Chapter 234 (1/2)

* * *

Su-hyeun was staring at the living room’s ceiling while lying on the couch.

Miru was huddled on the floor of this dim living room, illuminated by the faint orange light cast by a lamp above.

He kept recalling what Song Hyeong-gi told him earlier.

“One more thing, it’s not like there is no other way to accelerate this awakening period. What was it called—the dragon’s divine artifact? If you have that, then yeah, it’s possible.”

“Are you perhaps talking about the Cintamani?”

“Yeah. You know what it is?”

“Yes. Miru already has it and for a good while now.”

“Seriously? Hey, man. Can you lend me that for a bit? I wanna give it to my Yong for a little while.”

“No can do.”

“Really? It’s fine if you don’t want to. In any case, it’ll be possible with that item. The Cintamani does maximize a dragon’s abilities and accelerates its growth, after all. It also increases its lifespan.”

“But is it normal for the growth to be accelerated by this much?”

“What do you mean? Miru’s already so big, isn’t he? Well, it’s still not comparable to my Yong, though.”

In the end, Song Hyeong-gi started boasting about his own divine beast, Yong. Of course, Su-hyeun didn’t plan to criticize such doting and dumb father-like behavior, neither did he feel bad listening and playing along. No, his real concern had to do with what would come after the awakening period had lapsed.

“The awakening period is like when a dragon fully awakens its latent potential. It will be easier to understand if you look at it as a caterpillar’s process of morphing into a butterfly.”

“Miru isn’t going to shed its skin or something, right?”

“I was speaking figuratively, man. Honestly, I also don’t know the details since I’ve only heard about it. I can’t tell you what kind of transformation a dragon will go through after the awakening period.”

“Okay, then how long will Miru remain in this state?”

“Maybe around three days? Normally, a dragon going through an awakening period is protected by its parent, but Miru only has you now.”

While still lying on the couch, Su-hyeun picked up the red marble resting on top of the coffee table. It was the Cintamani, which was noticeably smaller than how it looked in the past.

“Even though this isn’t a candy, did Miru really melt and eat this thing?”

This so-called dragon’s divine artifact, the Cintamani, had significantly shrunk. Despite it ultimately being a good thing, he couldn’t help but worry as Miru was still too young to go through the awakening period.

Su-hyeun continued to watch over his dragon even at the expense of his sleep.

And so, three days went by, and then four.

On the fifth day, he ended up dozing off.

* * *

Lick—

He felt a familiar sensation on his cheek.

The first thing Su-hyeun realized was that he had fallen asleep. He wasn’t planning to, but it seemed that forcing himself awake for too long was to blame.

He snapped his eyes open and looked around him.

Gya-ong—

He spotted Miru’s face. It was slightly bigger than before but only slightly.

Meaning, the change wasn’t big.

“You’re awake.”

Of course, he wasn’t complaining. From the very beginning, he thought that Miru waking up without suffering from any problems would be good enough for him, anyway. What he wished for was that nothing bad would happen to his dragon.

Su-hyeun finally sighed in relief and reached out. Miru growled and formed a content expression when he rubbed its head.

“Do you feel better?”

Gya-ong—

“In that case, it’s all good.”

Gya-ong—!

Miru replied energetically.

Before it fell asleep, it sweated profusely from all over its body. But now, the red dragon seemed positively overflowing with energy.

I can’t tell what has changed about it, though.

Despite having gone through an awakening, Miru didn’t display any hints of what had changed about it, at least on the outside. Its cries sounded the same, and its built had increased by only a tiny bit. That was it.

There was no immediate way to confirm the dragon’s magical energy. He had no method of estimating Miru’s total reserve without it spitting out a Breath or something.

“Hey, take this.”

Su-hyeun pushed forward the Cintamani, which he held onto despite falling asleep himself. Miru bit the red marble again, swallowed it, and formed a rather pleased expression.

“Do you really see that as candy or something?”

Su-hyeun lightly rubbed Miru’s head and checked his phone resting on the table. Its battery had run flat, so he left it plugged on the charger. The power light was blinking, perhaps to inform him that a text was waiting for his attention.

– Remember this year’s Ranking Wars scheduled for December? You won’t be too busy since you’ll only start during the main matches, but I thought that I should remind you at least.

The text came from Lee Ju-ho.

It was October, so about two months were left before this year’s Ranking Wars got underway.

It was the stage of the stars where the S-Ranks from all over the world, as well as the rankers from the previous tournament, would compete.

As he was supposed to go straight into the main matches, he didn’t need to waste too much of his time. As long as no “special circumstances” would happen like the last time, he figured one or two days should be sufficient for the tournament.

This year is going to be bursting at the seams with all the participants.

The number of awakeners continued to shoot up every day.

As a matter of fact, the overall number of newly awakened low-ranking awakeners was so much greater than the records from several years ago, and as for the S-Ranks’ number, it was 1.5 times higher than last year.

This rate of growth was far steeper than what Su-hyeun remembered. As such, this year’s Ranking Wars should be rather crowded compared with last year.

Didn’t someone say that Mister Gordon’s been chomping at the bit?

It shouldn’t be just Gordon Rohan, though. Hak-joon should’ve reached the 100th floor by now.

As long as he could make it out of there alive, he might get to smash past that wall, just like what he said earlier.

As for Thomas… I also haven’t seen him in a while.

Thomas’s talent was the best among everyone Su-hyeun knew.

Back when he was still Kim Sung-in, Thomas was a problem child that caused all kinds of headaches. No one could control him, and he often caused serious issues. As he wasn’t in full control of his “darkened world,” he even ended up driving countless people to their death.

However, the story was different in this lifetime.

Thomas’ talents had been set upon in a new direction, and now, he was striding toward a brighter future.

Two months, huh.

It wasn’t all that long. However, one couldn’t say that it was extremely short either.

Su-hyeun’s gaze drifted toward the second text Lee Ju-ho had sent him.

– Oh, by the way. I heard something pretty amazing will be put up as the prize for the winner of this year’s Ranking Wars. I’ll tell you the details later on cuz even I don’t know it yet.

The victory prize.

This was different from the last time when Gordon Rohan simply put up some money as a reward. It could be that a wealthy elite interested in this massive event called the Ranking Wars decided to put up a prize.

Su-hyeun was never all that interested in the money, to begin with, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t curious about what this prize could potentially be.

If the prize is that thing I’m thinking of…

If the victory prize was that very item given out during one of the Ranking Wars back in his past life…