Player Headquarters' exclusive training ground was located in Yongsan National Park.

Originally, it had been a base for the US military stationed in Korea, but the Headquarters had bought part of the area and repurposed it.

"Sigh."

Park Chang-seok let out a deep sigh as he gazed into the yellow-tinged sunlight of the evening dusk.

A few players approached in front of him.

"Representatives."

"Why the sudden summons at the end of the day?"

"I'm here!"

The players greeted him, ten in all.

All of them belonged to the HQ and were players who trusted and followed Park Chang-seok to a certain extent.

These were people who wouldn't divulge strategy information even if they were told.

Park Chang-seok smiled slightly.

"I called you all here because I want to try an experiment with you."

It was still Tuesday, before the week was out.

He had called them urgently because if he hesitated, he might have to wait another week.

"An experiment?"

"What kind of experiment?"

"Ho, that sounds interesting."

Had it been any other representative calling for a meeting, the group would have grumbled with displeasure.

But Park Chang-seok was different.

He wouldn't call them together like this unless it was something important.

Everyone looked at him expectantly.

"Are you aware that the record for the lower level Tuesday Dungeon was recently broken?"

"Oh, that."

"Yes, I saw it."

"Wasn't it Baek Jin-woo?"

"Didn't they put up an announcement? Something like, 'Don't make a fuss. What's that about? He's not even a ranked player."

As you would expect from true, dedicated players, they were hungry for information.

Even though it had just happened today, they already knew all the details.

This made it worthwhile to share the strategy.

"I got this strategy from overseas. We tested it with a player named Baek Jin-woo who recently registered, and it produced significant results.

This was part of the promise made to Baek Jin-woo.

He had asked that it never be revealed that the information came from him.

"Is that really true?"

"So that's why you were so adamant about not spreading it!"

"Where in the world do you get such information?"

The players got excited.

Why else would they have been called here?

It had to be to share the strategy with them!

Jackpot.

As expected, Park Chang-seok never lets us down!

He never calls us for something trivial.

Park Chang-seok looked at the players, their eyes shining with anticipation, and slowly began to speak.

* * *

Among the B-rank summons, there was a creature called the 'Striped Komodo'.

It was a lizard about the size of an adult man, sturdy yet capable of dealing damage - a classic DPS tank summon.

However.

Being a B-rank, it wasn't easy to level up, and its damage and tanking abilities were somewhat lacking compared to other B-ranks, so it wasn't used very often.

You could say that it was an annoying creature.

For a monster that had only a 1% chance of appearing from an advanced Summoning Book, its cost/benefit ratio was quite poor.

As such, it was often abandoned until Zenos, one of the Five Emperors, found a use for it.

[Zenos: Do you know what that thing's main food is?]

[Zenos: Giant slime. It goes crazy for them. The way it devours those massive things is insane.]

Here's the important part.

It only went crazy for giant slime!

With this new idea, Zenos decided to unleash the Striped Komodo right at the start of the Tuesday Dungeon.

And then.

The Striped Komodo raced through the maze at incredible speed, finding its own way and devouring the giant slime.

[Zenos: Jackpot!]

[Zenos: You could just set this thing loose on a loop and be done with it!]

[Zenos: No need to even control it. Just go into the dungeon, have a smoke, and when you come back, it's cleaned up. Lol]

It was around his fifth year in the game.

Thanks to Zenos' information, the Komodo method of hunting became all the rage.

Of course, very few people knew this information.

The One Heaven, the Five Emperors and their close associates were the only ones who knew.

As for Baek Jin-woo.

He had already memorised all the labyrinth patterns back then, so he didn't really need to use them.

Nevertheless.

Baek Jin-woo had shared this information with Park Chang-seok.

And Park Chang-seok was now sharing it with these players.

"Is that it?"

"So basically... you're saying just release the Striped Komodo and it'll take care of everything?"

"That sounds too simple. Are you sure it will work?"

Park Chang-seok had already procured a Striped Komodo from the marketplace at a rather high price.

Now all they had to do was use it to cut off the top performance time.

"We're going to the dungeon now, but you have to control it precisely. The current clear time is exactly 5 minutes and 32 seconds, so we have to stop at 5 minutes and 31 seconds. If we go over, we'll just have to try again."

"Got it."

Gulp.

The players swallowed hard and nodded.

* * *

[Tuesday Dungeon - Lower-Tier]

[National Record Holder - Park Chun-sik]

[Clear Time - 00:05:31]

"It's real!"

Player Park Chun-sik, who had emerged from the dungeon with an excited expression on his face, trembled as his body shook.

"This is revolutionary, a revolution!"

His whole body shook.

"Was it about 3 minutes and 30 seconds? I had already reached the boss room and had to fight to stop the Komodo from eating the slime, but otherwise it was incredibly easy. I didn't do anything!"

[Tuesday Dungeon - Lower Level].

[National Record Holder - Lee Dong-myung]

[Clear Time - 00:05:29]

"Agh! I'm sorry. I was supposed to shave off exactly 1 second, but I accidentally shaved off 2 seconds instead. That damn Komodo! It's got such an appetite! It's like a Bichon Frise when there's food in front of it".

One after the other.

The players began to break records.

[Tuesday Dungeon - Middle Level]

[National Record Holder - Park Chun-sik]

[Clear Time - 00:08:30]

"Wow, even the mid-tier was a 3-minute run. I only intentionally fell 1 second short of the original record."

"Phew, no more worrying about polishing materials now!"

"If we can match the Komodo's speed runes, we could even go for a world record, don't you think?"

It was a real celebration.

A celebration of achievement.

The players who had never received any achievements gathered, passed the Striped Komodo around, cleared their achievements and shared the rewards.

The headquarters took 2 advanced summoning books, while the player kept 1.

