Chapter 34

The enhancement lab.

If the synthesis lab was where you ground up summons, the enhancement lab was where you ground up runes.

[Welcome to the Enhancement Lab!]

[Try enhancing or polishing your runes!]

The exterior looked similar to the synthesis lab.

An entire building near the Tower of Trials served as the enhancement lab, and it was also managed by headquarters.

After waiting his turn and entering a room, Baek Jinwoo slotted the Lightspeed rune into the main slot.

I’ve got plenty of materials.

All that grinding through Day Dungeons had left him with a pile of junk runes he’d set aside — the ones with such garbage options they wouldn’t even sell.

And I need rune enhancement materials anyway.

Baek Jinwoo dumped every last junk rune into the material slots.

Until it hit level 10.

Fortunately, he had more than enough.

[Would you like to enhance?]

“Okay.”

Light burst from the main slot, flashing brilliantly as the enhancement began.

[Level 2!]

[INT +12% → INT +24%]

[Level 3!]

[AGI +12% → AGI +24%]

[Level 4!]

[INT +24% → INT +36%]

[Level 5!]

[AGI +24% → AGI +36%]

For reference, the maximum stat gain per upgrade for stats like Strength, INT, VIT, and AGI was 12%, while the minimum was 4%.

Normally, enhancement would randomly assign anything between 4% and 12%.

But since this was a Rare rune, every single upgrade rolled the maximum.

And on top of that, it hadn’t even touched the flat INT or flat AGI values.

Yes, yes!

An enhancement that felt good just watching it.

[Level 6!]

[INT +36% → INT +48%]

[Level 7!]

[AGI +36% → AGI +48%]

[Level 8!]

[INT +48% → INT +60%]

[Level 9!]

[AGI +48% → AGI +60%]

[Level Max!]

[INT +60% → INT +72%]

[Enhancement has reached its maximum!]

“Oh yeah.”

Maximum rolls all the way to the end.

Having finished enhancing the rune, Baek Jinwoo pulled up its information.

[Rune]

[Rank: Supreme-grade (Rare)]

• Limited to 100 worldwide.

[Set Effect: Lightspeed]

• Equipping 6 increases attack speed by 300%.

• If the summon uses a staff, attack speed increases by an additional 200%.

[Level: Max]

[Stat Increase]

INT +72%, INT +30, AGI +60%, AGI +30

“Wow……”

An absolutely insane, monstrous rune had been born — something you couldn’t find anywhere else.

What kind of performance would Ramba show with six of these equipped?

Just thinking about it put a smile on his face.

Of course, this wasn’t the end.

Time to apply the abrasives.

Normally, to polish that ‘INT +72%’?

You’d need a ‘supreme-grade INT% abrasive.’

You’d have to grind the supreme-grade Tuesday dungeon over and over to get abrasives, then apply them endlessly until maximum values appeared.

But with Universal Abrasives?

You could just slap them on, and a single application guaranteed maximum values.

Baek Jinwoo placed four Universal Abrasives into the material slots.

[Would you like to polish?]

And he polished every single option.

The result:

INT +84%, INT +60, AGI +72%, AGI +60

The ultimate endgame piece, with every option pushed to the absolute limit.

There was no better rune for Ramba that could be crafted or obtained.

Baek Jinwoo continued working on the remaining two runes.

The result was three graduation runes, and he left the enhancement lab in high spirits.

The moment he arrived at the open lot.

“Ramba.”

— Jinwooooo! You’re back? Cream buuuuuns!

Exhausted from Drill Sarge’s repetitive training, Ramba came flying over with desperate eyes.

“Of course I bought some. But first, try equipping these.”

Baek Jinwoo removed the three Swift runes and equipped the three Lightspeed runes.

— W-whoa! What is this?

Ramba jolted in surprise.

— My body feels SO much lighter!

Spin, spin!

Ramba’s speed as she zipped through the air was considerably fast.

AGI boosted not only attack speed but movement speed as well.

