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Chapter 5: For a Peaceful Life (2)
“It’s been a while.”
Lee Jung-ho walked toward him.
An overwhelming pressure filled the air.
Most people couldn’t feel it, but those connected to spirits were different.
Just hearing her speak was enough to make them feel crushed.
“Greetings to the Contractor of the Fire Spirit King!”
Ban Jung-hoon bowed so deeply that he was almost touching the ground.
His trembling body revealed how frightened he was.
Anyone watching would think a slave was standing before a king.
Lee Shin gave a faint smirk before speaking.
“What brings you here, Chairwoman?”
Unlike Ban Jung-hoon, there wasn’t even a hint of fear on his face.
Lee Jung-ho smiled with satisfaction.
“It’s my grandson’s graduation. Of course I came.”
Although she smiled gently, her eyes were calculating.
The way she looked at him made Lee Shin frown.
She wasn’t looking at him like a person.
She was looking at him like a product.
It always left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Since when have you cared so much?”
Lee Shin answered with a mocking smile.
“That hurts.”
She didn’t look hurt at all.
Instead, she signaled to Secretary Kwon beside her.
“Congratulations on your graduation, Young Master Lee Shin.”
Secretary Kwon stepped forward and took a bouquet of flowers out of a storage space.
Lee Shin quietly looked at the bouquet.
Lee Jung-ho explained,
“They’re Spirit Flowers. They only grow in the Fire King’s domain.”
Is this another way of pressuring me?
Is she telling me I have to succeed in making a contract with the Spirit King?
Lee Shin’s eyes turned cold.
He lowered his head, hiding his expression.
For now, he was still under Lee Jung-ho’s authority.
There was no benefit in openly resisting.
Just as his father had pretended to obey while looking for a chance to escape the family, Lee Shin would do the same for now.
“Thank you for such a precious gift.”
He politely accepted the bouquet and bowed deeply.
Lee Jung-ho smiled.
It was the smile of someone completely confident that everything would go exactly as she planned.
***
The dungeon had appeared without warning.
Since many ordinary people had been inside, everyone expected heavy casualties.
“Wow! No deaths!”
“It’s all thanks to Eugene!”
The moment Eugene realized it was an underwater dungeon, he acted immediately.
Water was practically his home.
His first priority had been rescuing survivors.
Because of that, everyone survived.
“Jin, thank you so much.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Shin worked much harder.”
“Lee Shin?”
“He only cared about clearing the dungeon.”
“He ignored the rescue.”
“No.”
“Because Shin focused on clearing the dungeon so quickly, we were able to rescue everyone faster.”
As people praised and thanked him, Eugene waved his hands.
Others thought he was just being humble.
But he genuinely believed Lee Shin deserved the credit.
“Isn’t Shin amazing?”
“How can a Fire Spirit user perform so well inside a Water dungeon?”
Lee Shin had finished first in a water-element dungeon where even finding air was difficult.
Even High Rankers would struggle to accomplish that.
Normally, only someone contracted with the Spirit King could overcome such a huge elemental disadvantage.
Yet Lee Shin had achieved it before making a contract, using only the power borrowed from his family.
It was astonishing.
“Amazing isn’t the word.”
“I’m honestly tired just thinking about it.”
“Tired?”
Eugene tilted his head.
He could tell Sun Woo-yeon’s words weren’t praise.
“You know how suffocating it feels to stay inside an element that’s opposite to yours.”
Sun Woo-yeon also came from a Water Spirit family.
Unlike Eugene, his family served High-Rank Water Spirits instead of the Water Spirit King.
Although he wasn’t as talented, he understood elemental compatibility and spirit hierarchy better than almost anyone.
“I guess it would feel uncomfortable.”
“But enough to make you tired?”
Eugene couldn’t fully understand.
Sun Woo-yeon could.
He had once trained in a Fire field to improve his control over Water.
Eugene had been born with extraordinary affinity and control over water, enough to one day contract with the Water Spirit King.
Sun Woo-yeon wasn’t so gifted.
His affinity was decent.
His control wasn’t.
He had suffered through harsh training.
Lee Shin had probably done the same.
Since he had started training later than everyone else, he must have trained even harder.
That’s how he achieved these results.
