A soft-spoken man in a suit, flipping through his cell phone, Jung-bin, a civil servant, sat cross-legged on the floor of the great hall, watching a dirt-floor demonstration by the world's only S-rank producer.

"I want that mana stone!"

"Mm- Hong Ye-sung didn't see anything."

"Aaaaah, I want that one."

Flailing his limbs on the floor, he looked like a kid in the toy section of a supermarket. Jung-bin raised his hand, and an Awakening Management Bureau employee standing at the entrance to the hanok walked over and bowed. Jung-bin whispered softly.

"Since when did Jiangyin Village have such good Wi-Fi, Yesung-ssi, didn't you disconnect it when you moved in this time?"

"Of course I did, but... Le Sayoung-ssi said he had the communication lines and Wi-Fi wired for me, and in return, he entrusted me with making gloves."

"Oh, he's really not helpful. I'll just hang up as soon as I'm done here."

"Yes, I understand, and I'm guessing that you probably got this information from the ranked chat. The gem was all over the channels."

"I'm asking you all to cooperate, it's unethical anyway."

Even as Jung-bin clicked his tongue and gave a short sigh, Hong Ye-sung repeated the same words like a broken recorder.

"I want to go to Seoul. Give me the mana stone."

"You are the one who asked to be imprisoned in Jirisan. Sir, you can't leave until you finish your weapons."

The man dressed in white rolled around in the dirt. It was Hong Ye-sung, the seventh and only S-rank producer in South Korea.

Six years ago, a gate opened in the middle of the Korean National University of Arts campus. It was evening, so there weren't many students on campus, but the problem was a group of fourth-year art students stuck in the studio preparing for their final project. They were at a crossroads.

Failure or life?

Most, of course, chose life. They were too young and too wronged to die that way. The Gate was a natural disaster, and the professor would have to give them extenuating circumstances! The students grabbed hammers and saws and hid in the corners as best they could.

But there was only one. Hong Ye-sung, a fourth-year ceramics student.

He sat in his workshop whether the gate was open or not. Even as the monsters crawled out of the gate, climbed up the outside walls of the building, smashed through the windows, and entered the workshop, Ye-sung was still making pottery.

And then he woke up. To an S-rank producer.

The government kept his awakening episode secret at first. The moment it was announced that this humble college student had awakened as an S-rank producer after opening gates and monsters and making pottery, there would be a lot of Hongye Castle wannabes who would stretch out and not evacuate when the gates burst. It was a story that had to be sealed for the safety of the people.

After all, Hong Ye-sung, who was the top product of the ceramics department and was responsible for increasing the enrollment of ceramics students throughout the country, was the first S-rank producer to appear in the world after the day of the rift. Not only that, but he also had an extraordinary attribute.

[Talent: Deadline Finisher (L)
Your work will become more efficient and faster as the deadline approaches.
(If you finish crafting while this talent is active, you will receive an additional 50% quality increase.)]

The government and its officials burst into applause when they saw Hong Ye-sung's awakening data. They're a rare S-rank producer with L-class characteristics, and he's the kind of talent that will make Korea's hunters much more competitive in the future.

However, the moment his existence and characteristics became known to the world, overseas headhunters rushed to Korea to recruit him. The more countries and organizations wanted him, the more anxious the South Korean government became. They were anxious to have Hong Ye-sung sit down in Korea somehow.

People prayed with all their hearts. The radical opinions on the Internet were nothing out of the ordinary - take away his passport, tear up his passport, ban him from leaving the country - and the media kept talking about the value he could create. It was a normal day.

When headhunters knocked on his hotel door at night, Hong Ye-sung shouted, "F**k you, I'm Korean!" and asked the South Korean government for protection. And he had another request in addition to government protection.

"When my work deadline comes, no matter what I say, lock me up somewhere in the mountains with good water, good air, good regularity and no contact with the outside world."

It was "confinement.