“Try swinging your staff.”

— Okay!

Fwing fwing fwing fwing fwing fwing fwing fwing!

— Eeek, eeehee! It’s crazy fast! This is INSANE!

No kidding — it was incredible.

With only three equipped, she wasn’t even receiving the set effect, and yet she was already at that level……

What happens when they get the remaining three?

Stacks would pile up like crazy from the very start.

Drill Sarge, who’d be receiving those stacks, was going to lose his mind.

Ramba’s Wind Pressure!

For reference, there was actually a different summon meant to receive that Wind Pressure.

The formerly A-rank ‘Aso.’

Until he obtained that one, Drill Sarge would be the one receiving the stacks.

Once they had Aso?

Drill Sarge would serve purely as a Drill Instructor, just as the name implied.

Because Aso was that ridiculously broken of a character.

Of course.

That didn’t mean Drill Sarge was weak.

Though he served as the training instructor within Baek Jinwoo’s party, out in the field, Drill Sarge was strong enough to tear through everything solo.

— Jinwoo! At this point, it kinda feels like the old days!

For reference, during the Battle of Summoners era, Ramba’s runes hadn’t been pushed to their absolute limits.

Their time together had been short, and it was still the very early days of the game.

“We’ve still got a long way to go. Just wait a little, and you’ll get even faster.”

— Huh?! Even faster than THIS? Can I even handle that?

“Handle it?”

He glanced over.

Baek Jinwoo’s eyes drifted toward Drill Sarge.

Sure enough.

The creature was wearing a sinister grin.

Spotting that smile, Ramba let out a nervous laugh, cold sweat trickling down.

— Ha, hahah! I can handle it, sure…… Right. It’d be weird if I couldn’t…… Hrnnng.

Baek Jinwoo chuckled and ruffled the pouting Ramba’s head.

That girl.

Suffer a bit for now.

Once everything’s settled later, it’ll ease up.

Late at night.

A logistics warehouse.

Baek Jinwoo’s father, Baek Jincheol, sat there cracking jokes with a same-age friend he’d gotten close to.

He’d come out to do package loading and unloading again today.

But Baek Jincheol didn’t do the physical labor here.

The golem handles everything — why would I?

The B-rank Diamond Golem that Yu Jia had gifted him!

Its performance was extraordinary.

Far faster than his old golem, yet also stronger and more precise.

It could handle the work of nearly fifty laborers on its own, swiftly and accurately.

Thanks to that, he’d already reached an agreement with the delivery company to raise his fee.

“Hey, there’s something I’ve been curious about for a while.”

Baek Jincheol’s friend, Park Jeonghun, asked.

“What?”

“A guy with a flashy summon like that — why the hell is he doing package loading?”

“Then what?”

“Obviously you should be working as a player, or sell it! Especially that Diamond Golem. You have no idea how badly every construction site wants one of those.”

“……Honestly, I didn’t know.”

“What?”

Park Jeonghun was dumbfounded.

A player who didn’t know the value of his own summon?

“I got it as a gift. Someone gave it to me out of genuine kindness — how could I turn around and sell it? The Pebble Golem I had before was worse, so I’ve just been happily using this one.”

Baek Jincheol thought highly of Yu Jia.

Despite being the granddaughter of a chaebol family, she wasn’t prickly at all — she was warm. She never looked down on commoners like them, and she even spoke to them with the utmost respect.

Someone like that had shown him kindness, and he was supposed to just ignore it and sell the gift?

Absolutely not.

So he’d never even looked into it.

“You lunatic. You’re telling me you’ve been using a billion-won summon for THIS?”

“Huh?”

Baek Jincheol’s eyes went wide.

Wait. Hold on.

What did he just say?

“A billion won?”

“Don’t tell me……”

Park Jeonghun squinted at Baek Jincheol with a strange look.

“You’ve been using it without even knowing how much your summon is worth?”

“Uh……”

A billion won?

Baek Jincheol’s mind went completely blank.

