Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 246

Ji-Cheok swung his sword again and again.

[Perfect breathing!]

[Perfect Posture!]

[Perfect force distribution!]

[Your skill proficiency has increased!]

[The effect of the Heaven Martial Body has greatly increased your skill proficiency!]

As Ji-Cheok trained his fundamentals inside the Training Space of the God of War, messages about his skill proficiency started to pop up. This was something that he had never seen before, even though he had been cultivating for quite a long time.

‘Maybe it’s because I’m really training from the bottom up.’

Slash! Slash!

He had to train each technique for 10,000 repetitions a day! And since there were twelve techniques, he had to do 120,000 times daily! The Training Space of the God of War actually kicked him out before he was even halfway through. Thus, he was forced to continue practicing his newly-learned sword art even in the real world.

Swing. Swing.

To his surprise, he even reached a trance state while training!

‘I can’t believe I’m actually enjoying this. What’s wrong with me?! And I can really see it! I’m starting to feel something!’

After the cooldown of the Training Room of the God of War, he returned to it. As he continued to swing, he kept getting the same notification.

[The effect of the Heaven Martial Body has greatly increased your skill proficiency!]

After a while, he realized that he had only spent six hours practicing his techniques 120,000 times. That meant that he could do 10,000 swings in only thirty minutes!

‘Is this… the power of learning the fundamentals?’

[You have acquired [Sword Realm Martial Principle].]

[Sworld Realm Martial Principle]

[Class: Legendary

A spiritual realm that encompasses the principles behind all sword arts.

Those who realize the Sword Realm Martial Principle can tread the path of the sword to its very limit.

Function: Increase sword proficiency by 300%.

Function: Increase sword attack damage by 100%.

Function: Increase sword skill effectiveness by 100%].

‘Hm! It seems like I just acquired a very powerful skill. I think I know what it means….’

It appeared that Ji-Cheok had just mastered the very essence of the sword.

‘This is scary. Maybe it’s because of the Heaven Martial Body overlapping with the effects of Human and True Human. They’re all cultivation-based skills, and more importantly, they’re specifically human cultivation skills.’

It wasn’t like his main cultivation art was made for mollusks or whatever, so of course that the effects of both Human and True Human were compounded by his cultivation. The effect of Heaven Martial Body was also powerful, and the synergy between these skills was the reason why he had mastered the Sword Realm Martial Principle so quickly.

And at this moment, he realized even more clearly what the Mind Sword was.

‘This… alright, so the Mind Sword is actually a variation of the Mind Attack.’

Mind Attack meant attacking with one’s mind. It sounded very plain, but what it actually meant was that his will interfered with the very laws of the world, allowing him to strike his opponent as he pleased. He could literally slap people in the face with just a thought! And if this Mind Attack took the form of a blade, that was called the Mind Sword.

Ji-Cheok had been using the Mind Sword without even knowing what Mind Attack was…

‘No wonder the God of War thought I was a dumbass.’

Now Ji-Cheok felt that he could cut almost anything. It felt natural, like a fish ‘cutting’ through water.

.

‘I should try to figure out if this sensation is real or not.’

Slash!

Crack!

He had cut the ‘wall’ of the Training Space of the God of War!

Darkness was revealed before him beyond the dimensional bubble.

Slowly, the black crack healed itself and disappeared.

‘Okay. From now on, I am the man who can cut through dimensions! Too bad I can’t travel through dimensions like in novels and anime. I can only split dimensions, but I don’t know where the rift leads. If I go in there and can’t come back to Earth, that’s a bad ending. Hahaha! Grown-ups don’t do stupid things like that. I guess I’ll just use this to yeet my future enemies out.’

Ji-Cheok also realized that with his current power, he could cut through virtually any barriers or seals. And if he trained even more and reached the Mind Origin Sword Realm, he would be able to cut through conceptual things as well.

‘If I’m attacked while building the dimensional barrier, this is going to be really useful.’

?I salute your accomplishment, Master!?

“Thank you. By the way, how much time has passed?”

?It has been ten days in reality since you have been training in your sword art. And if you count the time inside the Training Space of the God of War, you have been training for about twenty days.?

“To be at this level in twenty days… I’m impressed with myself! Did anything happen while I was training?”

During his training, Ji-Cheok had left all external communication to Cheok-Liang.

?Nothing much happened, Master. Mu-Cheok came to visit for a while, and Bi-Ga had already gathered the ships, resources, and people and set off for the Arctic. They set off

from not just Korea but from all over the world, including the United States.?

“That’s fast.”

‘Bi-Ga is always good at her job. Well, I did give her three trillion won…’

?They say that they can start the construction at the North Pole in ten days, and you will have to be there by then.?

“Good. Then there is only one thing left for me to do before the construction starts.”

?What is it, Master??

“Sales! And not just any sales, we are going to start an internet shopping channel!”

Ji-Cheok immediately changed clothes and headed to his studio, which was set up on one side of the penthouse.

‘If the riches of the world won’t help me build the dimensional barrier, then I will just have to change my methods. Survival of the fittest? Fine. I will show them what real survival of the fittest looks like!’

? ? ?

Adam Bronze was very busy. He was so busy that he had to dedicate all his time to work, only taking a two-hour nap each day.

Why was this easy-going person grinding himself to a pulp? That was because the job in New Jersey was not yet finished.

