Thumbs Up, Level Up

Chapter 238

The operation was going to start in just ten hours. That meant that Ji-Cheok had to be diligent, and he had to do everything in his power to make this happen.

He tapped on his forehead and cleared his thoughts. He pulled out his phone and scrolled down on the list Cheok-Liang had handed him.

‘Hopper Nelson, the CEO of Golden Horizon. It would be a good idea to have a meeting with this gentleman.’

“Let’s see….”

He bought a mask at the Likes Shop.

[Mask of the Unrecognizable]

[Class: B

A mask crafted and sold by the [Unrecognizable] for those who wish to hide their identity from others.

The identity of the user cannot be revealed, unless an Insight item ranked A or higher, or a detection skill ranked Epic or higher, is used.]

He put on the mask, stripped off all his equipment, and stored everything in his shadow.

Then, he wrapped the shadow around him like armor.

‘No one will recognize me like this.’

After that, Ji-Cheok took another space leap.

? ? ?

Ji-Cheok was in front of the entrance to Hopper Nelson’s mansion. No one was there. The gate was big and the fence was high.

As he appeared, the camera at the front door turned to face him.

‘Wow… This is a giant mansion. I was told that there are armed men standing guard.’

Not that guards were a problem to Ji-Cheok in any way.

Usually, Hunters above level 100 were considered truly superhuman, and they made more money from clearing dungeons than becoming bodyguards for rich people. This meant that if someone wanted level 100 Hunters to guard them, they had to pay as much as a dungeon raid would.

That was a lot of money.

‘There are some things you just can’t do, no matter how rich you are. There’s no way they can afford bodyguards that cost tens of billions of won a year.’

Also, level 100 Hunters were indeed considered superhumans, but how many superhumans did it take to fight a God?

‘If the guards here were level 120, maybe just ten of them could stop me. Not gonna happen. Well, then…’

Ji-Cheok took a deep breath, and his Qi spread out in all directions. It instantly formed a sphere around him, extending as far as a couple of kilometers. Within that range, he could see even the ants moving about.

Qi Sense. It was a fundamental ability that could be acquired by anyone who mastered a cultivation art and was at least in the Eminent realm. As for Ji-Cheok, now that he was a God and wielded the Mind Sword, the range of his Qi Sense was downright ridiculous.

‘Let’s see… Hm… Okay. Let’s not sneak in. I’m going to confront them head-on.’

As he walked forward, he manipulated his shadow to make his fist bigger. It looked like something out of an anime, but it was actually a cultivation skill.

[Chaotic Fist Art]

He gathered his Qi into his fist, merging with the power of the shadow and his mana. The punch smashed through the large metal door.

Boom!

Tssss!

His mana exploded everywhere.

‘Hm… just as expected. This main gate must have been an item made by applying various skills. Not that it matters anyway.’

“It’s a raid!”

“The terrorist is attacking us!”

“Shoot him!”

Ji-Cheok did not need to use his Eye of Insight to see that the people firing at him, dressed in defensive gear that soldiers would wear, were Hunters with the [Firearms] class ability. The mana in their bullets was powerful, and so was the power of their skills.

However, he couldn’t care less.

Ting! Ting! Ting!

The bullets bounced off his shadow armor. Well, it looked like shadow armor, but it was not just that. Besides the shadow skill, he was also using the Augmented Qi Armor—the defensive version of his Augmented Qi. It was a costly cultivation skill that used a lot of Qi, but it was impenetrable to anything less than an equally powerful Augmented Qi.

“Explosion!” one of the guards shouted as he threw something at Ji-Cheok.

‘Oh, it’s a grenade.’

Boom!

‘Hm… Did he use a skill on the grenade to make the explosion more powerful? It doesn’t look like it was laced with any Magic Stone powder, which means that his skill alone made it this powerful. Nice. Too bad that’s not gonna do him much good.’

Ji-Cheok walked forward through the smoke of the explosion. Bullets rained down on him, but they couldn’t damage him, so he just kept walking.

‘And since I can’t just let them keep shooting me…’

“Activate Sleep Time.”

Ji-Cheok activated the skill he had once used to put a bunch of assassins to sleep. The men who were shooting at him collapsed in a heap and fell asleep. A few resisted the skill, but all they did was look back and forth in confusion between their fallen comrades and Ji-Cheok.

He approached them with kindness and used Qi Point on them. Qi Point was yet another cultivation skill—the art of pressing a part of the blood vessel to stun or paralyze the enemy!

“Ugh!”

Of course, Ji-Cheok did not kill them, he just stunned them. He did not know if they were bad people or not, and he did not want to make that judgement hastily.

Once he had knocked them all out, he let out a deep breath and looked around. The distance from the front gate to the mansion in the distance was more than a few hundred meters, with a nice lawn in between.

‘What a luxurious mansion. Even the lawn is a couple hundred meters wide.’

There were no enemies around him anymore, but his Qi Sense told him they were still coming. The number of people guarding this mansion alone was over two hundred. Up until now, Ji-Cheok had taken down thirty-two of them.

‘A real man would keep going!’

He put his Qi into his legs and started to run toward the mansion.

He used [Heaven and Earth Chaotic Steps] and lept dozens of meters in a single bound, reaching the mansion in five strides. In the meantime, one of the other Hunters had arrived and was charging at him.

Clang!

Ji-Cheok deflected the dagger aimed at his neck with the back of his hand, and as it bounced away, his enemy yelled, “How did you block this? How is that possible?!”