Everything he’d believed came crashing down in an instant.

For an ordinary person, a billion won was that kind of money.

Enough to replace that run-down house, enough to give his family a more comfortable life.

You’re saying I shouldn’t sell a gift?

Of course I should sell it!

A billion won changes EVERYTHING!

And honestly, what someone does with a gift they’ve received is entirely up to the person who received it.

“W-wait, hold on a second.”

Unable to contain himself, Baek Jincheol pulled out his phone and searched.

— Diamond Golem.

— A construction-specialized summon, one of the most sought-after summons by every construction company.

— With no units on the market, prices continue to skyrocket.

— Average market price: 1 billion won.

She gifted me something this valuable?

Chaebol or not.

Someone could be that generous?

Baek Jincheol, who’d never paid much attention to what Yu Jia had given Hwang Myeonghui, found himself absolutely floored.

“And another thing I’m curious about.”

Park Jeonghun threw out one more question.

“Who the hell gives a gift like that? Seriously, who? What, are they some kind of chaebol or something?”

Baek Jincheol flinched.

Park Jeonghun, this guy.

Pretty sharp instincts.

“Nah, no way. If you had chaebol connections, why would you be loading packages? It was probably some sucker like you who didn’t bother checking and just handed it over as a gift.”

Ah.

Sharp, my ass.

“Hey, hey. Forget it.”

Baek Jincheol shook his head and spoke.

“I think today’s gonna be my last day on the job.”

“Oh, you’re selling it? Good call, man. Smart move.”

Baek Jincheol and Park Jeonghun had actually grown quite close.

They hadn’t known each other long, but it had been a while since Baek Jincheol had felt this kind of closeness with anyone.

More than anything.

When his son, Baek Jinwoo, had been sick.

Park Jeonghun had pressed a million won into his hands, telling him to put it toward the hospital bills. That had moved him deeply.

That was exactly why he let the man use the Diamond Golem and take breaks alongside him.

“Jeonghun.”

“You said you used to fry chicken, right?”

“What’s there to say? I was pretty damn good. Graduated from Chicken University with a doctorate, even.”

“Cut the crap.”

“Was it at least a little funny, though?”

A small grin crept across Baek Jincheol’s face.

The man talked like that, but there was a time when his passion for chicken had been fierce.

He could do blind taste tests and nail every single chicken brand, and he had an uncanny ability to pick out every ingredient in the recipe. A genuinely remarkable guy.

What circumstances had led him to loading packages, Baek Jincheol didn’t know, but……

Yeah.

Us getting close must be your lucky break too.

Baek Jincheol had always harbored a dream.

A simple dream — frying chicken at a modest neighborhood shop, living a quiet, cozy life together with his family.

With a billion won?

More than doable.

With a loan on top of it, he could even go bigger.

“How much are you making right now?”

“Two hundred thousand a day.”

For reference, Baek Jincheol was currently earning four hundred thousand per day.

It had gone up recently, but compared to the value of having a Diamond Golem, he was getting absolutely fleeced.

Still, thanks to all his hard work, he’d managed to save up a decent amount.

“Wanna fry some chicken with me?”

“Wait, you mean with the money from selling that thing?”

“Yep.”

“Damn……”

Park Jeonghun considered it.

His friend had always kept a bright face, but the light in his eyes had been dead. Now, he could see that light gradually coming back to life.

“You really mean it?”

“But I’m not planning to half-ass it. Before we open, I’m going to do a ton of research. No franchise — we do everything from scratch.”

“Ooh, research means we’ll be eating a LOT of chicken, right?”

“I’d imagine so.”

“I’m in. Absolutely in. Thanks, man. For making the offer.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I should be thanking you.

Thanks to my one and only son, I get to enjoy something like this.

And I’m grateful to that young lady, Yu Jia, too.

Daesung Group is the best!

Baek Jincheol made a silent vow.

From now on, every home appliance he bought would be Daesung and nothing but Daesung.