“Imagine trying to move around inside lava.”
“How would that feel?”
Sun Woo-yeon used an example.
“Lava?”
“My energy would go completely wild.”
“It’d be hard to control.”
Inside an opposing element, spiritual energy became uncontrollable.
That uncontrollable energy attacked the Spirit Contractor.
It was even more painful than an enemy’s attack.
“Exactly.”
“That’s what Lee Shin experienced.”
“And he wasn’t just moving.”
“He was fighting monsters at the same time.”
“Wow!”
“That’s incredible!”
“That’s so like Shin!”
Eugene looked toward Lee Shin with shining eyes.
He didn’t seem to think of him as a rival at all.
He simply admired him.
Spirits were the purest beings in nature.
Because Eugene had such strong compatibility with spirits, he himself had remained pure.
He had protected that purity because it was necessary to contract with the Water Spirit King.
Sun Woo-yeon had often handled unpleasant matters behind the scenes for him.
Purity.
Justice.
Kindness.
Those were the qualities the Water Spirit King valued.
The Fire Spirit King seemed to prefer something different.
If Lee Shin contracts with the Fire Spirit King, the Fire Spirit family will dominate this generation.
To stop that…
I have to interfere somehow.
Sun Woo-yeon looked at Lee Shin.
Behind his glasses, his eyes turned cold.
His face looked gentle, inherited from his angel-like father.
But his gaze was completely ruthless.
***
The dungeon incident ended.
The graduation ceremony finally came to a close.
Thinking there was nothing left to do, Lee Shin ignored the reporters asking for interviews and got into the flying car.
“…Did you know a dungeon was going to appear?”
After hesitating for a while, Ban Jung-hoon finally asked.
Normally, Lee Shin would never touch a cheap Smart Glove.
Yet today he had brought one.
He had also run straight toward the place where the dungeon appeared.
It was suspicious.
Looking out the window, Lee Shin answered,
“I knew.”
“What?”
“How?”
“The flow felt strange.”
“The flow?”
“Don’t tell me your spiritual senses have become sharp enough to detect a dungeon before it forms?”
That couldn’t be possible.
Only a handful of High Rankers among the strongest Rankers could do that.
But it was the only excuse Lee Shin could give.
He simply remained silent.
Although he never answered directly, the calm expression on his face seemed to confirm it.
“I really backed the right person!”
Ban Jung-hoon couldn’t hide his excitement.
For Spirit Contractors, their master’s success was also their own.
If their master successfully contracted with the Spirit King, it was customary for loyal followers to be rewarded with contracts with lower-ranking spirits.
That was also the relationship between Lee Shin’s family and Ban Jung-hoon’s family.
Ban Jung-hoon’s family supported the person destined to become the next Spirit King’s contractor.
If that person succeeded, they would be rewarded with a contract with a Supreme Spirit.
Lee Shin glanced at Ban Jung-hoon and smiled.
“You definitely chose the right person.”
Because I’ll make a contract with a Divine Spirit.
In the webtoon, Ban Jung-hoon had only contracted with a Supreme Spirit.
But not anymore.
If he was going to serve someone contracted with a Divine Spirit, then a Supreme Spirit wasn’t enough.
He deserved at least a King-Class Spirit.
Unlike the webtoon, the game offered countless possibilities.
The story changed depending on the player’s choices and character growth.
Lee Shin intended to give Ban Jung-hoon a completely different future.
Someone had to manage the family after he took it over.
Only then could he enjoy a peaceful life with his younger sister.
Now then…
Which path should I choose?
He remembered the many strategies Jinwoo had used while reaching the final chapter.
Some of them focused on developing companions.
Ban Jung-hoon, Lee Shin’s closest ally, had many different growth paths.
Earth element…
If he also learns alchemy in the Sky City, the synergy will be excellent.
Jinwoo had tried many different builds for Ban Jung-hoon.
But that didn’t mean he had discovered every possibility.
There might be an even better path.
He would research it using Jinwoo’s memories.
Before that…
“Contact Canada.”
“Tell them I’ll be using the Legendary Gate that leads to the Spirit Realm.”
“What?!”
Making a contract with a Divine Spirit came first.
***
What in the world is he thinking?
