Chapter 1

"Phew."

Black Mage Ali, the person who ranked 15th on the official global rankings of the virtual reality game, Athenae, had reached the summit of Berest Mountains.

'It took me two months just to find this thousand-year-old ginseng.'

The thousand-year-old ginseng was a rare medicinal item that could permanently increase one’s mana reserves by 1.5 times. It was an item that was considered to be worth at least 200 million won in cash.

It was a well-known fact that the higher the level of a player, the harder it was to raise their mana reserves. Hence, the thousand-year-old ginseng was considered to be the best item for this drawback in the game.

'I can break through the limits of the game.'

The thought brought a smile to Ali’s lips.

Shortly after, Ali arrived at his destination. However, his smile soon distorted into an ugly expression.

"Huh, it's not here…?!"

He felt only shock after seeing obvious traces that someone had already taken the thousand-year-old ginseng.

'Who the hell took it…?!'

Did someone receive a duplicate quest? No, completing this quest is impossible if you're not a high ranker.

Ali scratched the thought from his mind and tried to approach the matter objectively.

'Perhaps he's still in the vicinity.'

‘I've spent two months just to get here.’

A blue light appeared out of Ali's hands.

[Tracking Magic activated.]

Once Tracking Magic was triggered, one could easily find the item that they were looking for, as long as it was still within one kilometer from its origin.

Ding!

[Target is within a 300m radius.]

[Commencing tracking.]

An arrow slowly bobbed in front of Ali.

‘I have to get it no matter what, even if I have to do a PK!'

Ali quickly followed the arrow. He went forward for about 100 meters until a small cave appeared in front of him.

Whoosh!

[Hellfire]

[A huge fire from hell has been created.]

Ali had summoned a huge fireball in front of him. It was a spell of an 8th Class Mage. Since he did not know the situation ahead of him, he prepared himself in case there was an emergency.

After all of his preparations were done, he slowly entered the cave. But as he went further inside, Ali smelt something appetizing.

It smelt familiar.

'This…'

Since he was a Korean player, he could tell what the smell was. It clearly smelled like samgyetang.[1].

Ali walked decisively deeper into the cave, however the sight in front of him almost caused him to go into shock. There was a man with a big cauldron over a fire.

"Indeed, samgyetang should definitely have ginseng."

"H-hey…" Ali’s voice trembled as he called out to the man with neat black hair. In fact, he really did not want to believe the sight in front of him.

"T-that's not the thousand-year-old ginseng, right?"

The system was meticulously set so that others would not be able to share special items, such as the thousand-year-old ginseng, or spirit pills. It was also common knowledge that these items would lose their effects the moment they got split, cut or damaged. If one was not an idiot and they were a playerof Athenae, they would definitely know that.

Ali was trying so hard to deny the scene in front of him as he did not want to believe it.

"It is?"

The man spoke slowly while cramming the food in his mouth, as if someone would take it away from him.

“That is the th… thousand-year-old ginseng!! Which bastard would cook a thousand-year-old ginseng and put it in a samgyetang?!"

"Me," the man answered calmly.

1. A soup made with chicken, garlic, rice, jujube and ginseng.