He talked really fast, and his movement speed was far beyond what a normal human could do.

‘Does he have the same time manipulation skills as Ji-Han? I guess he is using Time Acceleration. He’s pretty fast. Too bad he can’t even catch Ji-Han’s shadow.’

“Block this one too!”

His movements quickened. He circled around Ji-Cheok, but Ji-Cheok easily countered his attack.

Zoom~

“UGH!”

Ji-Cheok flipped the gravitational force around him with his Soul Telekinesis.

The enemy struggled as he was forcibly lifted into the air. No matter how fast he was, he couldn’t fly, so he was easily caught by Ji-Cheok’s skill.

“How can telekinetic power be this strong—’

Thud.

Ji-Cheok stunned the noisy enemy using Qi Point and tossed him aside. He looked at the man’s stats and saw that he was level 87. Since level 100 was the threshold for being an expensive guard, this one was not an expensive guard.

With that done, Ji-Cheok headed inside.

Oddly, none of the guards in his detection range were fleeing.

‘That’s odd. I mean, I came here because I knew Hopper Nelson was here. And he’s not running away?’

That meant one of two things. He was either a fake, or he was confident enough to take Ji-Cheok on.

‘Hopper Nelson, the CEO of Golden Horizon… I thought he was just a figurehead for the organization. But he thinks he can handle me! Well, if he wants to fight, I’ll give him a fight!’

Boom!

He kicked the door open and stepped inside. He was now about 1.2 kilometers away from Hopper Nelson.

The inside of the building looked more like a fortress than a mansion.

“Kill the terrorist!”

“Watch out, Speed Man is down!”

“Oh, great sufferer! Cast pain upon thy enemy!”

[The Curse of Pain skill is activated]

[You are resisting the skill.]

[You have successfully resisted the skill.]

[The Curse of Slowness skill is activated]

[You are resisting the skill.]

[You have successfully resisted the skill.]

[The Curse of Darkness skill is activated]

[You are resisting the skill.]

[You have successfully resisted the skill.]

“Impossible! My curses work even on level 120 Hunters!”

“Advance! Charge!”

There were twelve enemies facing him this time, nine forming a line at the front and three others behind them. The nine in front were dressed alike, but the three behind were not. The latter were the ones whose curses had just been ignored by Ji-Cheok.

Ji-Cheok’s densely packed Defensive Augmented Qi was so powerful that even curses could not get through.

Boom! Boom!

The nine enemies formed into rows of three and charged forward in an orderly formation. Ji-Cheok also ran toward them, spreading his Qi throughout his body.

Thud! Whack! Thump!

“ARGH”

Those who had rushed forward while preparing their skills were knocked back like bowling pins and slammed into the corridor walls on either side.

As Ji-Cheok continued to charge toward them, the group of Hunters in the back, who were dressed like some kind of Shamans, panicked and tried to curse him again.

‘Oh, no you don’t.’

Pi-pi-ping!

With a quick snap of his fingers, he unleashed the Finger Bolts. It was a cultivation skill that mixed singer snaps with Qi, and when Ji-Cheok used it, its speed was faster than a bullet!

Boom!

All three of them fell backward after being struck by the Finger Bolt.

‘Qi Point complete. Well, then. I guess the only one left is the main dish, Hopper Nelson.’

Boom!

He smashed through the door of the room where the person that he was assuming to be Hopper Nelson was emitting powerful energy.

‘It’s big. It looks like some kind of a hall or something!’

The room looked like a place where someone could host a Hollywood-level party. It looked like a place that could easily fit a thousand people if it was filled to capacity.

It had marble floors and ornate carvings on the ceiling and walls, and there were murals on the ceiling, just like in a European castle. Since there were no castles or any such culture in America, this was probably Nelson’s own eccentricity.

Inside the center of the hall, there was an older man waiting for him with a glass of wine in his hand. He was dressed in a plain suit, and by all appearances, he was a normal human being. His belly was a little big and did not have much muscle. He was an older man, a little past his prime. However, Ji-Cheok’s Eye of Insight could read far beyond that ordinary physical appearance.

[Homunculus 019]

[Class: A+

A puppet that is half alive and half dead. It was created by Hopper Nelson, who is an Alchemist and a Puppeteer.]

It was an animated puppet.

“Welcome, Um Ji-Cheok. You have put on quite a show for your entrance.”

“I guess you know who I am.”

“Of course I do. You think I don’t recognize you because you are covered up like that? You are the only one bold enough to raid this place alone!”

‘Hm... I guess he is not just a figurehead of the organization after all. I wonder if he is controlling the puppet from far away.’

“I value my resources, so let’s just get to the bottom line: don’t make me use them for nothing and just go home, Ji-Cheok,” Hopper said.

‘Oh… This guy, he’s going straight to the point. I like him. Of course, me liking him doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to kill him.’

“Are you saying that using resources to take down the Cyclops is futile?” Ji-Cheok asked.

“Sure. The world is going to end anyway. It might end a little faster or a little slower, but the point is that it doesn’t make any difference if New Jersey gets blown up.”

‘Aha…? I can see why they’re trying to interrupt my operation. He is saying those people are going to die anyway, so he doesn’t care if they die now or later! Wow…’

“And is that why you have been trying to prevent me from saving those people? I am not even going to use your resources. Why do you care?”

“For now, they are not mine, but what if I told you that those resources are going to be mine in the future?”

“Now that’s some innovative bullshit.”

‘Who the fuck are these bastards to say that something will be theirs in the future?’