Even so, the number of volunteers was overwhelming.

Crazy.

At that moment.

The most excited person was none other than Park Chang-seok.

Was he happy just because they were breaking records?

That was part of it, but the more important reason was Baek Jin-woo.

Baek Jin-woo is the hope of Korea.

It was a fact now.

Just a first-year player?

No.

He was someone with far greater potential.

Clench.

Strength surged into Park Chang-seok's fist.

This can't go on.

He took a deep breath to calm his excitement.

'I'm going to form a team dedicated to Baek Jin-woo.

As he had mentioned before, there was only one thing they had to prevent.

'Naturalisation!

Whatever it took, they had to keep him tied to Korea.

If they succeeded, Korea might be able to follow in the footsteps of the five great summoner nations of the world.

First.

"Secretary."

Park Chang-seok made a phone call and gave an order.

- Yes, Representative.

"The matter we discussed earlier. Push it through immediately."

- The payment of 1.5 billion won and 10,000 low-grade summoning books, right?

"That's right."

Baek Jin-woo had kept his promise.

Now it was time for Park Chang-seok to keep his.

* * *

[Account Details]

[Account Holder: Baek Jin-woo]

[Premium Account]

[Available balance: 167,004,500 won]

"Whew."

He had earned 9 million won from selling 3 advanced summoning books, 5 million won in prize money, and another 1.5 billion won.

"Making money is that easy?"

His former life now felt trivial.

The value of his labour income seemed infinitely insignificant.

On top of that.

[Summoning Book Inventory]

1. Lower

Summoning Book x 10,000

A clerk had come by and placed 10,000 books directly into his inventory.

What did he need to do?

He just had to summon them relentlessly!

Since he had promised not to sell them, he had no choice but to draw them all.

Baek Jin-woo went to a deserted clearing that he often visited.

At the same time, he called the wind fairy.

- Lamba, I'm ready!

"Lamba."

- Yes!

"We're going to start the summoning ritual now."

- OK! So we wash our hands thoroughly while we pray, right?

"Exactly."

Baek Jin-woo opened a bottle of mineral water he had bought and tilted it.

A trickle.

As the water poured out, Lamba rubbed her hands vigorously together.

- Please, let us conjure something good!

This was a pure act that Baek Jin-woo had done as a middle school student 10 years ago.

Lamba, who was very advanced for an AI (although thinking back now, she probably wasn't just a simple AI), had eagerly participated in the ritual back then.

- Please give Jin-woo a great summoning!

"Alright. Let's start ripping!"

Rip!

[You're using a 'Lower Grade Summoning Book'!]

[Player 'Baek Jin-woo' has obtained the Summoning 'Blue Dragonfly' (F-Rank)!]

Rip!

[You use a 'Lower Grade Summoning Book'!]

[Player 'Baek Jin-woo' has obtained the summon 'Horned Larva' (F Rank)!

Rip, rip, rip!

Now the endless grinding began.

The summons he obtained piled up in an immaterial warehouse, to be sorted out later at the "Synthesis Station".

* * *

"Huff, huff."

He had just gone through 3,600 books.

It had taken him an hour.

He had torn through a book every second without stopping.

"Damn. This is unbearable. I need a break."

If he'd received 50,000 books, he would have been in serious trouble.

"And why don't those guys show up?"

The Training Instructor (E rank) and the Explosive Dragon Sage (D rank).

They didn't come out as often as he had hoped.

If he had paid for those lower-grade summoning books, it would have been disastrous.

Still, looking at the 35 D-ranks and 182 E-ranks he had obtained, the odds seemed about right.

For the record, D-rank summons were so common that they didn't sell well.

Summons only started to fetch high prices at C-rank and above.

- You fool.

"Hmm?"

- Did you really think they'd appear so easily? They're not just any E or D summons - they're EX-rank.

"Why? They appeared on the first try."

- That was an amazing stroke of luck! You don't need 10,000 books to pull these guys, you need 100,000, and even then, it might not be enough.

"What?"

As he watched silently, Lamba sighed and began to explain.

- Do you even know how the summoning system works?

"How does it work?"

How should he know?

Even Baek Jin-woo's vast knowledge was from a player's perspective.

When he played Battle of Summoners, there was no way to communicate with the summons.

- Originally, there were only 10% of the total player population of summons. Your horned larva? There might have been a few hundred of them to begin with, but now they've multiplied to over 800 million.

"Huh?"

Ah.

The world population was about 8.1 billion, so...

- But the point is, we're classified as isolated, which means there's only one of us.

"What?"

- I don't know the exact reason, but the isolated ones like us can only be summoned by you. So there's only one of us left. Or maybe... the gods who created us decided to isolate us, but couldn't bring themselves to get rid of us completely, so they kept just one. My head is starting to hurt.

"Sigh..."

If this assumption was correct, then the situation was dire.

As far as Baek Jin-woo knew, there were tens of thousands of different types of summons...

And each type of summon had about 800 million individuals?

In that case, he had to randomly select the one and only EX-rank from that pool?

Even simple calculations made the odds seem ridiculous.

It would be easier to win the lottery over and over again.

- But don't worry too much. Once a summon has been drawn, it won't come out again. In other words, if all 800 million Horned Larvas in the world have already been summoned, you won't be able to get another one, no matter how many books you rip open.

"Still, it's hard."

- Right?

"Huh, should I just go for the mid-level?"

Of course, that wasn't an option.

A mid-level summoning book cost 500,000 won each, and there weren't that many on the market.

There were limits.

"Ugh, whatever."

He decided to just keep ripping.

If he kept at it, one of them would come out one day.

After all, Lamba had managed to break through the extreme odds, so he had faith that the others would eventually do the same.

Rip, rip!

After a short break, Baek Jin-woo resumed ripping through the books.