Not many would be able to afford the 1,800,000G price tag, but the weapons were worth it.

If too many of them flooded the market, his enemies, current and future, would get stronger.

However, five still meant 4,500,000G. If Elise and Junhyuk gained that and split the gold between each other, Junhyuk would still have enough to get a legendary item.

Elise was smiling while sleeping.

“She is humanity’s jewel.”

“I agree.”

Sarang covered her with a blanket and stared at him, asking, “Did you peep on her while she slept last time?”

Junhyuk teleported next to Sarang and slapped her forehead. The impact made a loud noise, and rubbing her forehead after, Sarang muttered, “What the heck?! Not even the school treated me like this.”

“If a teacher smacked you, you would’ve called the police.” He rubbed her forehead for her and added, “Stay here until she wakes up. Tell her about the Champions’ Battlefield.”

“Sure.”

“Be detailed about everything that will help her.”

“I went all in. I’ll make sure she wins.”

“OK. I’m heading out.”

Junhyuk knew one other champion from Elise’s team, Aditya. He wanted to give Aditya some advice so that the two would be victorious.

—

Friday ended, and Junhyuk looked for a report on newly-powered people. Instead, however, he received a report on those who hadn’t woken up: seven novices and two experts.

They had all died in the Dimensional Battlefield. Even though experts had an extra life, two of them were dead, which meant that the heroes weren’t looking out for them.

Junhyuk gave a tribute to the family of the dead. The powered people that joined Guardians had to partic.i.p.ate in the protection of Earth, and for that, he made sure the families of the deceased were taken care of.

Junhyuk went to see Elise after that. She had heard all about the Champions’ Battlefield from Sarang, so she was in the process of crafting gear for it. At the same time, she was running research on the wyverns.

Elise was discussing the wyverns with the heads of the research teams when she saw him and waved.

“Wait a moment,” she said.

Once she finished her meeting, she turned to him and said, “I’ve made a new decomposition compound for the wyverns. We’ll ma.s.s produce it. It’s better than the previous compound, so there won’t be any need to worry about marketing.”

All countries would buy the new decomposition liquid to deal with potential wyvern attacks, but Junhyuk wasn’t interested in the money.

“It’s good that we have a way to fight them now.”

“Right.” After looking around, Elise said, “I’m done with the wyvern research, so I’ll craft more Red Dragon gear.”

“OK. Try making another item for the set.”

“Sure!”

Without even considering the gold, her items were of immense help to her. She had two items from the Red Dragon set now, and she would become a lot stronger with more of them.

“You should get to know Aditya. He’ll be your ally in the battlefield, and it’ll help you to have more info on him.”

“I will, but first, I have to craft the new item.”

Elise didn’t have a new recipe to help her, and Junhyuk couldn’t begin to guess at how hard it was to come up with one of her own.

“If I have more time, I’ll make another core weapon. Bebe said he’ll buy up to five.” She smacked her lips and added, “Even with refurbish cores, the success rate for crafting them isn’t high.”

Considering the cost of refurbishing a core, even if she crafted a new weapon, she wouldn’t make much gold from it.

Junhyuk smacked his lips and said, “Too bad.”

“The core is really expensive,” she concluded with a shrug.

They had a lot of crafting materials now from killing the dragon, but refurbishing costs were high.

She looked at him and asked, “Can I show you something fun?”

Sometimes, Elise showed him things that were unrelated to what they talked about. He looked at her, and she summoned Zaira. The gynoid’s body was originally covered in the Chinese dragon’s scales and shone jade, but this time, Zaira was shining bright red.

“Did you craft her a new sh.e.l.l?”

“What do you think? Pretty?”

He didn’t care about how pretty it was, but the sh.e.l.l had definitely increased in strength.

“Her weapons?”

“I’ve equipped her with the new decomposition compound.” Elise said. Then, she added with a smile, “But Zaira’s weaponry is the best. When I return her, her weapons are remodeled to fit her overall power.”

“Really?!”

“She’s considered a power, so I can’t use her constantly, but I like the fact that her weapons upgrade.”

“That’s nice.”

She whispered in his ear then, “This is a secret, but I’m making another sh.e.l.l. I’ll load Ganesha as the AI for it.”

“You are building Ganesha?!”

“Ganesha will be strong. It won’t be judged as a power, and you’ll be able to use it on Earth.”

Ganesha would be better than the iron soldiers.

“I want to see it when it’s ready. I’m sure it’ll be very cool.”

“The project is already underway. You’ll be able to see it this Thursday at the latest.” Elise had made a gynoid already, so she wasn’t nervous about it. She added, “I’ll give it to you.”

“Thanks.”

Junhyuk had been jealous of Jeffrey’s and Elise’s summoning powers. Since Ganesha would be crafted from dragon scales, it would be able to fight monsters.

“Expect great things,” she said and winked at him.

Junhyuk smiled at her in return.