They had destroyed the one-eyed giants’ stronghold and saved New Jersey, but the problem of dividing the loot resulted in a sharp conflict of interests. In particular, the corpses of the one-eyed giants would fetch a hefty price.

There were also political considerations, such as rebuilding the destroyed urban center and providing aid to civilians. In addition, it was not like he could distribute the loot however he wanted.

The only fortunate thing was the Golden Horizon was no longer engaging in any further disruptive activities.

This oh-so-busy Adam Bronze was screaming into his phone.

“What the hell am I paying you for? Either you get the materials or you’re out!”

Beep.

“Shit, If they’re going to get paid a big salary, they should at least work for it!”

“You should calm down, Young Master.”

“Oswald, I’m so tired. So very tired…”

Adam was in his home office, but the sight of his luxurious workspace didn’t make him feel better. He sighed as he ran his hand through his hair.

“I received a call from the Pentagon, telling me to push for Um Ji-Cheok’s naturalization.”

“Do they think that’s possible? Idiots!”

“I agree with you, Young Master. But we have to at least pretend to do what they are saying.”

“Because we can’t upset those idiots?”

“Yes. They are also our customers, are they not?”

“Sigh.?Fucking capitalism. At this rate, good old Mr. Lenin is going to rise from his grave and raise the flag for the proletariat to gather. Necromancers should focus on doing that!”

“Still, they say it is better to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle.”

“Is that a quote from somewhere?”

“Yes, Young Master. It is a saying from some country.”

“Whatever. By the way, you said that Um Ji-Cheok spent all that money to build the dimensional barrier, right?”

“Yes. He has spent 3.1 trillion won so far.”

“That’s crazy. At today’s exchange rate, that’s about 2.45 billion dollars, right?”

“Yes, Young Master, that is correct.”

Three trillion won was far too much money for any one individual to move around.

“And that crazy guy is going to throw more money at it… That means the barrier theory is a real possibility.”

Adam had heard that Ji-Cheok was trying to build a dimensional barrier when he came to talk to him.

‘Is that really possible?’

Adam had not yet received any information from the Blind Prophetess about this. Partly because he had been too busy, but also because the Blind Prophetess had informed him that she could not see the future for the time being.

The future was only darkness. Something was preventing her from seeing what would happen. That was what she said.

“We should meet the senators—”

Ding!

An alarm went off on his GodTube account. It signaled that a video of Ji-Cheok had been uploaded.

“What is Ji-Cheok thinking of do—What the hell?!”

?The great invention of the century that will shock the universe and astonish the Gods! For Immediate Sale! You too can now be the proud owner of a Warding Stone! Ji-Cheok’s Warding Stone is for sale on GodTube Shop!?

The thumbnail was one of the nationalistic memes that had been spreading in the past days.

“This crazy bastard…”

? ? ?

Shin Ju-Ran.

She was the one who had relentlessly fought alongside Um Ji-Cheok during the Cult of the Spider attack, but now she sat exhausted in her chair. She looked like a lump of wet seaweed.

No matter how many expensive fatigue recovery nutritional ampoules she used, they were useless in the face of true exhaustion.

The Cyclops in New Jersey and the aftermath of their destruction were bound to impact businesses around the world. It had been a long time since people had seen such a catastrophe on American soil. The stock market tumbled, and commodity prices fluctuated.

As the next in line for leading her company, Ju-Ran was already on the front lines of management, so it was hard not to be busy.

Still, it was time for a break. It was time to stretch out after a day of power walking. And while she was stretching, she was watching one of Ji-Cheok’s GodTube videos. She had seen it many times before, but the orbital bombardment scene was still her favorite, so she watched it again.

“Ji-Cheok had grown so much… It seems like yesterday when he was doing all sorts of things to become famous on GodTube.”

She had realized long before that there was something unusual about Ji-Cheok. Otherwise, she would not have survived the Cult of the Spider’s attack. But she hadn’t expected him to grow so much. It made her a little nostalgic for the old days.

She raised her glass of whiskey and coke, remembering the smaller, cuter Ji-Cheok.

“Cheers to my baby growing up! Haha. Why am I talking to myself? This workload will be the death of me. Maybe I should just tell them that I won’t be the— huh?”

Her alarm went off—Ji-Cheok had posted another video.

She quickly went over and tapped on the video without even looking at the title. A moment later, her jaw dropped to the floor.

“What the ever-living hell is this…”

The video showed some truly bizarre things going on.

? ? ?

-Wow, now he’s doing a shopping channel.

-I heard that Umji made the product himself! I wonder what it is.

-The title seems a little provocative though. Astonishing the Gods… Hahaha!

-So Umji, what’s the product?!

The chat was flooded by thousands of messages per second. Ji-Cheok had been on the air for less than a minute, but it was already packed.

In the past, this would have been enough to make his heart explode, but now, he was used to it.

‘Am I used to it? No… I’m just used to my own pace. I didn’t realize it, but I guess I’m an attention whore. It doesn’t matter if it is criticism or praise, once you get attention, you’re mentally healthy. Hm... Shall I start with the introduction?’

“All of you who have been living in fear of dungeons appearing out of nowhere, rest assured! I have something for you, personally crafted by me, Um-Ji-Cheok, a man with supreme Alchemist skills!”