Ban Jung-hoon simply couldn’t understand Lee Shin.
Earth was connected to five worlds:
The Heavenly Realm.
The Demon Realm.
The Spirit Realm.
The Immortal Realm.
And the Dragon Realm.
Each world had five gates ranked:
Normal.
Advanced.
Rare.
Hero.
Legendary.
To pass through a gate, your Soul Power had to match its rank.
Since Lee Shin’s Soul Power was 96, he qualified to enter a Legendary Gate.
Anything above 90 was considered Legendary rank.
But…
Entering is a completely different matter!
The energy around each gate matched the gate’s rank.
The natural energy surrounding a Legendary Spirit Realm Gate was among the densest in the entire Spirit Realm.
It was incredibly difficult for humans to endure.
Nature itself crushed them.
Before such power, humans were no more than ants.
Very few people even qualified to enter a Legendary Gate.
Fewer still possessed the strength to survive near it.
As a result, almost nothing was known about those places.
Simply entering one wouldn’t help anyone find the Spirit King.
“The path to the Spirit King is already known!”
“So why take such a dangerous route?!”
Thud.
Ban Jung-hoon slammed his forehead onto the desk.
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand Lee Shin.
Why ignore the easy path and choose the hardest one?
He almost wanted to open Lee Shin’s head just to see what he was thinking.
Was this why Father warned me not to follow Lee Shin?
A wolf doesn’t become a dog just because you put a leash on it. The moment that leash loosens, it’ll bite the family.
Well… Lee Shin really is extraordinary.
I don’t mean his talent. I mean that he’ll never let anyone tame him. That’s the real problem.
Back then, Ban Jung-hoon had ignored his father’s warning.
Once Lee Shin entered the family, he would have no choice but to obey the Spirit hierarchy.
At least, that’s what Ban Jung-hoon had believed.
Lee Shin’s father had escaped.
But Lee Shin couldn’t.
He had one weakness.
His younger sister.
Lee Rin.
She was ten years younger than him.
Her Soul Power was zero.
She couldn’t survive in the normal world.
Soul Power was the basic energy of this world.
Almost everything depended on it.
It was as essential as air.
A person with zero Soul Power simply couldn’t live in such an environment.
Even ordinary people with Soul Power between 1 and 9 often felt uncomfortable.
Lee Rin didn’t even have 1.
She couldn’t even breathe normally.
To survive, she needed a special environment where Soul Power was completely blocked.
Only a handful of organizations could create such a place.
Their mother, Ha Yeon, had worked at the National Research Institute and had protected Lee Rin for four years.
But after both parents died, that protection disappeared.
Nothing in the world was free.
To keep his sister alive, Lee Shin had to give up many things.
Far more than a young boy could bear.
After his parents’ deaths, he voluntarily returned to the family his father, Lee Ji-ho, had abandoned.
Lee Jung-ho’s family also possessed the ability to create such a protected space.
All he had to do was succeed in contracting with the Spirit King.
At the time, it had seemed like the best choice.
“If this goes wrong…”
“Won’t my future be ruined too?”
If Lee Shin failed, Ban Jung-hoon would fall with him.
Just as his own father had lost his position after following Lee Shin’s father.
“No.”
“Lee Shin always calculates everything.”
“He definitely has another plan.”
Ban Jung-hoon had known Lee Shin even before he joined the family.
Lee Shin’s father had fled to America.
There, Lee Shin had once been considered one of America’s brightest young talents.
The superhuman academies often exchanged students.
That was when Ban Jung-hoon first met him.
A genius who possessed Legendary-level Soul Power without making a contract with any transcendent being.
A talent that had attracted the interest of both the Sword Immortal of the Immortal Realm and the Great Archmage of the Dragon Realm.
An ambitious young man who valued efficiency and always achieved results quickly.
Someone like that would never give up on contracting with the Spirit King without a reason.
Unless…
He had another goal.
“Fine.”
“I’ll trust him.”
There was no turning back now.
Whether Lee Shin succeeded in becoming the Spirit King’s contractor or not…
He was still Ban Jung-hoon’s lord.
Having chosen to serve him, he would continue following him.
Whether Lee Shin inherited the family’s throne or not.
