Hakseon was someone who truly enjoyed studying.
After holing up in his room reading for a while, he suddenly came out and called Lee Tae-sung.
“You. If you’re an Earthling, you must naturally know the difference between nuclear fission and fusion, right?”
“……”
*’Am I an alien?’*
“…I’m sorry, but I majored in the humanities.”
“Humanities? Don’t humanities people study?”
“…Of course we study, but we don’t study this kind of scientific stuff.”
“Tsk. This is practically common knowledge in modern physics, yet you don’t know it. Does that make sense?”
“……”
“Come, sit. I’ll teach you.”
Hakseon sat Lee Tae-sung down at the dining table.
“As I studied physics, I discovered something interesting. Earth’s physics was turned upside down once due to the advent of nuclear fusion and fission.”
The landscape of Earth’s wars changed from that moment.
“The Dream World I lived in and Earth seem similar but are slightly different. There are subtle differences in atmospheric composition and material components, and the amount of mana distributed in the air is also different. What kind of difference do you think that caused?”
“…Hmm. Isn’t it because there’s no mana that science developed?”
“Correct. Without magic, they focused on handling elements. Without mana, they had no choice but to focus on these tiny particles, and by colliding and splitting nuclei and neutrons, they gained the power to release enormous energy. Heavy atoms like Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239 are representative examples. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Ah…yes. Very interesting.”
Hakseon laughed heartily.
“From my perspective, having studied magic deeply, it was a fascinating approach. Truly, the world is vast and knowledge is diverse. And I tried it myself once.”
“…In my house?”
Startled, Lee Tae-sung looked into the room where Hakseon had been until a moment ago.
Even if he didn’t know well, he knew that kind of experiment wasn’t something to be done in a corner of a room.
If something went wrong, it wouldn’t just be the house; an explosion that could blow away Seoul would occur…
“No need to worry so much. I was careful.”
“……”
“It’s true. The reason I came out to tell you is because the experiment is already finished.”
“|”
Lee Tae-sung felt like he would have thrown a punch right away if the other wasn’t an Ascendant.
*’Preemptive strike and then report?’*
But since it was obvious he’d get beaten if he fought, he had no choice but to endure.
“…Was it safe?”
“Of course. I explained nuclear fission earlier, right? The principle is actually very simple. If you have Uranium-235, you just slam a neutron into the nucleus. The problem was obtaining it, but I solved that easily too.”
“How?”
“In my previous life, I dabbled in alchemy a bit. I couldn’t make a Philosopher’s Stone, but I made something similar.”
Hakseon said casually.
“I pulled out one chair nail, cast an elemental conversion spell, and transformed it into an extremely pure Uranium-235 nucleus. Manipulating matter at the atomic level is very easy if you know a bit of alchemy.”
Just in case, Lee Tae-sung sent a Sound Transmission to the Death Spirit Pill.
Abeson, who was too afraid of the Ascendant to come out but was listening to outside sounds.
As a mage who was among the top ten on the continent, he had some knowledge of alchemy, but he knew how absurd Hakseon’s words were.
“That’s a fair point.”
“??”
<……?>
When Hakseon, who had overheard the Sound Transmission, replied naturally, Lee Tae-sung’s eyes went wide, and Abeson immediately shut his mouth.
“Ah, you knew?”
“What? The Death Spirit Pill in your pocket?”
“Yes.”
“Because I could sense its energy. It seems a mage of mediocre skill is inside.”
“……”
The Death Spirit Pill in his pocket seemed to get riled up, but Hakseon continued speaking nonchalantly.
“Next, I needed to cause a neutron collision, and that’s similar to using Inner Qi in the body. A martial artist at the Realm of Hwa or above can precisely control even the slightest amount of Inner Qi, and using a similar technique, I was able to separate a single neutron from the nucleus and make it collide accurately. It’s a much more sophisticated technique than something like a particle accelerator. Do you know what a particle accelerator is?”
“…I’m from the humanities…”
“Tsk tsk. That’s common sense too.”
“……”
“I’ll explain particle accelerators later. Anyway, the experiment was a success.”
“My room… is it really okay?”
“Of course. I also neatly controlled the chain reaction after the collision. I had to control the critical mass and neutron multiplication factor, but the Flame Emperor and the Mad Demon took pictures of a lab at the Korea Energy Research Institute and showed me. Looking at that, I figured I could roughly replace it with a magic circle. I created a magic barrier on the spot and laid it in the room. I’m confident I can control the number of neutrons much more finely and flexibly than that lab.”
He was an Ascendant who could go anywhere.
“Still, it’s a relief that it ended safely.”
“It’s not completely over.”
“What?”
“I said the fission experiment is done. Now fusion remains.”
