Thumbs Up, Level Up Chapter 69

«That is because the [Telekinetic Arrow] is a psychic skill, not a magic skill. Also, only Master can use magic without being in the Magic Class System. Since this is an anomalous method, I am certain there will be limitations if you try to use magic skills without being a wizard.»

‘Ah ha. I think I get it.’

Being a GodTube Influencer, it was possible for Ji-Cheok to buy and use skills pertaining to other jobs with his Likes. However, since he didn’t have the fundamentals of the jobs, he would not be able to fully utilize the power of the skills. In a way, it was like borrowing skills from another job with Likes. To become a real wizard, he had to have the [Magic Class System].

‘But why didn’t you recommend any offensive magic?’

«I have decided that offensive magic is not necessary, thanks to the [Heaven of Earth Chaotic Divine Art]. According to my comprehensive analysis, the true value of a wizard lies in area control. Even though you have many Likes, you need to save them for later.»

‘Well, I already have [Telekinetic Arrow] as a long-range skill, and I could use it for suppressive fire in a battle. I guess it’s good to save some Likes for later. I’m using 100,000 Likes to buy [Dual Spell Cast], anyway.’

Ji-Cheok decided to buy all the skills.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! 

The skill books were transferred to Ji-Cheok.

«This will help you stay clean in the future, and even if you enter a dungeon, you will not have to worry about water shortage. If your magic level increases in the future, it will be possible for you to create simple food, such as bread, using magic.»

Cheok-Liang rejoiced as if he had been the one who acquired the skills.

There were dungeons that Hunters couldn’t leave for a week, and in severe cases, for a month. So Ji-Cheok knew how important having a water source was.

‘Alright, I guess we are finished with the appetizers, let’s move on to the main course.’

«Yes, Master. Two random unique skills and one random unique item left. After acquiring those, you need to purchase skills or items related to them.»

‘Sounds good. Let’s do this.’

“Here’s your coffee, hyung. Your usual.” Mu-Cheok interrupted them.

“Oh, thanks!”

The coffee brewed by the machine had a deep aroma. Even though it was the same cup of americano, it was definitely different from the canned coffee.

“Did you finish everything?” Mu-Cheok asked.

“Not yet,” Ji-Cheok replied.

“Alright, then I’m going to hit the gym.”

As the days went by, Mu-Cheok’s muscles were becoming more like a weapon. His abs were no longer those of a normal human, but those of a Greek statue. If Ji-Cheok had built muscle like his brother, he would’ve taken a break.

“Why don’t you rest for today?”

“Thanks to Seong Kwang, my stamina and fatigue are now gone. The more days like this, the more you need to train your body. Aren’t you doing the same, hyung?”

Ji-Cheok was hardly one to talk about breaks. After all, it was the physical body that employed both cultivation and magic. Basic fitness and strength were absolutely essential.

“Alright, I’ll come down after I am done here.”

“Okay~ I’ll see you soon.”

Mu-Cheok changed into his gym clothes and left the room.

«So then… Since he is gone, shall we resume from where we left off? I think we were about to use the Random Unique—»

‘Hold on a minute.’

«Hm? Is there something wrong, Master?»

‘Why don’t we stream this while we’re doing it?’

«Stream, Master? As in GodTube?»

‘Yes, unboxing streams are always popular. Also, since we cleared an almost impossible dungeon, everyone will be curious about the rewards that we got. We could get more Likes from this. It’s like killing two birds with one stone.’ 

«I think that is a good idea, Master. Since we cannot disclose all of your powers, we are going to hide the skill you got by exchanging the elective coupons, and reveal only the skills obtained with the random coupons.»

‘Wow, Cheok-Liang. It’s like teaching a man to fish.’

«No, such wits can only come from Master’s instincts, it is difficult for an advisor like myself to judge.»

Cheok-Liang raised his front paws with a serious expression, but even that looked very cute to Ji-Cheok. He eventually lost his self-control and grabbed Cheok-Liang’s cheeks and pulled them hard.

«ARGH, Master! Maaaster!!!! Please contain yourself!»

Pant~ Pant~

‘You cute little fox! Why are you this cute??? Come here!’

* * *

Meanwhile…

After going through the denial stage of becoming a stan, and then the stage of being angry at herself for becoming a stan, the victim grabbed her desk. As a top-tier Hunter in Korea and the eldest daughter of a chaebol family, she wished there were more hours in a day, as her company’s work was a lot to handle by one person. Her company was the pinnacle of logistics and distribution in Korea.

Shin Ju-Ran, the eldest daughter of the Shinsung Group.

‘If I wasn’t a Hunter, I would’ve already had cancer or something and stayed in bed from this workload.’

That was her life. When people think of the daughter of a chaebol family, they usually think of the second generation of a chaebol who lived a life of luxury and pleasure. However, for a child that was born from a business family related to Hunters, she was treated like an employee, rather than a daughter. Since elementary school, Ju-Ran had to present her grades to her parents as if she was announcing quarterly work results, and if she wanted something, she had to give presentations, in German and English. The chronic workload combined with depression, irritability, and burnout made this situation even shittier.

‘They didn’t want anything like that with my younger siblings. My parents just told them not to gamble and that was it.’

It was her family tradition to overwork the successor of the Group. Her parents never expected this from her younger siblings, they would just hand down some buildings and tell them not to make trouble. It was completely different from Jung Man-Deuk’s Jungha Group, where they let their children be independent until they were adults, and let them fend for themselves after that.

