One Man Army

Sanghyuk’s herb gathering gradually sped up and the result was more gold than he had planned to earn. However, there wasn’t actually any gold remaining in Sanghyuk’s hand.

Sanghyuk bought items from the auction as soon as he got some gold…… and the item that he was stocking up for months was called the ‘Sealed Crystals’.

At the current point in time, Sealed Crystals were referred to as trash gacha.

This couldn’t be helped since the items within the Sealed Crystals were mostly items that weren’t used by users or other miscellaneous items.

Sometimes, an enhancement stone would pop out, but not only was the probability low, enhancement stones just with no descriptive word attached to it wasn’t that expensive either, so no one tried to acquire enhancement stones by cracking Sealed Crystals.

Since this was the case, Sealed Crystals overflowed within the auction. The drop rate of the Sealed Crystals themselves weren’t that high so the rate of acquisition wasn’t high, but the problem was that there was no consumption at all.

Sanghyuk bought as many Sealed Crystals as possible while controlling the market price. There were many users who specialized in buying items off the auction and re-selling them again, so it wouldn’t do him good to make anyone notice that he was buying up those Sealed Crystals.

The auction merchants had ridiculously high wits so once it was found out that he was stocking up, the prices of Sealed Crystals may rise exponentially.

Sanghyuk was gathering the Sealed Crystals while being careful not to get found out as much as possible.

The reason he was gathering these Sealed Crystals…… was because of one of the big changes that occurred in the 4th large-scale patch.

The upgrade of Sealed Crystals that made all users shocked and complain to the developers…… in fact, the contents were simple, but the ripples from just one line of that patch was enormous.

‘In the future, you may acquire blessed enhancement stones in the Sealed Crystals at a low probability.’

Although not exact, it was something along those lines. Sanghyuk played Sword and Magic after the 4th patch, so he had only heard them as myths in the community forums, so he didn’t know the exact line.

However, what was important was that blessed enhancement stones would appear from the Sealed Crystals after the patch. Since the Sealed Crystals acquired before the patch would have the same probability, the users complained even more, saying that the developers didn’t know about games at all.

Blessed enhancement stones were in a completely different league to normal enhancement stones. Blessed enhancement stones were extremely expensive, to the point that they were mostly traded using real cash.

For comparison, normal enhancement stones were worth around 20 thousand won (20 USD) at best, and blessed enhancement stones went for over 2 million (2,000 USD). They weren’t something to be compared.

Also, although the patch updates said ‘low probability’, the users who immediately cracked open the Sealed Crystals after the patch got around 1 blessed enhancement stone for every 10 Sealed Crystals they opened, and in just one hour, the developers patched so that only 1 will appear every 100 Crystals. This was quite a trustworthy information as well.

Of course, Sanghyuk hadn’t experienced this for himself so he didn’t know the truth about it. However, even if 1 appeared in every 100 Sealed Crystals, it would profit him to gather those Sealed Crystals right now.

Right now, the real cash value of the Sealed Crystals was around 5 thousand won (5 USD).

So, even if he bought 100 and acquired 1 blessed enhancement stone, he could only profit.

This was why it would be a huge jackpot if the probability was 1 in 10 like the rumors were true, and still a plenty of a jackpot even if it wasn’t.

Sanghyuk’s objective was to acquire more than 3,000 of these crystals. Of course, this wouldn’t be easy, but he dug the herbs on the cliffs like mad precisely for that purpose.

***

Time flowed quickly and the year had passed and now it was into autumn.

September 11th, 2027.

The 4th large-scale patch of Sword and Magic, ‘Boloyanne’s Descent’ had finally arrived.

Sanghyuk had already prepared to log in as soon as the patch was over.

The number of Sealed Crystals he had stocked up during the past 7 months was a whopping 3,116.

If he really could acquire one blessed enhancement stone for every 10 crystals, then he would be able to acquire more than 300 with just a simple calculation, and they would cost around a whopping 600 million won (600 thousand USD).

Of course, he didn’t feel that there would be so many, but he was expecting at least in the tens of millions.

Sanghyuk logged into the game as soon as the patch ended. Since he had logged out in front of the warehouse before the patch, he could start cracking the crystals immediately.

After he opened around a few hundred, he realized that the rumors weren’t 100% true. However, they weren’t completely wrong either

He could get around one blessed enhancement stone in every 40 Sealed Crystals, when it was supposed to be 1 in 100. It seemed that It seems like people had slightly exaggerated a little when they said 1 in 10.

In any case, Sanghyuk opened all 3,116 Sealed Crystals in his possession in a flash, and he could acquire 74 blessed enhancement stones.