The phenomenon of a nuclear explosion was the principle where, due to the powerful energy generated from fission, light atomic nuclei fuse to become heavy atomic nuclei, releasing enormous energy.
“Since fission is done, isn’t it time to try fusion? This is easy.”
“No…my room is safe…no, not the room, the house…no no. This is just a problem for our country…”
“Don’t keep doing that. Of course it’s safe, and most importantly, this experiment won’t be done on Earth.”
“Then?”
“While studying, I also finished interpreting the stele’s inscription. With this, we can connect to the outer space where the Outer God’s vanguard resides.”
Hakseon took the stele from his bosom and placed it on the table.
With a thud, the stele vibrated, and a small hole appeared on it.
Just big enough for one finger to fit.
“The problem is that there’s only one stele, so I can only make a hole this size. It’s impossible for you to go personally.”
“Ah…”
“And you can’t go. You’re at Peak Realm, right?”
“Yes.”
“Tsk tsk. Where would you go with such a frail body? If you’re not at least at the Transcendental Realm, you won’t even be able to breathe properly beyond there.”
Ever since reaching Peak Realm, Lee Tae-sung was treated as a master wherever he went on the Dream World continent.
Even the large factions acknowledged him and tried to get on his good side.
On Earth, it was even more so.
It was to the point where he wondered if there was any Hunter stronger than him.
*’So what. Even my master and the Ascendants see me as pitifully weak.’*
In fact, to the eyes of a Demigod level, he was indeed weak.
Facing an enemy like the Outer God, the first thing Lee Tae-sung had to do was raise his own realm.
No matter how much he could summon Ascendants, his own power had to back it up.
“Still, even with this small hole, there’s something we can do. As I showed earlier, fission and fusion occur at the microscopic particle scale, so size doesn’t matter.”
Hakseon used his dantian, the foundation of Inner Qi techniques, as an ultra-high-temperature furnace.
He satisfied ultra-high temperature and pressure conditions inside his body, not in a lab.
Then, pouring out Inner Qi, he perfectly contained an ultra-hot plasma within an intangible barrier he created.
Its size was microscopically small, but it emitted light so intense one dared not look directly at it.
Hakseon inserted it into the hole.
Then he closed the hole again.
He spread his hands wide.
“It should have gone boom! But I don’t know if it worked. It’s a shame I can’t see the result with my own eyes.”
Hakseon shrugged.
And a while later.
NASA announced that they had detected gamma rays, neutrons, and neutrinos from an unknown massive explosion in distant space, but there would be no significant impact on Earth.
***
The nuclear explosion surely dealt a clear blow to the Outer God’s vanguard, but whether it completely eliminated them can only be confirmed by seeing it firsthand.
And since Lee Tae-sung had to go into the space where the Outer God’s power extends to summon the Ascendants, what he needed right away was to improve his skills.
*’He said I need to reach at least the Transcendental Realm.’*
That’s the minimum condition? The standard is too strict.
But what can you do? If he says to do it, I have no choice.
Maybe I can learn more about the Outer God trying to invade Earth, so I was looking forward to it.
Saying he would devise a way to utilize the stele more, Hakseon went back to his corner of the room.
Lee Tae-sung logged into the Dream World after a long time.
He hadn’t been able to because of many things lately, but the best place to improve his skills was the Dream World.
There was the pressure of skill deletion, but it was a world with extra lives.
Now, even if skills were deleted, he was confident he could relearn them himself, so Lee Tae-sung planned to act more aggressively without holding back.
“You’re here. It’s been a while.”
The village of the ancient otherworldly people.
Village chief Belti waved his hand when Lee Tae-sung appeared.
“Outsider, was it? What an amazing technique. To be able to go back and forth between our world and yours like this.”
“Haha…”
“Are you ready to learn?”
“Yes.”
What he would learn from Belti was how to create the Sky Altar and receive its blessings.
The reason Lee Tae-sung could endure the Black Mist was not only his skill but also because the blessing enveloped him.
*’If the mist appears again, I can’t keep going on business trips.’*
He couldn’t go around Earth every time to help.
Like a good teacher who gives a fishing rod instead of a fish, he planned to spread knowledge about the altar.
Plus the Megafactory that would soon be completed.
The plans were proceeding step by step.
“Please take care of me.”
“That’s what I should say. How grateful I am that you’ll inherit our ancestors’ knowledge. Ah, and I found what you asked me to look into.”
Belti took out an old notebook and waved it.
“According to old records, the village chief at that time wrote that a Spirit Master named Leo visited here. He’s the person you were looking for, right?”
“!”
Abeson, who quickly popped out of the Death Spirit Pill, and Lee Tae-sung were both startled.
Finally, they had found a definite record of Leo.