Ju-Ran always had a lot of things to do. In fact, ‘a lot’ was an understatement; she always had an insane amount of work. When she was young, she complained about this, and her parents smiled and handed her a focus pill that was famous in the United States. It wasn’t just one type of pill, either. In competitive school districts, parents would prescribe many medications popular in concentration centers[1] and feed their children regularly. Nobody knew if the pills really worked. Even if it was effective, Ju-Ran always worried that taking all these drugs at once would have many side effects, but in this crazy world, she had no choice but to take them. Even though her parents had the Shinsung Group, they wanted to keep the company at the top of the food chain, and they wanted their eldest daughter to be a genius no matter what it took. It was always the family that had everything that wanted more for their children.

‘Why the hell is it that I’ve come this far, yet the workload never decreases? Damn it!’

There was another reason why she was particularly annoyed.

‘Also… Umji, you’re a streamer, correct? If you are a streamer, you should have turned on your stream by now! You should be all like, ‘Hi guys~ I’m back~ Thanks to the fans, I was able to get through~’. Have you lost your focus?’

Ju-Ran was about to log in to Twitter, but she stopped herself. She wanted to write mean comments about Ji-Cheok on her secret account, but she decided not to. It was a secret account with about two thousand followers, so nobody would know it was Ju-Ran’s mean comments.

‘I guess I should be relieved that he came back alive. Why is he crawling into that kind of place to begin with? Can’t he just clear some easy dungeons like other Hunters?’

Ju-Ran didn’t like how her mood changed ten times a day because of this. There was a reason why people would call being a fan of a Hunter streamer ‘emotional rollercoaster.’ Since the fans didn’t know when their Hunters were going to die, they would sometimes hate their Hunters, then get worried, then start to hate their Hunters again. And then, when the Hunters went and risked their lives in a dungeon, the fans would get worried sick once more.

The fans went crazy when their favorite streamers put their lives on the line. However, if the streamer stopped streaming about being a Hunter, which was their main job, the fans naturally would also stop being their fans.

In this emotional rollercoaster of hell, Ju-Ran was having a hard time concentrating.

‘Fuck it, gotta concentrate on work. But what if Umji is not streaming because he got hurt? No, no, no, Fuck it. Just concentrate on your work….’

Bang!

Ju-Ran banged her head on the desk to get her act together.

At that moment, the three secretaries were startled and pressed their backs against the wall. They could see that their superior was not in a good mood. As Ju-Ran unintentionally pushed the three secretaries into a panic state, a message popped up on her phone. It was like a message from God.

Buzz~

[A live stream started on the channel Ssun_Ju_Ran subscribed on GodTube.]

Swipe~buzz!

She pretended to be answering her phone and told the secretaries to leave the room.

“I want to be alone for a while, so could you please vacate the premises?”

“Yes, Ma’am! Right away.”

Like a swarm of ants sprayed with water, the secretaries left the room in confusion. Looking at their backs as they were leaving, Ju-Ran immediately logged into her GodTube account from her computer. Finally, the jerk she was worried about revealed his face. Ju-Ran wondered if it was the lighting, but for some reason, his face was brighter and clearer. This was a good sign, as it meant that he didn’t lose his focus on his job.

⌜Hello~ Gumjis from Korea and viewers from all around the world!⌟

A quick look at tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w will leave you more fulfilled.

Ji-Cheok greeted his viewers with a finger heart. His rustic greetings were an indication that he still wasn’t used to streaming. Ju-Ran didn’t mind—in fact, that was one of the reasons why she watched his stream. Ju-Ran quickly scanned the hotel room behind Ji-Cheok. The place looked familiar.

‘I guess Ji-Han used some money. Understandable, considering the recent situation.’

She did not like Ji-Han for putting Ji-Cheok in that dangerous dungeon, but she didn’t mind his agency spending some money on her favorite Hunter. Ju-Ran felt a little better.

⌜This spur-of-the-moment stream is to thank the viewers who have been worried about me! I was going to stream this yesterday, but I was knocked out because I was so tired. I’m sorry.⌟

Ji-Cheok put on a sad face, and his big eyes conveyed his emotions very well. Ju-Ran wanted to write comments like ‘It’s okay!’ and ‘It’s important to get a good rest!’, but she restrained herself. She had to control what she commented on the chat, because there was some weight behind the name Ssun_Ju_Ran. Also, even if it wasn’t Ssun_Ju-Ran, comments like that were already posted by other Gumjis. There were also vulgar comments that said something along the lines of ‘don’t coddle the streamer’. Ju-Ran guessed those comments were from the Hunter Sports fandom—it was no joke there. Ji-Cheok was a guy with a fan base on both sides, so the number of comments often exploded the moment he said something controversial like this.

⌜Now the content of this impulse stream is…. Ta-da~ it’s unboxing some Random Unique Skills! Yes! These are the rewards that I got from yesterday’s dungeon. I thought of unboxing them together with you guys!⌟

Thud

Ju-Ran’s fingers fell on the desk helplessly.

“…He has gone mad.”

Ju-Ran had seen many regular skill unboxing videos from GodTube, but Random Unique Skills? This was an extremely rare case. There were only a few cases where some oil tycoons with rotting amounts of money somehow bought and unboxed them at an auction, but Ji-Cheok was just a Hunter. There was a reason why almost no one did this: information was power. On a micro level, information on skills possessed by the Awakened directly or indirectly affected their own safety, and on a macro level, it affected national security. That was why there were intelligent agencies that specifically catered to this kind of information.

‘What on earth is the benefit of revealing this? Popularity?’

Ju-Ran wondered if Ji-Cheok was doing this just to earn some popularity. She knew that popularity wasn’t everything for Hunters.

She pressed a button on the phone.

Beep.

“Yes, director?”

“Bring me some vodka.”

‘I can’t possibly watch this sober.’

1. Concentration centers are very popular in school districts in Korea, and apparently they help teenagers to concentrate on their school work. Yes, they are literally called concentration centers. No, they don’t have anything to do with concentration camps. Probably. ☜