Although the difference was slightly big, 74 blessed enhancement stones would get him 150 million won, and around 130 million won after fees. This was an enormous sum for a high schooler who had no technical prowess to speak of.

In the first place, Sanghyuk was planning to earn enough money to become independent from the orphanage, so he could stay satisfied with this much.

“I was going to end it here anyway so let’s finish up.”

Sanghyuk did not grab onto Sword and Magic anymore. Right now, it was better to prepare to meet EL.

In 6 months, his long-awaited EL would officially start service. If he kept playing Sword and Magic for these 6 months, he might be able to get some monetary profit, but Sanghyuk thought that he had to prioritize making a body and mind that could focus on EL.

Since he had set his mind, he cleaned up everything in just a few days. Once he sold everything he could, there was exactly 137 million 400 thousand won in his bank.

This was an enormous sum for someone who had just 6 digits in his bank account just a while back. If Sanghyuk was an ordinary high school boy, then he might have splurged his money in excitement.

However, he was no ordinary high school boy, so he acted as calm and indifferent as always. This wasn’t a good time to act showy.

‘I don’t remember the exact date, but it was definitely at the end of November. So let’s live like I did until then.’

The event he was waiting for was the visit of the trash that put him through the depths of despair.

***

Having finished Sword and Magic completely, he even sold the VR headset he had as well. Since VR capsules would be released along with the release of EL, it was better to sell the old devices before their prices decreased.

Now that he had cleaned up everything, Sanghyuk suddenly started to learn meditation. In a paper he read when he was a director of Team SKY, there was a line that said that VRA values were higher for people who had toned their mind through periodic meditation.

In other words, meditation would help in raising the VRA value. Of course, Sanghyuk’s VRA value was nearing the extreme limits, but he did not let his guard down despite that.

Since he had experienced the fact that VRA value may drop due to various reasons with his body, he could only put a lot of mind into managing his VRA value.

Not only did Sanghyuk learn meditation, but he also started Kendo. Of course, he wasn’t learning Kendo in order to use the techniques used in Kendo in games as well.

Learning Kendo in real life might sound like it would help in virtual reality games, but reality and virtual reality wasn’t linked so simply.

A low VRA may result in not being able to swing a sword properly in virtual reality even when having learned Kendo in real life. In reverse, people with no athletic talent in real life may show exceptional motor abilities in virtual reality if they had a high VRA value.

VRA wasn’t called the new type of talent for nothing.

The reason Sanghyuk was learning Kendo was not because he wanted to learn how to wield the sword, but learning to calm the state of mind and keep his body healthy.

In his directing days, he had seen countless professional gamers who were obsessed with games to the point that their body degraded so much that they couldn’t even access virtual reality anymore.

This was why he always said that professional gamers had to have a healthy body. Sanghyuk was training his body calmly through Kendo for such a reason.

Time flowed quickly yet again.

And…… November 27th 2027.

The two devilish men that he would never be able to forget appeared in front of him again.

‘Park Sangchul, Kim Daeshik.’

Sanghyuk even remembered their names clearly.

He gritted his teeth subconsciously the moment he saw those two. However, he could only endure it for now.

‘I’ll endure for now, but…… I will never stay still.’

He had the urge to call the police and immediately hand them over, but the problem was that they periodically moved residences and operated their workshops there, so even if he did want to call the police, he couldn’t since he didn’t know where their workshop was.

And considering how they easily escaped the police with the power of money in his past life, calling the police definitely wasn’t a good idea.

‘I will…… thoroughly trample on you after I take the most important things you have…… in my own way. That will be my revenge.’

This was why Sanghyuk was planning to enact justice on them in his own way and without the help from the police. It would take some time for that to happen, but he could endure that much.

Park Sangchul and Kim Daeshik tempted the children with their fluent speaking skills. Then, they immediately started the VRA test…… and unfortunately the others had desperately tried to get a higher VRA like it was in his past life.

Sanghyuk really had the urge to reveal the true identities of the two men and stop the others from following them. However, he couldn’t do that. Even the orphanage management personnel were in cahoots with these men so riling them up may put him in a worse situation.

Decisively, the probability of the others believing in him was very low. Sanghyuk was someone who originally lived in Uijeongbu orphanage and was transferred to here after that one closed down just one year ago, so he had no close friends here.

In the first place, Sanghyuk’s personality wasn’t a friendly one, so he became more and more isolated, and at this point in time, there was nothing he could do to stop them.

Sanghyuk closed his eyes and calmed his mind with meditation. And when it was his turn, he put the VR headset on his head.