The government, which wanted to lock him up in a secret place to prevent him from leaving the country, almost died of laughter at his request.

"What? Ugh, that's too good, no, hmmmm. Why?"

"Well, because I actually have one more characteristic?"

Did he say that there is no perfect person in the world? Hong Ye-sung also had a deadly ability control tool.

[Trait: Slug (L)
Makes you procrastinate. (A lot.)]

Instead of nerfing S-rank creators, the system did its own balancing patch with talents. The talent that procrastinates and barely manages to make one before the deadline. A madman who controls his talent with a trait. A manifestation of cramming that only flares up when the deadline comes.

The South Korean government has designated some regular good mountains in the country for lazy people, so that Hong Ye-sung can go there when the time comes. Last time it was Seoraksan, last time it was Gyeryongsan, and this time it was Jirisan Jangin Village.

Jung-bin clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. He looked at the huddled mass on the floor and said.

"I canceled my pact with Lee Sa-young today and came to get Hong Ye-sung, you know?"

"Excuse me, official."

Instead of answering, Hong Ye-sung called out to Jung-bin, his voice a little calmer than the whiny one from earlier.

"If you make a weapon out of this mana stone, you'll get at least an S+, I can tell just by looking at the picture."

"Oh?"

Jung-bin raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. Up until now, the highest grade of equipment Hong Ye-sung had made was S-grade. He had said that he could only make higher grade items if he had both the materials and the skill, so the prospect of an S+ grade weapon made Jung-bin's heart skip a beat.

Jung-bin had also learned about the unidentified mana stone seller when he took the helicopter to Jirisan Mountain. Specifically, there was a madman who had placed a brilliant mana stone in the Tomato Market.

It had to be a shoddy sale somewhere, but since Hong Ye-sung, a man of exceptional judgment, was doing it, it had to be of high quality. And even though they only had a picture, the stone looked pretty good to Jung-bin's eyes. It was also a type that had never been seen in the country before.

But where did it come from?

Extortion from someone? Smuggled from abroad? While Jung-bin was going through his theories, something flashed through his mind. Why had Lee Sa-Young stormed into the Awakening Management Bureau not so long ago and turned the Awakening database upside down? He had said that there were skilled unregistered players on the loose.

Jung-bin scrambled out of his seat and crouched down next to Hong Ye-sung, who was flopping on the floor like a freshly caught fish.

"Hong Ye-sung."

"Aaah, give me the mana stone. Bring the mana stone and talk to me."

Where were the slightly clearer eyes from before? Jung-bin gently nudged Hong Ye-sung, who had returned to the mental age of a five-year-old.
 

"Listen to me first, this mana stone is very good, right?"

"Yes, it is superlative, with no impurities or monster aura mixed in, ah, give me the mana stone!"

"There must be a limited number of people who can obtain such a mana stone, right?"

"Even if I can't, I'm at least in the top 100 rank."

"Higher ranked hunters don't usually trade like this and cover their tracks like a newbie, right?"

"Of course. There's the black market, there's the hunter market, and then there's the tomato market, what's the point of posting on the tomato market, you idiot?"

After saying that bluntly, Hong Ye-sung started to rant again.

"Ah, come to think of it, it's ridiculous... .... I'm in Jirisan Mountain, so I can't see the Seoul Tomato Market! Yuck! Next time, lock me up in Mt. Bukhansan!"

"Yes, yes, I'll tell the director that the next exile will be in Bukhansan Mountain, and..."

Jung-bin stood up and patted his knees.

"That mana stone, I'll see if I can find it."

"Really?"

Hong Ye-sung's head snapped up at Jung-bin's crisp words. He looked like a Pomeranian that had been out for a walk and done thirty drifts in the dirt, his white fleece caked with dirt and his eyes shining with clear madness.

"Yeah."

Jung-bin smiled that one hundred percent trustworthy smile he was used to in public service announcements, and there was a strange confidence in his voice.

"It's like digging for gems and finding a gold mine."